May 25, 2023 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

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[4:42] thank you so much welcome and good evening and welcome to the Thursday May 25th CD count uh study session of the Boulder City Council I am council member Juni Joseph we don't have any special announcement today so we can get right into it

[5:02] tonight we will be covering three items uh which are Alpine Balsam update for about 90 minutes we will also cover Family Leave program for about 45 minutes and we will do the regional minimum wage update for about 30 minutes we will stop after each items questions discussions and directions now I will turn the meeting over to noria to kick off the wine ball some discussion thank you so much councilmember and we've got as you mentioned a a rich study session today before us so uh I believe I'm going to send it to our director of facilities Fleet Joanna cran to kick us off um and just want to make a note of a quick note of thanks to our FSC committee members on Council they have seen this presentation I think a couple of times now and provided tremendous feedback on what is a really dense

[6:01] presentation so just appreciate that time Joanna yeah that's great hi I'm Joanna Korean the director of facilities and Fleet and we're excited to be here this evening and as Maria was just mentioning really do appreciate those that have seen some of this presentation before so we're going to be talking about the implementation of our facilities master plan specifically around Financial strategy and as folks may recall facilities master plan was accepted by Council back in October 2021 and once it was accepted the the next steps that we talked about were developing a more detailed strategy for funding and implementing the key initiatives that were identified in the plan those being the maintainer building Wells and consolidating services so we're excited to be here tonight to share with you that Financial strategy and implementation plan and this work

[7:00] has been developed by a staff team within the facilities and Fleet Department as well as in partnership with our Central Finance staff and the City team has been supported by a great group of consultants and specifically at this phase that's included Ernst young and we have some of their folks here tonight to help answer any questions that may be needed and as you may recall the facilities master plan provided a fundamental shift in how we look more comprehensively at our city buildings across the entire building portfolio and thinking more system-wide and how we address these building needs so this financial strategy provides a road map for funding the many projects in buildings and we'll need to obviously Implement them over a number of years and tonight we have some questions for Council that affirm the approach in the facilities master plan and then guide staff as we refine detailed budget proposals on specific

[8:00] projects so to share these specific details of the financial strategy I will turn it over to our architect cities architect Michelle crane thanks Joanna and good evening council members I'm pleased to be here I am Michelle green our facilities architect and capital projects manager I'm going to go ahead and share my screen okay and hopefully everybody is doing great so in a high level our facilities master plan established a new strategic direction to take with our city buildings as Joanna was mentioning it's really a policy road map for decision making and tonight we'll provide a recap of some of the key aspects of that Master Plan and then we'll dive into the financial strategy we've developed and we'll also

[9:00] be providing an update on Alpine Balsam and we're going to use that as an example of this financial strategy in action but Alpine Balsam is only one of many building projects as was mentioned in building project needs so we want to talk about the value of public-private partnership could bring to realize our goals um at the end of our presentation we do have some key questions for Council around the sale of properties leveraging savings savings from efficiency and exploring P3 further is an opportunity to realize these building goals so the facilities master plan was an assessment of 75 buildings just under 2 million square feet and at that time it was roughly 600 million dollars in replacement value in less than the two years since we brought you that plan the value of our building portfolio has increased to over 700 million dollars some buildings as we noted were intentionally decentralized serving specific areas of our community

[10:00] While others have become dispersed over the years in a way that today does not serve our community well collectively the average age of our building portfolio is just under 50 years so more than half of our facilities were built prior to the 1970s meaning many of our buildings are beyond their useful life when buildings are new it is easy to turn our attention away from them and towards other priorities at that time we minimized our spending and investment in those early years if they were running really well our buildings then slipped into in past Middle Light and with little of our attention but now in many buildings we have crept past this inflection point the time when our costs to own operate and maintain building starts to rapidly escalate in recent years the number of emergency repairs in our buildings has been quickly increasing and fixing these old

[11:00] and Antiquated systems now is becoming more and more challenging it's increasingly becoming more costly and it's putting a drain on our Staffing Resources diverting them from other work okay an example of this is found really in our recreation centers so our East Boulder Community Center is at that inflection point there is an urgency to address the systems and the infrastructure in this building and in addition to refresh the interior to meet Community expectations to support current and future use and stay competitive in terms of service delivery North Boulder Recreation Center is in better shape but infrastructure Replacements are right around the corner and it has a similar need to ensure the space stays relevant it's so we have been highly reactive State for the past couple of years responding to emergencies on a routine basis and we've had to shut the pool in other areas of the building down for extended periods of time which have

[12:00] impacted services to the community spending on this building is escalating without with limited return also it should be noted our recreation centers are three of our top four producers of carbon emissions in particular East and North are huge consumers of natural gas and as we consider investments in these buildings we do see a big potential to convert these systems to better align with our climate commitment goals addressing these three buildings will make a significant impact portfolio-wide from a climate goals perspective so our recreation centers are one of our real big priorities going back and looking portfolio why the condition of the city's buildings can be more accurately reflected in our facility condition index score which shows the Deferred maintenance costs proportionate to the replacement value of these buildings holistically our building portfolio is in poor condition and it crosses to

[13:01] critical just beyond 2030 if we just simply maintain our current approach to investing in these buildings this condition is also expressed in terms of funding as an unfunded liability by the graph on the right this unfunded liability another way to put that is the risk of building failure which is increasing like we talked about nerve Rec Center example in the past two years as we have continued to start to ship focus on these types of emergencies our liability has grown from about 55 million at the time we presented the plan 286 million now across the portable land foreign plan and we looked to address these concerns in our building portfolio our master plan was really built on these three pillars of good asset management our buildings need to do more than just get ahead of our system failures and as we make improvements in our buildings we want to convert systems to provide clean energy and be more environmentally

[14:00] responsive likewise abundant buildings are fundamental to supporting Community resilience and spaces in our buildings can shape our interactions with each other they can provide a sense of safety and inclusion they make us feel welcomed they support mental and physical health and they create places to Foster connection these finer details of our pillars are found in those six guiding principles and we identified key performance indicators in each of those principles to help assess today's building portfolio against our goals this is a snapshot of appendix D that was in our master plan and it provided a scoring of our current buildings in relation to those key performance indicators and by just glancing at this scorecard what we see here is just too much bread we have too many buildings that are in poor condition and this is creating competing priorities between different building types that support our community in a variety of way and we simply don't have enough funding

[15:01] to just address all these needs it will require some creativity and some new thinking to make changes um and we will need to consider some trade-offs and maybe make some hard choices to responsibly fund our infrastructure improvements across our building portfolio in 2021 when Council accepted the facilities master plan you put an action the two key initiatives recommending that plan that make the most impact portfolio-wide and help turn us in a new strategic Direction the first um is to maintain buildings well the primary goal of this initiative is to phase all of our buildings to a model of good governance and operational excellence this is the path to sustainably investing in our abilities so that 20 years from now or 50 years from now we don't find ourselves in the same situation we do today no matter what we will need to make some Capital investments in our buildings however following those large Investments we want to maintain

[16:00] buildings in a predictable employable that lowers our total cost of ownership this keeps our buildings running reliably and efficiently Michelle I'm sorry you're you're cutting out oh I'm sorry um am I back in there now okay our second key initiative was to consolidate services and those are the ones that are scattered right now currently across more than 20 buildings to two key campuses one in the west at Alpine Balsam and one in the east at our current Municipal service center by vacating space uh in areas around the city we allow for other opportunities and Community benefits to advance choosing this new strategic Direction at the time we shared this plan meant divesting in current buildings that would go towards consolidation seizing real estate opportunities in a timely way that supported that consolidation creating High performing buildings and restructuring funding

[17:00] so the first two points in particular underpin a lot of the financial strategy that we're going to get into more yeah so the financial strategy that we're presenting here tonight consists of these key building blocks that can be applied towards any one of our major capital projects first we know there are City dollars that will need to be allocated to these projects there are a variety of sources of these validators dollars and we are looking to match the most appropriate source to the specific project second there are receivings that come from our existing buildings every project can leverage some sort of efficiency to support and fund our projects we are specifically recommending Wing fencing savings from operations and maintenance efficiency and avoided Capital Replacements in our Realtors so this means holding these savings separately and specifically to fund our new building projects and help sustain those assets rather than allowing those savings to just bleed back into the

[18:02] budget for maybe some unrelated items and we are also looking at divesting in properties and using those sale proceeds to help reduce Capital costs which in turn would help lower our animal s lastly we will look to external sources to help fund projects there are an increasing number of grant opportunities that help projects meet climate goals and social values and Partnerships both with other public Partners who can realize Mutual benefit working with us and from private markets who can help us deliver so these are the financial building blocks that we have to fully evaluate on any one of our large capital projects to really create a good funding strategy and so now we break these blocks down first um to fund initial Capital costs or put another way to reduce the amount of debt that would need to be financed

[19:00] these debt reductions come in the form of one-time City dollars proceed through sale of buildings Partnerships who bring Capital to projects and grants and then we're left with an amount that would need to be financed over some term which is typically 20 years in the city now as we look at that annual uh payment or the annual death service we look at other source of those blocks to help make that Debt Service payment and those come in the form of ongoing City dollars captured savings from operations and maintenance efficiency and avoided Capital replacement costs and then Partnerships that could bring ongoing so now we're going to look specifically at Alpine follows them as an example of this long-term Financial strategy in action but first I want to give a little update and orientation to what we've been developing on the site for well more than a year now we've been working in partnership with Boulder housing Partners to co-develop the site

[20:01] and I want to draw emphasis to the partnership aspect because again it is one of our building blocks of that Financial strategy BHP is developing the housing portions of the project these Center two Parcels will be affordable housing the two Parcels on either end will be entitled and then sold as market rate housing and they'll be supporting the affordable accountable projects Michelle you're breaking up again oh I'm sorry do you hear me now sorry did you catch those last two Parcels I think we've got missed the last two or three sentences okay so those Center two Parcels um are going to be our affordable housing projects and then the two Parcels on either end that are in the blue rings are will be sold as market rate housing projects that will help support that affordable project and then

[21:01] the yellow um Parcels that we're showing there are really what we're using to create our Western City Campus shown in green is the shared infrastructure that supports the housing the campus and the surrounding community with New multi-use Path and enhanced pedestrian walk or Paseo through the site and a Greenway which is part of the recently accepted Goose Creek flood mitigation plan that connects the commercial center to North Boulder Park and here too with the floodway is an example of a partnership in action we're actually working with Mile High flood districts to help construct and possibly maintain that channel the parking garage that is shown in yellow and will be part of the new city will also support the housing and the parking for the housing across the flight too so there are many other Mobility features

[22:00] that are being designed into areas around the site to help encourage and support alternative modes of transportation so now we're going to focus our attention specifically on the western City Campus which is that yellow portion and what this means when we talk about vacating buildings to consolidate care okay we have 10 buildings that we could possibly vacate for consolidation to this site seven of those buildings are in the Civic area and when we vacate the staff and services from those buildings we can advance on that transformation that was envisioned in the Civic area master plan there are nine buildings that the city owns now that are in poor to critical condition in this graph here shows the forecasted spendings on these buildings as they are today the light blue bars are a projection of the planned city investments in those buildings based on the infrastructure needs that we know are there and our spending history and the orange bars reflects the two to

[23:02] four times increased costs associated with what's happening when you need costly emergency repairs so there is some significant financial value really locked up in these buildings consolidation of staff and services to the new Western City Campus provides Financial environmental and social value we have already made large investments in this site in the land itself in deconstruction of the hospital we've invested in the infrastructure currently on the site and rehabbing buildings like the Brenton building back in 2018. so we have spent money but we are also receiving a lot of value back for these Investments Brenton is a great example uh when the city turned to renovating this building we actually at the time had been looking for lease space when we strictly look at the cost of leasing that same space compared to the renovation costs we spend we're close to realizing a direct return on our

[24:00] investment but we also got an all-electric high-performing building that now provides a good work environment for staff and better customer service not to mention it remained a city asset our government is physically fragmented now it's spread across many buildings which has been detrimental to staff and servicing the community consolidation is not only efficient in this new physical space there is an opportunity to create something beyond the sum of its parts a connectedness kind of well beyond what we have right now beyond the City Campus looking at the whole site we will be able to sell back to parcel but market rate for housing and we will achieve one of the largest just affordable housing projects to Dayton City we are not ready to do quite the full reconciliation on this project but for all the spending and The Upfront Investments that we are making we are realizing um significant Returns on those Investments again financially environmentally and socially

[25:02] foreign now back to looking at funding this Vision as we move forward and focusing first on the importance of debt reduction strategies so in the case of the western City Campus it is leveraging sale proceeds on ongoing and ongoing savings from vacating buildings we are still refining our costs for redevelopment but we're working in orders of magnitude of around 150 million dollars which would include infrastructure across the site site work and other buildings this excludes the housing work BHP is specifically developing but it does include shared infrastructure some of those cost sharing show up along with the grants and that purple block is part of our initial debt reduction and then there is the sale of the properties we are vacating there are six of them that could uh the whose sale proceeds could be leveraged towards this debt reduction and lastly there are some one-time City dollars that we would

[26:00] inject into those initial Capital cost reductions and then that leaves a certain amount that would need to be financed and so then we have an annual Debt Service payment that's now shown on the right there next to those initial Capital costs funding of that Debt Service part of it is already programmed into our City's budget but another big contributor comes from the savings realized from vacating those buildings and then we may still be left with a small Gap to build but when we don't sell properties we get hit kind of in two ways that are critically detrimental to funding this project first we don't get the initial debt reduction through the sale proceeds which increases the amount that needs to be financed and then our annual Debt Service payment now increases and we don't have those ongoing savings from those buildings that we've vacated more so we would still be carrying those buildings and all of their liabilities so that Gap now increases to something

[27:01] that the city most likely cannot afford to fund and so I want to help put the sale of properties though in context of our city-wide portfolio and for some projects like the Western City Campus you know this looks like getting out of expensive properties these sale the sale of these fix properties that we've mentioned represents about three percent of the total square footage of the buildings in the master plan but that does not actually account for the square footage we would be gaining at the new City Campus which in total would still add a net or a net increase to our square footage across the portfolio but if we look at it in terms of total acreage the city holds not including our osmp lands these sales become negligible less than a fraction of a percent of the the total City Holdings um and so it's small when we compare that to the value of getting out of some

[28:00] of these properties so looking across our building portfolio this long-term Financial strategy actually can be applied and must be applied really to the projects we need to implement across the portfolio like in our recreation centers and our fire stations and other buildings that support critical services to our community when we're looking at each new project and their costs we see similar opportunities to employ these first debt reduction strategies and identify sources of ongoing Debt Service payments there are a lot of efficiencies that we see to be gained in how we deliver services from buildings when we kind of get out of some siled thinking that has historically led to lots of buildings supporting just one service or duplicating services around the city buildings are very expensive to build to own and operate and as I shared at the beginning we have a lot of large Capital

[29:00] needs across the buildings with competing priorities and we simply don't have the funds to spend on every in each one of them so we are trying to be creative and strategic to limit our trade-offs and those hard decisions and make the most out of that money as we meet the needs for our community another way we could look at addressing our building infrastructure needs is by considering a public private partnership or a P3 there are many local and state governments that are confronted with similar issues that we have and they are turning to p3s to help invest in their infrastructure and financially sustainable ways so a private partner is a team who would provide investors who provide equity in the project contractors who normally are National or Global firms who work with local Subs to design and build projects and then operators who again probably National firms who provide an ongoing major maintenance and operations that would be

[30:01] defined in a contract and those operators would be obligated to meet ongoing performance standards that would be defined by the city private Partnerships today as opposed to a Year's past are strongly motivated to achieve ESG goals where that is environmental social and governance goals in fact recently the Securities and Exchange Commission has started requiring reporting from private firms on their progress towards meeting those interesting so the city is really in a strong position to look for and then qualify Partners who share our values and can demonstrate success on other projects staff we have looked at some of the key considerations that are most relevant to the city of Boulder when we think about the value of a partnership financing costs are higher uh typically but likely can be recouped over time because maintenance and performance are built into the contract versus the

[31:00] city's ability and our discipline to maintain these buildings at the same level over 20 years on our own Partnerships assume a lot of risk and liability but this can be limiting on future decision making but the biggest value we see um appears that appears really worth exploring is when we consider bundling multiple projects together in one opportunity this approach has the greatest potential to reduce our overall cost as compared to the city trying to complete projects sort of one by one on its own from our initial look we believe there could be good value in entertaining a P3 relationship to help the city address our failing buildings and simultaneously deliver on our goals and values so staff are proposing to explore the P3 in more detail through a direct Market sounding so that entails refinement of our business case to take to the market and

[32:01] then directly engaging with these real Market participants to react to what the city is offering and then help refine an approach that if palatable and it looks really opportunistic we would then develop a procurement strategy that would be thank you so that concludes our presentation and it brings us to our key questions from Council this evening which are focused around the sale of properties capturing our savings from those buildings and efficiency and investing in or investigating a P3 but um before we get to those questions I think I'm turning it back to our moderator or some clarifying questions and I think these questions will be posted thank you Michelle this Council have any question concerning the facilities

[33:01] master plan implementation and financial strategies or Alpine Balsam at this time I'm not seeing any hands up at all all right I see uh council member Wallach thank you appreciate it thanks for that presentation and um this is a very difficult subject um do we in your program are you contemplating the continued sales as we go along of the of the balance of our real estate portfolio to do more and more projects basically converting what we've got into something new um you know I I a lot of the properties that we're looking at as opportunities for sale are are really are focused in this first phase with alpine Balsam but I think that as we look at some isolated projects there could be opportunities for sale in the future but it's not like

[34:02] wholesale trying to disperse or dispose of a lot of City cities it's opportunity or opportunistic um Parcels that help leverage towards a consolidation okay um thank you um you talk about the trade-offs and hard choices could you be a little more detailed about what that looks like what are those hard choices and and uh trade-offs well something building yeah honestly well some of them might be and I know it's a hard choice to think about um selling property so that is one you know looking at the value of of what it takes to own and operate all these properties versus consolidating to a site so that is certainly one of those those choices there could be others in um the way again we duplicate some Services now sometimes um in different areas we have two buildings kind of supporting similar uses

[35:00] um there could be opportunity to consolidate that could include some some choices and some trade-offs um in how we we do those consolidations but they also generate efficiencies that allow us to actually achieve some of those goals and address our building infrastructure those are the things I think as we go through specific projects we would bring up on a project by project basis um you talk about Ring fencing our savings is that sort of a a type of dedicated funding well what it is and and I might lean on some of our Finance clarify there are a lot of savings to be gained we've Quantified this a couple different ways through our master plan and then again through this work when we consolidate there is efficiency what we're talking about is really ensuring that we identify those savings very

[36:02] specifically and then hold on to them year over year is part of a Debt Service payment and not let them just kind of get reabsorbed as savings back into the budget yeah well what happens if those savings are not realized for whatever reason the the structure doesn't require the emergency repairs you know or or remedial work um because in fact your your taking money saved not not real money you're saying the money is saved and that savings we want to apply to a project yeah so we've historically done this and it's been done for years um in a simpler form you might be familiar with his energy performance Contracting or EPC where um a firm or company comes in we can do this um ourselves and they they Define an amount

[37:01] of savings and it's normally very conservative we would not be trying to estimate savings on projected emergency failures it's really we've within a fairly conservative band have recognized um the kind of operations and maintenance now that we're spending which is about two times the industry standard and that we know actually through our work on the Brenton building that we can achieve in Industry standards which is about half that and so any savings we're looking to leverage towards a Debt Service would be very conservative okay just a couple more um how do the the the financing rates available the rates available for debt financing in P3 projects uh compared to the rates we would have to pay in conventional mortgage financing or in bond financing was that simply a matter of negotiation

[38:01] well that's really where we'd love to go out directly to the markets and start talking to them that that's really the nod you know that we're looking for is is we've been kind of playing around with with um hypothetical numbers and and again we have our consultants and I know our finance team who could look more but we'd like to discuss those specifically with that market um stakeholders and and the last question I guess is when you talk about the public-private Partnerships have you thought through what those might look like is it a bill to suit where we rent the building um or have shared equity in the building uh have you focused on or determined what that structure would would look like to you and and what you would want to achieve we've kind of looked at a variety of things over the years and we recognize the value in the city owning the property so not really looking to kind of lease back if you will um you know if the city is a long-term

[39:00] tenant we're not going anywhere and there's value in our in our ownership properties um the types of p3s that we've been considering are things like infrastructure as a service where we do have an operator who might come in and be able to operate some of our new major mechanical systems a lot more efficiently and effectively and if that is actually leveraged over a number of buildings they bring a lot of economy to scale um in parts and servicing buildings and so that might be the type of partnership we're entertaining but again I think it's a very structured way of going out and talking to the markets would also probably bring some more insight to what's there but the city wanted to still hold a pretty significant position in our okay that's all I've got and thank you for a really really excellent presentation thank you again thank you Mark now we have Nicole go ahead with your questions thank you um and thanks

[40:02] so much for the presentation um it never gets old thank you um so one of the things that I was wondering about was just if if we didn't sell these buildings that are kind of at end of life what what would we do with them do do we have to maintain them is there a cost to just kind of vacating the buildings and banking the land or something like that I mean what's the what what's the alternative if we weren't going to sell the buildings well a lot of these properties are located like right in the downtown core and so you know if you sell a building it can become a blight um and so and you know it becomes a risk in fact it's one thing we've been mitigating up at the Alpine Boston site with the vacant hospital we put a lot of energy securing that property um and you know from value to the community you really want to activate these areas and I think that there's a potential for you know as development comes over for us to guide how those

[41:00] sales could go there's certainly ways that we can position you know who that that fail might go to that really needs more Community Values but um yeah we would be in a position to keep um investing in those properties um and I think selling them with would probably not be a great operation it would be something trying to figure out a new use but then we're just adding to the portfolio thank you um and then another question with with this sort of uh method that the financial strategy that you demonstrated with the Alpine Balsam project I mean do you anticipate that if we kind of do this at that site and move forward in a way that we're intentionally thinks about how we're maintaining buildings over time will we end up in a place where we're not having to sell buildings to pay for the maintenance of buildings that we really should have been saving some money for and dealing with decades ago is that I mean is this sort of a one-time thing is it something that's

[42:01] going to set a precedent that we sell buildings and land every time a building approaches the end of its life are we from here on out going to be accounting for adequate maintenance costs and how we save for that sorry that was like five questions in one yeah no I think I've got them though but um it is the fundamental principle and that maintain well initiative is that once we make these large Investments we put that two percent to four percent current replacement value annually towards those buildings to maintain them over their life so we are not selling these we don't want to be back in this position um it is another element that p3s sometimes put into their actual upfront bids and proposals is that ongoing maintenance so in some ways that's that maintenance can be baked into those payments naturally that way which helps create some discipline to again keep performing and being ahead of the curve but it's exactly what we don't

[43:00] want to do is be selling properties again in 20 years or kind of getting behind so maintain well is that initiative initiative funds buildings in a way we consisting them okay and um just kind of one other follow-up question about the ring fencing strategy um this you know two to four percent that we're kind of setting aside for maintenance costs you know that we know we're going to come so that in 20 or 30 years future councils and having to sell stuff off to pay for new buildings um when when the debt is paid off is it is that the sort of realized savings going toward that two to four percent is the two to four percent that we're um saving over time in addition to the savings that we're applying toward toward debt I mean I guess I guess what I'm wondering is you know do we have that um the savings that's applying toward the debt as well as sort of a depreciation that we are

[44:00] um kind of filling in less savings so that we're we're thinking about the eventual you know replacement costs or maintenance costs of buildings as they age yeah I think I I guess so there's two different pieces there's two to four percent which we recommend on all buildings which um of the replay value and that is to invest in future infrastructure costs the savings that we're talking about your kind of born out of the inefficiency now so in our budgets you know we're spending more than we could in an efficient budget or an efficient building we'll take those savings and apply it and I think to your point we'll apply that to pay debt over we'll say 20 years at the end of that those savings that we continue to see will become All City statements so once we we pay that debt you get to realize those additional savings just back in the budget there's different structures about how we structure through the debt service and

[45:02] then after those two to four percent that keeps that ongoing maintenance and again that's where a partnership structures those in a lot of times we as we look at our funding model and our debt model we end up self-performing would look at how we Fund in that future ongoing maintenance does that answer yeah no thank you that that helps thank you um so it's not that we're sort of maintaining two two separate things that we're trying to save for over time once the debts kind of paid off then then those are broader realized savings that we have there um and then one final question just to make sure I understood um really appreciated the slide that uh showed these buildings in the context of all the property and buildings that we have um so it sounds like we're basically gaining about 100 000 square feet of building space at Alpine Balsam and we would be losing about 56 000 square feet of space in other buildings that we'd be

[46:01] selling so we would have like connecting of almost 50 000 square feet did I get that right yeah roughly that's where we're balancing based on a lot of the discussion here tonight and understanding we're balancing that total opportunity to Alpine Boston but yes we would be at a Net game overall thank you that's all my questions appreciate it thank you Nicole mark yeah forgive me for going again I just forgot one question um well with a portfolio uh with a replacement value of over 700 million dollars uh two to four percent um annually is 14 to 28 million dollars allocated towards this project of of you know having sufficient funds for um Redevelopment or you know reconstruction or whatever um that's I think it's desirable but it's a pretty big ask [Music] if I understand your question I think so

[47:00] we're not talking about getting two to four percent of 700 million right now I think that's part of the ideas phasing in as we make really large Capital Investments um in buildings that's when the ask comes on the hill that you know the annual budget assets now let's maintain this new well-performing building well so it's a phased in approach and hopefully then consolidation helps you know bring down some of that and provide some efficiency but yeah we're it's it's a very phased in over the entire building portfolio I'm not even sure when we would quite get there but thank you that you've answered it perfectly thanks are there any other questions at this time from fellow council member I don't see any I don't see anyone stands up but I did have a clarifying question from a comment that was made by council member Mark Wallach and it was about when you talked about

[48:00] the cell over real estate portfolio for conversion to more projects and I think the comment was I just want to make sure that I was clear you said this is an opportunity for sale is actually to focus to use the money for Alpine Balsam at this time is that correct did I understand that correctly the properties that we're currently looking to sell would be used toward Delta involve them because they're specifically taking the services in those buildings now and and consolidating them there in the future there could be something where you know we're building a new fire station a new location and we're you know moving and so then you know the sale would be directly relative to the project that's that's moving forward thank you I do have another question for you um I was and I'm not sure I saw that when I was reading through the packet um analysis

[49:01] of highest and best use value research for the cell of these current properties because ultimately we live in Boulder I mean I can think of housing we need more housing yes we're selling older properties that we have but are we are we looking at okay are we just selling them we it really doesn't matter what happened to them once they're sold or are we doing also analysis and also ensuring that hey maybe this property should be used for this particular intent yeah we would do some detailed analysis analysis because unlike maybe you know just a developer who's looking for just monetary value we can go out and Define the social environmental values that would be attached to that and really guide how properties would be redeveloped so that would be definitely another detailed piece of looking at how these properties are disposed of thank you so much now seeing no for the questions coming from Council we do have

[50:01] three questions to help direct uh staff the first one does council agree with the approach to selling properties and using proceeds to fund projects advancing the key initiatives of the facilities master plan who wants to go first hello wake up um we'll go with council member Spear and then we have council member Wallach thanks I think Mark's hand just beat mine though um I was just Jenny I was wondering can we just answer all three of these questions as we're commenting is that okay you know what I just agreed I and would you let me read all three of them so the first one do we agree uh with the approach to selling properties and using the proceed to fund projects advancing the key initiative of the facilities master plan uh this Council support ring

[51:01] fencing captured uh saving to finance annual debt Services uh payments and fun on ongoing operations in maintenance of City buildings and the third one this Council support further investigation of the public private partnership to build operate and maintain facilities through direct engagement with the private Market go ahead Nicole um for me then it's yes yes and yes I think this is a really clever solution to a problem that um none of us really created but we're now forced to solve and so thank you to facilities thank you to finance um thank you to staff for for coming up with these uh clever Solutions out of our turkey hard problems um I heard you say on that last one um staff just that that we would be making sure that these public private Partnerships any that we would be looking into are really aligned with our

[52:00] city values and goals and priorities things that we're trying to achieve um and I'm very supportive of that approach and I think it would be wonderful for Council to hear a little bit more if my colleagues agree as some of those details get get sorted out um just to to just to hear a little bit more about that so but thank you so much for all this work really appreciate it uh wonderful work thank you Nicole now we'll go with Mark and then Aaron in the age of brevity yes yes and yes thank you oh awesome Aaron can you make it shorter I I think it's slightly longer but yes agree with my colleagues uh fantastic work very creative uh financing approaches here I'll just say on the number one definitely agree with the approach just I know you're thinking about the future of work but I just want to encourage you to continue that right like as as we continue to have remote work be a really big and important part of the city organization to just think about maybe

[53:02] there's one other building that we could consolidate away from you know as as we're able to be more Thrifty with our use of space and um you know hoteling spaces and things like that so I know you're thinking about that but just wanted to to emphasize that because we might could go even a little bit further with the consolidation you know based on what how things may look like in the future um and then I'll just say I think the the ring fencing is a good idea I would just want to preserve some flexibility in the event of future emergencies right like if we're we're having to cut city services left and right and pull down our reserves you to maybe we think about potentially accessing some of these funds as well so uh just they should be identified the savings should be identified in debt and and used for that purpose but in case of emergency just maybe to preserve some flexibility and appreciate what Nicole said about the uh p3s being uh reflective of Boulder's values and to pass on more details as

[54:00] you get them thanks so much awesome thank you Aaron are there any other council members I mean to give direction I think having a majority of those who are present would be helpful so uh Rachel and Bob do you have any comments and maybe I'm Matt as well Matt I see your hands up and then uh yes go ahead Matt thanks Junior uh we'll keep it simple so we get clear describe yes yes and yes um and share thoughts of my colleagues on all those pieces they said it well um and thanks for the presentation I thought it was really well detailed and the intentionality around thinking about these things is really important as we Face some of these tougher challenges or get exposed in some of our vulnerabilities in our portfolio so thanks for the adaptation and sort of trying to maintain that uh robust portfolio going forward so thank you guys thank you Matt Rachel I'll be a triple yes as well

[55:00] thank you Rachel Bob did it on the triple yes thank you very much all and I just want to add thank you staff for this great presentation and I don't have any more to add but to say yes yes and yes and that um it was such a great presentation we we get it thank you so much and and thank you very much for all the work I think um council member spear just put some appreciation on this chat for the presentation as well so thank you for the great presentation greatly appreciated and um there's no further discussion on this one at this time and I wonder did staff get everything that it needed in order to move forward today yes I think we did yeah thank you yeah we appreciate it thank you so much now we will move on to the discussion to reaffirm the family

[56:01] participation seasonal and temporary employee benefits and I will pass the Baton to uh Nuria thank you so much council member and the last time we were talking about Family Colorado Family and Medical Leave insurance program we came to you in November uh to pass a resolution um saying we are sticking sort of with our city uh leave program because it offered in our estimation better benefits as we move forward but we took to heart what you had mentioned to us about can we look a little bit more at the kind of benefits and support that we provide our seasonal and temporary employees and our Chief Human Resources Director is our officer is here to tell you a little bit more about that foray into the work so I pass it on to David thank you Nuria I appreciate the introduction I Am David Bell the Chief Human Resources officer I'm happy to be here this evening and visiting with all

[57:01] of you about seasonal and temporary employee benefits primarily around lead support income support and it is related to the Colorado Family and Medical Leave insurance program I'd love to just jump into the slides and have them walk us through our conversation a little bit this evening and end with a touch of discussion and questions so we'll jump into the next slide please it was November in which we had conversation on the family program November 3rd 2022 we recommended as staff to the city council to opt out of the Colorado Family insurance program what that did was it uh delayed any participation until we opt in in a future date if we so choose to this family insurance program the year of 2023 is a contribution only with no benefits paid for any participants we have an opportunity to jump in at any future date at the start of the year we have to reaffirm formally with the state of Colorado once every eight years our participation status for the Colorado Family program employees are able to

[58:02] direct participate to the state program by their own hand another option that was available that we also did not choose was to facilitate employee Choice payroll deductions to the state of Colorado one other piece of background we did choose to recommend the opt-out of this program as did many other municipalities at this time we have that option where private employers do not for this particular program we are interested in watching the development of the program over time and given that we have collective bargaining agreements that have certain benefits in place and certain insurances that support various aspects of leave management it was important for us to be able to take time to study all the different programs that are available to us and build the best program and make changes over the appropriate timeline for our benefits support next slide please foreign on November 3rd there was discussion prior to the opt-out vote to as Maria

[59:00] mentioned investigate ways to support our seasonal and temporary employees now the message was delivered and received around the support that could be offered to seasonal and temporary employees often our lower wage earners partially based on the rate of pay for certain positions but also just on the length of employment and the volume of hours per week we often employ individuals for less than a full year in a seasonal capacity three months six months nine months and any variable in between and those seasonal positions could be 15 hours a week 10 hours a week up to 35 hours a week we also have temporary employees and they receive a certain portion of benefits and they could be full-time for up to generally a year but we don't go beyond that for temporary employees in most cases we also know that we have a number of seasonal employees who return these adaptive Seasons so we might have folks who return three or four or five years in a row and actually have some folks who work in seasonal roles who have been here for the double-digit years of

[60:01] employment with the city of Boulder so we did look into the on the request of city council some options that could be available for us in support of our seasonal and temporary employees in regards to leave leave the port and income replacement first and foremost we worked with our vendors we actually have a short-term disability program and that vendor we engage with that group around the cost to process and not only process claims but support income replacement for seasonal and temporary employees we asked about building a program specific for the city of Boulder through one of our vendors that also added absences for care family member which most short-term disability plans do not do what we've learned is that there's a lack of Desire by most vendors to participate in kind of an income support for non-personal injury or illness and we began watching with our local Partners options they were using and we have seen some transition into kind of a local run program similar to Colorado family and a handful of others have participated in

[61:01] Colorado Family next slide please there's a touch more about our program review we did review not only the leave management piece but also other seasonal employee benefits with certain hours of work on a schedule and in a planned employment engagement seasonal and temporary employees May in fact be eligible for medical leave Dental leave Etc I'm sorry medical and dental insurance Etc and earning of some paid sick time but there are limits to that amount of sick time depending on the employment type but we actually reviewed a bit of our medical insurance benefits and our disability benefits and leave management benefits next slide please well this evening I'm here to share that we are recommending the staff of the human resources to not address or participation status with the city of Boulder during 2023. that would be for any potential implementation or use of the program in 2024 again we can go back and make

[62:02] changes to participate at a future date but at this time with the web of benefits that we provide in different manners to all of our different employees we're not here to make a recommendation of teams at this particular time next slide we are here to talk about some ideas and thoughts that we think are implementable which we're calling our Boulder program or Boulder leave program what we've done is we have developed a framework for a program that could provide support to the seasonal and temporary employee benefits specifically for income replacement in the event of personal injury and illness and family illness or injury what that looks like for us is trying to support with income Replacements small numbers of individuals that may need this particular benefit if we were choosing Colorado Family individuals would have that ability to file a claim to the state of Colorado so we're trying to build something similar within the confines of the city Boulder benefit package next slide

[63:00] our program currently is focused on seasonal and temporary employees and again with our other employment groups having disability benefits from either the Standard Insurance company or from fppa for a public safety employees it's important for us to focus on our seasonal and temporary employees who do not have access to that seasonal I'm sorry to the lead benefit our eligibility piece would be for all seasonal and temporary employees again seasonal employees could be a handful of months could be nine months we've seen 10 month seasonal employees and temporary employees for any length in any given year next slide we needed to develop an amount of benefit payment as a potential for this program and we developed a sliding scale to provide a full-time employee somebody who is working 12 months a year 40 hours per week the 12 weeks of qualified income replacement leave similar to that of the Colorado Family program Colorado Family program would require medical

[64:01] documentation Etc to qualify for that particular payment we would do the same in some form but the sliding scale we have made takes into consideration the lengths of the planned engagement for the seasonal temporary employee and the hours worked per week and we have a sample of that on the next slide please I'm only showing you a handful of items here just to keep it simple but you can imagine there is a column on this larger chart that we have in our office for each of the 12 months 12 months 11 months 10 months all through and a calculation for every hour increment that could exist in the Grid in any given week so it is 12 by 40 but you can see the very top left-hand quarter 12 months 40 hours per week would qualify for 480 hours of potential leave nine months 40 hours a week 360 hours of leave and income replacement six months would be half of the 12-month value 240 hours and you see the increments Down based on the number of hours worked per week it's incumbent on us in this program to clearly identify an

[65:01] individual's status how long we expect that engagement to be in months and what that planned work week would look like and be very deliberate and careful to make sure we have that process correctly to make sure we're giving proper benefit to individuals next slide the concept is that the employees would accrue these particular hours so one of our learnings from the healthy family workplace act and emergency Health lead is that we can dedicate certain leave types for certain activities so this concept would allow seasonal and temporary employees to accrue specific leave for income replacement alongside their General sick leave the general sick leave is a smaller amount based on the requirements of the healthy family workplace act this would be in parallel and a crew in a different way our goal would be to have individuals accrue each pay period And by the halfway point of their planned engagement with us they will have accrued their full bucket of lead to use in case of personal injury or illness or family injury or illness

[66:02] it would not be available for a general sick day for a cold for a fever for illness of a child for a single day it's more for the extreme leaves that would be covered by Family Medical Leave Act and the Colorado Family Programs we're following that path of claim submission and approval the next piece of this is to determine the payment amount and while we have not yet determined or recommending a full percentage of pay for income replacement we are modeling different samples based on the 60 to 90 income replacement available in the Colorado Family program and that's 60 to 90 scale by Colorado family is based on General earnings we're not sure but that fits for this particular solution right now but we're modeling that piece on a flat rate for any of our seasonal and temporary employees our next slide please is the costing component here and what we're noting it that with a percentage of potentially 10 percent of seasonal

[67:01] employees seasonal temporary employees using the program there could be a cost of 200 to 250k in income replacement with sort of a 75 to 80 percent estimate for income replacement at this time the concern we have here is that we do not have a measurement of employee behaviors in regards to leave management right now we know that our current employees use a series of our benefits at around that 10 level accessing FMLA and the standard disability insurance at PPA Etc and we've tried to apply that model but we think it may be a touch High the other piece we would not know at this time is a length of a period of leave and right now we've modeled then based on a full allotment at the 12 week I'm sorry 12-month accrual rate rather than kind of dialing back a 20-hour employee on a six-month accrual I would have a smaller amount available to them so we're trying to build that proration in and to our cost estimates so this may be a bit High the last piece is we're still determining funding we are in the

[68:01] development and exploration of this program so we have not submitted directly for any budget components we know that we have current wage budgets and departments for seasonal and temporary employees that are planned for wages that could be considered as part of the payment but we have not yet determined that nor have we made the termination of requesting new funding at this time this is a very different number than the 1.3 million dollars that we expected the fees would be and contributions would be to the Colorado Family program should we fully participate across all of our employment groups standard employees seasonals and Temporaries again this covers only the approximately 900 to 1000 individuals who work some part of the year in that seasonal and temporary Academy 10 estimate of their usage and a very large assumption that they'd be using a significant amount of hours so with that you know the intent here is not to dig deeply into the constant processing of the Colorado family plan though we know how we're still waiting

[69:01] on information on how they will process claims and what the administration of that program will look like but we're really building that safety net for our seasonal and temporary employees with this exploration and determining what we can provide to individuals who engage with us in shorter term employment especially year after year employment one last piece we do have a couple other thresholds in place and that are matched to the Colorado Family program there is a requirement with Colorado family that an individual earns twenty five hundred dollars with an employer before they become eligible for the benefits we have some small kind of run-in uh Gates that we would have in place for this program as well we want to make sure that individuals are working a significant portion of their seasonal employment or temporary employment before stepping into a leave and then we were happy to focus on that income replacement with that staff member now our last slide is opening to Temple this step we are at now is hearing feedback from you about the boulder

[70:00] seasonal temporary employee program and specifically questions for staff to consider about our proposed plan to support our seasonal and temporary employees with income replacement alrighty does council have any question concerning the family program or the new CD of Boulder seasonal temporary employee leave program ah seeing none at well yes uh Nicole it's got to give us a second Dooney it's been a long week um all right so the uh one of I think most of my questions are just around kind of how would these uh benefits for the seasonal and temporary workers here in Boulder um have how does that compare to what what folks would get if we were to enroll in the family program I mean I

[71:00] know you know we're not we decided we wouldn't last fall but I think that's that's sort of in my mind is how do these things compare um so you know for example um how quickly would you know majority of our seasonal and temporary workers a crew leave um leave hours and earn toward their total allotment uh under the family program versus under this program that you're proposing here so the first step there thank you for the question the first step there is around the initial eligibility requirements and whether it would be our program or the Colorado Family program there's a minimum amount of earnings that have to come in place that 2500 minimum earning before a person could submit a claim so we would follow that same first threshold of becoming eligible at that point we would have throughout the employment period of the seasonal and temporary employees an earning of a portion of their allotment based on their hours worked and it is a half an hour per hour worked

[72:01] over the course of their employment but we need we're elevating that actually earning a half hour per hour worked each pay period so that total it is a quarter of their whole earned time during their engagement period the short way of saying that is that full-time 40 hour a week 12 month employee would earn 480 hours that's nearly 500 which is one quarter of these standard 2080 hours that individuals earn so we're trying to make it available as soon as a person hits that 2500 earning Mark based on what they've accrued to date and then continue earning and still have some earnings occurring once they return from their leave the next piece in relation to the Colorado family plan is that the benefit of that program and this developing program is it covers personal injury and illness and family injury and illness when many other plans such as that short-term disability plan only covers a personal injury or illness we would engage with our short-term disability

[73:01] provider to determine the cost for claim processing we can handle leave management within Human Resources however it's fairly low cost to have that quick turnaround processing when a person becomes eligible with our short-term disability and FMLA processor to be able to qualify that leave and begin the income replacement foreign thank you um and I think one of the other questions I have is what are other cities doing around this kind of seasonal and temporary worker I mean is is what we're talking about here kind of a newer thing for other local governments for example that didn't opt into the family program or other cities do they do this kind of thing at this particular moment we feel we are walking at a very similar Pace in program development as a lot of other cities counties Etc uh individual individuals have reported to us that they are tapping into their short-term disability vendor and asking the same questions we asked some organizations

[74:00] have put in a local program for all of their employees that we are not recommending that at this time but we're starting to see people step in and and address the seasonal and temporary employee group in a similar manner to what we're doing in addition we're all learning from the Colorado Family program as they have a public comment public hearing about the features of their plans and they're just now beginning to communicate more of that information and within the past month they actually shared information on determining if an employee has a seasonal and temporary is qualified to submit wages to the Colorado Family program meaning they're very much on the on the edge right now of how they collect contributions and how they qualify individuals in but nothing about program development so we're kind kind of out here working and chatting with our cohorts about what kind of plan might be available I think this could be a more common solution within this year and next year for municipalities thank you and then I just have two two more relatively quick questions they think are there any employees then if we

[75:01] were to put this in place for seasonal and temporary workers are there any employer employees in our city that are not eligible for paid family medical leave does this kind of capture all the folks who who aren't covered this is the group that Council identified through conversation in November that we wanted to address because of that very issue we felt that they were the employees that were not covered by our other disability programs that fully covered for Paid Family Leave not exactly we have a short-term disability that comes into place for a personal injury and illness or disability through other vendors outside of our non-union plan Union have different benefits those generally cover just the personal injury and illness and then we have our sick leave and parental leave for other types of issues so in general We Believe most injury and illness and FMLA family and personal protections are covered in some form and

[76:01] this is the last bit of lack of coverage that existed for the city okay thank you um and then have we gotten any feedback from um employees on on what they think about this or were you wanting to come to us first and then and then do some Outreach to that group it is the latter we wanted to hear from you given our November third conversation and make sure that we brought this forward not only for your feedback so but also so that you would see the timing of the program especially in relation to the budget the message also delivered in November was that uh we were a bit late opting in to be able to choose to impact the budget or Not by participation um so we certainly want to visit with you first and now we will begin some general engagement we do know that the seasonal employees have uh asked in small batches about different benefit plans over time hasn't been widespread but we're ready to begin some version of Engagement with our staff thank you appreciate that David um and Julie do you want like any comments now or do you want to do questions and then comments

[77:00] you're welcome to comment thanks yeah no I I really appreciate you know that that you all are thinking about this and um how we can meet the needs of our seasonal and temporary workers I think it's a group of workers that are often left out um of really critical benefits and um I think I kind of came into this this discussion tonight with just a little bit of a different uh memory of what it was we were going to be um kind of talking about tonight I think one of the things that I've been really interested in uh knowing about as we head into budgeting for 2024 um is just a little bit more you know end up like what's the benefit of um you know the family program versus the the programs that we already have in place kind of with this one captured too and um I may have been Mis misremembering and misunderstanding our previous conversation um but you know my what I remembered from that was that we were going to be [Music] um not not opting in because of the kind of

[78:02] late late decision uh because you know we hadn't allocated any money for it in the budget because we're still exploring what impact it might have on our our employees relative to the benefits that they already had but that we were going to be coming back to it in the course of the budgeting process and being able to think more about you know do we do we want to step into this to have a more kind of intentional and mindful discussion having gathered some of that information so I think that and that's that's my bad for not not kind of looking at the packet a couple weeks ago and giving you know that that feedback prior to this week but um I I think I I would still like to have that discussion because I don't really want to end up in a place you know where maybe it's 10 years down the road and we're just starting to think about family but um you know I think this is a really important program for for people across the state and for employees and I would still just like to to know what

[79:00] um what does it mean to be a part of family versus not and to be kind of putting together some other Solutions as we're doing on our own as others are are engaging in family so depending on you know what what other folks are interested in hearing about I think that is still something I would love to hear about at some point thank you and I do apologize if I um missed a little bit of the Mark or a bunch of the mark and we'll continue to work on this issue of course you know we were really focused on this one Gap in benefits primarily knowing that we cover uh so many other pieces for all of our employees and that we had some complexities in the web of benefits that we have and there's some timing to undo certain components at certain times but we are we are well aware and it is a growing area of interest and conversation amongst our peers in other cities and counties so you can rest assured that we will be engaged with this on an ongoing basis yeah and thank you I don't I don't mean to dismiss I mean it's clear that you all put a lot

[80:01] of thought it didn't work into trying to figure out how to how to cover our seasonal and temporary workers and I really appreciate that that we're thinking about those things so thank you for all that you are continuing to do to understand these different programs and how we can help benefit our employees thank you next Aaron and I've got uh comments if that's all right Janine uh just uh David thanks so much to you and your department and the other Finance people who contributed to this uh this looks like a really well thought designed thoughtful approach to helping out our seasonal and temporary employees with uh family medical leave so I'm I'm proud that we're taking this step you to plug this Gap in our benefit system because I think from my memory of the conversation last fall was that your analysis generally showed that our benefits at the city were equal to or greater than those provided by the family program which was why you know I was comfortable at that time saying okay

[81:00] I guess we don't need to engage with that as a city because it looks like we're doing better except that there was this Gap uh for temporary and seasonal employees and you seem to have uh you'd be proposing something that will ably plug that Gap so I really appreciate that fully supportive and then um to Nicole's point I think it's it'll be important to watch how the family program develops over the years right and as we you know go through different negotiations with our unions on different benefit packages and just to always keep an eye on what the future of this program is uh and to see if it ever might be a better fit for the city but it seems pretty clear that right now we're on a really good path with with this addition for the temporary and seasonal employees so thanks so much for your work all your work I'm very supportive awesome next we have Rachel and then Matt I'll be super quick um I just wanted to say thank you for bringing this back uh this is what what I was um expecting us to talk about and

[82:03] I many of you will recall that I've complained over the years that like we asked for things and then we never Circle back and so I actually had like a a little calendar note make sure staff came back to us on this to make sure that seasonal intent employees are not left behind so I didn't have to act on that note and I just want to say thank you thank you Rachel Matt yeah thanks David for for this and I I agree with Rachel this is kind of right in the Wheelhouse of where I thought we would land on this and I always viewed family as the floor not the ceiling um and that I always had the expectations based on our city values that we would never just rest on the floor we would always go above and beyond because that's who we are as a community and so I always view us being able to take that floor and expand and improve and go beyond that and that's what we're doing and filling this Gap I think stays true to that so I appreciate all the hard work in order for us to do that and certainly you know where Aaron pointed out of let's monitor it I have

[83:01] expectations that we'll always be exceeding what family is because that's meant to be a floor for for other folks that may not have the the same uh threshold and level of commitment that we do um so I appreciate all that work and and really all to the entire city starts with Nuria and everybody else that commitment to staff is really important so uh thanks for following up with that thank you Matt Rachel your hand is still up lazy are there any other comments for David seeing none at this time I just wanted to add thank you for the presentation and I appreciate you the comments that you made because it put things into perspective for me you mentioned the um 1.3 million as opposed to the 200 to 250 000 coming from the city and that somehow all programs are better or comparable to what the state is

[84:00] providing um and I understand as well a lot of people at the Capitol when they're drafting laws they hope that the laws will be implemented or if there is an opt-out process or portion um is that the CDs or um there will be other mechanisms used as well to ensure that people get the coverages that they need so ultimately knowing the process how it works I I mean I read by reading the legislative Declaration of that bill I can see the intent of uh the drafters or the people who carried the bill but ultimately seeing that or seasonal and temporary workers will be provided so that Gap will be plugged in so ultimately I would say we are moving in the right direction to ensure somehow even though we're not opting into this particular uh program we're doing the work we are ensuring that Community um not community members but all workers

[85:02] who at times are community members as well are protected so [Music] um at first when this first came before Council I was in full support of obtaining to the process and hearing from what I'm hearing from you at this time uh even though I still believe in the uh in the family program I believe that the city is moving in the right direction and up ultimately If eventually you decide to join into this particular process or program um I I would welcome it I think it would be great but ultimately I think we are doing the work um whether we are in or not into this particular program at this time based on what I heard so thank you for that and are there any other comments coming from Council at this time seeing none forever hold your peace no one else great well thank you for coming by David and thank you for this presentation and moving on right along we are killing

[86:03] it tonight um the next conversation is the presentation on minimum wage and I will pass it on to uh Nuria thank you thanks so much and it is uh moving quite along so thank you for that council member um our next conversation is really an update on uh what have been uh to date the minimum wage efforts I know that uh councilmember folkerts has been leading that effort on behalf of council and she is making her way over to the meeting as I am talking and trying to buy enough time but if that's not there we will um we have staff and uh Taylor Ryman as you all know have been working with um with council member fogerts to really move in this direction and has a staff presentation I'll say last time we had spoken about the topic you all voted um to have uh council member for groups

[87:00] be the council representative on a regional Consortium that is looking at the issue of minimum wage um on this uh and with that we had um staff supporting that work as I do not see council member folkerts and I'm sure she'll be coming in shortly and provide a little bit more of uh context for that Taylor why don't I just suggest that you uh provide a little bit of that conversation and a presentation and I'm sure um we go out there she is I spoke just long enough council member to give you some time thank you so much um and thank you for your patience everyone I just wanted to start with talking about why we're looking at minimum wage at the municipal and Regional levels the sort of origins of this effort in 2019 the state legislature a past an

[88:00] ordinance that gave local governments the right to set their own minimum wage and later that year with support from then council member swetlick the Consortium began discussions on that topic but as we all remember 2019 was the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic four years later we have some new council members the pandemic is endemic and we have felt numerous impacts to our economies evidenced by sharp increases in inflation interest rates and costs of living in general wages in our community just haven't kept up with cost of living increases and the differences are becoming more and more challenging for our community members to overcome and this challenge is shared by many of our surrounding communities so through the Consortium of cities a working group has formed to look at the this issue collectively because we recognize that changing the minimum wage

[89:01] in any Community changes our regional economy and many people in Boulder live in different communities than where they work boulder-based businesses non-profits and other organizations have operations and customers throughout the country and for these reasons and many others we believe a regional approach to considering a minimum wage would be best for understanding and meeting the needs of our unique and interdependent economies while also providing consistency for both employees and employers in April of 2022 this Council supported my participation in the minimum wage working group um through the Consortium of cities and over the last year that working group has meant to admit to examine the enabling legislation understand the required process and conduct early engagement with cities and stakeholders to initially assess the needs and interests of our communities these conversations have established the

[90:02] foundation necessary for exploring this joint effort and tonight we are not proposing a recommendation or asking for a final decision on a wage Target or timeline but we are at a point where it would be helpful to have our Council for all the various working group members weigh in on next steps so tonight we are checking in on your support for continued collaboration with the working group and so that we can better scope the needs and next steps for future decision making with that I'd like to kick it over to Taylor for the presentation thank you so much Lauren and thanks so much for your continued leadership on this effort as everybody see on my screen all right good evening Council Taylor Ryman assistant to city council and we're going to talk about the update on the work of the minimum wage working

[91:01] group through the Boulder County Consortium of cities so as Lauren mentioned in 2019 the state lifted the preemption on local governments setting their own minimum wage laws here's some highlights from the bill ordinance adoption must be preceded by Community engagement with the groups listed here in addition to the reasons Lauren mentioned the second piece is another big part of what's informed our regional approach only 10 percent of jurisdictions across the state can adopt a different minimum wage ordinance but an IGA covering several municipalities within a county is considered one in that calculation next any raise either an escalation to a Target or an annual adjustment must coincide with the state increase on January 1st and finally escalation is limited to 1.75 or 15 whichever is higher so there's some statutory limits laid out in the bill and on one hand these reduce the decisions we'd need to make on the other hand it does create a

[92:01] one-size-fits-all approach that might not be suitable for all communities implementation date and dates for escalation and adjustments are fixed to January 1st employee time and jurisdiction is covered but passing through is not it covers all workers and emancipated minors and does not allow exemptions for things like small businesses and tipped wages can be three dollars and two cents less than the adopted wage or whatever the state tip credit is that those must align on the policy discretion front these are choices that we have a little bit more flexibility in a regional approach though most of these discretionary items will need consensus from participating communities except for items like enforcement and escalation schedules which can be local decisions so Target and annual increase to reach that Target typically escalation periods are about three to five years after escalation we can choose how to make regular adjustments into the future

[93:01] otherwise known as indexing whether or not to expand the wage to cover unemancipated minors and we can rely on the state's existing enforcement system or create our own so those are all things that we have more decision in so these the slide here outlines where the current wages are and communities pursuing the new Authority and for reference uh city of Boulder falls under the state minimum wage at 13.65 cents an hour uh this fall we know that the state's going to announce the 24 2024 increase and based on the first quarter of 2023 inflation estimates we might see that adjustment uh in 2024 come to about 14.24 cents an hour if the 4.3 percent inflation rate from 2023 first quarter um remains about that rate City self-imposed living wage does exist for our Workforce and it is right now at

[94:00] 17.42 cents Denver was the first to pursue the new Authority and they completed the process in three months this was supported by strong Council engagement and years of engagement right beforehand on a self-imposed city minimum wage like we have it was sort of a springboard into expanding that to a community-wide minimum wage two weeks ago CU campuses across the state raised their minimum wage to 16 an hour for students and 18 an hour for hourly workers last week Fort Collins considered an ordinance council did vote against it and their Direction was to consider uh to pursue a regional approach pretty cool idea um this is just to give an idea of where we're at right now as you can see there is uh several movements on raising wages across the state so these are some possible Target wage approaches and like Lauren said we're not asking for a decision on a Target tonight um Council this is your first real

[95:01] update on this work and and we wouldn't make a decision like that to you at this stage but we wanted to outline what wage approaches could look like these are not staff recommendations they're either external recommendations or local wages that fall outside the state minimum they demonstrate a spectrum of options and while some may be appropriate for us to duplicate the best option for our community is still to be determined at a forum on April 24th the Colorado Center for Law and policy presented a guiding wage proposal based on the November 2022 self-sufficiency wage report it would raise it to the rage to 15 an hour and 41 cents in 2024 so next year with an increase of 12.9 until reaching the target of 25 an hour in 2028. the city already has our own living wage and lastly wages could attempt to align with our Metro or university Partners who already will exceed the state minimum

[96:03] next we'd like to talk about the actual working group efforts the communities listed here are have been involved over the last year Boulder County they have a little bit lower of a stake in the game just because they don't have a lot of major Workforce centers and so um a minimum wage with their participation would only apply to unincorporated County so while they are a bit of a lower player in the game they have been a really important convener for the working group and just helping facilitate all of our conversations city of Boulder of course is a working group member city of Louisville has this on their work plan and they've been a strong partner Longmont is another strong partner and they will be receiving a similar update to the one tonight on January 6th so your feedback here will also inform that update we did some early engagement over the last year and full engagement has not been launched but we've had limited check-ins with Chambers of Commerce labor groups and some and the university

[97:02] some stakeholders have been aware of the last year's efforts of the working group and they started engaging groups in February to advance minimum wage conversations across the county for example the Boulder area labor Council hired Siegel long public affairs to do community engagement and advocacy work and convene a coalition they are calling themselves the Boulder County self-sufficiency Coalition and they formed in February they continue to meet with elected representatives across the county including the working group communities Longmont Lions Lafayette and others they've got 24 labor groups represented in the Coalition and I'm not going to list them all but I'll highlight just a few names Colorado Coalition for the homeless National Employment Law Center New Era Colorado together Colorado towards Justice there's several others that's just a few and many of these groups work across jurisdictions and have memberships throughout Boulder County mentioned on the previous slide in April 2023 the

[98:01] Coalition did host that Community Forum to hear from workers and invited elected officials to that that's where they presented their guiding proposal and while there are differences in how much and how quickly to make minimum wages change minimum wage changes there is strong agreement that this should be done regionally we checked in with the boulder chamber and while the chamber has supported previous Statewide increases they would oppose any minimum wage increase without thorough review of impacts and benefits that Engage The Boulder chamber membership and other business stakeholders to support the time needed for engagement and review their preferences for later implementation and a regional approach checking in with CU as a state entity legally they're not required to comply with City's minimum wage laws and in light of their recent wage raise anything below 16 really wouldn't have an impact to them they do have a strong desire to meet or exceed any Cinema City minimum wage to stay competitive and ensure that employees are adequate

[99:00] adequately compensated and they want to work with city leaders throughout the county If This Were pursued on anything going on because you know implementing increases and planning those those items does take a long time to plan and as I mentioned the Boulder County self-sufficiency Coalition is advocating for their proposal and and the quickest timeline that we can manage so this draft timeline is part of what prompted our check-in with Council it was drafted by Boulder County it lays out steps needed to implement a new wage on January 1st 2024 was the was the proposal and and this is what brought us to check in with Council understanding that there are a lot of different needs in our different communities um we we appreciate the timeline in that it lays out sort of the chunked steps that are needed to get to implementation but we want to be mindful that we need

[100:02] to check in with all of our communities on when that implementation date might be scoping and Community engagement is a next step and moving forward does not commit us to any outcome at any point in the process any of our local governments would retain the option of going forward separately or stepping out of a regional effort as desired and so as I understand it from conversations from attorneys what would need to happen is in the legal sense we dropped an mou and then we would create a model ordinance and Shop it around to communities and get a consensus on the parts of a model ordinance and then we would adopt an ordinance as an item with an IGA and that's how a regional approach would be pursued while we've worked together to understand the legislation outline the needs and get an early sense of stakeholder views the scope has not yet

[101:00] been fully defined for our city the scope may include the items listed here and most notably we'll need Community engagement equity and financial analyzes drafting agreements and ordinance language there's also opportunities for creative resourcing and sharing the work if other communities take the lead on deliverables seeking outside help from Consultants or university Partners going in on on different rfps you know between multiple communities those costs could be shared and finally we present you with these Council questions tonight does council wish to continue with this Regional effort towards the establishment of a regional minimum wage and have staff scope this item for addition to the existing work plan should scope consider implementation of 2024 or 2025 would Regional participation impact council's will to pursue an approach and if Council would like us to continue moving forward does council have any feedback

[102:01] on the timeline or engagement approach thank you Taylor we have Council questions at this time please raise your hand if you have any we see right now Bob and then Matt thanks Judy thanks Taylor that was great presentation thanks Lauren um just two questions now I'll have some comments in second with two questions one um what I didn't hear in the presentation it was I heard a lot of advocacy sounds like there's a lot of people are advocating for various things um but I didn't hear a whole lot of economic analysis by independent economists what work has been done around that as far as what impacts there would be on businesses the local economy employees and all sorts of stakeholders what what um what work has been done with the con with neutral economists to evaluate those things and where are those reports if that's been done great question Bob and I can jump in on this one so

[103:00] the most recent self-sufficiency wage report in 2022 is is one piece of data that we have and as we consider next steps one of the things that we might look into is what those analyzes would require um which jurisdictions they would include and figuring out how we could get a sense of where is the local economy who does make the minimum wage what businesses would this impact and who would not be impacted what's a benefit Cliff perhaps of raising the minimum wage and then pushing people out of eligibility for certain benefits those things certainly need to be studied but we're we're not quite at that point it'd be next step yeah that you hit on Taylor you did a great job of getting on many of the questions that I would have for an economist and it sounds like the answer is we haven't or the regional Consortium hasn't hired an independent Economist to do that work unless Lauren are you aware is is that some of the things that Taylor mentioned and probably a few others has that been been done by

[104:00] independent I'm not talking about advocacy I'm talking about independent analysis you know something by like a rich woman to see you or somebody like that who doesn't have um you know dog on the phone right um the we haven't taken that step to look at Boulder yet in the implementation of Denver's ordinance they had to have the state actually reviewed all the data that they had available um and were able to they published a report on sort of the effect that Denver's wage had on their economy and their businesses now that was during covid so um if they make a note about that being a little bit hard to extrapolate out but there is some data in terms of implementation in nearby cities great great so it sounds like Denver has already kind of created at least the data they collected may not be relevant because it's Denver or because it was during covet or because it was a few years ago but it sounds like they've released Dan dimmers at least created a road map for the types of things that

[105:02] that an economist would look at so that's great and then I ended the state enabling legislation it's actually part of what's required so great I think you mentioned that it sounds like Denver had been working on that for for quite some time even before they passed their ordinance so what would be the and there was a very aggressive timeline I'll comment on that in a second but but I'm just trying to understand it's just still saying with questions like what where in that timeline that was really only about six or seven months long would that economic work be done where would that be done like next month or the month after how long would that take that's a great question so I know Fort Collins did a uh worked with a consultant to survey employers I it wasn't a market analysis but it was an employer survey of where where things stood and that costs for that was around twenty or thirty thousand dollars we'd have to check in with them and see how long they took to

[106:00] do to do that but I imagine that would inform Community engagement and probably either have to coincide with Community engagement or go um before it yeah no I think you're right Taylor I think it either I suppose it could be done in parallel but in a perfect world it would be great if it was done before because then that probably was informed some of the questions you'd ask the community and the business businesses that's great but that was just kind of one line of questions the second line of questions is um again the timeline looked really really really tight there and had two months for Community engagement uh we got um hundreds of businesses and we're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars here so I was just kind of wondering and we got a letter from the chamber that said they really had somebody's checked in with them but they really haven't been fully engaged what's the I know the two months was set aside in that timeline for Community engagement uh what's the community engagement plan during that eight or nine weeks um with with all those hundreds of businesses that would be affected what can you mean when a lab right I don't want the community engagement plan is because if if that's going to happen in two months then it sounds like it's going to be like July and August so we must be pretty far

[107:00] along in our thinking about what that engagement would look like so that's part of why we're also checking in with you is because that that is an aggressive timeline we acknowledge that accomplishing that timeline would take a lot and if we were to have a 2024 implementation we'd really need to hit the ground running on community engagement and that's also assuming in a regional approach that all of our other partners would want to hit the ground running and doing that too Boulder County has offered to host some joint forums and so again to sharing the work a little bit um we we could all come together and um share some of the community engagement needs and and the other scoping needs but if we had a little bit longer of a timeline we'd be able to maybe flesh out um a longer amount of time dedicated to that yeah that sounds like a great idea Taylor to coordinate with the county and with the other cities because we do have employers that are in multi-cities so I think that's a really really small idea whether we can do that in two months or not I don't know we'll talk about that

[108:00] in a second but um but it sounds like you guys are starting to think about the right things as far as this process so those are the questions I have great thank you Bob I just want to make sure I get the names right is it Mark is next your next Mark okay um what is the implication well first of all thank you for the presentation both Lauren and uh you know both of you Rick uh and and Taylor um what's the implication of Fort Collins not approving and saying they want a regional approach I don't see them listed as one of the cooperating cities are they are they part of the mix no they're not part of our effort we have been meeting with them on a regular basis just to continue to be appraised of what we have going on we they sort of voted on their item last week and we had

[109:01] an update this week so it made a lot of sense for us to check in on where things were at um their Council really liked the idea of a regional approach and gave their staff direction that they didn't want to do this in isolation I know Fort Collins has done a little bit of legwork in trying to build Coalition Partners across Larimore and weld they haven't gotten a ton of traction on that yet um but we'll see in the future if if those those ideas change the other thing that we uh Fort Collins received direction to do was to pursue an amendment to the current legislation that would allow more flexibility for exemptions around small businesses and tipped workers because in Fort Collins at least their biggest feedback from the business community and the pushback was around those two items so if there was a little bit more flexibility in being able to implement a law it might be more advantageous for their community and perhaps others to pursue so we're engaged with them and and hopefully

[110:00] working with them going forward yep gotta check in with them tomorrow morning let them know what happens tonight and again thank you both for the work it's uh this is a great presentation appreciate it thanks Mark Rachel and then Matt um thanks everyone just two questions and I think from Bob's questions I probably know the answers but have we done any analysis on the city budget with the proposal what it would mean for us as a city because we have a lot of employees I don't know that any of them make minimum wage but um dovetailing with my next question often you're trying to be a bit above minimum wage as to different job categories so just wondering if we looked at that I will let Finance answer that question hi Cara uh good evening Cara Skinner Chief Financial Officer we have done some preliminary analyzes um and it would definitely have a budget impact um but again that's a consideration that

[111:01] Council would need to weigh against other um goals of a program like this but there would definitely be a minimum wage impact because we do have uh seasonal attempts or not subject to our living wage so it's again that that same group so it's largely in our Parks and Recreation and open space and Mountain Park and transportation funds that would be impacted thanks and then uh my second question probably to Taylor and I've talked about it a bit with Lauren I worked um I I suppose I I gravitate towards companies that that um are in the non-profit sector and don't have a lot of money above minimum wage so I worked at a company that provided Direct Care Staffing sort of a health care setting for people with developmental disabilities and people exiting homelessness and when the minimum wage was hiked by the federal government and around I don't know 2000 the eight maybe um it was a real hit to the organization because we always tried to stay like two

[112:01] dollars above minimum wage and so just wondering has there been any analysis on um how this would impact non-profits particularly but but Health Care settings that are really reliant on Medicaid dollar reimbursements where they can't just you know charge clients or make up the difference some other way so what does the analysis been for um companies that that can't can't again charge more for their services really and are reliant on government contracts and I don't know if that's um been shown how it played out in Denver I think one thing that we would not want to do is um especially with an aging population on the horizon drive drive out a Workforce that we're really going to need to to provide for our most vulnerable so there have been analysis there so no analysis in Boulder we do know again from our partners over in Fort Collins that this was a major area of

[113:00] concern in their efforts I'm not sure quite what Denver did but the known issue areas tipped workers the healthcare settings small businesses would be part of what informs our community engagement plans we'd probably want to have very specific questions around those those concern areas um and try our best to create something that would accommodate knowing that there are some stats for limitations laid out in the bill okay and is that something that we can specifically ask for you to make sure that we're looking at for Boulder you know with regard to other cities that have done it like uh what what are the Ripple effects um on on those settings okay thanks to that just before it is something that if the direction today is to move forward um and and make this a work plan item as we think about the partners that Taylor mentioned like CU or other Consultants to make sure we're thinking about it and

[114:01] and looking at in specific Industries where we know the impacts and the ramifications may be different uh and so I just wanted to lift that up that I know constant number of focus has flagged that for us to continue to look at thanks and in case I didn't make it clear like a reason that you have to stay a couple dollars an hour over minimum wage for those jobs is that people don't want to do those jobs like you you really have to draw people to do those jobs and so we just have to be mindful of um you know if you can work it at fast food or a cafe or something which are also highly needed jobs if we can't get those above whatever we set as minimum wage we're going to have a really hard time filling those thanks absolutely and having done this in Minneapolis when we did this in 2016 nursing homes were a big issue because of that Federal reimbursement the Medicare reimbursement so something to paper particular attention to and so we'll be looking if that is the will of council to continue to go deeper into those specific Industries thanks

[115:00] thank you and Matt you're next thanks Judy I appreciate the really the Deep work uh Lauren that you're doing on this on behalf of us that's it's really awesome that you're sinking into this really deeply and helping lead the way and Taylor thanks for supporting that um my question kind of has to do with how do we Define regionality um you know we we Define regions for different things at different radii more or less from our community and so I'm just curious in this instance you know I I guess really my my question slash concern is is Boulder County not quite Regional enough to really actually meet the the intended goals or that sort of you know uh broad breadth of it necessary to keep competitive uh playing field even among some of our sister communities I think of the hospitality industry and I'm worried like okay if we do this do do some of our restaurants and Hospitality businesses flee to Arvada and Jefferson County do they go North to Fort Collins so those are all

[116:00] pretty lateral Transitions and so I'm just wondering what are we defining that Regional approach and and how are we bringing those folks like Adams Laramie Jefferson um into the mix and and in that sense or are they working independently so I'm just kind of curious how we Define regionality for a project like this thanks Matt and actually outlined in the legislation as I said there's a 10 cap on who can enact but folks in an IGA would only count as one in that calculation but it has to be folks within the county that count as that one in the calculation and so I think that I'm not sure how it would work out if like Fort Collins could necessarily join our effort or another Community let's say outside of Boulder County joined our effort how that would work in the 10 calculation but the way it's laid out in the state bill it makes it most advantageous for regionality to be defined by county no the okay that that's helpful context

[117:02] and certainly if one County as a IGA counts as just one then I'm I guess I'm curious that as a unit how are we then reaching out to those other sort of single IGA units that border our County to again maintain that level of playing field in that sense so are we having those I would assume Fort Collins would be part of the Laramie and and others so are we trying to have that um Geographic spread in our Outreach to one either know they're interested or is there a way that even though we're doing our own thing can we kind of work from an even playing field so I'm just wondering if those higher level conversations among would be separate igas more or less is occurring or is their intent to do so I think so because this effort um sort of originated with the Consortium of cities that's really why we've been focusing on Boulder and Boulder County um

[118:00] I've been having conversations with other communities outside of this as you know as other people are as well and it's um there hasn't been a community yet that's been really on board and asked if they could join sort of our working group I think that we would probably be open to that um but it just we haven't had that conversation yet because there sort of isn't while other people are all other communities are also looking at this that are outside of Boulder County um it hasn't been clear that they're is enough momentum for them to join with just yet and so I think it's a good question and something we'll keep trying to pursue to I think you know the more the more we can coordinate with the surrounding communities I think that only serves to benefit um all of us but uh it's just it's not

[119:01] quite there yet and I have a feeling that if once this gets more momentum we might see increased interest from surrounding communities as well great thank you Matt are there any other questions from Council at this time seeing none the question for Council do you wish to continue with this Regional effort and um and have staff scope this item and should the scope be considered for implementation in 2024 or 25 25 and would Regional participation impact councils will to pursue an approach that's the first question and then the second if Council would like us to continue to move forward does council have any feedback on the timeline or engagement or approach uh now I see Bob yeah I'll answer I'll start doing with

[120:00] the questions thanks um so absolutely this should be a regional effort I'm happy that we're um that we're talking to our partners at least in the county I think Matt raises a really really good point about the fact that some of the people who actually make minimum wage or near minimum wage in our city probably don't necessarily live in the county so I think we need to be looking further south and farther east they don't want to join us they don't join us but um I know those legal constraints there as well but it is going to feel a little artificial to just draw the boundaries around the Boulder County limits um and I think we're going to miss the mark a little bit and we may have some unintended Economic Consequences we started to talk about I want to elaborate more about the the very very big importance of doing an economic analysis here it sounds like there's been little done at least regionally around that and so that's a super big I would think almost Next Step um for this Regional whatever whatever the definition original is regional uh approach um and then then the engagement is going

[121:00] to be super super important there's two ways we can do do this the hard way and the easy way the hard way is just to jam it down the throats of of hundreds of businesses and Rachel I think started to touch on some of the businesses that um really would not have the ability to um pass along this extra expense to their calling customers sometimes their patients um and so I think we have to be very very thoughtful and careful about Community engagement there is no way that we can do adequate Community engagement in two months I'd be surprised if you do it in two years but two months that's just crazy so I'm moving on to the second question absolutely not 20 January 1 2024 is just a jam um there's been little or no economic analysis and little or no uh Community engagement and Matt raises a really really great point about who even is the region so um I think it's great to be talking about this and I I really commend staff and Lauren for leading the charge in this it should be Regional there's a ton of work ahead of us I hope we get something done here I don't want to back into an artificial number I know

[122:01] some of them get started 25 and did the math on what it would take to get there I think we need to go from the bottom up not the top down and start at an artificial number I think we need an economist to tell us what the appropriate wages can be and should be and the impacts on businesses both businesses that can pass along those costs and and businesses and nonprofits that can't um and so that's the first step and it seems to me I don't know if that takes two weeks two months two years but it's going to be done uh and then second we have to have adequate engagement we got a letter from our chamber which represents hundreds of our businesses both small and large that said that they really hadn't been adequately engaged and if they were forced into a situation where um there was some artificial date put out there and says all right we're going to do this on January 1 come hell or high water that they were going to be opposed that that would just be absolutely horrible in our community to say all right January 1 2024 we're going to do this we don't really care what people think so we need to slow down this is great work um on a scale of one to ten we're about

[123:00] step two um and so we got lots more steps ahead of us here um this could that might happen in 2025 I don't know but let's let's let it take the time it it takes with the economic analysis and the community engagement if that takes two months great I doubt it two years that's fine too I just simply don't know but we need to take a deep breath and and do the analysis otherwise we're gonna end in the same place as Fort Collins did which will sound like it was a rushed effort and this Council just says buoy um and I don't want to end it with phooey as an answer I want us to get to a good answer but do it in a way that's thoughtful and deliberate and inclusive of all members of our community thanks thank you Bob Mark and then Aaron I think phooey is a great answer um no um I am very supportive about moving forward with this I think we're in the right direction I'd have to agree with Bob that trying to do this in the next

[124:00] six seven months is just not realistic something's going to be cut short and I suspect it will be the community engagement portion of the process um it would probably curtail the economic analysis that we need but I don't want that to detract from the fact that we ought to move forward on this and and build that Coalition try to make the region as comprehensive as we can you know Matt was talking about regionalization I'd like to see that as robust as is possible um so that we're not in creating the situation where one Community doesn't buy in and tries to attract you know businesses at lower wage levels um but I think it's good I think we're we're moving and trending in the correct direction I just think we need to be a little bit realistic about it um all of those steps are not going to be taken uh completed rather in in the next couple of months and um so with that in mind uh I I still think

[125:01] we need to be doing the work that we're doing um Lauren you know it's great work that you're doing Taylor I think we just need to keep going and keep you know pushing the thing along um So my answer is yes to everything but realistically the 2025 is the Inception date and I would support um so that everybody gets a chance to be heard and we can formulate whatever exceptions we want and go from there thank you thank you Aaron you're next and then Nicole well first I just want to give an enormous thank you to Lauren for working really really hard on this with our regional potential Partners over the last uh year plus um so I know it's not been easy uh and uh but you're bringing people along really well and also to Taylor for uh helping out from this staff perspective and doing a huge amount of work on this

[126:01] as well so I know Council hasn't heard a lot about this you know recently but um the these processes have been underway for quite some time there have been a lot of conversations going on for a lot of time so they're starting to bear fruit uh which is exciting so thanks for all you've done to make that happen and get us to this point um I do very much want to see us continue to take a regional approach we've put a lot of work into bringing uh into working with partners and seeing how we can come along and work together I think when we work together regionally then our residents and workers share and the benefits and then our businesses have shared common stations and requirements as well so I think it's also the better to have the regional approach so look let's keep at that and as broad as we can make it the better and so let's keep on that I'll take a different a little bit of a different approach from my previous two colleagues here in terms of timing though because um I'd like us to keep the possibility

[127:01] of January 2024 in in mind uh and I want to make the point that the enabling legislation from the state really constrains our choices here so we we can't Elevate by an enormous amount in one year and we can't carve out all kinds of exceptions because it doesn't allow that and it does mandate a certain level of Outreach and Analysis so great points about the need for economic analysis it's incredibly important that we do Outreach to our community particularly the business community and particularly to hear from our local small businesses and our local non-profits to Rachel's point that could be impacted and have challenges with additional uh rates but just keep in mind the the there's only so much we can do this year so if we're focused in our Outreach and we do a great job with that and we do listen to folks and we may have the opportunity to go ahead and establish a modest additional wage that's allowed that could start getting some people in those uh lowest wage

[128:01] brackets a little bit of help as long as we're doing the Outreach to to bring people along in the meantime so I'd still like to have that as a potential goal and hey you know if if it needs more time if we're getting you know through maybe three months from now we say you know what it's just not doable um this year then you know we can work with that but I'd like us to keep that option on the table uh to see if we can move forward and and at the end of this year thanks very much thank you Aaron now we have Nicole and then Matt thank you and I just want to Echo everybody's thanks uh Taylor and Lauren for all of your work on this really appreciate it um so yes to the first question um I think that you know we we really just kind of need to keep the scope as it's needed to get to where we need to be so um I think you know taking a little more time to make sure that we are doing this

[129:00] appropriately and and helping the people that we're trying to help us is going to be really important um frankly Regional participation doesn't affect my interest in this I think it's great if we can get it and there's a lot of folks in our community that uh need need some support right now so for me that Regional participation doesn't impact my desire to pursue an approach so it would be um good and as far as uh feedback for moving forward um I think you know the reason that we're going in this direction is because we have more and more people in our community who are really struggling to meet their basic needs housing and other costs of living keep going up at rates that are much much higher than wages and it's leaving more and more people in very precarious economic positions I don't think we need an economic analysis to tell us this we're really seeing record numbers that are food banks we see Rising evictions we see rental costs that keep going up every year and we see

[130:00] businesses that are having a hard time recruiting and retaining workers um so I think this aspect of increasing wages it really is something that we need to do to try to get people to stay in our city um and be able to work here and ideally we go as fast and as far as possible and I don't want to rush and lose a really important opportunity to hear from people who are most impacted like the families that groups like effa serve you know we we also got a letter from effa today they have hundreds and hundreds of families that they're serving I think they're up to now 600 individuals a week so also a very important constituency for us to be hearing from um and if we can't kind of get to the self-sufficiency wage stage and do that at a regional level I think getting to just matching what Denver is doing to me feels like a good place to move forward but I really don't want to do two years of Engagement but taking this year to do some engagement and getting to a sustainable long-term plan so that wages

[131:02] can stop falling so far behind the costs of basic human needs like housing and child care and food and everything else that we need to keep ourselves living in safety and dignity um that that to me is the most important part thanks thank you Nicole do you support 2024 2025 um I I think it really depends on the engagement that we can do for me doing this right is more important than uh and doing it in a way that's going to allow us to get to something that we can carry forward in future years so that we're not having to come back every year or two and redo this discussion I think is is critical so I'm going to have a non-answer for that question um you know as as long as it takes to hear from the folks in the community who are going to benefit from this I think that is that's my biggest thing but um it doesn't seem like we necessarily need two years of Engagement to to do that either so if I have to put a timeline on

[132:02] it like six to nine months of Engagement maybe it seems like we could we could have an idea by then um which probably wouldn't lend itself to a 2024 uh in implementation unless we were to implement mid-year or something like that thank you Nicole Matt I appreciate that uh just yeah interesting comments um I think one I mean staying the course is is fine by me I think we've sort of laid out a good track um on this so far um I appreciate um Aaron's optimism and hope of 2024. I just don't see how we do that um so I mean I share that optimism but I think pragmatically speaking is it's going to be 2025 I mean even with you know where Nicole was going with regards to outreach if our if our start time is January 1 every year and that's by that's by law it's 2025 is the earliest we're going to do this meaningfully um so I think that that's kind of a foregone conclusion in that in that

[133:01] capacity um I I think one of my I I think Regional participation it kind of needs to be kind of a prerequisite here I understand the great need and the letter from effos is heartbreaking but I my big concern is if we're boosting wages at the expense of either losing businesses or them laying people off we're actually creating more harm for a lot of individuals who need those wages because then I have no wage at all and so I want to be very careful that we're on sort of a nice edge of how we throttle that legislation to meet the need um and I think we have to be really intentional about that and I'll just pick on the hospitality industry in particular they are far behind every other industry in terms of coming back after coven and they are on more of a nice Edge than anything and and I've already talked to a few restaurant owners in town about this and and they are very concerned because they're already on tiny tiny margins and a 12

[134:00] per year annual cost increase would devastate many of our Hospitality businesses in our community so I I don't want to be taking that that we have to cater completely to that but I I we need some intentionality and and need some better understanding of how we're going to have those impacts because ultimately I think to one of the points that was made we want this to last as Nicole said and so to doing so we need both those who are going to benefit but also those who are going to be harmed and and the business can be heard to really all be on board and we need that momentum to make sure this lasts and has proper staying power because I think this has a great potential to improve a lot of people's lives but we got to make sure it's done so in a way that doesn't then create just as much harm on the back end so um I I think that that Regional approach to me seems like partly one of the better ways to get there um and so um anyway those are those are my thoughts on that thank you Matt Rachel thanks Judy um yeah for the 2024 versus 2025 I do think

[135:00] because my understanding is it's we can only like pull the trigger for effective January 1st and that leaves us just six months that's tricky at this point and it's nobody's fault like we started this work in in 2019 and we're just coming to us right now so that's a bummer timing because I would think by the time we vote on something to get it implemented January 1st regionally especially so it's multiple cities doing multiple steps and and Outreach like I it seems pretty infeasible and I'm certainly not opposed to it if everything was done properly and correctly but um or adequately that that it seems like that would be a a tall order today um not opposed to it though if it could happen and and again I just want to reiterate like um I would be very worried about doing something without extensive analysis and engagement with the non-profits who I think um serve the most vulnerable in our community so I agree with Nicole we need

[136:01] to look at the um individuals that that effa is supporting and also we want to make it that that sort of the the organizations that staff those organizations are still here so we I don't want to um I don't want us not to be able to to staff a homeless shelter or Fraser Meadows or any other number of places where um people do work that that are most vulnerable and probably all of us are going to need as we age um so it just I don't think that the uh economic analysis is is going to tell me whether I want to raise the minimum wage it's what is sustainable and feasible for a raised minimum wage so that's that's the analysis I want and again I just really think it needs to include all the facets of non-profits um abilities to to remain viable as well as other businesses um and then I would be a little bit worried about not doing a regional approach I think I would want an economic analysis of that if we were going to go the other way with it I know

[137:01] that we you know it's already a little bit hard for us to be competitive with some of the businesses that are not in Boulder due to some some different structures here and so I would not want to you know go to 20 an hour minimum wage over the course of X years or plan for that knowing that you know the L's and and the other surrounding cities are going to be more like 15 and then all of our product prices go up and and I just don't know how that's economically sustainable for us as a city and I don't think we can be um dismissive of that so if we were going to pull out of a regional approach I think that I would want um just to understand what the Ripple effects would be and whether we are viable and sustainable as a as a in the business world if we were to do that does that answer all the questions I needed to Junie yes thank you thank you Rachel um I'd like to add as well if there's no one else who would like to add anything else at this time

[138:02] um I fully support the regional approach I would like and thank you both Lauren and um Taylor for all the work that you've been doing on this particular project um and um as far as implementation when I first prior to council I was closer to 2024 but after hearing the conversation here today it makes sense to move closer to 2025 because again we've just talked about uh we don't want to push this forward at the expense of community engagement so um I welcome those comments made my by my colleagues um so 2025 makes more sense at this time and please do push for the regional approach um and yeah and I want to summarize a little bit of what I heard

[139:00] um I know the first um mere rocket Aaron mentioned 2024 um but so far what I've heard closer to 2025 which is not too far from what you your question what was should scope consider implementation in 2024 2025 so I think based on what I heard tonight it's closer to 20 to 25. Matt mentioned 2025 closer to 2025 Mark 2025 Nicole looked at the timeline in 2024 this did not seem to be the right timeline um Bob mentioned take as much time needed uh or necessary and also do the economic research and also Matt mentioned the research uh to not do harm to the communities that we want to support and help as well and throughout we've heard the regional approach from Rachel and the fact that a more realistic timeline would be 2025 and

[140:00] also do the research necessary to ensure that we take into account um the different businesses in our community see whether it's um non-profit or other businesses and I also wanted to know that one of the things that I heard earlier even though you intend to do this economic research I heard you mention that you've been working with um or current chamber and the Chamber is a big resource when it comes to businesses and I hope you will lean on that as well as part of the work that you were doing thank you and I'll pass it on to noria yeah just I I think um junior did a wonderful job and thank you so much for summarizing that I see uh Lauren has her hand up and I want to make sure that Taylor gets what she needs but uh in essence as I think about it what I'm hearing is a yes put that on the work plan staff so that we can get Taylor some additional support as she is moving forward uh because uh I Know Carl and uh

[141:00] Laurel Witt and CAO others have been helping but this is a bigger conversation and to continue to work regionally with our partners to figure out and come back to you with a little bit more of a scoping because that may be dependent on what resources we use what funding we may need if we're doing economic analysis hiring Consultants or if that is shared across the region as we move forward so we will continue to work obviously with council member Focus as we move forward but the fundamental question I heard is just is yes move forward as a work plan item scope appropriately with partners and keep all the caveats and what you have told us in mind as we're moving forward um council member folk arts and Taylor just want to make sure you all got what what you needed yeah I did thank you Marianne thank you Taylor and thank you everyone for weighing in on this and helping provide um direction for us to move forward and

[142:00] we really appreciate it and I'll just chime in on that thank you so much Council uh the work of the last year um is very much helped out with your feedback and Direction tonight we'll be sure to Circle back with our Municipal Partners as I said we gotta check in with Longmont in a couple weeks and uh we'll also Circle back with our stakeholders who um weighed in early and let them know how we're moving forward next steps really appreciate it thank you both Taylor and Lauren for this great presentation and also I wanted to know council member weiner is in here with us so welcome and thank you for being here and actually that ends this portion of our meeting are there any last comments business that we would like to discuss Nicole thank you I was ready to go really fast this time with that little hand race thanks Jenny um I I just kind of wanted to mention because I think you know this

[143:00] issue of wages and how how many people are struggling right now I think is one that we're becoming more and more sensitive to in many different discussions and one thing that was clear to me in the course of our discussion um about the minimum wage increase tonight is that there really are multiple ways of getting people to self-sufficiency I think anything that we can do to decrease housing utility costs offset child care and health care costs helping people with food and other basic needs um some of which you know we're already starting to think about and do but I just hope that you know as we move forward with other kinds of policies that we're already working on them that are farther along this year we can kind of keep that in mind that we don't have to put all our eggs in one basket we've got lots of ways that we can try to adjust the ability for people to live with safety and dignity in our community and um I just I appreciate that we're starting to have more of these conversations so thanks to to everybody and and staff for continuing to elevate this issue thank you Nicole are there any other

[144:02] comments at this time any further comment I'll just wait a minute I know I moved too fast Aaron great meeting Junie done at 8 19. it's setting the bar High oh thank you I could not have done it without you and all the other council members so if there is no further business thank you so much I hope you have a great night and this concludes our meeting at 8 20 p.m thank you so much have a wonderful rest of your night council [Music] thank you