Council Work Session Meeting

1:41Welcome everyone to the May 2028 2026 City Council work session meeting our meetings are public and you're welcome to join us in person or by watching from the Council gender page zoom YouTube We also hope you continue to join us whichever manner you feel the most comfortable don't go too far away because I know what this is a work session During which there is no public comment Please join us on June the 2nd for 7 p.m. For more meeting to share your comments We of course welcome your feedback anytime you can send it by mail at PO box one four five four seven six Salix City Utah eight four one one four You can also email us your comments at Council dot comments at so at SLC dog off or you can also leave us a message at our phone

2:40line eight oh one five three five seven six five four The comments that we receive on agenda topics are shared with all of us on the council and also posted on our website at SLC dog off slash council our first agenda item is The resolution for the intention to designate the sewer house special assessment area. We're gonna welcome at the table Austin Kimmel council policy analyst Lauren a refugents and director of economic development Calling gives business development division director Analysts ward economic development project manager Austin. You can give us an introduction

3:22Great. Thanks council members the economic department of economic development is here to brief the council on a proposed resolution of intention to designate a new special assessment area or SAA in the sugar house neighborhood called the sugar house business district 2027 or SHVD 27 The SAA in the core commercial area of sugar house would focus on economic promotion and a second assessment would provide specialty lighting and signage and would be applied to properties on frontage along frontage of Specific streets which economic development will go over today The process to designate a new SAA is quite lengthy The administration has a detailed full timeline in its transmittal and it's included as a separate attachment in your packets

4:13six of the 48 steps involve the city council including this initial briefing at This stage the council is not asked to create to formally create the proposed SAA that would happen in 2027 if everything goes according to plan on June 9th the council is scheduled to act on this resolution of intention to designate which signals the city's intent to establish the SAA and it and begins in the administrative noticing and protest process I'll turn it over to Colin and Liz to go into more detail about the proposed SAA And there's some time at the end for questions. Thanks. Thank you Austin. Thank you council My name is Colin Gibbs director of business development division And beside me is Liz Ward project manager overseeing special assessment areas

5:05Today we also have with us James Roberts co-chair of the sugar house chamber and Ryan Smith financial analyst at Zion's public finance Again, I just wanted to reiterate that This is not a formal ask to create the SAA but only a briefing and an ask to adopt the resolution of intention to designate With that I'll turn it over to Liz for the briefing Thanks so much. Thanks for having us You can go to the next slide So as We're here to recommend that the city council adopt the intention to designate the sugar house business district As mentioned it would establish a economic promotion a special assessment area or SAA in the core commercial area of sugar house Based on taxable value and then includes a secondary assessment for signage and holiday lighting and then this SAA would be active for

6:08Three years with potential for renewal after it expires

6:14Just in background about our department's role in the process So we received it's been a it's been a long process So we received a request in 2022 from the sugar house chamber to look into auctions for an economic promotion SAA With planned road construction we paused that process and then received an updated request in 2025 So we've been working with the sugar house chamber to confirm that property owners on board since it's a self-assessment And then the potential services budget the assessment types Next slide So these are the boundaries of the area and it might be a little bit difficult to see but Essentially the north side it follows Ramona Avenue the east is 13th east south I-80 wrapping around Fairmont Park and then the west side is

7:04Seventh east and then the lighting and signage you can see highlighted in yellow, but it's on 11th east and Highland Drive on the north side Ramona Avenue all the way down to string of Avenue and then 21st south from 9th east to 13th east You'll notice on this map. So commercial properties are highlighted in red and then Multi-family housing with five or more units is highlighted in orange Those properties are eligible to be included but with discussions with the sugar house chamber They decided ultimately to not include it in this area just with concerns around housing prices So there's a potential to include that in the future with any renewals, but we'll not be included this round next side

7:44So tentative budget for the area in revenue We're looking at a base rate of 0.00249 on commercial taxable value in the area So they'll bring in about 1.5 million over three years and then that secondary lighting or signage assessment will be $13 per frontage square foot. So that'll bring in about a hundred thousand dollars So 1.6 million over the three year period the city has quite a few administrative costs associated with this process so staff time legal counsel property value analysis and then all the printing and like mailing notices requirement in state statute statute and then we have a 3% reserve of 50,000 that will keep just for any contingencies So these are the general tentative numbers and then more detailers in the transmittal

8:36But things kind of evolve as the process moves on as well

8:43proposed activities so these were

8:48Designated in cooperation with the sugar house chambers. So signage and hospitality services a proposed ambassador program Events that promote the unique business district identity marketing promotion business support Next slide And then just a note about The SIA process so it's governed and enabled by a state statute. So we have a lot of different little rules that we follow and and

9:18requirements through the process so If protests from property owners with 40% or more of the taxable value in the area protest the area We can't continue with the process so the council will hold a protest hearing and a protest period to collect those any of those objections and then another note is that parcels under $20,000 in valuation are excluded as well as residential ecclesiastical and government properties And then as noted multifamily housing with five or more units is eligible, but excluded from this one Next slide And then as mentioned It's it's a really long process. So we're starting the council actions in May of this year It'll conclude the council part of the process will conclude probably in February of 2027

10:06But we're looking at a number of actions throughout the next 12 months or so There's a more detailed timeline than in the transmittal but the first action will be potentially adopting this resolution of intent to designate at the potentially tentatively at the June 9th formal meeting and then holding the protest hearing adopting the resolution to designate pointing the board of equalization and Accepting or modifying those recommendations and then finally adopting the assessment ordinance, which makes the area official That's all any Council members number doing Thank you. Thank you for the presentation and the drive for this. How's this compared to the downtown?

10:50Saa Saa and size and scope and I would just mirroring it basically the same process that they went through Lessons learned and then with the property owners the same way Yes, we are following the same process that we did with the downtown CVIA it is much smaller footprint and so the the budget will be slightly it will be

11:22Smaller in proportion but yeah, everything else is same process

11:31One other thing that's similar with the downtown Saa is that this also Only assesses commercial properties as Liz pointed out. It's not assessing multifamily properties. I know that the downtown Alliance has had several conversations about you know given the changing Demographics of downtown that would it make more sense to assess residential properties?

11:53You know large multifamily complexes in addition to commercial properties. They haven't made that shift yet But I think that that's a conversation that's ongoing So it sounds like the sugar house chamber feels that it's not appropriate for the sugar house Saa to do that at this time either But that's something that's definitely on the table

12:14And is the Chamber kind of drive the process and we're just supporting them because this is their request for us the area not Hours, this is coming from them to us correct. Yes. This is community driven the city's role is to steward the process Okay No more comments I I see this as an investment by the neighbors and to the economic I mean, you know the landowners but you know the neighbors of the area to Keep the vitality the economic resilience and the you know a long-term vision for the area so You know highlights the identity of the neighborhood and it keeps this neighborhood as the top commercial one of the top commercial neighborhoods in the city so I'm very excited that we're unlocking this new set of tools for for this area

13:09So I'm looking forward to to seeing this investment by the community to their own community and I Many of us have trouble To visit other cities where they have a lot of them in different areas. So hopefully this shows

13:29You know many other You know chambers or areas of interest and to what? Resources they could have if they did this so I appreciate the presentation Any other questions? Okay, this was easy. So I appreciate the time. Thank you Thank you No item number two is the fiscal year 2026 2027 budget for the non-departmental

13:57Department The the catch-all department So which this year is much smaller than norm Austin Kimmock who's already at the table or can't suppose he on a list. I'm May both Thompson Chief Financial Officer I'm gonna join us to give us a brief explanation Thank you just a very quick introduction before I turn it over to Mary Beth This year's non-departmental budget is the second largest in the city it accounts for transfers to other funds grants and other special revenue funds that do not necessarily belong to a particular city department Although several of the line items in the non-departmental budget are administered by city departments This year's total non-department budget for the general fund is about

14:49107.7 million dollars representing a

14:5418.6 decrease from last year's budget Including all funding sources passed through the non-departmental account such as grant funds CDBG funds debt service and others the amount is nearly 299.7 million Policy questions for this discussion can be found on page two of the staff report and with that I will turn it over to Mary Beth and Lisa When you said department it kind of makes me laugh because there is no one over this department besides finance But Austin I think did a great summary of non-departmental budget, you know most of the

15:37Information that goes and budgets that go into this are for larger contracts transfers out to other departments and transfers out to other funds So that's the majority of this funding so it doesn't really have a home So, you know the budgets that don't have a home called non-departmental Lisa's gonna do this a little different than we've done in the past usually we've like given you all the details the details are there But we're gonna talk a little bit more about it at a high level the levels that I've kind of talked described to you right Contracts transfers so you can kind of see it in a little bit different light Then maybe key changes shows it and maybe the way that that the stack report shows it

16:17Yeah, thank you. You can move on to the next slide, please So like Mary best said non-departmental is kind of the home for all of the wayward items This budget includes you know transfer to the CIP fund for debt service the fleet fund transfers transfers to Funds like IMS risk public utilities like that those areas It also includes contractual obligations for transit indigent defense and animal control And it houses all the citywide kind of memberships and other civic support next slide So as Austin said to you the budget for non-departmental this year is 107 million seven twelve It is a reduction of about 24 million

17:15So I tried to set this up Sort of in a way to give you this high level overview of sort of the major areas of non-departmental if you go to the next slide It's so I want to can you go back that slide? So this is the non-departmental portion that does not include councils Non-departmental so council also has a bucket of about three hundred and fifty thousand dollars that total then would be a hundred and eight million dollars We separated it out as non-counseling council and departmental

17:50the next slide please So one of the major areas that non-departmental has the budget for is the general fund transfer to CIP So I've tried to break this down for you just to show you the major changes and you know Austin did a great job of the details and so the way I have folded these up may not exactly match some of the Items he's shown to you but the totals will you know will tie out in the end but that changed to debt service this year was a reduction of 1.2 million dollars this is because we're using impact fees one time to make that debt service payment So that that was the savings for non-departmental a little change to the city leases the contract for leases for the police department is an increase of 60,000

18:43ongoing capital replacement so this reduction is a removal of a couple of one-time items so we had some street lighting funds parks funding and Reduction of one-time funding for vacant buildings. So that reduction includes those Also a small reduction because as revenues go down that percentage of CIP changes And what I tried to do on here is show you the change and then show you the total budget in The categories like FOLF and then anytime there's a property tax impact. I've highlighted on here so you can see those and The total change there is

19:259.6 million reduction and so the total budget for this year in that department in that category will be 21 million 250

19:34And I just wanted to make sure to highlight for council members just because I've been popping in during other departmental briefings That 6.4 million is part of the property tax increase proposal So just about half of the property tax increase proposal is going to see IP and then there are specific projects that the mayor's budget book outlines for Coming from that property tax increase proposal if we wanted to go into that

20:02Yeah, thank you Jen if you go to the next slide actually I broke out By-project area where those funds are coming from so you can take a look at that I think we've shared that before but yeah 6.4 of the Non-departmental budget is related to the property tax and the CIP projects Next slide So another large part of the non-departmental budget are these other fund transfers And probably the biggest decrease that we're seeing here in non-departmental is that transfer of the CRA passed through to the new Pass-through fund So that that change this expense was housed in non-departmental and now we are moving that out Another reduction here this year is this one-time pause to the CRA housing plan transfer

20:542.5 million other Transfers in this area are a fleet replacement, right? So there's a slight change or a reduction there, but we do have a property tax impact of 264,000 to fleet replacement Fleet maintenance is also part of a transfer to fleet that increased by about $246,000 and then also the property tax impact in that area of 1,061,000

21:28This the other fund transfers also include a transfer to IMF and this covers all of the general fund IT related expenses The insurance and risk management fund had an increase of 2.1 million dollars part of that is the workers comp premium and Another part of that is a transfer for the take-home vehicle liability policy We also transfer some funding to public utilities. This is being reduced this year. We've been helping Contribute to the gun range remediation and the cost for that have been reduced this year I think this may be our last year on that. I'm not sure We also this reduction also includes the amount that we passed through to public utilities to pay for the high pass processing So since it's been proposed to eliminate that program that expense would go away

22:25We have there's no change here But I just wanted to highlight and make sure the totals balance for the environmental remediation fund of a hundred fifty thousand dollars And then to a sustainability fund for their E&E operations There's no change there, but I did want to note that a portion of that is coming from the property tax increase Any questions on that one Thanks Thank you. Okay, next slide

22:57So another large part of what makes up non-departmental our contractual items We have contracts for our legal defenders, which is for our indigent defense and that contract is increasing this year I believe they are hiring some new staff members to help with that process So you're seeing that increase and some of it is related to the property tax increase Our swords and center contract we have an agreement with the county that There was no change there, but again, I wanted to highlight what the total budget for that is On the bus fare programs We have a couple of them the high pass is being proposed to be eliminated But we do continue to have a low income and free fare programs that are included in this transfer

23:44Transit plan is also included in these contractual items. This is the amount we pay to UTA there's a slight increase there of fifty thousand dollars as can Propose to reduce the outreach budget for UTA

24:01Public lands has a few contracts. They're increasing by about a hundred eighty five thousand dollars this year These are increases to our animal service contract that we have with the county Also a budget for Tracy aviary and the sugar house park

24:17Slight increase in our city hall security. That's basically just salary increases or a cola adjustment for the security officers that work in the building and the total change to those items is about 765 thousand dollars the total budget there is 18 million 823 Any questions about contractual stuff?

24:42Okay, next slide, please So the other portion of this budget is for contributions and civic support. These are things like our apprenticeship program This year we are taking with one time pause to that funding It is a popular program and departments do use it But it seems they've been you know sort of covering those expenses themselves So we feel like a one time pause is is okay this year

25:13This we also budget for retirement payouts and tuition This is a bucket that's in non-department. Oh, there's no change to that But the total budget there for those items is a million sixteen thousand

25:26We have costs in non-departmental for municipal elections for 2027 There are no elections, but there will be Some costs related to building up for the next year. So those are included here the arts Council there's a small reduction of 125 thousand to some of their programs this year Economic development has some grants and memberships

25:55The Swazzo the World Trade Center sister cities things like that so they manage those memberships and contracts There's no change to their budget, but I just wanted to highlight the total there is about four hundred eight thousand dollars a year other civic support is a reduction of about 302,000 The biggest portion of that is we had a one-time amount in non-departmental for the National League of Cities and Towns Conference and that One-time amount has been removed, but there's also other memberships Related to this YWCA ace the ace funding we have lobbyists cost in there things like that And then the downtown Alliance There's no change there because we had a four hundred thousand dollar budget for open streets

26:45Which we've repurposed to pay for the temple square reopening So the total change there is a reduction of six hundred forty eight thousand and the total budget four point six Questions on that yes, maybe I clarity on some of any questions from you guys

27:15They on the other civic support We you have immediately more information about the remove one-time NLCT conference So yeah, so the city hosted that conference last year and so the mayor's office did have a budget for that 250,000 I believe and it was a one-time expense that's being removed here Oh, I see Yeah, and we are located the fun for because we were hosting

27:48Okay, and it was a one-time suit, you know, so that's what they change

27:55Next slide So one of the other bigger changes in non-departmental is to Funding that we were housing here for the police department

28:08Some of this will remain some of this budget. We were transferring actually back to the police department so they can better manage it But there's a couple of changes here the body cameras and software There's a increase of a hundred and eighteen thousand there due to the number of licenses. So there's an increase there But the social worker program that budget we are moving that back to the police department You know, they have the FTES and they have been Absorbing the expense and billing non-departmental So we think this will be a lot cleaner way to do that and hopefully start reducing the budget here the other things that were Changing there the real-time crime center an alternate response program

28:49There were some one-time costs that we are removing this year, but the other portion of this is

28:57transferring that budget to PD the remaining amount this 153,000 that's left there is just an ongoing budget we've had for real-time crime center tech enhancements So that will remain in non-dea The police training program there's a small increase there and the total The remaining budget is in FOF 196,000 so the total change there is a reduction to non-department although like I said a lot of that budget will be moved to PD and the total police amount there is 2.289 And council members this is one that May come up in the form of public comment just because Several people in the public have noted that the police department budget is increasing technically that is true but a large part of the increases because of this shift from

29:51FTEs that were accounted for non-departmental shifting to PD those FTEs were always Managed essentially by the police department they reported to the police department and so Functionally they fit in the police department Yeah, thank you for that clarification Jen any questions about PD No, no I think that's it next slide Yeah, so that's what we have for you today. Hopefully that was a good cliff notes version of non-departmental if you have any questions

30:28Mr. Yes, go ahead. Thank you. If you could take us back to slide two The CIP transfer slide I'm really you know I really

30:45Appreciate all the work that we've been doing to trim the budget, but I'm also concerned about you know some of these pauses for one time funding or using Impact fees to do something for the future and on the non-no actually slide three. Sorry the next slide whatever the next slide is let's see

31:04Next one I didn't count very well the CIP transfer The debt service, you know, we're using impact fees for 1.2 $3 million for the debt service But next year are we looking forward to continue to use that impact fees? This is one time and how do we So these impact fees are fire impact fees for the two fire stations that live in the LBA We do this about every three years So impact fees accumulate to a certain amount once they accumulate to that amount then we use the impact fees instead of using general fund funding So about once every three years on average is about what it's been as it is this just general fund debt simply just to paint off different bonds or is it an LBA debt Or two fire stations

31:52Local building authority such fire stations that we have in the local building authority instead of using general fund funding to pay that debt We use fire impact fee funding to pay that debt And we do that every three years, okay, okay? portion A portion of those stations are impact be eligible because they were related to the growing population. So gotcha. Okay, appreciate that On the same on this but also just on that same note here. No, that's really the just to some of my questions here. You know the the ongoing capitol replacement and the new CIP you know were One time removal of streetlights, but is that ongoing maintenance because is that gonna be We'd now just pushing that down the down the road here and the same thing with CIP projects were we in 7.4 million from CIP new CIP projects

32:45And that concerns me just that because that's the projects that we're looking to improve our city and now we're not we're using that to not for capital anymore but to other cost and I'm concerned that our Capital side will be ended with some deferred maintenance and not really moving forward with some of the stuff and that is our street budget

33:09Being reduced Because our new projects has been reduced also to cover some of the general fund And I know that's that's at six point four million dollars

33:29Okay Well, what I would say about the street lighting first of all is that was a one-time amount last year for additional lights We still have an ongoing amount that we pay to public utilities to maintain So that the maintenance is still there and it's included in our budget. Okay, okay And then okay I'm really just concerned like we're taking funds that we normally go to the CIP projects and That is a sometimes those are Wants sometimes just there but there are a lot of these and there a lot of that is in the streets of the house Very few of them coming just just for nice nice programs nice to have programs and we're taking them funding So seems like we're taking funding from that away

34:20to offset things and I'm just concerned is that we're pushing this problem down the road and And This goes back to my I always bring up deferred maintenance and other deferred projects and I'm going to okay We're pushing things down the road. It's gonna end up actually cost us more down the road So that's my just concern on that and are we setting ourselves up for having?

34:43Less money going to CIP projects in the future because we're using it now to balance the budget here So we're actually not reducing the budget. We're actually moving the budget from the general fund portion to the property tax portion, but we have to show it as a reduction because it's got to go through truth and taxation and be adopted with the final budget instead of the tentative budget that you can adopt by June 30th So I think maybe another way to put it would be that it's swapping existing general fund money that's going to CIP with the property tax money and because the property tax money Based on the new state law is not real until you guys adopt the tax increase in August whether you adopted or not

35:34That's why it has to be called out separately. So hypothetically if you do not adopt a property tax increase That funding for CIP will not be there. Okay, but because we're doing it. We're still using that funding to For those projects that six foot boy, okay and then But on those six projects then we just probably need to look at you know Where those six projects are going to then we can look at those individually if we need to at some point Yeah, they're on the next slide. Yeah, yeah, they're on the next exactly Yeah, you will probably have that discussion probably in July of having those discussions before you do your property tax truth and taxation and You know, I get adoption. Yeah, Jennifer can speak to that more, but I think that's where you will have those discussions

36:24Yeah, we're clarifying some things with the tax commission in terms of What our August meetings look like if you remember we Usually adopt CIP before the end of August because you guys are not now not allowed to have any other business on the day of the truth Taxation hearing including work session You will likely be adopting CIP on a different day in August potentially after the truth and taxation hearing that might be better Anyway, because then you'll know for sure how much money you have to work with So that'll be in August and then the

37:05That's thanks. That's all I have right now any other questions Okay, I Think that we are we're through it. Thank you. Oh, yes Consumer Youngs have joined us online Thank you I you often think about the non-department tool, you know Budget line item as that drawer, but we have everybody has in their kitchen with all those things are there random things I remember we used we put from the council side some funding in there when they didn't fit a specific department Because it was maybe potentially available for multiple departments to draw from so it's an interesting place And I should just add because it's such a collection of Different expenditures as you point out if council members have any questions that come up as we're thinking more about the budget

38:08Please don't hesitate to reach out to council staff and ask us more. We'll be tracking that for our result issues discussions Thank you moving on to item number three, which is again It's called your 2026 2027 budget discussion for the Department of Public Utilities Follow-up and utility bill 101 we're gonna welcome at the table Jesse Stewart public utilities deputy director crystal Chen Public utilities outreach manager and Chloe Moroni Public utilities communications and engagement manager Also available for questions. We're gonna have maybe a Thompson chief financial officer

38:57Start over. Thanks for having us here. It's a pleasure to see all again person We will kind of kind of a two-part Presentation today. We've got a video that Chloe and Crystal put together that explains the rate or the the bill and once we go through that I will then do a demonstration or a few demonstrations of the rate tool for single family or residential or multi-family I'm not sure who's pulling up the video, but we will pull that up or are there any questions ahead of time

39:47Have you ever looked at your utility bill and wondered what these charges actually mean? Well, let's walk through it together for single family duplex and triplex customers This is your account number You'll need it to create an online account make payments or use our online portal to track your water use Your water charges include a service fee and a usage charge These are used to maintain the infrastructure that delivers clean drinking water to your home like treatment plants and underground pipes The service fee is based on your water meter size The usage charge is based on how much water you use our tiered rate structure It means the more water you use the more you pay per unit of water. This structure encourages conservation

40:34Your utility bill also includes charges for waste and recycling services These charges are based on the number and size of waste containers that you have These charges are managed by the city's sustainability department rather than public utilities You may be able to lower this charge by requesting a smaller garbage can size through my SLC

40:56The sewer portion of your bill includes a monthly service fee and a flow charge often referred to as average winter consumption or AWC The service fee is $3.70 per dwelling unit For residential customers single family duplex and triplex units The flow charge is based on how much water you're sending into the sewer system The best way to estimate the amount of water that goes down the drain every month is to use winter time water Consumption as a basis and that's because in the winter usage is typically indoors

41:30Stormwater fees are based on your property size and how much runoff is created from hard surfaces like roofs and driveways Street lighting rates are based on where you live in the city the density of the lights and if you have any decorative fixtures

41:46Like many cities Salt Lake City charges a utility franchise fee for the use of public streets and rights of way for infrastructure like water sewer and stormwater pipelines This fee is calculated as 6% of your water sewer and stormwater charges and goes into the city's general fund to support community services Please reach out if you have questions regarding your bill or rates Public utilities offers a variety of programs and resources to help you save water and lower your bill visit slc.gov utilities to learn more All right round of applause No, I think it's really well done video and Chloe's here and Crystal here This will be posted on our website and I think on the city's main website to once you do the rate pages

42:38I think it's a good kind of step-by-step through the bill I'm going to show a very similar version of that when I do the rate tool Just to kind of highlight the bits and pieces of information that we need to pull off the off the bill or someone I need to do to do the rate tool Anything else you guys want to add on that?

42:56Okay, all right. Well, I'll go ahead and share my screen now and

43:02Run through the rate tool as we go if it shows up for everybody And I might actually

43:27So anyway, let's run through the the the rate tool here. I just trying to pull up need to a different share I'm gonna share something else real quick But I could toggle back and forth what I can't So I'll share this real quick So this is the information similar to what Chloe just said This is the information that a resident or a customer would need to have to be able to figure out how to use the rate tool So up here we got the service fee Again, that's just the size of meter you have so we have to they have to input the server the meter size to get things They'll also need their total water use for the month. That's right here and in a CCF 100 cubic feet. So 291 is a big user their flow charge again for this for a

44:12Single duplex and triplex that's gonna be a WC average winter consumption. So it's actually called flow charge, but they'll need that number right there total sewer flow Our total sewer costs and total water cost to make sure the tools working correctly and then the billing period Again, this is a summertime August into September So those are all the bits and pieces that will need to be able to have on here to To run run the tools. I've got to figure out how to get to my other one So I'll share again stop share used to teams Let's see

45:00This one So now you got the rate tool picked up and I've got a selection of just various types of bills that I've redacted I mean who they're from They're just redacted bills. We pulled up so I can have some real real real real examples here Okay, so the first thing you want to determine you want to look at water or sewer or both If you're in the county it'd be water only if you're in the city You can do water singly or you can do sewer or you can do a combined I'm gonna go ahead and pick both so pick water and sewer the next thing is an ask is what type of customer are you?

45:30Are you a single family? Residents that duplex or triplex or multi-family, which is four plex and above? The example I've got here is a single family. So I'll say residential single family It's located in the city of the county again different rates for water in the city of the county and county doesn't have any storm or sewer charges Then we need to pick the season again. This is gonna be in August to September bill I've got the service fee or the meter size. This is a toggle down You can pick the meter size you've got here and then the number of dwellings if I put in Say I put in 12 here. It'll actually give me a you'll give me a Disclaimer that it can't take it because I've already clicked residential

46:14So I'll go back and say this is a one one unit And then I'll go into the consumption. So again, this is a fairly high summer use consumption as you'll see when I enter this 291 number Jennifer Just really quickly for for those who might not know what their meter size is is there an easy way for something? Yeah, so that so if you go back to the bill which we showed earlier, there's it's up here and it says Service fee with a number with an inch sign next to great and we'll have that called out I think we're working to add that to this so the call outs on the tool So you can say I need my meter size and it'll it'll show on an actual bill what that is gonna

46:57Yeah, that's that's why I highlight that because if you're not a jit not used to looking at you and be like I don't know what size my meter is so and meter sizes community thing from 3-quarter to 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 3 4 6 8 10 12 depending on the size of customer you are Okay, so this is a 1-inch meter here Again one dwelling 290 units in this month and their AWC was four So I hit calculate charges

47:24Scroll down

47:28And then what I like to do is with this bill You can go back and actually check to make sure you've entered everything right because the old structure right here Should actually have the numbers from your bill should be very close One thing the rate tool is based on a 31 day month Sometimes our reads are 29 days sometimes they're 33 days. So it might not be precise unless you have a 31 day read on your bill But this one says 14 28 94 that's it and 37 94 for Sewer total so I've got that and then you can look over here and look at the difference with the new structure So this is going to go up on water from 14 28 to 16 97 and from 37 94 to 48 94

48:14Let me do another one. This will be a It's to a four plex so I'll come back up Water sewer again. It's no longer residential. It's multi-family. This is again in the city This bill is again. It's a summertime bill Their meter size is three-quarter inch So we'll drop that back I've got to put in four units here 44 4 and then their consumption is

48:4733 and their AWC is 23.1 and I'll verify that I've got the calculations correct 133 and 212 and you can see this one goes up to 163 and this one actually goes down on sewer from 212 to 195.6 So there's no there's no Real average bill we've got it all kind of depends on how people use their water That they don't use a lot of indoor water Then it'll show one thing if they use a lot of outdoor water in the summertime It'll show a different thing and it depends on if your single family or multi-family I've got a whole stack of these I can run through this for as long as you care or I can go to questions No, I think that was useful. I you have a good tool there, you know, I I Are there ways to find out if people are using it how many you know people are actually accessing the system?

49:49Most of it's me demoing it so I probably got 50 of them so far so subtract 50 from whatever you know No, no, no, I and I want to like find out if like people are using it I was just wondering if you know, I wonder if there are privacy issues with this, but our water bills have you know User number. I wonder if you could just put your user number seems like a more complex database Certainly, but and then it will pull some of this information already, right?

50:15Like they you know your meter size and how much the water, you know Do you use and populate some of this information? Yeah to make it that automated be very hard with our current billing system or any billing system possibly So I think the best way is for people to just look at their bill Yeah, and then manually enter this

50:35I mean this is quite busy, but I still can see a barrier for a lot of people And if people have questions they can always call and our customer service can help walk into this I wonder if you will like to make a video similar to what you did with the bill Side-by-side with it. I thought that I thought that's what I was doing early on and then it they changed I thought oh thank goodness, but we can do we can do a video if we need you have already half of it Right and then you can say, you know, this is where the meter You know because it doesn't say meter size or pipe size or whatever, you know I wish I wish the bill said that right because then you can use the same And that's why we would like to include I think we're gonna try to embed something here in this big white blank space

51:15So that it can be a kind of this top portion of a bill so you can actually say oh meter size And it'll actually have a call out this is here's your meter size and it'll say here's your winter consumption or here's your monthly consumption Yes, we're trying to we're trying to make it very easy so that people can just have a that That a visual cue to say what are we looking at because otherwise?

51:38Yeah, the way it's listed from our from our billing system is as service fee Yeah, and you know what that means you're not gonna know what that means. There's nobody obvious I wonder if we can change that for the bill itself to in the future I'm not sure with our I can ask if we can change that on our current billing system I'm not gonna guarantee that but we'll try to make it user friendly with the visual here folks Council members any question

52:07The I Did notice and that Box in my water bill this month. I there was a little message You know talking about you know the drought and you know, so I appreciate that. Yeah the box here on that kind of I hope that we use we use more of that Because remember warden. Do you have a comment?

52:31Question Actually, I thought I did but I think I want to maybe talk offline more about

52:42Follow questions I have

52:46That's a member of butra Thank you any attempt at understanding this and giving controlled people over their bills and knowledge is really appreciated So I'm just looking at my bills Walking through this as you're doing it and I noticed last month in May for my May bill I used three cubic feet But the April I used five and I can't tell you what I did to account for that difference Can we do more educating I can't tell you what the difference of two cubic feet is so it's two it's actually 200 cubic feet is what it be so that's 100 cubic feet is 748 gallons so it's and that one teenage shower like When I had my team is living at home Yeah, what I'm struggling what I'm struggling with is and in my neighborhood five dollars a month will make the difference between

53:48If a senior is able to have protein in a meal or not So these are really really big considerations in my neighborhood. So if I'm trying to optimize I Tend to be a conscientious person and I can't account for what happened in April that would have been different Can we do some educating and assisting us in understanding?

54:12Like none of none of these Measurements mean anything significant in the daily life So can we start to help people so that for me when I learned that flushing a toilet is an issue? I started talking to my kids about flushing toilets, you know and and turning off the Water when you brush your teeth. So if we can Educate people on what is being measured Because as I look at it the only portion of my bill that I have control over is how big my can sizes and How much water I use?

54:44Everything else stays fixed. So for me, I have about a hundred dollars a month that is fixed but I have nothing I can do about So if the only lever of control and manipulating our costs is our water usage Can we start to help people understand? immediately I think our Conservation page and Stephanie Durer has a lot of that breakdown for what you know What a shower would be or what a lawn watering be so we can pull that forward and make that more prominent Or we can even let's talk we get with the box here. We could we could put some examples of yeah That would be really like what did I do in April?

55:21Yeah, I don't know if you were if you water because the heat spell or you can ask my neighbors my yard is terrible They hate it. I don't know but but I think From my neighborhood the most meaningful education we can do is how can we control costs? And if that water is how we control costs and it's being measured in obscure metrics that don't translate to direct actions Then we're not giving them all the tools so if we can if that can be the next kind of line of thinking that we push in I would really appreciate that. That's a great suggestion I think we can we can definitely tailor some things along those lines for individuals who might not have big lawns or anything like that But the simple things they can do they can add up. Thank you

56:00And I love that suggestion because more patrol And I wonder if they can be connected to the kinder that the city creates about watering your lawn you know and You know because we suggest people to water, you know fewer times than most people do And then people will might say oh, I don't need to water if four times this week You know the city is recommending that our minimum to two times a week or something or once you know I wonder if that those two pieces of information Can be connected within the bill at least to give options to people because that's a very tangible option I know that one of your constituents comes from a patrol Hallway posted the calendar on the Rose Park community page about telling people

56:46This is one usual water your your land. So that was Educational in my neighborhood. This is translating to I have had two senior women who have spent their entire lives gardening Who are so afraid of this rate increase that they have said they're not going to put in systems this year? I don't know meaningfully how much how many CCF watering your garden adds on water usage so if people are making these terrible decisions and I and I hate it because they don't want to invest this money now but that $25 a month Later when gas is at $7 a month because this war is gonna go on forever and gas gets there you know like I worry about the availability of The food that they need and the price of it they'll spend more than that later

57:32So I just think for us for our families who are living paycheck to paycheck who are trying to make pennies do the work of Dimes I think giving them every tool to evaluate like how much is watering a garden through a drip system really going to add to your bill and Allow them to compare that to the opportunity cost of having to potentially buy the food later on when things get worse Yeah, we'll we'll work on some options for both kind of indoor use now to reuse for for residents themselves We I know we've got information we can tailor that a little bit more. Okay now I want to Exign post a little more about what what I'm hoping I I know you communicated Jesse with one of my constituents about this

58:13so the thing I would like to look into is Like the possibility of having a flat sewer rate for Apartments So I don't need an answer right now, but that's something else. I would like to explore going forward Thank you. I remember being on the staff side of the County Council what it feels like a couple of lives ago

58:46And the they were talking about Adding fees for per toilet that you that you have because you know it translates into likeness to use more water, right? and They were creative You know thinking about in the county side back in the day and on the roll

59:11And you know For municipal services that the county provides to us base now that they don't but when I worked there They did so this has always been a question about you know trying to match the use and the the user with our billing system and it's hard so any other questions

59:38Okay, she's great Thank you so much for the can I add something really quickly I just want to thank the strike team that came together to work on this I think the collaboration is fantastic. You have a whole bunch of really smart communicators and room together And I think we put together some really good messaging and so I'm just very grateful for all of that All of that help that we got so yeah, I appreciate and that website is great Sorry for like picking it apart, but like we are we love how easy it is. Certainly, you know, it's not easy for everybody That's it's hard to do but we obey the video is amazing too So we hope to share it ourselves with our own Networks to make sure that most people see it. So thank you for the work. Yeah, thanks

1:00:26We're going to go to we're gonna skip the break council members. I felt like, you know, we we're okay No, I'm not asking So I we're moving on to item number five fiscal year 2026 2027 budget for the fleet fund

1:00:46and Sylvia Richards comes a policy analyst are is going to join us to give us a brief introduction or hichamora public services director It's going to join us and Julie Crockston Public services deputy director are gonna join us the table Sylvia Thank you, mr. Chair fleet Is a division of the public services as you know, and it's an internal service fund Meaning that its revenues are generated by transfers from the general fund and enterprise fund departments Plate has 48 FTEs who support departments citywide with the purchase maintenance repair and replacement of all vehicles and equipment used by general fund departments for Fleet also provides fueling and inspection services for general fund vehicles for 2027 fleets expense budget is proposed to be

1:01:5227.3 million an increase of 3.6 million or 15.4% There are some key topics that Jorge and Julie can discuss during their presentation first is their proposal to increase fleets Centralized maintenance budget by 1.06 million from the property tax increment second using 3.9 million in funding our future for vehicle replacement of public safety vehicles and equipment for fire police and streets Third is a recent increase in the price of fuel which we're all feeling now Fourth having 1.4 million less than is projected to be needed to Fund maintenance and repairs of older general fund vehicles and fifth new ideal funding chart and graph of vehicle replacement Which would help the city reach industry standards by 2033 and with that I'll turn the time over to Julie and to Jorge

1:03:02Thank you, Sylvia. Good afternoon Council Today with me Julie Crookston you only get us to hear today and

1:03:15All right, I'll do my best to fleet being fleet keep it as straightforward as last time for the department So let's go with this

1:03:26Next slide please At the risk of Re-stating Silvia uses introduction I'll tell you that fleet as a division of the public services department has 48 FTEs and one part-time employee We do maintain all vehicles and equipment assigned to general fund departments as well as many Vehicles and equipment assigned to enterprise funds such as golf public utilities and waste on recycling

1:04:03for reference in The general fund the inventory includes over 1400 on-road 186 off-road assets and these are not side-by-side ATVs when we say off-road assets we're talking about skits tiers back hoes from and loaders and others It also includes 179 pieces of non-self-propelled assets. These are trailers generators snowplow blades and others as well All right, next slide, please

1:04:43Talking about accomplishments I'll mention that last year we established the executive fleet steering committee with representation from departments across the city The goal is to better guide policies impacting fleet assets. This includes vehicle use replacement priorities as well as rate development Additionally this year a loner pool policy was created and adopted to guide the use of loner vehicles Adding controls and preventing abuse and misuse of loner vehicles next slide, please We'll talk about a few found efficiencies this year. We integrated faster, which is our asset management software With geotab, which is our telematic system to better capture Automated readings on an automated basis. This reduces the

1:05:41manual error when people are entering their automator readers into the pump This allows us to show the current status of our assets and more accurately project maintenance needs

1:05:58Additionally We understand that shop availability for preventative maintenance is crucial to serve our city customers and keep downtown down time to a minimum So over the last several months We analyze our technician performance and determine that there was an opportunity to add four more appointments per day to perform preventative maintenance Those are a couple of found efficiencies over the last last year And I'm gonna turn it to Julie to get into the meat and potatoes of our budget Thank you Jorge next slide, please fleets budget is essentially two parts. There's the replacement fund and the maintenance fund So we're gonna talk about those separately. So we'll start with the maintenance fund

1:06:46The maintenance portion of the budget functions as an internal service fund as Sylvia has said Meaning we charge out of the departments for our services So we receive the revenue for our budget from both enterprise fund billings and the general fund Within the maintenance budget. There's two main sections Which is fuel and then maintenance and repair and we'll discuss fuel on the next slide but first I wanted to Address some things that Sylvia mentioned so while this budget does show an increase from last year's budget Which we could discuss in greater detail of desire to but it also contains a reduction of 1.4 million to the portion of the maintenance budget That's charged to the general fund

1:07:31This reduction doesn't represent a reduced need But after conversations with the administration it was determined that that cut was necessary to balance the city budget So our plan to manage that reduction is to reduce Non-cost effective repairs. We still want to focus on preventative maintenance to keep our newer assets in the best condition possible but assets They're already past their useful life and eligible for replacement that are still in use because we haven't been able to replace them yet if they have catastrophic breaks such as an F-150 has an An engine failure in the transmission needs replaced The high cost and time of that repair would be such that it would be deemed a non-cost effective repair

1:08:16And so we will not be able to perform that repair with this 1.4 million reduction So the plan would be to discuss with that department saying do you have any other redundancy of your assets? Can you cover this if they don't have enough redundancy to cover their operations? Then we would start preparing documentation for the upcoming BA next year to say to inform Council of this is the asset that broke This is why the repairs on cost effective. Here's what the cost is Here's what the cost of a little replacement of the asset would be here's the impact to city services This department hasn't had the asset This is what they haven't been able to do because of it and then have that discussion with you next year as those issues come up

1:08:57So if we can go to the next slide the We want to Quick that this type of Non-cost effective repairs over the last year we have registered about 1.2 million dollars on those type of repairs that It costs us more to repair the the asset than what we will get out on an auction for it Just for reference

1:09:27So to discuss fuel We know councils had some questions about this as we showed in the previous slide There's about 3.5 million allocated for fuel purchases. You'll also see each department requesting some fuel money in their budgets That's so that they can pay fleet for the fuel that we purchase We've all experienced the very volatile fuel market this year We've all seen it But as you can see from this chart most of the fuel prices that the city has purchased have had dramatic increases since January and January is when We first projected the fuel budget for the city The decision not to increase the fuel budget since those January projections was made strategically Due to the volatility of the market it's very difficult right now to predict prices even a couple months out

1:10:14Let alone a year out and typically we try to base our projections off of the energy Information administration data that comes out of the federal government, which is EIA But right now, there's not predicting accurate costs or even today's prices What they are listing here in this chart isn't what we are paying our current vendor And so it was decided to leave the fuel budget as is because the market is so volatile We plan to communicate with departments very consistently next year and work with central finance to monitor the fuel budget And monitor what changes happen next year for the fuel budget All right, if we want to go to the next slide We're now going to discuss the replacement side of the fleets budget

1:11:05So we're requesting nine point five million dollars for replacements of assets in the budget book Our key changes will show more than that But that number includes money to purchase new assets that departments have been requesting throughout this budget process Which you may or may not approve so for replacements is just nine point five million If we want to go to the next slide We wanted to set the stage for why talking about the replacement fund is so important and The impact that it has to city operations. So in fleet industry The ideal is that Municipal fleet should have no more than 15% of their fleet eligible for replacement at any given time The reason for that is that allows maintenance to be very preventative

1:11:53Focused and to maintain the assets rather than being reactive to catastrophic breaks Currently for the general fund we have over 27% of our assets eligible for replacement So they should have been replaced before now, but we're continuing to use them The value of replacing those today would be about 53 million dollars The percentage of this backlog is important because not only does it represent increases to maintenance budgets But it represents a real impact to operations of the city Assets that are overdue for replacement tend to have more Repairs needed and they tend to be more Expensive the cost to fleet maintenance of these overdue assets are anywhere from six to nine percent compared to their newer counterparts

1:12:40We pictured some examples here, but I'm just gonna highlight the snow plows last year we had two different examples of a snow plow that broke on the side of the road and it was Overdue for replacement. We'd had it for like multiple multiple years and the volume of repairs was quite a Extensive it needed axles it had oil leaks. There were king pings that needed to place the wheels had problems the lights had problems, etc The repairs cost over $40,000 which was more than this asset would have received an auction had it been sent to auction and it was down for repairs for 12 weeks Due to the difficulty of finding parts and the complication of the repairs needed so that meant that our Streets team who uses this asset didn't have it for 12 weeks

1:13:27So there's real impact to city services with these older assets that have longer repair times needed So we want to go to the next slide

1:13:38This is the graph that Sylvia was mentioning previously As you can see the red line demonstrates if we maintain our current level of funding that we've historically gone for the past few years Which is about $10 million By FY 33 We'll have over 44% of our Assets eligible for replacement which just increases the likelihood of those assets having these longer repairs that are needed Which will impact city services?

1:14:08We performed an analysis that Shows the amount of money that would be needed each year to get closer to that 15% which is industry standard This was purely just said okay in about seven years if we want to reach that goal in seven years What money would it take that those are the only two parameters? We didn't FY 33 was just kind of an arbitrary date But that's what this graph demonstrates If we want to go to the next slide So this top chart shows that with the 9.5 million we're requesting in replacements this year We broke it down by allocation by department and so with the 9.5 million We'd be able to buy about 63 assets we coordinate very closely with departments on these We don't just buy them something we want to make sure we're getting them what they need

1:15:01So once we know what funding is allocated we have conversations with them The lower bar chart just shows that if we received the 22 million that would I be ideal level of funding We'd be able to purchase about 200 assets all of which are currently eligible for replacement and That would get us closer to that 15% ideal and That is the meat and potatoes that we have for you today. So we'll now take any questions that you have

1:15:35So those numbers of eligible for replacement are only those that you calculate according to age or their usage like the miles put on them or something How many do we have that require a replacement on an average year that just happened through accident right through becoming totaled or Something how many is it is it a notable addition to that because that this feels like a very baseline kind of calculation Right, what's the wiggle on top of that the majority of the assets that have catastrophic breaks were already eligible for replacement now Accidents can occur The police department probably has the highest number of accidents. Some are the police officers fault Some are you know someone else ran into them

1:16:19The average for that over the past few years is about like six to seven vehicles for the PD department I don't have the exact numbers for the other departments But I will say it's much less than the already eligible for replacement It does happen, but those that are eligible for replacement have a higher chance of breaking So would you qualify that then as a negligible addition if we're able to get to that 15% invest that much Would you say whatever else happens by accident or by you know?

1:16:51Chance it's negligible compared to that. Yes, okay. I

1:16:59Appreciate that and thanks to numbers and it is

1:17:04You know that 27% that are past the life Expectancy is a high number and it's hard to get that back down. I mean your numbers just show you that We're never gonna get there unless we really have to let's we spend some money and that's and it's never gonna get The numbers can keep on going up Specifically as we shows it on our current weight

1:17:28And with also that Those are older cars and older vehicles their fuel efficiency also kind of isn't as good possibly I don't know if our fuel costs and how that works and replacement but First of all just something replacements out of the house the maintenance of

1:17:50hybrids plugins 100% EV How do we base how do we determine when we're going to go all EV or hybrid as far as maintenance cost and Long-givity costs for those those cars We look at that and how how much of a difference does it make if it's a fully V or if it's a full hybrid as far as cost are concerned so We found a chart a couple months ago that breaks maintenance cost down by like cost per mile and I can find that chart again and recent it to the council I can't remember the exact numbers, but I know that like yes gas vehicles the most expensive by like 10 to 20 cents per mile hybrids or less and then Depending on the EV it's less than that the biggest determining factor right now of whether we purchase an EV is if we have the charging infrastructure and that is

1:18:48Really the first thing that's looked at rather than the maintenance cost because if it can't be charged It can't be used and so that's really the determining factor right now and tires are part of the maintenance fact Of course, okay, so even with it tires because I know you these go through tires more than That hybrids Okay Now back to the question on the fuel, you know, you use January the budget is based on January And it's quite a bit lower But if you were to use today's budget in six months, we're gonna have a budget amendment for a couple million dollars And where we're gonna get that couple million dollars because we're already at our fund balanced minimum

1:19:27Yeah, I think that with today's numbers The difference was at least 1.2 million I'd have to confirm that 1.9 million

1:19:41Yeah, so So you're already you've already told us you can ask for a two million dollar budget amendment for fuel This is completely unpredictable the one tool that we can use to other than a crystal ball that we haven't found is What Julie referred to?

1:20:03EIA Which is a publication online? That tracks the futures for oil and gives a projection on on actual gas cost And we have seen the comparison on the chart shows what we Read in that projection for In January and what we're paying today. It doesn't match the cost is actually higher

1:20:34So it is it is really hard to to make a projection an accurate projection. So We're doing the best based on on What we're seeing in trends, but it is impossible to get a projection and writing that then building a Cushion just in case We're being more more reasonable and saying we have enough to operate And we we hope that those prices stabilize But if not, you know as soon as as soon as we see that the projections are going I going to be short. We're not gonna wait until the last minute to bring it up to council That's our plan for now Yeah, it's a chair my my point here is I think and I appreciate that because We realize that when when we when you say hey, it had to be based on something in January that was cost and we didn't know

1:21:28you know everything was gonna happen between now and January and the cost went up but I'm just saying that and I appreciate all the trimming that we've done on the budget But just by this conversation now We know that we need to keep on trimming our budgets So we don't end up with a two million dollar budget amendment and we don't have any ways to fund it unless we decide to dip lower into our fund balance or somewhere else and Not also spend for things that are nice to have instead of critical Core core needs which I think gas in our police vehicles is a pretty core need So I'm just kind of preaching to acquire here on and you're happy to be on the table here that

1:22:17The budget trimming and the budget

1:22:22Fiscal responsibility is across the board forever for all departments because all departments

1:22:28Put gas in our cars put gas in their vehicles and we're gonna need that funding in the future And because we won't have that luxury that we had in the past was dishable funding for my fund balance so Mr. commentary Yeah, mr. Chair. No, I appreciate that. I'm not sure that the right strategy is we conservative on that matter And I you know, I guess it's you know, it could go either way, right? But but you know the likeliness that it goes down You know, I don't think most of our neighbors are budgeting that way, right?

1:23:04They're thinking that they're budgeting on the low end. They're budgeting probably thinking the worse and

1:23:13You've seen the numbers the prices of today, you know as a point of of

1:23:21Reference so that's that's a bit of a concerning Concerning aspect that we may not know how to fund that later and to me it may be a Harder thing to To justify to my neighbors to say I'm passing a budget that is not quite accurate And it's hard to come up with an accurate number, but I was a more comfortable if we were straightforward and said we're budgeting For how unstable these numbers are so the services of the city can continue without a budget agreement

1:24:00so I You know under I understand that that means more money But you know it is more money now or more money later So I I prefer to be stressful without neighbors about the needs

1:24:15So That's something to discuss anybody else

1:24:21Okay, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate the explanation. Thank you

1:24:27Okay, we are moving on to Item number six, which is a board appointment for the historic landmark Commission Rosemary Stum is all joining us online right now Rosemary are you there? Yes, I'm here Rosemary, will you tell us You know why do you want to volunteer for the historic landmark commission? Well, I am an architect in Salt Lake City And I've lived in Salt Lake for a lot of years since 2009 So I'm very passionate about the city and the urban fabric and the historic nature of Salt Lake City I work at Lloyd architects and We have a good portfolio of historic preservation projects and adaptive reuse I also received a historic preservation certificate while I was in architecture school. So I'm

1:25:18Generally just passionate about saving buildings But also new buildings integrating well into a new urban fabric. So I just want to be involved. I like volunteering. I love being part of the community I'm part of a couple other architectural committees through the AIA, but I This is my would be my first opportunity being in more of a public facing role so That's that's why I'm interested Thank you. Thank you. Sarah. I saw your hand up or no I Was just gonna say thank you to rosemary for her willingness to step in and bring her expertise to the city. We appreciate it Thank you so much for your desire to to serve our city and I would you know I'm giving your time and expertise for preservation

1:26:14This you're gonna be placed on the consent agenda on the next formal meeting So you don't need to participate or be online or in person to to be

1:26:27Appointed after that meeting the administration will reach out to you with more information about next steps Thank you

1:26:40Number Item number seven, which is a fiscal year 2026 2027 Budget for unversalbed issues Jennifer Bruno console executive director. Thank you, mr Chair, we don't have a staff report necessarily started for this yet But this is just an opportunity to remind the council that if you have any ideas for Items that you want to discuss more deeply that have come up in different department budgets Staff has been kind of keeping a running list of things that have come up. I added some things today based on what you guys discussed and so if you have anything that you want to Specifically discuss we'll start kind of a running list so that you can go through it obviously This year with the proposed property tax increase the discussions will be a little

1:27:27Different you'll have to adopt both an interim budget without a property tax increase So what would the budget look like without a property tax increase as well as what would a budget look like with one? And so staff will try and make sure that that that's as clear and simple as possible for you guys to go through So anyway with that, I'll just leave it there Any thoughts?

1:27:49Okay, oh looks like councilmember young

1:27:53I'm just I don't for thank you so much and you guys do such a great job of keeping track of these items I'm wondering if it would be possible to see kind of like the draft tentative list There's a couple of things that are in my head, but I'm just kind of curious what you guys make party flagged Yeah, so let's see so we have flagged some for idea for restoration Some council members have expressed an interest in the high pass And restoring that I heard today interest in Increasing the fuel budget based on what we know to be kind of increased fuel prices We have some follow-up questions about the final agreement for labor negotiations That could result in some changes to the budget And then there are some questions about

1:28:47Youth city funding for next year. So those are the things we've trapped so far I don't think that that is necessarily comprehensive of everything that's in your guys's minds and so please Feel free to throw anything else out Go ahead If I could just add I'm just additional conversation about FTE requirements for expansion to a third chat team. I'd appreciate that I I would like to add a few things that were mentioned in the meeting just to for full transparency as far as like this conversation I had questions about the park rangers. I'm reducing the park rangers program even more so I also Have questions about and I know another council member mentioned this too. It's about that innovation

1:29:45Is that aside money that I am s is you know putting? It's about $200,000 to create more efficiencies to come up with ideas from from from the department about how to be more efficient And then all of the other changes I have tracked so far go back to CIP and most Most of them are reductions or stopping them for this year. So I can share that list with you Thank you Okay more And by the way, you know the high pass is one of those that I really want to fund So I would like to get information regarding known The administration mentioned that it would cost more to administer than in previous years. I would like to know how much more so Council members we are now This is a tentative item. We are required by a lot to have it is number eight fiscal year 2026 2027

1:30:48Sorry, mr. Chair. Yes. Sorry on that last item with the

1:30:53With the park rangers, can we would it would that involve?

1:30:58laying off any park rangers What I'm exploring. Yes. Yes. I'm exploring the the half the year so finish this year

1:31:08starting 2027 with Half it but I my questions to the administration talks about the they mentioned that there are three different things that they do I want to know if they can you know do some of those less cloud watching and More of the other things that they're you know, I think they're awesome I also think that cloud watching are great and bird watch. I mean like they're great programs but In a year that we might have to like pinch depending I'm exploring that but again, those are my I'm exploring still

1:31:46Number eight the 2026 27 budget property tax impact schedule It is online and poster for everybody to see as required There are no reports from me and are there reports from the executive director Mr. Chair and I believe we have Dave Quillie who's joined us online This is just an update on the council process and voting to fill the district for Vacancy the attorney's office has prepared a resolution for the council to consider Outlining the new state code requirements for filling the vacancy. So I see he's popped online I don't know Dave if you're ready to go through it or how are you want to handle that? I

1:32:28Can handle it however you'd like I don't know if I've had some discussions with LaHua as well But we do have a resolution that we've put forward and I know you all have done this in the past fill vacancies The law has changed due to some vacancy filling concerns that happened in other cities. So This go around will be a little different In what seems like some fairly significant ways So what I'd like to do first if it's okay with you is go over the new law and the new processes from about a 30,000 foot level And then we can get into some detail Talking about the resolution which is required to establish a clear and transparent voting method That's a statutory requirement Laying those out so so everybody can see where we're going and why we're going there if that sounds like a plan

1:33:25I'll I'll just jump in and feel free to jump in with questions at any point sounds great What thank you chair what we what the statute requires now is kind of a multi step approach The first step I did in an ideal world It's only going to be two two steps and that first step is going to be an interview with all qualified cap candidates or applicants who have submitted their name The second step is an initial vote amongst those candidates who were interviewed Now in an ideal world it ends there. There is a majority Council consensus behind one candidate for votes and if that's the case that is the individual who would fill the vacancy Now I say ideal world because there are potentially a third fourth and fifth step if there isn't a consensus after the first vote

1:34:22The third step is where things get somewhat confusing Because if the law now requires a second vote But there can only be two two applicants that move forward to that second vote So what this third step requires is a Cowing down if you will of the applicants who received votes during the first the first round of voting To just two applicants who then will be the candidates ready for the second vote The fifth step Would be even one step further if there's a tie in that second vote and I'll get get to that in a second But that's the the 30,000 foot approach So Step one I have this laid out in the draft resolution as steps one two three four and five Because I think that's the easiest way to conceptualize voting and for applicants to read this this resolution and understand how

1:35:23How the process will work which is really the statutory intent here

1:35:28So step one it just lays out. That's the interview process step two lays out that you'll have the initial vote and If there's a majority winner that is who will Build a vacancy and if not we move to step three and that's that's where things really start to change so step three is Has multiple multiple processes to hold things down to just two applicants and it really can apply in two primary scenarios if you have a If your first vote results in like say a three two one in terms of your six votes the individual who received three and the individual who received two statute requires they move on to be the

1:36:22applicants in the second round now if there is a circumstance where one applicant receives More votes than the rest and there's a tie for second place statute requires that the individual who received the most votes they move on to the second round and Amongst those who tied for second place. This is where the big change in the statute Those individuals move from three or two down to one By lot is the term the statute used prior to this change The language was by game of chance the legislature didn't didn't like that terminology for gambling reasons, but essentially what by lot means is that the method has to Let's see the exact statutory language for that the tie has to be broken by a method quote

1:37:16Where each tied candidate has an equal chance of elimination until only two candidates remain So functionally what that means is there can be statute no longer allows for votes to tie to You know a second round to break that tie you have to go to law So that can be many things it could be a role of the dice whoever whoever gets the highest number they they get the second seat The way it's drafted now based on some feedback we've received is Names go into a bowl and the name that's drawn out That's the that's the applicant that moves on to the second round of voting So the big thing to keep in mind is it's up to chance If there's a tie so as you're voting and debating keep that in mind during your first round that

1:38:07Things could go to chance if there isn't a consensus The second circumstance where this could apply is if there is no majority of vote Recipient so you have a two two two or six individuals that get one vote at that point You still have to advance two people by lot And the way it's structured here is that two names would simultaneously be drawn from the bowl and Those two names are who would move on to the second round of voting?

1:38:39So that's that's the how how you get to your two individuals To be to be your second vote Now once you have the second vote ideally again you get four votes behind one candidate That's the that's the candidate who fills the vacancy if there is a three three tie Statute is clear The decision is made by coin toss There's no no option for drawing names out of a hat or a bull no dice rolling it must be by a coin toss So and whoever wins that coin toss that is who fills the vacancy so as you can see In some ways the legislature really cranked things down. So there isn't a lot of options

1:39:26So it kind of makes it easier on you having to decide too many things But it also leaves Inserts a lot of chance into this process So that's kind of the overview how we've structured the the resolution to lay that out for the applicants to see for the public to see before the voting process begins I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have on that Council members they made it very not easy

1:40:00Yeah Speak to like what the point of these changes what I guess it doesn't really matter But I mean was this intending to make the process more clear? It seems I Intent is always the question when you're talking about new legislation, but there were There were ties in other cities who recently had vacancies and

1:40:26Statute at that point only talked about a coin toss So you maybe had three candidates and see at a coin toss so this was an attempt to Allow coin tosses when there were only two individuals got it that I think was the intent behind the change in legislation It would have been simpler to change

1:40:48Choice but since we are not doing that a lot and then solve the problem fine well, thank you for the the

1:40:57flowchart I think that helps and I think that helps the community know how And the applicants know how we're gonna go through this process good. Thanks. I'm a doogan. Dave you mentioned

1:41:12Rolling to the dice the highest one goes or picking names out of a hat do we do we have to make the decision now? We already made position that to use the hat or okay, we've already made it. I thought we did discuss that So I just want to make sure if you want to roll no, no, I think the hats You have a nice collection of dice in your house. Yeah, yeah, right Consider it you're okay with that. Yeah, okay Any other questions, okay, thank you for the information

1:41:44Thank you council now we are at the end of the agenda the I Need a motion to enter to a closed session on The purpose of it is to study sessions to discuss the purchase exchange and lease of real property as well as Attorney client mounted and collective bargaining Mr.. Chair I move that we go into a closed meeting for the purpose of discussing the purchase sale Research change of real property to receive advice of council and to receive an update on labor negotiations Second for the motion and do them for the second Council move young Councilmember Pietro Hi, Councilmember do them. Yes warden I know I'm a yes, this motion carries unanimously. We are in a close meeting now