Council Work Session Meeting

0:13We are starting a few minutes early. So welcome everybody to the Select City work session for May 5th, 2026. Our meetings are public, and you're welcome to join us in person or by watching from the Council Agenda page, Zoom, or YouTube. We hope you will continue to join us in whichever manner you feel the most comfortable.

0:35This is a work session meeting, doing which there is not public comment. You can join us tonight at 7 PM, or formal meeting, to share your comments. Of course, we welcome feedback anytime by mail at PO Box 145476, Salt Lake City, Utah 84114. You can also email us at council.commons at slc.gov. You can also call our 24 hour phone line, 81535 7654.

1:08Comments we receive on agenda topics are shared with the Council members and posted in our website at slc.gov.counsel. Our first agenda item is the inornance for lost and mislaid property at airport text amendments. We're going to welcome at the table Nick Torvitt, Council Deputy Director. Bill Wyand, maybe not, Council Executive Director of the Airports Trevor Anderson, Airport Operations Director, Paul Nielsen, Senior City Attorney.

1:42Nick. All right, thank you, Mr. Chair. This brief feeling is about an ordinance that would amend city code pertaining to lost and mislaid property at the airport. The recommended changes are necessary to comply with Senate bill 172, which was passed this 2026 general session, and to codify the process by which Salt Lake City Department of Airports, disposing of mislaid property left at the airport.

2:09There will be a public hearing on this on May 19. With that, I'll turn the demo to Paul. Thank you. Mr. Wyand couldn't make it, and Mr. Anderson is at a conference. So we have Jennifer Kaufman, who runs the airport's lost and found operation with us today. And let me just note that it is unusual for one of the city attorneys to be part of the presentation.

2:32But a lot of this effort is really sort of the legal nitty gritty technical stuff that is probably not terribly interesting. But I've been involved in the process for a little over two years now. And whatever Jennifer wants to add to that. It's been a long road to get what we've been operating under at the airport to be legal.

2:59And so with Paul's assistance, we started with going to the legislature and getting that updated to reflect what we're actually doing at the airport. And now we want to propose that the ordinances with the city also reflect that change. Note that the law that was passed during this session goes into effect tomorrow. So we appreciate the council considering this on sort of a quick turnaround.

3:24I don't know if you want me to explain the technical details. We start with city ordinance reflects what had been the state code position. And that is that only a law enforcement agency has anything to do with lost and found. We know the reality pretty much everywhere is something quite different. There are a lot of government entities that have lost and found operations.

3:54But the only one recognized by state law until tomorrow is that one that deals with law enforcement. And so technically when the government receives lost property, they're supposed to involve law enforcement.

4:13Part of that conversation deals with the fact that again until tomorrow, the state law indicates that when a law enforcement officer even touches anything that's lost and found has to be entered as evidence. That doesn't make sense in most cases. But I think that statute was developed at a time when we had a different idea of what we were dealing with when it comes to lost stuff.

4:39So we had the legislature create an exception for law enforcement officers who were assigned to airports, may touch the stuff in transition. And this was a concern of Commander Mitchell's. His team is very. By the book. They don't want to touch anything. They do not. They just out of that concern. And in the process, let me just back up a little bit.

5:06As far as getting the legislation adopted, we realized that it might be a little messy if we tried to involve every single airport or every other public entity. And so we went with airports that are required to have a law enforcement presence per federal regulation. So that involves Salt Lake City International, Provo, Ogden, St. George, and Cedar City.

5:29And we had a collaborative effort with all of their airport operators. And so this really only just applies to those airports as opposed to every single regional or city airport. We cleaned up the language in Chapter 2.10 to acknowledge that there are two different tracks here when it comes to lost and found items. We updated some of the language and the code to reflect state code changes in the last little while.

6:04A lot of what you'll see in the ordinance is definitions. But the meat of this is the language that would be in the new section 16.10.230, which is all about the process of receiving inventory and disposition. And that's kind of it. I don't know if you have any specific questions about how that happens. Council Member Young?

6:38No, thank you. I appreciate this. And as someone who has had a child who lost property, I love our website. So good job in terms of making it very clear on things that have been found. And if you're ever curious, what things get left at the airport? Very entertaining way to spend your time. You're like, who knew? Who was traveling with that?

6:59Anyway, my key question was just related to the sale of unclaimed property. I appreciate funneling it back into a system to be thoughtful about not allocating additional taxpayer dollars where we might have the ability to cover it. My question is, is that the standard practice of most airports? Just curious kind of where that fits in the larger landscape.

7:23I don't know if we could answer what the practice is of most airports. But I'll tell you, there's a complication here. And that is when nobody claims that property, it essentially becomes ours. And as the holder of the property, the Department of Airports is constrained by federal regulations regarding revenue diversion.

7:52So it's considered the department's property. And we have to dispose of it a certain way. And really, the only way that we can feel comfortable, and why I say we am in the Department of Airports, would feel comfortable with handling those proceeds, is putting it back into the Enterprise Fund, which has to go to pay for the lost and found operation.

8:19And it's not going to cover that cost. Thank you. I appreciate that. And let me just say, I didn't want to make this personal. But Jennifer will tell you that I regularly have to reach out to her because colleagues lose things, such as laptops, a shoe, a single guest, Jonathan Papacidors. I picked up my father's laptop a few months ago.

8:47And then back in February, I had to reach out because I lost a pair of sunglasses. So I am either the problem or the face of the problem. You're contributing to the economy. So we appreciate it. Yeah, no, thank you for that. I don't have any additional questions and think that I appreciate you going through a process by which to make sure our policies and procedures are in alignment with state code so that we don't run into any unintended issues there.

9:18So thank you for your work on that. And you're OK. It seems like we have answered all our questions. Thank you so much for this update. Thank you. Coming on the agenda, we're going to go to item number two, which is an ordinance for the indefinite other way closure of Jefferson Park. We're going to welcome Brian Fulmer, Council policy analyst to the table, Tyler Murdoch, Public Lands Deputy Director, and Amy Reed, Associate Landscape Architect.

9:50We're going to give Brian maybe a few minutes to introduce this item. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is a proposal from the Department of Public Lands to indefinitely close but retain ownership of two alleys that the city owns within Jefferson Park, which is located in District 5. The intent is to consolidate parcels within the park for improvements funded by the reimagination, reimagine nature, general obligation bond.

10:22And with that, I'll turn it over to Tyler and Amy. Thanks, Brian. Good afternoon, Council. A quick intro before Amy can run through this. This is a bit unique for Public Lands to bring these. However, it is becoming a lot more common. I just want to preface that. Many of the parks in Salt Lake City were created long before many of our zoning ordinances exist.

10:46And so a lot of our parks, the majority of our parks, still today, are made up of many different parcels and alleyways and streets. And so how we're managing that is when we do updates or master capital improvements, we then go through the rezoning process to vacate any alleyways and then to consolidate the parcels. This is a requirement for us to get our building permits to move these forward.

11:11So this is becoming a more of a frequent thing. And I just wanted to preface that you'll probably continue to see us as we continue to invest in capital improvements in our parks. So with that, I'll turn it to Amy for a quick summary of this one. Thank you. Hello, Council. And again, here we are to talk about Jefferson Park.

11:31Go to the next slide. Site contacts, Jefferson Park is located in D5. And it is a detention base and managed by public utilities and a park managed by public lands. Next slide. The purpose for our meeting today is to consolidate parcels within Jefferson Park for planned improvements as indicated. Next slide. The proposed alley closures are both located entirely within the park.

12:13So you'll see A is a portion of the east west mid block alley between 200 west and west temple. Approximately 100 feet by 15 feet. And B is a north south alley between West Gold's ab and West Fremont ab, approximately 275 feet by 16 feet. Next slide. And here they are inside the park. Next slide. This is just state code to remind you of when we can close the alley.

12:55And it is not necessary for vehicular travel. And it is, we would argue, necessary to mitigate injury because of the detention base and function that protects surrounding homes. Next slide. The public process that we have followed is noted here. And this is a step in the process. And a final noticing requirement is being sent out as per this.

13:24Next slide. That's it. Please close the alley so we can do the park improvement. Dance members. OK. We just did that in Madsen Park. No too long ago. Exactly. And my question, I guess, for the administration is, can you bring them all together so we can get it all the way? I had a feeling that was going to come up, Council Member.

13:48And so we actually have created a full list that identifies every park in the city that requires lot consolidation and vacation. It's a long, long list. And right now, the capacity does not exist within the planning team with our team to really take those all on. So we do them on an individual basis. We're working towards that with some team changes.

14:10And hopefully can maybe bring more than one next time. So certainly we're not managing your time. You know, they work that you guys do. And it's a lot. So thank you for bringing this one. Thank you for the update. Yeah. Thank you, Council. So Council Members, we're going to take a break.

14:35We are moving ahead a little faster. We need staff from Metro Water and Public Utilities to arrive. They're on their way, but not here yet. So come back three. OK. We're going to start the meeting. We started the meeting with item number four. This is the fiscal year 2026, 2027 budget for the Metropolitan Water District.

38:30We're going to welcome all the T. Joost and Kimo, Council Policy Analyst, Anali Manci, Metro Water General Manager, and Tonkot Free Board Chair for Metro Water. Austin. Thanks, Council Members. The Metropolitan Water District of Salt Lake and Sandy is here to present its tentative budget for the 2026, 2027 fiscal year.

38:57The Council's role in Metro Water's budget is somewhat unique. The Council reviews the budget and shares responsibility with Sandy City Council to approve and set the tax rate. But it does not formally adopt the budget. That responsibility rests with Metro Water's Board of Trustees. Metro Water's primary function is to store a tree and convey water supplies to Salt Lake City and Sandy.

39:21It is one of the taxing entities that appears as a line on property taxes for property owners. And this year's total budget is nearly $123.7 million, which is about a $12 million increase from last year. The increase is driven primarily by costs from other agencies. Price increases from utility providers, such as gas and power, and increased capital projects budget.

39:47Metro Water proposes a 6% increase to the rate charged to member cities for water sales and a 6% increase to water rates for non-member entities. Lastly, Metro Water does not propose a property tax increase, and the projected certified tax rate is proposed at 0.0035. And with that, I will turn it over to Emily. All right.

40:16Thank you. I want to first introduce Tom Godfrey. He's the chair of the Metropolitan Water District of Salt Lake and Sandy. He also serves as president or chair of the Provo River Water Users Association. And Metro is a majority shareholder in that association. And then he also serves as a member of the Salt Lake City Public Utilities Advisory Committee.

40:42So he has a great understanding of water and how it relates to Salt Lake City. And I also want to recognize Lara Brieffer and Jason Brown. OK. They have a couple of Jason. Jason Brown with Salt Lake City Public Utilities. Having their support here today just shows the great relationship that we have with your utilities and recognize our role in providing water to the city.

41:14Next slide. So for this presentation, I'll just provide a quick overview of Metro Water. And our purpose here today is to present our fiscal year 27 tentative budget to you. And then I'll just summarize our sources and uses of funds. And I'll be happy to address any questions during the presentation, or of course, at the end as well.

41:38Next slide. So the Metropolitan Water District was established in 1935. So we did hit 90 years in August. Our sole purpose is to provide reliable drinking water to the Salt Lake Valley. In 1990, Sandy City annexed into the district. And so our name changed from Metropolitan of Salt Lake City to Metropolitan Water District of Salt Lake and Sandy.

42:07Next slide. So we have a board of seven trustees. Five of those represent Salt Lake City and two represent Sandy City. Each trustee serves for a four-year term that can be renewed. And as you'll know recently, you appointed two new trustees to our board. And I know we have an open opening that you're currently looking to fulfill for our board.

42:37Next slide. So Metro Water Supply is diverse, which supports a reliable water supply for Salt Lake City. The bulk of our water is supplied through the Provo River Project. This water is stored in Deer Creek Reservoir. And just in perspective, the dam and reservoir were built as part of the Provo River Project in the 1940s.

43:03Metro Water Supply also includes Little Conwood Creek. The 20,000 acre feet is a combination of Salt Lake City and Sandy City water rights. The third largest source of water is the Central Utah Project. So this water is stored in Jordan Reservoir. And Metro is a petitioner for this water. Other water sources for Metro include Central Utah Project also has a Utah Lake system water, which is actually strawberry reservoir.

43:37I thought it cut out. And then Salt Lake City has 3,100 acre feet of that preferential right for that ULS water. And they started paying for the supply in 2021. And Metro also receives water from the Ontario Drain Tunnel. So a combined total of 108,700 acre feet. However, in a poor snow year, like we've all experienced, our water supply is notably less than that.

44:07Next slide. So when you think of water treatment, there's really three key facilities. You have to have a treatment facility. You have to have something that conveys the water. And then there's an end reservoir. That's how my simple mind thinks of it. So Metro is owner of the Little Conwood Water Treatment Plant that's located just at the base of Little Conwood Canyon.

44:34It was originally constructed in 1960. And this plant is the second largest plant, treatment plant in Salt Lake Valley. We also own and operate the point of the Mountain Water Treatment Plant, which is located in Draper. This was commissioned in 2007 as part of the Metro Water Project. And this plant really runs during high demands season.

44:57So usually in the summer, and it provides redundancy for our plant. And then we're also two seventh owners of the Jordan Valley Water Treatment Plant. It's located in Bluffdale. And they're currently doing a project to expand the capacity of that plant to 250 million gallons. And then for a conveyance of the water, we have our Salt Lake Aqueduct, which I call the backbone of the Salt Lake Valley's distribution system.

45:27It's over 70 years old. It is a 42-inch, 42 mile, 69-inch diameter pipeline that starts at the base of Deer Creek Dam and brings water down the canyon along the bench. And it terminates at Mill Creek at our terminal reservoir. And then we have our Point of the Mountain Aqueduct. It was also commissioned in 2007 as part of the Metro Water Project.

45:55And it's a pipeline that connects our Point of the Mountain Plant with the one in Conwood Heights. And then we're also two seventh owners of the Jordan Aqueduct. And this pipeline helps us deliver water to the Northwest Quadrant of Salt Lake City at 21st South. And then the storage where we store the finished or what we call treated water, we have our terminal reservoir.

46:20It's located in Mill Creek. It's a 48 million gallon reservoir. It was originally constructed in 1951. We did rebuild it. It was completed in 2017 to address current seismic standards. And then that reservoir provides reliable water storage from municipal as well as for fire use. And then we're also two seventh owners of the Jordan Aqueduct terminal reservoir.

46:46It's 100 million gallon storage reservoir located just off Bingeter Highway around 5,300 south. Next slide. So now I'm going to review our sources of funds. Next slide. So this is kind of a little clip from our budget. But we, for the 2027 budget, we're looking at water cells, about 23% of our revenue. Our property tax is nearly 21%.

47:24We have capital assessments that relate to capacity improvement projects, such as the Metro Water Project. That's about 10%. We have miscellaneous revenue. Part of that in this year's budget includes Salt Lake City's portion that they're reimbursing us for the Cottonwoods Connection Project. And then this year we have bond revenues that we're planning to issue as part of three big capital projects that I'll be highlighting here in a minute.

47:51Next slide. So as Austin noted, we are proposing a 6% increase to our water rates. We are having our public hearing on 15th. And these are rates that we forecast to Salt Lake City and Sandy City in advance, usually two to three years in advance so they can plan on them. So for Salt Lake City, that increase is noted here.

48:17It's a little over a million dollar increase to their budget for Metro. Next slide. Also, as he noted, we are not proposing an increase to the certified tax rate in this year. You'll recall in fiscal year 25 we did reestablish it to 00035. We're proposing we've been maintaining that rate, although the rate does erode.

48:43I think currently Salt Lake City is 000327. They just wanted to communicate, though, looking at the following year in fiscal year 28, we are proposing an increase. At least our budget rate or our planning shows an increase to the certified tax rate in order to fund these capital projects that address aging infrastructure to repair and replace them.

49:09Next slide. So we had in our current budget, we were anticipating some bonding for the Conwood's connection project. However, it's really hard to know when things are going to finish on time. And so due to a delay in just the construction, we did not issue it. We aren't planning an issue in any bonds this year. So we are anticipating it for next year.

49:36That will be to complete the Conwood's connection project. Also, a project called the Little Conwood Conduit Replacement and Intake Modifications Project, which is a pipeline that brings water from Little Conwood Creek to the plant, and then also for design of the Little Conwood Water Treatment Plant. Next slide. OK. And we'll go how we are using these funds.

50:04And the next slide. Next, please. So our total budgeted expenditures are 115.2 million. The operation and maintenance budget totals here 48.5 million. And that includes our routine operations and maintenance, such as our salary and wages, any interest expenses for our bonds, our costs to the Provo River Water Users Association, employee benefits, contract services, utilities, and chemicals.

50:37Other large ones are like general insurance and non-routine O&M. This graph here does exclude Salt Lake City's portion that they're reimbursing for the Conwood's connection project. Next slide. This is our fiscal year 27 tentative capital improvements project budget. It includes nearly 46 million for these routine non-capacity projects.

51:05The significant portion is for completion of the Conwood's connection pipeline, which is a pipeline that goes from Fort Union to our plant off of Danish Road. These costs also represent really represent replacement and repair of key water infrastructure. The capital improvement projects also includes costs from other agencies that total almost 7.6 million.

51:35Next slide. So Metro Water, like many agencies in Salt Lake City included, we have water infrastructure that has reached its design life. We're obviously maintaining it. But at Hazard Mitigation Study identified the Salt Lake Aqueduct, the raw water Little Conwood conduit, and the Little Conwood Water Treatment Plant as facilities that should be repaired, replaced, or rebuilt.

52:06All of these projects will provide seismic resiliency, thus ensuring the reliable delivery of clean drinking water to the residents of this valley. You can see Salt Lake Aqueduct placed in service in 1950, the Little Conwood 1931, and then the Little Conwood Water Treatment Plant in 1960, which were great for that time.

52:29But just with current concrete and seismic standards, they would not perform well in the event of an earthquake or their natural hazard. Next slide. So as Austin mentioned, our budget does include costs from other agencies. So as being a petitioner in the Central Utah project, we are charged an O&M, as well as a capital cost from Central Utah.

52:58So the total amount that we pay to them is about $5.7 million annually for that 20,000 acre feet of M&I and then 3,100 acre feet of Utah Lake system water. We also have those costs with Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District as we're a 2-7 owner. Their O&M costs have decreased a little bit, but then their capital projects have increased by 3.8 million.

53:26Again, they're also addressing their seismic resiliency of their water treatment plant. And then with the Provo River Water Users Association, so we're 61.9%, the largest 100% of shares in the association. So all of their costs, Metro's carrying a large burden of that. Their annual cost is about $5 million. I'm sure many of you are aware that Deer Creek Intake Project is just wrapping out.

53:55They're actually going to have a ribbon cutting next week for this project. But that's something that's very important if you think about our water system, Deer Creek Reservoir is critical, the delivery of water. And then when I did this slide, we had an initial allotment of 50%. That has gone up to 69%. So we're at 42,711 acre feet that the association has allotted to Metro.

54:28And those are water that Salt Lake City and Sandy City use in their distribution. That is my final slide. Go to the next one. Are there any questions from the council members that Tom would love to answer for you? Council members? Council member Dunwin? Yeah, thank you, Tom. And thank the presentation. Water is like probably the number one topic in the city, in the state right now, besides data centers.

55:01But the question on the sales and the reservoirs status right now, and the conservation measures that we have in process, or about to begin even more, how does that impact your water sales and your storage capacity and your revenue going future ended? And when you do your budget, do you assume, I know these are sales to the districts who then deliver it to the residents, how does the conservation measures affect your budget and how do you forecast those conservation measures on the budget?

55:44Does that make sense? Yeah. So we support conservation. Obviously the reservoirs, I consider those like our bank accounts or savings accounts. So any water we don't use in the current year, that will be made available. That's something we can carry on next year. And typically our droughts last more than one year. So we definitely support conservation efforts for cities, for metro specifically how we bill our water is it's a flat rate for the year.

56:17And so we don't see the fluctuations that the utilities see as far as higher demand or lower demand. But we want them to use less water because knowing we're probably going to have another year of hopefully better than this year. But the reservoirs are designed to provide water for like a three year drought. So if you go beyond that, then that really stresses the water supply.

56:41I don't know if that does that answer your question council member. But when we conserve our water, we're not buying more water from your agency. And so your revenue is also based on what we know. Okay, never mind. We did. But they've always needed education. It's a great question because we have done that in the past.

57:08Before 2017, we would just build the cities for the water that they took from us. There was an analysis done at that time and looked at is there a better way to manage the predictability of water, of what they're going to use as well as what we're going to sell to them. And so what we went to was a fixed amount. So we charge the same amount for two Salt Lake City and Sandy City regardless of the amount of water that they take.

57:42That's for the fixed numbers. So thank you very much for that clarity. I know I was just one person, but there's probably a lot of people that have the same question. So thank you very much. That's interesting. That's appreciated on that side of the house. So thank you. Can you have any other questions? You said that the house seems to be covered then.

58:03Thank you so much for the presentation. If there is anything else, this is time. Thank you so much for the work. It's very important. I really appreciate the transparency of the district shows with us on the African general. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. I would like to move on to item number five, which is fiscal year 2026, 2026.

58:41We're going to welcome the president for the proposed budget for the Department of Public Utilities. We're going to welcome the table again, Austin Kimmall or you know, re-welcome on the table. Council policy analysts, thank you for staying there. There are a briefer, director of public utilities, Lisa Tarfele, Finance Administrator for Public Utilities.

59:02And I... We've got Jason Brown here, Deputy Director with Public Utilities. And we might have Jesse Stewart coming by. He's in the middle of some negotiations. So we'll see. Awesome. Mr. Tan. Great. Just a quick note that public utilities is here to present its proposed budget for the fiscal year 2026, 27 budget. The total proposed utilities budget is $400 and $27,786,665.

59:43That's about a 44% decrease or a nearly $337 million decrease from the department's amended FY26 budget. The decrease is driven in part by reductions to the department's capital projects budget and capital outlay budget, as well as a decrease in the department's anticipated bond and loan proceeds compared to the previous fiscal year.

1:00:08Public utilities operates for utilities, water, sewer, storm water, and street lighting. Each operating as separate enterprise funds with separate revenue, capital programs, and staffing. Public utilities is proposing rate changes for all four utilities, which are expected to increase customer utility bills. These increases are based on recent rate studies and are needed to address aging infrastructure, meet federal and state requirements, keep up with inflation, and maintain each utility's financial stability.

1:00:45Public utilities will cover the proposed rate changes in today's briefing, customer rate impacts of each utility are summarized on page six of the council staff report. This year's budget includes an adjustment to the sewer rates for multi-family properties, which are intended to address some of the large increases some of those customers experienced last fiscal year.

1:01:09Lastly, a quick note that public utilities revised its proposed street lighting rate adjustments, which differ from the rates summarized in the report. An email detailing the revised street lighting rates was sent to you on Friday, May 1st, and it has also been added to your packets as an attachment. Policy questions for this discussion can be found on page two of the council staff report, and with that I will turn it over to Laura.

1:01:39Great. Thank you so much. I also wanted to recognize what a great partnership Metro and Annalie, and also for Tom.

1:01:55Serving serving on our advisory committee, we may have some other public utilities advisory committee members coming in. I think they're planning on coming a little later, so they might miss part of the presentation, but we'll try to acknowledge them if they do come in. I wanted to also start out this presentation by just acknowledging and the concern and the desire for a really robust public engagement process for our budget, particularly around impact of rate increases.

1:02:29We are coordinating very closely with the mayor's office and council staff and the citywide communications team, really just integrating a lot of strategies to better connect with our and engage with our constituents in this process. So I just want to acknowledge that. I also want to acknowledge just the teamwork between Andrew Wittenberg's team at the mayor's office and Lehua for participating in all of these, and then of course the citywide comms team.

1:03:04So we're happy to answer any questions about engagement during this presentation as we move along. Next slide, please. So with respect to public utilities services, we are charged with drinking water collection, which means diverting water from the sources of drinking water as well as from the sources in which Metro manages.

1:03:32Distribution of that water to nearly 400,000 people across Salt Lake County. That includes large portions of Mill Creek Holiday and Cottonwood Heights and smaller portions of Midvale, Murray and South Salt Lake. We are also the sanitary sewer provider, also sometimes called wastewater, and we do all the collection and treatment for that for the over 210 or 15,000 residents of Salt Lake City, same with storm water quality and flood control and street lighting.

1:04:08I've included some pictures of our team and our work in this presentation because they're really relevant to what our water rates pay for and what our budgets pay for every year. The photo on this slide is our lead and copper team. This is the team that designed our lead service line replacement program. I call them the superstars of our utility right now.

1:04:33I've done an amazing job meeting some rigorous regulatory requirements on that and serving our community in a really, really thoughtful way. Next slide, please. I also wanted to just put on a slide the significant generational capital investments that you have supported the last few years and moving into the next few years.

1:05:02These investments can span many, many years, but for instance, we are almost complete with the replacement of our 65-year-old water reclamation facility, same with our City Creek water treatment plant which was put into service in 1985 and then our lead service line replacement program. You can see the costs for these types of infrastructure programs.

1:05:31The scale of them is quite large. We are also working on replacement of aged water and sewer mains. Our residents have seen that. We have tried our best not to disrupt them and roadways but just completed a major sewer main reconstruction in the West Temple ballpark area and we're just starting a very large sewer main reconstruction on Beck Street.

1:06:00We're in the 1890s era of sewer line and then we are constantly working on designs for future infrastructure rehabilitation and replacement. A couple of notes here. I have an asterisk on our replacement of the water reclamation facility and the lead service line replacement program. Both of those projects, nearly a billion dollars worth of work, were projects that were also required to meet federal and state regulations.

1:06:35So the replacement of the water reclamation facility was required to meet changes to the Clean Water Act. We had to remove more nutrients from our discharge and then the lead service line replacement program is a requirement of EPA with respect to getting all lead service lines out of commission around the country by in the next ten years.

1:07:04I'll also say that these capital investments and others that aren't listed on this page like the rehabilitation of Mountain Dill Dam, some of our reservoirs, many of our pump stations, the new public utilities campus, all of those improve our city's water resiliency and water security now and in the future as well. And next slide please.

1:07:35We've also worked really hard. Our team has worked really hard on finding cost savings and efficiencies. With some of these large projects, we have experienced inflation pressures and other types of pressures in their construction and design. But we've calculated that we've saved at least $434 million just on some of the big capital projects that we've worked on.

1:08:06And this is through value engineering. So as we go through these projects, we look at ways that we can be more efficient and save costs on the engineering side of it. The Envision process actually is very helpful. The Envision process is like lead certification except for specifically for infrastructure. And we estimate that that has saved us $15 million on our new water reclamation facility, which is quite amazing when you think about it.

1:08:42So we've done a lot in terms of efficiency and cost savings. About $40.7 million in these cost savings are in grants from the federal government. So we went out and applied for and implemented some large grants the biggest for the City Creek Water Treatment Plant at $36.7 million. And then we also secured low interest federal loans, about $387 million worth of low interest federal loans with $19 million of that forgivable.

1:09:22We estimate for one of those loans, the loan we received for the water reclamation facility under the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act, saves our rate payers at least $100 million in financing costs over time. And with an addition to financing innovation, we have been working on our contracts with many of our general contractors and just recently realized $1.25 million in shared savings on the City Creek Water Treatment Plant.

1:09:56So a lot of work going on, what I have on this slide really shows some savings on large capital projects but even on the smaller capital projects, we are implementing efficiencies and cost savings. And then on the operational side, that ethic also extends for instance, repurposing positions instead of hiring new positions and then using technologies such as GIS to help make work floors more efficient.

1:10:27Next slide please. So before we dive into our budget, I want to talk a little bit about our rate drivers for the budget and rates. And we mentioned a couple of them, federal and state regulatory requirements definitely drive our budgets and our rates and to a large degree in our case with over a billion dollars worth of projects that had a federal nexus, a regulatory nexus to them.

1:11:02Engineering infrastructure is sort of embedded in some of those and also out into the future. And then debt service costs are something that really drives our rates this budget. And we'll talk a little bit more about that. And then of course inflation and then drought and water scarcity can affect what our rates look like as well.

1:11:26So for us, balancing all of these priorities is really important. We want to continue to provide this high level of service, comply with all of our regulations, but we also want to make sure our rates are affordable. I want to just say that we're not alone in our sector in facing these types of pressures and in facing the need to balance a lot of these priorities.

1:11:49According to the recently published value of water campaign, which was a national water campaign, in Utah alone, there's 41 billion needed over the next 20 years to bring water and wastewater infrastructure to a state of good repair. Nationally that number is $3.4 trillion over the next 20 years. Most communities have a very large delta between what they can afford in terms of bringing that infrastructure to a state of good repair and what's needed.

1:12:23And so we're really working very hard to make sure we're prioritizing what we need while still balancing basic water affordability. So to sum that up, there's a need to replace aged infrastructure. There's more of a need to replace aged infrastructure than to replace it. So we rely on a lot of different asset management condition assessment and risk assessment to prioritize our capital work.

1:12:52And we also work hard to stretch the life of our aging infrastructure and find ways to make that aging infrastructure more efficient to rehabilitate, such as recently rehabilitating sewer old sewer lines in a new way. Our debt service to pay bonds and loans that we mentioned for some of these large projects is increasing this year and is set to increase.

1:13:19One of the changes this year over the last few years is that we now need to meet a debt service coverage of two times our operational income in order to ensure that we maintain our good bond ratings. And I think that just reflects that the bond rating industry has become a lot more wise to a lot of the need that's out there in the country of replacing aging infrastructure.

1:13:48Our rates also need to increase so that we can plan for future regulatory and infrastructure needs. So for example, groundwater contamination at one of our most important drinking water resources, we've found low levels of PFAS forever chemicals, which will take quite an investment to clean from that well. We also, with respect to this year's drought and just the long term mega drought, we've also taken into consideration anticipated reductions in water use this year in our operational income.

1:14:29Next slide please. So as Austin mentioned, we have a 44% decrease in our proposed budget this year as compared to our amended budget last year. So that's almost $428 million this year. We are not proposing any increases in staff for this year. Our budget reduction reflects a nearly $350 million decrease in capital costs, partly because our two largest treatment facilities, the water reclamation facility and our city Creek water treatment plant are winding down this year and are scheduled to be completed by the end of this calendar year in 2026, which is very exciting for us.

1:15:16We started construction on the water reclamation facility in 2019. Many of you have been out to that project and understand the very large scale of that project. And then the city Creek water treatment plant, we were actually a little bit ahead of schedule on that one, which is a good, that's the silver lining to the winter we had actually, because we were able to be out and be in construction more than we thought.

1:15:46So next slide please. So summary of our utility funds budgets, we've broken down for fiscal year 2027 between each of the four utilities and between operations, capital and debt service. So one thing I want to highlight on this chart is just that our debt service this year is a little over $63 million. That's an increase from last year and our projections moving forward is that will increase as different bonds start maturing at different times.

1:16:25Yeah, I think we can go to the next slide and if there's more questions about that breakdown, we can talk about that. We also want to talk about our projected revenue and sources for fiscal year 2027. And the couple of things that I wanted to highlight here. First, we've kept our impact fees very static. We have not really signaled in our budget that we will be increasing our impact fees.

1:16:59So they're very conservative. We did just complete an impact fee facility plan and an impact fees study which would support increases in impact fees, but that will be coming through a separate process than our budget later this year. And Lisa, there's anything else you wanted to mention about revenues. Okay. All right.

1:17:26Next slide please. And then expenditures for fiscal year 2027. There are a few things I wanted to highlight here. You'll see on the line item for materials and supplies and charges for service. Those two line items kind of in the middle of the chart. Those are going up and that's for two reasons. For charges for services and materials and supplies, we anticipate increased costs as we transition from operating the existing water reclamation facility to moving to operating the new water reclamation facility.

1:18:06So there's going to be a point in time where we're staffed. We have contractors coming in to staff the old facility while we learn the new facility. So that's one thing. And then the other is our operations and maintenance team has added more to their materials and supplies budget in order to be more proactive around asset management.

1:18:29So there's more in the budget now to acquire and replace things like valves that fail and cause water leaks and those types of things. And that's also in keeping with the fact that rather than doing a lot of placement right now, we need to step up stretching the life of some of our infrastructure until we have the resources to replace some of it as we prioritize different infrastructure.

1:19:00And then again, you'll see that debt service climbs by a little under $7 million this year compared to last year. Next slide, please. So our proposed rate changes. Now it might feel a little counterintuitive. Our budgets going down by 44 percent, but we are proposing rate increases. The reasons for that are largely based on the increase of debt coverage that we need to have to maintain our bond ratings.

1:19:37And then we're also trying to plan for the future because we have a lot of deferred aging infrastructure that we don't want to have to rely on debt to replace over time. And so we want to start ensuring that we have a much more structurally balanced utility financial position as we move forward. So our new rates to the minimum rate increases we need to meet our debt coverage requirements for water are 25 percent.

1:20:09And actually these are revenue increases. The rate increases are going to look different depending on how much water it used basically. And the same is sewer at 40 percent. And then storm water at 20 percent. We also have one structural change. We are proposing an Austin spoke of this earlier in his introduction. But we want to change the multifamily sewer rate structure to a fixed rate per dwelling unit.

1:20:37That's 48 dollars and 94 cents per dwelling unit, which is a little less than what an average single family resident would typically pay just accounting for the smaller size typically of many of our multifamily developments. This will help both provide some certainty every month for what the rate would be because it's not based on a volumetric water use and also will provide for less of increases during the summer time for those properties that don't separate out their outdoor use and indoor use with different meters.

1:21:22So we hope that that's a good change. We have talked to many interested parties that represent multifamily developments. And this seems to be a lot more beneficial so far to them. And I think we're still having that conversation back and forth. For the street lighting utility, we're recommending a 50 percent revenue increase or rate increase.

1:21:50And that's largely due to the fact that we're impacted a lot with wire theft and vandalism to these facilities. And we relied more on reserves and debt in the past and we're going to need to start making that utility more financially capable in the future. These are photos of our watershed and hydrology teams out in the field picking invasive weeds in the mountains and also monitoring our stream flows.

1:22:29Next slide please. So we have some examples. There may be nobody in the world who completely fits these different profiles that we have in terms of what monthly water and sewer rate increases will look like. But we chose these examples based on a lot of averages. So for a residential minimum water use and sewer use which would largely be like a lower, an average to lower than average water user in a single family home, the combined monthly change would be about $21.63 for residential low use which is just a little bit above our average water use indoors.

1:23:26That would be around $25.37 in combined water and sewer fees. Medium use represents both indoor and outdoor use and that's a $41.08 increase on this example. And then high use is quite a lot of outdoor watering for most of our single family residential customers and that's about $88 per month for this example. We do have a rate calculator that will be live on our website.

1:24:03That will make it easier for people to look back on the water that they use and their bills and be able to see what their new rates would be and maybe even encourage some additional conservation as we look forward. Next slide please. And we have our monthly storm water charges, these reflect a 20% increase to storm water and that really goes toward some additional infrastructure work that we need for flood control and operational work that we need.

1:24:37Regulatory requirements, sorry I don't know what happened there. And so we've calculated those for single family and duplex homes for either less than a quarter acre or more than a quarter acre, triplex and fourplex homes and commercial and all of our parcels. These charges are not based on any kind of volumetric charge, it's based on the size of a parcel or what we call an equivalent residential unit or ERU.

1:25:12Next slide please. And then our monthly street lighting charges, those, this reflects the 50% increase. Most of our customers are in the base lighting group which would be a $2.60 increase per month. And then we have two different residential groupings that have enhanced lighting, enhanced lighting sometimes means that there's more light poles per block or they look a lot different in our fancier lights and depending on which enhanced lighting area you're in there's different increases based on the cost.

1:25:56And then group three is our commercial district lighting. So that's downtown and sugar house lighting primarily I think. The only other thing I wanted to add, I think the next slide is my last slide or yes, we're done. The only other thing I wanted to add is the rates that we see on our water and sewer bills, those go directly towards a lot of really important and critical infrastructure and operations to meet our regulatory obligations.

1:26:35So everything that's on our bills goes to things like maintaining the three city owned water treatment plants, making sure, you know, paying Metro for the water resources and the infrastructure that they're maintaining, replacing and rehabilitating water mains and hydrants, our lead service line replacement program, reservoirs and dams, sewer treatments, sewer mains, emergency response and operations.

1:27:06So there's a lot that we do a lot of our infrastructure and a lot of our operations are out of sight and out of mind and so they're not always thought about until something goes wrong and we don't want things to go wrong. And so we're trying to be very proactive in how we select and prioritize the needed work to do here and we really appreciate the support that you've provided in the past and would love to get your feedback right now and address any questions you may have.

1:27:39Council members, come and begin. Yeah, thank you. So I want to make sure we start off by recognizing that this is a long standing historical debt that we have been carrying as a city that is not at the feet of you or our current administration but that we can look back over years and decades in terms of the fact that these were needs, that we're always kind of pushed off to the future and that now we sit here together as a collective group kind of holding that back and saying what do we do?

1:28:26Because we can't not have clean water going to our residents across the city and so we need to find a solution on the way forward. I really want to call out and appreciate the slide that you had that highlighted all the various grants that you and your team and the administration have brought in to be able to defray these costs related to that historical debt that we've been carrying because it could be worse and I think it's important to recognize that as we're talking about it, that we're pulling every lever, you're looking at every possible opportunity to be able to say how do we come up with the resources necessary to continuing to deliver the A-plus services that our residents have come to expect from all the individuals in this space.

1:29:26With that I think there's also a balance to kind of shifting the conversation to the fact that these are debts that are not able to be addressed by a single budgetary action over a single fiscal year and I think that that's been one of my aha's as part of this process that when we've previously been speaking to at least my neighbors personally about some of these needs and underlying infrastructure issues, I think there was a hope that each year we were taking a step that would put us back on track and we'd be like okay so we have an issue but we're going to take this step this fiscal year and that's going to help us in the long run without necessarily really recognizing that this is going to be

1:30:20a multi-year effort not just by the individuals who sit in this room today but looking ahead to our future about what those needs are and also helping to educate and communicate to our residents how that historical debt came to be and what the future looks like not just this year but also moving forward. It is a steep climb and I don't look at the budget and think to myself oh you know what we don't need that we don't need that you know water reclamation you know center like I've been in the buildings with your team you know to see the 60s infrastructure I've had the opportunity to be educated about what does it look like to leave you know a pipe that was installed in the 1950s and hope for the best you know in terms of you know potentially

1:31:19leading us as a city to have water issues not that last a couple of days or a couple of weeks but into the years of what it would take in an emergency situation to fix it. I appreciate that this is an ongoing dialogue and an ongoing effort that you along with your team and the comprehensive city have been working on I want to reflect that I'm invested in being able to figure out what that long term solution looks like and appreciate the lens of how are we communicating this comprehensively to our city so that they don't expect that this rate increase is the final rate increase when we know we have a longer term situation that we need to address. So thank you for being here today and again thank

1:32:16you for all of your work to be able to help address an issue that you certainly did not create nor did anyone else in this room but that we're responsible for in terms of next steps. Thank you may I just I wanted to say one thing too so that people don't come away with the feeling that the people before us weren't investing so in the 70s and 80s we actually we and everyone else in the nation were the beneficiary of the federal government picking up the tab of 50 to 60 percent of a lot of these water infrastructure needs in Utah last year the estimate is that the federal government picked up 3 percent and when you know our predecessors were in these positions I think there was investment made but we're also coming

1:33:15to this infrastructure cliff where the investments that were made were helpful in keeping the facilities running but you know for instance in our treatment plants which are very expensive as Anna Lee talked about with the 1960 little cottonwood water treatment plant they weren't built to seismic standards yet most of them are on fault lines the foundational parts of the structure can no longer be band-aided and we are pushing off you know the replacement of big cottonwood water treatment plant until after little cottonwood that's partly why we're building that cottonwood's connection project so that we can bring that source of water to little cottonwood in the case of failure we're also putting pushing off parley's water treatment

1:34:04plant for some time after 2034 but we've got to start thinking about how we're going to afford that in the future because those those plants that infrastructure is what keeps our community running not just in Salt Lake City but the other communities that we serve so unfortunately we're not in a position where the federal government is I mean we were lucky to get some grants but those are very few and far between and that was under the IIA you know and barpowers and infrastructure law process we're not seeing those types of investments right now and we may not that we can't guarantee that but you know every local government and community is now tasked with making sure that they can meet the needs that they have

1:34:51with the little resources they have on in with respect to rates and revenue sources so I really appreciate those observations. That's one board. Thank you. So I agree with everything that Council Member Young said in terms of thanks and recognizing this isn't something that one budget or even a couple budgets can alleviate but I think people where I hear from residents and their frustration is you know you read about maybe other communities that haven't raised their water rates in this long and I don't think anybody knowing that I've spoken to is advocating for that either because I think that also comes with its own costs but if we could just how would you explain that it's even possible to do that

1:35:56in some communities where in our system it's really not. Yeah. So with respect to keeping rates lower in some communities and yeah we're just saying you know we have it priding themselves on how they haven't raised rates in yeah over the years. I mean every community is very different in the way it when and how it developed first of all so in Salt Lake City we are if not the oldest water system west of the Mississippi we're one of the oldest we're celebrating 150 years and I think parts of our water system may have been developed before that and so some communities have newer infrastructure.

1:36:43Some many communities don't have all parts of the system that Salt Lake City has where we are diverting the water treating the water and then distributing it to our customers and on the wastewater side the collection system and the treatment system they may get contract water say from Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District which is then delivered to those cities and they're just dealing with the distribution pipes.

1:37:12There are also many communities are supported by water districts and sewer districts in which a portion of the revenue that's generated is from property tax so the rates might look lower because they're not reflecting what's being paid in those property taxes. So it's very hard to compare we do try to compare with other similarly situated cities and in our in our budget book towards the end and one of the appendices we do compare with places like Denver and Phoenix and Flagstaff and others and we're all around the same range so we're not really that far from each other with some of those more comparably sized cities and we do also compare with sewer with with other cities on sewer but again it's a hard

1:38:06comparison because many other cities rely on districts to provide their treatment and that property tax. Okay can you talk a little bit about the I mean obviously I being on the council nine years I've supported the other increases. Can you talk about like the costs so I feel that we're making the right decision when we've done those things what is the alternative.

1:38:39Let's say that that you have residents that are saying you know vote for the alternative what does that look like. The alternative to not raising rates well this year one of the consequences could be potentially undermining our high bond rating so we have a double A1 Moody's rating and which is which is a very high rating and it helps us afford lower interest costs on the money we do borrow.

1:39:12If that bond rating is is threatened or downgraded that could potentially cost more in the long term not just for our department but also for other city needs as well. But I think the bigger question there is you know if we continue to defer the needs that we have and we continue to signal that we don't need to plan for those future needs.

1:39:42I think that sets us up for reducing our resiliency and reducing our water security in the long term and it sets us up for potential unreliability in what I think you know water and wastewater kind of the underpinnings of not only our public health and our environmental health but our economy and we want to make sure that we're ahead of it.

1:40:08We're not there yet if we as we continue to plan for a sound financial health as well as making sure that we're addressing what we need to address. We're not addressing everything that we need that we've identified but we're addressing the key critical points you know then then I think there's confidence in the system.

1:40:32There are examples across the nation of and there all be quite extreme that we've heard but some examples where the the communities were not able to make those investments for a lot of different reasons and that has resulted in some very difficult conditions in those communities. I'm not saying we're anywhere near that but we don't want to we want to make sure that we're we continue to be proactive.

1:41:06Okay I also hear from a lot of constituents that one of their biggest concerns is Great Salt Lake and you know what is the what kind of council do to help Great Salt Lake and are we doing everything that we can how does something like our water rates relate to the Great Salt Lake. Do those have anything to do with each other?

1:41:38Yeah that has to do with the design of our rate structures so in Salt Lake City we have a four block or four tiered rate structure and we send a price signal through those higher blocks of rates for conservation and so that's one way in which we account for that and then also with respect to Great Salt Lake the investments for instance into the water reclamation facility ensures that the quality of the water that we're discharging into Great Salt Lake is meets all of the Clean Water Act requirements that it needs to meet but it also means that we have 35 million gallons of water on average a day going to Farmington Bay and you know I think that's really important as well.

1:42:32So there's definitely a nexus between water conservation Great Salt Lake and the rates that we charge. And my last question is just can you talk a little bit more about the change to like apartments, condos that portion of the pre-ended you know culinary water versus water that's going to landscaping. I think you know not too I don't mean this is a criticism but like I think we found last year that we could have communicated that better and that we've probably learned a lot.

1:43:18I know that and I appreciate the time that you have spent and your team has spent with the residents and landlords property owners in my district you know walking them through the process correcting where we have made mistakes and maybe we weren't charging them the right amount or something like that you know or there are other factors that we weren't considering.

1:43:45Can you speak to so I think those individuals might feel nervous when I talk to them about them there being another change in that area. Can you you know can you speak to that issue and how would you speak to some of those constituents that you and I have met with that were really upset last year and might be nervous this year.

1:44:11With the new multifamily rate structure being fixed per dwelling unit those multifamily properties are not going to see the wild swings that they saw last summer particularly those properties where the meter that they had was both for indoor use and outdoor use. If they shared a meter then their sewer charges were based on their total use and in some cases that resulted in a very large summer sewer bill that they were not accustomed to seeing.

1:44:46That actually was not a situation we were aware of during the rate study and implementation so we did as you said we did learn quite a lot. That led to some really important and informative meetings with the trade organizations that represent multifamily housing and we walked through the new rate structure with them we're still waiting to hear back from them on their calculations of what the new rates would look like for them but our preliminary calculations do indicate that it will be a lot better for those many of those multifamily homes.

1:45:30We've also worked with the commercial entities that were on that same sewer rate structure and how to similar situation we're working with them it's not a rate structure change but we're working with them to separate their outdoor use from their indoor use so that we have a better idea of what's going what they're putting on their landscapes outside and what's going inside and we can charge them appropriately for that.

1:45:54And then finally one of the things we all learned both the trade association representatives that we met with and some of the residents and some of the commercial properties is there's a great opportunity for outdoor conservation and I believe that Stephanie Dure, our water conservation manager, is actually doing a water conservation presentation with the rental housing association and other stakeholders who are really interested in this so that could also help great Salt Lake in the long term too.

1:46:33Okay, thank you. Mr. McChorlson. My comments will be similar to Council Member Young's but I just want to start by saying that I believe leadership means making hard decisions. It means not passing the buck and it means managing expectations over the long term and I feel confident in public utilities doing those things and recognize how critically important water is to all of us and the management of this very, very precious resource that we all depend on every single day.

1:47:16I appreciate the thoughtfulness both of which you're approaching these decisions and these proposals and the comment that you shared in regards to the declining federal investment in water infrastructure. I'm curious, are there any ways we can change that, declining interest in helping us carry the burden of our infrastructure and even you mentioned that it seems like some of those grants that we were able to apply to seem to be few and far between, is there anything else we can do any other grants or other opportunities to really balance that affordability that I think all of us are also keeping in mind too?

1:48:00Yeah, I think this is a real generational question because those initial investments in the 70s and 80s, you know, we're now moving forward another one or two generations from then and our infrastructure is doing the same. We also, especially in the West, have a lot of water challenges, scarcity, drought, the Colorado River challenges.

1:48:25I think there's a great opportunity for a renewed partnership with federal investments or federal agencies. Sometimes we talk about unfunded mandates for instance. I showed this slide where it led service line replacement regulations is $100 to $150 million over the course of the next 10 years. That's a huge amount of investment and it's an important investment but it's from a regulation that came with really no funding, although we did secure a low interest loan for that.

1:49:00That's not always available. So there is a lot of work happening on the national level with my sector, with the water and wastewater sector around trying to work with federal agencies to see what kinds of policy shifts could happen on that level if it's even possible. There may be other ways this year, Lisa and the team, our executive team will be sitting down doing a long range strategic plan around financial health and resiliency as well as what needs to be done and we'll be coming up with some good ideas there too I hope.

1:49:48Member? You true? Thank you. Ditto to everything. Nothing is unnecessary. We are not growing as one of my predecessors who say unicorn farms, everything is necessary and you definitely approved your value in district one this year. We know well that it is city public utilities that shows up. It wasn't county flood, it was you all who showed up to make things right when they went awry.

1:50:16So all of that said and I'm really deeply grateful Laura that you tutored me because I am not intuitive about water policy or rates or anything. So I'm so thankful for the time that you've spent with me. I think part of the crisis here is that you are doing an amazing job of being a steward and making sure that we have money set aside for future maintenance but in order for us to do that as a collective entity we have to raise rates on people who aren't able to do that for themselves.

1:50:47We're doing it for people whose car will stop running and they will not have had the benefit of setting aside a down payment for a new one and that is the nature of the beast but it does lend a little bit of gravity and difference to how we approach this. One question of clarification, under street lighting utility here in my staff report, under revenue, there's a line there that says general fund contributions.

1:51:15We are incredibly fantastic about making sure that things generated within enterprise funds only go back into the enterprise fund. Can you explain to me what the $20,000 that comes in as a revenue from the general fund is? That's actually, I believe, a contribution from the general fund to the enterprise and that is for the private lighting program.

1:51:36Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. That's a good clarification. My other request would just be, if we can't provide stability and no increases to our neighbors, the next best thing is we can provide anticipatory guidance so they can prepare to absorb them. And I'm struggling because even as much information as I have, admittedly, I am not right when it comes to this.

1:52:07I need help and lots of hand holding but for instance, my stormwater total already now on my April bill reflects what a rate increase should be. I don't understand why that is. When I look at my cubic feet, it looks like I'm a low water user but then my sewer rate already reflects a median user. You know, these are things that I'm sure there are really, really great reasons where I don't need you to explain my water bill on the public record but I would love the opportunity for us to work to make sure that our neighbors, if you ask us, we're all going to say we're low users.

1:52:44And so I think that sort of education to help our neighbors, you know, as I looked here, the average complete bill for a low user in my district with our enhanced lighting should be increasing $29.93 to $33.67 per month. That is significant when our gas and our vehicles have doubled in the past two weeks. And so, you know, while people might consolidate trips or ride their bike to Smiths instead of driving and they can do things, it really is feeling increasingly and maybe this is the nature of us living in a high desert and we had a false precedent set for us before, there isn't very much that you can do to conserve on your water bill even when you are doing the right thing and conserving water.

1:53:36So as we move forward, you know, I'm having people say things to me like we feel like we did everything right, we did the natural plants, we put in a low waste irrigation system and I'm still seeing my water bill go up. I'm having people say that they're nervous about being able to grow their own food this year and to be able to afford the water that goes into that in a time where people are worried about the price of goods being trucked to them because of fuel increases.

1:54:02So this is a double whammy. So as we're moving through this, I just would like to work with you to get to, we are asking people, like I said, who can't do the kind of planning for their own lives that we are doing as a city and that's a really, really great thing that we're asking for them to contribute to. And so if we can't provide stability, we have to provide predictability and I thank you for being possibly the best experts in the region, not just the state and for offering this guidance but as we move through this, our responsibility for communicating clearly and concisely only goes up as our rates do.

1:54:43We agree totally. I agree totally. This is a really hard budget and year in a lot of ways with our department and just the compounding impacts of everything going on and that's affecting what it costs to live with a good quality of life. So this is not a budget or a proposal we take lightly at all and we've been talking about ways in which we could improve our customer assistance programs that make them a little less restrictive than they were in the past.

1:55:24More modeling the energy assistance programs that is funded by the federal government. We don't have that same thing for water but we're trying to do that but we could potentially replicate that ourselves. But also as you said, the education is really important how to read the water bill. So the rate calculator is going to be only so good as how someone might be able to read their water bill.

1:55:58And so we'd be happy to work with you and your constituents. Everybody's constituents on any of that and maybe we'll talk more about that as well. Thank you. Councillor Mardouken. Thank you and I thank you for the discussion and the comments I think they're all spot on. It is the perfect storm here to use that old line.

1:56:24My question is the rates that we have going on here, there was an assumption on us saving water throughout the year. And what is your projection for the budget as far as what the city is saving so that we keep water in the reservoir and that we feed water to the Great Salt Lake because both are necessary during the drought season.

1:56:47We don't want to just have everything go to the Great Salt Lake and greater the reservoir than vice versa. So what's your projections on our savings rate to the budget because that impacts our rates? In our budgeted revenues in the water utility we made an assumption of an 8% decrease over last year. But it's also a larger, if you look, it's hard to look at our water demand year over year because there's so much variability so we also look at the average three years.

1:57:26So we're budgeting lower than we ever have in our projected water demand in this budget and that includes a lower, anticipating lower water demand than our historically lowest years. So that is embedded in our budget. We are in stage two of our water shortage contingency plan that has mainly voluntary participation. We'd like people to save somewhere around 10 million gallons a day.

1:58:02So far this spring we haven't seen that. We're just around where we were last year. But as we get into the summer I think we'll probably be saving a lot more water. And as we move forward into this year we're going to be evaluating just what you said you know storage versus stream flow. What do we want to hold over in storage for next year in case we have another drought year.

1:58:29So that's something we'll be working with Annalie and Metro and our other stakeholders on as well this year. Thank you. Thank you for the time. I know the point of the politicalities in our city is just a gem for the work that you have done to bring us up to speed and to make us resilient to the changing environment that we have.

1:59:03And you know it is actually something to celebrate that we have a billion dollars of infrastructure in motion right now and that we are making it in time that we're making it some of those ahead of time and that we are building a system that is going to outlast many of us here which is how we're supposed to be making those decisions.

1:59:26So it's huge. I you know I have I'm very proud of the work that you do. I always proud of our politicalities department and how you see the problem and you tackle it. I am certainly have opinions about water usage and about how you know multifamily you know units use water and I wish we could do more to curve the use of water and some of those felt like many of them are not realizing how much waste waste or whatever that is happening within our city.

2:00:11But I would like to focus a little bit on the question that I don't think that we probably have the time to chat about but I would love to have the opportunity to chat a little more through a couple weeks ahead through the budget discussions and it relates to street lighting and I'm still you know hyper focus on the the issue of equity related to street lighting and you know past decisions this cancel or a different iteration of this cancel made to you know to absorb some debts that I felt like you know bring back the question of equity representing the West side and the service that we would receive from public lighting and I would love to hash out some of those numbers and try to get to a maybe potentially a better

2:01:01outcome and I believe that we're doing a great job right now as a whole in the city I just want to bring the service levels maybe closer to what other neighborhoods are seen so that's my hope. Yeah we would like to do that too and our street lighting master plan that we updated now six years ago really changed what that lighting looks like so instead of base lighting it anticipates more pedestrian level lighting or greater density of lighting in different areas.

2:01:39Part of the reason why we're looking at our street lighting rates this year so closely and why we have this increase is so that we can start to be able to implement that street lighting plan so that we can bring greater equity to different parts of our community so we completely agree with that. I think that's a value proposition that I would love to make to my neighbors if I'm going to say you're going to have to pay more but this is what you're getting and I would love to explain to my neighbors why this is important but I hope that we have more time in future weeks if I appreciate you and you work that the administration does to bring transparency to this budget so any anything else council members okay thank you so much for the time.

2:02:30Thank you. Council members we have a few board appointments and I believe they're both online and available for us both appointments are for the housing authority of Salt Lake City we have a number of six Deborah Chikito will join us online are you there Deborah yes can you hear me yes we can hear you can you tell us briefly why do you want to join this board yes my career I'm a social worker by career and I work 20 years in the Utah State Prison retired three years ago and one of the main things I work with the women in a treatment program for substance use and we would have them in a residential program they do well but they'd get out they wouldn't have safe housing they wouldn't have stable housing they wouldn't have you know

2:03:33any transitional supports and they'd be right back in prison so I really have an interest in seeing kind of that transitional support reentry stuff for especially women for people coming out of the correctional system as well as homelessness and everything that goes with it and I really like what you what the housing board of Salt Lake City is doing and what the mayor is doing as well as far as the funding and the housing and the you know multifaceted it's it's not just you know well good luck you know it needs to be sustainable it needs to be multifaceted there's mental health trauma informed staff training ongoing you know issues that we need to address within Salt Lake City within the state within other communities

2:04:31within you know and get the support funding and the legislature you know the state local communities working together the prison you know other entities the community partners that type of thing and so I would be honored to kind of rejoin the fight to I guess is fight the wrong word but be joined the team to help you know work hard and get things going and support the goals that you guys have been working on so hard so it would be an honor anyway is that does that help that's fantastic thank you okay thank you know we are very thankful for you you know we'll change your time wanting to join these board council member I just appreciate you retiring from this work and then going right back into it and that

2:05:38your advocacy for it we need people like you standing on the stool and really advocating for all this great work so I appreciate that and thanks you for stepping up to the plate you're welcome I've had three years to go travel and do my own thing so I think I have the energy again to get back in and work hard so thank you for considering me and for the opportunity I appreciate that thank you we as you know the process goes your name is going to be put on the consent agenda on the formal meeting tonight you don't need to attend to to be appointed to this board the administration will reach out to you with more information soon after okay sounds good thank you very much thank you now looking into a board appointment

2:06:39for the housing authority again of Salt Lake City turn a bit bitten are you online can someone reach out to Turner and see if he will be joining shortly because I think it will inform whether or not we reschedule this board appointment I think we'll have a sort of longer closed session we could go to report of the chair and announcements to just maybe buy a few minutes yes let's do that okay report of the chair and vice chair yes moving on to that there is no report from ours now the standing items report announcements from the executive director yep and this one we just wanted to make sure that you guys know that agenda packets will shift to Fridays during the budget just to give our staff a little extra time to get that

2:07:41information together and thanks in advance to the administration for all of the questions we're about to send meetings are also going to adjust starting at 1 p.m. unless otherwise noted we will adjust if we can avoid starting at 1 but we're kind of just holding that space while we can but we're also starting Thursday meetings maybe a little bit earlier than some of you've been around for a while are used to so our first Thursday meeting will actually be next week Thursday the 14th we will we will be in touch with you guys about the timing of those Thursday meetings it's possible that they'll be shorter and so hopefully wrapped up either you know if they start if they have to start after five in order for everyone

2:08:25to get here hopefully they won't go too late or if we need to be done by five we'll just kind of be in touch about that the goal there is to get as much information kind of into the council's minds so that as you figure through what budgets you're comfortable with both with and without a property tax increase you have kind of as much information as possible as early as possible just confirming all of these will have a virtual option all of these will have a virtual option yes absolutely and so then this list this is the list of dates so feel free to read through them and let staff know if you have any questions the CRA budget will be discussed on Tuesday May 19th so that's why we're having a CRA

2:09:14meeting on that night we've kind of reaffirmed with CRA that if the council or board has more questions we can add you know brief CRA meetings as needed after that. I don't know if Turner is here yet. Thank you we're going to you embarking on a on the budget we're excited to ask some questions and to receive some answers and to get to the bottom of it let's see if Turner Button is online no.

2:09:55Okay we can reschedule his interview for another day and just we'll have to remember to pull it from the consent agenda. Yes we need to pull it from today's consent agenda but we can we can add it to a different agenda in the future.

2:10:13Okay so that brings us to the potential close meeting. That's the members. Mr. Chair I move that we go into closed meeting to discuss.

2:10:36Rea. Okay thank you.

2:10:43Character professional competence or physical or mental health of an individual and attorney client matters. And then can we add labor negotiations and update on the yes labor negotiations.

2:10:57Second I have a motion by Councilman Warren and second by Council Member Dugan I Council Member Pietro. Hi Council Member Warden. Hi Council Member Carlson. Hi Council Member Young. Hi Council Member Dugan. Yes and I may yes and that passes unanimously with one Councilman missing from the meeting six passes unanimously thank you.

2:11:31Yes we are adjourned after that and then we can join and to a formal meeting at 7 p.m. Thank you.