September 12, 2024 — City Council Study Session

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

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[1:25] as well as process once the presentation ends um Council will be invited again to um provide um clarifying questions um the financial strategy committee which comprises of Mayor protim spear council member wallik council member shuart would like to note at the end of the presentation at the recommendation the recommended Council process for any changes that council members may have to the 2025 budget which you would request uh and of course

[2:00] request that um council members um in any um present any kind of adjustments or changes at the micro level at that time and not at this time where we will be primarily focusing at the macro level um let's see okay at the end of the present okay I already said that part uh we will now turn to our city manager nria Rivera vanderin I'm sorry did not practice that last piece I apologize I'm going to work on that uh to introduce our item Nua thank you so much council member Adams I I think I'm gonna start just going by nuura because you know I'm in good company with pink and Madonna and all those lizo all those onewed wonderful women so I'm just going to be nura uh so thank you again council member Adams and hello council tonight we get to talk about our budget and I always say it's one of my favorite nights with you and you've heard me refer to it in the past as a constrained budget and I want to share a bit about

[3:01] why we say that it's not that we're reducing services or laying off staff we are nowhere at that point what we really mean is that our ability to be additive to add or create new ongoing programs and services is simply limited and while we hope we will see more prosperous times ahead currently our amazing city is experiencing a pretty flatten source of Revenue and like any good Steward of fiscal resources that tells me it's time to tighten our belts especially as I take a look at our Collective house and see that we are way overdue for a little TLC our rec centers need some love and attention many of our city buildings are on their last legs and we're trying to be as Frugal as we can as we um required maintenance as we wait for Alpine Balsam to come online to add to our issues our dollars simply aren't stretching as far as they used to so all our major construction projects from transportation to utilities and everywhere else in between are just

[4:00] costing us more money to do the same work that would have cost us less five or 10 years ago the other reality I'll say is that as we look back over the years we've continued to adjust our budget to some operational realities Personnel costs have risen Across the Nation post pandemic and that's just a reality we're all facing and it is critical that we keep us keep up as best we can with the market to not just recruit the best talent but to retain the extraordinary talented staff we already have while the past few years have afforded us a bit of latitude with vacancy savings as we struggled with filling our vacant positions we have actually stabilized our Workforce and are needing to be a little more conservative and ensuring that we're modeling and accounting for the necessary cost increases required in our 2025 budget to account for new hires promotions labor negotiated and Market adjustments our general fund has also been strained over the last years as so much of our budget is also con strained

[5:00] it's that magic word again by funds that are dedicated to a very specific uses last year we began looking at the purposes of those dedicated funds to ensure that we are leveraging their use as much as possible and we will continue to do so in the future so that we can best free up those general fund dollars I remain thankful to you Council for taking up the challenge of diving deep into the long-term Financial strategy and it is this work that would help us truly ensure the city is on a more sustainable Financial path our commitment to you and to community is to be as candid as we can about where we stand financially and to make sure we bring you the entire picture of our financial obligations when we take on future projects from planning to ongoing maintenance so that we're clear on the financial impact of our Collective decisions it is from this place of shared understanding that we believe all of us can come to a better understanding of how to better prioritize the way in which we spend our limited resources for the better of

[6:00] community now while the charter requires me to submit a budget to you for approval I know that you know that I do not do this alone the extraordinary Finance team led by Cara Skinner and our budget officer Charlotte Husky and her team have done an extraordinary job this year and you'll soon to hear from them but I'd be remiss if I didn't also lift up the hard work of all of our departments who work tirelessly virtually year round I'll say to analyze their needs and put forward their budget request to the executive budget team for review we know we cannot fulfill every request in a given year as the needs across the organization are many so I am thankful too for the dedication and thoughtfulness of the members of our executive budget team who put in every year in helping to evaluate all the requests that come forward as we build our annual budget so with that I will pass it over to Cara thank you niia good evening Council Cara Skinner Chief Financial Officer as nria noted tonight is a big night it's when we share with Council and Community

[7:00] the city manager's recommended budget and first of all I do want to thank the entire organization they really put in thoughtful strategic hard work uh into producing the budget online the budget highlights and this presentation tonight we believe the budget before you is reflective of council and Community priorities we also believe it's responsive to input we heard from the community Through various Partnerships and engagement efforts the budget before you funds A tremendously diverse set of City programs and services that we know are meeting the needs of our community each and every day from ensuring we all have fresh clean water to our homes and businesses an efficient and safe Wastewater system providing a quick and trained response when there is an emergency having a safe and efficient multimodal transportation system Arts culture recreational programming unparalleled open space and programs to support many with basic needs including

[8:00] affordable housing and that list is not exhaustive it's a budget that is balanced across 41 funds that does not require any Cuts or reductions we do note that any new additions to the budget would require a trade-off or reduction someplace else while we have presented a balanced fiscally responsible budget we know the budget before you does not meet all the needs and desires of the community or priority actions identified in the Citywide strategic plan and we hear from the community regularly about desires for additional services or programs or heightened service levels how are we going to approach these unfunded priority actions needs or desires first we recognize we need to have the data and practices in place to evaluate and ensure that the dollars we currently have are being used well we are pleased at the progress we've made toward those outcomes-based budgeting to inform whether our Investments are good

[9:00] Investments and achieving intended outcomes we know many are anxious for our data practices to be more mature than they are but we're excited to build upon this three-year Journey the organization has been on we're confident we're on the right path we'll continue to develop and mature the practices and each year we will have more data and analytics to inform decisions second as noria spoke to we are really excited that Council Has Lifted the work of the long-term Financial strategy so that as an organization we are committed to an effort that includes a broader and deeper dive with a longer term holistic approach regarding the future of city funding and City programs and services you'll hear more about that planned effort at the end of the presentation so with that I am pleased to hand it over to Charlotte husky our budget officer and members of her budget team Cara good evening councilman members I'm Charlotte husky budget

[10:00] officer for the city of Boulder I am joined tonight by our budget team uh Scott Carpenter principal budget analyst Tony Townsen who is our senior grants program manager and Stacy pakova who will help me in tonight's presentation and presenting the 2025 recommended budget to you all um I will share my screen and make sure that all of that is working correctly before we get started okay um so we're excited to bring forward the 2025 recommended Bud budget to you all this evening um as nura and uh Cara mentioned this is really the culmination of work uh over the past uh year in developing the 2025 budget and Department staff um from across the organization are uh are here tonight as well uh for answering questions that you

[11:02] all might have about uh the 2025 budget and operations and programs um that are included in the 2025 budget so I wanted to walk through our agenda for this evening before diving into our financial Trends and Outlook we'll walk through the financial Outlook and major Revenue sources talk about our overview for both the capital budget as well as the operating budget for the 2025 recommended budget uh speak to our efforts with Community budget engagement that we are excited to continue to build upon uh starting first with the 2024 budget and building upon that with this 2025 budget speak to our 2025 strategic uh key Investments that we have made across uh the 2025 budget bu goal area within the sustainability equity and resilience framework that really centers our budgeting practice uh now as an

[12:01] organization and then we'll end the first section speaking about our efforts uh with arpa funding um and the programmatic efforts that uh we are still continuing to work toward um utilizing arpa funding as well as our city-wide gr Grant strategy our second section uh that we'll pick back up after Council questions is walking through some of our key capital projects within the six-year capital Improvement program 2025 through 2030 and then speak uh uh to our funding Outlook future planning and long-term Financial strategy and then finally discuss uh Council process next steps and Council questions and feedback to in the evening and so starting with looking at our financial Outlook and major Revenue sources for the 2025 uh projected revenues that we are seeing uh and are bringing forward this evening um is a total of

[13:02] 42.5 million uh across the 2025 uh projected um budget you can see on this right hand side the breakdown of all of our Revenue sources across the organization this supports our entire organization as a city you'll note that sales in use tax is our largest and major Revenue Source at 37% of our projected revenues for 2025 um we mentioned in our our May Financial forecast that we uh have seen a flattening of sales and use tax um particularly with year end of 2023 and uh have recently looked at our forecast through the end of 24 and that forecast uh remains uh the same of that flattening of sales and use tax um is anticipated to continue through 2024 and I'll share on the next couple of slides um what that looks like uh in in graph form um our property taxes are 12% of

[14:01] the 2025 uh projected revenues and we are uh anticipating continued uncertainty particularly around the administration and some of the projections with the recent legislation that's been brought forward over the past couple of weeks one of the things that I want to note within our projected revenues for 2025 is you'll see an increase in our intergovernmental revenues and this is primarily due to an increase in anticipated Grant um transportation related grants associated with uh grants such as the uh Colorado Department of Transportation and Safe Streets for all for example we also see an increase in our cash andl revenues uh year-over-year and this is primarily due to planned revenues that we anticipated to receive associated with uh the Millennium Hotel and so we'll see that increase in the development and impact fees um section within this uh within this pie chart and then

[15:02] finally the last piece that I'll point out on our revenues for 2025 is that we have an adjustment of our long-term rental tax for the Eis uh program and this tax uh is an increase of 62,000 and we'll speak more to the additional funding that that will help support those revenues will help support additional programmatic Services related to rental assistance programing and we'll speak to that uh on our key Investments later in the presentation so when we look at our sales and use tax revenues and projections what we see here is a representation from 2016 to 2030 and from 2016 to 2023 you'll see our sales and use tax uh actuals and our projections from uh 2024 through 2030 and so what you can see in particular of note here is this dip in 2020 due to the pandemic period um we began uh working

[16:02] with CU Boulder um for forecasting around that same time period and some of the adjustments that we made to our forecast modeling in 2022 was adjusting to be less conservative one of the things to note is that you'll see this this large increase uh between 2020 and 2023 in average of 99.2% increase between these years and in particular the years that I want to point out here is this fllying from 2023 to 2024 and so you'll see that same uh Citywide total number for sales and use tax year over-ear that's projected and then in the out years we're forecasting a two to 2.5% growth when we look at our Citywide Property Tax projections this is another major Revenue source for the city of folder um one of the things that we had shared in May is that there's a lot of uncertainty around property tax and so

[17:01] this uh graph really represents the recent legislation that was passed by the state legislature a couple of weeks ago uh we went in and performed uh our projections associated with the impact of hb24 b11 um and you can see here that there is this prompt of uh 5% Statewide Revenue growth to change the local Revenue assessment rates and so the Top Line in the blue is what our budgeted amount is um Citywide uh when we look at the impact of this legislation there are two options that we're projecting and that's really based on this Statewide growth limit the first uh that you'll see in the red and then the second um is in the yellow representing greater than uh 5% Statewide growth and so when we look at this impact across across the city um and what it means for our major

[18:01] Revenue source for the city uh we're anticipating between a 1 to 3 million uh dollar impact on our property tax revenues I want to also just emphasize this is be given the recent uh recency of the legislation we were not able to include this in our uh our our our budget but the revenue impacts do not begin until 2026 but is something that we will certainly need to be monitoring and consider further during the 2026 budget development process so looking at our 2025 recommended budget overview we are really excited as as Nur and Cara mentioned uh to be on and to be in this third year and final year of our efforts of a three-year implementation plan for budgeting for resilience and Equity we'll speak to you more of the efforts that we've performed over the past couple of years as well as uh some of the uh uh implementation efforts associated

[19:01] with outcomes measures and targets um that we have developed as part of this year's budget this next section will also focus on our operating overview as well as a very highlevel overview of our capital budget so starting off with sharing again our summary of key budget assumptions for the 2025 recommended budget we Shar these seven assumptions with with uh with city council uh and uh community members earlier during our financial forecast um earlier in May but recognizing that we have funding constraints that significantly limit our flexibility for new ongoing initiatives new ongoing programs that are um uh not yet committed associated with our with our funding that potential legislation generates uncertainty of property tax revenues um just pointed to that on the prior on some the prior slides our

[20:00] Capital Improvement program will continue to focus on investing in sustainable ongoing Capital maintenance for funding of City needs and infrastructure something that we have recognized has been underfunded in Prior years will continue to explore the flexibility across all of our our city funds including dedicated funds existing budget allocations to support Key Community investments in needs the 2025 dedication of the sales and use tax creation of the Arts culture and Heritage funds assumes the inclusion of the current Arts operating programs recent living wage increases as well as the minimum wage ordinance are of consideration when we're thinking about uh the fiscal impacts to the 2025 budget and then finally when looking at our uh our ongoing funding needs as an organization and we'll speak more to this in the second section of our PR presentation our ongoing funding needs

[21:00] are significant and Beyond funding availability and so what this really points to and leads to is the development of a long-term Financial strategy across all of our funds and City functions so looking at the snapshot of our uh total recommended budget um overview this pie chart on the right is one way uh of looking at the 2025 recommended budget this is broken down by Department this includes both our operating budget and our capital budget later in the presentation in a in a few slides we'll share what this looks like by the sustainability equity and resilience goal area um specifically when we look at the operating budget across all of our funds we have a total of 399.4 million um one of the uh pieces that we shared earlier with with Council and looking at our budget direction for 2025 and recognizing the the limited ongoing funding that we had we uh looked

[22:02] as an organization during this year's budget in particular at realignments of dollars uh across the organization and so we utilized uh the budgeting process to help us identify uh areas of existing funding and PRI and pointing those and shifting those uh dollars toward prioritized program outcomes um and so I'll I'll share a few of those realign alignment examples where we shifted existing funding from a certain programmatic area to another programmatic area based on our uh our key Investments and some of the the priorities that came forward during the budgeting process the other thing that you'll note within the 2025 recommended budget is that uh again we have limited ongoing uh funding available and so we performed limited ongoing operating increases um we also utilized strategically one-time funding to

[23:01] perform one-time funding Investments within the operating budget and we'll speak to specific key Investments um when we share out by the sustainability equity and resilience uh goal area in in uh a few slides the capital budget for 2025 is a total of 190.2 million across uh 19 funds that we have uh in in uh our budget and this works to advance over 150 projects in the 2025 budget alone I'll speak more to the six-year CIP um in a little bit the six-year Capital Improvement program um but first diving into a little bit further detail of the operating budget so when we look at the key drivers of the operating budget what is really the year-over-year increases that we're seeing one of the things that you'll note on this table is the expense

[24:01] category broken down by operating our planned Debt Service and our internal service charges um the thing that you'll note in looking at the percent change on the right hand side is that when we exclude Debt Service and internal service charges we're looking at a year-over-year increase of our operating budget of 1.3% so the majority of our operating increase is is truly due to um additional investments in planned Debt Service as well as our internal service charges and that includes internal service charges associated with Fleet and Equipment Replacements technology increases as well as facility maintenance and Debt Service and lease payments for utilities South Boulder Creek project as well as the Alpine Balsa Western City Campus so looking further at our 20 operating budget when we look at our

[25:00] realignments Focus these are a few examples of uh realignments across the board of what we see when we're shifting dollars from one program area to another program area um you look and see within the Family Services Program for example that's aligned to the healthy and socially thriving goal area we realigned 26 27,000 from the uh housing and Human Services Administration operation to help support uh a full-time position for the Family Resource schools program and this really helps to fulfill the need for a full after school program for the fourth highest need School in bbsd Crest View Elementary we realigned $91,000 uh to help fund and support the urban Rangers program within the safe uh s category and this decision was really to to align non-standard Staffing so part areas where it has the greatest impact with operations and that's

[26:01] prioritizing the pill Street mall and Civic area and then finally one of the examples of realignments that we performed within the budget is uh realigning 755,000 uh from the Transportation Department's gas and electricity bu budget to fund the city's acquisition and management of over uh 4500 City street lights so we're excited to share our uh efforts on budgeting for resilience and equity and excited to uh invite Scott Carpenter principal budget analyst to speak uh over the next couple of slides who was integral particularly in year three of helping Advance this effort so I'll talks it to you Scott thank you very much Charlotte good evening Council Scott Carpenter principal budget analyst um so we are in our third and final year of budgeting for resilience and Equity helping the city move from increment BAS based budgeting to outcome based budgeting in

[27:00] year one a comprehensive inventory was established with alignment to our s framework in year two we began to identify outcomes and measures and in year three uh in partnership with the it Department's Enterprise data team we conducted 18 individual workshops tailored to each City Department we refined and standardized Department program outcomes and their Associated measures and we created the first Citywide comprehensive inventory of outcomes measures and targets um these outcomes and measures have been made publicly available through an online dashboard that I will share on the next slide um and our program outcomes have been aligned to the greater s framework and the Citywide strategic plan were applicable um so this is a snapshot of the publicly available dashboard that houses our inventory of outcomes and measures uh as you can see at the top it enables you to select a one department at a time and the department selection dropdown uh and then in the program selection drop down

[28:00] you can select one or more programs uh and that will populate the table below the table contains the outcomes and Associated measures the programs to which they are aligned to the S goal to which they are aligned to targets for 2024 and 2025 and year-to dat actuals for 2024 uh this is our first year of targets and actuals some departments submitted others described collection plans of how to gather actuals for the 26 budget uh we requested targets and actuals for 2023 2024 and 2025 uh 25 targets and actuals were submitted for 2023 227 targets and actuals are anticipated for 2024 and 2025 uh in total 385 outcomes and measures were developed across 109 program areas for 18 different departments and we will be updating iterating and refining this on a yearly basis during our budget process um with that I will turn it back to

[29:00] Charlotte Scott so uh Scott just highlighted our efforts as an organization I want to really just Echo and and uplist all of the work that's been done over the past three years this has really been a significant effort for us as an organization to get to this point and so we are excited uh to share out with Council and community members the the the culmination of work that has occurred um across those three years and we also recognize um that we are still on the journey to iterate to evaluate and to continue developing our uh our outcomes and outcome based budgeting as part of budgeting for resilience and Equity so we're looking forward to doing that on an annual basis one of the things that is exciting uh is an exciting result of our uh efforts with budgeting for resilience and Equity is that we have now the ability to look at our investments by the sustain ability equity and resilience goal area and so

[30:00] there are seven goal areas within um the the S framework I will uh walk through um to just Orient us around some of the programmatic and operations um and services that are provided within each of these areas and speak more to that on the next several slides but this percentage breakdown represents the operating budget uh by goal area so starting first with responsibly govern this goal area really focuses more on internal facing important important internal facing services that support the city uh in the city operations um and uh some examples of that include the fleet program uh which helps to perform maintenance and repair of over a thousand City Vehicles the it infrastructure Services Program which helps to provide reliable Data Systems and fiber optic Communications infrastructure that support over, 1500 city employees and our risk management

[31:00] program which works to minimize risk exposure for city employees residents and visitors when we look at the safe goal area um the safe goal area focuses on supporting and fostering Community uh positive community relations and ensuring residents are supported and cared for during emergencies and natur natural disasters in 2025 as really uh when we look year-over-year increases we'll see a 4.3% increase um and this is primarily due to the investments in the urban Rangers program as well as within the independent Police monitor and we'll speak more to those when we share out some of our key strategic Investments within our budget highlight section some examples of the programs that fall within this category include Public Safety operations and within this for example are the Emergency Operations within the fire rescue department and then the alternative response program

[32:01] within the police department that focuses on holistic and non-traditional law enforcement approach to community safety when we look at the livable category 133% of the operating budgets some examples of programs that fall within this category include homelessness Services Behavioral Health response and Community Investments some examples of uh specifically of community Investments are both Human Services Investments and housing investments and these Investments provide millions of dollars annually to support nonprofit Human Services and housing partner agencies to benefit Boulders diverse lowincome populations when we look year toe uh the livable category actually increased 24% and this is primarily driven by additional investments in affordable housing from 2024 to 2025 the environmentally sustainable goal

[33:01] area includes programs such as Community Wildfire resilience utilities water treatment program and Open Spaces resource stewardship program um the community Wildfire resilience program is one slice of our Wildfire resilience efforts across the entire organization and more specifically this is specifically funded by the climate tax uh that was recently passed by voters a couple of years years ago um the water treatment program and the resource stewardship program focus on climate resilience and and truly all of these programs focus on climate resilience the protection of Public Health um through the stewardship of our ecological uh and water assets when we look at the healthy and socially thriving goal area this goal area focuses on uplifting residents to meet critical needs enjoy high levels of social physical and mental well-being

[34:00] and have access to Abundant recreational cultural and educational opportunities these are two programs that are examples that fall within this uh goal area including Recreation operations that focuses on The Daily management of recreation centers outdoor pools Sports and Health and Wellness and arts and culture which focuses on the cultural vibrancy of the city through Arts culture and Heritage programming when we look at year-over-year increase Ines this goal area increased 4.4% and this is primarily driven by an 86% increase in arts funding with the recent passage of the Arts culture and Heritage Tas accessible and connected uh comprises 9% of the city's 2025 uh operating budget there are some examples listed here including our transportation planning and operations programs as well as our Communications programs uh these two program supports the goal area within the manage with the

[35:01] management of safe and accessible multimodal Transportation as well as fostering connectivity and engagement across the community when we look at year-over-year changes we're at about a 7% uh change and this is driven primarily by increases to our investments in technology Communications as well as the transportation planning program to support the Hop bus service and then finally looking at our economically vital goal area um two programs that are examples that fall within this category our economic vitality and District management and these two areas focus on uh developing and implementing strategies to support a healthy and safe and and resilient economy and quality of life uh and when we look year-over-year this increase is 24% um and that's primarily driven by the Small Business Development Center um

[36:00] coming inh housee within the city so shifting gears to share just very high level snapshot of our six-year CIP from 2025 to 2030 our Capital Improvement program uh our Capital Improvement program uh supports over 200 capital projects across the six-year Horizon with the 2025 budget I mentioned earlier that our total capital budget is 190.2 million across the six-year period it's it's 87.4 million uh supporting over 200 capital projects and there are various departments that have Capital Improvement programs that work um during the budget development process and really on a yearr round basis to uh to work on these uh Capital Investments and advancing these capital projects one of the things that point out is within the 2025 budget in particular you'll notice

[37:01] that the majority of the Investments uh are attributed to three departments including utilities transportation and mobility and facilities and site one of the other things that I'll point out when you look across the six-year Horizon is that the capital budget or the plan spending fluctuates from year to year and this is really due to the amount of funding that's available the uh project scope as well as the project timeline so shifting gears now to our budget engagement efforts for 2025 we are excited to build upon uh our 2024 budget engagement efforts with Community connectors and residents um and I will hand it off to uh Stacy poova who will walk through our expanded engagement efforts for this year hi everyone Stacy poova budget analyst

[38:01] um this year we focused on expanding and growing our engagement efforts and building upon what we did last year I will be presenting on our engagement techniques and answering the question how did we engage with the community and who did we hear from our community engagement is structured early in the budget process to enable feedback prior to budget submissions and decision- making um the efforts this year buil uponor 2024 efforts and this year we performed three specific modes of Engagement the first is our continued partnership with Community connectors we conducted budget sessions to lay the groundwork and confirm understanding of budget processes hosted feedback sessions on new programs that received new funding such as the arts and culture program and Wildfire resilience program and confirmed ranking of priorities as aligned with the S framework the second pillar of our engagement was establishing a connection with the boards and commissions

[39:00] processes and Cycles the goal was to enhance awareness and alignment of current boards and commissions processes to the budget cycle and the third pillar was our 2025 budget questionnaire which ran from mid April to miday the questionnaire invited Boulder Community members to provide input on budget priorities as aligned to the S goal areas and this was done through ranking the seven goal areas and providing opportunity for additional comment and feedback um speaking to the questionnaire specifically we attempted to reach out to many populations of the community and this includes both those who live and work within the city our efforts included both virtual and in-person engagement we shared the questionnaire through multiple Avenues including a press release social media the next door app and inside Boulder news um we worked with the community con c s and residents to share the questionnaire with their respective

[40:00] communities and with the boards and commissions members we reached out to the economic Vitality Partners which include downtown Boulder partnership uh Latino chamber Small Business Development Center and Boulder chamber and we appr reached out to approximately 7,650 businesses the questionnaire ran from mid April to mid-may and this timing was intentional and it structured early in the budget process to enable feedback from the community prior to budget submissions by the Departments so now that we've shared both how we engaged um and who we reached out to I'll summarize the results of our community feedback this slide speaks to the aspect of our engagement that focused on our partnership with the community connectors in Residence our containered partnership with the community connectors provided feedback on priorities of communities that have been historically underrepresented in government decision making and as part of Engagement this year we ask

[41:00] connectors to prioritize the S framework objectives um this is something that was conducted last year as well and the goal of this was to confirm the priorities and buil upon work previously conducted um we saw that the prioritization of objectives put supporting advancing racial Equity as the first priority followed by housing availability and affordab affordability and Then followed by supporting Financial Security and economic opport Unity this prioritization is similar to last year except for a notable jump of the advancing racial Equity objective which moved up from third place to first place the result of the other component of our engagement the questionnaire is summarized on this slide our questionnaire received over um a thousand and 14 responses um the questionnaire asked participants to rank the seven St goal um area areas in terms of priority and the results show that on

[42:01] average participants ranked safe as number one healthy and socially thriving as number two and livable as number three as Charlotte mentioned earlier today within the S framework safe means a welcoming an inclusive community that Fosters positive neighborhood and community relations and ensures that all residents are secure and cared for during emergencies and natural disasters public infrastructure is wellmaintained and reliable and natural resources like water air and land are protective healthy and socially thriving represents that all Boulder residents are able to meet their critical needs enjoy high levels of social physical and mental well-being and have access to Abundant recreational cultural and educational opportunities in an environment that respects and celebrates human rights and livable represents high- performing safe and well-maintained buildings and infrastructure that accommodate a diverse set of community needs for working learning playing and living these descriptions of each goal

[43:00] area were provided within the questionnaire um but these areas can represent a lot of different things to different people and so we also received additional qualitative feedback in regards to people's interpretation and assoc association with these goals and I'll speak to that um feedback in a second we looked at the questionnaire results through the participants various demographic information that they provided to see how the results could change um this chart shows the average ranking of each s goal area disaggregated by race and ethnicity on the left side column are the seven s goal areas and the First Column over shows the average priority ranking of the questionnaire as a whole the following columns show the average priority ranking by race and ethnicity and as a whole safe remained rank number one and there are some additional variance with the ranking of the other s goals we looked at the data oh can I go back for a second uh we looked at the data disaggregated by other demographic information as well um

[44:01] such as housing status and income and there were some but minimal changes to the average prioritization the change in prioritization that was most notable is that in the demographic of participants that rent their housing livable was the number one goal area um the questionnaire asked participants to rank the goal areas but also provided an opportunity to share additional comments and feedback for those who prioritize safe as their number one priority common themes that were written in consisted of crime reduction Transportation maintenance and traffic safety downtown Vitality public space safety unhoused population encampments and some other themes healthy and socially thriving common themes were unhoused populations and encampments arts funding downtown Vitality public transportation affordability and livable themes were housing unhoused populations and encampments affordability affordable housing these are themes that we have

[45:00] seen consistently however as the earlier slides show engagement efforts with the community connectors and residents informs us that historically underrepresented communities have differing and additional priorities as a reminder Community Connector and residents prioritization consisted of advancing racial Equity providing affordable housing and supporting Financial opportunities our budget engagement efforts this year and the resulting input helped to inform some of the budget decisions that we'll be sharing and so with that I'll bring it back to Charlotte Scott and Tony thank you Stacy all right so the next section uh we will share out our 2025 operating budget uh highlights by goal area and want to emphasize before sharing um the the key uh operating Investments that we made across the 2025 budget just as a reminder again our limited ongoing uh available funding um and so want to highlight the the uh key

[46:00] one-time Investments um that you'll see uh on the next several slides um as well as some of the decision- making around our uh limited funding but just wanted to uh share that out and so um the other piece that I'll note is that uh this year was the first year of the uh Citywide strategic plan um and we utilize this in our budget development process and you'll see that reflected in some of the Investments over the next few slides where we look to invest in advance some of those priority actions and strategies that are outlined in the city-wide strategic plan and with that I'll toss it back to you Scott thank you very much Charlotte so 2025 budget highlights for the responsibly governed goal include $105,000 for cyber security and disaster management planning this supports the updating and enhancing of our cyber

[47:00] security disaster plan uh this will allow the city to respond to ever changing risk and help Shield against future disruptions to operations there is additional funding for office of disaster Management training that will advaned efforts in Regional disaster prevention and planning uh there are significant one-time Capital maintenance backlog Investments to the tune of 4.3 million the city has significant unfunded and underfunded needs supporting Capital maintenance the 2025 budget includes $3.3 million for fire apparatus Replacements and $1 million for facilities Capital maintenance um costs associated with these have risen significantly in recent years uh this uh these Investments uh are uh aligned to city-wide strategic plan uh strategies uh strategy 12 uh implementing organizational and financial best practices to continuously improve asset management and strategy two advancing efforts to enhance Regional disaster prevention preparedness and

[48:03] response 20125 budget highlights for the safe goal include $63,000 for the office of the independent Police monitor uh this is increased funding to strengthen civilian review of law enforcement uh and help learning from Best Practices to promote accountability through annual attendance at the National Association of Civilian oversight of law enforcement uh there are acts on body camera licenses for the police oversight panel and funding for community events there is $240,000 for the advancement of the reimagining policing plan for this we added a much-needed victim service specialist who we often hear performs an invaluable service to victims of crime in their families the reimagining plan also calls for the conversion of sworn positions where possible to civilian positions and this budget starts to do that with two positions by creating a property and evidence uh coordinator position in a civilian armor position uh this will in turn allow the department

[49:00] to reassign a sergeant to the downtown Pearl Street Mall police unit who is previously performing the property and evidence work uh there is additional funding for our safe and managed spaces program uh also known as samps this is a multi-departmental program that includes the ambassador program Urban Rangers and the bould boulder targeted homeless engagement and referral effort partnership with the Allroad shelter also known as be there uh this program helps to foster a climate of Safety and Security in public spaces included in the $1.5 million is one-time funding for the continuation of the ambassador program and permanent Investments for urban Rangers Staffing this investment was in part per informed by our budget engagement efforts uh this advances city-wide strategic plan strategy one focusing Community safety efforts on reducing Community harm at critical locations for the livable goal um budget highlights in include $200,000 for Human Services funding that is an additional

[50:01] $100,000 in ongoing funding uh and $100,000 in one-time funding for additional Human Services Grants for nonprofit organizations supporting outcomes such as economic stability mobility and resilience and increase positive physical mental Behavioral Health and well-being this will allow the city to maintain its current level of funding for competitive grants there is $315,000 for eviction ition in rental assistance Services also known as Eis uh additional ongoing funding for the city's epis program will support legal aid rental assistance and mediation services to help tenants facing eviction this program prevents evictions for 96% of tenants actively engaging uh with the appr services there is an additional $8.9 million in housing affordability Investments the 2025 budget includes over $31 million across multiple funds to support several housing and affordability Investments this includes funding for the construction and Rehabilitation of 189 affordable housing

[51:02] units for the rally Flats Orchard Grove Grace Commons Ponderosa and middle income projects uh included in the 2025 budget and in the out years is an anticipated $3.5 million in revenues to support affordable housing investments from the County's 1B funding uh this advances city-wide strategic plan strategy 5 uh providing a holistic and providing holistic and accessible programs and services to enable diverse individuals and families to live in Boulder uh highlights for the healthy and socially thriving goal include 376,000 for Equity access and community building this funding is for the creation of a new immigration legal defense fund Public Safety Training and cultural competency Assessments in addition to ongoing funding for the expand program supporting those with disabilities and Grant funds for Open Space Trail repairs and access there is a total of $1.3 million in

[52:01] additional funding from the Arts culture and Heritage fund that will support Arts programming Administration and events such as Bridge year Arts grants funding experiments in public the experiments and public arts program event sponsorships Arts Administration the meow music event arts in the Parks and artist hiring incentive grants the arts and culture office performed a bridge year needs assessment receiving input from the community this input and engagement from the bridge your needs assessment informed our 2025 arts and culture Investments uh this additional funding represents an 86% increase over the 2024 approved arts and culture program budget uh as previously noted we realigned $26,000 to support uh the increase uh of a bilingual resource School Pro program manager from part-time to full-time uh supporting full-time Afterschool programming for the fourth highest School in Boulder Valley School District Crest Elementary this advances strategy 4 to strengthen

[53:02] Equity focused programs that help meet community members basic needs and with that I will turn it over to Tony Townson to talk about some additional highlights thanks Scott good evening Council Tony Townsen senior grants program manager for economic or sorry for environmentally sustainable uh we're really excited to continue our community Wildfire resilience efforts focusing on reducing risk of wildfire to vulnerable homes and increasing Community preparedness with Wildfire education and resilience grants a total of 1.56 million in climate tax funding will support the community Wildfire protection plan the new Wildfire resilience assistance program and support the addition of a two-year fixed term Wildfire resilience project coordinator which is the $120,000 enhancement you see here on the

[54:02] slide with regard to the Wildfire resilient um assistance program this week we officially launched the program and residents in eligible areas received postcards that were mailed to their homes encouraging them to visit the website to learn more about receiving a detailed home assessment and more about their eligibility and I want to point out um that uh the total amount of that 1.56 million within climate tax is not all-encompassing of our Citywide Wildfire resilience efforts and operations it's really like a cross departmental effort supported by um operations and funding throughout open space fire rescue and climate initiatives departments the water quality program within the utilities department includes 130,000 in Staffing enhancements which will support technician work within the water resource recovery facility lab to

[55:00] implement process upgrades to further reduce phosphorus in the Wastewater affluent in addition the conversion of a fixed term position to permanent Staffing will support Greenway management efforts such as noxious weed and invasive tree monitoring and removal ecological support for utilities projects program development and coordination with a cross departmental land manager workg group and the mahigh flood district for economically vital um additional one-time funding of $200,000 will support the development and implementation of an economic Vitality strategy which was named a key Council priority at the 2024 Council Retreat and it aims to expand current capacity for small business support including cultivating strategic Partnerships for revitalization a additional business incentives and financial assistance and enhance

[56:00] connection to resources and Regional economic initiatives the outdoor dining program began as a pilot program in 2020 with the rapid expansion of outdoor dining during the pandemic and an outcome from this uh chain shifted business operations and enhanced cultural vibrancy with within the downtown districts including University Hill and the downtown Pearl Street Mall area currently the the city has 30 parklets that are predominantly located within those two districts and with the additional funding of $150,000 the city will be able to purchase two additional parklets to expand the programs and it will support outcomes of enhancing cultural vibrancy as well as maintaining uh the well assets within the Special Districts and both of these items are included as part of the arpa funding which I'll talk about in a couple of minutes for accessible and connected um key 2025

[57:00] Investments aligned to this goal area include an additional $40,000 in one-time funding for the community connectors and residence program for mental health services professional development and inclusive engagement $78,000 for increased ongoing funding to advance shared micromobility efforts including programmatic Outreach to ensure awareness and utilization of equity programs and in support of lowincome community members the transportation and mobility department realigned funding for the operation and maintenance of the city's acquisition of 4500 street lights totaling $755,000 and $226,000 of additional funding will support the city's portion of the acquisition of seven electric buses for the hot bus service and bus stop maintenance specialized pair of Transit and additional initiatives such as

[58:01] annual walk-in bike month and winter Bike To Work Day and with that I'm going to transition over and speak a little bit about our arpa funding update and the Citywide Grant strategy so the city has expended roughly 68% of the arpa funds and the remaining funds will be obligated by the deadline at the end of this year and we are on track to complete all expenditures by the 2026 deadline as discussed the the 2025 recommended budget includes 450,000 of one-time funding that extends and expands economic recovery efforts that were initially developed using arpa funds this one-time funding will enable support for economic Vitality initiatives including 200,000 for small business support for economic resilience the 150,000 for the outdoor dining program as well as 100,000 for experiments in public art and while the

[59:02] 2025 budget uh proposes extending these initiatives the city will continue to evaluate all of our arpa programs comprehensively and we'll bring forward more information in the 2026 budget development process once we have further understanding of all of the outcomes and the levels of impact from those investments in terms of our Citywide Grant strategy we focusing on high priority initiatives and critical needs specifically relating to Human Services mental and Behavioral Health the high utilizers program Fleet electrification and other climate resilience and sustainability efforts um so far in 2024 we've received approximately 13 new Grant Awards totaling $1.85 million for areas such as climate open space um Public Safety initiatives um from from all kinds of sponsors such as um SE do

[60:00] the um Environmental Protection Agency the Colorado energy office Colorado Parks and Wildlife and more we're anticipating Direct Federal funding from Recently announced uh Dr Cog EPA award we have funding coming in from the doe Energy Efficiency and conservation blog Grant and we also submitted the IRS direct pay clean energy tax credits for Fleet vehic vehicles that were purchased last year um and then next year we'll we'll apply again for more tax credits which will allow for the the fire apparatuses the EV sweeper solar and any other fleet vehicle purchases that happen in this year um and then in addition we um our climate Department received news that the state uh recently just received a $20 million award from the Department of energy and the city of Boulder anticipates receiving a $4 million sub awward under that so we've had some really really wonderful

[61:00] successes across many of our departments and we continue to seek additional grant funding to support the organization and with that I'll pass it back to Charlotte thanks so much Tony all right so that brings us to the end of our first section of the presentation for the 2025 recommended budget and I'll toss it back to Aisha wonderful thank you so much this is is our first opportunity fellow council members to ask clarifying questions so if we can get clarifying questions for the first part one uh that would be wonderful see okay let me go to my little thing all right I see Tina yeah work whoops um thank you and and uh thanks for all the information putting together and also for um taking time

[62:01] during the week to answer questions I had a couple um things uh the first is is this the first year that we don't have um an item for the [Music] library uh that is a good question um we uh uh in the 2024 um budget our expenses for the Library uh stopped um and so we uh shifted and realigned the library funding um as part of that process um one of the things that we uh had in our 2024 budget was anticipated reimbursement for Library expenses um and that was a a um $113 million uh one-time reimbursement that was included in our budget um for the the 2024 budget for the existing fiscal year so so last year's budget was a net

[63:02] revenue from the library of 13 million that we didn't get this year that's correct because uh we were receiving reimbursement from library expenses that the city was still incurring um and so that was planed reimbursement um from from uh the library uh District okay so we okay and that just balanced what we were spending in that budget correct yeah correct okay so this budget doesn't have either of those items yeah that's correct yeah okay um and then one so another question is given some of the changes with property tax um in the at a state level do we see any um any issues with further grants coming from our state level Partners have we re heard any indication that we'll be that existing Grant sources might be reduced as they manage with the

[64:00] deficit manage the deficit excuse me based on the the property tax legislation yeah um I do not believe that we have heard any but might uh confirm with see Cara shaking her head yes yeah we have not heard any update uh related to that um but car you've come up mute yeah I would just say we have not to date it's all very recent so um we may hear things in the future but to date we have not heard any specifics okay um and then on with the feedback from the community connectors and residents could you remind me how the priorities with that group was done was it through focus groups with the communities that they're interacting with or was it just the community connectors themselves or combination so last year we actually performed uh multiple engagement efforts

[65:00] with the community connectors and that was our sole focus in the 2024 budget it did include both direct focus group with the Community Connector the smaller Community Connector uh connectors and residence group and um and in addition to that was exp it was expanded um with the community members what they work with so it included both this year we built upon that so included um the same level of Engagement um with the community connectors themselves um and we intended to share out uh further with um their community members as well um and uh due to to timing um and the level of Engagement for this year we really focused on that focus group of community connectors and residents for the 2025 budget but also recognizing that we were building upon the efforts that we did in

[66:00] 2024 as well include the larger okay and how many Community connectors and residents do we have right now uh so I believe we have nine currently I know that there were some vacancies that um that they were filling at the time okay um also I really appreciated the operating cost Pi graph that you showed um is there a way to get a similar pie that also Shades out the number of funds that we're spending that are from dedicated funds but in that same like uh high level view of all the funds so I can sort of see oh so of open space 80% of that fund is from a dedicated tax or from climate initiated you know and how much we're supplementing outside of the dedicated tax yes um so we have uh publicly available on our transparency portal uh

[67:00] within the 2025 recommended online budget book there is a way to filter out um dedicated funding uh uh dedicated funds um such as open space or um some of the parks funds or Transportation fund for example so there is a way to do that the one complexity that I'll say is we also have dedicated Revenue sources that come into the general fund so there is a way to look at it uh and and slice the data um in looking at general fund specific revenues we would have to select out particular Revenue sources that is also possible um through our transparency portal okay and my bad for um not figur not knowing that I could do that so I think I missed that so I didn't dig quite enough um another question so Tina I'm so sorry I'm going to ask if it's okay because there was a big line and um this is just the first round of

[68:01] questions so if if we can just because this remember there's part one of this part and then there's another part and and so if everybody gives all their things we're not going to be able to even get our all of our questions even entered um so if I can just kindly ask you to hold on that if I can just get to some of the folks who haven't asked any questions maybe we can have like maybe everyone can do like maybe the first three burning questions and see how far we can get um at least all of our council members to get one round of questions in for the part one um and then we can certainly Circle back in part two so sorry I didn't um announce that frame but I can I can I'm taking track of time and I can see already that if we continue on this method we will not be able to um proceed so yeah I can follow by email so thanks my apologies thank you no but it is very helpful again I encourage us to really lift those questions up that we want the others to hear right so even just what you shared was really helpful so again I I don't want to contrain us but I also

[69:00] want to make sure that we've got enough time and voice for everybody so thank you I'll be back our mayor our mayor bring it in thanks Taisha and thanks everyone for that tag team presentation it was extremely detailed and it incredibly informative um and thanks as well for all the amazing work that we put into the budget ASR so um I I delved into a new item uh in our budget this year which was the Arts culture and Heritage fund and I just had a couple detailed questions on that and if you want to get back to me on those feel free but I was just looking at the the financials for that fund itself and what I've got in looking at the 2025 recommended budget um that it's got a income of projected income about $ 3.47 million and um it has a a reserve amount of about $300,000 and I was just wondering what the targeted total Reserve what what is for this new fund so the targeted reserve for new

[70:02] funds across the organization is a uh best practice Financial policy that we have of 16.7% um and so the Arts culture and Heritage fund um was developed utilizing that principle soorry did you say 60% 16.7 16.7 okay gotcha um I thought 60% s um and so what ises that work out to somewhere in the $600,000 kind of range maybe uh I would need to look at uh the fund financial and get back but just follow up on that one if you don't mind I'm just curious what our destination is there and then my other question about that was it also shows an ending fund balance after reserves of about $400,000 and I was just wondering why we were contemplating that additional fund balance instead of U spending that money

[71:00] in 2025 uh I appreciate the question so the uh onetime 1.3 million and additional uh Arts culture and Heritage funding that is above the 1.5 million base uh was based on the bridge year needs assessment that the arts and culture office performed um this was uh based on the engagement effort that they performed with several stakeholders including their Arts operating their existing uh Arts operating grants they also performed engagement with Community connectors and residents and uh the one-time investments in 2025 is intentional based on this feedback that they received um it's also intentional knowing that the arts and culture office is planning on performing a cultural Plan update over the next year and so they're looking to uh re-evaluate their funds um and the

[72:00] fund balance after reserves is related to that and the one-time uh nature of the funds within the 2025 budget is also related to that thanks for those aners sit all ahead all right thank you mayor bring it in council member uh Matt Benjamin appreciate that TAA um I'll just sort of share the accolades um great work considering these are hard times um so thanks for the thoughtfulness to try not to make sure anybody really got cut and to try to find balance that is threading a really difficult needle so just appreciate the work there um my question centers around our synergies with the county um we have a number of programs um and and services that um we fund sort of in concert with them shelter being one and some of the other services we have and so my question is has staff heard anything about the County's budgeting process and how it may impact us um if

[73:03] programs are funded perhaps less and and and are we going to need to make up the difference I'm just wor I'm just a little concerned and just want to know how that might impact some of the programs and services our community is depending on and if we've heard anything from the county about um how that might play out I'm happy to yeah I'm happy to jump in and maybe Kurt if you have additional information but I will say that that we have heard a little bit of that um I I believe the county has been talking to Providers over some time now that they um will be needing to cut and and what we hear is about 35% um of their Human Services Community Partnership fund C correct me if that's wrong because that's a new name it used to be the human services safety net fund I believe um and we understand and a little concerned about how that may impact our services but um we don't know yet what the what the impact of that

[74:01] will be but we know certainly that that will impact um our shelter our all roads um shelter as we uh as we think about that so we will be looking to speak to the county and really dig in on how that could impact our services Kurt if you know more please feel free to share um yeah that was a great Sor so for for bernh Hopper director poliy Human Services um the only thing that I would add is it's it's uh several organizations many of which we also fund and um the county or the city is a little further along in their budgeting process than the county is as I uh understand it and um the the 35% is sort of a a target number that's been given to uh many service providers we don't know yet what the impact will be on those service

[75:00] providers um and we'll probably be learning more about that um as the as the county develops their budget further thanks for that response I guess the question is will we be finalizing our budget I'm just sort of wondering timing will we get some clarity from the county before we sort of sign seal deliver our our budget in which case there could be an adjustment if there was a need or desire or we completely out of cycle I believe our budget finalizes before theirs does um and so what I can tell you is that we will make an effort to reach out to the county and see if we can get some clarity um and we will bring that back to you as soon as we know okay uh my other question kind of circles back to the county a little bit I think there was a slide that mentioned um that there was money we had set aside for uh measure 1B um and I'm sort of similarly curious is do we have an update on on where that process is and and how what can we expect from uh 1B

[76:03] certainly given that we're going to make a commitment towards some money in this next budget cycle I just like to know kind of where we're at and and what we can expect going forward I appreciate that question I'm goingon to invite Kurt to give you more of a detail because he has been um really working with the staff from sort of our regional cities um to to um work on what that looks like there are several proposals in the mix I'll say the managers and town administrators have been talking about that we will continue to talk um with the county on it but Kurt if you can give an update on where some of those proposals are landing sure so the about uh three months ago the Regional Housing Partnership which is uh made up of Staff members who work in affordable housing um and related services in the different municipalities ities um work together to uh come up with a proposal on um or a

[77:03] recommendation on how those funds could be distributed is from a process standpoint uh and um since then a updated proposal has been given to the county I'm aware there's a couple other proposals that have been put together by County staff and um we're told that uh the County Commissioners um will be looking at those various proposals and that a final decision will be made um about the first week in December um in our in our current budget we have put in $3.5 million um in expectation of 1B funding into the affordable housing budget um that is a conservative number um we believe that the number should hopefully be higher than that thanks for that update appreciate that Kurt thanks n all right thank you kindly Matt moving

[78:02] on to council member Mark wallet bringing in Mark okay I want to join the general accolades for uh staff for what they've done this is an extraordinary document and uh uh I just can't imagine how much work must have gone into it so um Kudos I only have three questions uh although each one has six subparts um but I'll try to be brief um if we lose $3 million in real estate Revenue in 2026 have we given even the remotest thought as to what kind of adjustments we we'll need to make or or is it too soon for that if we if we lose $3 million in in ongoing Revenue yes is that the question yeah we look at the possibility of losing up to $3 million if I recall the one of the early charts based on the uh for property taxes yeah um yeah it so

[79:03] this is something that is uh recent for we we have been following the the legislation associated with the property taxes and um have been performing estimates with during regular session and during the special session as well and so these estimates are uh are are are uh are recent we um are concerned about the drop in property tax uh revenues beginning in 2026 um it is uh as as we've shared before a major Revenue source for the city um and so this would be something that we would we would really need to understand and take a further look at uh as part of the 2026 development process Mark do you mind if I call itly on that oh that's that's unacceptable yes certainly all right um but Charlotte to clarify my understanding is that it wouldn't be a decrease of $3 million of

[80:01] Revenue but that we would go up three million less than we would have had than we would have otherwise but it would still be a net increase in property tax revenue do I have that correct you have that correct uh for the the uh the increase amount um one of the things that I pointed out on the uh the graph that we showed was the budgeted amounts that we have um across this the six-year period through 2030 when we are budgeting we look at a multi-year process um and look at our ongoing expenses that we have against our ongoing revenues and we did not account for that in our uh 2025 development process and so it's something that we are are definitely going to need to take another look at um in more detail and and dive into our estimates that we uh we share it earlier yeah not to say it won't have a significant impact but just to clarify it's not actually going down right thank you uh this year we're looking at a

[81:00] pretty uh substantial increase in debt service um uh with over $300 million in unfunded uh uh financing needs um for projects um uh what's the level of concern uh about this kind of increase in debt service going forward and and subsequent increases as we try to address some of these needs so the planed Debt Service that we have uh at just over $10 million in the 2025 budget has been planned for multiple years and that's specific to the utilities Capital Investments that we have for utilities projects for the South Boulder uh Creek uh flood mitigation project as well as the Alpine Balsa musroom City Campus project um that we'll speak to you more in detail uh in this in the second section of the presentation but this was something that we have planned for several years as

[82:02] part of the in particular for Alpine Balsa the consolidation of city offices into that uh building over the next several years uh and we um have planned those expenses and built those in over the past couple of years in terms of that 6.2 million in debt service okay um and my last question absolutely last um the uh the budget showed that we we've got about $718 million in budgeted expenses against 618 million in revenue and when I asked you about that you you said that um a lot of that Gap uh uh is going to be filled by one-time Investments that quote primarily draw from fund balance across 41 budgeted funds so my my question is uh what kind of impact are we going to have uh is that going to have on our fund balances um and are we using those

[83:03] fund balances uh basically to finance daily operations at this point uh it's a good question and I appreciate you pointing it out one of the things to consider as part of the uh the 100 million draw that you see within the within the 2025 budget it is really uh due to in in in much of much of the uh draw is due to Capital project Investments that we have and so that uh draw is inclusive of capital project funds and expenses associated with capital projects and many of those uh capital projects are funded on an annual basis with current Revenue um and uh so that is part of that draw that you see on a uh uh the snapshot that you're seeing for the 2025 budget I did share the six-year

[84:00] Horizon for our six-year Capital Improvement program and that is something that we work on an annual basis and know that Capital project managers are working on that throughout the year um to take a look at our plans for capital projects our funding availability that does take in consideration our fund balance available as well as uh the current Revenue that's coming in to help support the advancement of those capital projects I just want do you know what our fund balance across those 41 budgeted funds is in total what what are are the resources available to us uh I would need to take a look at the exact amount I think that we've got that uh available but need to take a look at the the total amount but know that we uh consider the fund balances the available fund balances on uh an annual basis as part

[85:00] of our budgeting process and so we're very intentional about um planning on a multi-year horizon for balancing our expenses and our revenues and planned expenses associated with both the operating budget as well as the capital budget which includes the advancement of those capital projects awesome thank you so much sorry can I ask you to get back to me on on that last yes back to us all all of us I think would benefit from the uh answer to that question mark so that is put that in correct response thank you I miss kindly and that's all your time any other questions if we can Circle back um that would be wonderful want to catch Lauren's uh question and we may even have some time to Circle back to Tina for some additional questions that she had and then we come back to you if that's okay I'll keep it short thanks Pisha um so my question is mostly around

[86:04] the budget questionnaire is that a statistically valid survey it is not a statistically valid survey no and I think you had mentioned that um you know and looking at different categories and how people rank things that renters ranked livability is number one correct what percentage are renters in our community I'm gonna see if I've got um yeah we need [Music] some we call a friend well our friend a friend I see Brad Brad got lot of friends in the background yeah bring it in um I'll take a first uh effort at that uh the number I hear frequently cited uh council

[87:02] member is about 60% of our households are rental and uh I'll turn to Kurt for any refinement on that yeah I I don't have the exact number in front of me we could get back to you on that but I am in agreement with Brad that um that's certainly within the range of what what we know okay I appreciate that thank you so a majority of some amounts just rentals um can I ququ on on that question just clarify is that is that the number of is that by people or by units that's household so essentially units okay can I cqu also on that uh I I just kind of follow up with that just the timing of the survey was April and May which is when the CU students which are

[88:00] I think 37% of the city and our almost all renters may not have been in engage because that's when finals and commencement are the first week of May so just just sort of I don't know if there's a way to think about the survey understanding that that part of the population may have been uniquely not engaged but I I don't know the answer it's just a comment sorry thank you and if I can just inter oh sorry that's gonna just say hot off the press uh the actual numbers are 54% uh renter households and 46% owner awesome thank you and and might I ask um maybe just a compilation of of some of these responses to the various questions that have been presented for the evening would be very helpful in the follow-up heightline that I know that you all are planning to prepare anyway so thank you Lauren did you have anything else I know you said the one but just in case well I guess I was just wondering if there you know this data

[89:00] was presented but I know prior to our current Council I think it was back when we were looking at um the sustainability tax stuff we had some statistically valid surveys around priorities of community members and so I was just wondering if we could share out that data so we can kind of understand better the differences between kind of statistically valid results and um I know it's not quite the same questions but it might help give a broader understanding yeah we we can certainly follow up on that thank youly I'll take that action and circulate that um via hotline awesome thank you kindly Tina we're coming back to you we've got about five more minutes for this section of of the qu Council qu

[90:00] clarifying questions so um if if you have them we we would love to hear them um no I'm good thank you all right um now I'm looking to see if I have any questions um one it was wonderful to see the alignment um Kudos always um I love money because we've all agreed that zero and zero is zero and one is one um I did have a question about the outcom so I noticed that um and I very much appreciate the outcomes um direction to outcom space budgeting however because we're in the middle of that transition and only have really one data point um and not all of those data points are outcome driven there actually quite a few I would argue maybe even the majority are output driven so the number of the cost of versus changed behavior um so because we don't have that uh as much outcome data I'm curious if um where we can go for uh more outcomes

[91:01] data um from a programmatic perspective uh related to health and human services for example um and uh some of the other um programs that we know have that have um outcomes data available yeah I appreciate the question it's something that we as an organization have been working on uh as you mentioned over the past three years years and so we're really excited to be able to build upon this effort um we recognize that when we look at the uh the data in the dashboard that's now publicly available that um to uh Scott's point that we shared earlier we have uh we previously only had 25 targets um submitted for 2023 and when we look at our data that was submitted for 2024 and for 2025 where in participating about 230 uh targets and actuals and so what this demonstrates is that buildup and

[92:00] development of this work um across the board but um know that some of the Departments and program areas have been on different paths and um the uh housing investments and Human Services Investments are particularly one um that uh has uh been working on this for a while and I see Elizabeth's popped up if you want to add anything um uh Elizabeth to that deputy director of and again just to clarify my question where can I go to get program level data uh or outcomes data at the program level thank you yeah thanks for that question um just a couple of examples and um council member Adams let me know if we're kind of hitting the question right or or not in the answer um couple different examples some of the um longer term outcomes as you know know are some of them take are generational right when we're measuring Health Etc and so we I'm

[93:00] sorry Elizabeth I'm going to just come in and say I I'm not asking you to tell me what they are I'm asking where can we go as a as a council because the information is not available in the outcom information right now so if there and again I don't even you know in the followup if there's maybe uh um a section that has some hyperlinks to some different reports that we can take a look at I think that could be one of the ways as we are making this Herculean effort and again I have seen your logic model I know this information is there but again information is only as good as our ability to actually look at it so I would love for us to be able to compile what we do have program by program um and and be able to make that available for for our our our our thing sure a couple of um so as you know we do have outcome data that comes to us in the form of Grant reports it's one way and can make those available anytime um a couple of other program just examples within HHS uh we have the homelessness

[94:02] Services dashboard actually does provide outcome data when we're talking about um the number of people who are not only exiting homelessness and getting into house but staying housed uh the eviction prevention program also has really good there are lots of outputs there as you note but there's also outcome data when we're talking about if our outcomes are preventing evictions we do have that information available on dashboard so um we do have several different examples of a combination of you know Moment by moment output numbers and um some of that outcome data more than happy to provide a more um comprehensive list or respon some of those comprehensive list would be really wonderful with link so I don't want PowerPoints with different slides that we have to toggle between but one list it would be absolutely fantastic so thank you so much sure can I on this yes you can so I'm just feeling like I'm having Deja

[95:00] Vu I thought my understanding was that this sort of the outcomes per project in HHS along with costs was something that was going to be coming forward to us because I thought that was something that had been requested a while back it has been it was requested by me and it was it was requested at the HHS the uh the study session that we had and we were told that there was going to be a report however we are now at a place where we need to make financial decisions and so in lie of waiting for some this report um if we can just have what we what we have if we can get what we have but to your question I would be curious to know if that report would be available before we need to make decisions about our budget Kurt might want to jump in here as well specific to homelessness but that is coming up in December I I believe um and Kurt or others thing right Elizabeth I'm sorry

[96:00] what is that after we approve our budget that's after the the budget yes yeah so then we program by program information before okay thank you K do you have anything to add uh I think Elizabeth did a great job with that um some of the some of the things that we're able to provide outcomes on we have and we can share those links to those programs that have that we're we're not going to have outcomes for um every program no and um I think we've developed um the outcomes that we can um at this point in time absolutely and um we can look at developing those further um over time as well thank you so much I think you would also ask for cost per per program we've that that is on our dashboard it's been on there for about uh two or three months it's a new um addition to our dashboard okay wonderful if that link can be added to that list that would be

[97:00] wonderful so thank you so much um I'm running low on my time I have another minute and a half on my S minute question allocation um I had a question about alignment to council priorities and so um again not for um com uh response uh at this moment but it would be wonderful to get some information on how do the how does this budget align to the priorities that we had identified um is just something that I I had a question around um and then my last question is around racial equity and so I've seen this word written but I'm not seeing it in the budget anywhere um and so again not necessarily for a big response right now but it would be really wonderful um one yes to to to see where the Investments are made around racial Equity when it is mentioned it's usually in conjunction with other things that are outside of that scope for one um one budget line and I can give

[98:00] examples um in our 101 next oneon-one next week one to one next week but um would' love to just hear a little bit um now and then of course a longer explanation later would be wonderful that sounds good appreciate the question um so I I would say as part of our efforts for outcome based budgeting we are aligning to the sustainability equity and resilience framework and that is a key pillar of our alignment for understanding the Investments that we have as our um as an organization um we with this effort that we have performed over the past three years we are really looking to Center and build upon Equity considerations that we have embedded in our uh annual budget development process the other thing that I would mention is that we've been very intentional about our community

[99:01] engagement efforts that we began just last year in 2024 prior to that uh to my knowledge I do not believe that we've been performing Community engagement and we intentionally uh engaged and lifted up the uh the input and the partnership that we have developed with the community connectors and residents in particular and hearing their feedback of the uh objectives within the sustainability equity and resilience framework and sharing that information with them and hearing their priorities that it has been that has become uh a key pillar in our decision making process for our budgeting process that started last year and we're continuing that um this year as well okay thank you so I look forward to something that lets me know what are the specific investments in racial equity and I I as I was looking through everything I haven't found anything

[100:01] nothing so I look forward to getting more clarification around that all right we are now any we got four minutes all right proceed for with part two sounds good all right let me get uh res situated here so we will uh share out the capital Improvement program as well as our efforts on our long long-term Financial strategy all right everybody seeing everything okay great um so uh focusing on our Capital Improvement program uh as

[101:02] the next section for uh the 2025 budget um I shared a very highlevel overview of our Capital Improvement program earlier in the presentation but uh wanted to be sure to share out some of the key uh projects that we have within our uh 2025 to 2030 capital capital Improvement program um and so just again when we look at the six-year Horizon we see uh plan spending of 87.4 million uh included in the six-year uh CIP and that is spread across uh multiple uh departments and multiple Capital funds as well as special Revenue funds um and governmental funds and in the 2025 budget are seeing most of the Investments uh uh stemming from utilities uh facil ities in Fleet and Transportation uh we have uh five distinct Capital project types you'll

[102:02] see this breakdown of the CIP uh with capital enhancement cap capital maintenance Capital planning studies land acquisition and new facility and infrastructure what you'll see here is that we have 86% of the CIP that goes toward the maintenance and enhancements of our capital infrastructure uh across the city and when we look and think about our budget direction for 20125 one of the key pieces associated with this was performing ongoing Capital maintenance funding and having sustainable Capital maintenance funding thinking about the underfunded needs that we have uh across the organization particularly thinking about the results um that were brought forward in the facilities master plan for example um and some of the underfunded and unfunded needs that we'll share uh in a bit as well so looking at our Capital project

[103:01] highlights we will walk through just a handful of capital projects that are included in the six-year CIP um we have as I shared earlier over 200 capital projects and so won't be able to touch on each of those uh tonight but know that they're uh available and represented within the publicly available 2025 recommended budget um and so first sharing the uh efforts uh and project for the East Boulder Community Center these are um this is advancing our investments associated with the renovation and the retrofit Deke energy retrofit um at the East Boulder Community Center this funding is supported by the recently renewed uh uh ccrs Community culture resilience and safety tax um that was renewed by voters in 2021 um and the Investments here are focused on providing opportunities for

[104:01] community members to recreate and maintain a healthy and active lifestyle uh we see the total project cost is 53 million that's included uh and starting this year in 2024 and is anticipated to be uh complete in 2027 and those start with engagement efforts um that have just begun um with the future of rec centers um and thinking about the rec uh Recreation system as a whole um with Community engagement efforts um that will continue through the fall energy assessments and modeling analysis as well as implementation and construction and again we anticipate completing uh this renovation in 2027 the Alpine balam Western City Campus project that we mentioned earlier is a uh site that is focused on the development of the city's Western City Campus that will consolidate existing City facilities into one uh City Campus

[105:03] um and uh it will also have affordable housing at the Alpine Balon site in north central Boulder between uh between Alpine and balam this investment uh will results in the city's largest affordable housing project to date with 100 44 new affordable housing units what you'll see in the uh 2025 recommended capital budget as well as in the six-year CIP is 40 million in appropriation that will go to support project costs as well as the 6.2 million that I mentioned earlier in our operating budget overview for anticipated debt issuance that will begin in 20125 uh this debt issuance as well as the related appropriation of 100 million that we're anticipating will come forward for Council review in q1 of

[106:04] 2025 fire stations two and four are included in the CIP uh um uh and these are Replacements of existing fire stations that are past their operational lifespans they're too small to be equipped with the appropriate apparatuses they lack appropriate gender neutral and fitness spaces and are uh costly to uh continue to maintain due to poor building conditions and so this investment is a key investment in the operations of the the fire rescue Department um and helping replace these two uh stations uh two and four and included in the CIP you'll see across the six-year period is 38 million for the design and construction of both stations University Hill streetscape Renovations is included as a capital project in the 2025 capital budget there's a total of

[107:01] 1.4 million um supported by 110 funds and the Investments that will go toward this project include uh transformation of medians with drought resistant vegetation some artistic elements improved lighting upgraded Alleyways diverse Landscaping Solutions and these Investments are really intended to support uh improvements in the University Hill area and will begin plan to begin next year Pros Park and the bolet Bridge Project are another uh key uh Community project that is included in the six-year CI CIP this includes uh looking at uh investments in park in amenities at a 9 acre neighborhood park uh on Violet Avenue between Broadway and 19th streets um this is specifically adjacent to the North Boulder Branch library and the Boulder Meadows manufactured home community and it

[108:01] includes a bridge replacement um that is much needed along the Violet Avenue uh uh along Violet Avenue and will invest in new multimodal uh um uh Bridge Investments as well as a new pedestrian underpass and improved connection to the adjacent neighborhoods and finally looking at the major Investments uh associated with um utilities uh capital projects we have the Barker water system rehabilitations projects a total of 54.4 million that is included in the CIP and the Barker water system includes uh multiple water Rehabilitation projects including the Barker gravity pipeline that's listed here in Barker Outlet Works um and this is really critical to maintain the city's water supply for water

[109:00] demands the main sewer improvements Phase 2 project is included in the six-year CIP for a total of 9.7 million and the main sewer conveys most of the Wastewater uh from the Boulder Community to the water resource recovery facility and this project will construct a new sanitary sewer line as well as perform some Rehabilitation of existing lines um and the reconstruct reconstruction will support the city's Wastewater infrastructure as well as provide resiliency during future flooding events and finally we've spoken to this earlier in the presentation but the South Boulder Creek flood mitigation uh is included The Debt Service associated with this project is included in the operating budget and we anticipate bringing forward to Council in 2025 uh approval for appropriation of 63 million as well as the debt approval uh associated with the m Municipal Bond and

[110:01] the South Boulder Creek flood mitigation project is currently in the 90% design and permanent phase uh stage so turning to our funding Outlook and future planning and long-term Financial strategy that was indicated as a key Council priority earlier in the 2024 Council Retreat I'll speak first to some of the unfunded needs that we have shared with Council previously we shared uh a shorter list of unfunded needs at our May Financial forecast and have rounded that we have rounded out that list um and shared that out uh with council members um and look to continue to refine this as part of the long-term Financial strategy so when we look at our unfunded and underfunded Investments across the organization we recognize that we have uh significant unfunded and underfunded needs um I'll also point out

[111:00] that over the past couple of years we have made recent Investments advancing Key Community priorities um some of these uh for example include our Behavioral Health Services our G Services Center um but still recognizing uh the amount of Investments that we have made over the past couple of years are unfunded and underfunded needs are still great on the right hand side you can see a handful of Investments here including our recreation centers our maintenance backlog for our city buildings that we spoke to ear earlier po arterial Network some of our affordable housing funds um Advanced life support system within the fire rescue Department broadband system for example and so what we are estimating currently when we compile our unfunded needs is a total of 380 million both in capital Investments as well as ongoing oper op AAL funding and so what this really points to is the uh re-emphasis and need for a long-term Financial strategy for the

[112:02] city so reminding us uh again of the efforts uh for the long-term Financial strategy and the reasons for the long-term Financial strategy we are building upon uh uh the um foundational reports um that came out several years ago um the Blue Ribbon commission report that pointed to our current state and we are working to develop this future State as part of the long-term Financial strategy where do we sit for our current state we are at 68% of our revenues that are dedicated and what that means for for us as an organization is it means that we have uh reduced flexibility to address needs of the moment what is the future State look like with a long-term Financial strategy we're looking to increase our flexibility of funding to meet needs to be able to meet emerging emerging and changing needs current state uh is looking at our

[113:00] unfunded and underfunded core city services some of our uh funding Services uh funding sources expiring um for example and difficulty to ensure reliability our future state will look to increase reliability through establishing guiding principles Revenue identification and then community prioritization to be able to meet service level demands finally under current state our recent practice has focused on short-term decision decisions without a strategy for Revenue approaches and tax renewals particularly in the buildup back after the pandemic and so what we're looking to perform as part of this long-term Financial strategy is to help us focus more holistically and comprehensively to support core service levels and Community needs and finally what are some of the efforts that we have structured within the long-term Financial strategy first we're looking to establish a long-term

[114:01] financial plan that we have already begun the work on what will this plan identify and develop it will help develop out outline uh and and outline guiding principles perform a current state assessment recommend updates to our financial policies and commitments to best practices and outline future strategic action steps uh we have already begun this work um and aim to finalize this in the fall of of this year which will help to serve as a strategic planning document to help guide the financial strategy forward um for the organization as part of a long-term Financial strategy we'll also conduct a comprehensive fee inventory and study and this really aims to identify the true cost of service levels and established city-wide policies and practices related to fees and fee updates we will plan to Begin work this

[115:02] fall on an inventory of current fees as well as methodologies and assess and prioritize um fee updates and determine our needs for fee studies and we anticipate completing this work uh by quarter two of 2025 we're looking to Define our core service levels and this is really to be able to understand the service level requirements across the organization we spoke to and I shared the examples of some of our unfunded and underfunded needs and we recognize our limited funding availability and so this will help us identify the levels that we are looking to support um as part of uh of our long-term Financial strategy we will explore alternative funding mechanisms um to look to support those service levels and Community needs um this action step will include analyzing our funding mechanisms our

[116:00] researching our funding opportunities and identifying strategic Revenue sources and opportunities for us to consider we'll begin this work in the fall of this year with the goal of completing this uh in 2025 we're looking to refine our city-wide Financial policies this is something that is underway that began earlier this year as part of the long-term financial plan um and this will help to support our guiding principles as part of the longterm financial plan um and we anticipate completing this as part of of that effort and then finally we will develop a ballot measure strategy for 2025 and 2026 and this effort will include um both working with in the financial strategy committee as well as Council review in the 2025 ballot measures planning process as well as our 2026 annual budget discussions process and

[117:00] all of these uh components have uh also in are also uh inclusive of uh engagement efforts with our core service levels and ballot me measure strategy for example so what are the next steps and looking at the 2025 uh budget calendar we are now at uh our Council study session heading toward budet budget readings and adoption for October 3rd and 17th um one of the things that we recognize as uh we mentioned earlier is that this budget that is brought to you is balanced and so um there is a recommended process for Council uh budget changes that Financial strategy committee will point to um our first reading packet will be due uh to council September 25th and so what we are recommending in terms of a deadline for uh any requested Council changes to

[118:01] be sent to uh to budget staff by Monday September uh 23rd and with that I will uh share our Council question and hand it back to Taisha awesome first we're actually going to do any clarifying questions for um the capital Improvement program or the long-term Financial strategy um and then we will move on to any kind of macro not micro not line by line item but macro level um initial adjustments thoughts or recommendations so um would love to start with those who did not speak in section one for questions Tara I see your hand up well I might not be putting in this in the right place or at the right night not a clarifying question then it's going to have to wait till a minute later so is it a clarifying question I don't know I could wait oh I'm not sure

[119:01] maybe I don't even know give it to me give give give me the clarifying question what you think it is my clarifying question is is when or do we ever get to talk about the most expensive CIP project we have which is Alpine ballson because I get a lot of requests from community members that basically say why are we doing this when we're on a constraint budget all I want to say is if you have to shop at Nordstrom Rack versus Nordstroms and you're on a tight budget you pick Nordstrom Rack so when do I get to ask that question is it a different night is it later is it never this is an excellent question Tara thank you yeah happy to respond and uh I can I can start us off and um I know we've got uh staff available as well if we are interested in detail uh around the project but this is something that has been um brought forward and planned for multiple years we have intentionally uh included The Debt Service and planned

[120:01] for the debt service for multiple years associated with this project and have been working toward um funding this effort knowing that it is a uh consolidation of existing buildings um and existing uh operations and and maintenance associated with our uh city offices or EX ing city offices and so know that um this is something that has been uh uh uh developed for many years um and um I will toss it off to Michelle if interested in hold on hold on I know it's been talked I've waited a long time to talk about it today I should have talked about it years ago but it's the pro that's true the problem is is you know we listen to all this talk about inflation and costs are so much higher for materials and so I'm getting more and more nervous every year so I figured why not this year talk about it but I realize why but a lot of people are

[121:01] questioning it not just me so I realized what party is though do you mind if I had this no it's not no need to apologize it was a valid question and now we're moving into comments so if we can just circle back when we get to comments on how you feel about that that would be amazing so thank you so much uh Matt and and Tina I see you but I'm going to go ahead and get us to Nicole because Nicole has not asked or answered any question and then we will go back to those who have asked the previous question Nicole thank you um I think that mine are relatively quick um I had one question just about the long-term Financial strategy um I was just wondering staff if you could remind me um and sorry first of all thanks for the presentation haven't had a chance to say that yet um with the uh long-term Financial strategy I believe we had talked about um doing some Community engagement around that and trying to get a sense of what the community would like us to fund and I was just wondering if you could just in like one or two sentences just

[122:01] remind me where we are with that process we are still under development with the process and so that is something that we anticipate sharing um as we get uh that that timeline further refined but that will absolutely be considered as part of the process thank you um and then my other question was just about the capital um improvements spending and so basically we're we're doing a lot of catchup because we haven't done that for the last few decades if I'm understanding continuing to understand correctly um but moving forward all of the kind of basic maintenance is being included in the budget right like as we take care of one of these things are we then incorporating and rolling maintenance into the ongoing budget that we're thinking about so that we're not going to end up in this place again it's a good question and I would say one of the things that we uh were very intentional about doing in terms of our budget direction for this year and and strategically placing some of our our

[123:01] both our ongoing and one-time Investments was in capital maintenance funding and so I would say we are still working to catch up on that um we are intentional about uh including that in our planning and budgeting process moving forward but I would say that we are still trying to catch up on that thank you all right Matt Benjamin you're up next if you're doing first timers I see Ryan's hand up so I'll pass it to him before taking a second bite at the Apple oh thank you I didn't see you sorry Ryan bring it in thanks both I just have one question but first um I know this is a relatively new team and um charlot Stacy and Scott you give an impression that you've been doing this for some time so um well done on on all this all the underlying analysis and then the presentation um so my question is just about the um it's it's sort of about

[124:00] long-term strategies and I'm thinking about the Strategic framework that was discussed earlier the Strategic plan in which we're moving towards more outome outcome based budgeting with the idea in part that that this is a way to do more with less with our funds to to be more deliberate about what we want to achieve for the re resources and so I'm just wondering if there are any any examples that you can share maybe early examples of Investments that we're making where we're able to start to see that we're starting to see the the the um you know greater impact for less resources and I understand it it might be a little early but uh I just I have to ask that's all I have thank you yeah it's a it's a good question Ryan and I would say um we we were intentional about looking across our outcomes as part of the budgeting process even recognizing and knowing that we do not have yet targets and measures Associated or uh targets and

[125:00] data specifically associated with those outcomes and looking at the intended outcomes across all of our program areas um and we were interested in in looking at um potential synergies there and so know that that was embedded as part of our budgeting process for this year and will continue to uh to be embedded as part of the process and we are able to have that transparency and uh uh shared understanding across the organization and across program areas of what those intended outcomes are and so that'll help us um reallocate or uh allocate our funding um based on those outcomes that have been developed across program areas right thank you so much and and now um Matt thanks tasa um my question centers around the uh um the

[126:00] ccrs uh contribution to our CIP program um and in particular I'm just sort of curious because it sort of on the the city's website and and you previewed some of them all but one of those projects is slated to be completed in 2030 yet the tax has been extended to 2036 and so I'm just wondering if you could remind us of the process from which we Define um the projects that are funded by the ccrs tax um for that really next six years and and when and where does that happen and how do we go about defining uh the projects for that basically next half of that money uh thank you for the question appreciate the uh question on ccrs so one of the things that we are really excited clarification Charlotte do you mind unpacking ccrs for those of us who or us and and listeners who may not know what that is absolutely uh so ccrs means uh Community culture resilience and safety tax it is a tax that was approved

[127:02] by voters in November of 2021 this was an extension of an existing sales and use tax specific for Capital infrastructure projects it was originally approved by voters I believe in 2014 and then extended in again in 2017 um and part part of the uh 90% of the tax is uh goes toward funding City projects and 10% of that per ballot language actually is supporting nonprofit uh Capital expenses um and we have uh developed a robust program associated with that particular 10% of uh nonprofit support um and our city projects for the ccrs tax was recently re renewed in 2021 is going to support several key projects um that uh have

[128:00] been underfunded in Prior years um these were projects that were identified as Key Community priority projects um many of them were included within the ballot language um for ccrs um and one of the things that we are excited about in the advancement of these projects in particular particular is that we are utilizing our funds much of our funds to be able to advance these projects early you'll notice in our uh uh our our our published uh fund financials for the the fund um we are anticipating accelerating our projects using debt in 2026 to help support some of those key projects and so those um that's that's that's the reason for the acceleration of of the projects that you see within and supported by that tax I appreciate the overview on that Charlotte um my my question was around

[129:00] what how can we Define what what's the process from which we Define the next round of projects because all of the most are all of those projects that are currently slated they're slated to be completed prior to 2030 and yet the tax goes to 2036 so I'm just sort of wondering when do we go about defining that next crop of projects because obviously we talked about unfunded needs we talked about there's a lot of projects hanging out there more rec centers a lot of things so I'm just sort of curious when do we start that process of defining that next batch of projects the annual budget process is certainly the place where that discussion would occur so all of the requests across the board would come forward um during the annual budget process okay okay and and are we in that process Charlotte Point like is it are we still in play is that are you speaking of like the march to June correct yeah so the annual budget yeah good question the timeline for the annual budget process is typically march to June so that would begin next year um

[130:00] for the 2026 uh uh budget development and I see Cara's come off mute as well hi thank you I thought I just might clarify too that with the dis with the ballot measure we also did ask for voter approval to issue debt and that was very intentional because we knew that there was a need to complete these projects and the sooner we complete them the more we will minimize the total cost of actually doing the project because of project inflation and so we are intending to use that authorization to issue the debt as Charlotte noted in 2026 and so in fact I think most of the projects will be done early and the later years of the TA of the tax may be mostly supporting The Debt Service and then the 10% for the nonprofits so there might not be a big later tranch of projects because we're advancing projects early in the tax period okay that that that clarifies it

[131:02] for me I appreciate it thank you so much anything else Matt all right moving on to Mark wall bring it in okay um I only have one question and and I'm not trying to get back into the Alpine ballson discussion I just have a question um uh my understanding is that there's going to be sale of some market rate lots to help Finance the project is that going to be a reduction is that going to against the 40 million in uh City funds and $100 million in certificates of participation or is or are those proceeds designated for some other purpose yeah uh good question we did not uh I believe clarify this in the memo but um we we do have anticipated um proceeds from uh from um the housing development that is included

[132:02] and anticipated as revenues to help support the project so we have already included that in our estimates for repayment we have also included in the out years uh revenues associated with sale of buildings and we've also included some anticipated Grant and rebate um revenues that will help support um the project costs so we still have net net we still have $140 million to go that total is supported by in part by reimbursement and additional revenues that are not City revenues so it could be it could be a lower amount at the end of the day yes okay that's all I got all right thank you kindly uh mayor Brock thanks s just a quick question that you can get back to me with um

[133:01] which is how can we learn more about the details of the Violet Bridge replacement project in the associated Transportation improvements uh I anticipate those will come forward as soon as the project uh planning begins um and know that the efforts for Primos park has started and that is a cross departmental effort um and we can Circle back uh on the details um of of the plans for that okay great yeah just be I'd be interested in learning some more about exactly what it's going to entail thanks so much that's all I got all right any other clarifying questions for folks okay I will just jump in and say um so I love this spreadsheet but and um it's very hard to like you know organize it and I'm

[134:01] curious if and it seems like there's one piece that's missing and um it would be really helpful like I've noticed some you know there's a lot around the water infrastructure major infrastructure but I think it would just be helpful for me to know a little bit more about like how are these in service again to the either the s or the council priorities it just seems like a you know a list of really important projects but um to some of my colleagues earlier points you know as we're thinking about um you know some of the challenges financially ahead um it just it would be helpful so is there another layer potentially or column that speaks that lets us know um you know how this particular like for example Civic area maybe some you know versus or Park refreshment refresh versus infrastructure versus Transportation like it just would be really help helpful to get some bigger categories yeah it it that is a that is

[135:00] a great question and one of the things that um uh we can uh consider to do to build upon is add that level of detail into the budget that um when you go into the the capital Improvement program sum summary within our budget as you're mentioning um does not contain that level of detail and so that's something that we can definitely take back um as feedback to build upon moving forward awesome thank you um and then for the pavement Improvement um it so um where's does that include like sidewalks uh I am unsure but see uh our transportation thank you poly's coming up good evening my name is Garrett Slater and I am the capital projects manager for transportation and mobility and portions of our payment Management program do incorporate sidewalk repairs

[136:02] it's primarily the curb ramps at intersections which are not in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act or Ada standards and guidelines where we are implementing those improvements we also have an additional line item in the transportation of Mobility CIP specifically targeted at sidewalk Improvement um around the city so we have a couple of different ways that we tackle pedestrian infrastructure in the CIP okay I would love for me and my colleagues to get a little bit more information around the um around what you're sharing on the sidewalks and then my follow-up question is um was the center for disab people with disabilities engaged um in conversations around just sidewalk accessibilities related to this budget during the budget process uh not as part of the budget process but I what I will say is that we interact and work with the center for people with

[137:00] disabilities frequently throughout the course of our project work and our program development so it might not have happen explicitly with the the budget development but it happens as we look to where we want to prioritize our efforts and our resources so it is an ongoing point of coordination through our annual efforts okay um and so during those times you spoke specifically about budget and budget allocations with the Cent yes you you said no it didn't happen during the budget window but that You' had other conversations so I'm asking if those conversations were includ inclusive of how our funds are allocated no that did not happen thank you very much all right U that is all the questions that I had and now going to check check double checking thank you so much Garrett appreciate your responses um checking checking checking I don't see any other clarifying questions for our uh robust and dynamic and fabulous team um now we are going to

[138:03] move to our guiding question that is in the chat box or that will be put back in the chat box or um which asks us about um thank you I was like I was trying to remember from the slide and I I don't have all the it all set up so my apologies but um VOA that's the end of our question clarifying time and so wanted to just preface as we move to this conversation around um Can Council recommendations of subst substantive changes in advance of the first reading consideration um one that the um that we are requesting macro level changes and not micro item by item level changes at this time if you have item by item level Chang our financial strategies team will tell you um the process that we're going to be using but the high but the cliff notes version of that is that we plan to um have um the

[139:04] team compile some of the questions and recommendations that the city council members have and then um share those via a hotline or some mechanism that allows us to continue the high level of trans fiscal transparency that we are trying to maintain so again know that those opportunities the additional opportunities will present themselves we are also encouraging you and I love I already have my appointment for next week uh with Charlotte to uh meet individually and go through those items line by line um again we're one thing that we did notice in the pre-con conversation is that into um Tina's earlier question about um dedicated versus um unrestricted funds and we recognize that that is a critical piece of information that you will need to know in order to make some of those more micro level adjustments so I I urge us to really be as high Lev as we possibly can understanding that we don't

[140:00] necessarily have all the information we need to make those micr level changes so having said that um any other kind of framing from Charlotte or Cara as we move on to this um Council qu discussion the one thing that I'll uh share is for financial strategy committee have some some notes and recommendations that I think they were hoping to make as part of the process awesome thank you would anybody like to kick us off on any recommendations of substantive changes may may I ask a question TAA of course I am I am not clear about the distinction between macro and micro um level changes um and a little guidance on that would would be

[141:00] helpful well um so for example um you know I I think to I look to the bullet points for example that are in the memo and some of these higher level you know we would like to increase I'm not seeing enough around Wildlife Wildfire resilience or you know if there's particular areas like the Alpine Bome that's a wonderful um um discussion point to to bring up and and maybe bring out some of the Nuance of some of the concerns if there are any um so those are the kind of thing versus on you know you know this specific line that speaks to um you know that's really more so in the weeds um kind of thing and and it's more so as I said Mark from the perspective of there may be restricted funds that won't allow us to make some of those moves and until we have some of that additional information it may be some of those uh may be challenging but at this point again lift it up and and again maybe Charlotte and K Cara can um give us some more guidance on whether or not that's

[142:00] something we can address now or if it's something that we would encourage for the one-on ones okay you want to kick us off though because you're you're here only have one and that that's um uh and you actually hit upon it uh it was um uh Capital expenditures for uh and by the way let me preface this by saying I I having lived in a um City many decades ago that did not um uh provide for it the maintenance of its assets uh this robust capital expenditure budget is um uh music to my ears I'm very very supportive of it um the only place that I would um consider making change is with respect to um uh Wildfire resilience because there and there are two reasons for that one is because um things like underground you know more robust undergrounding or um creating

[143:02] fire breakes actually provides uh more wild fire resilience and two if people have been reading the newspaper articles this week um many insurers are becoming more skeptical about insuring particularly within the 8030 to area code and so I I think we're going to have to be able to continue to demonstrate that we are acting aggressively um to address this problem um in order to maintain the interest of our insurers who are looking to basically to run away at this point um but even on its own merits uh I think um uh more capital expenditure for those kinds of projects would be um a worthy expenditure assuming we can find the you know the room to uh to do it and uh uh

[144:01] one comment I've made previously is if that had to await a subsequent adjustment the base to provide those funds I think that would be all right thank you so much Mark appreciate that um any any um staff feedback on that or I don't know what we do with the the the piece on that but um holding space for that uh I also realize that we um I I skipped the part where our incredible Finance um strategy committee um can speak and support us on um what the the process for um Council feedback will be and just really clarifying that so um I had that at the end but I'm going to put it up at the beginning so uh Nicole do you mind sharing with us what the preferred process recommended process for um feedback and updates to get us between here and and the final vote yes thank you um and then thanks for giving us a moment to do this um and Mark or

[145:01] Ryan if I forget anything please um feel free to supplement my memory um so we talked about this a little bit kind of like a last year's process for those of you that were here last year and um for those of you who are new um what we're hoping for is really that if people are coming to us um and asking for changes to the budget um if they're if you're asking for an addition also come with the line item that you are asking for a subtraction because our uh Finance team and fsse has worked um really hard to make sure that we have a balanced budget and um we don't really feel like it's fair after all the work that staff has done for us to to tell staff to just figure it out if we want a change somewhere so what we are asking for uh as um Charlotte mentioned by um September 23rd please send those um changes and again if you have an addition please also have a subtraction that you're asking for send those to um

[146:02] our finance staff and um Charlotte just quick question is that should we send it to you should we send it to Cara who's who's the collector of this information yeah thanks Nicole for the question so I think we're we're looking for council members to post on hotline for the transparency there and then we'll we'll take those back and compile them um and then with any questions to you um happy to meet between now and the 23rd for uh for any questions on on that great thank you thanks for the clarification and um we also encourage everybody to talk to staff again not to ask staff to find money under a rug somewhere but uh rather to make sure that um you know you're pulling the right numbers and and getting these things together so um Mark or Ryan do you want to add anything on to this uh yes I'd like to Simply say absolutely thank you um I think that's the exact

[147:01] correct approach um you know the days of of Wine and Roses may not be May well be over at least temporarily and we we just can't grab it shiny things and say um staff we'd like to spend more money can you find us more money um a lot of thought has gone into the budget and uh when it is said that there is not more money I think we can accept that as at face value thank you nothing to add my end thank you Nicole all right thank you just want to again remind folks that some things are restricted actually 68% of our budget is restricted am I right there can can I get a coign on that on that you are correct correct that's the magic number so just know that anything you are deducting there is a 68% chance that it is restricted so I would strongly recommend meeting with staff before you do your

[148:01] hotline go ahead N I see you you just asked earlier if there was just a quick response and I don't want to take up time because we don't but I just wanted to acknowledge council member Wall's questions about Wildfire um resources and just say there's a whole Litany of things that staff is doing just know that we heard the question we will be um responding to that and listing out all the other ways that we are resourcing and providing Community with um support in that era area and certainly welcome further conversations with the finance team on your concerns so just know that we will be following up all right anything else Mark all right coming back to Tara I just wanted to give anybody on staff the opportunity to speak to my earlier question SL also comment the question comment that I had

[149:01] earlier I'll ask Michelle to talk a little bit about Alpine Balsam yes um good evening Council Michelle crane with facilities and Fleet and um it's a great question it is a a large dollar amount um we're well aware of that and is a long history to Alpine balom so I'm going to try to get some highlights but I'm I'm happy to provide um as much detail as helpful a lot of the Genesis of our work uh to consolidate services on Alpine ballson started almost a decade ago as we were a city staff um starting to really expand out of our current buildings and we had started leasing quite a few buildings um in order to just accommodate our staffing needs at the same time we have been experiencing increasing building failures in the buildings that we're currently in today we're scattered throughout the city and that's been part of the history of head staff and

[150:01] services have increased we find different buildings and different places those services to the community become scattered and our staff becomes scattered and now we're in a position where we're maintaining several you know different buildings um of varying ages and infrastructure types across the City and we have been struggling to maintain those right now we are in a position where we are chasing emergency failures in buildings all the time um we have this year now an emergency maintenance capital budget there's a line item for that and we continue to dip into that continually to dig up slabs to chase leaks that only then appear further on down um the road in these buildings and so that's been a lot of the consideration um going into Alpine Balsam and another huge consideration has been our goals around our our climate action plan into electrifier our buildings we're spending our money right

[151:01] now our Capital maintenance and our maintenance budgets chasing emergencies and not doing anything towards our climate goals in buildings and trying to Electrify our building stuff trying to improve our building envelopes um or even address good air when we have wildfires we've had um challenges with just the way our air handling systems are handling the kind of um uh fresh air that we have in buildings for staff in the community that's been a lot of the factors that have gone into the consolidation initiative and and was actually one of the um impetuses behind the purchase of the Alpine Boston site to begin with so that consolidation and that large number really reflects um that move to not only address those buildings that are failing if we were to make the improvements that are necessary in those buildings that we have today to both meet our climate goals but to just also address all the infrastructure need

[152:00] like roofs and mechanical systems we'd have the same kind of price tag and we still would be challenged in serving our community and bringing our staff together who are now in disperate locations and our community struggling to find the right front door to the services they need and many times those people who are still receiving in-person services it's hybrid also and and Co changed a lot of the way we work but those folks who are trying to keep those services are our community members who struggle um to do those Services Michelle you're getting hard to hear sorry um so I I guess there's a lot of those points in there that have contributed and gone into where this consolidation and this move um to build a new building at alheim Balsam um and bring staff together last point I will make is there is a portion that definitely of the funding a large portion um that is funding the actual Western City Campus and this

[153:00] consolidation of staff and services but another portion of that funding you're seeing is actually um doing infrastructure across the site that supports the housing component as well which is uh more than 2third of the actual proper site which includes flood mitigation for safety um Improvement to the area and connectivity through the site so I hope that helped bring some some of the factors together now we did get an entire presentation on this so next time I ask you can just tell me to read my notes for the last presentation but thank you for saying it again because I think it's a shocker of a sticker price and I just think people need to keep rehearing it I know I do I was just going to add council member Wier that the the only thing I say because I think Michelle talks about it well is that the price tag will only increase as we delay and punt this down the road the buildings are falling around us I cannot say this enough there

[154:01] are critical failures that are happening in our city buildings that we cannot fix and just moving this down the road is just going to make that even more expensive and the time is now so I I just can't I cannot push this enough that we have to invest in our city buildings in the infrastructure and our city staff and it has some benefits to community and our energy goals at the same time thank you so much and again I will attest to the horse hair that is used as insulation in our main building so thank you so much and Matt Benjamin I'll just say giddy up to that uh Taisha um um any sorry about that um 30 right it's aesome out um so two two points I want to um sort of bring out one is uh when we were discussing uh minimum

[155:01] wage there was also some idea some there was we tossed around the idea of perhaps some maybe economic relief for some of maybe our smaller businesses that are going to be hardest hit um and I've been trying to work with staff on trying to figure out where some of the guard rails are of what that relief could look like but I'm also recognizing that I we're reach I'm reaching a point in this exploration that is probably Beyond one person um engaging with staff and so I I kind of want to ask like is there interest among my Council colleagues to pursue a suite of options or packages for us to obviously look at but I just want to know if there's interest in that just because I'm realizing that I'm just crossing a little bit of that threshold of of how much I'm asking staff to do on an individual basis to learn um and if there's Desire by by Council that that then we can sort of take those next steps to explore some relief packages and then of course decide any combination yes or no going forward so

[156:01] it's really just a question to council is that something um that that there's interest in h and and then we can sort of continue to move that ball forward uh if there is so I put that out there and there's any clarification um happy to there's already things identified it just needs more analysis and needs perhaps more staff time to do that so I just want to have a point of clarification Matt is this in addition to the 200,000 that has been identified for the small business support for economic resilience uh that is completely separate and that has nothing to do with the impact that raising the minimum wage would have on particular business sectors um and so that that that is a separate uh area of targeted perhaps one-time relief because again if we're doing the minimum wage hike kind of towards November end of October uh businesses are GNA have 45 days to adjust so that sticker shock um a little bit of relief could go a long way to soften that landing and the initial implementation of minimum wage hike so

[157:01] um that that's where that ask is sort of uh stemming from but thanks for clarifying that Tara I see your hand I'll help is that the question who will help or is there no question is there interest well again I think you're asking if we can direct staff and at this point I go back to what Nicole shared around if you want to make substantive changes then you're need going to need to find out how much are we talking about and where we're going to pull it from again we have that but again asking staff to do the analysis of where those monies are what those impact what pots they touch is starting to ask staff to do a lot I'm uncomfortable directing staff to do that level of work without hearing from my Council colleagues whether that's something they're interested in exploring and then happy to sort of continue that process um but we're getting into the weeds by Me by myself and so I I just I think it's appropriate to Daylight that work um and I know that there's PTSD around the word

[158:01] straw pole um but but nonetheless I would just sort of inquire if we involve more work that Council kind of says all right yeah sure let's let's embark on that and then staff can you know and anybody who wants to dive in with them of course not just me can embark on that process I just feel like this will be a rather slippery slope right to I can see a lot of straw polls in our future around other things that folks would want to do so again I believe the directive is if you want to make substa of changes that the finance team has asked us to um figure out where we're going to get that money from but it sounds like you're you're asking about how much money would we need for such a fund and that is this the ask for the the staff no I'm just trying to find out the level of analysis that you're you're asking of Staff in order to to make this work and how this would be different than questions that I would have around some of the other significant changes that I plan to meet with Charlotte about Fair we've been given pretty good

[159:00] guidance from both our City attorney and city manager about sort of the general guard rails of any individual council member giving staff or asking staff to do work um I'm daylighting to you all that the amount that I have already sort of asked staff in Exploration is reaching that threshold and it would be appropriate to then ask so if we're not concerned about those thresholds I'm happy to continue that on my own but it is appropriate for me to bring that to you all because it's an important question again I had heard Council express interest in this and so now is the time for us to um more or less put up or shut up on whether or not we're actually interested in any kind of relief because this is the place to kind of have that dialogue in the budgetary conversation so I'm feeling a little stuck either can keep doing it on the solo or we can kind of have thatal love oresa way I would love to get some more clarity on that item where that 200,000

[160:00] because it was my understanding that it is for women owned minority owned businesses and technical assistance um and I know that women and minority businesses will be disproportionately impacted so the only groups that aren't included in this would be child care providers and those who are making the tipped wages if I may I know c yeah if I may and markk you certainly can answer um uh council member Adams's question I think I just want to get clarity and I think what we have said to council member staff has said to council member Benjamin is that the types of questions and the inquiries he has posed is is approaching the leev the amount of staff time and research that requires a KN of three uh because it is so voluminous in terms of Staff time to answer his questions the amount of research required and I think that is what you're getting at coun member Benjamin is there interest enough to ask staff to do the amount of research required to answer the question to come before budget but I think Council uh council member Adam you

[161:00] posed a question that perhaps um Mark can answer because those two the respon the $200,000 is separate from anything that had to do with minimum wage um it was a different kind of support Mark um which Mark are we talking about wolf think talking about wolf you are council member W in this particular setting happy to to quickly answer Nur is correct that that amount is separate um Mark wolf assistant city manager um with that is a little the the $200,000 for economic Vitality is a little bit prospective recognizing that we do not have an updated economic Vitality strategy which we'll dive into in two weeks um so certainly um you know happy to expand on that but knowing that we don't have the exact um programs identified the strategy will help guide us uh to that uh but that was contemplated well before um the we were

[162:00] considering the impact of minimum wage okay thank you very much so so I mean we're kind of at an impass a little bit so just sounds like we need the three so do we have three two additional people that would be interested in um doing uh an investigation on a relief Pro process for those businesses and only those businesses that will be disproportionately impacted by the uh potential 8% uh which is what is currently being discussed um by Council there I ask a question on the table may I ask a question absolutely Mark W ask sorry I didn't I you you were breaking up there I didn't hear that question what is the size of the ask I it's not limited to one I think it's a it's it's going to be a range based on what's available I mean a good example is Staff has targeted a 15% wage increase well if we pick something below that there's an overage well some of that is maybe lined up in dedicated fund

[163:00] does it have to can it be a swap with the general does that free up $240,000 that we could use I mean these are these are these are interest these are questions that we have to sort of dabble in I mean a good example is uh liquor service is another interesting one like the liquor uh fee that generates $580,000 do we want to give a rebate of some percentage to business so it could be any combination I think that's why this is sort of to n's Point voluminous because it's just trying to figure out what are the what are the what are the pots and and is there like hey there's a there's we're gonna give a thousand bucks to folks or maybe there's one that can allow us to give 20 and we can pick anything in between I think it's that that's the volume that's the analysis part that I've reached the end of a personal Envelope as a council member to engage that wallet breaking up a little I'll try this this is this any better yeah this is beginning to sound like a work plan item um and I I have a little difficulty

[164:04] in adding workpl items on the fly so everybody has their own view of it and it could be a simple little thing we give a rebate on that's outside of a work plan I just don't know until we are allowed to explore that's that's what I don't have an answer for so if it's Dead on Arrival that that's fine too we can say that to our businesses um Matt in that analysis are you also considering support for the um families and individuals that are not going to be able to uh who are you know on the uh minimum wage that are are you know not going to be able to make in Meet either so that we're not only just focusing on those businesses that'll be disproportionately impacted but recognizing that even the even if we were to get to 15 that's not going to be enough either so with that propos I would be interested if that proposal was inclusive of reevaluating opportunities to expand our uh Elevate Boulder

[165:04] program uh it could be a part of that again it's a matter of what council I'm just trying to sample what council's will is the broader we the broader we make it the more money we have to find of course in order to meet those needs so okay um I I was starting with a more targeted sense just because I figured that's a little bit easier to take up nibble of um but again that's it's counil will here I've just reached the end of what I can do personally and if that if there's no support then I'll then I'll stop why let's get to anymore any more clarifying questions about what it is and then we'll do the straw poll um I also just want to lift up that you know I was already thinking about the Elevate program and I was just going to plan on going through and and making the proposal based on the process that was submitted by the FC SC so um you know uh Lauren comments on the question yeah I 30 and we didn't really have a preempt to this question

[166:00] beforehand it feels like um some detail maybe through a hotline post would help me feel more comfortable in terms of understanding what I would be potentially supporting or not I um just don't feel like the the for me it feels like there could be a lot of different options to explore and there are probably a number that I am uninterested in and if there was a hotline post sort of suggesting what direction we're looking at more specifics I might be willing to support something there but I think for just a general search um at this point in the evening do mind if I chime in with a process suggestion Taisha um because I think a not of three I think technically we're supposed to have those at business meetings um and

[167:00] so maybe uh Matt you might have a a CAC request um made with a possibly with the hotline as well outlining what you're talking about and we could consider it under matters for an out of three at a business meeting whatever process works all right sounds good thank you so much Matt um I did have one there was other thing that that got sucked into a black hole on that on that unless unless there's more clarifying questions on the relief stuff yes so I do just I can I can I add one thing to this conversation before it wraps up so it sounds like what we're doing is kind of opening a door to not um not necessarily kind of exploring things on our own but rather trying to get a not of three in order to go explore things that um we may be interested in and this does not feel like a um it that that feels a little treacherous to me so I would just like to um point that out I think that the door opens wide open then

[168:01] if it if if we're looking at proposing um budget changes based on a nod of three and asking staff to go and look for it and so to me this kind of fits back into what we had requested initially with uh regard to changes and I wonder if there's a way that at that um uh once once we've kind of seen everything uh via hotline is there a way for us to prioritize some of that as a group because otherwise I feel like we could get 10 different requests for um nods of three to go and explore things in a short period of time just feels a little slippery to me appreciate that I was just running on the general interest I heard at a previous conversation about interest in this kind of relief so I was just building on that so um but Point well taken I'll I'll do a hotline and go down that path and uh we shall see where that ends up so appreciate apprciate I'm definitely down to help uh would love to

[169:02] meet with you and and work through and try and find where we can again unrestricted uh for for both of our our INF on that one sounds great appreciate that the last thing I had was um just generally about um it was a question just kind of where does the user interface of this budget go um the quality of the budget is great but my question is where where can we work to better uh collaborate with staff to make the experience of exploring the budget easier more userfriendly um and and feeling like you have success without waste without burning hours upon time so I'm just open to figuring out does that mean to be Council L at some point because there's been a number of items that have been asked over the years and that haven't quite haven't been implemented or is that engaging Community to kind of say hey how would you like to see this information displayed in a way that's more digestible um so that's that's a question I have just about what what

[170:01] does that process look like on how we would go forward because we seem to have this conversation at the 11th Hour when we're in the midst of the budget and we don't talk about it for nine months before we get back to the state again so uh Pro yeah just usability navigability user interface to me would be a major thing for us to uh figure out what we want to do with thank you so much Matt um I could not agree more and I actually um Nicole I'm wondering if we could put this in the council process list as well um as something that is is certainly something we would love to take a bite at before next march W's y'all are there no more hands and there no more big macro things that folks would like to raise up before they send a

[171:03] hotline Nicole yes um first of all my anxiety is growing after two minutes ago when I said that conversation I or when I when I just express my my concern about heading into this um a situation where we're asking staff to explore different options so I just want to raise that um I don't know if others are kind of feeling some anxiety on that I just uh I'm feeling like this is going to lead us down a path where we are asking staff for all kinds of um Explorations that I think wasn't necessarily what FSC had had in mind um but anyway on the the sort of budget thing I just I will say this sound like a broken record to those of you who've been listening to me for a few years um but I just continue to believe that the money that we're spending on the SS program which is now proposing to go up to 3.7 million um for next year is

[172:03] really not the best use of funds to think about how we clean up our public spaces um every year we're spending more and more money on this program now being up to 3.7 million that's about three times where we where we are when we started um three years ago and I'll just kind of continue to to make this point that we're spending more money every year on a program where the problem we are trying to solve just keeps getting worse um we are seeing more tons of trash we're seeing more encampments cleaned up um and I I will just kind of continue to bring up that um this does not feel like a great investment though I appreciate the um you know the The Compassion of the folks who are involved in this work um it you know putting putting folks into a hard situation but um I can think of a lot of ways to spend 3.7 million right now um

[173:00] and the continuing to clean up people's trash doesn't feel like a great one to me thank you Nicole that is all I see Mark Mark wall yeah I'm not going to debate the SS issue this evening I you know um I probably I have a different view of it but that's neither here nor there I do want to agree with my colleague on her discomfort and apprehension um that we we not open the door towards a fullscale renegotiation of this budget um uh we need to have it in place somewhere before February and uh you know we will easily be doing it until February if we're uh if we're not careful so I I you know the the premise was um U make a proposal identify the offset and then we can discuss it from

[174:00] there and I I I hope we will adhere to um to that operating procedure um and uh I think that will work well for us and get this thing gets a budget passed in in uh due course thanks thank you Mark I see terara well you know how I feel about the Sam's budget but um do we plan on debating this because if so I need to get ready for the many things I have to say about that so it might not have to be tonight or is that just like a statement that you want to bring up because if that's the case I just want to bring up how important that Sam's budget is since for 3.7 million we certainly can't build a lar County not L County like Health uh facility or many other things so a lot of stuff our hands are tied behind our back it's supposed

[175:00] to be the county that's doing it nobody thinks this is the number one way to handle all the issues people have it's not really as expensive as so many other things that's all I'm going to say but I realized tonight's not the night to say that so I'm going to not say anymore and just to be clear I don't I don't intend to debate it that that's not my intention I keep stating this every year and I will continue to do that we've had this debate many times not trying to go back to it thank you again every you know new year new Council and so we will have opportunities to continue to debate this um coming up I see Ryan bring it in thanks I just wanted to uh as the third member of the financial strategies team agree with my colleagues that I'm I'm also anxious about this idea of opening up to a a a list of lists of questions about where to find money and look for it um I

[176:01] I just it feels like that could take a down a road that will be hard to end and certainly to hard to end in a timely way and um I have a lot of confidence in the default setting that our um team is giving us and so anyway that I'll I'll just uh agree with my two colleagues Nicole Mark thanks okay thank you so much any other hand before I bring in my comments um I just have a couple one um very interested in finding ways to increase and amplify the Elevate Boulder program in light of us not even coming close to meeting a minimum uh a living wage um not to mention minimum wage I don't play the minimum wage game because that was a game that's meant to fail uh but the um our responsibilities around um Elevate Brer I know we have a report coming up soon um but I am I will I will be working very hard on doing my math to make proposals on how to get

[177:01] there um and also want to just circle back to comments that Mark made in the hotline around uh behavioral health behavioral health which continues to be chronically underfunded um and so I'm eager to to work with any Council who would be interested in in finding ways to amplify and not only our own City's commitment but also um trying to help navigate um the and amplify the um work with our County around that effort um I would also want to uh say I'm excited about the efforts around economic vitality and bipac owned and operated businesses and women-owned businesses um and you know I know that Patrick is new and and but it's almost been you know it's been um a good amount of time and and I'm hopeful uh in the conversations that he's had with businesses that um there are some some directives based on the conversation

[178:01] that Tina and I were able to go to in the council chats uh am eager to um make sure that we're not just bringing people together to talk with them but we're actually making Investments and again these Investments are not charity these Investments are debt owed debt owed um the other piece that I would love to lift up here is people with disabilities um and just our process again disappointed to hear that we are not engaging and this is where I get upset about this equity and the way that this the word to me the word Equity is almost weaponized um because I hear it used all the time but I don't see it in implementation implementation Equity means meaningful participation and one of the most meaningful ways you can participate uh in our government is in how our resources are allocated and so it is my expectation that critical partners are engaged during the budget phase and it's very disappointing to hear um that um specifically the center for people with disabilities was not engaged considering how much uh

[179:00] engagement has been happening over the years around some of the other you know Parks and Recreation osmp Etc um but I am just hopeful that we can make some process oriented changes uh as we look to 2025 and and moving forward so that we have more participatory uh budgeting um opportunities for our critical partners and especially those who have been um dispossessed um discriminated against um and continue um to to face um discrimination because of the intersection of identities and and Mobility Etc so uh I'm eager to also find ways their their funding has also been flat this is why I keep asking about Health and Human Services um and finding out what programs and what communities are being served um and what communities are not so I'm eager to learn much much more uh I will in a broken record uh to Nicole but my broken record is where does our money go to support humans how effective is that money um and what can be reallocated to

[180:01] really amplify what we know is working um you know I come from the nonprofit space where there's the where there's the refrain of we're trying to work ourselves out of a job well um that's what we're going to be doing so um anywh who uh that's all I have uh at this moment I want to again thank um our incredible team and want to make sure that I'm not missing anything before I 05 so I just want to turn it over to Charlotte Cara or n nria to just make sure that I'm faithful to the process should I kick it back over oh T I see your hand oh not wait I was just if Tina doesn't have a question I just wanted to make sure staff didn't have any lingering clarifying questions or not but I think we've heard your um your questions your inquiries have a good sense and hopefully you will make an appointment with our uh wonderful team um so that we can hear more of what's on your mind and point of clarification the expectation

[181:01] is that we would have the hotline B out by the 23rd or that yeah just can we can I just get um some more clarity on when what the expectation is for us to submit Charlotte we don't get uh often time to give direction to council let's take advantage of that um so we have to get the council packet to you all by September 25th we're hoping to get all uh Council recommendations out through potline by the 23rd that we will then compile and incorporate into the memo that we'll share out to you all on the 25th okay thank you very much can I jump in for just a second I was trying to cly but I was on mute um just sorry um I just want to um I appreciate your comments about involving um different groups in every step I don't think the prior Council had set out the expectation of Engagement during the programming resourcing prioritization and the budgeting and I think that um

[182:01] that's something we should talk about is adding as an expectation understanding that that wasn't clearly set out at the beginning of this budget process I don't think um and I'm hoping that we can talk more about what that looks like over time with the different groups um I I I always appreciate your comments Tina I will say I did ask this explicit question during my pre-session at the um at my pre session I said hey what's the proess and they said oh yeah our critical partners are engaged from March to June and so and then I found out that wasn't the case for some of our critical Partners so I wanted to clarify but I I agree that having a shared expectation and and real Clarity around who those partners and stakeholders are moving forward will be absolutely critical so thank you thank you for bringing that up put myself on mute seeing no other hands uh again I want to thank the team

[183:01] for um putting this uh together all of the those who were engaged in the process um those who filled out the questionnaire those who went to the sessions our community connectors thank you so much uh for your participation um in this process and and know that we are um certainly Comm committed to continuing to make sure that we are transparent and as participatory as as possible moving forward um thank you so much for to my fellow council members for the rigorous conversation I look forward for more I strongly encourage us to continue our own little one-on ones um as we're moving forward um because we are better and stronger together but of course not uh breaking any laws by having more than two all right having said that I will go ahead and close us out at 904 thank you so much everybody have a wonderful rest of your evening night everybody