May 11, 2023 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

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[10:02] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] we're here for the Boulder City Council study session um Sherry I'll restate the date because now we're being recorded today's Thursday May 11th 2023. uh good evening Welcome to our study session of the Boulder City Council I'm council member Rachel friend we'll be leading the study session and I

[11:00] thank you for joining us tonight we have two items uh Financial update for the city of Boulder and potential ballot measures it looks like we have no announcements but somebody please flag me if I have that wrong so we'll get right to it um and just a reminder to colleagues for each item please hold your questions until the end of the presentations so like for the CU presentation we can ask questions at the end of theirs um and with that I will turn it over to our city manager Nuria Rivera vandermeid to take us into the financial update thank you so much councilmember and we have a very full uh mostly Finance uh focused agenda today uh with some ballot issues intermix so I'm going to stop talking and go straight to the people that know it best and have the expertise and I will send it over to Cara thank you very much good evening Council Carl Skinner Chief Financial Officer pleased to be here tonight for the financial update and budget Outlook as

[12:00] Mark is bringing up the presentation here um we do this every spring and and we're happy to go over this with you all tonight you can go to the next slide so this is our agenda for tonight and first we're going to start off with our partners from CU we've been partnering with Brian rich and Robert for three years now and we've really appreciated their advice uh good analytics and then they're modeling for our sales tax so we'll look forward to their presentation at the end of their presentation we'll do a quick Queen question and answer so that you can ask Brian and Robert is also here tonight uh questions if you have them and then we will shift over to the staff presentation for items two through four on our agenda so with that I'm going to invite Brian Lewandowski um to kick us off right I believe there he is yes

[13:05] all right uh so thanks everyone for the opportunity to speak with you tonight um I am Brian Lewandowski and I'm joined by my colleague Dr Robert mcnown who's our expert econometrician Rich wabakin couldn't be here tonight because uh as you're probably aware we have commencement and uh the business school has our Ceremony this evening so he's engaged in those activities so I'm going to provide a very brief update about the current economic conditions and then we'll talk a little bit about the uh the local sales and use tax forecasts that we generate so please Advance this slide so kick this off um I like to take a look at a snapshot of economic indicators nationally that are a sort of barometer of the overall economy and uh really not coincidentally these are the many of the same metrics that the National Bureau of economic research looks at when identifying turning points within the economy so um

[14:01] you you may recall a year ago when we were talking about the two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth that the U.S measured and many people were saying well aren't we in a recession right now and when when I pulled up this very same slide these these indicators were all moving in a a growth uh position most of these indicators were green with a couple of red ones on on the screen especially in terms of GDP um and now we're in this period where we have growing GDP but many of the indicators are actually signaling a Slowdown and so this is what I'm going to talk about for a few minutes one exception there of course is uh employment so next slide please so um the the U.S GDP you can see the profound impact that the pandemic had uh on the economy you can see that wedge

[15:02] that was taken out of gross domestic product and and remember that gross domestic product is is really one of the broadest measures of economic activity uh within our economy it measures the sale of um uh goods and services uh within the economy and we look at real GDP because it removes inflation so it's really trying to measure if we're selling a greater quantity of goods and services and if your eyes follow those red dots that are on the screen um it's somewhat subtle but you can see those two negative quarters of GDP growth that were Then followed by uh pretty strong growth in the second half of 2022 and that second half of the year really eclipsed what happened in the first half and we ended up having about 2.1 percent GDP growth for the year which uh um is is sort of interesting to look at over the last 23 years it's a little bit above average uh so uh first

[16:00] quarter data was released about two weeks ago and it was somewhat of a disappointment we grew 1.1 percent at an annualized rate came in below expectations but again the the details are what are important and when I take a look at consumption uh consumption grew about 3.7 percent that's a really solid number we saw a growth in government spending we saw um net exports actually improve so uh both exports and imports grew but exports actually grew a little bit faster and then uh the the real headwind came in terms of uh of investment and um we recorded uh the eighth consecutive quarter of negative fixed investment in residential not a big surprise and the current uh housing situation that we're in with higher interest rates um and we also saw a turn into inventories those were really the the two most negative components in this GDP

[17:00] report nonetheless uh the year is expected to sort of progress at a soft pace and by the end of the year we think it'll be pretty slow growth the consensus is for just over one percent growth for the full year and there's a lot of narrative right now about whether uh we'll be in a recession by the end of the year or not uh and so we're we're watching the consumption piece especially closely Mark if you can please Advance the slide one and um and I I think my my own you know sort of personal belief is that so much of this rests on what happens with consumption so we know that consumption is about 70 percent of uh economic growth in the country we just had a good first quarter uh but we also know that there's a lot of headwinds that consumers are facing right now if it's um negative real wage growth if it's uh um uh depleted savings uh we see a decrease in the savings rates in general

[18:00] at a lower Pace uh compared to the historical average we see consumers taking on more debt and paying higher interest on that debt and um and so there's sort of this question of how how long can the consumer sustain uh consumption uh how long can that be uh wind in the the economic sales uh of the US with all of these factors at Play and I think one wild card there is this pace of hiring that we've observed nationally um we you can see again the recession the bite that it took out of uh jobs in this country and then the rebound we're up over three million jobs from the pre-recession peak uh 2.2 percent above where we were and this year we've added jobs at a pace of about 285 000 per month for the first four months of the year and we added about a quarter million jobs in the month of April alone so think about an average wage

[19:02] nationally of 67 000 per job times a quarter million jobs and that's just billions and billions of additional potential consumption within the economy so in my mind so much of uh this the the pace of growth uh over the the next eight months will depend on the pace of hiring and so it in my mind this is what sort of Keeps Us between a slow growth environment or a soft recession environment next slide please um and and so there's sort of this this uh this this confounding effect right now in the economy where we we have um all of this this job growth uh we have uh continued a high rate of job openings um and a really low rate of uh unemployment and when we take a look at that ratio nationally of the number of job openings per every person who's

[20:02] unemployed that ratio is 1.6 to 1 so 1.6 job openings for every unemployed person which oversimplifies it because we know matching people to jobs at wage rates and locations uh is is very complex but but that illustrates the the job shortage um and when we take a look at Colorado it's even a little bit more pronounced it's 2.4 job openings for every unemployed person and Colorado is one of only nine states that recorded an increase in job openings last month Most states recorded a decrease in job openings and then we think about the multi-jobholders nationally uh and and that number went down over the last couple couple of months which if even makes this worker shortage problem uh uh more pronounced it it extends it it's not helping us close the gap next slide please um another point of good news along with

[21:01] hiring we're also seeing an improvement in inflation so it's pretty clear that the the rate of inflation peaked uh last summer and um across a broad swath of geographies nationally we're seeing a consistent downward Trend in prices and so up here you can see the mountain states you can see the U.S and you can also see the Denver metro region and we we just got new National Data yesterday uh and the the national inflation rate fell for the 10th consecutive month so increasing at a decreasing Pace 4.9 percent nationally for the the Top Line number uh the Denver metro region we only get every other month so back in March or just you know one month ago the Denver metro region was at 5.7 percent so this downward uh pressure on prices is is certainly helping what's interesting is when we take a look a little bit Upstream in that whole supply chain the producer price index has come down even more uh so the the the the uh

[22:03] final demand PPI uh was just released this morning and it was down to 2.4 year over year also the 10th consecutive month of a slowing price growth in in uh in products and the other thing I would note here is the construction components of PPI which excludes the labor piece was negative year over year for the last couple of months next slide please uh so um for for those of you who have heard me speak before you you probably know that I'm a big fan of benchmarking I like to Benchmark Colorado against itself over time and also against all the other states nationally and so here's what you're seeing as a is Colorado's rank among the 50 states uh so in some of these metrics you can see We're still ranking pretty highly in terms of real GDP growth we were eight year over year uh in the fourth quarter of 2022 but for employment growth this is sort of sort of a shocking number uh

[23:00] we slowed to 49th best in the country second worst we're just ahead of West Virginia in terms of uh job growth and I'll talk a little bit more about this number in a moment but this is a story that I have really never told uh in my in my time here at the University of Colorado uh that that we've been um a bottom 10 State and in terms of job growth uh personal income we're still we still rank Korean high in terms of personal income growth We're still ranking really high labor force participation we actually have the fourth highest labor force participation rate in the country so it's certainly not all bad news but I think the employment piece locally is is something for us to watch next slide please and um and and so this is just uh giving you a little bit more detail on the employment situation so on the left the black line is showing you Colorado Statewide uh job growth uh total number of jobs and um our our state labor

[24:01] office is just an invaluable service to us uh Most states don't do this but our state office publishes what they call expected revisions to employment and and they came out with a report about three weeks ago that said we think that employment has been a little bit under counted by about 17 000 jobs per month over the last few months so um that's good news it certainly improves this narrative but when I add the 17 000 jobs that moves us from being 49th in the country to 39th in the country so it doesn't put us back in the top 10 or top 20. it just makes it a little less bad than what we're looking at right now they also provide revisions to Boulder counties or the boulder Metropolitan statistical area and uh and unfortunately the boulder MSA didn't really get a bump from those revisions in fact they estimate that Boulder maybe was overestimated a little bit by about 700 jobs or so the pace of growth in

[25:00] Boulder County is still outpacing the state when it comes to year-over-year growth next slide please uh so this is digging in a little bit more into the details for uh Boulder County's employment and uh this is the the most granular data that has that's reported at a local level uh on a monthly basis uh so that's why I'm looking at Boulder County and not the city of Boulder uh but um you can see the largest Industries like professional and business services this is this includes our high-tech Industries you know software development research and development architecture design work and this tends to be a high skill High pay industry in the state Colorado has a comparative advantage in these businesses and in in these jobs and and so does Boulder um but you can see it looks like we're missing a bar in the jobs added year over year and in the percent change and it's just that this number was flat so I

[26:01] think this is something for us to keep an eye on it's a little bit of a concern to see this flattening um if you scroll down you can see the information sector third from the bottom this also includes a lot of our high-tech uh companies some of these are companies that have made headline news where some job losses nationally we've seen a little bit of a pullback in Boulder and then Financial activities is a sector that's certainly at the Forefront of uh of a few crises including interest rate increases and decreasing deposits this is a sector where we've seen some job losses as of late next slide please uh so now I'm going to move on to to the topic at hand it's really taking a look at sales and use taxes so I'm going to provide a little bit of a narrative about what we're seeing nationally and relate that to the local economy um so what we have plotted here is national retail sales and then we have Colorado uh sales taxes plotted in the gold bar and I I put these two together

[27:01] to really illustrate how these two move in tandem so um the the the the Peaks and the troughs the the turns in this series uh really follow each other so Colorado is not decoupled from what happens nationally but you can also pick up subtly there that Colorado has been sort of outpacing the nation in terms of growth um so we we get information about the national retail sales uh pretty timely where we can take a look at March data right now um and uh and so that's a good leading indicator for us to watch as far as what to expect respect the nationally retail sales grew 2.9 percent Colorado by the last measure was up a little over six percent uh remember 2.9 percent is below the rate of inflation so that's really talking about negative real retail sales growth and on a month-over-month basis we've seen a decline uh in about uh three of the last four months or so when

[28:01] we take a look at the details uh we're seeing uh softer growth or even negative growth in some of our Goods producing sectors where Services continue to outperform next slide and um and so I I like to uh Benchmark again uh uh communities around Colorado and and one way of doing this because every local community has a different tax base different different Goods that they're taxing maybe some tax groceries and other stone for some software and others don't so we can take a look at the state's collection of sales taxes across all of the jurisdictions and so that provides a nice Apples to Apples comparison across all of Colorado cities and counties and so what I've pulled here is the the 30 largest city collections that the state has grabbed in 2022 and then I pulled data in early 2023 I think this is actually showing January and February now that's

[29:01] mislabeled at the top uh and so what we see here is the state overall average was of 5.8 percent for the first two months of the year year over year and then you can see Boulder came in just a little bit low that average and then as some of the faster growth was in Commerce City Thornton and Vail and then Wheat Ridge was a community that actually recorded a decline year over year next slide please so um we we take so much of this data into consideration when creating the boulder sales tax revenue model uh really what we're doing here is taking um a lot of National Data and we look at how Boulder's economy and the Colorado economy perform in relation to those National variables and we have a forecast from Moody's Analytics that provides a a baseline expectation for where we expect the economy to go and uh and then we we model out what that means

[30:01] for the city of Boulder in terms of sales and use taxes next slide please and uh and and we we've really um transitioned to a model where we disaggregate uh Boulders sales and use taxes so there's there's about uh nine or so uh uh individual revenue streams that we look at and we model those out individually and then we sum them up to come with to come up with the uh the sales tax forecast and the use tax forecast and then we look at um the the confidence bounds uh so we take a look at uh the the high forecast and the low forecast around that Medium expectation and then we actually run two different economic scenarios that uh Moody's provides one that's a little bit more optimistic but says the economy uh will perform a little bit better under the scenario and one that's a little bit

[31:00] more pessimistic so we provide City staff with a wide range of expectations and um and we we provide an uh annual forecast out through 2028 and we also provide a quarterly forecast uh out through that Horizon so we see a lot of detail in the quarterly one we we measure a lot of seasonality because of just when uh when sales occur within the city of Boulder okay next slide please I'm almost done here so um you know when when we're thinking about the economic forecast and choosing what we think is the most likely pathway for the economy we think about uh what could possibly uh be the wind in our sales what's the Tailwind for the national economy and the local economy and then what's really providing uh concerning headwinds and I'll tell you over the the last six months the the red bubble here has filled up it used to be a little bit more balanced but I think

[32:00] it's really reflecting that there are more concerns that we're watching right now than there are Tailwinds and I'm going to just talk about three briefly um I think one major headwind is uh financial and there's there's sub-components to this where I think that the debt ceiling debate that's happening right now is uh really concerning and I can't even say exactly what will happen if we past that deadline because we we haven't really been in this situation before to any real degree um you know what happens with our credit rating if that happens what happens with interest rates what happens with with retirement if we actually reach that debt ceiling but also in the financial category is what's going on with banks right now we've seen a handful of banks uh fail and um we've seen over a trillion dollars get sucked out of Banks and the term uh in it with regards to deposits so a

[33:01] trillion dollars outflow so even if those Banks aren't domiciled in Colorado we've surely seen an outflow of deposits and that has implications for banks and and having to raise funds at potentially a higher uh cost and also has implications for financial conditions uh for businesses and individuals if they can even access that capital or not the the second concern I would point out is labor we're still seeing just a incredible demand for workers um but I think if if uh if hiring slows down I think that spells trouble in the short term uh there's tension in Colorado and that we have a high labor force participation rate labor force growth um we have a a really high number of job openings but we're measuring really slow employment growth uh so I I think there's a little bit of tension there within the uh reported

[34:02] numbers and then the third uh concern that I would close with is uh remote work and I bring this up because of um the impact that remote work has had on Central Business districts especially when we think about places like downtown Denver and to some degree uh Boulder um if we see higher office vacancy rates uh we then think about that multiplier effect if people aren't in the community uh working in the community they're not spending money in the community they're not going out to lunch they're not shopping at the mall um so it not only has financial implications but it has uh impacts on the vibrancy of a community and also could impact uh commercial real estate defaults as we look ahead over the next couple of years okay now my closing slide so I I just want to thank all of you uh for your time I think I was a little bit long-winded so I apologize uh but uh lastly I would really be remiss if I

[35:01] didn't think uh Caro Skinner and Mark wolf and Joel Wagner for all of their help through these forecasting exercises because we we ask for a lot from them we ask for a lot of detail so that we can produce a better and better forecasts so it's a true partnership and we couldn't do it without you so thank you thank you think carrot Cara do you have anything else or can I uh open it up for questions no I think you can open it up thank you so much Brian for that um always Illuminating presentation and thank you also to um Robert for being here who has questions Mark Welk you're gonna disappoint me if you did not have a question Europe um you know in the largest cities there's a real crisis with respect to vacancy rates on large uh office towers and and Commercial Real Estate generally do we have anything analogous going on in the city of Boulder what kind of

[36:01] vacancy rates are we looking at here I I don't actually have that number but I have access to it so um Mark I can get that over to uh Cara and she can share that back with you we we have access to uh some Numark data and some co-star data okay my only other question was um in the taxable sales growth it seems that a number of the highest performers are ski resort towns um is that the norm yeah so that's a really good question I think a lot of this has to do with timing so we we saw on some communities bounce back sooner from the pandemic recession and so I think um if we plotted all of these out you would see some early early risers uh and then they just plateaued a little bit earlier uh we we have seen

[37:00] the mountain resort communities uh outperform over the last few months so I I wouldn't say that that is uh always a truism but it's just true over the the short term period right now so should we regard that as as sort of skewing the result a little bit in terms of our own performance well I've got the for last year while we're chatting here I'll pull it up I think that um if I recall correctly uh older hasn't led the pack hasn't led the top 30. but it also hasn't lagged the top 30. I think Boulder has sort of sat sort of in that middle 50 percent over the last couple of years so I I don't look at that as a concerning metric I think it's a it's

[38:01] it's good to sort of um be aware aware of how your peers are doing within the community okay all right thank you assuming that's not disappointing to uh my colleague Rachel uh that's that's the end of my questions great job next up Matt Benjamin thanks Rachel and um appreciate the presentation and the you know year in year out work that you guys provide to give us this forecast I'll just start with I think based on Mark's logic of comparing us to Resorts that I think he's suggesting we open up the Flatirons to be a new ski resort um so I'll hold him to that um but um no more seriously you know one of the things that you Brian you mentioned a lot is is really referencing the covid you know trench and so I'm wondering to what extent have have had have you and your models or have economists in general really fundamentally maybe changed

[39:00] assumptions based on what covet has actually changed in society in terms of consumer behavior um you know just everything that covet is versus thinking of it as a transient thing like oh this recession occurred and we're right back to business as usual can we really be back can we really keep those businesses usual assumptions going forward so I really just sort of curious where your thoughts are and how that may or may not you know modify what we look forward to in terms of forecasting yeah super interesting question Robert I'm going to call on you to describe the modeling effort and how we treated the pandemic uh yeah thanks I'll mentioned a couple things in response to your question Matt uh one thing that we did in reaction to the onset of the pandemic right away was to realize that we had all these components for sales tax revenues they're moving in different directions and whereas previously we had simply had an aggregate forecast of total sales tax revenues in a single equation for that uh we we broke down to these various

[40:01] categories and and uh so so that way we've adapted the model uh to accommodate the unusual situation we faced both going into the pandemic and coming out of the pandemic and I think uh still when you look at at the headwinds and Tailwinds that that Brian described that uh those those changes which are difficult to anticipate are going to have different impacts on these different components as well so I think that's the best thing that we can do to to adapt to that situation [Music] let's see the uh was that was that the full part of your question Matt or and was there something else too yeah I mean I guess it was just yeah I mean you kind of addressed it but just kind of just knowing that that the pandemic is going to have more of a permanence rather than it and I'm just sort of wondering if that's kind of what

[41:01] is accepted or is there still this conflict between that might be the case versus uh we're just going to kind of go back to 2019 and that's where the world will end up so I I'm just wondering you and your industry is there sort of a consensus one way or the other yeah well I'm not sure about uh other forecasters but we're definitely uh we're not moving our model back to uh pre-2020 uh that by any means I mean we're going to maintain the the breakdown of the categories and sometimes we explore different ones as well um and and um so so some of the uh unusual headwinds that we're facing right now some of the financial conditions the tightening of monetary policy inflation itself is is to some extent an aftermath of the pandemic too and so we the model really needs to adapt to all of those um changes and and uh we we try to stay

[42:04] on top of that as best we can so your questions Matt yeah thank you appreciate it Robert thanks Brian Nicole spear you're up thank you um thanks uh thanks Brian for the presentation um I just had a couple of questions if I was looking at that in inflation rates chart correctly um it looked like our transportation rates were way higher than everybody else's and I was just wondering um if you could speak to that a little bit and what's going on there yeah it's really a student observation there uh so wait there's two components to this and Mark I don't know if it's easy to pull that back up and put it on slide six but um the the there are about 10 categories of inflation and uh 10 buckets of spending and uh transportation is one of them it's part of uh

[43:00] thank you one more one more right there okay so there's the all items which is Top Line inflation and then if you look all the way at the bottom there's a separate category there that that's called core inflation that's all items less food and energy because food and energy are uh really uh price volatile within the economy right like we observe uh gasoline prices just have these wild swings so um they they look at core inflation to sort of remove that noise that's within prices even though we're really paying for those goods um from our disposable personal income okay so then if you look up at the difference between Colorado and the U.S for Transportation uh last month uh the US was actually negative for transportation while Colorado was up four percent and we attribute a lot of that to the spike in gasoline prices that we had locally which we attribute back to the

[44:01] Sun Core Refinery shutdown and now we're really seeing gasoline prices come down in Colorado there's some areas that are sub three dollars per gallon now um so I I think you know if if you take a look at core inflation for Denver versus the nation we're about the same last month we were exactly the same so I think that Delta that we see on Top Line inflation really has to do largely with transportation and the higher energy costs that we've been paying locally which um which is not great news but we are seeing it come down at a pretty fast pace so I would expect Colorado to be more aligned with national inflation over the next few months thank you and just kind of a follow-up I mean do you think this is having um an impact like as these costs become a little bit reduced in the coming months do you think that will have an impact on spinning because I can imagine especially here where a lot of people commute in um you know it

[45:01] if you if you're spending that much more in transportation you know is that impacting what you have for other items yeah absolutely so that that comes out of our disposable personal income and we I remember last summer uh when gasoline prices uh actually topped five dollars a gallon and then they fell really quickly in Colorado and they they got down to uh below three dollars a gallon so think about that as a two dollar savings per gallon and if you're putting 20 gallons in your car a week that's a pretty big savings and uh and we end up spending that somewhere else so uh so as prices come down that does help support other uh other consumption thank you and just one one other question so we've got um some groups in in Boulder County and um our council member Lauren folkerts has been working on this a little bit we're starting to talk about a minimum wage increase and I'm just wondering you know would any of your projections for next year change at all if you know if

[46:01] if there were to be kind of a minimum wage increase starting you know do you do you expect that would affect any of the um sales tax revenue or worker shortages that you've seen so I I'll answer part of it and then I'll have Robert chime in and think about it from a modeling perspective I'm not sure what you're thinking about for a minimum wage but when I talk to businesses around the uh the broader Denver Metro region I haven't found anyone that's really paying a true minimum wage there's sort of this natural minimum wage that's above the the uh the legal minimum wage so I I wonder if we were already capturing the the wage increases uh within the model currently so I'm not sure how much a Delta uh a small Delta would really show up oh is that it Nicole any other questions for Brian and Robert

[47:02] Lauren volkerts was that an accident you're coming up and then down and you are on mute sorry you I appreciate the direction Nicole was going with that as we think about um a minimum wage effort going forward is that something you guys could help us think about in terms of impacts that it might have on jobs or the economy you know especially because the state law is pretty particular there's you can't increase more than 15 per year so there's it's likely that a plan might involve increases over a longer period of time rather than just a one-time increase so kind of trying to game out what that might look like for our economy and our sales tax yeah I think that would be an interesting challenge to uh try to

[48:02] understand better what a sort of an external force on wages would would produce in terms of employment labor force participation and so on so it's uh I I think it's within the scope of our expertise it's certainly not directly a part of the model at this point but um we we could adjust to analyze a situation like that thank you well that's great to hear um so we we will maybe be in touch with you on that um and I was just feeling sad personally this is you know my last uh a financial update that you you know and my term on counseling has been a pleasure and super helpful to have your involvement the last four years like kobit was was bumpy time so we really are um you helped the city out a lot and thank you for being here again tonight thank you there are no other questions for the two of you I think I think you're free to go

[49:01] although around if you like huh thank you congrats to your graduates yeah we appreciate your your cooperation too thanks thanks um Cara back to you thank you and thanks again to Robert and Brian we appreciate it um I am going to quickly just turn this over um the next portion of the presentation is the staff uh and it will be the budget team and I'm happy to introduce both Charlotte uh husky a principal analyst on the budget team and then Mark Wolfe will follow her and I'll give a short intro so that we can just keep it going so with that I'll hand it over to Charlotte thanks Cara good evening Council I'm Charlotte Huskey of principal budget analyst with the budget office happy to be here tonight to discuss the 2024 budget preview and financial update so looking at our major Revenue sources

[50:00] for the city of Boulder those sales and use tax collections for 2022 came in at 13.5 million above the original budget this includes 6.7 million within the general fund when we compare this to 2021 collections this is an 11.6 percent year-over-year increase of 14.1 million over our 2021 Collections and the increased revenues stemmed from certain certain tax categories primarily due to the inflationary impacts of the cost of goods the only areas where we saw declines were in the marijuana and consumer electrics categories for our sales tax categories we did shift our Revenue budget uh in mid-year in 2022 when building the 2023 budget and that resulted in a slight uh um a slight Gap in Revenue collections

[51:03] of 1.1 million below our 2022 revised projections so we came in 1.1 million in in actuals below our 2022 mid-year revised projections across all funds that receive sales and use tax revenues and specifically in the general fund um that was a shortage of 550 000. for our use tax collections for 2022 they came in 3.9 million above the original budget in 2022 and 1.9 million of this was within the general fund across our use taxes when we compare 2022 to 2021 actuals business use and motor vehicle use were down slightly with construction use tax increasing year over year by 3.6 million when we look at our previous perform

[52:01] previous performance of receiving higher sales and use tax collection against our budgeted model we actually shifted our approach um in looking at the 2023 budget and used a less conservative forecast in our model with this change of Shifting and using a less conservative forecast we forecasted higher uh revenues and we programmed these additional anticipated revenues in 2022 and in 2023 toward calzone Community priorities in the budget and overall we budgeted using a forecasted model that anticipates less flexibility in sales and use tax in 2023 and 2024 the 2023 budget included an assumption of an economic slowdown in 2023 as well as a Slowdown and inflationary pressures which would

[53:00] positively impact our sales tax collections we saw looking at our February 2023 collections a negative year-over-year growth and several sales and use tax categories and will continue to work with CU who will produce a new model for us in June which will help inform our final guidance for 2024 thank you side so looking at our property tax which is another major Revenue source for the city of Boulder we'll talk about potential property tax relief questions on the November ballot at our next agenda item after a financial update but just wanted to focus on the pie chart here where the total Mill Levy in Boulder comprises a combination of taxing entities within Boulder including the highest being the school district at 55 of the total Mill Levy 27 percent of that being attributed to the county and the city portion just at 13 of this pie

[54:03] homeowners will see an impact and feel the impact of the total property tax bill with the additional County and Library District Mill levies as well as the assessed value increases that have come out recently our staff has performed initial analysis on the preliminary assessed value increase for the city of Boulder and we're seeing an estimated 32 percent increase compared to the 2022 property tax year and will continue to monitor um impacts of the state legislation and items that will be on the November ballot and this generates uncertainty around our property tax revenues for 2024 where we could see an increase in our revenues from property tax if there's no voter action taken in November however we could see a decrease from our current assumptions if certain

[55:01] propositions receive enough votes this November next slide so looking at our general fund from 2022 actual scene on this table our revenues came in above adopted budget and our expenses fell below are anticipated expenditures in the 2022 budget and therefore we contributed 12.9 million to fund balance in 2022 looking at our early projections for the 2023 revised budget we anticipate ending the year with between 10 and 15 million in fund balance after reserves and this presents us with an opportunity to address one-time funding needs such as capital capital infrastructure needs and with this in mind our recommendation will be to transfer a significant portion of this ending fund balance to the

[56:01] governmental Capital fund to support continued development of Alpine Balsam and the Western City Campus site it's also ideal to continue to leave some ending fund balance for flexibility within the general fund as well and we'll also be bringing forward some recommendations within our atv1 requests next week as well as considerations of one-time uses in the 2024 budget so you all are very familiar with this uh slide this is our three-year plan for budgeting for resilience and racial Equity we are currently in year two um of our plan where we're beginning to gather data relative to racial equity and working with departments to determine the benefit and burden relative to outcomes uh within their Department program areas and year three

[57:01] we hope to begin to utilize this data to support more strategic decision making around the budget process and to evaluate the investment of our impact and Investments within our budget on racial Equity outcomes next slide um Kia in this plan for budgeting for resilience and Equity is community engagement so we have structured two windows in our uh 2024 development of the of the budget for Community engagement the first being um in March and April where we worked directly with Community connectors and residents to receive feedback on our investments made in 2023 understand potential gaps and areas to address in the 2024 budget we shared these themes with Department directors in early May with the hope to inform budget

[58:00] development going into 2024 our second window we will plan to perform this August where we'll perform uh broader Community feedback survey where we will solicit broader Community input and we'll also Circle back with Community connectors and consult with budget themes and key Investments that we're seeing bringing key Investments that we're seeing bring bringing uh forward in the 2020 for uh recommended budget the second window of the community engagement plan will will end um in at the end of August and we'll plan to share feedback with council at the September 14th study session as a recap of our 2023 funding and budgeting decisions the focus of the

[59:03] 2023 budget development was to finalize Restorations and address critical Community issues um this included shifting our budget philosophy to include maximizing the use of available resources to address ongoing funding needs this included shifting as mentioned before to a less conservative approach in our sales and use talks model as well as shifting how we budget for personnel where we're accounting for typical vacancy savings across the organization this shift in philosophy enabled our investments in 2023 to reflect our unique budgeting environment including an increase in ftes across all funds of 57 ftes from the 2022 budget as

[60:00] well as adding 53 million above the 2020 2022 adopted budget several Investments were made with one-time dollars so um one of the things to think about and moving forward to the 2024 budget is the Investments made with one-time dollars yet implications of future ongoing costs looking at our budget and spending Trends since 2020 across all of these areas seen in the table here including our city-wide FTE calendar and our city our city-wide budget the 2023 adopted budget reflects an increase reaching above our pre-pandemic levels now and the 2020 adopted budget which was developed in 2019 these numbers reflects the last budget developed prior to pandemic implications

[61:00] and seen here in the middle column the 2021 budget demonstrates Cuts compared to our 2020 adopted budget due to the pandemic and this third in this third column you can see our 2023 adopted budget where we've increased 22 million in general fund in the general fund ongoing line item um above our 2020 pre-pandemic budget and we're also currently working towards reintegrating and Staffing up an additional 170 ftes that we've added to the organization considering all of um the trends that we're seeing and the and the shift in philosophy um moving into our 2024 budget development their budget constraints and as well as opportunities to consider um as mentioned previously within the

[62:01] within the 2023 uh revised general fund budget we're anticipating fund balance after reserves which provides opportunities to address one-time Capital needs there are several major constraints to consider approaching the 2024 budget that limit ongoing additional ongoing funding including this list here such as the impact of the 0.15 expiration of our sales tax which generates approximately 7.5 million annually in general fund Revenue supporting personnel and programs across the city also considering the timing of the library separation and payment for Library Services provided in 2023 and recent commitments to ongoing funding for one-time funded items in the 2023 budget or piloted items we're also considering the increase in Personnel costs thinking of Union ongoing Union

[63:02] negotiations and then additional upcoming infrastructure needs such as the Western City Campus project considering these items including the library reallocation future of bar 0.15 sales tax and property tax revenues this provides us with a strategic opportunity to think about our investments for 2024 and moving forward for the 2024 budget development I would have thought I will hand it off to mark thank you Charlotte good evening Council Mark wolf budget officer I will take you through our our six key budget assumptions for the 2024 budget development each of these raised some Focus areas in terms of funding and policy that will be addressed during the budget process this will give you an opportunity uh

[64:00] yeah to hear some insight into how we are approaching the 24 budget and also an opportunity to provide some feedback I'll be walking through each of these six and then I'll be joined by Parks and Recreation here soon as they'll talk a little bit more detail about their fee policy so starting with uh number one slowing economic growth and known funding requirements significantly limit budget flexibility for ongoing costs so that speaks a lot to all the information that you've heard over the past hour uh a couple of specifics in terms of the commitments that Charlie Charlotte mentioned that we have made in 2023 day Services Center we budgeted in 2023 with one-time dollars we now have an estimate of 1.2 for operating costs for that Center and 10 million for Capital so we'll need 1.2 million of new ongoing dollars for 2024 for the behavioral health or CARE program we programmed

[65:02] that with one-time dollars in 23 we have an estimate of 1.3 million for 2024. given some of the constraints in hiring for that program we did have to go ahead and make that an ongoing commitment permanent staff this year so we will need to program that amount for 24. for safe and managed public spaces the total program cost is 3.2 million 2.3 of that is already programmed within the budget ongoing we have 850 000 funded as one time to continue that pilot in 23 for the downtown ambassador program and the urban Parks Rangers so if those two aspects of the program were to be permanent that would be an additional nine hundred thousand and then there are several other various commitments that we've made since budget adoption last fall again about nine hundred thousand so that brings us to a total of new ongoing budget needed in the general

[66:01] fund of 4.3 million we'll just point out that our current estimate without considering the library dollars is only three to four million available for ongoing funding so that's a conundrum that we'll talk about how to how to approach in a moment really it comes down to our first opportunity looking at library budget reallocation funds and the approach to address some of the key Council priorities uh stepping back I won't go too far into detail on the the facilities master plan uh in Western City Campus you're going to get um a deep dive into that in two weeks what the FMP does though is it provides a blueprint for us to address the rising costs of our our maintenance needs across our facilities and ways to approach our long-term facilities planning the Western City Campus is a big part of that in a lot of ways one of the the big dominoes uh in how we

[67:01] approach a number of our projects the financing model will will talk about some of the key levers that you all will be weighing in on and especially consolidation of buildings sale and profiting from the sale of buildings in order to help with the financing the type of financing and how we approach our operational savings from that from that consolidation we will need additional ongoing funding to support that project that will that will impact the 2025 budget either in the form of debt service or a partnership funding and you all will get more detail about that at your next meeting well two weeks so again just to show the first two day services and Behavioral Health the suggestion here is that we're making the Assumption for the 24 budget development that we'll need to tap into the library reallocation dollars to fund the day Services Center and The CARE program which are great opportunities there and then also do a placeholder we do have

[68:00] some Debt Service potential Debt Service programmed already in our governmental Capital fund but this would supplement that an additional 2.5 again knowing that this is likely to come in some format in 2025. the third is related to Capital so the capital Improvement program will include long-range facilities planning to ensure sustainable funding strategies for Building Maintenance and Associated services uh the six-year CIP or Capital Improvement program uh will align with our sustainability equity and resilience framework our Boulder comp plan and subcommunity and area plans uh one point of emphasis for this year's budget development is the community culture resilience and safety tax dollars that's our largest source of General Capital uh dollars that we have available we have done some planning efforts over the last year related to projects that

[69:00] would be eligible under ccrs we will be bringing forward prioritized projects and financing strategies including potentially issuing a bond around ccrs that we do have author authorization for by voters that's likely to exceed the overall need so again this conversation around facilities Master planning and our approach to facilities in the long term will be critical to balance the the items that we won't be able to cover under ccrs and just to hammer that point we have three recreation centers that need to be addressed in some format two fire stations a public safety building um not to mention the Alpine Balsam project and others uh the ccrs tax is 200 million over 15 years we have the authorization to borrow up to 110 million so that'll make a significant dent in some of those projects but we will need a unified approach in in terms of how we talk about many of these other

[70:00] portfolio related projects that may not be able to be addressed with ccrs flexibility that we do have within the dedicated funds will be explored and emphasized to ease the burden on the general fund to the extent possible including other Revenue strategies such as reviewing fee policies and the one we'll dive into tonight is Parks and Recreation we did identify this as an issue during our conversation around Library reallocation back in February and we outlined several action steps this is really about making sure that we're in alignment with voter intent on any of those restricted revenues and that we're maximizing the use of those resources so we've undertaken a couple of these steps already and this will help inform the 2024 budget as we review those dedicated fund financials the restrictions and determine short and long-term Financial strategies for these other funds we think that can be helpful

[71:02] in looking across the entire city in terms of our resources one of those in particular is related to our Parks and Recreation fees and I am happy to hand off to Jackson Height senior manager in Parks and Recreation we'll walk through a few slides on Parks and Rec fees thanks so much Mark um as Mark said Jackson Height with business services and Parks and Recreation um this is the slide that you saw back when we uh Parks and Recreation plan was adopted last summer and at that point in time we had told you that without additional funding BPR would need to maintain or would need additional funding to maintain our current level of service to ease the general fund of their financial support we had identified that this could include grants philanthropy and donations additional tax subsidy or other Revenue generating ideas since this time we've really taken the feedback that was given and identified a opportunity to address this through a

[72:01] fee policy we are hoping to implement a fee policy in 2024 on the next slide we've identified that there's almost 3 200 fees that Parks and Recreation currently has and Our intention of establishing a fee policy is to have a standardized approach that is transparent to community members as well as our staff and provides clear cost recovery targets uh we believe that there are several definitions and consistencies that would really simplify this approach and then the second goal of developing a fee policy is to determine the appropriate subsidy levels for the types of programs that we offer and this would be based on the level of funding that's available each year um all of our subsidy levels would be based on the community benefit that has been presented in the 2014 and 2022 plans but the other intent of the fee policy is this will help us achieve national accreditation that we hope to undertake in 2024.

[73:02] on the next slide we have taken information from the Parks and Recreation plan that has very clear guidance from Council in 2014 and 2022 that identifies that taxes pay for recreation programs where the community benefits whereas individual user fees pay for programs that are exclusive or benefit a individual in the middle we have just general Recreation that is a combination of both taxes and user fees to really support some of the benefits that community recreation provides on the bottom we have started exploring what this means for cost recovery targets and this has been an ongoing exercise with the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board as well as our staff we've identified that working our way from left to right Community benefit programs typically have a lower cost recovery which is a higher subsidy and then exclusive programs typically will have higher cost recovery where

[74:00] individual users are paying for their full way um within this there is different variations and flavors of recreation um we do have everything from beginner to intermediate to Advanced and some of our cost recovery targets will be based on who the intended audience is for each of our program types what the reach is and other factors that are identified in the recreation priority index we do recognize that cost escalation is having an impact on funds Citywide and especially in Parks and Recreation and we are hoping that we can create a few policy that's Equitable but also allows for individuals to pay their way where they're benefiting from the programs that are offered on the next slide we've identified what the 10 different types of programs are that we offer all of this is described in more detail in your packet on page 14 and this includes the methodology the last time the fee was updated and some sample definitions and examples of

[75:00] programs that fall into each of these program types on the top we have four different program types where there is set policy from either the Parks and Recreation Advisory board or city council and for this we are really hoping to document everything into one fee policy instead of various different policies that have been updated at different points in time on the bottom we have program types without a such fee policy Our intention here is to really clarify so it is easier for community members and staff to understand how we go about charging our fees and documenting it into a single policy that is simple to refer back to for all of our individuals and user groups this will provide General Clarity and consistency on the next slide we've mapped out our timeline as far as the various touch points that we've had so far staff began working on this project in January of this year and has met with the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board monthly and

[76:01] continues to meet with them in addition to having staff engagement Our intention is in June to take this to the community collectors and residence uh to provide our recommended approach and then in September we would hope to start uh conducting Community engagement surrounding lists uh where we share the proposed fee increases across the board we do want to highlight that any Community or Recreation programs we would cap at a 10 fee increase for 2024 in order to be able to phase this in in a way that is Equitable and we do want to highlight that none of the existing financial aid programs would be impacted by this so the play pass the requity program would continue to maintain financial assistance for those who are in need to be able to access our programs this really is intended to focus more on the entrepreneurial spirit that was identified in the plan to make sure that we are paying for our way through individual users especially

[77:00] where they benefit so throughout the process we are looking at research community the engagement and policy to drive our decisions and look forward to presenting the recommended fee policy with the 2024 budget I'll turn it back over to you mark Max Jackson all right uh two more assumptions and then we're done um uncertainty related to the expiring 0.15 general fund sales tax necessitates preservation of ongoing funding from the library reallocation so I'll explain in a little bit more detail um we will discuss staff's recommendation a little bit later this evening but for the 0.15 uh specifically it's an undedicated general fund tax that expires at the end of 2024. there is existing policy guidance that will review and how we use this to fund General governmental services within the general fund that we feel provides a justification for a long-term undedicated extension of this tax and as

[78:02] we'll discuss later there are some options in terms of engaging with voters in polling prior to November uh what we're looking at specifically is what happens if voters do not renew this tax or if the tax itself is dedicated to a purpose that is not currently funded within the general fund that will result in in a budget Gap so we that about seven and a half million if we fund something uh to the level of let's say 4 million in the general fund and that voters ultimately dedicate that to that purpose the increment this because it's seven and a half million would be a budget Gap um anything uh in the millions in terms of a general fund budget Gap would be significant or likely looking at budget cuts in the realm of services and the people associated with that um so the 0.15 and caution around that

[79:01] 0.15 is one of the major things that we're thinking about uh for 2024 budget development So to that end our suggestion is to to hold back a portion of the library reallocation dollars the top three are items you already saw the bottom line would be a general contingency uh for ongoing funding for any potential Gap created by either a non-renewal or a dedication of the 0.15 so that would take us to about the amount that we would expect to have available for for Library funds knowing that if voters choose to renew the tax undedicated then we would have that four million dollars available for ongoing needs after that if we have some type of different financing model for Alpine Balsam there could be resources there and then as Charlotte spoke to earlier watching property tax very very closely is another example there are potential opportunities in the future at the time

[80:01] of budget development will have to proceed with some degree of caution and lastly as we talk about seemingly every week the the needs out are simply greater than the funding that we have available so one thing that we have explored uh preliminarily with the financial strategy committee is a long-term Financial strategy across all funds and City functions uh I've shown iterations of this list before the dollar numbers are big when we asked departments um and and tried to be pretty specific about the types of things we were asking for related to library relocation resources a number of maintenance needs other core operations across the system ranges into the 20 30 million dollar range in addition to a number of other things that we're already moving forward in some way whether it's related to Fleet electrification facilities repairs Advanced life support and fire and then there's a number of arpa funded

[81:01] initiatives that while funded through 2025 implicate perhaps future funding as well so what do we rely on in order to look at a long-term Financial strategy well there is previous policy guidance all the way back to 2008 and 2010 we had a blue ribbon commission that focused on sustainable revenues there were a few Lessons Learned uh there specifically our Reliance on sales tax shying away from dedicated funding and also moving forward on budgeting for for outcomes which is something that we have done over that period of time with our budgeting for resilience effort our work there has also pointed out many different areas that we can continue to improve upon from a budgeting perspective but also memorialize some of the work that that we are doing in terms of an outcome Focus we learned lessons through the pandemic that we spoke about this evening the Reliance on sales tax was highlighted through that downturn

[82:01] and also our ability to to contingency plan so that any disruption is less impactful to the organ organization and community there are other emerging budget policy issues that we have spoken with Council about in the past I mentioned dedicated revenues that is something we are currently in the middle of analyzing and bringing forward to help with 24 budget development our master plan funding levels continue to be something that we want to make sure that that tool is appropriate for the the types of expectations that we're setting with each plan and for those that have been accepted to make sure that we set forth a realistic uh funding expectation going forward and I mentioned arpa and then lastly um a strategy or at least certain elements of a strategy could help us approach a recommendation for the 0.15 which you'll hear about in a bit um long-term Financial strategy could have many different elements there are a

[83:00] few that we expect to be a part of a strategy the confirmation of our fiscal philosophy as a city so the sales and property tax balance dedicated funding appropriate appropriateness these things would help guide us over a long period of time right when any type of decision comes up we can we can lean on a strategy that we've developed and confirming some of that philosophy I mentioned memorializing our outcome-based approach setting some general parameters to overall taxing levels or at the high end in terms of sales tax regionally is that appropriate are we comfortable being at that high end property tax we have a mill Levy maximum set in charter is that appropriate should we be moving towards that or not those types of things would be elements in a strategy and then last aligning all of our budget practices and processes to that strategy would be an element next steps include continuing to make progress on a number of different research items or analysis that relate to a number of these issues we would

[84:01] like to continue to engage FSC and Council on strategy development throughout the year looking at a Target in late 23 early 24 for for an initial draft and we do think that the the work heading into the 24 budget can help inform budget prioritization so that even though there is uncertainty related to property tax Library reallocation the 0.15 but if those fall in a way that is of of a windfall from a budget perspective that we use the budget process and it's full context to identify what those key priorities are and be able to move quickly if we we receive Clarity from voters at the state level and at the local level in November all right that's the six of them I won't read them again but happy to take down the slides and see if Council has any questions Bob Yates wins the

[85:01] Speedy hand raise award you're up thanks and the advantage of having seen the slides or some of the slides in the financial strategy before so I have jump on people um Mark or anybody who knows this question you touched briefly earlier in the presentation on the potential um Revenue increase to the city as a result of the um property assessments and I know those just came out um and I realized that there are some ballot measures that Colorado voters will vote on that will have some impact on that do you guys have a range like an low end or higher end range in other words if somebody's ballot measures pass puts the low end and if they don't pass what's the high end or is it premature for you guys to do that math yeah we we do um at least for um if voters uh decided not to provide any uh relief I believe that's around seven to ten million dollars in terms of extra above our original projections

[86:02] that would be coming in in 24. the others in terms of the potential items that voters could approve range pretty widely I believe in Charlotte will correct me if I'm wrong I think it was anywhere from a couple million dollar impact in the in the governor's proposal all the way to a net negative in collections um for for another that was a little bit more limiting in terms of the year-over-year growth and property tax revenues or collections thanks Mark that's helpful um so how are you guys going to deal with that from the standpoint of preparing the 2024 budget because obviously we'll have to um prepare the budget and approve the budget long before the November votes are you guys going to take kind of a worst case scenario approach um and then there might be some upside that we could do adjustments to base in 2024 how are you going to deal with that given the timing yeah that's a good question I think

[87:00] that's something that we still have to have some discussions about uh we probably wouldn't take the most conservative approach um based on what would be on the ballot however we will have to proceed with caution and so uh I think you're right that we'll we'll use the budget process we'll have a set of priorities that kind of fall right below that line that we we are able to budget to and in the event that voters take a less restrictive action in November we'll be ready at the first of the year to move forward on those priorities great thanks Mark that's all I had Bob Aaron Brockett well Bob you teed up my question perfectly because I'm also pursuing the property tax questions but first I want to thank you all for a very detailed uh presentation but also just uh I just think you're doing a phenomenal job in terms of how you're budgeting and how you're thinking about estimates and tapping fund balance and you know making sure we're funding Community priorities when we have money available so huge

[88:00] thanks for for the way that you're approaching things so I'm a huge fan of how that's going so uh my question on the property taxes Bob asked private um but in terms of the the HH that the legislature is putting on the ballot uh are they not backfilling lost Revenue to cities as part of that so do you know how much of an impact it was have because I thought they were going to make us partially if not entirely whole in that case yeah thanks mayor that's a good question um so the the Senate bill that went through last year that did provide Backville Phil for Boulder so that capped the assessment rate at a certain amount and we were provided we will be provided this year 65 backfill of what we would have otherwise lost um there is a backfill provision in HH I do believe that we are not included in that and I I think there is a

[89:00] is it a population threshold or it's the percentage increase over our assessments is that right Charlotte that's correct yeah sorry true go ahead the percentage increases 20 and so if a jurisdiction is above that then they would not receive the backfill s okay we need to understand so that would have an impact to it to us in other words and then you said with the more there's a more dire version and is that the initiative that's Gathering signatures right now that has been proposed that's correct um I know that there's one that limits I think it's three percent year-over-year growth or something like that um just to give you a frame of reference our original projections um in the 23 budgets all the way back during 2022 we had anticipated about a 10 growth in in assessed values um in 24. uh so if it was only three percent then we would have to figure

[90:00] that one out sorry I was just going to jump in here that um we'll see this in the next agenda item but there are um four uh initiatives that are have are out for collecting signatures um and so they vary in terms of the limitations and and most of them are tied around that three percent but some of them have varying conditions so okay so if they gather enough signatures and they passed then we'll be hit pretty hard so definitely something to keep an eye on but the approach you described Mark sounds like a really good one uh in your answer as well uh thanks very much that's all I got thanks Aaron Matt thanks Rachel um and uh mark karishra thank you for that that was really really detailed and quite helpful to get that landscape some great opportunity but also some risk in front of us so um sort of you know both sides of the coin um Bob Bob touched my property tax questions so I appreciate him uh jumping

[91:01] out with that uh the only remainder one I had had to do with kind of what what eligibility for ccrs um clearly you know it's but between parks and fire stations some of that stuff that was clearly defined when ccrs got passed I'm wondering it does the capital investment for the day service center apply and and would that even be something in part or full that we would consider in in ccrs in terms of making that more immediate investment where some of those other Capital Investments are still longer term out yeah the good question Matt um the short answer is it good we could certainly use ccrs to fund the day Services Center um day service the the way we structured ccrs just to step back for a moment is is very flexible we kind of said here's the list of projects and other things right so it's a balance between what we set in terms of voter expectation right Community expectation that we would we would address a number of the items

[92:00] listed versus the flexibility as things come up over a 15 year the life of a 15-year tax so that's some of what will be weighing and developing a funding plan under ccrs for the 24 budget for the day Services Center we we have a general strategy right now that Capital cost is estimated at 10 million five of which would come from the affordable housing fund and then five from the general fund and so we think that's adequate uh now we'll also research potential grant opportunities um we we do have some period of time before we'll break ground um but your your point is valid we certainly could tap ccrs if we ran into a situation where we we couldn't use uh general fund money yeah I appreciate you looking into I'm just thinking hearing some of these potential consequences of shortfalls it just makes me think that if we can free up 5 million then that's uh people we don't have to furlough in programs we don't have to suspend or cancel so I'm sure you guys are on top of that but thanks for clarifying that

[93:01] all Matt Tara okay well first question was already answered why we couldn't use the fund from affordable housing for the day Center and it looks like we can 5 million yay there's two things that are on my mind and first of all and I there's probably an easy answer to this but I'm thinking about the parks presentation and the continual rising of the fees which considering that we don't are are buildings are not in great shape I don't know how well this is for the community to keep Rising raising our fees so is there no room for getting more budget for Parks so that we don't have to keep raising our fees I don't know if maybe somebody from Parks is here with I know that the Parks Board has probably talked about it because when I was on that board we sure did so I'm wondering what our plan is for that and we've also had a lot of emails from the South Boulder Rec Center

[94:01] folks and so I'm wondering is this the time to talk about any of those uh things or is there a better day a better time day Ally yeah I'm happy to to yield to Ellie and Jackson I'll just say one thing that we we do hope to begin to address in the 24 budget plan especially our Capital Improvement program is is beginning to think about our long-range facilities planning and you're right what we have to figure out uh the best approach to our recreation centers we do think ccrs will certainly help but may not get us all the way there so it's a it's certainly a valid uh question Ally Jackson You Wanna jump in there um Tara we have taken this to prab and some of perhaps input address a lot of the similar concerns you have increasing costs and what it means with the Aging facilities compared to some of our peer

[95:00] communities um I think that in Recreation we have different Alternatives we can reduce our level of services we can increase prices or we can look at the volume at which we're delivering our services um so all of those are options on the table and then as it relates back to the age of the recreation centers I think that Mark touched on it and I believe in two weeks you'll have a greater study session talking more about taking care of our facilities so is the is raised is increasing the budget for Parks not even in the discussion is one of those three options that you gave us only and not increasing the budget then because now people are complaining they don't have enough the facilities aren't open enough you know you've been all reading the emails and so I don't know the cutting I'm thinking about the community who values our rec center so much and it's used across the board with all incomes

[96:02] everybody loves our rec centers and I'm just thinking I don't did the did perhaps say that an a good option would be to cut to cut our services even more the props said that they wanted to maintain the current levels of services being provided um and then I think back to the general fund subsidy um that has historically been about 1.6 million dollars and there was a one-time increase in both 2022 and 2023 with the understanding that it was only one time in nature um so Our intention is that that would reduce back to 1.6 million um or the historical amount beginning in 2024. I don't know I mean I guess there's another time to talk about it not now I guess that's it my last question is unless Ali you have anything to add to make me feel better or not really

[97:03] I'd love to say something to make you feel better I think Jackson's actor was really well done the very best thing that could happen um to relieve the pressure is for visitation to return to pre-pandemic levels it's not there we have program areas that are knocking it out of the park gymnastics is actually um exceeding 2019 levels they are incredible you're going to see an ATV next week that actually adds a position to support their success we're leaning in everywhere we can we keep talking about rather than pushing the rock uphill where can we put rolling really well um but the reality is until we can solve this lifeguard crisis the limitation and visitation is is really hamstringing us and we're doing everything we can to figure it out so um if it makes you feel better we have the best team they are so stinking smart and they're trying really hard that does make me feel better thanks Ali let's have one more question Tara yes I do

[98:00] um my last question is I had a discussion with Transportation after we got quite a lot of emails about the condition of our roads because that affects both bikers and drivers and it I'm wondering if there's any room to increase they said that we actually do not have a lot of budget for fixing our roads I won't even say who but they did say that so I'm wondering is there any room to increase the budget for fixing our roads which are not in great shape as far as I can tell on my bike yeah fair question and I I think you're hitting on a couple things that um speak to the the tension that we always feel going into a budget development right there's so many different priorities and we have constraints and especially those that are supported by the general fund um we simply have limited resources to be able to do that um I don't know if that makes you feel better but I I think we have the opportunity to try and address these

[99:01] priorities and if Transportation says hey look we're falling behind on our um on our condition index really in our streets um here's what it would take to improve that that's something that would be brought forward during the 24 budget um and in the context of all of the different priorities that that we see so yes in short absolutely it's something we could address and and those are the types of things Transportation Parks funding Etc that will look at all together and figure out how to best address during budget development thanks Tara Nicole and then Mark thank you um and I I also have a lot of questions like Tara but uh try to go quickly and be Discerning um first of all thank you this is just such an exciting time to be on Council I think reading through the packet seeing your presentation really highlights that um just to be around some of this budgeting for resilience and Equity is starting to impact how we make these

[100:01] financial decisions I think the focus on outcome space budgeting is going to be such a help to Future councils in terms of deciding what to pursue especially as as costs go up and revenues may not um and I know we aren't done with all this work but I just wanted to thank you for everything you're doing to support this transition um and also just applaud your efforts to navigate The Challenge of having all of these significant uncertainties for next year that that is really hard and we're gonna have some hard decisions and conversations coming up but I really appreciate everything you're doing to try to find a way through uh when you don't really know which which direction we're headed in right now I had a couple of questions uh first just about the parks and rec the user phase and things and um what one of the things I was wondering is in setting our fee structure and kind of looking at our use rates do we compare ourselves to similar facilities in the area or across the mountain region

[101:01] we typically look at the user fees um individually each year as we set our fees as we were studying the 2023 fees we are the highest on the Front Range um by a relatively far margin um we're currently charging nine dollars for an adult resident daily drop in which is what we base all of our fees off of and most peer communities are in the five to six dollars per visit range currently and then for individual program fees we do rely on the recreation priority index that takes into account what is the benefit for individuals we look at market rate data from other providers of those Services both uh local government municipalities um and for-profit agencies so we are trying to remain competitive in the marketplace without under charging or overcharging our customers because we recognize the value of community recreation thank you um and one one more question

[102:00] uh along those lines and and this may be just let me know if this is a discussion for a later Point um I'm just really curious to unpack a little bit more of this idea of uh exclusive uses and and kind of you know differentiate how Community benefit um plays into that we went when you know we were talking about the master plan thinking about it um last fall I was thinking about exclusive uses as being like more corporate you know for-profit kinds of things not necessarily Recreation uses like um we heard about from you know the rowers who were being priced out a little bit um and I am just wondering about especially programs that are targeting Youth and emerging adults it is so valuable to have these ages physically active and Outdoors in the community the impacts on brain development psychological Health cognitive function I mean they last a lifetime right and so as we're kind of thinking about for this this year you know it this is probably not the point for it but just where

[103:01] where can we have a discussion about you know what what is included in exclusive versus recreation use and how are we thinking about the the health benefits and impacts on the folks who are participating I'm gonna I'll chime in and take that one because here here's the challenge Nicole is that the very first litmus test and everything we do is isn't Mission driven and our mission is to promote health and well-being and so everything we do in some way or another does that right I was out at um East Mapleton on Tuesday night seeing adult softball some of our members of council can speak to the lifelong benefits of of adult volleyball and yet funds are limited and so we have to make choice about where subsidy goes and so I hear you that that what you thought was exclusive maybe isn't how it's playing out and do we need to keep working on the Nuance yes but at the end of the day um as much as we would love everything to be free that that's not the the reality of the world that we're in and so we do have um the other thing we know in our

[104:01] community which is wonderful is people are passionate about their form of recreation whatever it might be and so what the recreation priority index does is it says how many people is this serving is there substitute ability for this service what targeted benefits is it providing what targeted communities is it serving um and so that's how we do it because we do have to have an objective way this is a recommendation from 2008 and on the in the throes of the last recession is how do you objectively determine where the subsidy goes and that's the tool that we have and we'd be happy to share with you more now now's probably not the time but we'll defer to Council on if and how you might want to dive in deeper on that we're certainly diving in deep with the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board yeah thank you for that appreciate it um those are all my parking Rec questions but I've got a couple more for some others um I you know I know we're including the connectors in the um budgeting discussions this year are there are we getting any feedback yet are there any kind of themes emerging from some of

[105:00] those conversations yeah we have and we just really appreciate uh the partnership with our community connectors and residents it's been a really valuable discussion over the last couple of months on by Charlotte to add on to this I think the major themes we're hearing are about affordability in community and about advancing our Equity goals in line with themes that connectors have shared with Council before and uh what we did this time around is really focus in on um certain outcomes that we can put into our budget terms and help guide departments as they develop budgets over the next uh couple of months yeah so that it'll be it'll be helpful in this first stage to set that frame and then we'll check back again to to see how we're doing once we get close to releasing the recommended budget thank you I'm just a related question do we get feedback from the human relations

[106:01] commission as well on the budget or will we this year uh we certainly can during that second window um and we can do something about the best format for that but yes that's absolutely possible thank you um and I was just wondering is especially just given the storms that have been coming through lately and hearing from what some folks in East County experienced in a climate crisis uh Capital Improvement costs infrastructure costs certainly seem like they are going up is that something that we take into account in our budgeting every year as we're thinking about these kind of Big Ticket repairs and things that are going to have to be done and done more frequently in the coming decades yes it is and I I think um one of the things that our facilities master plan highlights is in this in the city buildings the importance of consolidation and being strategic about which facilities that we we target for major investment um that it's done uh with that climate

[107:01] uh action Focus um there are many other ways that I'm sure that our climate initiatives folks could expand on in terms of working with Community I know specifically the efforts related to the voter approved expansion of the the climate tax to include Wildfire resilience is one of those efforts in in building Community connections and helping um related to resilience efforts um so yes it's something we we think about a lot and a huge reason why we Center our um our objectives our outcomes on the sustainability resilience and Equity framework to make sure that we're we're laser focused on that thank you um and then last question also kind of a bigger Longer term question now we're already some of these demographic shifts that are expected in Colorado just a growth in the 65 and older population relative to others I expect that's going to have some Revenue impacts is that anything that's motivating some of the shift

[108:02] um you know that you all are starting to talk about about um not being quite so reliant on sales tax and having other forms of Revenue that help our budget be a little bit more balanced and resilient yeah that's a good question I I think with with our over Reliance on sales tax one of the concerns is from an equity perspective of who's who's paying the majority of of the taxes the shift to balancing more with property tax is maybe tougher today than it was a few years ago but um you know certainly would be more sustainable from a revenue perspective and then there are other ways other strategies another reason to highlight a long-term Financial strategy in looking at the structure of sales and use tax looking at different types of fees that are perhaps a little bit more Equitable and then again figuring out what a long-term shift to more more property tax looks like and if there's a pallet

[109:00] for that so yeah in short it's something we we think about but also would be good to outline in a long-term Financial strategy so that when opportunities come up we're always thinking in in the same frame of mind great thank you that's all thanks Nicole mark thank you as always a very substantive and clear presentation thank you guys it was terrific I only have three questions has there been any discussion about monetizing um the use of our open space parking fees or otherwise especially with respect to the many folks who come in from Denver and out of town to use the land that we have to pay for the maintenance of that is a good question mark I I don't know uh for sure I know there has been some work done around parking management at trailheads but we'd have to get back to you on um unless there's somebody else on the call that can speak to that

[110:01] on whether or not we've looked at a fee structure or something along those lines and if someone could get back that would be nice um my second question is can you speak a little more about what you're planning to do with dedicated fund balances in what amount and I mean are you looking to eliminate um those fund balances so that we can absorb it into the general fund what what do you have in mind yeah good question so uh to be clear that the dedicated funds especially those that have uh voter restrictions we wouldn't be changing those restrictions we would be staying in line with voter intent voter action um related to those fees so we're simply just making sure one we're we're sticking to the the language um either in the ballot or in uh code language uh that restricts the use so we're not restricting ourselves further in terms of the uses and then also making sure that the fund balance levels are appropriate so looking over the time

[111:00] Horizon five six years down the road are we building in um the ongoing resources that we can for every fund just like last year we really focused on the general fund and our sales and use tax structure and maximizing the use of our resources there we want to make sure we're doing the same things in in those dedicated funds um so it wouldn't be um taking away from those funds to fund something else that they couldn't it would just be making sure that we're truly investing to the best of our ability within those those specific areas okay thank you and I guess my last question is looking at the inexorable growth in terms of expenses and costs whether it's Capital expenditures or Personnel or maintenance and the limitations on our ability to continue to increase the pie in terms of revenues um you know we're becoming a very high we are a very high tax City uh you know

[112:03] we simply couldn't go back and I think increase sales taxes more and I I don't know um if you start looking at how people are yelling and screaming about the prospective increase in their property taxes I I just don't know how much more there is there are we approaching a position where we have a structural deficit between our revenues and our expenses because we're increasing our expenses on a yearly basis new programs increases in Old programs and I'm not sure that the the revenues except sometimes we get we get a break with sales taxes are going to be commensurate to fund all of those activities and so you know are we now looking for exotic Financial gimmickry to to get us back into balance uh no to that last part but I will say that every every year um when we develop the budget we make

[113:01] sure that we have a sustainable five or six year time Horizon in our financials um meaning there's no structural uh deficit you will see a structural deficit this year when we produce the fund financials for the general fund because of the point expiring 0.15 so that's seven and a half million of ongoing Revenue that we wouldn't we're not demonstrating um if that were to be disrupted then absolutely we'd have to look at reductions in order to offset that amount but to your point I I think it's something we look at every year right the balance of our our ongoing spending versus how we're projecting sales and use and other revenues um I think one of the main purposes of looking at a long-term Financial strategy is understanding what areas we do have flexibility in where can we start broadening the pie to your point and then really leaning into the work with outcomes that if something is not aligned with our goals then we can look at realigning resources within and I

[114:01] think that's something we've begun to to start to think about um but are just kind of getting at the point where we feel like we have data and information to do that in a better way nice I see nuria's hand I'm just concerned that we you know that you're going to need to exercise the creativity of Picasso uh address some of these concerns but um thank God we have Picasso as staff members say that Nuria has her hand up so she may have a party answer for you too I did and actually Mark took the words out of my mouth in terms of like this is it is an ass that we continue to sort of lift up both to staff but also to you I'll say that uh as we move into outcome-based budgeting the goal of that is to use data that tells us what can we stop doing so that we can think about things that we should really augment that are working or new projects that are coming because it is unsustainable to keep being additive in a budget process and saying no or we're going to

[115:01] shift or we're going to re-prioritize it's not something cities do really well and I think data really helps and supports that so as we get that data in as we are transforming our budget process to incorporate that and we come to council uh in the next iteration of budgeting for resilience it is that conversation that we really need your partnership on as we're moving forward because that's what's going to make a difference as we move forward that's my plea for next year thank you for that answer Maria I see Cara has her hand up and Mark I don't mean to cut you off if you have other questions well thank you I just also wanted to double down on what Mark and Nuria shared but then to also um reiterate with regard to the long-term Financial strategy um we do think part of that is really to have an open and sort of broad Community conversation about priorities I mean I

[116:01] think we we all agree that through our traditional master plan process we have identified a lot of goals and had sort of the conversations with those respective constituencies but we haven't really had a an overarching Community conversation about priorities because frankly we cannot afford everything that is identified in all of those plans and so we need to say that out loud and we need to have a conversation about how to prioritize about across those many need many many needs but so we really do look forward to that long-term Financial strategy development and that conversation thanks Kara Tara double dipping sorry real quick so in regards to our pilot programs I did I'm not saying that the guaranteed income program will be great but I did notice that it went from Pilot to ongoing needs and that's just an example of I guess my question is is how do we prioritize it's

[117:01] always hard how do we prioritize some great social programs with for instance infrastructure you know crumbling buildings roads Etc so do we have how many pilot programs do we have where we have to make the decision whether or not to continue that we used the arpa funds for really good question uh I would say in general we we do not do piloting well as City we do tend to keep those Investments going uh for arpa we do have a real conversation uh those are resources made to help us recover um from the pandemic and I I think we're appropriate and exciting Investments um we have not made a determination on guaranteed income and some of our other pilot programs we will have to um as to whether or not those are permit programs I think where we'd like to really focus in on and this gets back to the outcome-based approach is if we set

[118:01] something as a pilot and fund it with one-time dollars and establish some of our intended outcomes we want to make sure we're measuring that and then and then report back to council and community at the end to say did we achieve our goals is this something that should continue or did it run its course we've we've recovered from the pandemic in this area and it's not something that could continue I I hope that we'll get to the point with our pilot programs where if it's a troop pilot then we'll be able to provide that data and then make an informed decision on whether or not we're extending that into the future I mean I remember back in the day when we first talked about it we were wondering if we shouldn't use those funds for to give to effa so and then we switched over to the pilot I'm not saying it is not good or better better than giving money to Alpha I'm just hoping that we can look at those pilot programs even those cities notoriously don't I wish we would be one of those cities that do just throwing that out there thanks Tara um so I think that the question that

[119:00] staff put to us was do we have any questions and I think that we have have asked our questions so um going once twice three times to try and keep us uh on our three hour schedule here um so thank you so much uh Cara and Mark and Charlotte and Jackson who has disappeared from my screen that was an outstanding presentation and information um and if no one has any more questions which I'm going to pretend I see no hands if they do go up let's move right on to topic number two Steph though I do want to check in with you uh Cara maybe just make sure that you got what you needed from us yes we did thank you very much we appreciate it thank you I'll turn it back over to Nuria then to take us to ballot ballot measures well lest you thought you had enough a finance team actually send that right back to Cara who's gonna kick us off on that and I so appreciate you keeping us on schedule okay thank you and I believe

[120:00] the presentation should be coming up thank you Emily very much appreciated um so we do we the next agenda item is to talk about potential ballot measures and you will see from the slide that we have a number of City staff as well as the council Charter Review Committee they're going to help guide us through this discussion um next slide so we do have six items on the agenda and uh the first the second and the fifth are um items that we are going to request feedback and input direction from city council so we have questions teed up for that items three four and six are really just updates um so with that I'm gonna next slide so for here I believe I'm going to hand it over to Aaron Poe and she's going to start this but then I believe the

[121:00] charter Review Committee is also going to join her in leading this discussion thank you very much Cara good evening mayor and members of council Aaron Poe Deputy City attorney for this segment of the presentation I will be covering Charter Review Committee recommendations and bringing forward an issue for discussion next slide please the charter Review Committee recommends changes to Charter Provisions 27 37 39 46 and 57. the goal of these changes is to remove a requirement for in-person signatures in support of mayoral or city council candidates to provide the city clerk five additional days to process petitions this would be done by increasing the number of days to process from 10 to 15 and changing the deadline to submit petition signatures from 150 days before the election to 155 days before the election

[122:00] And thirdly to clarify language providing that state law governs amendments to the Chip city Charter and I'll pause there to see if council members Yates or Benjamin would like to add anything to those recommendations thank you next slide please the charter Review Committee considered other recommendations brought by community members but those are not recommended this election cycle these are proportional representation and modifying the initiative and referendum process regarding the number of signatures required and again I'll pause to see if our council members would like to add anything to this slide all right thank you next slide please so for this segment these are our questions for Council uh do you agree with the recommendations of the city council Charter Review Committee does the council have Direction regarding polling on Charter Review Committee recommendations and or should staff

[123:00] draft ordinances with proposed ballot language for the charter Review Committee recommended ballot measures you ready for us to dig into this you bet okay let's take them one at a time um I guess maybe we can do uh show of of hands for question one a straw poll first um does who who oh they disappeared okay do you agree with the recommendation of the city council Charter Review Committee who who agrees great does anyone have questions on on that one I guess I I didn't give us questions first awesome any other questions you want to ask before we dig into two and three two does the council have Direction regarding polling on any of the charter Review Committee recommended ballot

[124:01] measures Aaron I think I see your hand okay so just keep yourself with a potential position of new need to pull on these because they don't seem kind of controversial enough to require a poll so I'll put that out as a recommendation anyone have a counter recommendation can I see a show of hands for who likes Aaron's recommendation I think I see all hands great anything else anyone wants to say on number two Aaron you have what you need on that one oh Nicole I was just gonna ask staff to you you don't have a different recommendation from that do you there's nothing we're missing okay thank you no all right number three should staff draft ordinances with proposed ballot language for the charter Review Committee recommended ballot measures any anyone want to comment on that first otherwise we're already seeing thumbs up okay show hands yes to draft the ordinances

[125:00] Mark Wallach you look a little skeptical but I'm counting you okay um thanks any questions on those three that is this go uh back to back to Aaron goes back to me yes thank you very much okay and for the next segment of the presentation the charter Review Committee has flagged an issue of council compensation for discussion uh Council compensation in 2022 was 12 695 annually an increase in compensation would recognize the escalating workload and increased complexity of council work the time commitment for Council work may be a barrier to service an increasing compensation may enable more people to afford to serve Fort Collins enacted Council compensation based on the area median income in 2022 is shown on this slide and I'll pause to turn to council members Yates and Benjamin to provide additional information and the next

[126:00] slide has questions for Council to consider thanks Aaron and I are leaving this up man has something to to present to council a little later in the presentation so I'll take this one on with Matt's assistance so as Aaron mentioned Fort Collins last year um pretty quickly actually um did a compensation change they were right around the same level we were around 11 or 12 000 a year we had a study session last April um uh similar to what we're talking about tonight and their Council said let's go forward and and tip a ballot measure which they did in November you see the numbers there on the slide between 50 and 75 of the area median income and that was approved by the voters in Fort Collins in November with a 62 positive vote and actually went into effect January 1 so they did pretty darn quick um the charter committee is not necessarily recommending that here for this year or or at any point in time we just wanted to call to your attention the fact that at least one of our neighboring impure cities has made a

[127:01] pretty significant change in their um competition for Council Members just by web comparison if you did the math um the 12 000 or so that our Council gets paid is roughly uh 15 of the area immediate income for a single person uh so far Collins is running about three to five times higher than that um we have not done a comparative study of other cities other than just some anecdotal examinations uh Matt and Mark did host a kind of a gathering of some former council members last week uh just to get a sense from them about what they thought about a potential compensation change there have been three attempts at compensation changes um uh before the voters this would require a charter Amendment uh over the last 20 years there's been three attempts all of those have been voted down there's been some modest changes like health insurance and the method of payments but the voters have consistently not approved pay increases in Boulder the um oh half dozen to a

[128:02] dozen former council members that Mark and Matt posted last week um had um uh Divergent opinions about um whether there should be a compensation change that ran anywhere from no change to potentially a slight change to potentially a change similar to what Fort Collins did to even I think one former council member recommended going to 100 of Ami so um and Matt did a good job of summarizing those various opinions in a hot line that he did a day or two ago and uh and so this is really just kind of a touch in we haven't really spent a whole lot of Staff time on this this is not really something that uh was highlighted as a priority at the council retreat but something that that Matt and I have as Charter committee have been working a little bit on and I guess what we're just looking for some direction from Council tonight this is kind of a green yellow red which is um you know Green is if there was enthusiasm by a majority on Council to to try to put

[129:01] something on the 2023 ballot uh we could certainly uh uh burst in the flames and and work on that a very hard and very quickly over the next couple of months with the assistance of staff and bring something back to Council in June and July we'd need some direction about what Ami levels you'd be seeking and undoubtedly we want to do some polling uh in parallel with pulling the staff it's going to do on some other ballot measures that'd be kind of the green approach the the orange approach would be yeah this sounds kind of interesting probably not enough time to do something this year or maybe politically it's not a good year to do it this year but keep working on a charter committee and let's talk about it later this year or or or or maybe take some recommendations to uh to the next Council retreat in January for a possible 2024 ballot measure and then red would be no um thanks for looking into this Matt and Bob but um this doesn't look like it's something we want to do at this time and

[130:00] the next Council can decide if they want to pick it up or not so that's the direction that Matt and I are really seeking from you is like so we've just done a little bit of work we want to know if you want us to keep working on it you want us to stop working on it um again we haven't used much staff time we would need a nod of five or or or some sort of council um indication if we want to engage staff in this more over the next few months so I'll pause there Matt is there anything on that one that I've left out no Bob you summarized that uh quite well and you know assuming people read the hotline and got and listened to your summary I think there's everything's there for everyone to kind of Dive In okay thanks oh go ahead no just gonna turn back to you to Rachel and just maybe we'll see if we can get some discussion going all right so um in a minute we can ask like I think that the questions that are up or not really we're not answering all three it's it's one you know we'll take a vote on Who wants one two or three so it's do we want to look at it this year next year or not at all as I understand it but um first does anyone have questions Tara do

[131:02] you have a question in included in this are we going to discuss another option would being to lessen some of the workloads so those of us that want to continue to work either full or part-time can do that because once you say okay well let's increase it to 43 000 are you saying that we should quit our jobs because this will now be our full-time job so I don't I don't know what's the best thing but I feel like that should be part of the discussion um there might be some simple things that we can do to lessen the workload so that we can keep things the way they are slightly increase them um but also so we can keep our jobs because some of us have worked for very long time with our careers and you know to just for two to six years or whatever to throw it out is seems like a a big deal as well so I'm just throwing that out there for a discussion point I'm not sure if we aren't going to talk about it or not is that um I just want to clarify

[132:02] do you have a question that you'd like staff to answer on that no I have a question I want the committee the charter committee to answer would you like us to answer that term yes I would oh uh I mean I can take it Bob unless you want to yeah I think I think it's a good on discussion Tara I think um I think it's important to to identify the fact that this is not um about uh what effective hourly rate um council members get paid in other words obviously if you reduce the hours hourly rate would go up I think it's fine to have a discussion at some point in time about workloads and Council efficiency and you know whether we serve on too many committees and so on so forth I think that's all a fine discussion I think the reason Matt and I teed this up however was a little different it was really about Equity it was really about are we paying um council members future council members a sufficiently high wage so that they could consider running

[133:01] for Council and Serbian on Council um if they had um day jobs they had children to raise and so on and so forth so this was less about how much we work which is a fine discussion to have at some point and more about are we paying um a a wage or stipend that's high enough that um people in our community who are not represented by the nine of us you know are who we are um might consider running for for Council so I think that's really what we're we're shooting for here Matt any add on to that no I mean not necessarily I think the only thing I wouldn't necessarily is is it just it the attempt is to eliminate economics as a barrier to entry to serve our community in the capacity we're fortunate enough to do so in um and letting it be not about your economic status but being about a a competition of ideas and values and letting it be squarely in that Arena and

[134:02] not what economic class you are were or currently or aspire to be in um and just removing that from the calculus um is is really the core of this and to tear your point the the idea on the other side of the equation is something we should absolutely discuss I will say that I've watched Council toy with that idea of reducing and modifying workload and it kind of just becomes an exercise of futility um so happy to talk about it again but I I maybe defer to our more longer tenured council members like Aaron and Bob and Rachel and Mark and Juni as to uh where that has transpired in the past is a lesson for the future thanks Bob and Matt [Music] get discussion if you'd like to but I'm going to see if Nicole and Lauren have hands up for questions so Nicole yours thank you just questions right no comments yet okay um do we have a plan to get feedback from people who couldn't run for Council because of the lack of pay I know we talk to folks who did and were able to

[135:01] that's a great Point Nicole I think that would be part of the community engagement if if council tonight gives us either green or orange light that is you want to put try to put something about this year or at least tee things up for over 2024 ballot absolutely that's a that's a cohort we'd want to sit down and understand things from but we have not done that yet okay and I I think this this may be a question for staff do we have time to run this through the racial Equity tool you know get feedback from connectors um do some of that kind of stuff in the next month or two I'm not sure that I'm the one who can answer that um so I guess I might look to Nuria about stats capacity I'll say that um I myself have not been engaged in that conversation and happy to Circle back and let Council know because I do not know what that would look like in terms of Staff capacity to do that type of Engagement so we can certainly get back to council about it

[136:00] clarifying of Nicole's question but you're monitoring so you uh oh I was just going to call okay go ahead I'll I'll do that after so my clarifying no question for you Nicole is certainly you know the time crunch of the next couple months is on the Assumption we'd want to put it on the ballot in 2023 if the and so it's a different thing if we want to do it in 2024 we got some Runway and so I'm just sort of uh curious if there's a qualifier in in how we would achieve that in terms of how staff would thus then respond if we've got two months versus a little bit longer to make sure we have a little bit more of a deeper engagement because I I think like all of us we don't want to uh do the engagement in such a limited and light fashion that we actually don't get the input that we're actually is Meaningful so I just want to just put that outfit that two tracks would maybe dictate what we can and can't do so I just throwing that back yeah and I think that's that's where my question was coming from right do we have enough time in a month or two to do the kind of meaningful engagement that we would want to do given the

[137:00] groups that you know we're trying to make this um apply to so you know for me it's kind of a question that does impact the feedback that I have you know about how we move forward tonight real quick to staff it is will anybody be running for counseling 2024 like is there any reason to do this this you know this year so that people you know usually we make it so that you get uh it's only the next incoming class who's who who reaps the benefits of something that we promote to the ballot so we wouldn't have our own salaries raised it would be the next people elected so is there any reason to do it this year time wise in terms of having it done before the next group cohort would run for Council when is the next Council and mayor election after this year 2025 is the next Council election 2026 would be the next mayoral election um so but maybe I can answer qualifier because I think that maybe gets to some of the commentary or motives of what

[138:02] maybe where the recommendations are that that's but but I think it's a fair point you bring up Rachel um about that because one of the reasons why we would consider moving it into 2024 is to not create that awkward conflict in a council election year where you've got council members running and then weighing in on whether or not they want to pay themselves more money and so we just sort of stripped that awkwardness out of the formula and just put it in a year where there's nobody running for any seat and and let it be unto itself so that that's a reason perhaps to choose that that 2024 option as well as an even year which many of us just uh weighed in a lot about Mark Wallach another question yeah I've got one more and and this is just a question about whether we have an identified funding source for any you know we kind of just went through our projections for next year um we don't really have you know seem to have enough to find the things we're interested so it is this something that would just kind of I guess if we were to make a decision about trying to put something on for

[139:01] this year what does that mean in terms of budgeting so it is not identified it would be funded through the general fund and then it would largely be cost allocated to other dedicated funds as do Council costs now thank you bet it Nicole I was now trying to get past you quickly there sorry about that uh Mark is up with the questions and then if you want to put your hands up for uh comments go ahead and um is there and in light of the um uh track record that we have in this community of uh having raises turned down um is there anything that prevents us from doing it in 2024 but doing the polling this year to see if it's even a viable concept to proceed on I mean it would seem to me I'd like to know are we like Fort Collins

[140:00] or do we have a different electorate with a different set of preferences that would make this very problematic so I guess I'm saying is there any reason we couldn't we couldn't pull to see the viability of the concept among amongst the community is that uh Aaron sure Cara anuria well I was just going to say we have we are posing questions on whether you'd like us to bowl on certain things so certainly if that is something you'd like us to pull this year we could do that there's nothing that stops us from doing that can I colloquy on that absolutely um so when when we do polling are we just pulling likely voters for this year because we know there's a difference in turnout and even an odd year so I'm not sure if polling this year would kind of help us think about what what the landscape may look like next year to colloquai is there a way to to

[141:00] structure a pulse so it's not just uh off add your electorate and people I don't know how that's I guess I would just weigh in that that's something that we would ask of whomever we would hire as our um polling experts um but that's something we could ask that stuff can I just uh add a little comment to Nicole's point about just sort of the the diff the electorate neck but this year versus next year the other the other thing to consider in this is there will be a new Council and so to what extent not knowing what the makeup of that is or where that support lies for for something like this the question I have is you know really do we want to do we want to put a nice bow around a package before we get to you know uh next year so that it's just sort of ready to go when we go to our Retreat and we don't have to do any more work on it it's just kind of like Signed Sealed Delivered we could throw it on the ballot or do we

[142:00] want to still want to leave some meat on the bone for us to work through um during that Council so it's just kind of where do you want to put the backstop and then work backwards from there based on completion because you can run this all the way through June of 2024 if we wanted to work for another year on this but it's just more that's a question for everybody to kind of answer where do we want to be sort of done and be ready I think Mark Wallach we are still on your questions if you had any more that's all I had thank you plus did you great okay so in a minute I will do a straw polls for one two or three do we want to do it this year next year not at all um but if you have food for thought discussion first Laura and Lauren no I have one more question if I can oh sorry yeah okay but real quick when was the last year that a measure was put on the ballot to increase Council pay Sarah my recollection was 2015 I think there was a ten thousand dollar increase effectively went from 10 to 20 and that was voted down and I'm gonna do this from memory the lawyers could probably look it up but I think it was 43 yes it was 2015. remember making polls about

[143:01] that one yes it's been a little while but that's all I wanted to establish okay great thanks for reminding us of that spanking Aaron Lauren you're up um I guess I thought Tara brought up a great point of sort of like the there is a lot of different dimensions to equitability and being able to like financially make this work um you know I I do have personal concerns of I like that a lot of us do other work outside of council I think that it makes um that we have diverse backgrounds in that way um adds to the conversation that we have and so one of the things that I would like to see is as we do Outreach and um reach out and you know have conversations with the community connectors and

[144:01] all of that that I do think it's important to look at more than just the pay itself and to think about um you know how would that compare to having staffs you know a higher level of Staff support and how would that cost compared to like paying council members more on the financial side like I think there are a variety of different trade-offs that we could be making including as Tara mentioned you know how many committees and things that we are expected to sign up for but just to make sure that this is a really well-rounded conversation around what the commitment level is along with what the compensation would be that's my thoughts um good thoughts so I'll share just a couple things I was you know I I don't

[145:00] know how we compare to Fort Collins or others in terms of the the volume of City councilors we have so there are nine of us which is a lot I feel like for a our size town and so you know if we're it would just hit our budget I think a little harder to have as many of us being paid high so just wanted hope that we can get some more information on just the the volume of of people receiving pay increases and make sure that we're you know kind of daylighting that to the community I also um I don't know if the mayor in Pro tem in Fort Collins do the same job as the mayor in Pro tem here um having done pro tem there's no way I would say that's a ten thousand dollar a year um additional uh job Duty I mean and it's like a you know it's internally picked so we would pick somebody to get that uh wage increase and uh the you know under our Charter the mayor really doesn't have a different um level of job expectation than City Council Members we're all equal we vote

[146:00] equally you know there is the uh um the attending Monday morning meetings um but you know I think you know my reading of the charter is that you know every every ninth thing that comes into the mayor sort of you know should come to me as like you know to sort of be shared out equally to council members so I don't I don't think that that should be um a terribly disparate wage either so um I don't know how to capture that but uh just in that that was one of the ideas presented I think that um under the the job duties of our Charter I would say everybody should get the same salary um for Boulder I don't know how that would be for other cities so those are my two thoughts um Nicole and then Tara and then maybe we'll strap hold awesome thank you um yeah just had a couple of things so I brought this up as a potential work plan priority back in um our first retreat in 2022. but I even I as somebody who really was eager for

[147:00] this I need a lot more information um before I feel ready to try to put this on the ballot um especially getting information from people who can't afford to be in this position without a living wage and I just don't know that this I mean this is really important and and I don't know that we could or should rush to get it done for this year um I would really love to see us explore this issue a little bit um as you know we have time and and staff have time um and you know maybe thinking about the idea of stipends just for people who can't afford to work 20 or 30 hours a week for twelve thousand dollars a year um you know maybe maybe we're looking at income thresholds or just some some different ways that we could think about this and I expect the people who can't afford to be here have a lot of really good ideas about how we could do that uh really Rachel agree with you um completely I don't love the idea of different income levels for different positions because we really are intended to be quite equal in our job duties um one of the things that when I brought

[148:00] this up in 2022 I was also really interested in the idea of boards and commissions um and them being paid because they are almost completely unpaid whereas we at least get a little bit they many of them get nothing and so you know I'm wondering too as we're having this discussion and maybe this is something that our boards and commissions committee could think about are there you know ways that we could think about stipends for some board and commission members because that may be kind of a lower um lower threshold way to start doing some of this see how it works see what kinds of folks could really benefit from this so I think that would be an interesting thing to look at as well and then I just want to third this idea um Tara that you had about having a working group or something to think about how we can decrease the amount of time that's required for the work by making our work more efficient um for example it's not clear to me that we need 1600 page packets every week and some of the lengths of you know all this information I expect that it may not just be council

[149:01] members who would appreciate that we may get some Kudos from staff too in that so I would really love to think about that because for me that also relates to this idea of you know who can be here how much time we're spending on this work and how we can make it more accessible to others in our community but um Matt and Bob thank you for for looking into this you know initially and thinking about it and kicking off this conversation really appreciate that can I call it Nicole's last just comment just because there's um the uh former council members we met with with their wealth of experience and knowledge they also provided a list of what would what would be those process and good governance improvements I didn't include that in the hotline because that really wasn't core to compensation but that's a wealth of knowledge that we can lean on when we do want to embark on that conversation so I'm just so a couple things you mentioned Nicole were what former council members had actually flagged so you know that's a well those are well-known variables so I just want to

[150:00] throw out there that they've already sort of provided a a basis from which to catalyze that conversation more unpaid work from the former council members they're gonna love it Tara and then Aaron and then Mark thanks uh Lauren for saying that you agreed with me and whoever else did the thing that I want to bring up further and then I'll leave it be is when I ask I ask a lot of people why do you run for City councils sometimes they complain they don't like you know my answers on city council and they say well why don't you run but sometimes I really mean it and most of the time for women it is they cannot take they don't have that time they have their kids they have their job they have you know a lot of things that they're doing so I feel like in our community engagement asking you know I'm not saying mental juggle as well so forgive me for that all the men who juggle but maybe asking the person that like takes care of the kids it's hard to get people with little kids on Council or I mean how in the

[151:03] world do they do it uh because of the time so to me I think time is important as just as important in some sense because if you think about it if we only do like 40 Let's see we do half the Ami you can't live in Boulder on half the amount so or what do we still mostly have to keep our jobs so I don't I don't think it's an easy answer but I I think it's pretty complicated but I think we have to add to the community engagement you know asking people why it is that they cannot conceive themselves running for counseling and one might be because of the get a lot of mean emails okay that might be but besides that it I think time has got to be a component um for equity and for people specifically that work and have kids as well thanks Tara Aaron and Mark yeah and agreed uh

[152:01] the time Equity needs to be I think the piece of this conversation and so that's an ongoing one that we can have about how to make this a more manageable role but I do I do appreciate you all bringing this forward I do think it's worth exploring I mean think about members of the community for whom you know the they do have a job um they were not going to quit their job to run for Council but for whom it's a real stretch and you know this could cover costs incidental to you know Child Care needing to you know get a little bit more restaurant food because you're busier things like that I think it can make it more doable for members some members of our community I do agree though that we need Outreach to talk to people who might be in that situation to to learn more and not not just assume so um I'm gonna go for that middle uh realm of um starting to look into it but um but not trying to go for it this year and doing some additional Outreach I think that's a good way to go and then I'll just say yeah the mayor doesn't necessarily need to get paid anymore that's totally fine uh it it does take

[153:01] more time I just want one to put that out there uh there the number of additional emails and phone calls and meetings and things like that um my my time commitment jumped up about 25 30 after I assumed that role uh so it's it's substantial but you know it doesn't have to be paid I just want to get that out there thanks Aaron Mark oh sorry I didn't mean to cut you off Erin are you done okay Mark uh yeah I I think Nicole um hit on it um uh we need more information it's a complicated issue the solution may be some combination of increased compensation different work conditions um uh shorter hours that sort of thing and we ought to be looking at all of that um uh and um I think Rachel I I think Aaron is correct that the mayor's position is um uh more demanding and probably

[154:02] warrants some differentiation and compensation um but if we do have that differentiation I hope it will also apply uh to the mayor Pro tem and be retroactive to 2023. um but with that you know um uh I'm J I actually agree with Rachel in principle um uh with respect to the mayor Pro tem position um but I think the mayor does a lot more than we do but I just wanted to ask a kind of a jurisdictional question um because it sounds like they're and we'll do a straw call sounds like in a second but it sounds like there's a there's a consensus forming around uh doing some more work this year with with the possibility with the possibility of handing off that that research to the next Council and they can consider whether to put this in the 2024 ballot but I'm also hearing a lot of a desire to not only do more work as Nicole

[155:02] suggested on talking to people about who may not have run for Council about how compensation may have affected them but also a desire by council members to talk about a workload and Council efficiency Matt and I took our our job as the charter committee pretty seriously in that um like a change and pay for account for Council is a charter amendment that would have to go to the the voters um how to reduce Council time and make Council more efficient seem to want to be a little outside of the boundaries of Charter committee that's not to say that that that job couldn't be tasked to the Charter committee uh even though it's not truly a charter change but I just wanted to kind of tee that up that we don't really have a place for kind of council efficiency um or or improvements in time within our current structure unless you wanted to test the charter committee with that that job as well thanks for pointing that out can I just let me just throw a qualifier if I can on that Rachel if you don't mind one of the things that came through the some of

[156:01] the former council members weighed in was the idea of bringing in an outside consultant to help us really look at our process um because we're we can't it's hard for us to see the forest for the trees really and um so you know just that that was something that came from them and their acknowledgment of when you're in it it's hard to really wrap your head around what you are and aren't doing from an efficiency perspective so uh throwing that up that if we embark on that that might be something that we want to consider to kind of do that full 360 review and more or less in that capacity did you have something to add to that uh yes and I I think it's along those lines I mean I um I don't want to presume the straw poll but I am hearing a desire to continue to work on it perhaps not for this year's elections but for the next and and I want to say that what I'm hearing too is this um this notion of how did that dovetail a little bit with boards and commissions and wanted to mention we do have a consultant that is looking at all these things as well that RFP uh response is due on the 17th of this month so next

[157:00] week um and I think that there are similarities as we're thinking about uh compensation for a variety of efforts and there might be an opportunity uh if there is a nod to move forward for us to develop this as a work plan item to look at some of those places where this topic intersects because I do think that it it certainly does and then I just want to mention that staff too would love to have smaller packets and look at efficiencies on our end so just throwing that out there thank you for that um I'm gonna uh double dip a little bit with my comments and then we'll do the straw poll so I I agree with Tara and wanted to point out that my recollection is that at the 2020 Retreat we did there was um a commitment to shrink the packets so I don't know what happened with that but obviously they didn't shrink so maybe um somebody on staff could look back and see uh what what we agreed to then and maybe we could just Implement that and that would solve some of this um I I think I don't think there's

[158:00] anybody who wants to do it this year but just I I think it's probably better in an even year and I don't think there's a rush because no it doesn't there's there's just no no timely reason to do it fast so I don't know why I don't know why we vote for option one and just in some of the feedback that we got in Matt's hotline I think somebody said like we're not we're not politicians like we're not full-time you know political people we have you know we and and Lauren pointed out too I think like we do like having people with day jobs and not being this isn't your life's work um so I I think that that would possibly change and and if we were full-time paid or or paid you know if the community saw us as you know tripling our pay and and you know maybe somehow being um I don't know more the expectations would go up and I think they are already high and somebody made that you know a former council member made that point and uh you know it's it's um I I don't know if that if the trade-off

[159:01] would even be worth it for a lot of people to have like the the toxicity towards us get worse um so on the other hand like I I went and picked up some some beer to have after this meeting and I was thinking like you know this this barely pays for the beer like the meeting barely pays for the beer I need after the meeting because it's a terrible wage that we get so it you know it should be raised and and okay so let's do our straw poll who would like to move forward um with this to get it on the 2023 ballot if I see any hands does anybody just not want to touch it option three anybody is this dead to anyone show of hands for 2024 consider you know just do more research and possibly Tee It Up for 2024. I think that's everyone um does anyone need more Direction on what we're teeing up

[160:02] right and it sort of goes back to Bob's question is the will of council to send the fair pay for Council conversation back to the Charter committee for us to then work with staff to move forward and does this so that's the first question the second is we're not including any of the sort of good governance and efficiencies in this that's that's a separate thing to flag and lift up at a different time I just want to be clear for Bob and I's efforts that's my understanding does anyone think otherwise does anybody want the chartered committee to run with the uh Tara you do because I'm worried it's gonna just kick the can down the road for a very long time yeah to 2023. um okay Lauren I don't want to I I just I'm worried that you know by the time we work on this time part the time crunch part of it it'll be years and I just don't want that to happen for other council members that come up I think um

[161:00] colloquy on that and then I'll come to you Lauren um I think maybe Nicole mentioned boards and commissions might be a good committee to this this conversation with just as oversight but Lauren what's your question or thought well I mean I'm just thinking if we're trying to do Outreach to you know people who weren't don't feel like they're financially able to run for Council now I do think that having a more broad conversation about what that means is important to finding a solution that makes it actually work for people so I guess I'm saying that I would like the Outreach or the move the whatever goes forward to include that conversation Nicole and Bob yeah one of the things I'm just working at uh thinking about because I mean these do kind of tie together right essentially what we're talking about is how do we make being on Council a slightly easier left for everybody who's here um as well as the people who are not yet

[162:00] here and I'm wondering about um Tara so you're probably not going to like this because you just sent out a hotline but what about you know a working group or something that could kind of hold all of this together because they are really interrelated right this idea of what we're paying this idea of you know how much work we're we're having to do efficiency is something that's all kind of tied together in how we're making Council more accessible to a broader swath of people in our community so I'm loading that idea even though Tara I know you just uh we're just talking about how we have too many committees and things my problem is I keep saying I want to be on the nest committee but that's a whole nother story Bob yeah I agree with Lauren and Nicole I think these are related and it it doesn't matter to me who who you tasked this to if you want to test the charter committee both both the question of compensation and the question of workload and efficiency or if you want

[163:00] to create a working group or something like that it doesn't matter to me who does it but I do think that Laura Nicole or right these are intertwined and I would hate to have two different groups working on each side of the equation so I wonder if we could um ask staff to come up with the direction and like a work plan and and bring it back and maybe you know start with running it by a charter Committee in that they're going to have at least a piece of it and then bring it back to us and then I see Matt's got to stand up now too we'd be happy to scope a work plan and work with the committee the subcommittee to make sure that we have captured that certainly thanks my only quite my only question or concern is the the fair pay stuff is pretty Narrow Lane uh there's some Outreach but we kind of already you know we kind of have that we kind of have the bull by the horns more or less the whole the efficiencies and good governance is is a beast and I'm only

[164:01] worried that once we open Pandora's Box it becomes such a significant work item that we're gonna have to start taking other things off for staff to be able to really really dive in so I just want to just recognize that adding that could potentially really have some other impacts with regards to work because it is when you hear from former council members all the different tentacles it becomes uh really large unto itself so I I just want to put that out there nurio and staff scope said is that you would bring that back to us and let us know if there's something that I have to drop off to make this happen absolutely and and what I'll say is that if it is um the will of counsel we are happy to do that with um council members Benjamin and Yates just to make sure that we too are hearing sort of what they heard as part of that huge conversation so if we have to uh scope it broader narrow or phase it that we're making sure that we're bringing you a holistic sense of what that would take and and I think we're getting the sense

[165:01] of council is really interested in a variety of things we'll also be able to sort of think about what that is looking at as we're also doing the boards of commission to work as well because we certainly heard that too thanks Aaron and Bob yeah Mary that sounds like a great approach and of course keeping in mind that we're looking towards 2024 when you say phasing that that may we may well be the way to handle it rather than taking other things off the work plan and just let it take a while thanks Bob I was just gonna make a process suggestion I love what Nuria said and um we do have a placeholder on our June 22nd calendar to talk more about ballot measures um and so perhaps I'm going to suggest that if Maria thinks that that staff might be able to scope this a little bit and we could we could squeeze in one or two Charter committee meetings later in May and early June we can at least come back to Council on the 22nd of June kind of have a little bit of a scoping discussion and then Council can have a conversation about whether this both sides of this equation want to be you

[166:01] want to task it to the Charter committee you want to have a working group it doesn't really matter to me but we could we could at least keep keep the momentum going and come back on June 22nd with least some preliminary thoughts areas that work from the staff side I think it certainly does we can do that I am I am not certain and we'll talk to staff that we actually have the ability to do the engagement enough of this year in the depth that you all have um indicated that you would like but certainly wanna move forward want to be able to scope that appropriately and certainly there can be time in June to say whether or not that is correct or whether or not there's a difference of opinion so I'm happy to work if you want no engagement prior to June 22nd but scoping and getting it yeah turn it around okay I show of hands for all that are fine with that approach of Staff scoping coming back June 22nd awesome we're we're calling this one cooked uh who's this going back to Aaron Cara

[167:00] Nuria I think it goes to Cara now thank you all thanks Aaron and thanks Bob and Matt for all your work on that and uh guiding us through that presentation too thank you so the next um item on the agenda is that a staff recommendations with regard to the expiring .15 sales and use tax next slide so as we frame this up we just want to remind Council uh the current total sales and use tax rate for the city is 3.86 percent and more than half of that is uh dedicated for other purposes uh specifically so the general fund portion is just that 1.79 so the expiring 0.15 is part of that 1.79 percent next slide uh this as we have said in the prior agenda item and this it expires at the end of 2024. it was last approved by voters in November of 20 or 2003 so it

[168:04] was approved for a 20-year term it was approved for general purposes but we did want to highlight how that was described in the ballot measure to fund fire police Human Services Library Services Arts and Cultural programs parks and then the other general fund services that gave it that unrestricted use it does generate 7.2 or expected to generate 7.25 million in 2024 the figure that Mark shared in the last presentation of 7.5 million is what would be anticipated in the first year that it would have expired which is 2025 so next slide and as we have I think shared we feel quite strongly that this is critical general fund Revenue Source it supports General activities and that if it was not renewed or dedicated to a specific purpose it would create a budget Gap

[169:00] potentially necessitating cuts to programs and the related Staffing we think it's really important to have this discussion one year ahead of expiration it gives us opportunity to hear from uh voters and through polling so we do have quite a bit of recommendation on the next slide with regard to polling and we would recommend an item be placed on this year's ballot that gives us another opportunity next year should we need it um so next slide so with regard to polling um we would recommend a staff a long-term extension of an undedicated tax again we would recommend a non-exclusive list of uses but to include a list as was done in 2003 we would recommend that polling could possibly test a couple different iterations of lists of uses and we would recommend Consulting again with the polling expert with regard to that

[170:00] we would recommend polling different lengths of time we would recommend a minimum of 20 years as that was the length of time that was approved last time but potentially maybe 20 30 or a permanent tax and just want to highlight that Boulder County does have recent success with a permanent tax so that could be an option um we also just anytime a tax expires want to raise the option of is the amount that is expiring the amount that we want to ask to renew or should we consider an additional amount so just want to raise that up to council we again would say undedicated but um with regard to the overall sales tax rate we are currently pretty much at the top of the region the rate is actually now above nine percent the total rate um because of the County's increase in

[171:01] their sales tax rate that was effective the first of this year there are um not many counties on or regions on the Front Range that are above nine percent there are some Mountain communities that have gone beyond 10 but but for the most part we feel like 10 is sort of the perceived limit and we're quite close to that already we also have concerns with regard to sales tax and it was mentioned in the earlier presentation um we we think we are out of balance with regard to sales tax um and other Revenue sources particularly property tax um so it's not something we would necessarily recommend is to increase our sales tax rate and there's Equity considerations because it is a more aggressive tax but just wanted to put that out there as an option and then we also wanted to share another option as you know it has been recommended um beginning with the blue ribbon commission to try to rebalance our

[172:01] Revenue sources uh particularly between sales tax and property tax that there we could pull and hear voter sentiment with regard to the idea of converting the 0.15 sales tax to an equivalent property tax over time maybe a small increment over a long period of time that would uh result in homeowners feeling a small impact each time it shift it shifted and we do think that would address some of that rebalancing in the equity and financial sustainability issues but we also do recognize that this is sort of a challenging time to be potentially asking um voters about that with the property tax assessments that were recently released and and the uncertainty with regard to their property tax bills but wanted to raise that as an option and the next slide I think is our

[173:01] questions and so they are um do you agree with the recommendation to explore a 2023 ballot measure um do you have Direction regarding polling particularly with regard to the amount of the tax the length of the term the listed uses and the potential transition over time to a property tax and then lastly of course uh and or should staff start drafting any ordinances the computer booted me a little bit through part of it so um if I if I disappear again or if I'm really glitchy somebody else should just uh take the reins I guess um and everybody is a little bit can you all hear me great good okay so any questions for Staff first I'm not seeing any oh good Lauren

[174:01] what would be the next tax that would expire like that it funds our general fund I might ask a mark to jump on this I don't believe we have a general fund expiring for do you know that Mark yeah I think that the next one is um it's an expiring well it's a transportation dedicated tax that converts to general fund in 2029 that's the net that's the next one that um has a voter action on it and so that voter action would be in 2029 if we were to change it so the voters have already acted for the that portion of the transportation tax for it to convert to a general fund tax in in 2029. general purpose general fund tax expiring

[175:01] um I think the next expiration of attacks that I I consider sort of general purpose is the ccrs tax and that was approved for a 15-year term so that would be off in the future but that is for general purpose uh and capital okay thank you that was it thanks Lauren I'm gonna leave my camera off because it is really glitchy over here um any other questions okay let's go through the staff questions oh Bob foreign questions great fire away um uh yes Carl all great questions and I agree um that we should pull I think your polling questions are right um particularly the iteration one iteration of uses because um as we're going to talk about here in a few minutes um we may have a competing ballot measure on that would dedicate this tax it would take it away from a general fund and dedicate the tax so I

[176:00] think it'd be helpful for us to understand what the community thinks about various uses including that particular use um because obviously that use pulls very highly that could have some impact on the competition between our general fund ballot measure and the potential dedicated um which we're going to talk about in a second um I do think it'd be helpful to talk to the voters or pull the voters on the difference between a send setting tax versus a permanent tax I think uh whoever said Center City Council in 2020 2043 will thank us for that um will not be around by then um but um so let's maybe pull on that um I I as much as I would love to have a conversation with the community about shifting from sales tax or property tax for all the reasons you said I'm not sure this is the right time to do that I think people are oddly understandably about property tax assessments and increases and I I'm afraid that a tax ballot measure that proposes to shift from sales tax to

[177:01] property taxes as wise it may be for a whole bunch of reasons including making our taxes less regressive I think has a risk of failure so I probably we can pull on it if you want but I probably wouldn't be in favor of of Shifting that now I think Lauren asks the absolutely right question which is when's our next opportunity to do that it sounds like it's a long long time from now so that may be a conversation we have with the community separate from a tax renewal so I think you're on the right track and and I support the polling that you suggest thanks Bob Nicole thanks um I just get the questions up um yes definitely I agree with the recommendation um to ask voters to really want to extend the tax regarding polling um I I think I think you're on the right track um the the only thing I'm just wondering about is is this an opportunity for us to get some information on um a general strategy of moving away from a dedicated tax or from dedicated taxes to more

[178:03] General taxes and I think it may just you know even though we're not necessarily starting those conversations as Council right now I think having some baseline data and trying to understand you know where where some of the obstacles may be in that would be a good thing for future councils to have um the other thing that that I would like to see is I would like to see some polling data on the property converting to property tax not necessarily because we're going to do that this year um but because I think there again it's a useful Baseline for thinking about where we're at um thinking about you know what hesitations may be um because I you know I definitely hear you all very much and you know we saw the impacts of being so heavily sales tax during uh covid and um I think it's important that we just start collecting information so we can move forward and and help future councils make those tough decisions thanks Aaron and Lauren

[179:01] yeah I'll generally agree with what Bob and Nicole have just said I'll just highlight a couple of the points one is to be very interested in the polling on the non-sun sitting tax because I think that would be great to do if the voters are supportive of not sunsetting it and then um you know I think it wouldn't hurt to find out from the voters about switching to property taxes I agree with Bob I don't think that this is the year to do that but I think we could actually if we get this on the ballot and it is it is extended I believe any other year we could put on a measure to Trend to convert it to a property tax right that could be next year the year after the year after that so getting a little bit of a sense of the the voters possible interest in that would be useful even if we might not come back to it for a while thanks Aaron Lauren you stole my idea Aaron no I'm just kidding but that was gonna be what I

[180:00] um I was gonna say yeah basically in line with what everyone else has said and yeah I think that in the long range we should look at trying to transition to Less sales tax um and was thinking about but I don't know if we need to pull on it now or not but because again I think that it would be in poor taste to do that right now but um in the future we should definitely look at some invalid initiatives to try and transition some of our sales tax funding to property tax thanks um anyone else wanna weigh in on the three questions that are being asked I will say I generally agree um with everything that's been said and um yeah I think polling right now might might be a little raw and and produce um you know answers that that might not be

[181:02] long-term accurate because uh I think that there's a a lot going on right now with with uh property taxes so I might I might hold off on that um Tara not only did we have the the uh assessed value of houses but we also don't forget have that Library uh the library tax or whatever we call it so what I'm sorry what's the word Matt give me the word the library district thank you that's great was not on purpose I promise couldn't find my words but I don't I I realized that sales tax is somewhat regressive but also we do get our visitors to pay that and so um I don't I don't know that it's that bad of an idea I think people might be really overwhelmed for many years with

[182:00] property taxes I just uh I I do like the idea that we do get a lot of tourists and they come and they spend money and so they help us by paying sales tax so I don't think it's all bad that's all I have to say sorry Matt thanks Tara um Cara any any did we answer that sufficiently do you need me to do any straw polls or anything else or to get what you need I think we got what we need I think we're going to um certainly ask um long-term versus permanent we'll talk with the consultant about their advice potentially with regard to the property to the shift to the property taxes I think that's sort of in the maybe column um given the call given the conversation um and uh definitely we'll test on the iteration of uses um and I think that that's what I heard sounds good to me everyone is now Frozen

[183:01] other than Cara for me so um my internet's down I'm I'm going off of my phone porting over to my computer so hopefully I will will wrap this up quick and I can stay but uh back over to you cara for the next one okay thanks and I'm actually gonna shift it over to Alicia for this next session all right and um Elisha thanks ahead of time and then maybe if if my computer dies Matt I think you were gonna lead uh some of this discussion so if I disappear maybe you can take the reins sure thing I uh we'll see if I can live up to the mighty bar youth set yeah thanks I'm gonna try not to leave though thank you Council Alicia Johnson serving the city as your city clerk and Records manager and my portion tonight is to bring you a brief update on our community sponsored City petitions next slide please Emily we have two petitions now circulating

[184:00] within the city for our voters to endorse or not indoors um the first one I want to bring to your attention of course is the safe zone for kids that petition is asking to amend the BRC section 8-3-21 which is related to prohibiting items um this will be adding a chapter to that particular section of the BRC and that would be um sub section c as noted here on your slide that petition was approved for circulation By Me on March 21st and I do want to just take a moment to appreciate my fellow co-workers and colleagues I'm in the city attorney's office and also in the finance department to help me maneuver through the petitions this year so thank you for that everyone um both committees have elected to use both the online petitioning system and the paper petitions and I'm sure you've heard we've had some glitches with the on online petitioning system but it

[185:00] seems to be working effectively right now and both petitions will require 3437 signatures to become valid and appear on the ballot and come before Council next slide please Emily the next petition that is out being circulated is related to the as you've noticed the existing 0.15 sales use tax and this petition is seeking to renew that tax and extend it um and want and they want to earmark it for a specific purpose for Arts culture and Heritage now that petition was just approved for circulation by me on May the 4th of this of this month of course and if they again elected to use the online petitioning system and paper petitions and they have the same exact amount of signatures required to be deemed valid and I'm open for any questions that Council may have in relation to those two petitions

[186:01] Elisha who's got questions Aaron and then Bob Alicia thanks for all your efforts and assisting community members with us as well as all the other team members who worked on that really appreciate helping out with the direct democracy uh question for you is there a way for uh Council in the community to monitor how the signature Gathering is going for the initiatives now that is strictly between the committee members they have to prepare a inventory for us once they decide to they're ready to turn in their petition packets but no we don't have a way of monitoring how their endorsements are going on we can look online with the bddl but that is of course the lower of the amounts because people had trouble logging on and also the second petition came in kind of late so yeah no worries just wanted to get that out there thanks Alicia of course sir Robert a bob then Nicole all right thanks my question kind of a follow-on to Aaron's Alicia um I I think they have

[187:02] both petitioners have or petition groups have until June 9th to submit both their paper and electronic versions to you obviously electronic versions are already self certifying but the paper versions you have what five or ten days after they submit in which to to check those and verify those is that right that's 10 days 10 calendar days 10 calendar days so that's the 19th of June so do you think you might have like a I know you won't have a big presentation but like a quick report to us when we come back and talk about ballot measures on the 22nd of June I know that's kind of kind of close there but do you think it'll be able to at least give us an oral report yes sir we have that planned um because we are again scheduled for the 22nd of June so you wanna we do have a plan to give provide you with an update on the status of both petitions I do want to note that the safe zones for kids have already made their appointment for June 9th to turn their petitions in at 10 o'clock in the morning great thanks Alicia of course sir thanks Bob and Alicia Nicole

[188:00] thank you Elisha for this update um this may not be a question for you Elisha and uh Maria just let me know if this is not not the right question for right now but you know we heard that there's a potential budget impact of that 0.15 dedicated tax measure of around seven and a half million dollars is there an anticipated monetary impact of the safe zones measure so for example would it require an increase for example to our three and a half million dollar safe and managed spaces budget or anything else so that's a good question council member and essentially what that measure does would um attempt to codify what we're currently doing in practice um it uh I believe that it will as we continue and with the staff that we have that we continue to prioritize certain areas and we will do that if at some point there is a policy direction to do even more of that that is a budgetary request that we

[189:01] will take to you separately in a process but nothing as I read the current measure would require uh that it doesn't necessarily speak to adding resources um but it will also depend on what the circumstances are and how much as we're moving into the future if we see an increase in um a need to address certain situations in certain areas than we as staff would come to you for as a budgetary request okay or the the um we would just sort of have less budget for for elsewhere that would be the impact unless we had a source of revenue for addition any other questions seeing all these Frozen faces I'm going to assume none maybe a hands up when anyone like to start answering the questions or contribute a discussion

[190:04] do we have discussion on this or was this just an update item I believe this was just an update oh great just an update yes sir perfect are you are you uh any anything further on this end on that update I am done okay am I turning it back to you Elisha or someone else I'm up again all right okie doke so the next is again an update so um no questions for this one and this is just an update on the potential 2023 ballot measures for the state and the region slide so what we have heard from Boulder County is they are not yet decided they may have a sales tax extension question their sales tax also is expiring at the end of 2024 so

[191:01] um they may may or may not put it on the uh the ballot this fall they will likely decide after some polling and when they have their behavioral health roadmap in place this summer is anticipated and then we did hear from Boulder Valley School District that they do not have any current plans for a ballot item next slide and as we have discussed earlier um at the state currently there are 19 initiatives that have titles set and are out collecting signatures um four that limit property tax revenues and those first three are all Constitutional Amendments some of those have more stringent signature requirements and then if they are on the ballot have that higher threshold of a 55 voter approval to pass the fourth that uh initiative number 42 is uh statutory change and that

[192:01] um that one is the only one that does isn't sort of tied to this idea of three percent Revenue growth um the first three are sort of tied to that three percent Revenue growth in some way the fourth one uh relates to assessment rates so we will see if any of those four collect sufficient signatures on and are on the ballot we will learn that after August seventh um and then the Colorado Secretary of State website has a lot of information with regard to that and then also as was discussed um proposition proposition HH will be on the ballot this was the governor's proposal it was approved late in the session um and just big picture you know it reduces uh property tax assessment rates over temporarily over a 10-year period and then there would be some backfill for some government schools and local governments but as shared earlier uh we

[193:01] would not expect that and that's the update any questions Aaron well if I can thanks those very helpful car I'll just add one more possible potential ballot measure that is out there which is there's a group working on putting an early childhood Child Care uh District measure on the ballot so you kind of like the library district but for Early Childhood child care and they're looking at basically pvsd and Stingray Valley School District boundaries for that so uh they're working with the Boulder County on that we got an update from them recently so just just FYI there could conceivably be a handful of Mills ballot measure in our area for that coming coming up thanks any other questions comments on this okay we are um and and I think my

[194:00] internet's restored so it's nice to see you all moving again um so this I think we're on to city council recommendations for possible ballot measures I might turn this to staff or matt I believe this is councilmember Benjamin so the next slide I'm always formal I'm gonna go with Max Matt you're up I I appreciate that and I appreciate the opportunity to continue to get uh feedback from from Council on this um as was sort of brought up in the mid-year Retreat um one of the things that is clearly in need and we've heard about this in multiple updates and study sessions and we've heard this from Judge cook from Kurt fernhobber and we certainly we went to the county looking to address some of this in um in an expeditious manner um to meet these critical needs so um nonetheless a behavioral health uh drug addiction I mean it can kind of

[195:00] take a bunch of different names but really at the end of the day is to sort of meet those acute needs um and and amplify the services or provide services that we otherwise don't have or or need to do in greater amount um so um the concept was was really around does it make sense for us to come up with I know uh Kara and Mark uh have have given us quite a warning on dedicated taxes but here we are um so I hope they don't uh give me the laser beam for bringing one up anyway um but nonetheless just to look at um products that uh perhaps contribute or exacerbate either mental health behavior or addiction and specifically cannabis alcohol and tobacco and looking at taxing those as a means of also funneling that Revenue back into the very Support Services um that would help individuals um that that suffer from those things so that was the core concept here um and so we can kind of uh frame that in does it make sense for us to to consider that kind of Revenue to meet

[196:00] some of that need and in addressing that uh staff put together a list of some of the ideas that that that would look like there was a financial analysis of well okay how much money do we how much revenue do we bring in on these various uh different components and what would various different taxing levels in terms of Revenue generate um the example we sort of settled on is a one percent tax on these products and that would generate roughly about three million dollars a year at our current standard um of sales and so if we can go to the next slide um and so you see that right there in terms of a one percent and then of course you know if you want to go less than that then that's less than that but that gives you a breakdown of the component of uh liquor versus tobacco versus recreational marijuana um and even Medical but it gives you a sense of where those breakdowns are associated in that capacity um so next slide um as as uh Kurt and his team helped us identify here are some of the ways in which we could use those generated funds

[197:02] to meet those needs that we have had ample discussion on um and I think we as a counselor in our general alignment that those are needs and gaps that we would love to fill and provide greater services for and you can see that list here in terms of continuing crisis response Services currently funded with temporary funding support for plan day shelter programming increased support for community behavioral health partners or providers and continuation of interventions piloted via arpa and supplementing county-wide partnership initiatives so all different sort of funding levels but all within the scope of what three million or something around there could potentially fund um and so um what we'll kind of just leave leave this here for a minute what I would um also frame is a lot of the work that we are proposing here with the behavioral health tact has already been mentioned tonight is something that the county is starting to pursue with their roadmap um and so it really kind of begs the question and we've again had this

[198:00] conversation with our uh County Commissioner colleagues we don't know what that looks like and so the question is while we wait to figure that out does it make sense for us to act on our acute and immediate needs and if they once they figure out what they are doing on some time frame maybe that gets folded in maybe they take over the work that we've started I think that remains to be seen and so really there's a fundamental question of is uh one in the hand better than two in the bush and I think that's a question for all of us to sort of answer on whether we choose to pursue this going forward I I will say that that in the last week or so there was sort of a potential added um um potential use of funds that I do want to throw out there a pardon that I didn't get a hotline out I talked to some of you guys um uh prior to council because it sort of came in late um by a few folks that didn't really have the time to to talk about this in great length ahead of time and it's really about thinking about um how do we create more of those sort of Recovery House model that can be a gateway to transitional and then

[199:01] permanent housing I know we're bringing one and hopefully a second tribe uh into Boulder and the county is doing some others but maybe using this money to really funnel um uh money into lifting more of those up so that we can really route people who otherwise are suffering from really acute behavior of mental health and drug addiction and instead of them either lingering on the streets and further um um you know suffering in that capacity or worse off ending up in jail which is not the the place we want them to go can create greater capacity to Route them in a place that gets them off the streets and into dedicated more full-time support services so um that's something that wasn't on the list but I think something is worth considering um and it certainly folds into some of the conversations that are being had with our D.A Michael Doherty and some some conversations with judge cook around you know do we want to have some of this routed through sort of a um pardon the word but uh but really some sort of like mental health courts and other uh added programming to Munich

[200:00] Court to kind of help divert people into this sort of programming and keep them off the streets and out of jail um so that's something to sort of think about and anyway just want to frame that but uh tonight's questions really Center kind of like they were with um Fair pay for Council which is kind of this red yellow um uh green light aspect of is a behavioral health Tech something we want to eat you know to stop dead in our tracks and say yep no more we'll just rely on the city to meet or the county to meet our needs we're good there is it a yellow to say hey let's continue to cook this for a while um and maybe consider this a down the road or green light say hey look Let's uh let's maybe pick a couple tracks maybe there maybe let's have staff come back with two options that are two different uses or combinations of uses for attacks um and then come back to us in a little bit with that and then we can decide which one which package we want to then lift on the ballot or something like that so that's kind of uh the track so if we can sort of maybe go to the questions um I certainly would then be that's that's the end of my presentation and I can turn it back to Rachel to facilitate and then I can certainly myself and Beth

[201:01] that's around answer questions about this great thanks for that let's do it um does anyone have questions for Matt or staff on this proposal thank you come on let's get one question no all right oh thank you Bob really question for staff I don't know if Kurt is on or somebody from um Human Services but um I guess the question is is programmatically uh if this was to go forward is this your next year whether staff is would be ready to to put the money to good use and could frame up what the program would look like who would benefit um what qualifications they would need to be to be in these programs and and how many people we could could benefit because I'm sure those are all kind of questions that that voters would ask whether it was on the ballot this year next year and I'm just wondering kind of a level of effort question to staff about um how quickly they could kind of be

[202:01] prepared to answer some of those questions this is Kurt in the house in the virtual house Kurt was in the virtual house but I'll say I do not know um if he is able to answer he was not feeling well this evening feel better Kurt and staff get back to you on that answer yeah we can Circle back yeah I wasn't expecting an answer tonight rhetorical question about level of effort and I imagine there'll be ever determine the level of effort interesting rhetorical question question um Nicole and then Lauren um thanks Rachel um so I was just wondering can you explain more about the focus um specifically on taxing Alcohol Tobacco and marijuana and why these things were were kind of chosen to explore oh it's a good good question Nicole um largely because you know these are known to exacerbate many of those

[203:00] existing behavioral mental health and and drug addiction and so thinking that the items that contribute or exacerbate um those those things that people are dealing with taxing them and then routing that money back in to supporting and and helping people with those exact issues and so it was sort of meant to be a very sort of uh circular and and positive feedback loop with regards to investing that money right back in um to meeting those communities that are that are uh you know dealing with those acute mental health and drug addiction and if I colloquate on that Nicole I don't know if you had another question too but um I you know maybe it's because you know you all know that I have beer in my fridge for after this meeting and so you know tend towards alcohol myself but um I I guess I wonder if alcohol and tobacco are really kind of in the same class as like high potency THC in terms of uh maybe triggering any of these issues and and like if it's drug addiction I'm

[204:02] not sure I can I wonder is it really the tether there from tobacco and alcohol and marijuana to the kind of like meth addiction is I think what we're probably trying to treat in fentanyl um so do we have to have a tether and are all three of those really like the same for this purposes of this discussion I don't know if that's too bad for her dance related it's probably for answer but I can just say interesting in terms of formulating this it was really just a matter of what what do we tax to generate a revenue to do anything meaningful and as you saw in that Financial slide um you know half of the revenue is generated by alcohol sales so you know you strip that out then all of a sudden you've got to then dramatically amplify attacks on cannabis then the challenge is do we then become non-competitive with regards to our cannabis tax thing

[205:00] where we're so sufficiently higher than our sister cities we're driving business out of our community entirely so I think there's there's a a balancing act that we want to do to create some Equity among those products but also not be really disproportionate on one that then has a massive adverse response in terms of consumer uh or consumption of those products and the revenue that's generated accordingly thanks Nicole did you have any other questions I just have comments left okay Lauren I'm not sure that this question is gonna there's gonna be people who can answer it but we're gonna go for it anyway um Matt mentioned sort of you know that sometimes addiction and mental health and can put people in situations where they are in our carceral system going through our course and things like that and I was just wondering in terms of costs that we might recoup

[206:02] things that might not be spent do is can we quantify like in terms of costs the jail or to our court system what Boulder pays um in terms of tickets and incarceration related to mental and health and addiction I mean I think you're right that we don't know the answer to that but if uh there is an ask to see what we could we don't have control of all that information but we can certainly take that back and see if we can provide a a response yeah just if this moves forward I think it might be an interesting piece to have as part of that future conversation thanks um I had just one question again sort of following the three you know different entities apart do we have any information on how the new state law is

[207:02] impacting local kind of mom-and-pop liquor stores because I think that we we enabled um the the bigger box I don't know grocery stores to serve or to sell more classes of of alcohol and I I have heard that that some of the independent shops have been hit hard by that so just want to understand as to the alcohol portion of this are we do we know what's happening with with those with that class of industry locally uh this is Cara we have not looked at that exactly but we we probably could do some of that analysis um if it I'd have to talk with city attorney's office sort of see if that that's an appropriate use of our data to sort of do that analysis um sort of Crossing is it outside the

[208:00] bounds of administration of the sales tax so I don't we can look at that okay thanks um I'll save the rest of mine for comments and discussions so um maybe let's put do we put the questions back up we can and we put them in chat as well oh okay well and y'all can look at chat but um let's just go through and um share our thoughts and answer the questions as we go on this one I know Nicole had some I don't see a hand up yet on you I think I just put it up but I don't know maybe I maybe I missed it Europe thanks okay um thank you um so I think with the uh the direction about pulling for a potential behavioral health tax on specific products um I'm not particularly interested in that one

[209:00] um just because more than Alcohol Tobacco and marijuana it's poverty and Trauma especially during childhood that are huge factors in vulnerability to mental illness and addiction um I think if we're going to be collecting more funds for Behavioral Health I'd really like to focus on taxing those who are contributing to poverty in our community Through low wages through an affordable housing this was another one of the things that I brought up at a retreat last year that crashed and burned was the idea of a head tax for large companies that aren't paying their workers here a living wage to offset some of the impacts of economic inequality in our community so I would really like us to think a little bit more about how we can get to get to some of the things that are that are really leading more to um behavioral health issues than um than than substance use um and so I would say then no to the proposed ballot language and um the I think oh sorry and one more

[210:02] thing just related to kind of collecting another tax I'd really like to see how our outcomes based budgeting goes and kind of get that underway before we go after more taxes um I'd like to see if we can spend our money differently so that we're having more positive impacts on the the priorities that we have which are outcomes based budgeting should start telling us within the next couple of years um I also kind of hesitate to think about doing a targeted tax and Matt you kind of mentioned this in your presentation too when we just said that we should be moving away for dedicated taxes and thinking about you know balancing our Tower Revenue structure in a way that is more equal [Music] um yeah so that's that's that's basically where I'm at and I I don't have any other potential measures to raise for discussion thanks Nicole who'd like to go next

[211:01] American straw poll if we prefer Tara still having trouble finding that mute button what does that say about me ready for bed um I am not against this idea specifically if it can help pay for the date Center because um I feel like we're going to have problems with our budget we definitely as somebody said one of Staff said we have more needs than we do money so I'm not against it more so the problem I think with the uh the tribe with the recovery centers is we don't know how they're going to go so we didn't even have one yet and now we're gonna have three I suggest we wait to see how that goes you know will it be successful will it not be successful uh but we do know that we have a needs for the day shelter but I also do want to hear from Kurt and um people from HHS

[212:02] about their opinion so we can be in alignment with them as well I think that we I tend to be whatever the middle is is that orange what color was that orange it's like a stoplight all right yellow green okay well then yellow um because we do need more information and I I feel like it's a good possibility but we just need um more info as as far as we also don't want to take the incentive for the county to do something certainly because they hopefully will should carry the lift especially yeah we're going to be having hopefully um a mental attacks um a dedicated tax to see if we can use it for the same very same things As We Know that's all I have to say guiterra Aaron yeah well I think this idea has promise because the need for substance abuse and

[213:01] mental health treatment in our community is so deep and vast and the resources that we currently have are so inadequate to the task so I I think that that this has promised as an approach to to make some progress on on these deep deep problems in our community so I would definitely pull on it and see what the responses that we get and then we could um go from there I don't know if we draft that language right this second but uh I guess I have a question for you when we're talking about the polling are we going to get the results of that back before our next touch point on this in June is that to Matt para I think that's Takara so we have done an initial reach and plan based upon your direction tonight plan to develop a scope of work that we will release on Monday and have a short turnaround on an RFP to get somebody in place so we're trying to move as quickly as we can so it it I don't think we PR it will be tight for

[214:00] the June 22nd I think but there's potential uh makes sense that what's doable is what's doable but it'd be great if we're able to get that information back so I would definitely think that that next step anyway okay great thanks that's all I gotta thanks Aaron Bob well you like Aaron it would be great if you pull especially if that information will be back by the 22nd but even if that's not possible a a different parallel um uh path is um Murray I wonder if we could ask her to his team to come back to us on the 22nd of June or thereabouts um to to talk a little bit more about the uses of funds and how they would be spent and who they would serve both of the type of people but also numbers so I think those are all things that we would have to to explain to the voters whether this came on the ballot in 23 or 24. we could have some polling that's even better but but even without the pulling I'd love to know from the human services staff what this is I also think that if we have if we

[215:00] renew this discussion on the 22nd of June or sometime in mid to late June we may have a better idea of where the county is on this because I think we've all had conversations um with each other about about where the where the county role in this because I think these types of things that we're talking about the uses of these funds are traditionally County Public Health responsibilities and we did have a conversation with our our County Commissioner colleagues at dinner a few weeks ago and and I think they were still uncertain about whether they were going to renew their attacks and and I would I would think that they would be kind of in the same box that we are which is I have to kind of make a decision pretty quick here because they have the same county deadlines for the ballot as we do and so I would I would hope or think that by mid late June the county will have decided whether they're going to renew their tax for this purpose and that could have a pretty big bearing on whether we want to go forward with a um a parallel tax this year we're not so I guess I'm I guess a request I guess to you Nuria is perhaps you could um ask

[216:02] on the appropriate staff to to frame up um what this could be used for but also to continue to monitor the county tax and bring it back absolutely thank you council member and I will I don't want to commit to their capacity and availability uh but I will certainly Circle back and let Council know and make sure that we can um at least share something out on the 22nd sorry thanks Bob thanks Nuria or Miss Rivera vanderbide and then Tara and then Lauren and then Matt I'm going to colloquy with myself right now because I forgot to say something if that's even a phrase you learned the word well do it okay I want to agree with you Rachel and reiterate that I think we do need I would love to really much want to check in with the local liquor stores and see if that did affect them I think that would make a big difference now we don't want to

[217:00] ruin their lives Etc in the same year that something else just happened so I know I'm not making any sense tonight I'm really tired I'm sorry about that I'm not even I agreed with me it was it was perfectly logical not finishing my sentences right now sorry you're good over to Lauren then Matt um I appreciated what Nicole brought up when Matt was talking about what leads to sort of the mental health and addiction things my thoughts were like well for me you know my job and cost of you know staying in my house I have really big impacts on my mental health um so I I guess if we are going to pull on um this I would like to see a bro also pulling on potentially broader funding like I

[218:01] um I'm not particularly interested in seeing it as a syntax because I don't actually think that those things are as directly related I mean they are in some aspects but they definitely aren't in other aspects um and I still it's not that I you know this is a huge issue and I think that it is important that we do what we can to help in this area I am really curious to see what the county is coming forward with and my guess is that they also you know the incentives work out or make a little more sense for them you know being that they run the their running the jail and things like that play a bigger role in their budget when you know most city um offenses are not creating long jail

[219:02] stays and things like that like there's just I think that the alignment of getting some cost recovery from some of the things that might be implemented succeeding um is probably makes more sense for the county um but that doesn't mean I'm not open to us doing something here looking at it I just am more hesitant on this than I um yeah I would need to know more details about what exactly the programs are and information like that thank you thanks Lauren Matt then I'll call myself uh thanks Rachel um for one I appreciate all the feedback that's already happened just uh two clarifiers one um for Tara with regards to tribe they already have a great track record they have these lifted up in Denver and they're seeing already really good results with a lot of folks

[220:00] um they tend to Route it seems a lot of people that are coming out of jail directly into tribe and that seems to be a success pathway among others so coming here isn't an experiment as much as it is as a as an expansion of an existing model that's already shown to work um real quick what I meant by that was uh some an expert in homelessness recently wrote to me and said that she didn't feel like even though tribe was great that it uh was for everybody so whether or not we need two three or four is the big question if that's where we want to put all our resources so just to be clear on what I meant by that so thanks for bringing that up I appreciate that Clarity so I'm I'll leave that to The Experts to decide what we need in that capacity is I guess the question is whether we unfurl the resources to make any of that happen um uh so and the other one was with regards to sort of the County City tension and the way I've kind of viewed this and just historically looking at it when the county lifts up a program it

[221:00] doesn't always meet every need we have it may need a lot maybe some there will be there will absolutely be gaps in whatever the county lifts up to still our acute needs in the city and so still at recognizing that and still trying to fill those gaps there's I think this this could be not duplicative rather than complementary to whatever the county also lifts up allowing us to Pivot so I think there's opportunity there that that we can still utilize thanks Matt um I'll say uh just a couple comments and then Mark I trust that you will bring us home on comments um I think that my my a couple concerns or one I'm I'm concerned about the the mom and pop liquor stores and don't want like you know extra fees there I think that that they're responsible for like half of the the funds we would raise for this to to drive people who are already going to the you know markets to Costco or whatever out of the city of Boulder and and do further harm

[222:01] to them so I would really want to know more about that aspect um before we move forward with with putting another tax on them um I also like I think I'm more and more inclined for us I keep talking about like filling the potholes and you know if we don't fill our potholes nobody else is going to come and do it so like I think that our our funds have to be focused on on what our lane is and and our you know I do think this is the County's Lane um you know mental health and Addiction Services and treatment and so I'm worried like if we if we want to um tag something additional uh and I I think we should make sure that we are using it in a way that we are in our lane and and in one of the services that the the city really needs to be uh providing because we we have a lot of potholes like I'm I'm especially on the on the bike paths like there's a lot of potholes that are really dangerous to bike over so I want to I guess I just don't want us to like beef up our HHS

[223:02] um you know and and then create something that's going to have to be um you know continually funded it's not going to be a pilot like if we if we tax this it's it's going to be more staff and a bigger thing that we're doing and and probably the tax won't won't pay for all of it so I would just be cautious about that so I I guess um I'm probably in in the yellow light area of I am open to getting more information but I don't want to um you know be out of our lane and into the counties on some of the stuff and um and want to make sure that we're not ballooning in a way that's unsustainable for the mission that we really do need to fulfill mark thank you Rachel um I agree with just about everything you just said um I I have no objection to polling and getting more information but I also want to get more information about the affected businesses uh what it will mean to them uh the impact on on their livelihoods and the prospects as Rachel said that we would be driving them

[224:02] driving customers elsewhere because our products are are not competitive um I don't think it's it's really a [Music] a proposition that's ready for prime time in 2023. I think we need to do a lot more work on it with have more understanding but I don't have a um a problem with exploring the concept I mean it's it's there's nothing objectionable to me about the the concept if you can clarify that there's a public appetite for it that there's business appetite for it and that we can do that consistent with the need to fill our potholes um and that that is those things are not sexy but they're such a core function of any uh government um and you it's always easy to be diverted by newer and shinier

[225:00] propositions uh and not pay attention to that and we that was at the heart of the community culture and safety tax to address infrastructure needs and I don't think we should ever lose focus on that because that really goes to the fundamental health of the city but having said that I'm in the yellow category I don't think it's ready for 2023 but if we want to do a little more research on it and even expend the money to ask people what they think I have no objection to that thank you thanks Mark Nicole and then I'll do a straw poll well I we seem to be heading toward doing some polling I just wanted to put in a request as we do that can we check in with public health as we're thinking about these polling questions because I really am concerned about giving people kind of feeding that idea that it's alcohol and tobacco and

[226:02] marijuana that are the primary drivers of mental illness and addiction and it would be wonderful to have public health County Public Health just kind of look and make sure that we're not going to be kind of feeding that narrative because I think it's so important for a community to understand what the primary drivers of mental illness and addiction are and and that's not to say that these other things you know don't matter I just I don't want a polling question to um to to kind of go against science and what that shows thanks Aaron if I can call clean that Nicole's a good point is I think the I would hope that the poll would not be uh using explanatory language like you're just talking about like given that these are the main problems like I don't think we want language like that in there right I think it should really be more on a factual basis of would you support attacks of this kind to fund these programs so I think the excellent fundamental point there yeah yeah now I

[227:00] just I mean even even with that right I would just I would love to have somebody in public health just being like yeah that seems okay or can we think about doing this differently to make sure we're not pushing out um information that's going to lead folks Australia fair enough let's definitely not misinform uh members of the public on a topic is as big as addiction okay so let's do some straw polls um I guess first did anybody not want to go further with this is anybody at red light Nicole yeah but I'll go red I I was I was yellow but I'm probably red um anybody at a green light wants it on the oh we got Lauren and over in the red column ladies for red um anybody want to be a green and get it on this year's ballot okay let's see the yellows Tara one two three we're yellow okay so the majority is yellow marks yellow two great we got five Aaron

[228:02] Tara Bob Mark Matt um so in the yellow category which means we're considering this for 2024 ballot right we're gonna pull maybe this year though correct nods of I think that's what we're talking about with the yellow um so are we comfortable sending this back to staff and I think uh the charter is the charter committee kind of are you doing this in your Charter committee role map no not in any No it started there because we had a meeting and I brought this up and then it kind of evolved out of that I don't think it's necessarily appropriate in the charter committee so Bob and I tried to extricate it out of the charter committee so it's not in that function so it lives in its own ether so happy okay your guidance as to where it should reside um well it makes sense that I I would think that personally that you you

[229:00] continue so where else you know those of you who have been closest to it where would this be good to kick back to staff and some committee that Matt's on as as the other member of the Charter Community I'm happy to partner with Matt on on this and work with staff so rather than standing up a new committee maybe Matt and I could where they're in our capacity we have a couple Charter committee meetings between now and June 22nd anyway so we might as well just take that out okay I think that would be um does anybody disagree with this also going to kind of Charter and staff Nuria does that work from staff side I think so I was just going to recommend before um we we went there and heard the recommendations that it could also go to FSC since it is a kind of a budget question um as well but it would be great to get clarity on who would be reviewing that polling question so if it is um Matt and Bob that's great if it is another or it would just be good to clarify anybody object to Charter

[230:01] it's Bob so stoically agreed to take this on with Matt why would any of us object okay great I'm on financial strategies I'm stuck with it either way oh bummer okay um any any questions from staff on Direction on this uh yellow light project Laura do you have uh sufficient information to talk to our holster people and get some better clarity I think so and then we'll also um see if there's any analysis that we might be able to do to provide additional information with regard to the liquor stores I I have to consult with the experts on that okay Matt since it feels like you you um have had the most knowledge on this any other questions that you want us to clarify yeah if you guys I think I've heard what was necessary and so is staff and we'll take it back and continue to Noodle this um and see where it goes from there

[231:00] awesome okay I think we've got maybe one more thing to look at so is this coming back to Cara who's not is that actually going to John who had uh there was a request to have an odd date ranked Choice voting thanks for sticking with us John yeah you're welcome uh good evening city council John Morse here for elections administrator for the city um I'll be succinct tonight I know we're getting late uh so while much of what we've discussed tonight is uncertain one thing we do know for certain is ranked Choice voting is coming and I just wanted to bring you all up to speed on how things are going behind the scenes uh in a nutshell so uh since February the city of Boulder has been meeting with Boulder County and then the city and county of Broomfield we've been meeting regularly to kind of align on our strategies and our voter Outreach and making sure that our messaging online is correct and coordinating

[232:00] events coming up and trying to divvy up the work as best as we can in addition to them we've also met with some subject matter experts in ranked choice of Odin most notably the center for civic Design Fair vote and ranked Choice voting for Colorado and one of the biggest takeaways we got from the center for civic design was this bite snack meal method of voter Outreach so basically how it works is we give small Snippets of information as we're far away uh from the election like a bite size so this is kind of our websites are up all three jurisdictions and we should have similar language um and then we are starting to let our voters know that rank price voting is coming a newsletter is going out in early June and then there's the snack style where we're giving them a little bit more information this is mainly about how to fill out your ballot correctly so one tool that I am especially uh excited about is we're

[233:01] developing an interactive tool of how to fill out rank Choice voting ballot this tool was developed by the city of San Francisco I reached out to them and they were willing to share their code for that page and gave us permission to modify it to align with Colorado Secretary of State rules and also to be kind of bolder-esque and then lastly is the meal method of voter Outreach so this is where we're kind of giving everyone uh the whole shebang you know and and getting into the Weeds on how tabulation works so we're planning to put together uh animated ranking voting tabulation video our Communications are working with us to plan that out and we're hoping to have it out in July and August one more thing to hit on we have a list of community events we're planning to go to Alicia and I are going to Hash that out and then plan it

[234:00] accordingly with Boulder County and the City and County of Broomfield but they're things like your farmers markets festivals and concerts we're also looking at putting up a booth or a table in the libraries and rec centers for some of these informal events you know we definitely look to a few council members if they want to join us and and be a part of our Outreach that would be fine as long as we maintain our meeting rules but we'll be sure to let you know when those are coming up I I did see that we have Taco Festival on August 26th so that's probably going to be high on the list to uh be at that night um and then yeah lastly uh our Communications team is kind of hitting all the waves on social media and we're going to be kind of ramping that up as we get closer to the election time so expect more frequent uh posts on your typical social media waves and that's kind of where we're at in the

[235:01] gist I I'd be happy to open the floor to questions or anything of Interest thanks so much John looks like Matt Benjamin's got a question for you uh John first thank you and Alicia and the whole team for you know wrapping your heads around this and working uh so closely with with Molly and our County Clerk and certainly and Jenna and Secretary of State's office so really appreciate you working top top and bottom on on all those aspects to get where we need to be on this um as you know this is kind of my my this is my baby uh more or less um so I'm really excited to see us get to this point um question I have is regarding sort of online tools um in order for people and I think you kind of mentioned this but I'm just curious but I've been I want to sort of drill down one of the during the campaign for this one of the real important things was we had a web tool that allowed people to do their oh we did mock like and people could just do

[236:00] it on their own like people it wasn't just a city sponsored thing people could just take this tool and website and have a house party and do it on their own more or less and kind of engage and Gathering so I just want to just curious do we have that kind of ubiquitous free access to tool that people can just sort of sink their teeth in and and other groups can evangelize this without having to be totally you know going through the city um in order to do that yeah I know what you're talking about Matt I think it's a website RVs rcv123 you can like create your own ranked Choice voting whatever um yeah that's one thing where we've thought about I think for this tool that you know again shout out to San Francisco uh is really great because it it gives you notifications when you've done things correctly if you don't fill out your ballot correctly it'll pop up another notification of it you didn't do this this way kind of thing and so it's very intuitive and I'm excited our team's working hard on it to make it align with kind of our website flow

[237:00] um and then yeah we just kind of have to tweak the language a little bit um make sure it's correct but uh is that going to answer your question I'm sorry yeah no I haven't I I only I only Loosely know the San Francisco tool um so certainly I'd love to see that but but uh as long as that's that's accessible for people I think it's going to be really helpful because I think there's a number of groups in the community and those around that want to help evangelize this and and really be the sum up Arts um so just having that access I think will be really helpful I will say to another question about council members joining and participating to help get the word out um I'll be the first to raise my hand and certainly join you all in that and I think there's a number of folks that would like to join as well I know from racv for Colorado Linda templin and Emma Donahue and those folks and certainly open Boulder and some other folks would love to jump in on that so um just let us know how we can uh help get the word out and help support the work of your department yeah of course thanks Matt any other questions comments

[238:02] on this topic was there one more slide or is that the end of our show here that's it that is the end of our show well awesome um Bob Yates predicted we'd be done at 8 40. so I really apologize for being more than an hour uh late so uh you lost that one Bob all right thanks everyone I'm calling it uh done at 9 48 pm have a great weekends thanks everyone thank you [Music] foreign [Music]