September 14, 2023 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

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[5:13] foreign [Music] good evening everyone and welcome to Thursday September 14th study session of the Boulder City Council I'm council member folkertz and I want to thank you for joining us tonight I'm going to start off with a little announcement about our better public meetings project the city of Boulder is partner partnering with the national civic league on a

[6:01] national-wide effort to make Council meetings more engaging satisfying for everyone who participates as part of this effort we want to hear about your experiences with our meetings we invite community members who are either in person or online for Council meetings starting tonight and running through our December 7th meeting to rate your experience we have an online scorecard that takes about two minutes to fill out the link to it is on the screen now and for the online audience we're putting the QR link and code in the chat you may complete this scorecard once for each time you participate in a council meeting over the next three months so tonight we have two items our first will be an update and request for direction regarding the intergovernmental agreement with the Boulder Public Library District and our second is the

[7:02] 2024 recommended budget discussion before we get into our work items I would like to outline how this meeting will be conducted we will review staff's presentations for each of the items and we will have time for questions at the end of the presentation we will conduct our Council discussion with staff if you have questions please wait for the staff to complete their presentation we'll now turn to our city manager Nuria Rivera I can normally pronounce your name just fine Nuria Rivera vandermeid to introduce our first item thank you so much council member and I was commenting today to staff that in my other cities at some point it just got down to Nuria right so it was a bit of a tongue twister there um as you know councilman thanks so much for the opportunity to talk about this issue today as we seek guidance as you

[8:00] know we have started our negotiations with the newly formed Library District and come before you to get direction on two main issues I want to first thank staff who have been working hard to make this a seamless a transition as possible for not just the district but importantly for our own staff that will be soon be transitioning over to a new employer and secondly I want to acknowledge that we've heard from many in our community about our wonderful Library facilities I want to say out loud that we too very much appreciate the love and history of our library buildings we also know our newly formed Library Board of Trustees feel the same way and will be wonderful stewards of our libraries in the future as with many decisions there are multiple perspectives on how to achieve common goals and how you would like us to achieve those goals is exactly the reason we're here today so with that I'll turn it over to David gear thank you Nuria good evening members of council I'm David here with the city attorney's office and I'm going to provide a short update with where The

[9:00] City Is At with its efforts to separate the Municipal Library and transfer the assets and responsibilities to the new Library District with meet tonight is our staff team and maybe staff team could turn on their cameras for a moment if you haven't already um in addition to Nuria it is Chris Mess check from the city manager's office Teresa Taylor Tate and Janet Michaels from the city attorney's office and Kara Skinner from the finance department also present and available for questions this evening are Kim Setter who is counsel for the library district as well as Johnny Teeter who is the president of the Library District Board of Trustees so if maybe you could bring up my slides and take me to slide two please so first I'd like to look at uh look back a little bit at where we have been in 2018 the city council accepted the

[10:02] Boulder Public Library master plan that Master Plan set into motion a complete and thorough evaluation of future Library funding options and a broad-based community discussion around the complex question of the library's long-term Financial sustainability to determine the best path forward the library master plan includes a great deal of capital priorities including New Branch libraries as well as maintaining and upgrading existing facilities adequate and equitable distribution of the costs of Library Services was a major theme in the master plan it presented a range of options to trust to address the long-term Financial sustainability a library to increase funding among the options presented included the exploration of the library district which

[11:00] could include areas outside the city limits since the adopt adoption of the master plan many of these options have been explored with the with the assistance of all of you the city council our library commission the library district advisory committee and and of course the community next slide please the council passed a resolution to form the district into in 22 the County Commissioners did not pass a similar resolution after this first formation effort failed a group of residents brought forward a petition to put the question of the library district formation and a property tax to fund it to a vote the ballot measure was approved by the voters within the district boundaries in November of 22. since then the Board of Trustees has been seated in an interim IGA has been approved the city continues to operate

[12:01] the library during the during the transition that we are presently in the city and the library districts are in discussions about how to complete the separation of the library from the city many of the issues such as information technology and employment are highly technical in nature and to some extent resolve themselves next slide please but there are some issues that our community and policy related these are the issues that staff would like some feedback from the council tonight so that we can continue to work out of mutually agreeable separation Arrangement between the city and the district those issues include the selection process for the Board of Trustees and the disposition of the library District's real or the library real property so before I go into if you wouldn't mind the next slide please

[13:01] before I go into um oh I'm sorry we're one ahead if you could go to slide vibe before I go into the two issues um can you go up one more you mean the other direction don't you yeah yeah you're going yeah you're ruining the punchline one more yeah there you go there you go thanks so much before I go into these two issues I'd like to say something about the assumptions that we have considered as we've been moving forward on these separation discussions first the library services will no longer be a core City function the assets of the library are Community assets that have been paid for by the taxpayers we're trying to avoid any unnecessary entanglements between the Library District and the city while still operating in a

[14:02] place of collaboration the library district will be governed by the district trustees with such oversight as the council and the County Commissioners deemed to exercise in the trustee appointment process and of course we want the library district to be successful the next slide please so the first question that we have is related to the appointment process for the District Board of trustee process or for the district trustees um and we would like to get that established in the final IGA and we've basically identified three different approaches the first is uh and these are all I believe statutorily are consistent with the State Library law and are Guided by that but the first is to continue the process that was used to appoint the

[15:01] initial Board of Trustees where there was a committee of two members of the County Commissioners and two members of the council who appointed the new the new trustees and those trustees were thereafter ratified by the two legislative bodies um the second approach would be to delegate that responsibility of selection to the Board of Trustees with the ratific still having the ratification by the two legislative bodies in the discussions that we've had with the district we um also identified a bit of a hybrid approach and this would be basically using the first option that I described um and then adding as non-voting members to the committee um two trustee members to participate in the

[16:01] process the trustees would not be voting members but rather participants in the process and the idea being that at some point we could reevaluate in the future whether or not this is a good approach or if we should use another Approach at the we suggested in the memo three years but of course the the length of time until we checked back in on the process is of course flexible um so that's it how about the next slide please the second question that we have for you tonight relates to the disposition of the real property owned by the city that has historically been used for Library purposes there are a number of options to be considered including conveyances leases and licenses the city owns three branches North

[17:02] Carnegie and Reynolds it also owns the main library in the Civic area the North Boulder Corner library and the Reynolds Library are both leased facilities we have discussed with the district an approach where the city would assign the three leases to the district and convey all of the Fiona fee owned property except for the main library for that facility the city would convey the building but not the land the land would be some subject to some type of license Arrangement where the city and the district would work out the sharing and management of the city-owned property in the Civic area that is basically between 9th Street and the 11th Street extended bike path to the east we're looking forward to a direction related to the disposition of real

[18:00] property assets to the district in addition to the approaches of to conveyance there have also been discussions about what to do with the property if it's no longer needed for Library purposes the library district has suggested that the city retains some type of right of first refusal to purchase the property if it's no longer needed for Library purposes and the staff has suggested the city have some type or write to a reversionary interest to take the property back if it's no longer needed for Library purposes next slide of course um there are there are other options to this as well and these have been discussed in the past one option would be that we simply lease one or more of the city buildings that are owned to the library district and

[19:01] then have the library district be responsible for all maintenance and future Capital Improvements the city would prepare a lease that would we would assume would require no additional Financial contribution to the city one of the big advantages of the lease Arrangement is that it allows the city to maintain a great deal of control on on how those buildings are used um and and uh kept up or you and and used or not used as collateral infant in financing um next slide please of course as we've talked about you know there's the transfer of ownership um of buildings Inland um and that was what I described in terms of this the staff's initial

[20:00] um position in terms of discussions with the district um and I think that really kind of one of the you know the main advantages or disadvantages depending on your perspective is that you know if the library district were to own this uh they have a greater deal of a a greater amount of control over how the property is used um including the ability to pledge the property for debt um all right next slide please of course you know you can do any combinations of options A or B um this um for one or more this the library facilities this the city could transfer only buildings to the library or the district and the city owns the land um the library district in all of these options would be responsible for

[21:01] maintenance uh and future Capital Improvements but uh basically this this type of option is really what's well suited to the main main library on the Civic area campus where the city and district will want to both jointly and separately use the facilities that are outside of the building next slide please so this slide is to bring us back and remind us of the questions um that we look forward to on your feedback at this point uh the staff and the representatives of the district will be happy to entertain any questions that you have regarding the information that has been provided to you both in this presentation and the memos that staff has provided to you as well once you're ready to dive into the questions we have a few slides that summarize options for your convenience and if you would like

[22:00] to use them we can put them up if you don't then we can leave them down so with that said I would like to turn it back over to the city council so I was thinking in the interest of time and if no one disagrees I think it would be worthwhile to sort of strop hold these first um and then see how people are feeling and if um have questions and discussion from there and then go back to do a final straw poll does anyone object to moving forward in that manner I can't see every anyone's faces but I can't see everyone's foot Judy to do before you head to the Straubel one of the slides the prior slide there was a comment or question about the CD can only do a 20 and 30 years at least and I wanted you to elaborate on that a

[23:00] little bit further because my thought at least I was thinking because the 20 years is a very very long time from now 30 years is a very long time is there an opportunity for let's say I know you mentioned the charter but is there an opportunity to do let's say 10 years because maybe we might want to have a lesser time frame uh to come back as opposed to waiting 20 or 30 years from now because a lot of things can happen in 30 years yeah the great question so the um the information that's on that slide those are the upper limits of lease terms so they are maximums not minimum so you can always do less um when once you go over 20 years um there are limitations in the charter that require that um one that any lease approved for more than 20 years is approved by a two-thirds vote of the council and then the second

[24:00] limitation is that that significant improvements are made that are in the public interest would be made to the these premises thank you for that and then Mark but please keep in mind trying to keep these short and factual and then we'll do a poll question only um David in in the event of a lease of either 20 or 30 years May that lease also contain a renewal option uh I don't believe so I think that our Charter is drafted such that the council that would be um in place when that when that lease term was over that they would make the decision whether or not to renew thank you all right um so can we get those options up for question number one regarding the

[25:01] appointment process great Emily would you advance the slide one oh but then I'm not going to be able to see everyone's faces sorry well maybe we'll put it up quick and then we can take it down at your request okay next there we go so we have option one where we have both council members and County Commissioners forming a committee and interviewing trustees we have option two where the trustees themselves interview and select new trustees or a hybrid approach between the so can we take the slide down now so who is in favor of option one where council members and Commissioners would select the trustees

[26:03] they don't see any hands so option number two where the trustees would select the next set of Trustees like I see Nicole and Matt and then option number three the hybrid approach in support of the hybrid approach does anyone want to ask further questions or delve into that more deeply Nicole just wanted to check it sounded like we could um kind of set this whichever option we choose set it in place for a bit set a time when we're going to check in on that process and potentially revisit so whichever way we go is that is that a part of it we would like Direction on that

[27:03] well I have the mic kind of provide just I think three years seems reasonable to me to if we're going with the hybrid approach to check in in three years and see where we're at and I believe that was staff's recommendation um yeah Aaron yeah I agree with that through your time frame as well wonder if we might struck all that one since that was the recommendation yeah I will in just a second I'll let Rachel ask a quick question I'm just gonna also give an ad to the three-year recommendation and then sort of firming that up okay let's drop hold that for three years and then we check back in one two three four five six seven eight that's at unanimous great any follow-up questions before we move on to um looking at conveyance or lease options for Library property

[28:03] great direction from the staff perspective so we're ready to move on perfect can we bring up slide again that has options sort of the options that we're looking at yeah next one the library property okay so here we have option A being releasing all of the build all of the properties that the city currently owns option b being transferring just the building for Maine but the land in the building for the other three branches

[29:00] an option C being leasing Main and transferring the land in the building for the other three branches okay so can I can we bring back up everyone's faces so the straw poll option a leasing um all of the branch libraries who is in favor of that option so I see one two three four five six okay option b trans the staff recommendation transferring Main just the building and then transferring the land and buildings for the other properties um who would be in favor of that option two and then option C sort of the combination of just leasing Maine

[30:02] um and conveying the land and buildings for the other three branches any supporters there I think I'm missing one vote who did not vote because the six already won if we're doing this One Direction so yeah Fair all right um given where the straw polls Landing does anyone want to speak to the ask for their questions or speak to their position Matt I see your hand up thanks Lauren um I I would uh if we're going to do the lease I would suggest us doing it for a short term maybe only five years or so um I I think that part part of reason why I'm choosing lease is there's just a lot for the district to settle out and figure out for the next couple years and

[31:00] I think that the change of conveyance I don't think we foreclosed on that in in perpetuity so I think having just a five-year period will release and then we come back to it when things have settled I think would be a good point I worry if you do it 20 or 30 we all know that we don't renegotiate leases and if it's a 30-year lease till the 29th year and the 11th month of that lease um and no one comes to the table until you have to so I think five years brings us back and uh brings all parties back necessarily to have that discussion should we need to or should the Dynamics dictate us to change those terms so that's why I would love to see if we can just go five year and then if we want to do it another five great want to go 30 from that point great transfer great whatever but let's do five would be my suggestion thank you Matt I see Aaron the Nicole Mark and then I'll call myself right yeah so I I'm going down the the leasing route uh just to I think it's the the Least Complicated right now as the district is just getting started

[32:00] because I think the the clawback provisions would be important but also maybe a little challenging to negotiate um but I think it's you know I think it preserves of course this is not a final final decision um future trustees and councils could decide to convey later on if that seems like a better approach at that point so the the question on the lease term is one I'd actually like to turn to um Johnny Teeter John if you don't mind speaking up I'm because I'm here I want to pick a term that gives the library the most flexibility and most chance for success and so I wanted to see John if you know whether the trustees yourself and the trustees have an opinion on whether a shorter or a longer lease term would be more beneficial as the district gets started um sure thanks for asking me that I think our sense is a longer term lease would be beneficial although I think the notion of revisiting it in a few years um makes sense um the biggest concern for the trustees

[33:00] will be that we at some point elect the council that decides they don't want to renew a lease and that really impacts our ability to do long-range planning um so you know if you want to do a lease as long as you feel comfortable doing and revisit it in a few years to see if you want to change it I think that would be acceptable but I think we'd be very concerned about a five-year lease that's very helpful Johnny Seven um Matt I appreciate your point it was it was a good one but hearing that I would go uh towards that longer lease for the request there and with an inclusion of a hey let's check back in with a council and trustees in a few years maybe that three-year point or maybe it's the five-year point I'm not sure exactly when uh but uh to make sure that the relationship is going well and whether we want to make any changes thank you Aaron Nicole things I just have a few questions and um thank you Aaron that was one of mine um the I like the idea of a longer lease

[34:00] with a check-in um for exactly the reasons that Johnny mentioned it just that seems incredibly stressful for a new Library District um to not have that uh security of a longer longer lease um but I do like the idea of a check-in um my question is maybe a question for um Kim or possibly you Johnny how have other Library districts uh done this and and I guess maybe the bigger question is have any Library districts failed I think that seems to be one of the concerns and and thinking about these buildings as if the library district goes under and the library has the buildings then um we've lost kind of our buildings and our library I was just wondering looking at the other 50 or so districts that have done this what was the did that happen to anybody um this is Kim Setter um we have done most of the library district formations in the state and none of them have failed um they've all been very strong a couple of them are small you know and haven't had the kind of growth that we've seen in the ones in the Front Range

[35:02] um and in terms of the buildings there aren't a lot that have come out of another entity like a city or a county but the ones that have have all taken conveyances of the building uh Fort Collins was all conveyance um the anything libraries in Adams County were conveyed with a right of reversion and there were seven branches and now there's only one branch left but there's nine brand new libraries so what happened was that right of reverter was waived and the buildings were sold at some point and used but um we haven't had any that have come out of other entities and not been conveyed the buildings thank you um and then the other question that I have I think this one may be for you cara I'm just going to jump around a little bit to different people um how do these different options fit within our facilities strategic plan I'm

[36:00] just I'm thinking about you know we just decided to try to sell nine buildings so that we can fund some of the maintenance through some of the remaining buildings and so I'm just kind of wondering where where this fits in and um the maintenance costs and and just our overall commitment to our facilities thank you Carson our Chief Financial Officer and I see Joanna Korean has popped up too so I don't know if you want to jump but I would just say that [Music] um certainly the facilities master plan uh one of the major objectives is to consolidate and reduce long-term liability associated with buildings and to to reduce our potential risk so that is certainly the case and and uh if we were to lease them certainly we would want the lease to contain Provisions that provides that we don't have any liability associated with the buildings when the library is leasing them so Joanne I don't know if you want to add to that

[37:04] all right sorry nothing additional other than you're right in terms of our strategic planning and and we've given that Council and the community have lots of different priorities we're always challenged as we've talked with Council before about maintaining our facilities well um and so it continues to be that challenge with having more buildings to maintain thank you and then one last question I'm just thinking about natural disasters flood fire that sort of thing I mean what happens if something wipes out all the buildings and we are the landlords well I believe that the you know those issues would need to be worked out in the lease in terms of how the properties are insured who's going to take on the responsibility for those um you know I think at this point our anticipation would be that that would be with the library district but of course

[38:01] you know when you get into natural disasters and a lot of that kind of stuff too I am guessing that [Music] um those would be the time and we would probably revisit a lot of this but I think those would be the times you know if when they're rebuilding that they would probably be looking for those longer term commitments because of the the amount of investment involved I think thank you um yeah for me I think it really just fits more with where we're trying to go financially with our facilities plan as well as with our I agree with the staff goal of wanting to set the library district up for success and for me a part of that is them being able to control uh their their buildings to be able to um kind of get some money through the building should they need to as we've done many many times in the past not necessarily by selling but even even just kind of using that as um a source of

[39:01] [Music] um just kind of uh of not Revenue not income sorry my brain is blinking tonight um it's just a source of money that they can pull from should they need to without destroying the building or selling it or anything like that so um I I really I think that inline was setting the district up for success I think it would be really good but um if we can't do that then I think revisiting this in five years or so um would be a good idea in giving the library district the longer term lease that they need with the um understanding that the library district can take care of maintaining their buildings as they need to and not have to wait for us to um to help with anything thank you thank you Nicole Mark um that I'm going to call myself then I see Rachel and Bob yeah just from the David's comment that's why ensuring these buildings to their full replacement value will be very important so that if in the event there is some

[40:00] form of uh Calamity there will be money for replacement as far as term goes um if the library district would prefer a longer term I'm prepared to accommodate that if that gives them greater security and and comfort in terms of getting their operations in order parties to a lease can revisit any term of that lease at any time they desire so if we want to check in in three years or five years or seven years it's not going to be our decision it'll be a conversation between a subsequent Council and the district and those parties are free to do that so um you know all that we're sitting in stone is is a term for the library district and if they want the longer term I'm happy to provide that for them thank you Mark um let's see I

[41:02] I like Matt's idea of revisiting I would like to see that um at a shorter time period aligning with sort of the three years that we talked about for the trustee appointments make sense to me um I do just want to bring up being on the being the representative to the board of the dairy you know that we've been working on the last 18 months to renegotiate the lease with the city and you know their the complications around because you can only lease for 20 or potentially 30 years um you have to look at things like what would happen if the lease is not renewed um and the complications arising from the amount of money that things the entities like the board uh like that the library district would

[42:02] need to put into the building and what would happen at least termination and how they are made whole um our complicated and contentious issues I think that um you know I'm sure we all probably correctly assume that this lease would just be renewed um every whenever it came up for Renewal but that you know the District can't necessarily rely on that in their long-term planning like Joni mentioned um I also just want to point out that the main is in you know one of our most dangerous flood zones in the state and so the likelihood of having to deal with that kind of issue flood related and um the complications that might arise

[43:01] from that is very real for that building um so just something that we need to make sure is planned for well in a lease negotiation but I also think would be easier and more straightforward through con for conveyance um that's that's all I have for the moment uh Rachel you are up next thank you Lauren um okay so just wrote down a couple thoughts I'm in favor of the lease for all as you saw in my straw poll so you know I think it's it's important that I have my um lens be as a steward for the city of Boulders um fiscal soundness I have no doubt that the library will succeed I don't think they need to prove themselves within the next three to five years that's not what I would be looking for uh at any kind of a check-in with the district so I don't I don't want that to be um confused on like I'm kind of waiting for them to prove themselves they have a really good

[44:02] uh tax stream coming and it's and it's going to be a solidly run Library so I have no concerns there I do think though that we as a city strategically put libraries to be Community spaces in our city and the library district is going to have a district-wide lens and so my fear would be that 50 or 100 years from now when libraries are different you know setups and we have no none of us can predict what that's going to look like that it might make more sense to have one more in the county and shut down the Reynolds Branch or whatever and so I would just like to keep those spaces that were purchased to be centers that people can go to in their neighborhoods remain available for city of Boulder and I don't see any way if we transfer the land to to be sure that that maintains so with my you know city of Boulder lens I don't see how we could transfer and and be uh accountable to knowing that that the

[45:00] places that we got to ensure and and some of that is in in disaster times like if if there's a a fire or a flood or it's freezing outside libraries are often places that you go and they need to be in neighborhoods and so as a city I just would not want to Forfeit that under any circumstance so if I run counsel in three to five years I'd still be like lease is good um but I would do a 30-year lease to make sure that the the library can do what they need to with buildings and count on that um so I'd max out that length and then would just also point out as somebody who like I will never get the months back that I spent in CU South negotiations with the city of Boulder uh hat on um I think people were worried that I was so um friendly towards see South being used for flood mitigation purposes that I wouldn't Advocate hard for what the city needed and I think it is incumbent on us to advocate for the city and our positions and so that's what I think we're doing with at least rather than a sale and it would be very I think

[46:00] unusual for a city just to be like here's 30 million dollars in buildings nothing back like that would that would have fallen flat in the CSL situation we would have gotten in some big trouble so I you know I don't think I don't think we'd do it for bbsd or CU or RTD or any anybody else so um I I just this doesn't have anything to do with how I feel about the success of the library district it's just sort of what I believe my role is and I think the role is we we keep the buildings and we lease them for a penny or whatever it looks like and we do it for them next time and I think the district will flourish thanks Rachel Bob and then Juni I wanted to throw out as a former real estate lawyer myself I wanted to throw out a suggestion that maybe is a hybrid between uh Johnny's excellent point and and the good suggestion that mad Matt made um and that is we do something like this um have a long-term lease 20 years or 30 years Johnny you could tell us what what your trustees want have a long-term lease however um give that the

[47:01] district and only the district not the city give the district the option to terminate the lease at five year intervals um that way if there if the district wants to prompt a discussion with the city you'd get our attention by giving us a notice of non-renewal and you could do that with respect to anyone or all of the libraries I wouldn't Force the district into making a decision All or Nothing they may decide that there's a change in circumstances on Reynolds or on Carnegie or north um and so the district would have four different options to um you know be solely the district's option exercise year five year intervals to um to to terminate the lease I suspect District won't want to tournament the lease but but certainly would be a vehicle by which the district could all the matter to the attention of the city and perhaps the future Council would be willing to convey some or all of the properties to the district and so it gives the district I think Johnny The Best of Both Worlds in that you have the security of tenure that I think you and your colleagues are

[48:00] looking for 20 years or 30 years but also um an ability to bring the city to the table um at five of your intervals and and I think Lauren made a good point about sometimes leases take a long time to renegotiate and so what I would also suggest David is maybe at five of your intervals where the where the trustees could terminate the lease or at least indicate they would if we're interested in non-renewal but maybe have a one-year lead time on that that way the the parties the trustees and the city council whoever's on those bodies at that point in time would have plenty of time to have discussion in between the year four month and year five Mark and do that rolling forward I'm throwing that out I don't have strong feelings about this one way or the other but I'm hearing what Johnny said I'm hearing what what Matt said and I'm just trying to find a a way that we can get the best of both worlds thank you Bob Juni thank you Lauren I would certainly support what I just heard because that's uh along the line that I was thinking as

[49:01] well and I think having Johnny decide or help us figure out whether 20 or 30 years uh is the one she would go with and then um given the district that option five years option I think that's a great idea as well so um that I'm just repeating again what I just heard earlier I think it's a it's a great idea and I would support that thanks Jenny so I'm hearing a lot of support for a long-term lease with um a shorter term review or um period either three or five years where it would be where the district would have the option to exit the lease or the city could review it and make a different decision about the nature of the of ownership

[50:03] um is there anything that I'm missing is that Staff feel like they have clear Direction I have one just parting remark yes if this is the appropriate time is it a remark David or a question because I just I I like some clarity on I think you're right Lauren on what I heard too a longer term lease and uh somehow putting in that five-year interval um I appreciate the suggestion Bob I heard Juni support it if we could get a show of hands so that we know that Council supports that direction are those questions Nicole and Aaron yeah I was just wondering um if we could hear from Johnny about that as well and just I'm curious what the trustees thoughts maybe absolutely Johnny yeah well I'm really

[51:02] not authorized um to speak on behalf of the um trustees I mean speaking for myself personally I mean I know that the trustees would prefer a longer lease so um 30 years would be great um I think that um the biggest concern we have is that a future city council could basically terminate at will so a notion that we have um 30 years but have the option to ask the city to revisit it our option to me sounds appealing if you're on the board would have to um discuss that um so I could certainly take that back to them and consider that the only other thing I would say is that in the other complication in the lease from our perspective is the the cost to fix these buildings based on the facilities study that we just did comes

[52:00] in at nine to 11 million dollars over the next 10 years um that's considerably more than was projected earlier and so we're trying to figure out how to do that we have a good plan for how to do that now we hired a consultant going forward and I think it's important that the Board of Trustees have the right to decide what improvements are made when and how much money goes into those so I was a little bit concerned by the comment earlier that a lease allows the city to control what we do with the buildings around Capital maintenance I think if the cost is on the district the district really needs to have the ability to make those decisions and I think the library loss of supports that because the trustees are the only ones who are authorized to decide how to spend money so that's something we'd have to work out in the in the terms of lease but I just wanted to raise that as

[53:00] well thank you Johnny uh Aaron and then I see Dave David what are you going to respond to something that was just said um well I guess the only thing that I would just like to add is that when you're talking about and I I assume that this is implied in your conversation but as we take these conversations the next step on 20 years 25 years 30 years in terms of lease terms that part of the conversations that we will be having with the district is whether or not they can meet the standards for higher lease terms yes thank you Aaron so just a slightly finer point on the The Five-Year termination option for the district I'd say maybe when you strong pull it I might ask that we phrase it as that we put it on the table as an offer if it is of interest to the district right so not that it would be a

[54:01] requirement but that we would offer the auction and then that could be part of the discussion negotiations that sounds great thank you Mark well first I I need to ask Karen I'm not quite sure what you just suggested so I'd like if you could make it a little clearer did if a majority of council agrees uh to is that we would take Bob's idea of offering a five-year term a termination offering option every five years that we would offer that to the district um to the trustees say if they're interested in including that in the lease that we are open to it but it's only they're interested in it okay yeah I'm I'm a little less comfortable with having a long-term lease with options to terminate every every five years it's done but um uh I'm I'm just a little uncomfortable with that and with respect to the

[55:02] um the maintenance costs that Johnny identified um if you're talking about nine million dollars over 10 years um I still think that the city could be a lender um to the district um at some sort of uh obviously pre-negotiated interest rate um up to a maximum per year and just provide a facility for them to borrow since they're not going to be doing certificates of participation and they're not going to be selling the buildings for the purpose of of renovating them other buildings um uh I I think we could probably find a way to do that if if that were of interest to the district and to my colleagues am I in my colleague um sure I also saw Teresa pop up for a second I don't know if what were if you had something you wanted to add to the conversation we're having right now

[56:01] I I do and it's you know we're trying to thread a very fine needle here I think in getting direction from Council without getting into um all of the details of what we can go forth and negotiate because we don't know the universe of possibilities that the library district will bring to the table and so I think having the having some direction about the um sort of outer bounds of our Authority is hopeful I think getting into the the very detailed and nuanced conversation um might prove difficult for us as we try to approach these negotiations so just a just a thought I I'm sensitive to that thank you Teresa Teresa um I was simply throwing out a concept that can be fleshed out or not as the parties get into a room I wasn't looking for another five or a vote of any of any kind on that thanks Mark

[57:01] um Juni did you still want to call a quay on that I just want to clarify and I think Bob's hands is also raised and that could be part of the clarification that my understanding and what I would support Bob on that the option would be for the district the option of five years would be for the district um uh to be able to bring the city to the table for possible termination so it would not be an option for the city itself the city would not be able to bring that conversation but it would only be the district so Bob can add further to that but I just wanted to clarify that part read yeah I believe that's what we're discussing thank you for that clarification um Mark did you have anything else uh no other than you know my concern about that is it seems a little coercive you know parties if they are willing to revise a lease can revise a lease at will um the thought that the library district will come to us and say uh we want to

[58:00] change the terms of the lease or we're going to stop operating the library district um is is sort of unappealing to me um others may have a greater Comfort level with that but that's that's not the kind of uh relationship I'm I'm hoping to establish between the parties um and that's that's my comment on that can I colloquy on that Lauren I I also see Joni um put up her hand and I assume that that is also related to the topic I can I can wait Johnny if you want to go first sure I was I was just going to say the library district is required by law to operate the library system so there's no way the library could come back to the city and say do this with our leases or we're going to shut down the library I mean that's just not that's not conceivable

[59:01] thank you Nicole oh you're on mute thank you sorry I thought I mean it I was just going to remind us that we also um just said we're still going to have a hand in appointing the library district trustees so I just don't maybe this is too much faith in future councils um but I I really don't think future councils are going to be in a situation where they are choosing folks who are not going to do a good job of upholding the library district and working in its best interests so I just got some faith in us and I think we appointed a really great board this time and I expect us to do that again in the future thanks Rachel and then Bob yeah so I just to clarify I think what we're talking about what Bob has suggested is that if there were say a situation where the library district didn't want to continually sing like maybe they just don't like that spot anymore and want to have one somewhere else or there's some Branch that's terribly underperforming I don't know what would cause a library to not

[60:00] want a certain branch open but they might not want to uh renew a lease that I assume this would be individually applied so like they might want to continually sing the main but they don't want to continue the Reynolds so that should be part of it is giving the library the option to discontinue any leases and that doesn't frighten me at all because you know half of my concern with wanting to do a lease rather than transfers just the value of land in Boulder and and how hard it is to get you know large large enough plots um to have as as um Community Center so if the library says we don't want to do it and we take it back to the city I do understand we have a facilities um master plan and vision where we're reconfiguring some of that but the libraries are in um pretty awesome locations where I can't imagine the city doesn't want that valuable land back so if the library is if it if these buildings are not useful to the library at five year intervals I think we absolutely should give them that off-ramp kind of similar to what Excel gave the city in the muni negotiations

[61:01] like if you know we we can um reevaluate as appropriate so I think that's great I don't think I would require though like a meeting of the minds every certain number of years on the leases because that just seems like a possible waste of city and District staff and Leadership time so if the library wants out great they will bring us that conversation from the city side we're saying you can rely on a 30-year lease so uh move forward comfortably with that so just have the off-ramp for the library and then as as Mark just said anybody can come to the other party at any time and say is this what do you think of this idea so that that's not off the table I just wouldn't compel future councils to spend their time checking in or future Library District leaders it's there's always a lot on every agenda that's all I got thanks thank you Rachel Bob I wanted to make it uh and I think we've kind of beaten that one up pretty significantly so I was going to make a new suggestion on a slightly new topic

[62:01] um I was hearing what Teresa said about us getting kind of into the weeds here and I also um something that Rachel said triggered in my mind a remembrance of of the fact that the two council members were appointed by Council to to work on the CU South um Arrangement two members of council were appointed by Council to work on the Excel Energy settlement and I'm wondering and there's a lot of details here that we're not giving to staff and David and I don't think we need to take time tonight to get into the Weeds on that but I'm sure there's going to be 100 questions asked I'm wondering if if Council would be willing to appoint two members of council to work side by side with staff I know I know that the district trust fees are going to be uh side by side with Kim uh from on their side of the table I I feel like maybe there's there's no council members um side by side with um our city staff I think we had a little bit of a Miss quite frankly um on the staff's recommendations and it's not staff's fault they just didn't know where Council was they do now um and I'm just wondering if Council would be interested and willing to

[63:01] appoint to council members to be very very very clear about this those council members would not be authorized to make any decisions whatsoever they'd simply be a sounding board for staff and and it would be their responsibility quite frankly to go back to their Council colleagues and check in on from time to time on various points but that way at least staff would have some um some a couple council members and it'd be good if they were somewhat diverse on on these points to to check in with um I know if they're appointed as a committee there's probably noticed requirements quite frankly I don't I don't really care if these negotiations are done in the public they should be done the public as far as I'm concerned um but um I'm just throwing that out there I'm not volunteering to be one of those two people by the way um but but I think that maybe and I don't know how long these negotiations will take and perhaps we should make sure that we appoint two people what we know that will be on the next Council just in case it spills Beyond November but I'm just throwing that out there's a suggestion because otherwise we're gonna have staff coming back to us every few weeks going okay here's six new issues here's four new issues here's three new

[64:00] issues if they have a couple council members they can rely on and hopefully those council members are going to Faithfully um communicate with their colleagues that might just make staff's job easier and ultimately we can bring a product back all Council that um the staff has some confidence that probably Garner council's support so I'm just throwing that out there it looks like David is ready to provide some thoughts on that potentially yeah yeah thank you um so uh Bob is correct if you're if you do if you do it in the committee model um everything all all meetings would be required to be noticed and open to the public I just wanted to make it just a kind of a very slight clarification in terms of the Excel negotiations and um the CU South they those were not Council committees in those instances the staff actually reached out to a couple of council members and requested that they help us and so they

[65:02] we did not consider those committees um so I I just put that out there as just kind of a a clarification and um a committee is not the only way of do of getting to what Bob's objective is yeah and that's what thanks for that clarification David that's that what I was suggesting is the CU South and Excel model that they're not appointed as a committee that there's people two council members um that um staff knows they can go to and check in with uh ultimately the decision is going to be all of council so um uh I'm a little agnostic about whether it's appointed committee as you say it would be open to the public if folks would rather just have um have staff reach out to a couple council members that's fine too up on either way but I'm just wondering if that would be helpful because I think um we may have a little bump in the road here on on this question that could have been avoided and I suspect there'll be lots of other questions staff that they might want to reach out to some council members obviously staff can reach out to

[66:00] any council member they want at any point in time they can pull all nine of us behind the scenes if they want to but but um maybe if there's a couple council members they they know that they can go to that would be helpful I I think Council found it very very helpful with both the Excel negotiations and the CU South negotiations to have a couple uh council members with diverse opinions that they could go to and and hope that that was more or less representative of the entire body of council thanks Bob I have a question related to that which for legal team um could we appoint two members to Council of council to something other than a committee what and what would we call that um or does it have to be that they would be tapped by staff in order to yeah well so um you know the people debate what the definition of Committee is but I have typically viewed it as it's a subset of the the

[67:02] entire body and they have been delegated a task to do um so anytime you ask your fellow board members and groups of more than one to do something um I think that most likely a court would consider that a committee um and you I I know you guys are all aware of the charter requirement but it you know it says something along the lines of you know all meetings of the commands counseling committees thereof she'll be public thank you David okay keeping that in mind and kind of trying to aim towards wrapping this conversation up let's get through these last hands I see up Chris then I got Nicole Joni and Juni yeah I just wanted to uh reply to Bob's uh idea and um I think there are situations where in a in a complex intergovernmental

[68:00] agreement situation or negotiation where um having the perspective of various council members is sometimes very helpful I think in this situation um and obviously I don't want to speak to what I anticipate it to be but I think the two issues that we brought before council tonight are really the two key policy issues that we had a question on um I anticipate us bringing the full IGA back to council um to give direction to the city manager on whether to sign the IGA or not in the next 30 days so we're pretty close to the finish line here um and I think we are uh there isn't a lot more work to go so what I might suggest if if council is open to it is um let's leave that as an option on the table if we need it if things start to go in a not so great Direction but at this point I anticipate that we're pretty pretty close to the Finish Line if that context is helpful thank you Chris that is Nicole

[69:00] yes I'm just gonna echo my my sense is the same as Chris's so I'm glad glad to know um from staff who are really involved um the process is working it feels like we resolved a couple of the really big and outstanding issues tonight um we have a lot of other things on our plates that we are trying to work toward as we wrap up these last couple months of those councils so um I think given that we're so close um these These are the big issues we patched out um we're resolving them tonight I don't know that we need any more involvement Beyond this other than waiting for um the agreement to come back thanks Nicole Joni yeah and I would Echo Chris's comment um I think we're very close there have not frankly been a lot of issues between us and of course most of what we're doing is so far down in the weeds you know when will staff be terminated and how will that process work um but the other thing I wanted to mention just to avoid future con um confusion there are two igas currently

[70:00] under negotiation we're talking about the IGA between the city and the library district which has to do with transitioning the assets from one organization to the other there is also a three-party IGA under negotiation that's what the city the county and the district and the appointment process that you're talking about tonight is in the three-party IGA so when the two-party IGA the one Chris referred to comes back to you within 30 days you won't see the appointment process in there everything that the county has a piece of is in the other agreement and that will be trailing so I just wanted to make sure you guys knew that so there wasn't confusion when that came up I appreciate that clarification thank you Rachel just a real quick suggestion as someone who's you know not my problem in 10 more meetings but um I I agree with what Chris best check said uh and and it

[71:01] does seem like this is only uh relevant in a like really big negotiation situation which I think the lead up to this probably was kind of big and maybe could have used some some earlier check-ins with Council because I I it's as somebody who's uncounsel during Muni and then was invited by staff to to just sort of be in some of the rooms during uh see South negotiations the benefit of that I think is that council members can um take information back out to council and just do you know sort of some pulse checks on like you know is the staff negotiating in a way that the majority is likely to um I don't know agree with or whatever the the situation is so I would say that didn't really happen in this situation so it just might be helpful going forward if there are sensitive things coming up that maybe staff is sure to check in early and um you know do to however you want to check in just to make sure that you have a good sense of is this direct the direction that council is wanting to go so I feel like

[72:00] maybe we didn't do that well this time um and that I think that uh the majority of council is not as it turned out interested in in um gifting the the assets of the building so maybe just making sure that without council members being aware that that staff is then going to all Council and and presenting anything that might be sensitive just so that you know staff's not blindsided and and the IGA doesn't get delayed by Council not agreeing with whatever has happened in those rooms and this has been a very cool discussion the last couple minutes I'll withdraw my suggestion I did not realize that we were as far along as we were on the the one IG that that Johnny uh uh referenced so if we're only 30 days away and all the big issues are are resolved then then I don't think there is necessary for council members to be designated or otherwise um obviously if there's a big great Bob and that was definitely the direction it was going to go yeah yeah no we don't struggle I withdraw my suggestion I'm happy to hear that we're only 30 days

[73:00] away from this one and I look for that to the IGA coming back to us in mid-october all right so next we have straw polling of the option to offer the option to the district to lease to sorry having a long-term lease of 20 or 30 years depending on whether the district can meet the requirements of the 30 years um but allowing them the option of termination at their will at five-year increments um I see Hands in favor of that it's what you clarified earlier Juni I see eight am I missing one I think it's I think there's nine oh Mark nope okay I see eight hands great thank you

[74:02] um and as Bob said I don't think we need to straw poll on that other option that he brought up unless anyone has any additional comments or concerns I would love to move us on to the next agenda item right thank you we got really clear Direction I appreciate it thank you thank you thank you everybody great work all right so next on our agenda we have the 2024 recommended budget discussion um Maria am I kicking that over to you first you are thank you council member um as you know the responsibility for deciding how to spend taxpayer money is one of the biggest that we have together tonight we appreciate the opportunity to present our 2024 recommended budget and

[75:00] look forward to answering your questions and know that we'll continue to have opportunities to hear more from you as we have two more touch points with Council in October that include hearing from the community and ultimately taking a vote as I know you're aware staff is almost continuously working on its budget and our phenomenal budget team has led a robust process with both departments and council's financial strategies committee I've been particularly impressed with the many ways this budget team has built organizational capacity especially around outcome-based budgeting and I'm grateful for the thoughtfulness and collaboration that has gone into this proposal from across the Enterprise what you see before you is a budget that honors our pre-existing commitments including many of the priorities that you as Council establish for us and it's a budget that continues to orient itself around our existing said framework sustainability equity and resilience as we continue the hard work of strategic alignment and inserting outcome-based measurements to help guide our our

[76:00] future financial decisions specifically this 514.8 million dollar budget seeks to provide the necessary funding to address the most pressing challenges we have as a community behavioral health issues homelessness and unsanctioned camping ongoing Financial stressors for vulnerable populations climate change and Wildfire risk and a lack of affordable housing it also strives to support the core functions of local government to address key Capital needs and commitments and to recognize and retain our amazingly talented Workforce we believe the spending plan truly serves community and that's there's a lot to celebrate about that there is also however an important word to keep in mind as we think about this budget and by now I am sure most of you can say it with me constrained our budget is finite even when our hopes and dreams are not this is particularly true this year as you'll hear

[77:01] as you'll hear later in our presentation for reasons we've discussed already and we will continue to explore in the future this is not a this is not the year for lots of new things I ask you to keep the stewardship in mind as you listen to the presentation and ask your questions I am profoundly grateful to all our staff particularly our extraordinary CFO our budget officer and the entire budget team who helped shape and propose our 2024 recommended budget I'm also grateful for the many hours your colleagues on the financial strategies committee spent with us to share their guidance as this budget was being crafted and finally I want to acknowledge and appreciate our department leadership and those teams who really helped prioritize needs as we made hard decisions about how to Resource the many needs we have across the city and with that I'll turn over the mic to our CFO Cara Skinner thank you naria good evening mayor mayor Pro tem Mulligan members of council car Skinner Chief Financial Officer I do

[78:02] want to say just a few brief words I appreciate all that uh Maria shared but do one on myself offer some appreciation and then Mark Woolfolk our budget officer and his team will provide the community and you really with an overview and highlights of the recommended 2024 budget and I just want to share this perspective that the annual budget does provide spending Authority for specific funds and purposes but we really consider it an incredibly important strategic and operational plan and a communication tool with the community because it really does detail how the city plans to use taxpayer dollars and other Revenue sources to deliver programs and services so I too want to share my thanks to mark for his leadership and strategic vision and to the team's really incredible work problem solving focus and really partnership with leaders and team members across the organization and with that also a truly huge Kudos and thanks to so many and all the city departments

[79:02] as this Bud budget really is the product of many months of digging in to community needs Service delivery options desired outcomes resourcing options and proposals collaboration across teams various prioritization exercises and tough trade-off conversations and then ultimately funding recommendations we are also so thankful to our community connectors and residents and their time and Incredibly valuable engagement and input into this year's budget and thrilled to have two of them joining us tonight to share their thoughts with the community and you also want to share my thanks to the financial strategy committee it's been really um I think so vitally helpful to us as a budget team to to have their consult and collaboration on all Financial issues so we are excited to get to this point each year really to culminate and share our

[80:01] work in the recommended budget and with that uh without further Ado I'll hand it over to Mark Wolfe thank you cara let me get everything situated here okay does everything look okay on your end having some issues on our employee Town Hall the other night good evening I'm Mark wolf a budget officer uh we're glad to be with you this evening to discuss the 2024 recommended budget uh I'm joined uh this evening by our budget team Charlotte husky Sarah Hancock and Raphael Tingley who you will hear from during this presentation a little bit later additionally as Carl mentioned we are excited to have Ryan Hanson from the city team and two of our community connectors and residents Jamal Gilmore and Lenora Cooper with us as well they will be sharing uh part of the presentation a little bit later all of which will introduce themselves as we get to them in the presentation so we have several things to discuss this

[81:02] evening I never thought the budget would be the lighter of the two discussions in the evening we have nine things to get through uh tonight uh they will get the room as fast as possible want to give you and Community a nice comprehensive overview of the 2024 budget this year we will not spend as much time on our financial conditions given the relative stability compared to the last few years however there are a couple of Revenue considerations to point out beginning with our most significant source of Revenue sales and use tax I'll note that we continue and value our partnership with the CU lead School of Business to provide sales and use tax projections our total sales and use tax rate is 3.86 that includes the the 0.15 that we will talk about in a little bit more detail that expires at the end of

[82:02] 2024. now as I mentioned sales and use tax is significant when excluding utilities it is about half of all of our revenues and then we have our our table here that demonstrates where sales and use tax is distributed and again a little over half about 53 percent is dedicated to those purposes listed foreign use tax projections we've heard a lot certainly nationally about the overall stability of the economy that is good news there are local uh factors that we would consider to be headwinds that at least provide some caution inflation is slowing across major categories that is well advertised we saw the the good side if you will from a revenue standpoint with inflation over the last 18 months as that slows so does that inflation impact in our sales and use tax we are

[83:02] seeing a national slowdown in retail sales we're seeing that locally as well as some of our local sales tax categories have turned even negative year over year so something we're watching very closely and based on some of those categories those local categories cu's model compared to last year so our most recent model in July is what we use to develop this budget when you compare that to the model we received in 2022 those projections for our budget year 2024 are down 2.3 percent or 2.7 across all fun 2.7 million across all funds so again we watch sales and use tax very closely because it is such a a big deal from a revenue standpoint uh it's a good place to acknowledge the quote Prime effect We are following the reports on increased economic activity and at least from a budget standpoint we're excited about the prospect of of

[84:00] that effect uh having um on on revenues uh as Council knows we typically have a couple month lag about two month lag before receiving final Revenue information and we'll report out to council and Community once we have an Apples to Apples comparison on on perhaps the prime effect in this uh in the fall season uh moving over to property tax again something of interest to many community members uh property taxes make up a quarter of our general fund uh revenues 2023 assessments as we well know went up significantly property values up about 32 percent we did receive quote close to final numbers from the county so it'll be it looks like a little lower than uh 32 percent across the city there is a ballot initiative that is on the ballot in November called proposition HH which would reduce the the local Revenue

[85:01] growth in property tax uh to 28 so about a four percent uh difference I do want to note here that we always try to budget conservatively we have budgeted at that 28 amount so if voters were to pass proposition HH there is no budget impact for 2024 uh so so that's good and if HH is rejected by voters there would be an incremental difference in Revenue that's about 1.5 million in the general fund we are monitoring a possible four percent cap on annual revenue a ballot initiative that would cap four percent um annual revenue in property tax uh that could be on the ballot in 2024 so something we are are watching and another reason for caution as we think ahead to 2025-26 of property tax collections all right other

[86:01] um Revenue considerations uh here we have a chart of our 2024 general fund uh sources again sales and use tax is a big part of that um normally that's a bigger percentage one of the categories you'll see a little bit larger percentage than in past years is this other revenues in the general fund that is because we're anticipating a 13 million dollar repayment from the from the boulder Library District very on brand for this evening uh that timing and uh the amount of that payment is something that will be ultimately solved with the with the IGA but those revenues are anticipated um in 2024 and programmed uh for one-time uses now I'll also mention that sales and use tax in 24 includes the expiring point one five general fund sales and use tax our projections going out assume that that will expire at the end of 2024 pending um voter consideration of the ballot initiative

[87:00] in November Council has seen this chart before these are some of the other commitments that we've made Nuria mentioned at the outset that we are excited about the Investments that we've been able to sustain in the 2024 budget that includes uh the day Services Center we have 10 million dollars of capital programmed in 2024 and 1.6 million dollars in operating so we needed that 1.6 in new ongoing operating dollars in order to sustain that program in 24. the behavioral health or CARE program this is the non-law enforcement response program that program is in the process of getting up and running it has come in a little bit higher than we were projecting uh this time last year so the new ongoing operating budget for needed in 24 and programmed in the recommended budget is 1.7 and then as we've outlined for Alpine Balsam is thinking ahead to potential Debt Service or partnership

[88:00] opportunities to make that project happen we have programmed an additional two and a half million dollars for 2025 to bring our total either debt or partnership amount to 6.1 so those resources are within the 2024 budget and impact where we were able to make other Investments uh another part of our budget process was to really look especially given the general fund constraints look across other sources of funds and to describe a little bit more of our process I'm handing it off to Sarah Hancock thank you Mark and good evening Council my name is Sarah Hancock I'm a principal budget analyst with Central budget and excited to be here this evening so as a key component of our budget process this year our team completed a dedicated funding analysis and that was to better understand the city's funding sources and their intended uses about 65 to 70 percent of the city's revenues are dedicated or restricted to some specific

[89:02] purpose so understanding them more in depth offered us a significant opportunity and more flexibility in this budget process and Beyond this analysis did include exploration of voter approval ballot language Municipal Code any management policies that are related to each source and then in addition to that there were some informal uses or policies that may have had may have not had formal restrictions but were used as a memorialized practice so ultimately the analysis did highlight some key areas of flexibility which I'll go over in a moment and that was done through the examination of historical performance of each of those Revenue sources and the current capacity of each of the funds that they went to additionally we did discover some more flexibility in some of our dedicated funds and we're excited to share what that looks like so there were key excuse me five key areas incorporated into the budget strategy this year as a result of the analysis our first is going to be Parks

[90:00] and Recreation funds uh the Boulder parks and recreation has a very diverse funding sources and that includes a dedicated 0.25 sales tax a dedicated property tax that funds the permanent Parks fund the recreation activity fund and a dedicated Lottery fund portion that funds Parks acquisition and maintenance so the analysis really helped us to be strategic in shifting certain expenses to more aligned Revenue sources and in turn helped us to continue to ensure Equitable Recreation Services overall it was a great exercise and gave us a much more holistic approach to the budget as well the next is the transportation fund which at this time is very financially healthy but we did find that it was very important for ongoing analysis to really balance our larger capital projects that are planned and then our ongoing maintenance needs in future years so that's something that will continue to monitor as we continue looking at a long-term Financial strategy for the fund the next is our dedicated climate tax

[91:00] which supports our City's climate-focused programs our clean energy goals and our climate resiliency efforts flexibility within this fund really lies in our ability to incur debt to further climate Investments as well as long-term financial planning for ongoing Investments so once again we we got a better understanding of the restrictions and kind of what the capacity is for us to do things in the future and so that will require us to continue to do long-term financial planning within that fund next the planning and development services fund which provides our services for excuse me for cost recovery that's achieved through our Direct Customer charges such as permitting fees or through the general fund transfer for General City benefit projects some fees do have limited cost recovery and sometimes the general fund does have to supplement that so there's a real need for review of these fees and structure of the cost recovery and so this is something that our team is committed to this review and Analysis will be incorporated into the 2024 work plan and then finally the University Hill

[92:01] General improvement district also known as Eugen owns one parking asset after the sale of a second asset that has facilitated the development of a hotel and while the sale of the asset is currently supporting Eugene's fund balance the current sources of funding like our Mill Levy parking revenues and general fund subsidy are not sustainable activities without additional sources of revenue so staffs continuing to research potential solutions for that long-term Financial viability of the district which will also be brought forward in 2024 so lots of continued research looking forward but overall this was a wonderful exercise for our team and lended itself quite well to actually have some really significant impacts to the budget in a very positive way this year and with that I will hand it back to mark thank you Sarah all right we're going to get into a high level overview of the 2024 budget before hearing a little bit more about our process with our community connectors in Residence so very briefly this is at the center of the work we do in developing the budget

[93:02] around the sustainability equity and resilience framework you have the budget sliced in a number of different ways one of which is how all of our programs and Investments across the city align to this framework we are also in year two of three in our budgeting process improvements or implementing budgeting for resilience you may also know this as outcome-based budgeting last year we did a couple of major things we oriented all of our investments around those goals that uh were just up on the screen we implemented opengov so all of our information is online and more accessible to community we improved our internal decision making process this year we really focused on aligning outcomes you'll see throughout the budget presentation and especially the the programs and all of the information online have a much greater focus on what the intended outcomes are and how we may measure our intended outcomes across our investments you'll hear more about our

[94:01] community engagement efforts this year and then next year we really like to move towards acknowledging we have a lot of work to do but moving towards using data to to inform our decision making every year we develop a budget a quick overview of the numbers the 2024 total budget 514.8 million uh you'll notice it is slightly down uh from last year's budget that is because we we changed a budgeting practice for how we uh show Bond proceeds so instead of appropriating bond proceeds anticipated Bond proceeds at the time of budget we will now authorize that spending at the time of issuing the bonds so that will come later into 2024 that impacts utilities for 24. and so it's not an Apples to Apples comparison to say it's um less than last year more of an Apples to Apples comparison is looking at total budget excluding utilities or the general fund our general fund is 196.1

[95:01] million in 2024 that's a 4.1 percent increase over 2023 budget this is the 2024 budget by Department including Capital expenses uh one thing I should note on the slide if you did your homework last week you'll notice that there are two numbers that are are different the general government uh overall number and the police department overall number there was an error in how a cost element within the police department's uh Workforce plan was reflected artificially lowering the Department's budget the funds to cover that amount were budgeted in general government and so we shifted those funds where they where they need to be in police so the numbers you see on the screen are accurate that does not impact your total budget number or your general fund number there's a few slides with numbers that I'll try to walk through as quickly as

[96:01] possible one of the things that we were looking at very closely in the development of this budget is the scenario under which if voters approve the ballot item related to the 0.15 in November that would dedicate half of the current general fund sales tax to arts and related uses and 50 remain as a general fund tax so what this six year projection shows you is if that voters do approve that ballot initiative you see our total 196.1 million in the general fund the bottom line is fund balance after reserves in those years so we were able to deliver a budget that works and what um I'd like to point out is really on the next slide where you see the impact of uh ongoing room so what we mean by ongoing room is we have ongoing sources of revenue like sales tax like property tax those are the things that fund

[97:00] services and people and the things that we we Fund in perpetuity we have very limited room when you look out over the six years in the scenario that voters approve the ballot Initiative for the 0.15 in November we anticipate an average of about a half a million dollars total over the next six years so that that constraint word that you heard and that is why we talk about it a lot is because we know the needs are great and I'm sorry Mark what word was that I think it was constrained oh I got it okay and and this is the reason why right because we're we're we we are concerned about the long-term ongoing room so without an additional Revenue Source or without us really realigning the existing Investments we make which is why this budgeting practice is so important and without getting into the merits of the ballot item itself we did want to show and what the fund financials will show because we never anticipate loader action in our fund financials what

[98:01] you'll see here is if the 0.15 is not renewed um we're in a not good situation the general fund starting in 2025 and I'll just note if if voters do not approve the ballot initiative that's under consideration in November there is one more opportunity in 2024 to take action on the expiring 0.15 before we're in the situation that you see on the screen red numbers are not good we would have to reduce services in this scenario and shifting just very briefly you'll hear from Raphael in a bit on the details associated with our Capital Improvement program or our CIP overall we have 141 141 million dollar proposal for 2024 that's almost uh a little over 900 million dollars across uh the the six years one of the things we'll talk about that we're excited about in this budget

[99:00] is the implementation of many projects associated with the community culture resilience and safety tax many of these projects in addition to the ccrs or Capital maintenance and enhancements and utilities facilities and transportation so before diving into some of the more specifics uh we'd love to take you through our community engagement process and to T that up I'm handing it to Charlotte thanks smart good evening council members I'm Charlotte Huskey I'm a principal budget analyst with the budget office happy to be here tonight with our community connectors and residents Jamal Gilmore and Lenora Cooper who will present and speak more on our budget engagement process and share their priorities that are reflected and included in the 2024 budget and Reflections on the 2024 budget before handing it off to the Community Connector is just going to share some brief background on our engagement work that we performed that severe our office engaged the community connectors early

[100:02] in the spring of of this year to discuss the annual budget process the city's sustainability equity and resilience framework as Mark mentioned previously that we have embedded in our budget development process as well as across our organization and understanding the priorities that the connectors and the community members that they work with share within that framework and have been helping to to inform our 2024 Investments we received value valuable input from the connectors along the way as as well as community members that they work with and connectors share this information directly with departments leading up to budget submission in our annual budget cycle and departments worked to incorporate this feedback were feasible into their budget submissions so we are really excited to have a community engagement be more robust this year and centered in our work for the

[101:00] 2024 budget and working with Community connectors was really the key piece to this so excited to be able to invite them to share their input directly with City Council Members this evening and I'll hand it off to jamala and Lenora whenever you're ready can you hear me all right thumbs up head not something thank you hi my name is Lenora Cooper and thank you Council and um Mr Mayor Brockett for having us be a part of this discussion we we have a lot to share um my pronouns are she her and just a few of the many communities in which I am deeply embedded are um various non-profits around the city people with invis with disabilities in

[102:00] general and especially specifically invisible disabilities and people who are low to very low income or as one of my community colleagues likes to say the poor Folk hello my name is Jamal uh the communities I'm a part of is the African-American Community uh the local radio Community uh the kids sports community and the small business Community um thank you for being thank you for letting us be here today and be heard uh it means a lot to our communities uh I'll go right into it uh the S the scr goals are both holistic approach and therefore everything is related to racial economic and Equity work we acknowledge and appreciate the progress that has been made on community issues we'll touch on we share uh we'll share what we have been continuing hearing from our communities still a lot of work to be done ahead but

[103:00] we we're pretty sure that we can get it done with your help Community connectors and residents Elevate the voices and build power of the historically excluded communities by reducing barriers to community engagement advancing racial equity and surfacing and servicing the ideas concerns and the dreams of the community members RCC and our team we are each a part of the historically excluded communities we connect with our communities to hear and amplify different perspectives at the request of council last year we are engaging directly with historically excluded communities to understand their input on the city's budget we have six we've spent six hours with the city budget team to learn more about the budget and to design this engagement together next slide in January 2022

[104:02] we presented to city council themed of what we've been hearing from our communities both Community strengths and Community issues we have continued to hear about these strengths and issues and communities since then over time Healthcare Focus moved from covid-19 to mental health uh We've wanted to wanted to be sure to include what we've already heard and been hearing from our communities and our budget engagement process to use these themes as a starting point next slide um looking at 30 odd SRE scr objectives we identify those objectives the most reflective priorities of the CC and our teams we have continued to hear from we continue to hear about the Trump communities next slide all right

[105:01] so we held three in-person sessions over the course of the spring first before we could engage with the community we had to learn ourselves so that goes back to the six hours that Jamal mentioned where we met with the budget departments to learn how things work because before we could we had to know how things worked ourselves before we could teach it to anybody else and then get their input in a meaningful way and we're all about things being meaningful so we had these three listening sessions and first we educated which is what you can see in this slide here in the picture of one of our meetings and after that we switched our Focus to very deep listening we also had an electronic form that people could access and fill out while

[106:00] they were there and then we we asked questions and heard stories and people were incredibly Brave and vulnerable and passionate about sharing their lived experiences with us we've reduced barriers for people to be able to attend these meetings so in other words we did what we asked you to do is we put our but our money where our mouth was we provided child care we provided language interpretation we provided a meal and other things we also so our sample because we like data our sample was 74 participants 91 of those were members of color and 50 of those had household incomes Senator fifty thousand dollars a year

[107:01] so this was a huge amount of work on the part of the community connectors this presentation that you're hearing tonight and the results that are reflected in the budget proposal represents seven months of our work we worked on other things but it was seven months sorry I don't have my reading glasses with me so I have to go back and forth so we collected both qualitative and also anecdatal data anecdotal anecdotal data so we feel like the impact of the stories that people shared with us was just as valid and important as numbers we also want to acknowledge that with as deliberate and deeply engaged as we were in the process

[108:00] with the engagement that we completely recognize and acknowledge that there are some Community Voices that are not represented in this discussion many of the attendees were deeply involved in their communities so they communicate so community members at large attended and also people that are leaders across different communities so they did not bring just their own perspective but They Carried Collective voice and experience of their communities with them to us I think I need the next slide yes I need the next slide please so this is how the scr objectives were

[109:01] ranked by the community I'll just give you a second to glance at that and take it in got it head nod thumbs up from someone on the top rope please okay thank you so we presented our findings to the department directors on May 8th and this is critically important we did that before they um submitted their before they developed their proposed budget so that meant that all of this work that we did was done in a timeline where it was not performative where it was actually at impact and import and so huge kudos to every member of the city of Boulder team that made that happen because we don't mess around

[110:04] and the feedback that we got from the directors after our presentation to them was how important this was to them that they heard perspectives that they hadn't heard previously and they also reflected back to us that they absolutely did take in consideration the information that we presented to them when they were making their budgets as Jamal mentioned previously Jamal like Madonna Like share black Bono um post covid there are two biggest shifts that we heard from the community and first of all with mental health and the second was youth opportunities one of the moms who came to one of the events

[111:02] was sharing with us her experience with her son who's 11 12. and what she shared with us and I was described at that table was that it is easier for her 11 year old son to get drugs than it is for her 11 year old son to participate in community Sports that haunts me I think about that frequently what I became even more aware of throughout this process is the importance of programming

[112:02] any funds and y'all can look at these statistics up on your own but any funds that are put into preventative programs pay off exponentially in terms of results and this their objectives and I love that Mark talked about we're measuring results so the more the city aligns the budget to the Sarah objectives the more these Community issues will be addressed next slide please uh yeah the most prioritized scr objectives were providing a variety of housing types with full range of affordability uh what we heard from the community participant was important because salary should be able to cover rent and other bills and Extras such as car payment and savings but in

[113:01] reality one person who has two or three jobs still struggles to pay rent and voted the next prioritized scr objective was support financially sorry support Financial Security and economic opportunities regardless of race gender ability and social economic status uh we heard from the community my husband has two jobs he does not have time to spend with my children or my kids they grew up calling their Uncle dad because they never saw my husband and that makes me extremely sad it is unjust the third most prioritized scr objective was support the city of Boulder advancing racial equity and implementing implementing uh equity Equity strategies and tools concerned

[114:01] about how the Nepalese Nepali community will be treated by the city staff experiencing racial disparities in accessing services and resources next slide do you know I think you could mentioned earlier the moment please oh yes it is me so with these objectives and again the one that that haunts me to this day is the woman that shared that it's easier for her son to get drugs is that widening back in that larger perspective is because it's about so much more than our kiddos

[115:01] um and their ability to access boards that's a really easy thing for people to understand whether you have children or not that's that's something that's easy for people to grasp and what is important to remember with these Sands objectives is the broadening back and supporting all of the communities next slide please all right I am gonna take over the slide and then hand it right back to y'all so we wanted to share um just a slice or a um an example of the um Investments that are included in the 2024 um budget as a line to the community connected priority so what you see on the slide are the top three priorities that Jamal and Lamar spoke to underneath each of these are examples of

[116:02] Investments that are included in the 2024 budget looking at the first uh in high the highest priority for Community connectors of housing affordability there's a total of 2.3 million included in the 2024 budget to support the Ponderosa stabilization project for continued development of long-term affordability for residents of the Ponderosa neighborhood in North Boulder this uh project will eventually support the building of 73 new energy efficient permanently affordable homes in that neighborhood under the second top priority for Community connectors and the community members they work with is Financial Security and Economic Opportunity within the budget is a total of 415 ongoing increased funding to help support Community grants for community members experiencing Health disparities and this increase and funding will be administered by the the housing and

[117:02] Human Services Department through the Health Equity funding and finally uh for the city of Boulder advancing racial equity and implementing Equity strategies and tools we recognize the importance of the community connectors and residence program and in the 2024 budget is a an ongoing amount of 50 000. um that will help support this this program on an ongoing basis with stipends and and partnership funding so again this is just a snapshot representation of the information that we shared with Community connectors a few weeks back of the Investments that are included in the 2024 budget as aligned to the Community Connector Ser objective priorities but uh with that I will hand it over and and the next slide back to Jamal and Lenora

[118:02] all right you know you all know I like bottom line so here it is the more the city aligns its budget to the share objectives the more the community issues can be addressed to me our mandate is abundantly clear we can make the decision as a city to choose to use our resources in a way that will make a significant difference in the lives of our community members we started on this path and now we can choose to continue we all know that a rising tide lifts all those and with these enhancements that are being put forth by the city budget or within the city budget what that's going to do is that's going to lift up more of the lowest votes

[119:02] uh this is great work I really enjoy being a part of the community connectors uh this it's really hard work um and how much I love Boulder being here for the 25 years I've been here doing various things in this community um this is by far the hardest that I've I've I've dug into the community in different communities um and people I don't normally talk to and normally break bread with I have and to hear their stories and they hear their complaints because uh traditionally or historically I'm I'm from a community where it's not been very easy to survive in Boulder especially uh but the new like even the beautification process that happened in Boulder is kind of a smack in the face to my community so it's tough to dive in to some of these issues without being really emotional and very passionate about it

[120:02] um but with that said there's been a lot of great achievements that have been happening you know with sitting in the tank building and other stuff that's happening around the community um different block parties and recognize of recognizing the small business and such like that um but what I really want you guys to understand with this work is that it's going to take a while to unpack a lot of this trauma like this is I appreciate the ongoing support from the city council and Boulder and large but we're gonna It's Gonna Take Years uh just like at the library is going to take 30 years to or or so to be in their space in this space uh historically that's the people have been overlooked and stepped on they're reluctant to talk to us so we have to come up with really unique and strategic ways to get into their communities to actually pull out this information so uh we would love the support from city council and the city of Boulder to keep this going on for years and years to

[121:02] come uh thank you again for having us here and to listening to all the concerns from our communities thank you both Jamal and Lenora that was a really great presentation um just wanted to uh share some next steps and future collaboration for Budget engagement so we're we're uh including in the 2024 budget um two uh new or expanded programs both of their social streets in the community Wildfire mitigation grants program which we'll speak to in a little bit but we have invited uh Community connectors if interested to partake in Partnership opportunities for program development so they would be able to provide input on these newer expanded Community facing programs that are included in the 2024 budget looking forward to the 2025 budget engagement and budget development

[122:00] cycle we hope to continue to further our engagement efforts with Community connectors and to continue as well to perform broader Community engagement using our our open gov Community feedback tool I'll hand it back to mark thank you Charlotte and again just appreciate uh Jamal and Lenora for being with us this evening I see Bob's hand before we transition well let me just ask our facilitator um Lauren Lauren um would this be okay time to ask questions of the community connectors or do you want us to wait to the end of the presentation I guess I was wondering if the if there's a plan for them to stick around for the whole time period or if we could if we ask questions now does that potentially help free up some time um this evening for you guys we're happy to go either way I'd I'd yield to Lenora and Jamal if they plan to stick with us or they'd like to get

[123:00] out a little early go Bob yep Bring It On okay let's do that thank you thank you um first of all I just want to thank Lenora and Jamal and and the whole Community Connector team for all the tremendous amount of work you all did over the last gosh more than six months um this is exactly what we were looking for um those of you around for the budget last year know that there was a little bit of frustration on Council that while the community connectors were brought in they were maybe not brought in as early as we had hoped that they could be to form the budget and the work that Community connectors did this year I think was exactly what um we were hoping for so I really want to thank all the community connectors Lenora and Jamal uh in particular for being here and doing exactly what we had hoped you would do and I hope this what you all did in 2023 will serve as a model for all future budgets for the community

[124:01] connectors involved I hope you know the day after we've approved the 2024 budget you've burst into flames and start working on a 2025 budget with with the finance team that would be so great maybe take a day or two off but but uh give us a week yeah okay okay I do have one question for uh for Jamal Lenora um I it sounds like you you are are because you were so involved and so integrated in the plan the budget um it sounds like you're endorsing the budget which is really helpful for us if there was like one thing uh keep in mind um Maria's uh Magic constrained word so we don't have unlimited money but within the scope of of the money we have there was one thing about the the budget that you or your fellow Community connectors could change could you could you share that with us what what little adjustment would you like to see or are you just delighted with the budget and you hope that we approve it as is first uh I I think it's it's around mental

[125:01] health I think that would be the strongest push as uh uh people are starting to come out of their shells a bit uh health-wise and or physically and mentally healthy um it's tough a lot of people are are needing a little bit of a time to adjust to the period of being back in the public um and now again we're having more Health scares especially right after by the summer people going abroad and bringing back bugs of new strains and such like that um to be welcome into their home welcome us into their homes The Strangers uh that mental health component it's it's really important it it that would be like the top priority for us and that goes across all uh racial barriers uh educational levels like everything like uh most people need to be mentally stable so they can hold down the job so they can keep the house that you build for

[126:00] them so they can participate in the Parks and Rec services so their kids can go out and play sports um so that mental health piece I think is real crucial absolutely and then what I'd like to amplify around what Jamal said is um is community is putting an additional focus on community-based Mental Health so that things like the um I can't remember what it's called but the equity detox training that's community members for community members and by community members so moving from a top-down model to continuing to support and invest in resilience within and just like Jamal said across all communities and then in addition to that and this is I don't want to land myself in hot water um but a a

[127:00] um and I don't know the right word but an adjustment or a change in how Boulder administers its mental health support financially and otherwise because we're not a small town anymore and the system that's in place worked great when we were and now it's um if I'm going to speak really bluntly they do excellent work and it's not up to the task because of the current structure and constraints to meet the actual needs of the community and that can be one example is going to be a lack of enough multilingual Multicultural therapists that are available I mean that's just a really simple straightforward anyone can understand that this is a problem example

[128:00] I could go on but we're already way past time so I won't um other questions or Bob did that adequately answer the question that you proposed it really did I really appreciate both of you answering that question and I appreciate your candor and conspiracy on that that's really helpful because over the next few weeks we'll be talking about potential adjustments to the budget so it's really helpful for us to know what things you think we might um adjust in this budget if we can and I see that Aaron and and Nicole have a question so I'm going to yield the floor to them but thank you so much for all the hard work you've done over the last several months thank you so much thanks Bob and yes I see Aaron and Nicole I have a question too and please if anyone else has questions for the community connectors please raise your hand and get in queue thank you what I just have to offer a quick enormous thank you uh Jamal and Lenora for the extraordinary work that you and the rest of the connectors did on this and just wanted to just point out and

[129:00] appreciate how you got in early you did the community engagement you gave the feedback it went to the directors before things were baked and then that feedback made its way into the actual budget and then I loved how you showed that thread going all the way through to now here's how it made a difference in the budget so it's just incredibly impactful like you all made a real difference here and the budget is reflecting work that would not have been done without you so just I'm just very very grateful for all that thank you thank you so much yeah we can't wait to go back to our communities and share with them that their input actually moved the needle because a lot of their concerns were that their input is that no one cares yeah and so to show them that there is some care in Boulder that I think that'll go over tremendously well especially with our immigrant communities and such like that I do have something completely off topic that I would like to throw in and Ryan is white knuckling it right now

[130:02] I want to amplify something that Jamal said because I think it's very important for you to understand and to have that inform your expectations of the ttir so we are contractors we have no benefits I'm not asking to not be contractors I'm not asking to get benefits I want to be super clear about that as Jamal said this is emotionally really hard work and we we get secondary tertiary whatever is the numbers after fourth and fifth level the trauma that we need to hear to do our job and we get our stipend and that's it so I we

[131:00] want to continue with this work it is incredibly important to us we are all passionate about it and as you continue to ask for things from us bear this in mind and most of the time we say yes no you say yes but keep that in mind I see hands yeah thank you Lenora I think Nicole you're up next thank you um I just wanted to address that point when I just really appreciate that Jamal thank you also for gracing it I think it is really important for us to keep that in mind that it's not just the hours you spend working it's the ways that you need to take care of yourself can everybody hear me okay okay thank you um and Lenora can you hear me now

[132:01] okay uh but yeah just um you know noting noting that there's a lot of work that you all are doing afterwards to take care of yourselves your communities and everything as well it's not just the time that you are spending in these meetings and Outreach events so um thank you thank you for uh spotlighting that um and I also just wanted to thank you for participating in this process and giving so much time um of yours and your communities to uh to give us this feedback in my opinion this uh budgeting work that we're doing over the last couple of years that will continue for a few more years to go is some of the most transformational work that we will do as a city this century and the fact that you all are participating in this way giving us this feedback I know it's not just a one and done you know hopefully this is something we can continue doing from year to year um and and I just I just want to acknowledge that as well it is transformational work and it would not be as transformational without the work that you are doing so thank you deeply

[133:00] thank you so much um what I was wondering and I think this speaks to the amount of work that you already do um you know our process we'll talk about it a little bit later uh we are going to have a couple of weeks to give some feedback to talk with staff about um ways that you know we may or may not want to change um anything that is in the budget and I am just curious if there is a uh um already some planned a planned role for you all in that part of the process if there is any way of getting some feedback on any changes we may propose in this budget um I you know I'm thinking about some other ideas around that like we have to state which of the connectors you know priorities is this is touching on as we're talking about changes we're talking about you know adding or removing things um but I was just wondering you know as we get go toward a public hearing will we hear from you all again that would be directed to Ryan okay

[134:02] and I um Ryan Hansen here a community agent manager let me see if I can bring myself over here thank you um appreciate the the question thank you and um you know I think we would have to chat with the whole team to make sure that you know that the scope of what we're looking at was that's reasonable but um you know I think the the team would be open to exploring what that may look like so we can we can discuss with it with the budget team and with our whole connector team and see if that's something that folks are open to can I just add two and I I know I think Mark was probably gonna chime in at some point um I appreciate it I think those kind of suggestions every year we will get stronger I want to appreciate uh Jamal and Lenoir for your um support as we have been moving forward we hear that and want to assure both you and Council that we plan to continue this right our goal is to continue to hear from our community and find better ways learn from this experience uh expand as we can and so

[135:01] know that we remain committed to that because it is so vital fun thank you so much and just one kind of related question I don't know Maria this is for you or for connectors or for finance team around this when we think about doing the adjustments to base and budget adjustments is that a place where you see some feedback as well or you know looking forward are we really just talking about kind of the main budget budgeting process that would involve continued connector feedback yeah yeah I appreciate that piece of that uh I'll start and happy to hand it over uh Lenora I I think um we're open to ways that we can be effective and I think one of the reasons why we tried to focus on the early window in March and April and May was that is the time where we're really developing priorities developing the budget it starts so early in the calendar year and so I think that's where um input can be most effective as we're

[136:00] kind of nearing those decision points with adjustments or the annual budget you know that's when we we really get into the um you know around the edges right we're making changes where we have the structure of the budget kind of in place so um just with that caveat in mind I mean we are certainly open to expanding our partnership and making sure that we're hearing from uh Community throughout our budget decisions said about the historic mistrust that is with many of well all of the previously and historically excluded communities and since we're now approaching the refinement part of the budget and as Ryan said we would have to talk to the entire team you see Jamal and I here but we and you'll notice in our language we use the we all the time we're before you today but we are representing the voices

[137:00] of our entirety um and in terms of the refining of the budget I would okay don't use salty language on film Lenora um I would say I think that that would be incredibly important because that's going to be the ultimate manifestation and reflection of this entire process so to me and I'm only speaking personally here this is I not we to me that's the only thing that actually makes sense and I'm fairly confident from having served for several years now with with this amazing group of people that most of them would agree does that adequately answer your question yes it does thank you so much excellent I see another hand was there anything else you had Nicole okay you're done thank you okay so I'm gonna jump in um so I guess I was just wondering if there's

[138:00] anything you would ask from us to help ensure that we are getting the most out of this process you know I hear um and it resonates with me that you know the I appreciate that we're going through this and the effort and everything going into it so just if you have any recommendations for either as we continue through this or in future years would you please try again with fewer words do you have any recommendations for how we ensure we're getting the most out of this process go ahead um or do you think that the the right that we're on the right path and continuing in in that process as um the city manager um mentioned earlier that this is going to be ongoing it's going to be refined

[139:02] it's going to get stronger and better every year and um I would you know when we're talking about budget and again this is strictly I right now answering this question this is not the we of the team um but but um consider finding or um allowing us to find I don't even know the right way to language it ongoing support and personal development because like I said and Jamal said and we will all say this it is incredibly hard emotional work what we do and we do it so you don't have to as part of it um so finding ways to continue to support us to support our um capacity building to support our professional development

[140:02] um all that kind of things and stuff does that adequately answer your question that you asked yes it does thank you I'd like to match that a little bit yeah absolutely I would love to have you guys or at least one of uh we spoke about this Setter we had like a little party get together in North Boulder um and we would like to see you all in one of our meetings like like uh like one of you at a time we probably don't have the capacity for all of you um but uh one of you at a time we'd love to see you at our meetings and so you can get to know who we are and and not because we are more than just a tool for the city um you know we are actually business owners and residents and and community members and leaders in our communities like so we would like you to get to know that about us more than just like

[141:01] spilling off some data in about six minutes you know like to understand like where we see things how we and where we see things going um because we got to touch on a little bit of like the past and a little bit of what we want in the future but like the dreams of the community is I think relevant for your jobs and I think you should really take a part of that uh and I've been doing it for a little over a little about a year and I haven't I mean I know most of you personally but I haven't seen you in the meetings and so I would love to see you guys there that's I think that would help out us because I think the just coming into the city council meetings is a little bit more formal and and we try to be on our best behavior and sometimes it's a little tough but we would like to uh see you guys where it's a little bit more relaxed and we can actually have a little bit of fat chewing I love that that sounds great and it's very important for city council to understand that that

[142:00] we are a very cohesive group but we are not monoliths we have some very heated discussions from very different perspectives and even opposing perspectives and I think that it's really important to understand that as well and that's one thing that if you want at a time started to um come and spend a half an hour with us um would start to have a deeper and broader understanding of us individually and as a group and as I love what Jamal said we are not just a tool for the city to use thank you both for that answer I see a hand yeah I think Matt was up next and then we have Tara I can't hear you Matt even though your mute sign is off

[143:01] got nothing maybe we'll skip to Tara real quick and I'm like oh there you go okay the headphones failed um gotta keep quiet because my daughter sleeps above my office so um hopefully she's already asleep um I I first just thanks Jamal and thanks Lenora I mean I I think we've also everyone who's come before us sort of just said the Gratitude there is is palpable on our end for the work you do and I take Jamal's words to heart that you are definitely not just a tool for the city or so much more than that and that I think that speaks to the point you made about the mental health side of not just for the work you guys do and the vulnerability you have to do to put your whole soul out there to receive this information and how do you connect and how you translate that to action and advocacy for for us at the city and I'm just sort of curious I mean one of the challenges we face is almost all of that Mental Health Service is provided by the county and so it's hard for us to pull that

[144:01] lever and and do that on our end but there but we did have a little discussion it wasn't quite ready for prime time about creating our own smaller scale behavioral health tax and so I'm wondering if that's something that that would be that we could bring um perhaps to all the community connectors to have a discussion on as to how we go about again it won't be the scale of what the county could do but it's better than nothing and it starts to at least take some bites out of the challenges that everyone faces um as Jamal pointed out coming out of covet and just all those traumas that sort of compound on each other so just wanted to throw that out there and ask if that's something you'd be interested in working with some of us on um and see if we can procure that and maybe you know something we could get on the ballot next year again it takes council's will to do that but I just wanna I wanna start with the community connectors and see if that's something that that we could do to to meet some of those very important needs yeah that's perfect uh man I think that's exactly what my invite was about so my invite was definitely about what the city can bring to the table for the community connectors and what vice versa

[145:01] um so that'd be perfect um I think that's exactly the the route we need to take on this and little by little he'll buy you know heal a little by little and go back out there and receive your thousand no's and and I'm sure you guys you guys know the same you know the drill like it's uh you go out the community you go into the community you think you're gonna have a good time but everybody bashes you about everything you're not doing right and what they could be doing better and and your shirt color is stupid and you're you know and all that stuff you know so I I totally I get it yeah so that'd be great like a little bit of help uh Mental Health concerned from the city would be great and a little bit from the county would be great and like so when we go out there and we knock on those doors and we're like hey this is what we're proposing this is what the city's proposing it's not really us but we have to inform you about this because our job is to teach our community how to advocate for themselves and so and sometimes that just comes out as really passionate speech and we have to discern

[146:01] whether it's love or hate or a little bit of both and and we're standing there naked you know like we don't have you know there's no police officer with us there's no there's none of that like we just sit there in our space and we we take it and sometimes it's sometimes really hard to take uh you know and so yeah we would love to have like I said invite you guys to one of our Friday meetings for half hour or so and you kind of go over some of that stuff go with what that plan would look like or what we would ask from you um because you know we are dealing with community members in communities that have their own trauma and trying to fix trauma in the community so that's you know it's a really tough spell yeah council members just to know if if you would and I apologize for um saying in but I love this conversation and what I'm hearing is a great interest to do some one-on-ones and know that we will take that back and actually try to schedule those because I know just like uh council member Benjamin there are probably other council members that have

[147:00] a particular priority area so we're hearing that we love that invitation to mall and we will figure out internally how to make that happen uh and extend that invite so just love that excellent and I just want to address um council member um Benjamin's question is that what you're suggesting is exactly aligned with what the community has requested so yes please well well I appreciate that and um you know those of us that will be on the next Council and certainly before we would love to um have those conversations and see how we can bridge that Gap um and because that's an important one to do so thanks for daylighting that and showing the importance of it and we want to work with you on that so look forward to uh seeing you guys on a Friday super duper did that adequately answer your question 100 thanks I think we have Tara up next

[148:01] and hey Jamal and Lenora I'd love to come to your meeting and also any parties if you did not come to our Community Connector Community celebration you all missed out I want to no invite me I'll be there got it invitation all the time good um I have a few questions for you first of all as you're speaking some of the things that you've said have reminded me that the parks department because I was on the parks and rec board prior to city council does get involved in some of these things I know they are really heavily focused on helping Youth and helping um in some of the communities that we we don't hear from as much as we should so my first question for you well first of all I'd like to say that that's why I wish that we had a talk about a constrained budget the parks department

[149:01] has a super Parks and Rec has a super constrained budget and I think that that could really if they had an adjustment to base I'm thinking already the adjustment to base if they had a larger budget uh especially where we can add things like Youth Sports which uh you discussed and you know other things that can lift the mood you know for mental health and such especially loneliness is such a big problem in our world and our country and in our community uh I think that could have a big effect so I'm wondering have you are you involved with the parks department already have you discussed anything with them is that um something that you're interested in doing or it's already happening we did a little bit of a parks department once I think I was in a meeting of that learned about some specific programs yeah yeah we do we did we were in that vein uh but as we dug deep into the uh the conversation about that there is

[150:04] there's some more work to do around that like and it's tough you know because it's all about dollars and cents uh but if there's could be some Partnerships between other established like kick to build like we understand like there's a lot of uh uh Spanish-speaking youth that are going to be involved in soccer so and then there's not enough funds for them to go every day so it's like you go to a camp once a week and that's just not enough for kids that want to play soccer so like if we could do a partnership with like kick to build I don't know what that partnership looks like I'm not a part of Kick the build I just know they exist just like I know they're the rec centers things exist I'm just thinking if we could alleviate some of the responsibility of parks and recs and put it on an existing uh an established a Community member like kicked a bill then the Spanish Community or the Spanish speaking Community can join them and play soccer multiple times a week

[151:01] versus once a week and I think that'll alleviate some time for parents and mental health and all the rest of that so much uh so I think yeah there are some things that we could do further um with existing part of Partnerships that probably don't exist or do exist I have no idea but I think there's been a ton of requests for more youth activities uh things that are just not keeping them in the in their areas so I don't know if you understand this but you've read you rarely see people outside of their communities because there's nothing for them to do outside of their communities so like say if you're in uh a mobile home Community you're going to stay around your mobile home community and not really Venture off into other parts of the community unless there's an activity for you to go out there and do such and that activity has to be welcoming so you can't have a bunch of non-spanish-speaking people or uh non-immigrant people if you want to broaden a little bit more to being in a

[152:04] and like an activity and expecting these folks to come and join that there's a little bit of uh there most of them aren't as outgoing as Lenora is right so uh they're a little bit shy to that effect so they'll say yes yes yes but when it's time to come to it uh the anxiety effects of all that because um how people are perceived in this town is really different than what we say uh in this town so we say we want inclusivity we say we want equality uh and I think that the terms don't translate into the actions and so when the when said Community goes out of their Community they they're they're met with all this anxiety and around that so like like I said like there needs to be more Partnerships uh more marriages between stuff that already exists in the community that's happening so you don't have to recreate the wheel and the uh professionalism and the know-how from

[153:00] the city and parks and recs so I I and that's again something we could dive deeply into in a Friday meeting like that's something and then then you'll have like The Nepalese Community represented then you'll have the Native American Community represented then you have the African Community represented and it's not just Lenore and I sitting here feeling what we heard last week you know no I I think uh Nuri is right I mean each one of our us council members probably has one or two things that is you know heavily on our minds after listening to you speak and those Friday night and slash party opportunities would be a great really I'm looking forward to doing that I'm very excited we will be sure to make that happen this is such an exciting conversation as we talk about budget I know that um parks and Communications and others in the city have been talking a lot about the child friendly initiative that we're doing we've got some monies from some of those Bronco franchise money so we will be having more conversations just about that in the future because we've got um

[154:01] a bit of uh some future spending to do that is focused just on youth activity so anyway I know we got a lot more in the budget and just know that we will make that effort and we will try to get um all the council members to your meetings so they can talk about their individual issues as we move forward because it is so rich one at a time yeah and we also extend that to everyone that works in the city like if you have a you know you work in the city and you really want to dive into the community and see what they feel like uh see what is really resonating with them and what's not resonating that you're already offering um no one is trying to give you an opinion like really it's really easy to get that information out um but like I said one at a time you know it's like two use probably a lot but one of you at a time just because you guys hold such heavy weight you know it's it's just you know you're easy to look at what your your position in the city sometimes can influence people's

[155:01] ability to express themselves yeah they can be intimidated and I just I want to amplify what Jamal said and put it in perhaps slightly different language what we hear from the community all the time is is the acknowledgment and the need and we understand we understand especially the community connectors after all this seven months of process that we've gone through with the budget budget constraints and and to me almost every program every department is woefully underfunded you know my personal passion project is the fire department so I beat that drum every chance I get but what Jamal was saying about more manhoods with different organizations another way to think of it is desilenization and so the more cross-pollination and the stronger um now I'm losing my words it's been a while and my brain is tired I'm sure yours and two are all as well but that

[156:00] just to continue to think creatively and more think of it as weaving and how are all these different strands that we could pull together for the betterment of every person that lives in Boulder did that make sense my last thing I want to say to you is when you do come to us um please research your verbiage oh my God yeah that that's a really big thing I don't know you ever get expressed by that but like um a lot of the verbiage that you speak every day is sometimes abrasive to the communities you're trying to reach and and that language that you speak in your Silo may be okay but when you come into the rest of the community it's not okay um like a quick example we got we got ties into like uh the historical uh district and trying to put the the Civic

[157:02] Park or the city park into an historical thing and then it came with the language of beautification and we have a Community Connector um that has direct lineage to that land and and so what you with just in that little phrase of beautifying this part the beautifying the city or that that hurt her like it really it touched her because her family was living there before the park and so you know that that insinuated that what they were doing before was not beautiful and so it really it advocated her from that she had to leave the meeting because it just it didn't resonate with her very well and so like I really it's really important that you research your language like it's and I'm not trying to like say what you want but like if it comes up like it's the language that it's hard to get around sometimes especially be when you're dealing with

[158:00] like the native population and and other I guess yeah other overlooked communities here in Boulder and so like just simple words like you you think the word beautiful just as a great word it's it's a it's a it's a warm feeling word but sometimes it's not and so I would I would when you come I would please please just research your language and like and I'm not saying that we're trying to at least what you say and you feel free feel how you want to feel about things but do you understand that when you speak to us we're thinking historically like we're thinking of like not just what you're saying right now and if you've heard it somewhere else and you're repeating it please please know what you're saying like it it just it just takes the meeting in a whole different direction and and then we have to apologize for what we say to somebody because they get their feelings hurt because we're listening to our community we're deep into our community and we understand what the community really is looking for from you all and so like

[159:01] when you come with uh what you think is not a speech and it winds up being hate speech it's just not helpful for our meetings and because they're they're not very long meetings and so like just like yeah and we don't have the ability to run late so it's like when you do come please please research your language the seven and a half months worth of work that is being presented to you today that took place in almost exclusively one and a half hour weekly meetings so we are incredibly efficient and um we welcome you we want you to come and be good guests I I appreciate it and know that we will follow up on that and we are and I just appreciate Jamal you're bringing up language is important um it it's just as important to know intent and impact as we move forward uh it is why perhaps tonight you're still going to hear us refer to things like Master plans but know that we know that

[160:01] that is a trueing word and that is not a word that we want to move forward and are working actually to shift uh that word as we move forward um and so like that we will continue ourselves to dive deeper into the equity work and we have continued lessons to learn as we are thinking about it so just so appreciate your Insight tonight know that this will continue and I have made so many notes to make sure that we extend that invitation and that match up with council members with you so just appreciate it would you like to be invited to the parties that's the last thing I need to know that sounds great thank you Jamal and Lenore so much for the work that you're doing in our community and also for spending this time with us tonight I am I think we need to also get to the rest of the budget presentation um but we appreciate you so much thank you thank you all and thank you Ryan

[161:01] and Ryan all right thanks Lauren and thanks again Jamal and Lenora awesome discussion and we'll touch on a few things here um maybe a little quicker through these next slides but a lot of the stuff that was mentioned uh is is in at least in part uh many of the Investments within the 2024 budget so we'll run through these as quick as we can and get to some more questions uh hand it back over to Charlotte all right thanks Mark so looking at the first High Life of investment included in the 2024 budget is a total of 2.7 million for Behavioral Health response this includes both the care and the cert teams which are alternative co-response programs that focus on responding to dispatch calls that might be better served through an alternative response with health care and Social Service Professionals in the 2023 approved budget city council approved one-time funding from the general fund of 965

[162:03] 000 to support the care pilot program and recognizing the importance of these efforts in Behavioral Health response The CARE program was established as an ongoing program mid-year in 2023 with permanent staff of Peace managers clinicians and paramedics a total of 1.32 million was included in the 2024 base budget with these mid-year adjustments that we prefer formed this year for The CARE program and in included in the 2024 budget for additional new investment is a total of 774 000 for additional funding to support items such as staff training Partnerships with community-based mental health providers and equipment for case managers and clinicians and paramedic PPE and supplies for emergency vehicles next slide

[163:05] the affordable housing on one slide back so um the affordable housing is a key theme in in the 2024 budget we have a total investment of 31.8 million with key projects supported by several front several funds across the general fund governmental Capital fund and affordable housing fund there's a total of 13.1 million that will support affordable housing projects in 2024 that includes the Ponderosa stabilization project as I mentioned previously The Hilltop Senior Living Center and diagonal Plaza Grace Commons among other housing projects in the affordable housing pipeline there's a total of 18.3 million included in the 2024 budget for the Alpine Balsam Balsam development this will help to support the Western City Campus at Alpine Balsam in 2024 it'll specifically help support

[164:01] funding for the horizontal infrastructure for the future campus as well as affordable housing development for 144 or planned affordable units at that site and we're working with Boulder housing partners for this development and and plan to be reimbursed for a portion of this cost um additionally there's a total of 450 000 included in the 2024 budget included in this is a 137 000 increase ongoing increase to help support the keep families House program administered by the emergency family assistance association or effa there's a total of 1.1 million with a 100 000 increase in the 2024 budget for funding for permanently supportive housing vouchers to help with to help fund 48 local psh

[165:00] vouchers for rental assistance and services and finally there is a code Amendment planner one one ofte Staffing increased to support proactive changes that simplify processes and as well as focusing on code changes for permanently affordable housing also included in the 2024 budget is funding to support Human Services supplemental basic needs as well as Community grant funding there is a total of 4.2 million uh included in the 2024 budget with a 415 000 increase as I mentioned previously to help support community members with health disparities this will be administered within the Health Equity funding supported by the housing and Human Services Department there's a total of 81 000 included in the 2024 budget with a 25 000 increase for community events

[166:01] to raise awareness of civil rights human rights and Equity issues and this will be supported by our human relations office there's a total of 567 000 with a 25 000 increase for home repairs and improvements for manufactured home communities this focuses on community engagement efforts and Energy Efficiency upgrades for home homes in those areas such as energy related home repairs and weatherization improvements and this these efforts are supported by our climate initiatives and Communications and engagement departments and finally there's a total of 911 000 with a 63 000 increase in the 2024 budget for Parks and Recreation Outreach and inclusion of initiatives for people with disabilities and underrepresented Youth looking at Community Wildfire resilience

[167:00] that is included in the 2024 budget this slide specifically focuses on the 1.5 million portion of the climate tax um and we know that there is work uh uh across the city that is performed by various departments so this 1.5 million is not reflective of the comprehensive efforts in the in the entirety of the budget number but I'm focusing here on the uh climate tax portion of the Wildfire resilience efforts um the this climate taxes passed by voters last fall and is a total of 1.5 million to support uh wildfire wildfire resilience efforts included in the 2024 budget that is new is implementation of the community Wildfire protection plan or the cwpp that's a total of 456 000 um examples of implementation of the cwpp include fuels reduction home structure

[168:02] hardening and Community Education and Outreach and really the focus here for the cwpp is Wildland focusing on the Wild and urban interface area in addition there is a new program that I uh touched on previously that is included in the 2024 budget and this is the community Wildfire mitigation grants program and this will help to support the resiliency of community members with a total of 682 planned Investments of Grants to help provide direct support for Boulder residents looking to mitigate fire risk and I will toss it off to our other principal budget analyst Sarah Hancock thanks Charlotte another key theme in every budget process are continued investments in our city employees this represents a new investment of 8.3 million million and there's three key areas where we're seeing this funding needing to go one

[169:01] includes our living wage increases we have a budgeted increase of 489 000 to support living wage increases for City staff and service contractors this adjustment will increase wages to 22.44 cents per hour for all impacted City staff and contractors with an estimated 121 City staff and six current service contractors that would be impacted the second are our updated collective bargaining agreements this year the city finalized three collective bargaining agreements with the International Association of firefighters the Boulder Police Officers Association and the boulder Municipal Employees Association increases include our wage increases market rate increases and stipend allowance adjustments and then finally our non-union Merit increases is an increase that represents our standard yearly base cost driver that's included in our annual budget and this year the increase is 4.2 million across all funds with 1.7 million in the general fund as an impact and I'll hand it to mark

[170:01] all right I'll talk briefly about safe and manage public spaces this budget includes an investment of 3 million overall 2.4 in the general fund what this budget proposes is to continue ongoing funding for the additional encampment management team it was that was added in the 2023 budget and then extend one-time portions of the of the program for ambassadors and urban park rangers there's a correction from the memo the it's 820 000 for for three uh to extend with one-time funding through 2024. the goal is to continue to analyze these aspects of the program uh look at the data and make a recommendation on the permanence of the aspects of this program uh for the 2025 budget also note Financial strategy committee did receive a request from downtown their

[171:01] partnership which operates the ambassador program to add an additional 103 000 dollars to the program we did visit with the downtown management commission uh this week which did support the recommended budget of um uh splitting the the ambassador program in 2024 one-third in the general fund two-thirds in the Central Area General improvement district fund which is different from how we previously funded it used to be a hundred percent in the general fund they also recommended the additional 103 000 to come from cajid as well that is not currently in the recommended budget so that would have to be added in to the budget before first reading and we'll talk a little bit about the process for that before we close out this evening and with that I'm going to hand it over to Rafael who will talk about our CIP thank you Mark uh good evening Council my name is Rafael Tingley I'm a senior

[172:01] budget analyst within our budget office and I'm pleased to briefly walk you all through some of the highlights within the recommended six-year CIP which covers fiscal years 24-29 as Mark mentioned earlier the total six-year CIP amounts to a little over 900 million across about 200 different projects the majority of which are focused on Capital maintenance or Capital enhancements I'm going to quickly run through a few of these projects starting with the most significant project that is funded out of the general fund supported governmental Capital fund which is the Western City Campus project uh the most recent estimates have the project estimated at a cost of about 168 million comprised of 18 18.3 million for horizontal infrastructure flood mitigation and permanent design costs for the site which are expected to be incurred in 2024 um as Charlotte mentions uh briefly this is to benefit the site as a whole which includes the portion of the site which will contain low-income housing being

[173:01] managed by Boulder housing Partners it's being recommended to cash Finance this amount in 2024 which is made up of 5.6 million that was transferred to gov cap from the general fund in the first adjustment to base earlier this year an additional 8 million general fund transfer to gov cap in 2024 with the remainder of the uh that amount to be covered by existing gov Cap Fund balance as we move forward with the project we will certainly want to identify and transfer additional one-time sources to replenish fund balance and work to drive a total required borrowing down for the remaining Capital Construction costs associated with the project uh the remaining 150 million is programmed in 2025 facilities and Fleet is continuing to explore options for for what uh public private Partnerships may look like for the campus the possibility of ring fencing savings from the closure of older buildings that could potentially be leveraged to pay for Debt Service or

[174:01] availability payments in the sale of buildings which would be Consolidated which could be used to pay for a portion of the Capital Construction costs one of the recommendations included in the budget is to increase the annual Debt Service which has been set aside for the project up from the current 3.6 million annually up to 6.1 million annually to account for the increased cost of borrowing and total project cost that amount of annual Debt Service would get the city between 70 and 80 million dollars in capital with the remainder that would need to be covered through alternative funding mechanisms and that debt service is currently programmed within our financials to begin in 2025. Switching gears over to the ccrs fund um since a voter renewal of the 0.3 percent uh Community culture resilience and safety tax in Fall 2021 these dedicated sales tax revenues have

[175:00] supported 31.5 million for several capital projects uh most notably including the the final portion of funding for fire station number three and City acquisition of street lights from Excel the 2024 to 2029 CIP recommends an additional 13 million in appropriation for new projects in 2024 and 123.7 million over the six-year time Horizon to support tccrs projects to help support the acceleration of projects and to allow the city the flexibility to harness these tax dollars as they are being paid by community members uh staff plans for ccrs debt issuance of about 62 million in 2026 leaving some flexibility for additional projects that could be financed from the tax in kind of near the end of the of the life cycle of the tax in the 2030s I'll go through very quickly some of

[176:02] those projects now that will be funded out of ccrs so uh first is the continued planning design and construction costs for renovations and retrofits needed at the East Boulder Community Center this is the single largest project within ccrs programmed mostly within 2026 one of the it's certainly one of the flagship ccrs projects it was mentioned in the original ballot language and it will cover a deep energy retrofit and renovation and infrastructure upgrades needed to the facility in 2024 design work will include robust Community engagement and energy assessments and within the out years There's an opportunity for funding facility upgrades to the other recreation centers to address program and infrastructure your needs uh next is land acquisition and construction costs associated with the replacement of both fire stations number two and number four a replacement of these stations will provide more modernized emergency services to the

[177:00] community which promotes safety and resilience uh fire rescue in conjunction with the facilities and Fleet Department are working to determine which station should be replaced first and figuring out locations both uh both fire stations are estimated at about 18 and a half million dollars each with 2024 focusing on the land acquisition for one of the new stations and these stations are expected to be completed in 2028 and 2032. the next project is schematic design scoping and construction for phase two of the Civic area project which is focused on activating the core downtown park space reimagining the Civic area you know to be a destination that serves as a model for future viable social spaces that are more welcoming this is working to fulfill the next phase of the Civic area master plan recognizing that that plan that uses an outdated term there uh this this funding in 2024 helps

[178:01] to support some of the initial community outreach and design for the project with the bulk of the construction costs expected in 2026 and 2027 and then last but not least uh Capital maintenance and Capital Improvements along the Pearl Street Mall in preparation for the 50th anniversary for the mall uh happening in 2027 which will address Capital maintenance and capital enhancements this focuses on updating the play spaces programming for art and the redesign of key spaces to better serve users and business owners with a focus on activating the space and improving access to the public restrooms the CIP calls for the majority of this to be funded using using cajid funding that is the Central Area downtown improvement district fund with about 1.2 million that's recommended to be funded out of the ccrs tax um and then very quickly uh other

[179:01] notable capital projects and other funds include the 19th Street multimodal improvements project within the transportation fund The Violet Park development project which is funded out of the transportation Fund in the perm Parks fund improvements to East Boulder Community Park programmed out of the perm parks and .25 sales tax fund and the Barker Dam Outlet Rehabilitation project which will be funded out of the utilities water fund okay um so now we're going to go through some of our other operating Investments by goal area um I would like to go ahead and note before we review each goal area that I will be swift um but also these programs are really representing highlights in each goal area and they're not exhausted with all our programs within each goal area so um these are the highlights that we thought were most aligned with our key themes this year and we really wanted to share these areas and what the city plans to invest in

[180:00] so first we have environmentally sustainable some key Investments we're making in this area are resources and stewardship in our osmp department 8.4 million dollars to enhance Boulder's ecological Agricultural and water assets we have 4.8 million dollars in our planning and ecological Services program within Parks and Recreation that will manage the capital planning design and construction and 12 historic and cultural resources excuse me they already manage that they'll continue to manage it and the highlights include maintenance of parks Urban Tree canopy and natural land to ensure accessibility and safety and then finally Energy Management which is a facilities program that focuses on the Strategic approach to the city's energy profile carbon emissions and renewable energy sources in our livable goal area we have a few key components one of the largest being are 29.7 million dollar investment in community Investments of affordable housing and compliance this investment is in development projects as well as other Grant projects and programs

[181:01] related to housing assistance and Human Services homelessness Services which is a program that supports the unhoused community Through the muni court programs be there and other Outreach providers we've already talked at length about our Behavioral Health response Investments which will support our care and co-response team of the cert teams and our community and mediation resolution program which invests in eviction protection and rental assistance through the fris fund and are accessible and connected goal area we do have investments in our transportation planning and operations which is increasing safety and connectivity along our City's multimodal Street Network this includes investments in hop Transit skills and services and transportation demand management and programming that's a mouthful that also includes Transportation maintenance and parking and access as well as investments in our program of creative services and external Communications which is how we provide our external Communications and other services like Channel 8.

[182:00] in our safe program we include several key components of Public Safety including our Emergency Operations program which is 21.3 million dollars this program provides critical Life Safety responses across the community Through the Fire Department the highlights include continued growth and implementation of our Advanced Life Safety support Emergency Medical Services training support and training and support of the community Assistance response team or care team also we have our Patrol services in here which is 18.8 million dollars that contributes to the safety of the community Through proactive and engaging policing and this includes continued support for Patrol traffic enforcement and our neighborhood impact team and then utilities oh sorry I skipped over utilities maintenance but utilities maintenance is also a key component of our safe goal area um and our goal area of healthy and socially thriving we have our Recreation and Parks operations at 20.6 million this is our program that really supports the day-to-day management of our facilities and public spaces and within

[183:00] this program there's three key service areas including Urban parks recreation and Regional facilities that really help to invest in our Recreation facilities parks and Community benefit Youth and team programming we have investments in trails and facilities at eight million dollars to help support the design construction and maintenance of osmp's physical assets that includes Trailhead Network signs trailheads and then our older and older Adult and Family Services Program which provides services to adults 60 and older at our age well centers and that includes programming for health wellness fitness and lifelong learning in our responsibly governed goal area we have our Fleet Services program at 11.4 million this is where we have all of our planned Capital replacement for our city vehicles and that includes our transition to replacement of vehicles with all electric or plug-in hybrid whenever possible to meet our climate goals we have our investment of 9.1 million in our risk management program that seeks to minimize risk for city employees residents visitors and

[184:02] highlights include our City's Insurance programs our workers compensation and liability programs our I.T infrastructure Services is the maintenance and use of our reliable data fiber infrastructure and our Communications infrastructure for the entire city and then finally our facilities maintenance program which is primary is the primary maintenance function for All City facilities and finally economically vital gold area this area has three key Investments this year including economic vitality and District management at 2.9 Million this program is really supporting our healthy and sustainable local business environment and complementary services and programs within our special General Improvement districts we have our Citywide economic Vitality program which is also developing and developing and implementing strategies through public private Partnerships to also build those healthy and resilient economies while also can uh preserving our community's

[185:01] character and quality of life and then finally our taxpayer services and compliance program which really seeks out to to promote a fair and Equitable tax selection system we'll all have also having Pro proactive and responsible customer service so I Breeze through all that and would like to reiterate again that that is um those are highlights and our transparency portal does have all of our City's programs with lots of detail that you can look at and kind of dig into and I will pass it back over to Mark to talk about our next section thanks Sarah I will uh bring us home uh so we always uh like to point out uh that as amazing as this budget is uh there are unfunded and underfunded needs that we must point out and also think about how we're handling that for the future uh to give you an idea of what we're talking about when we say unfunded needs um the most recent snapshot we have

[186:01] across the organization was a part of A needs assessment that we did in January related to the reallocation of of Library budget resources the needs that were captured were specifically related to general fund needs so they weren't all-encompassing but they did give us a sense of what the needs are across departments we separated those in four different categories core operational needs being the largest of which over 16 million others are included there the total need was around 30 million across departments some of which were addressed within the 22 24 budget but some examples of where we would still have unfunded needs going forward relate to the increase of Maintenance costs across our facilities in order to meet our goals within that plan additional affordable housing support to continue increasing the pace at which we're able to do affordable housing projects fire master plan EMS implementation Parks

[187:00] maintenance across the system extending and expanding Human Services associated with arpa programming and then just most recently our reimagining policing plan and recognizing costs there so and like I said these are general fund focused areas but we know that other funding goals and targets are set forth in other areas with dedicated funding that may not be able to meet those needs as well so how do we tackle that especially uh when it does seem overwhelming we need to continue to look at our Master plans across the board and understand where we've made Investments and and where we have opportunities to prioritize especially utilizing our budgeting for resilience using data to make decisions going forward so that we can even decide if a program isn't meeting our goals isn't meeting our intended outcomes that

[188:00] we're able to shift or realign those resources a city-wide strategic plan will help us with this we have talked with the financial strategy committee about the internal work going on to create a city-wide strategic plan we hope this will help focus our efforts and organizational resources and eventually replace our current iteration of a master planning tool with something more appropriate and helpful as it relates to budgeting and this plan eventually will come back to Council in a way that we hope will help with priority setting so that we can say stay focused on those issues most important to community and last but certainly not least is the concept of a long-term Financial strategy which we think would be a main component of a city-wide strategic plan we will continue that work with a financial strategy committee through 2024. I won't read through all of these pillars but just to say that long-term Financial strategy is not just budgeting budgeting is one of those pillars but there are others including looking at

[189:01] the balance of sales to property tax looking at things like uh dedicated funding and our approach to that setting in in stone Reserve policies and looking at the overall structure of our budgeting practices all of those will work in concert to make sure that we are sustainably funding uh ourselves going forward and in a way that best meets Community goals okay so last slide of the evening is the requested process uh for uh Council review uh so you all are getting a lot of information this evening I'm sure you will have questions and uh digest continue to digest um what first reading is October 5th uh the packet will come to you uh September 28th what we're asking you to do is propose changes to staff if you have them uh To Us by September 25th what the

[190:00] financial strategy committee members recommend strongly is to reach out to us to assist in crafting any proposed language and that's really to help you make sure that we know where we're pulling from right if we're increasing something ongoing over here we'll have to have some type of trade-off conversation and we'll be able to more easily identify where you may have some choices there um last year we did this over hotline that was because of a compressed timeline we have an extra week here so the deadline is really so that we're able to summarize those changes and put them in the packet so that Community can see what any proposed changes may be to the budget our goal is always to have that first reading even if we're making changes we have a clean first reading on October 5th so we can adopt a budget two weeks later at least that's the plan um and that is the end of the presentation appreciate your attention this evening and we have many many staff available for questions

[191:02] thank you Mark okay first hands up I see Nicole and then Tara thank you um and Mark and Bob is it okay if I just just kind of speak as we discussed at the FSC meeting last week just a little bit about the Zero Sum aspect okay cool um so what what Financial strategy is committee is really really recommending if there is something you want to add say where it's coming from what what are what are we removing so that we're really getting to that Zero Sum so it so as you're talking to staff as you're making those recommendations for any changes just make sure that you've got both of those things um in mind so I'm happy to defer to others for questions I've got a few Lauren but I can I can hold off for a bit just wanted to get that in okay Tara okay all right let me get to my list of

[192:01] about four questions um my first question is going to be for Mark wolf mark do we have wait let me just make sure that I am oh yeah I'm not on mute that's good good news okay um Mark do we have anything left over over sorry about my New York accent in arpa funds and can we use any of that to support our partnership with effa from direct cash assistance I'm wondering if there would be an opportunity to increase that was allotment for direct assistance especially in regards to the 2025 um minimum wage push that we're waiting till 2025 for that so that's my first question yeah thanks uh Tara um so we do I just want to point out we have a an arpa update uh attachment we didn't get into it tonight to the memo um so a little bit more detail in there

[193:02] um generally we're making good progress on our Opera Investments across the board um that's that's a good news as we've set out um those priorities uh we did have some funding set aside for uh utility bill assistance and we have used tapped into some of that money uh we believe we're at a point now where we'll still have it available but we think we've reached the need as it relates to utility bill assistance specifically and so that may be an area where we're able to to hit some of those other basic need categories as we enter the winter and over the next several months um so we do have some flexibility there maybe about uh 250 300 000 somewhere in that realm um so trying to keep those funds as flexible as the as needs arise okay great Raphael question I didn't see I know you said that you didn't mention everything I didn't see anything about the South Boulder Rec Center

[194:01] in fact I didn't even hear anything about Zapp balder I know a lot of people in South Boulder are wondering what's the story with that and I'm wondering if you have any insight yeah and I'll I'll I'll let uh Ally or uh Joanna Korean from facilities and Fleet jump in and answer that question I don't see Joanna so I'll just snag it but know that we're working closely together we've got some really great people in the facilities team Ali Rhodes director of Parks and Recreation so the South Boulder Rec Center is the facility master plan calls out and as we are aware on The Daily is at the end of its useful life so the intention is to get East up to Snuff both from an entry perspective and to serve the community we expect so that some of the renovations will allow us to support then um some major changes at South we don't know what it will look like we have to have a conversation with the community we have to do some financial analysis um and that's part of the rec Center's future project that will take place in

[195:00] 2024. so Tara the the short answer is that's because we don't know but what you'll see in the ccrs funding is money in the out years so that as we figure it out we can have some dollars planned Joanna feel free to chime in if I missed anything now that's good that helps um next question um about our core maintenance needs I'm remembering that and I I'm not sure who this is for but I'm remembering that we got a gazillion and I might be exaggerating letters about um snow and ice removal back last year and Natalie said we would have to have a community discussion um when the time is right of course I'm wondering if that's now before the winter and as well as potholes and I'm wondering I know that in one of the slides that you you talked about how maybe we can be flexible with our with

[196:00] our dedicated funds and use some of the money that we would for larger projects to do core maintenance is that something that is possible I think generally uh it's a trade-off when we're talking about the dedicated funds and maintenance versus larger projects specifically on all things snow and ice I'm going to punt over to Natalie Stiffler thanks Mark Natalie zippler director of Transportation Mobility um yeah we are actually in the middle of that snow and ice project that I said that we would do um we have done some Community engagement and we plan to do a little bit more engagement in the coming months and we'll be sharing kind of what we hear with Council in an IP before the end of the year um and what we hear from that we actually have already Incorporated some of what we've heard into the coming snow season and

[197:01] other findings from that will potentially have just more significant budget impacts that we'll need to go forward for the 2025 budget are and as I said last winter and I think it's going to be the same thing this winter our biggest issue is really Staffing Resources and contractor resources and so even with more funding we'll still likely have that challenge and that's what continues to be an issue both on snow and ice and also on pavement maintenance the apostles specifically okay all right thank you that's that's really helpful um my next question is related to I don't know maybe I have six questions I was pretty quiet all evening so I hope you guys will not mind is related to Pilot programs um when we make a pilot program this might be for Nuria do we then have it forever or do we ever look at our pot

[198:00] this is not sarcastic okay it might be slightly sarcastic do we ever look at it do we say maybe it's not working or is this what's the story with because we're constrained now so it would be a good idea maybe to look at some of the pie program and say whichever we want and which we don't want I appreciate that question and certainly um Welcome Finance to weigh-in as well but but I'll say this right like the use of pilot programs both has a particular solid use you want to encourage innovation without incurring sort of ongoing obligations because sometimes they work really well and frankly sometimes they don't so you want to know where that funding source is coming from but you do want to encourage trying some things right I think it was the premise behind Bloomberg's Innovation teams across the nation at the same time I'll say that cities in general and not just Boulder and uh certainly cities you know everywhere you hear as well that pilot programs have a way of sort of just being folded into

[199:03] um the budgetary cycle and we want to make sure that with pilot programs that we're thoughtful about it I think we're endeavoring with the outcome-based um approach that we're doing is really going to take a look at those numbers and see what those um tell us in the future and frankly I think it's overdue to look at some programs that aren't pilots in the very same way and start figuring out if we should not continue them because there are other programs that perhaps would get bigger outcomes but in general it's a tool that has been used by cities uh in a variety of ways and uh sometimes it's it's Innovation sometimes it is we only have one-time dollars to do so let's try something new um but certainly I hope that we have the discipline enough to question whether this should be ongoing in the future or not before full holding it into something that is ongoing yeah I mean I really like pilot program so get me wrong it's just you know anything

[200:00] um and I just want to throw out there into the ether as Matt would say um social streets uh when I went to a lot of those events they were poorly attended and so I'm hoping that we look at that before we start Inc you know pushing putting that into our budget for the next five years or what have you let me just make sure I don't have any other questions I mean that in the only the nicest way absolutely and I think you're going to be getting an IP on Boulder social streets at some point here before the end of the year and I hope we have a conversation around that as well okay and I have one last question and that is for whoever made the slides it might have been at the beginning why is Colorado facing a slowing economy versus the rest of the nation that's a good question um I I think one of the indicators and now I'm trying to remember back several weeks was related to our job growth being slower than the rest of uh the

[201:01] country and that's an abnormality we're normally leading the country or at least in the top um 15 or so so that is uh that is something that is interesting I unless Cara has more to add I'd have to go back and look at some of the other indicators as to why Colorado is is lagging but we're seeing that both locally and as a state yeah I remember the same as you mark so really I think it was jobs related and I think housing is also challenging in the cost of housing thank you Tara Mark looks like you're up next and then I'll ask a couple of questions as well okay uh first I want to um uh additionally support what Nicole said about the zero-sum budgeting concept um you know feel free to ask for more and different but find the money to do it because it's got to come from

[202:00] somewhere um and I Tara raised the issue of uh Street Maintenance potholes and snow removal I'm I'm pretty sure Natalie that based on the number of emails we've gotten I I can kind of predict what community outreach is gonna gonna say to you on that issue which is we have too many and two little snow removal and and so it's something where we are going to need to address sooner rather than later and I have many many many questions but I've submitted them uh in writing uh already and I'm not going to ask them here I'll give staff an opportunity to think about it and respond then we can have some further conversation uh further down the line so thank you thank you Mark um I I just had a couple of sort of broader questions

[203:01] um I really love this outcome based budgeting approach and I just wanted to know if there's anything besides picking both where we would want money to come from and what we would spend it on for any changes that we like to meet would like to make if there's anything you would ask from us to ensure that we are getting the most out of this enhanced budget process either related to this current budget or for future budgeting processes thanks Lauren I'll take a shot at that I I think the last couple slides that uh we went through are important certainly in thinking about role of councils it relates to this budgeting process I think a long-term Financial strategy is a component of that and look looking at opportunities for new revenues for sure but also thinking about um longer term right I mentioned the sales and property tax balance is one of

[204:01] those examples property tax not popular at the moment but if we're thinking about funding sustainably and Equity as a community what does that mean as taxes expire over the next 10 15 20 years so having a policy in place would would be valuable and that's a council conversation I think as we look towards um evaluating programs with data and Nuria just mentioned if we determine that something is is not worth doing anymore because it's truly not meeting the impact there's there's going to be ramifications to that right because some some of those programs will be reaching certain segments of of our community and so um that that'll be a difficult conversation that will certainly need your all support on as we approach those and so I think a two-way conversation about the best ways to prepare for that especially as we begin setting targets and Gathering more data and information as we evolve um in in this method of budgeting can I just add as long as we're in that wish list uh Lauren and appreciate the

[205:02] question but I um I would add joining us in this journey of thinking about what we currently call Master plans is um fascinating uh the way we do it here is at least to me a little unusual but um as we're moving as a city we are actually uh lifting up and trying to create a city-wide strategic plan um and thinking about how do we envision everyone's Department strategic plan or department plan as we move forward and really think about what are the resources that we're going to need um that shift I think will uh we really want you all to be on that Journey with us because frankly the current sort of fiscally constrained action or vision and the inconsistency across everyone's plan currently um just it is makes for winners and losers in a space that really should be talking about prioritization and what is

[206:00] it time for and what do we have resources for as we think about it so that Journey we're going to be hoping to tag and to leverage FSC uh but that'll be a hard conversation as well um along with what do we stop doing because we think that we could do more right so just joining joining us on that journey of really difficult prioritization and hopefully explorations of things that could expand impact is going to be exciting thank you Maria um and then the other questions I have are related to um City staff salary and benefits so I was wondering if we've done a benchmarking study how we compare um related to both salary and benefits um and also there was um a living wage mentioned you know were

[207:01] increasing would we have salary increases related to living the living wage where we're matching the counties um living wage how many employees does or what employees are and aren't affected by that because I know that doesn't cover I believe lifeguards and so just a better understanding of that would be great thank you yeah happy to start and others uh feel free to add if I miss something yes we have done a couple uh recent studies of our compensation structure um most recently rolled out the final changes to that structure at the beginning of 2023 and so a part of that analysis was making sure that we're competitive uh regionally and so um many uh base wages were adjusted if they needed to be to be competitive in the marketplace and so we feel good about where we're at now and then we've

[208:01] also implemented a system where we'll be updating biannually looking at how competitive kind of each job family if you will is in the marketplace so that that is ongoing work to make sure that we're where we want to be from a compensation philosophy position and then on the living wage question so the it's related to a policy that we we established a while back and how we calculate that living wage so in recalculating it we'll move to that 22 44 an hour I think it is and that impacts about 200 employees if I have that right and so um it doesn't it doesn't apply to all it implies to full-time or fixed term employees so a temporary staff it does not apply to so same thing with contractors that it's a certain segment based on that

[209:00] policy that was established forget the exact year on that several years ago you have do we have an idea of how many people that doesn't cover in terms of like as a percentage of the city employees or something like that I don't have that on hand and I see David Bell uh popping up the living wage resolution that we're speaking of now does cover all but seasonal and temporary employees generally we have about 700 to 750 season or temporary employees rolling through each particular year some of those are already above that living wage a marker point that Mark just mentioned others would be coming in below that and then the series of distinct positions the lifeguarding Center rather they would be lagging that piece as well thank you and that was it for my questions I see

[210:00] Nicole has her hand up thank you um I just want to say thank you first of all Maria Mark Cara Charlotte everybody on the finance Team all the Departments as well um this is truly transformational work and it is so exciting to be witnessing this and I know it's a lot of work so thank you thank you for that um I just had a couple questions that I think maybe are more process related um one of the things that I'm wondering about as we're moving toward more of these um key performance indicators next year how are we defining the program Effectiveness that we're going to be using outcomes to measure and is that kind of something that will evolve as part of that process or is that something that you're starting to have some awareness now thanks Nicole that's a really good question uh I would say that it's uh it probably comes next not that we're not always evaluating the effectiveness of programs we are doing that across the

[211:00] board but in terms of a systematic approach we really need to to figure out how we're measuring first and what data we're using and then we can kind of get to the point of okay these we know these outcomes are in common we know we're trying to meet these specific objectives we're set on the measurement tool we're set on what what it is and that and then we can set a Target so I think we want to make make sure we're aiming before firing in that way um on on those data targets that being said many of our programs were constantly evaluating in a variety of different ways working with the communities that we serve um so it's both and and in that way yeah and I think my question was maybe like Step Zero before that of how are we defining what's an effective program like what is the like as a not not in terms of measurement but you know say this particular program we're really looking for it to have a big impact on resilience or this program is really

[212:02] meant to have a big impact on Equity or sustainability or climate Readiness or whatever that is um that's that's kind of what I was wondering how are we defining what the North Star is for a given program so that we can figure out what it is we're trying to measure gotcha yeah so I would say that this year was a a good starting place where we said these are intended outcomes uh for for all of our programs I think our our next and we haven't had a chance to kind of debrief and say what what has worked well I think what we'll probably learn is that um we need to continue to to align uh better to our our framework um we need to uh the city-wide strategic planning tool that was mentioned that will help make sure that we're uh focused uh there's many different objectives within our Sarah framework which are those that um are should rise to the top based on the need that we're seeing so I I would say that it's

[213:00] iterative and it'll be something we're working on um in advance of the next budget cycle okay thank you that's helpful it kind of ties into my next question and you're welcome to answer this one shortly because I think you may have just answered a piece of it but I was wondering about how something like our racial Equity goals fits into the budget this year how did that how did that show up in the the ways that you were thinking about um where to allocate funds yeah I think I would I would add that um one of the steps that we took as an organization was updating our sustainability resilience uh framework to Center on equity and so as we say the share framework now equity in the center of it um with that it was intentionally looking at the objectives within that framework to make sure that Equity was infused throughout and so the the outcomes that we hope the programs are are intending to achieve are are all

[214:00] lined to Equitable uh outcomes across the board are are intended objectives within this air framework so like I said that process is iterative we're not perfect um right now but Equity was very much at the center of of the of our our outcome-based approach and and the budgeting process uh this year you know um and then one uh one sort of last process or any question so every Department you know usually has some ideas about where they're headed over the next few years right in our strategic plans and things like that um so in thinking about how the community connectors feedback was used to inform some of the priorities I mean what what kind of changed right what is it I think what I'm what I'm looking for is just a little bit of transparency and uh you know it wasn't just that the Community Connector said this thing and we took this thing we already wanted to do and we fit it into this box but rather you know how did it evolve and change our

[215:00] thinking I think I'm just looking for a little bit of that yeah that's a fair question um I think one way I'll answer that is uh you know the need is much greater than the resources available and and you heard that tonight even from Community connectors directly we had 26 some million dollars in in need that was requested from departments in the general fund alone knowing we had about three million dollars in resources to be able to apply to those needs so what we did internally is really make sure that not only in the ways that departments were forming their budgets and helping get us there in terms of prioritization we were able to utilize the feedback provided um through the process of of sifting through those 26 some million dollars in requests and and putting together a recommended budget package that hopefully is reflective of of need reflective of community connectors feedback okay thank you I appreciate that and I

[216:02] just want to say I think you all are doing amazing work around Equity so that wasn't intended to be like you guys really doing that just really wanted to get that transparency so thank you um and just just one final kind of question you know we know our population of older adults is going up um when we're looking at for example Older Adult Services are we seeing more need are we seeing you know any anything on the horizon for kind of some increases there because as populations going up far money is relatively consistent um sort of a less less ability to serve individuals yeah thanks for that question I see Kurt popping up uh good evening Nicole and Council Kurt hubber how's your Human Services I thought I was going to get through to my without turning on my screen but um that's that's a great question um so and I know that you've uh been spending some time over there talking to

[217:02] Residents and that sort of thing which we appreciate um we definitely have seen um uh the needs increase for older adults um the other observation that I have that the older adults primarily that go to services at West um at Arapahoe and night many of them are simply living on Social Security and so with the inflation we've had you know over the last couple of years it's really significantly impacted um those uh those individuals and households so we've uh we've definitely seen an increase in rent supports that we've been giving out for such individuals but what I'm clearly hearing is that you know we're not really Meeting those needs one of the things we did consider and uh talk about this year

[218:00] um uh is addition on we have sort of like case managers that help navigate older adults to services and support that they need and um so we're looking for something next year um at um needing to possibly increase that capacity to meet the needs of those individuals thanks so much appreciate it sorry to bring you up on camera thanks Nicole I see Matt's hand up um maybe after his questions we could start moving into comments and work towards wrapping this meeting up let's see can you hear me with my headphones on it this time yes we can yay all right sweet and keep my daughter asleep um life is good um so uh Kurt you're gonna have to get come back on I'm probably gonna double dip on your hair so sorry about that

[219:01] um but so my question centers uh about that roughly eight hundred thousand dollars that we had set aside for this year's current budget that was supporting the day service center and I know that we had some plans and lots of things change about starting at maybe third quarter and things have slid and so I'm just wondering how do we in this instance when we've already set aside a number we're probably not going to spend it in this year or maybe only a piece of it how does that then translate into 2024 is that a gain a savings is there some discretion now with that or does it roll over I just kind of want to know when we have that sort of unspent pot that had a very very uh specific intent um what what we do with that and then how we go forward Kurt you're muted uh thank you so I'll I'll go ahead and uh answer what I can on that and then

[220:00] Mark May uh correct me on some things as well um so what we do know is that this is a new program we have um anticipated costs that were um that were put together um to create this budget um both of them um it's also highly possible with bay services uh May cost more um to implement than what we have in the 2024 budget um so you are correct that that project is um starting at a slower rate than we had anticipated a few months ago um so there definitely could be some savings um I I wouldn't necessarily Uh define those savings ads um in place yet though um until we actually get closer to implementing

[221:03] I don't know if you have anything additional from us an approach standpoint uh yeah Kurt I would just um add that so any any um budget this year for day services that doesn't get spent would uh go to fund balance um I think what Kurt is referring to is until we know exactly what the the full project is that it'd be good to just know that we have that there in case costs do go above what we're budgeting for 2024 at this point yeah I'll also just mention that both are are certain care programs you know we had budgeted both of those programs before they started um both of those programs um are costing um a bit memory we originally budgeted um as we've implemented them uh so that's it's not unusual for them to roll out the nuclear as well

[222:02] okay all right well I appreciate that and I I'm I is it inappropriate now obviously we we have uh we we you started earlier talking about the prime effect we don't know what that is I I think it's fair to say that we'll probably have an interesting adjustment to base in November um perhaps a good one um and so is it fair to sort of say that until like could we could we think about using that fund balance now for something that again one in the hand is better than two in the bush that out that certain analogy goes that maybe there's things we can attack now while we're still waiting for that program to establish itself and then allow the ATB to take on or to fill that at when we get there and so that's what I'm trying to understand is is that one is that an appropriate way to sort of think about things and if so maybe that gives us some flexibility with some chunk of that to hit some of those immediate needs now um that are present um and so I just kind of want to get a sense from you know best practices is

[223:02] that something that we could uh be looking at yeah appreciate your question Matt um I I'll try not to do too long of an answer but we we've we've really tried to get out of the practice of doing large adjustments because then we know the needs are are so great that um kind of reacting mid-year to the things that come in are really hard when we're trying to look at all of our goals across the board and make strategic decisions that being said we absolutely want to be responsive and as needs are are great and emergent and um timely we can use adjustments to base typically we don't use the second one of the year because the appropriation runs out at the end of the year so anything we wouldn't spend or obligate within that few weeks window would just go back to fund balance so um that first adjustment of the of the new fiscal year so in this case would be next May is an opportunity to look

[224:00] especially if we had operational savings or additional revenues that we weren't expecting coming in all that to be balanced that we've made some structural changes to how we budget to try to make sure we're programming our resources more effectively and so we're we're not having so much floating cash if you will that's kind of hidden in the enrolling over or uh fiscal years um so some of that's in the weeds but that's to say that we don't have as much flexibility to kind of do large adjustments as we did in the past because we've made some adjustments and if there's an opportunity to meet a need absolutely an adjustment could be appropriate depending on the source of money given all of our constraints I appreciate the answer I'll reserve some some comments on how we sort of thread that needle but but I think appreciate that context Mark and thanks for your for your answer on that card appreciate that

[225:00] do you want to kick us off with comments Matt I don't like to go start and then start again I might catch my breath and let someone else go I just don't see any hands jumping up to try and take that spot all right oh there we go Nicole I'll do it take one for the team I just have two really really quick things um one of folks are up for this um because of how much time the community connectors and residents put into their feedback for us I'm just wondering as we're proposing changes uh maybe one thing that we could talk to staff about is where our changes fit into some of the priorities that they identified and if that could come back to us in the packet so I think that's a question for everybody as we're moving through here um and you know I think just this um Matt's coach Prime uh Prime effect kind

[226:01] of question just has me wondering as well if we're going to be thinking and talking about any additional Revenue um I imagine there's also costs that come from that in terms of additional demands on the city staff everything like that um so I I think it's we're going to have information on what it might get I think it's also important for us to have again Sarah some information on what it's costing us too thank you okay Matt [Music] um so just piggybacking where it would I I mean I think I I appreciate the the financial practice that goes into that second ATB um but I also get the fact that if we're going to be seeing some boosted revenues um and and I expect us to I mean I think that's a it's a pretty pretty I think we

[227:01] can expect that to be the case um now what it is is a different question is to say look if we're still holding on to money with an unknown launch of something that's we have these immense needs like I think rent is consistent and I think quite honestly some safe sleeping environment that are 60 000 a year for 27 spot we know this number we've seen it in other cities I mean that's a tiny amount of money to do an immediate need that that really helps move us along in our priorities so you know oh I think I froze oh I think I froze anyway um so to me that that's that's that's where I want to see some of that flexibility um and I know we don't want to spend what we don't have but I I think we know that we have that money and can fill it in as we get further along so I'd really like to challenge staff to think about how we can creatively meet those urgent

[228:00] needs now while we have a program that's sort of uh waiting to launch and there's factors outside of our control in that so I I'd really challenge us to find a way to do that um so I hope we can we can do that and happy to get creative and figure out ways to do that thanks Matt I see Aaron and then Rachel well I just wanted to do a thank you um staff you did an extraordinary job here with this budget um the last few years that I've been on Council each year I think wow this budget is the the best one I've seen in my time on Council and then the next year I'm like no no this is the best budget I've seen it just keeps keeps getting better um and the the creativity that you all have used in terms of you know looking at dedicated funding and how to be flexible with that um and then finding the dollars that while still being in a a safe conservative way for the community's bottom line but dedicating as many dollars as possible to the Deep needs in the community and the community's priorities is truly extraordinary so

[229:02] just wanted to offer a huge thank you for how well you've done this and how you're reflecting the community's values in the direction of council and I just feel like we're moving in a very positive direction here and then highlight in particular the involvement of the community connectors really appreciated Lenore and Jamal being here earlier and the way that their feedback was incorporated in a deep and meaningful way I think it was a really great step forward as well so I'm just gushing here that's that's my comments thank you thanks Aaron Rachel thank you sorry I'm just going to say two quick things uh first I think I support what Matt's asking for from following it I think he's asking for us to repurpose the unspent operation operations dollars from 2023 for a day shelter that didn't open which was just south of a million dollars 700 000 or something so in

[230:01] theory that was like a top Council priority to help address the needs of our unsheltered adult homeless population and so we didn't we haven't gotten to do that in two years and so can we now as winter approaches um pivot that money towards something that that maybe helps the folks we were trying to help in a different way because we have to wait for that so I'm supportive of having that conversation again not talking about um the money that we will still need to open that day Center which has been set aside but just the money that we didn't spend this year because we were never Staffing it which is what I understood that 700 000 was for roughly that number um and then number two I'm just going to make another pitch for potholes I in another situation today ride my bike to work where you know I was on Folsom and there's a crack there and like my wheel caught in the crack and then like I couldn't go to the right for curb but there was a car coming to the left like it can be really catastrophic we have to figure out whatever money we need to fill the potholes and I think especially bike Lanes but also where cars go that

[231:02] is it is not um an okay situation and I understand what Natalie's saying about um you know it being hard even to find contractors to do it but I think what whatever we need to to make happen in the budget for the roads that are ours not for the state ones I understand those are different and and we don't uh control those in the same way but for our rows we we as a city again nobody else can fill the potholes only we can do that nobody else can go out there and fill them and we have non-profits who can provide some of this other stuff we have other government levels but we have to fill the potholes that's only us you can do it we have to do it it's a number one tear is thumbing me up thank you Tara Miner so potholes and I I am sorry but I'm not gonna put I'm just not going to play the zero-sum game I would prefer that staff tell me where you think it's best that that money come from because I don't have uh the um the in-depth knowledge of the budget and where it's gonna hurt at least to move that money from so that that's how

[232:01] it was done earlier in my Council career and I appreciated that because I think staff's closer to the full budget so I'm declining with full respect to play the zero-sum game and and just saying I want I want us to get the potholes fixed whatever that takes and I defer to staff on how to make that happen thanks for listening to my two points thanks Rachel thank you on that just for a second Lauren just uh just to clarify Rachel what what we were hoping was that everybody would actually have a conversation with staff to try to understand um where where things might come from so we're hoping that folks can do that I'm happy to chat with Dad I just don't know that it needs to come from transportation department like they're one of the few uh departments that's not increasing they actually had a decrease this year so that's why I mean I'm happy to talk to every staff member but I don't know that they want to spend their time talking to me or that's the most efficient sorry I should clarify Finance staff Finance to have to talk to talk with them I'll play

[233:02] all right Tara I'm gonna conquy off of Aaron and say that that I am gushing from that outstanding budget is not easy to take all of us and to please all of us with different things from the menus of what we want and I think you did a great job and especially with the dedicated funding and that's what I have to say a million thank yous it was a great packet I mean I was fascinated by it am I the only one I mean I spent I wanted to read it twice I'm not gonna say I did but I wanted to you're not the only one we love the budget on that note Mark do you have any comments yeah I I do want to support um Rachel with respect to the potholes there's nothing that makes a government look less competent than the inability to maintain something as basic as your

[234:01] roads but I am also appreciative of what Nicole has said I don't think it's going to be very useful for us to come back in a couple of weeks with 25 uh requests without having any sense of where the money is going to come from for those requests so whether it's talking to staff or or um or looking at the budget yourself I I just don't think it's going to be a productive conversation to have you know 45 million dollars new funding requests with no particular way of of uh paying for it um but short of that yes you gotta you gotta do potholes um because nothing makes us look less competent than uh than poor streets thank you Mark and I'm just gonna Echo what I've heard a lot of already which is I mean you guys just did a really tremendous job putting this together

[235:00] thank you so much for all the hard work um I still have some threads that I might pull on see what I can shake and where I can find some things that to cause trouble somewhere but you've made my job really difficult in that Arena so thank you so much for that and with no other items on tonight's agenda unless anyone objects I would like to close this meeting at 9 50 pm thank you all so much and have a good evening [Music]