City Council · Regular Meeting · March 2, 2023

good morning good morning good morning everybody happy Thursday in the morning everybody it's a great day today in the whole city thank you all for being here today those of you who are joining on the internet as well as those who have joined us here in our beautiful Department of War Management Facility out on Miss Lake Drive here in the city of Durham nine o'clock on Thursday March the 7th 2022 and today is the first day of our city of Durham City Council budget Retreat did not turn to our corrupting experts you will please talk around O'Neil ton I'm here yes um [Music] thank you I believe that councilman

Williams is almost here and councilwoman of Jose Harmon I will be here shortly as well so we will get right to the people's business this morning and turn around our director of budget and Management Services [Music] department heads student manager members of council uh thank you for joining us here for our first Council budget retreat very excited I didn't think we would get here um but we are a little more rehearsing so it's time to get on the show um a few things we want to discuss to begin with because obviously um when we came back live we wanted to

bring back some aspects that we had experienced we would invite about our virtual process during the lockdown report for the last three years and uh and one of those was the ability to engage this process with the public to the YouTube so this morning this is being live stream for both days on device called meow each time we were experience some people have not which allows us to broadcast [Music] the best manner the conversations the presentations the dialogue involving our two-basic Retreats we'll we will discuss significant budget issues some things about that if you haven't experienced at all I think some of you have um he's very sensitive and tends to pick up everything just assume for the day

that you are on camera um at all times because it has a very a lot which it tends to finally pick up a lot from these comments there's a lot of um eating voices last night everyone to be aware of that that is very very sensitive just so you know but that is well that's okay wanting to engage with people we're very very happy to do um for those of you who are who are the same person uh the city of Durham's website uh the budget and Management Services page currently has our budget process online and you can go to the web page this morning and see the agenda for our proceedings this morning and for every presentation you can click on the item it will take you to a PDF of that actual presentation so you you can

even it will remain for our entire budget work through the spring and so you have those uh accessible and you pause at this moment and our hopes this morning is is the Department of Water Management uh I don't think there's this prouder Steward of this facility than director Dylan really and that he's on the course here this morning and I've asked him to say a few housekeeping words about the facility that we're enjoying today because it's a quiet yeah we will focus on the facts um there's two meeting rooms up front for business during breaks if you need

to if you first walk in and respond to their sex bathrooms for a safety moment in the event I know we have something tomorrow depending on the weather there should be any kind of coordinator or anything please just thinking into the bathrooms across the hall staff will open until where we're saying so yeah and then one last moment about a internet if you're having trouble connecting the city of neurons theater of guests connect um just forget the network and then try to walk back in the final thing is that from Verizon to your phone um building those active a little bit of the Roman silence for Verizon we have technology coming it should be here this month at T seems to work well but if you're interested in Verizon more than likely to signals

technology [Music] oh when microphones will be here so if for us we can ask questions and just answering the bank account as opposed to speaking of that thank you before I turn things over to the city manager of city manager on the page uh I'd like to just go over today's agenda just so everybody knows what we're going to cover uh we will have some opening remarks you'll see the manager uh followed by the financial projections and budget Outlook uh forecasting presentation we'll take a short break um there are of course I think by now you know refreshments and coffee and water plenty of water [Music] um after the break we will have a presentation by our director of human resources on Recruitment and Retention

J Connor from the TJ card will have a facility discussion on city council or budget requests and then closing online support to finish by four o'clock because we know we need to turn around

so with that are there any questions all right um with that turned over to city manager one Adventure good morning everyone can everybody hear me great well first I would like to welcome um All City staff it is beautiful to see you all here um leaders uh other organization um I am so happy to be your own council members in the mayor this morning so that we can share our information that is pertinent to uh some very important decisions that we will all make together so I am going to Oakland As is our Uh custom

here our much anticipated budget retreat but the fun timing and relevant topic to ignite your creative thinking as an all the creative people in this room um as work on the city's most more than one half billion dollar budget begins but you later became and really still is a cultural phenomenon it was if the purpose was to really give you topics to consider as you think about the level this year we decided to tide our budget talks to something that affects us all specifically our own pocketbooks and wallets over the last three years inflation has been a Hot Topic we've all heard about it read about it um and not just economists you know

talked about that like Dr Walden who will be joining us to speak tomorrow but just every day can slow us we have relied on him that will walk with many years to help us better understand our economy uh at both the macro and the micro levels and also understand how it affects us as we plan to see this budget deflation is now something we tend to all understand at some level as we've seen the personal and societal effects of inflation of the similar words that are creeped into our everyday Network like shrinkflation where packages of food get smaller the cost of sale or even increase there is also stagflation and pink flation so you may be convenient others they may not I'll let you Google those uh at a later time but no word I'd like for you to think about has quickly become part of our lives in

this education if you're a grocery Shopper in your family you know that exorbitant and crisis have put it there in our in our grocery list and our diets particularly if you love eggs my plate was filled in good morning and even if you don't remember that eggs are a key ingredient in those cakes and cookies and so many dishes that we love to eat if you buy those ready-made dishes like I do pretty much every day without a doubt you're paying for uh thanks to the razor eggs I don't have to tell you that eggs in some areas of the country cost more than a gallon of gas and you can't really eat gas but the price has gotten let's see has gotten so expensive in some areas of our country that people have decided to get their own channels um but that comes with space needs and feeding and collecting the eggs to clean it up after them all factors in raising

chickens to enthusias integration has also scrambled up many has grabbed us a device from how to tell if the egg has gone back to alternatives to eggs like those liquid egg products one piece of advice that relates to our blood defenses this year is from an arm I read about where you should keep your heads on the Shelf and want their children or in the refrigerator you might guess that the recommendation is that if you don't plan to use the eggs within a few hours the safest place to store that is is when the temperature is constant and cool your refrigerator and that brings me to my theme this morning keep is figurative is

7 percent of balance at times when we pay more

8

million dollars to better our community with the American Rescue plan for our basket and other Federal funding today of the 34 organizations that the city council has approved to receive article funding 16 of those agreements have been completed and two are in the process of being finalized right now providing more than that one nearly 10 million dollars so far to help those organizations make a difference in neural in various ways other agreements for Selective organizations will be awarded in the coming months also city council recently voted to allocate more than 10 million dollars to harmful of our funds for affordable housing at this point we have more than 12 million dollars left in arfa funding that must be obligated by December of 2024.

finally there are other major brand fund baskets that in many millions that total many mules mostly coming from the federal government agencies such as transportation department and Housing and Urban Development Department I think the Mariner signed letters for transportation department just yesterday to support Grant requests which is an example of the very dedicated work that our employees do to try to find funding that's competitive and we are competitively there are several baskets thank you our many years a live budget management the consistent strength of our local economy and our aggressive evidence to continue to see available Federal funding and other funding from multiple sources to meet the community needs and wants

with that being said we must continue to be smart about how we use funding from these baskets while we have several baskets for which to pay are all going one time and Big Ticket needs keep in mind those baskets not bottomless and there are local state and federal policies that govern how the funds and those baskets can and not just can but must be used keep in mind as we consider our work here today while we don't have the news the latest golden eggs we do have several baskets of different kinds of eggs now it is up to us working together to pick the right is from the right baskets to determine how we fund the many needs that make our community a sunny side up

it's a better place to live work and play so thank you for allowing me to speak to you this morning and let's get cracking [Applause] I see what you did there sat up all night trying to figure out how he's going to articulate the problems uh I couldn't have said it better myself um we now moved to the financial projections and budget now look uh portion of our program um and I would preface this by saying if you all got a preview of this last week at the council work session with the

second quarter financial report so it's good to happen it was a good foundation for us to begin with so some of this is is with you so I won't spend probably as much time on the front end enrollment um I will say um that today and tomorrow there's a tremendous amount of financial information to digest particularly today which is really really focused on the city and then tomorrow is more focused on Horizons and what what others in the state are doing or how we compare in our surveys other cures and things like that normally we have about two weeks to digest all that in purple tree um and and we're not afforded that opportunity to start we need to come back to normal um and get to a point where we adopt some budget guidelines which are which is a brilliant document and critical to

our budget process to staff and people the budget process is like a clock as the timer starts July 1st and the clock does not stop until June 21st 22nd when we adopt the budget and that's about statement we have to do that so the process is always running so those guidelines are critical because we know Tuesday we need to know the agenda item in on base in order to get some consensus around us it's not to scare anyone it's just to tell people where we're at and we're certainly available as we go through this to answer questions and and now is the appropriate time to to ask them it's just going to be a little compressed so uh I'm going through this we'll give a recap of last year's budget everything that we did in that process

we will move on to uh Financial projections and what our budget Outlook is uh going into the end of the year and into next year and also on a multivariable time over High School which we always do and then we'll talk a little bit about what our budget process actually is personal recap um you all know this you know people at home may not know this we adopted about just over it's 500 just over a billion dollar budget in total uh largely comprised of general fund for the majority of our departments sit 256 million dollars and then we have our other sometimes we call them buckets and financials we call them funds the largest city water and super fund Debt Service fund which we'll have a lot of talk about and interplay between The Debt Service fund and the general fund which is critical Solid Waste Quantum Transit storm of water inspections working on the Deep act that

38 cents a reminder that

two cents of that is for operations the one point 3A is to pay the debt service on the 95 million dollars which is right there so uh our revenues revenues won't spend a lot of time here we've talked about this before the majority of our revenues comes from property taxes and sales tax about uh you know all funds almost eight percent and the majority of our expense expenditures are towards Personnel Services what does that mean people the people who make up the organization who run the programs that provide the services to residents of Bureau Just A visual representation of what I said before how that breaks down you see

if you look at it as a hundred dollar bill the majority of the hundred dollar bill these these revenues collected for property taxes sales tax and then in firstly we talked about Personnel within the Personnel we have buckets and programs linked by light like Services Public Safety which is comprised of the police department the fire department our community Safety Division our emergency communications Department uh to make up to more than half of that hundred dollars commuting building things like concluding the developing the department neighborhood Improvement services Public Services would be things like Public Works Solid Waste um outboard placing things and then the smaller portions are Administration and folks like ourselves Budget Finance

Technology Solutions and then governance which would be reported to see the attorney's office so the manager's office and city council this slide you saw last week the story you take away from this is what is Q2 doing currently versus Q2 last year and you can see we're doing we're doing better which is what we would expect to tell the story in um and I don't want you to misinterpret the story this is very beneficial because it shows how we did over the last five years so the the blue is the end of year which means the actual Revenue created is kind of collected the yellow is what is budgeted what we predicted would happen and then there's one green and of

course that's year to date because we don't know what's going to happen in the current year we can only forecast but beginning with the property tax uh Revenue slide here I I don't think there's too many Surprises with um we budgeted conservatively through the coveted years and we did better than we thought we would do that's what it's telling me and it's a similar story with sales tax when you move to this we budgeted conservatively through coven and we did extremely well this this was unpredictable I think when we were in this room three years ago Dr Walden we will see again there was a lot of conservative forecasting around sales tax nobody knew what people were going to do with lockdown of course nobody knows what people are going to do with their spending behaviors and it turns out that they just spent in a different way and sales tax continued to grow as it does this year

foreign ly interesting they are smaller revenues things like occupancy tax and power bill revenues and charges for services do not make up a lot of amount of our budget of about 20 million dollars of our budget but it's significant because what it is pointing to is not rapid growth I wouldn't want you to misinterpret this but it is pointing to a recovery we saw many years with occupancy tax undercovered where people were coming to the hotels and eating new restaurants but now we're seeing that they are the mid-year projection is more than what we budgeted last year and it's pointed towards a return of about three million dollars which is where we work three global war documents it's a similar story with power bill written it comes from the state that helps to repair our roads we budgeted conservatively through the covert years for this and and we the predictor we got

very very good in some cases but then last year we saw a spot we collected more than a million dollars anticipated and we still went conservative based on advice from the Department of the state and we're still seeing an aggressive return so we're watching that it's a very good news and then finally charges for services these are the things the Departments um the charge for programs and things like that Parks and Rec fees uh things in in public works and street fighting permits things like this um and again we're seeing a recovery here which is very good it feels like back to business but I wouldn't want anybody to say that it is aggressive anymore it's back to business that's very good news yeah so our January revenue status overall and when you look at property tax from from this lens we're not just looking at property tax in the general funding we're looking at property tax in all those funds I've talked about sort of The Debt Service fund

4 what's that about it's simply about the very large accounting payment that wasn't collected at that time it hasn't been collected by now

it's going to be collectible uh Planning and Development fees because they are uh very good at forecasting and what's going on in the community building environment again Planning Development fees a very strong moving over to inspections strong but I spiked last year Network 22. these are mid-year numbers that you're seeing here and what the department is saying is that we're kind of returning to the norms what are our peers doing this is a a chart that is prepared by the City of Raleigh on all of our behalfs so it's it's wrong that's why it's in green that's why they're showing but it kind of shows you uh where we stand in all elicitates our peers

5577 to medium valuable home of course that's viewers numbers [Music] children too much into this chart but it's it's always great to have it as a baseline reference and then this is kind of a cost chart that we showed you know what is the value of our tax dollars you know they're sitting there right in the Miller in the middle uh customer awesome job for helping the highest uh once in sales and there's a lot of variables and factors that go into this and they're not all Apples to Apples so I would read this chart with a grain of salt we'll do the best that we can in making it a comparative comparison but it's not always foreign

1 million dollars uh worry too much about that number we've had gaps like that before however I I wouldn't take it casually either I would say overall that um we sometimes at this point in the year go a little conservative on revenues because we're careful people um and nothing we didn't go aggressive on expenses with forecasts um but um there's a lot of things that are not loaded into this is what I'll say so that is that is a number we've been accustomed to before and I say that because there was a similar number in a local paper with a similar municipality and where they interpreted it I interpret it differently from our city

and we see approximately 109 budget requests from departments for a total between 25 budget in the west from city council over 44 million and will have greater discussion about that this afternoon I don't want to spend too much time on that now um have a reminder of the city manager will remind us earlier the general fund best practice is that one-time expenses and you spend a lot of time talking about what's reoccurring and what's on time because reoccurring you have a bill that needs to be paid forever particularly in FTD when you take on a new employee that's usually a 30-year commitment a one-time expense liquid department needs a generator or something like that for fifty thousand dollars I don't want to say that fifty thousand dollars is easy money to find but it's easier than the FTV

so just to keep an eye on as we're going to get to our home balance position is that fund balance is recommended practices for one-time expenses foreign our development process for the budget where are we now um we had a kickoff in January he was virtual it was our last virtual event we hope to do the remaining of our process in person uh we like this very very much so when we meet with departments and we'll get to that city manager leads one-on-one with each department that'll be in person that will improve the quality of the discussion and the engagement it just does when we meet with you again in may we hope that that is in person that is our plan to have a new person which we did last year so just a little bit of where we are today is March 2nd so we're at our Retreat we um we are moving towards the

first public hearing on the budget on Monday March 20th I would insert him here and it said later is the adoption of our um of our budget guidelines which Falls I believe is the day that happens May 15th the city manager will present the proposed budgeted budget as usual before that date to the city manager will meet one-on-one with all of you to preview what was in the budget to take the temperature of that um May 24th and 25th will be our our city um Council of work sessions on the budget in which we will discuss the recommendations the revenue forecasts the CIP recommendations um and critical departmental needs will come in those discussions we will have our second public hearing uh in June you don't know about the public hearing

that is the one that is required by law the manager presents the budget and then the proposed budget and the public has the right to weigh in their comments their thoughts on that budget that's what that one is the first one we do not have to do we we offer it again because we're we're open government we're transparent and we want republics um at that point their comments on the budget services and then finally we move on June 20th to 201 the adoption of the budget and the capital Improvement plan not going to discuss all that this is granularity of what I just said and it is there for your reference um I will just point out the city council adults budget guidelines is equal S one correction yes

uh the Friday the February 17th correct yes yes that that jumped and um I think this light at some point said will present will submit their budget by February 20th obviously that's already happened we're in the process which next steps there it is somewhere so that has already happened and what is happening now is is assembling that information and analyzing that information that is that is the talk of the analysts work for the next month to analyze what's coming and and make the best recommendation in conjunction with departments so so that we can try out prioritize the requests because there's too many we can't do them all so

we want to take a critical eye and make a recommendation on what we think is best for this coming fiscal year 24. we always do we continue to do budget and Equity analysis um through Sharon Williams and the equity inclusion Department uh that continues to be you don't have time to grow into it but that continues to be a great success for it the amount of work that is done around that and how it has been revised and fine-tuned in the last three years we do a parallel process with uh CIP requests and that is going extremely well as well I sat in yesterday on the CRP meeting for the transportation Department's Capital requests um and it was awesome the amount of detail about location of projects and the equity score and how that all fits in to the work we do and the vision we have strategically

um I'm trying to find a way to share it with you um so again I said this we're gonna we're gonna review requests we're going to do the analysis performance measurement comes into play is tremendously we do a whole lot of work in the in something called Data hub which is really our warehouse restoring measures Sherry Metcalf in our department kind of stewards all of that work that departments do a tremendous amount of work benchmarking the work work they do so that we can measure whether something is performing efficiently or a peak or underperforming and all of that goes into the soup of the analysis and then we make recommendations so in summary um with our revenues we're we're on Target and in some cases we're exceeding sorry

9 million more deficit at this point in time that's the projection so we're fy24 that is not the projection for the end of fiscal year end of fiscal year you saw last last rule of use the projection is is a surplus don't want to leave out the multi-year projection because all of this work that we do in forecasting

has repercussive effects on what happens in future use Maybe um and this is the multi-year plan for the general fund which again is comprised of almost half of like a 260 million dollars um and what what you're seeing there would just focus on the way thank you it's you see growing deficits over the year not to panic the red is being driven by the decisions we make having to do with the employee pay and benefits last year and that will continue to grow and I would remind you again what I said before we are conservative in our Revenue projections so that that's a barometer we're not saying we're going to realize those deficits right and this kind of gets to what I was saying we always project

1 million dollar Gap we talked

2 million dollars to to address our maintenance needs we arrived at that and we're going to continue with that General Services might have a different number now might have a different stretch rule that's something we're going to discuss but that is something that we put in the guidelines and it's something we want to continue to to work for streets decision was made very very early on we'll see this tomorrow in in the Resident survey I don't want to steal the fire but Straits continues it has always been a priority in the city so we took a step right out of the gate to put an additional five early dollars dedicated towards streets that number is

usually you usually see six with four coming from one balance for a total of 10. this year it's eleven plus four for a total of 15. you will see this afternoon the Department's request for streaming is 21. so we're not there yet but we thought out of the gate let's address this let's address this right now and then there's them as I said continue the other one the thing is it's not a big thing but it's something you should be aware of uh election costs we roll in and out of the page from the fund balance happens every two years we always need to work we don't want to lock up six hundred thousand dollars every year if you don't need it so we kind of roll that in and out of the budget at the second year and pay for it which is our fund balance there's there's not a whole lot to say about benefits it's extremely important um but there's there's not a lot of

75 more it always increases by increments of like 75 so there's nothing there it's a slightly larger percent for Public Safety you know if you need to know just asking I just don't want to talk myself okay make your assumptions fy24 we're not proposing any tax increase at this point it's the same

7 that

these fun balanced Surplus at this point is 30 million dollars is 30 million dollars um where is that coming from usually it's 28 23 whatever vacancies tremendous amount of vacancies so we we have a certain a surplus because we're not spending the money on salaries that's really many other things in some cases collecting more revenues but that is that is the climate driver I'm listening and and vacancy is a problem we are going to solve eventually so it's it's not like this is forever so and that's why it's that's why you don't budget 30 million dollars for reoccurring events because it's going to go away and and the city manager Franks very eloquently a presentation be careful how you use this we need to be careful I will use this because on a previous slide we saw the amount of

requests from departments and the amount of requests from Council and we solicited those requests and we're glad we did it and some of them are one time in nature and but they can't all be addressed the finance director will move this afternoon to the capital Improvement plan and The Debt Service Department Debt Service can't pay for all of the demands that are coming in for Capital leads so that also is a potential source for some of those capitalism needs I mean I would close by saying I think that is exactly why the city manager said taking all the information and Truth wisely choose some of this I just said what is not yet included new budget requests new CIP requests um any additional pay plan structures we know other it's a company people are trying to solve the vacancy problem so

they're trying to do very aggressive things do we want to do aggressive things and then cancel budget costs that is what I have for you this morning on the subject of financial forecasting and budget outgoing I hope it was informative and gave you the information you need um so you can continue to ask questions and make your decisions thank you there are no questions oh yes it I'll say that my main my main question so my main question um backwards to forward um what's that 30 million dollar Surplus in your role

as budget manager or budget director um can you give us some guidance around whether we should be looking at more of a Debt Pay down versus an investment versus just hold steady and if you're if you've got some metrics or rubric they're using to figure that out well again yes we are prioritizing the progress as I said they're going to make recommendations about what is the best thing and what is the best thing to do that before presented in fy24 and some of it will be one time in nature so there will be a prioritization there there is also a prioritization on Capital it's not a debt paydown Finance director might like that um uh but but I would think if not I would say investment in capital because there's so much demand there's so many

capital needs you'll see it it is the request that came in for CIP projects um this year was double what we saw last year and then it's and it's not frivolous stuff and honestly IP projects I just wanted to know if element usually the projects that were remaining on the list because they didn't quite rise to the priority level if that's been addressed so that I know I used to be able to just tell my you know Red Light Green Light but I don't know that I'll be able to see in the report that you share if there if those projects that were left from five years ago are now done like moving up or not and so I just want to make sure that that does happen if it's not in a normal way we do that is is we ask departments to come back and ask again and that's what we saw yesterday particularly Transportation they were crazy to say we asked for this the last year we're asking again so they're not

getting forgotten but then they're not going the road and is there some prioritization some attributes or some way that we're noting that is last year two years yes yes different from last year like just that is something new or is something is something continuing to be asked and and certainly asked for again this is another question there's not a lot of those good and just lastly in the presentation I was trying to figure out in the June budget projections it looks like you have an a projection and an actual versus a budgeted amount and I just wanted to make sure that the budget amount was added for that thank you thank you John the morning honorable College everyone in Jerome um I always look forward to this part of the presentation with such a great primer in context of Center for our

conversation um we do really well in collection of property taxes that was really Martin to see the other swim also in hotel not dependency rates we're on our way back um this is a well-managed city and this is really really heartening uh report we've got some some critical decisions to make um one quick point I do want to say something about the the deficit the the Gap because when that hits the Public Square a lot of people every year without a fail there are residents and citizens who say oh my God we have a deficit you know we've got a gap um and and we understand what it means to this room but I think it's important to say to vote for listening um outside of the room that that it it's an intellectual paper Gap that it's the difference between our aspirations and what it will actually be we're statutorily compelled to pass a balanced budget we will pass a balance but we have to so so to the folk listening out

there again when you hear a gap that's because right now we're asking for more than we think we're going to make and we've got that this is what these conversations are for to Pare that down and we will come out um with with a rebounds but that they always do uh in Durham so I just wanted to to put that out there for folks uh that may be listening um you know it we kind of each year we talk about when you talk about the uh the rules that people are guidelines for fund balance uh it's a one-time cause and you know you you're not down at that conversation about this the four million industry maintenance is a one-time cost every year so so the uh that's you know from a nomenclature point of view and the transparent transparency going to be out I'll put it out there again we I don't know about the words but think there but it always I always pause there because yeah it's one time one time every year which I think is the definition of regular um so so that it weren't some some combinations this is the British part of the dance

38 rather than three sorry rather than three uh Pennies on the housing um housing funds but um thank you so much this this is this is uh a good picture

and a good starting point um for us to engage in this discussions and as I said we will we will do the hard work and we will we will come up with a budget and bring in a budget just you know almost I guess we're approaching almost 600 million too uh before you know in our near future which is which is amazing um so thank you so much thank you foreign

[Music] oh yeah

every time all right yeah I think I think we're back I know we're live on uh on YouTube so we're gonna we're gonna get started um just a quick thing uh I see members of the public here at the very back uh and I want to welcome you we haven't had that in a while and it's it's great and you're welcome here and if you if you didn't hear we have coffee and things and you're welcome to do that as well if we run out we'll figure out what to do uh it's not a problem but thank you for

joining us uh today and I'm going to turn it over to Robin who's our HR director who's going to talk a little bit about Recruitment and protection good morning everyone good morning are you still worried about Wanda's Angels good morning everyone good morning so much better so much better uh my name is Robert Nguyen I'm the Director of Human Resources for the city of Durham and I've had the pleasure of serving this role since June of last year and I I will tell you one of the things when I came into the role is to really look at some of the key things that we need to focus on in the immediate future to address organizational problems and I remember my one-on-one with my first one-on-one was sitting me on your page and the very first thing we talked about was Recruitment and attention and so that's why I'm here today uh so I said good morning but I want to make sure I officially uh wanted to Mayor mayor pretend sitting in a page and everyone

who is assembled writer here and online so I'm sure you have all heard the phrases the great resignation and quiet quitting especially in the media of the last four years it should come as no surprise that Recruitment and attention have been a topic for of the special for many public and private sector employees employers for the last few years many have said it's a coping related issue some it's it's a number of other reasons why but whatever those things are we know that we're in a new we're in a new position we're in a new place um I would I can say comfortably long are the days uh where we could post a job and get 100 people to apply uh I I know I've been in HR for 30 plus years I know I don't love it um but I will say that you know I

remember posting jobs in the late 90s um and and seeing the lines of people outside the door too so that their applications that those things are are different now you know with the use of technology and the use of other mediums and certainly more opportunities for people we're starting to see those numbers um significantly rough and I'm going to talk a little bit more about that but on the heels of covet cases the climbing and employees making plan and employers making plans for employees to return to work um and trying to fill vacancies many employees have been faced with a very difficult Challenge and today I want to spend a few minutes talking about that um Challenge and that is an inability to recruit and retain Talent next slide please I just tested Madness all right thank you all right so um Anthony clubs

9 million people through the same every single month those Trends continued into 2022 as

S neurological statistics so how does that impact the city of Durham how does that impact municipalities as they try to fill positions next levels before I get to the answer or to a a recommendation on that though I wanted to First describe what the word market means and it's displayed here the word market here means that it's the job market it's the labor market it's where employers go to Five employees and so the market continues to be dynamic it's not like going into Walmart where you know where everything is when you go into your favorite Walmart the labor market is not a physical space but it's more of a concept and that that shifts on a

regular and continual basis based on the needs of the employee and or the potential employee and based on the economy we're seeing the market change at a very significant rate right now we are seeing applicants and employees I'm sorry applicants and candidates have different expectations about work they are there they expect higher sales maybe it's about one of those eggs I don't know but they are they're expecting higher starting salaries um they're expecting more time away they want more vacation on the front end uh they want hybrid or working opportunities they want uh greater work-life balance which translates to an eight-hour work day and no work on the weekends so we're starting to see a lot of those changes um that have really kind of came about as a result of code that's a lot of fun

so how does that make what does that mean for the workforce so if the market is having different expectations then there's a difference in the workforce as well public sector employees are residing and leaving to work in the private sector in the old days we were here don't leave the job don't go to a job no don't leave a job not unless you have a job well we're not seeing that anymore we're seeing people just leave and not necessarily have an opportunity that day but it's pretty quick before they find something else so we are seeing some changes there we are seeing where the public sector can no longer or we can't compete with private sector salaries I think would you all agree with that we just can't compete with that we can't compete with their benefits and we can't compete with one of the most popular Parts which is remote work so what does that mean

next slide more just to continue before I ask my question demand for specific skills is at an all-time high uh funding Engineers people with maintenance skills CDL Drivers those positions are on our hard fulfill list uh I I was looking at the engineer Outlook report last night and I've learned that Engineers people are not necessarily going into the engineering feel at the rate that they used to so that creates a shortage in the market when we're trying to find them so how are employers dealing with that I was looking as I said I was looking at the news well I was doing research yesterday and there is uh there are a couple of employers that are kind of band together to do engineering job figures and where they are only going to go at a target audience

they're they're the bonuses the sign-on bonuses for engineers there are a number of different initiatives to try to attract people that are in difficult to feel environment CDL Drivers is another that we organizationally are are working really hard to try to fill uh CDL Drivers right now you know on the market as a new graduate and expect salary between maybe 100 000 so what does that mean for us um I'm sure if Chief Andrews uh I'm sure she can provide many insights on the challenges faced with trying to hire police officers I'm sure there are a number of reasons that she was here standing in my place I know she's there but she was here I know there will be many reasons um an explanation that she can provide on why it is difficult to fill police officer positions right now there are a

2 vacancy rate not prepared to step about two weeks ago I looked at our dashboard just this morning and we now have 500 equipments

9 turnover rate and I I put this slide together so

that you would see the visual since covet and I went back to FY 20 our turnover rate continues to increase so there are some things that we have to do internally to work on getting our people to stay thanks Michaels there are um as I said before Recruitment and Retention issues are not unique to the city of Durham uh as I said in my opening it is Recruitment and attention are two of the biggest challenges um that employee employers will face in 2023. there are a number of different lists that you can look at what are the trends that HR should focus on what are the trends that the CEO should focus on and every year I look at those lists when they're published in December because that formulates the work that we do as an HR department and at the top of every list with Recruitment and

Retention and the the I won't even call it bad news just the news is that those numbers are not going to change in the next couple of years the work is going to continue to be difficult for us to to change to actually get people in and to retain people and the reason for where that the numbers are the reasons are many but there are a couple of things that the triangle J Council of government which is a group of local two uh North Carolina our area um they actually did a they're working on an initiative right now and that initiative is I'm sorry that initiative is called the public Workforce initiative and it is designed to assist local government across the region as they continue to face and I'm going to use their work unprecedented challenges and the recruitment retained retention and supporting the well-being of a

Workforce and then I'm going to talk a little bit about that best locals the survey was conducted uh last year late last year in the summer of 2022 and the district when I first arrived they partnered with RTI International to conductive survey of over 300 public sector managers in our region to get a foundational understanding of the impact of the state of the workforce on local governments the results of the survey are key drivers in this new initiative and there were six Trends identified but for the sake of time I'm not going to talk about all six I'm only going to highlight three uh one is ladies are driving force and the reason why people leave staff are working beyond their normal hours of responsibilities most local governments have not scaled

back Services due to limited capacity it is more difficult to recruit concern that staff are not highly valued by constituents and elected positions and Public Safety continues to face unique challenges again for the sake of time I will not cover all of those so I'm going to cover the first one number two excuse me wages are a driving Factor 72 of those survey exciting wages are possible to recruiting and retaining staff and typically that means that our sounds are coming in well so people are leaving to go to a higher salary 64 site wages as a primary reason why they wait we see that as well but only 47 agree that comp and benefits can compete with our private successor that means that only 47 percent of those who had surveyed felt like we we can compete

so there's still some work to do there in order to compete with the private sector uh next slide please thank you staff are working beyond your regular hours and responsibilities 81 agree that staff are working responsibilities will be on their current role and that's primarily because of agencies so I may have to take one a little extra work I may have to do what do I understand um 70 agree that staff work overtime or extended hours however only 28 of the people of the municipalities um that were surveyed have degree had to cut back on Services because they could not stack so in that regard um we are paying very close attention to those challenges because it could potentially create new challenges such as employed right now how much how long can you work overtime how many hours can you actually do

before you just run down continue to do your homework and then you get frustrated and weak um lower morale uh especially if I have to work a lot of long hours and I don't see an end in sight um and then also the impact of overtime on workplace injuries and accidents so all of those are variables that are definitely impacted by overtime and I think a lot of times we think well employees are excited about working overtime because they're making this extra money and I think that works for a period of time until they're not so what do we do about that it is more difficult to recruit in the public sector as I've said it's it has been challenging uh as I said I've been in HR a really long time and I remember I could walk into a grocery store and hand my business card to someone in their college and saying hey tell me about your opportunities now I can't do that it's really difficult for me to

even get someone to take my car [Music] are working hard to kind of change that narrative but it's important for people to understand the value that you get when you work at empowerment start with us um the other but I do want to draw your attention to something and that's the second bullet um competition from the public sector it makes it difficult to recruit wages lack of skilled workers and then housing affordability now I I know that's not my my wheelhouse and I I will not spend time here but um housing affordability did come up as one of the reasons why uh I I can't I can say in my career that I've had people accept positions do the research about moving here and then realize I can't afford to live there and then they've been trying to think so there are some things that we need to

think about and because I'm hoping all of you are thinking about as you have your conversations next slide please so in summary we are doing things we're going to continue to focus on um supporting a hiring manager by creating and identifying and partnering with them on donovations that work when they when they need us to do that um this summary really just mentions a few of the initiatives and business practices that we're engaged in to move through US forward and I do know that John actually brought up a couple and that is around evaluating our benefit programs and our benefit programs and the offerings uh certainly we are doing that uh we are also looking for new and creative ways to attract and retain our most recent effort is our upcoming job fair event um and we are focused on other opportunities that will help us uh deal

with this problem um and this was a high level overview and um that's why oh and that question so with that are there any questions about excuse me okay I'm sorry thank you good morning I appreciate the presentation this is just a question for staff in general I really appreciated all the slides all the information that's we hear a lot especially the housing affordability I've heard that it's becoming increasingly challenging for the city of Iran um to hire folks who are making them throughout the area and seeing the cost um some of the things that I'm I have curiosity about you know we set the formula for a living wage many many years ago at this point and that was set at 15 an hour if I'm not mistaken it

wasn't 57 or 1546. and there's a formula that increases but I do feel at some point we are going to Apple off that floor because the cost of housing had I mean costs in general has increased and so while it's not a conversation maybe for today or this budget cycle I do think we're while our formula does increase every single year the the basis of that formula at some points is going to have to increase too much higher since we're going to compete and I and I want to just go ahead and say that I don't think we're going to be able to bring some people in need of close to 18 an hour now it's going to have to be higher and I know that that has a huge impact on our forecasting and I wanted to say the council member who may not be here when that decision gets made that that 17 an hour in the city of Their Own isn't enough um and the second thing I'm curious

about when I think about sort of like the engineering have we thought about you know three percent has a group of engineering program in the high school fifty percent of their students at the end of the NC State a t has a massive engineering program are we thinking about helping folks and pay for college if they will commit to working for the city of Durham or are we allowed to do things like that because if I think about the cost of college for an average North Carolina resident it's a lot of money and are we potentially you know these kind of grow your own strategies I'm sure you're you're a genius I know you've probably thought about all of it but these are just some of the things I'm serious about right [Music] so so first you know thank you for the question I didn't want to pop in uh because we have made you know progress

since we started a minimum wage and we've updated every um every July person Robin may actually have the number it is something that while John's presentation did not show Market adjustments we already know for my preliminary calculations that uh our pay ranges uh that we have in the city that there will be at least one or two pay ranges that will be that will have to be increased even though that's not included in projections because it will be low it will be below the new minimum minimum wage and we that's a structure that we really like permit in our organization so I wanted to respond to that and we've updated it every year about the creative creative ways that we are within the governmental structure that we have that we are trying to make sure that we are at the front of the line to get

um the resources that are there um you know one of the things that we can do for employees uh potential employees is silent bonuses um they are you know certainly you know paying for you know someone's education that I got to see the attorneys in here most likely that's not something that the city government um could actually do but certainly as people are you know financing their education we do travel with constantly looking at ways to recruit people and in a spinal moments you've heard about them in the news their their Asylum bonuses for hard and field positions sometimes at a 15 000 or 20 000 per position which a dollar is a dollar you know someone's going into a hard-field position it's likely that they may be able to give subtle moments when they go into the workplace obviously from from the government we have ways of making sure that it's not just a transaction that is

someone who wants to you know be in public service and they may earn that bonus over a period of intention but we certainly already have some of that new organization and we are we know that we have to continue to be Innovative in that space happening [Music] all right so uh councilman because we have so many of my questions uh but I guess I can dig a Little Deeper what does the tower pool look like coming out of the College University or higher earning setting uh what we are able to recruit we do attend job as we do recruit um our challenge I mean most mostly around business business administration actually they're seeing a spike

according to survey data data they're seeing a spike in that one of the other parts of the report that I read last night is in some cases in some areas they're starting to see a decline in the number of young people choosing to go into higher education which is creating a short that will create shortage that they're predicting around 2027 in terms of students with those um with college levels built so uh in the article to talk about how organization really will need to reconsider when a degree is important in the work yeah that was going to be my next question are we are we adjusting our criteria to meet the trend of the market in regards of who is eligible yes the short answer to that is yes um in my short time here we have had those conversations and in a couple of positions we have done that uh and we we

really follow the lead on the hiring manager and what they're seeing and what their needs are and then we follow our process and we will make double adjustments if you need to we have two two questions [Music] so why I think this could be uh something that we could take on I believe in this families uh at least bring it to their attention because it's affecting us a lot but I know we uh we the excellent survey addressed you know some of the reasons why people living but we know where they're going like to other Industries or is it Down Right same industry type of jobs primarily we're seeing them go to private sector opportunities and lastly I would love to um Again release perspective look at what is uh legally possible because the the teaching girls program is a method in which uh you know you get that scholarship and

you you get it by committee to teaching in the public school sector and if you don't need to pay it back you know um but that is a Statewide initiative we don't have the same muscle that the state does but that's something I'd love to dig into a little more thank you hi good good afternoon good morning good morning so I have three different things um so first of all thank you for your presentation but also speaking to you know coming from higher ed we are dealing with that right now we have a loss of people coming in to first of all get their higher ed degree to the point that some of our universities have to pay back money because students are not being retained right so that's what we're doing in that sector but also I want to thank uh our city manager and Bertha Johnson um because they have been doing some stuff around internships which is very important to me and I also have started and we've uh part of it

um our nccu pipeline committee where we are trying to link um uh nccu students with um jobs here or just careers and I will say that because of our students getting paid and I know when I first came I'm not used to interns getting paid I'll be real honest and a lot of things like oh we're going to do that yeah we're not used to that and so I was like oh my goodness and so because of the interns that are getting paid even our interns in our heart program and Martha Johnson's area we have seen that I've seen an increase because I work very closely with the career center too at Central um we're giving students to know first of all what we do here in in the city right and they are actually signing on to this internships so I want to say thank you for number one advocating for me for the internship program and number one getting these students to be paid because they're seeing that oh my goodness their work is being not just invading their learning but they also are being able to use transfer over skills the other thing I want to say if I have been honored yesterday to meet with the local 688

44 they literally want to stay here in Durham they are begging for us to do something and I'm new to the budget process so I really didn't know you know about this because I really would have put this in my pre-budgetary um request because I asked them I said well tell me some of the things that we can do and they were like first of all a lot of people are leaving here to go to Raleigh where they're starting off at 55 000 if you have posted four years that's craziness right then they're going to Chapel Hill and they're going on other places but they want to stay in Durham and they also talk about the fact that they we are losing so many people who are seasoned employees right so we're

training them here and we're training them well because they said they get good training here and they go in little places they don't want to go they want to stay so they really want us to kind of do something around that compensation steps that they ask important that they're in line with what they are supposed to be getting based on their years of experience and they want to also stay in Durham and a lot of the people I spoke to yesterday they can't live in Durham because their salaries are not equated to the affordable the housing that we have so I again I would have put this in my uh pretty budgetary request I didn't know about the fact that this is what they were struggling with and they talked about it close to about 160 000 to hire somebody up again and train and all this and if we can use some of that money to kind of get them to the points where they're in the right steps we can and again I might be talking out online but again because I don't know a little bit to the educate that you guys do but just some of the things they talked about it just was because I'm really big on retention and recruitment I was my dissertation was around um so I'm an expert in this area but I just we're putting money into having to retrain and retrain and retrain we can

maybe take that same money and kind of get them too many steps that they need so that they are not moving and leaving because we're training and they said we have one of them and I want to say shout out to them they said we have one of the best trainings here in Durham and it's really just upsetting to me that we're training this and they want to stay here and then some of them are leaving because they have to be able to live the young man I talked to him he said he goes I think it's 10 days to 15 days because of overtime that he's trying to get so that he can bring himself where it needs to be and he can't see his kids so he showed me a picture of his kids like kind of meeting him at the firehouse like so they're also giving up their you know family and things like that to really Service uh us and Durham so I just wanted to because okay any other questions so I did thank you for one of those

comments and as you know as as of HR Director has 10 percent up here across the organization um you know we have challenges to make sure that we can um you know we can pay our employees um so that they they have a fair salary and a big one they want to be in Durham they're going to work in their own um and we do that consistently so um before you work hard um of this body uh we may do a major Market um study and an increase for Public Safety employees and we implemented it um in January of 2022 which was just about one year ago and all of our all of our Public Safety employees received about 14 Market adjustment to their salary that was a big adjustment for the city it was about four million dollars to have here and then nine million dollars to

annualize that just for that group of employees um in in the in the budget that we're we're operating in right now as HR Director has had represented as soon as we raise our salaries our area competitors they end up seeing what our employees are making because they also are recruiting then and they they can raise their salaries above that so it comes it becomes us going back to the drawing board looking at uh where we can be most competitive for for talent uh look at how we can support our employees Beyond just salary um and their quality of life and I just wanted to make it very clear that we we you know we certainly have sectors of employees that you know sometimes are more uh you know more interested in talking to different people about their condition but we are looking at all of our employees that work for us in the middle service and bringing you the best

recommendations that we can under the circumstances thank you I just would build on that and say and I think that this step plan has been a phenomenal way to kind of touch with us and along those lines of Beyond establishing the quality of life I think that um employee housing considering out how that could work and then the mayor also mentioned some retention bonuses just knowing that these are just things that we can do right now I think we're going to be working on right now as we're coming up with a plan for all the things I just wanted to put those two things out there and um so your point um using their resources the TJ car which will now formally be known for that was last night at the Tara at the central Pines

and I think that there's a real opportunity to figure out more regionally because it's competition that's been created it's not just what the municipalities it's also at the airport and it's not just with fires with police and it's just kind of across the board and so if there's a way to kind of get an alignment across the region it might be a little bit more beneficial and if you can work with the lead to do that across the state that would be nice as well I think there's some of the smaller towns and towns and you know have some difficulty to put definitely get to a point where we're not just you know um I also um I always appreciate Dr Japan's interns I know when I first started the University City um City Council Office but I'm worried about not being able to get diverse interns in because of weren't paying their insurance and the fact that we are allowed us to do not only that experience across the whole system to a

diverse publication of people within a little bit public sector um and what I'm thinking about is along the same lines as we talked about before with the CDL like like CDL is not being necessary to actually perform a job are we doing the same thing in engineering are we doing the same thing like maybe we need to step down some of the positions so that it doesn't mean so much potentially or split them out so you can kind of build some of those positions and I know there are a lot of folks who are still unemployment numbers are low there's still a lot of folks who are looking for work and are unable to find it and so um what kind of things show up in your background check kind of maybe you show up on your credit reports like all those things that we can look at and being more inclusive in how we hire would be beneficial and I would love to clear feedback around and say thank you to dropping in our

HR department she has not been here from here yet but she has been very uh instrumental in helping us rethink some of the things that we do um on a day-to-day basis as well as the strategy around long-term success for us as an organization uh one of the things you did not have in her presentation but I wanted to make sure she had an opportunity to give a plug for the city's uh I would say first job fair since I've been City man and we've overall we we probably have had them in the past but I didn't want her while we are in front of our residents and our lady officials speak about the upcoming Job Fair events that we have planning if you would love certainly I think of an opportunity to do that on March the 20th the city of Durham will have its first job there uh just for the city of Durham we are actually doing our own the

uh that will be held at the Durham Convention Center we are working with our immediate our I'm sorry our Communications Department to get the word out we will have ads and we're trying to make it a very productive day for us at our job fair with candidates our applicants will be able to talk behind managers they'll be able to interview if they need assistance with filling out applications we don't have a computer lab thank you to a Technology Solutions for helping us with that but we will have a computer lab on site with someone that can learn to help them with technology in order for them to apply for some of those positions during our job fair we will also talk a lot about the benefits that we have an employee experience table so people understand what it means to work with student government we're you know our role our goal is to give people excited about working in the public sector uh so we will have a number of different ways to

m uh so that people can come out after work and realize that you know the city of Durham is truly the right place to work yes jobs we have talked about like and Council improvement too we have I wanted to say this to you we have talked about

just the way sometimes the job I guess descriptions right um hosting um and how sometimes some of the language um is just kind of yeah we're looking at that because sometimes it prevents people because they look at it and say I don't have any of that but they have it but just because the way the word the description is worded they may not also applaud and also I know you've also done this because we looked at some of the stuff in and what we talked about in some of the areas that I have the people coming to from Central is not also looking at the education piece but so also looking at do you have these amount of years so she's I know you've changed some of that from our feedback so I want to say thank you so much for that and the other thing is um in my other life um being VP of the DSs board we have done something because of losing employees and things like that I've been on this thing for six years something called a 360 evaluation and so that helps your staff to also evaluate their supervisors and upper level and into the 360 a it

worked for us the kind of see because again you do get your exit interviews with your people who are leaving and they say a b c and d but it gives you a chance while they are here to kind of do that 360 evaluation and kind of see how they can kind of work on certain areas so that they don't leave and I won't say I said recently at a presentation people don't leave jobs they leave people and they leave relationships right because I teach leadership and I was just presenting and so there's a difference between a leader and a manager and someone you know there's all these different type of leadership styles and skills but sometimes people are not leaving the job they like the job but it's their relationship with upper management or whatever the case may be so I'm not saying that's an issue here what I am saying is that I know that we've used that in my other life the 360 evaluation to look at some of that going on and try to handle some of what other you know things the barriers before somebody decides to leave because again people are not leaving sometimes jobs they might be leaving relationships or whatever kids will be and I'm not saying that that's the issue here but just in my experience that sometimes happens so I just want to throw down

for this morning thank you so much for about this presentation we recognize that now more than ever Public Service I really just that public service thank you for all that you all are doing it will now transition to uh Deputy city manager versus Dr Johnson I believe yes just give us a second here to get situated [Music]

[Music] as well my name is Bertha Johnson City National for operations um Egypt with the life will be with you you enjoy today to give you an update on our project and the engagement work that has occurred since we last talked to do that project as a reminder the goal of this project is the prioritize investment in and engagement with low-grip communities and communities of color who have been historically excluded from or harmed by policy decisions with the focus on support historically disinvested communities these infrastructure Investments can address disparities and promote each environmental justice at our last discussion we did the resale we talked to you about how we're going to move forward with private in a different way we talked about the steps of that would be first we would Target specific neighborhoods we would develop a process to identify the targeted neighborhoods

and overlay current demographics and social economic data we wanted to develop a strategy to engage residents in the neighborhoods wanted to identify Partners to collect and Report data obtained from the residents we want to use this data with our technical staff to recommend private to the phone first in this presentation you will hear from our neighborhood Improvement Services Department under the leadership of cosmic stencil this team has been a great partner with us in this work they will talk about their strategy to engage residents their partners and their process for collecting and Reporting data obtained for the residents second you will hear from Treme Schneider who is the city manager's Office business services analyst today we'll discuss how we work with that internal departments who also do an engagement around their work and we will share with you the results of that engagement and talk about the alignment between the two processes the external and the internal we want to talk about how we want to use that data to come back with you today we

will not propose projects to you we'll just talk about the results of the engagement and we will come back with you with those projects as we prioritize them to share with you and get your feedback and finally of course your approval I want to also say tomorrow you will hear the results of the resident survey which is another source of data and also you'll see the priorities that came from the residents as part of the engagement survey again I'm going to start with our NIS Department Laura bediger who is I would say New Again senior community engagement manager and she will be talking to you about their work in the community as well as their their Partners Lessons Learned and um how they're going to move forward with the next steps as we continue this is a continuous process with the appending on the tax breaks and we will continue continuously engage our residents in this process Laura thank you

can you hear me yeah I have good morning um yes I'm Mark Baker the senior community engagement manager and University services and [Music] um so uh first thing I want to introduce you to the community engagement team um of course we are under the Visionary leadership of Carson Stancil a neighbor who movement Services Department director our community engagement team is about nine staff and our work we're really lucky is just Community engagement there are a lot of other teams in the city that are tasked with the agent from time to time but to do a game that you really have to be in relationship building uh consistent and ongoing level and I'm really lucky that the city has a team like this and then I get to be a part of the team uh just a little bit about our our work our vision is really making sure that community members are part of what happens to them instead of impacting tuned in so that

the needs that they have are really heard by the city and addressed and hopefully they're involved throughout the process and making sure that we're providing the services that they really need to live the thrive in the city these are a few things about our Equitable engagement work the Equitable Community engagement work really started I would say in 2018 with our blueprints that we created in the fall of that year and Miles was actually working on doing open how to do this work better we have a copies of our full reports in the back if you might see and in the inner report for our egi engagement Center would be detailed how we use Equitable Community engagement through this process how we use the blueprint to really plan how we were doing engagement so that we're staying consistent with here are some overviews of some of the principles that are important to us demonstrating what we're serious about so that it's not just words but actions

bring people into the conversation so it's not just at the beginning with an online survey and at the end for the press release the people are really involved throughout the process telling us at at the beginning what they need and then helping us save conversation throughout so that we're hopefully getting it as bright as we can connecting appropriate resources under representing communities and I would say appropriate means here what they need not necessarily sometimes what we think that they need or it is easiest for us to deliver but what people actually mean promoting transparency accountability and Trust that's all really important and foundational for relationship building which is what engagement is to us just think of the relationships that you've had it's important that you're transparent and accountable employer in a relationship with and that's what we're working on with our residents inclusive consistent and ongoing like I said it's not engagement it's not just something that happens once or twice a year it's consistent it's it has this

relationship building it's really sitting in conversation with people listening to a lot listening to a lot of hurt and a lot of harm and uncomfortable conversations but that's what we have to do to build relationships so that people feel that they can really speak to us and share what they really need and then all of this we believe derives a better City it drives a better City by producing better results for community members but also we are more efficient with our resources when we're really making sure that we're delivering what community members um this is just a quick overview of the engagement that we've done these numbers 19 small to some um this is the number of references would be 92 residents our Focus begins on relationships so this is qualitative quality engagement not just a quantity of Engagement so we started a system and we'll be playing some audio clips throughout this presentation where we

are reporting conversations with community members and transcribing them and it's the beginning of building a really conversation database that the entire city can use for contributing in an ongoing way so regularly having data from the community members that we can share with other departments but other departments can access whenever they have projects coming up so if you're curious what Grand town is currently thinking and what their transportation needs are you can go to the conversations that we've had at around town and hear the people speaking to get the full context of the conversation and get really good information to help plan future services so for the this is kind of a snapshot of the engagement that we did August through December and we've done additional conversations since then and again we're continuing to ask the database we're also adding conversations in Spanish which is really exciting but the the residents represented in the results that we'll be sharing shortly are primarily identified as black over the

age of 40 and have lived in the community that they are representing for over seven years and then these are some of the communities that um we spoke with during that time period This is not even the only communities that we plan to speak with um this is just where we started in the fall and we are going to go back and continue having conversations with these communities so that we have a good level of representation within each of these and then expand to other companies here's a quick highlight of the things we've heard I'm sure these aren't new things to you so your problem is validating things that you already know the concerns overall were around gentrification and displacement equity and safety and lack of Youth opportunities whether it was community members who work directly with you or um grandparents concerned about their grandchildren or the youth they see in a community the piece of having activities for you that are internally accessible

and meet the needs and interests of the youth that was that was clear through throughout pretty much all of our conversations but again things like affordable housing feeling included in what's happening in your room if you don't live in downtown many people something they don't really feel included in Europe they're not part of their town um there was a lot of time off as long as I've lived in the state and a lot of literacy is a sidewalks are consistent but consistently but that definitely wasn't the only thing there was a there was a lot of requests for lighting um people really wanted things like signage so people could know the community that they were a part of and other people could recognize that community um and then as I've already talked about so this is the first of three audiobook audio sets that we're gonna play everybody has to go to other people if you built a facility to have a detection set up our young

people then you're going to sell it it's just that simple they're not building it just to build within building interests they want to put all you know it's hard so the money should be rerouted things are purposeful let me check okay um hello everybody my name is Miles van and um I am the uh I am City engagement Consulting manager and my job is to connect with other departments and uh talk about how we can solve some of these issues and just better improve our engagement across the city so one of the first conversations that we had with a very long time partner um is with bradtown and we went to bragstown had uh multiple conversations there and the main issues that come up have been affordable housing bus stops

opportunities for youth sidewalks and speed loans now it's easy to focus only on the specific things that were requested but not understand the underbelly of what's really being asked because one of the things that has come out of the conversations is the overall desire from that Community they want safety and they want to be able to travel to or else they can get back and forth to their jobs but even deeper than that they want to make sure they can stay in place it's been a heavy conversation about affordable housing about the prices going up in these areas that has really impacted our conversations with these residents so when you hear these conversations when we stop and talk about these type of things you'll hear a lot of the same um talking points repeated because people were so um they're afraid they're afraid of losing their housing they're afraid of not having a place to stay they're

afraid of being displaced from a place that they've been at the entire lives or their family has been at their entire lives Cornwallis has another similar story to tell um however with Cornwallis there is a fear of abandonment when we spoke to the residents there they talked about how everything around them was falling apart and how they have a desire to improve their standing and their cost of living and how they move throughout life however they feel that the more they struggle the more that they voice their opinions the Lesser they're actually hurt uh [Music] there's no wrecks in the walls and everything up on the door which it is you know they don't do the ceiling right so y'all need to be a real contractors in here

and real people they do the job to test me my voice [Music] one of the continuous issues is that people feel that when they request something when when something is happening in their neighborhood they aren't heard so even having these conversations we had a very intense atmosphere at the very beginning by the end of the conversation people just felt okay we were heard thank you so much how can we know and one of the things that I would like to point out yes we have things like bus shelters children about supervision but the community garden was a very specific thing that they said they wanted and it was because there is a desire for self-sufficiency there's a desire for the ability to take over their own to take control of their own Destinies and they're saying hey we want to build community we understand that this space is some space that we all must share so we want to take some uh

Collective responsibility for our own space but we need help so this is one thing that we actually spoke on and we're in the process of working on it right now about uh delivering and making sure they're able to have a community garden and deciding on the things that come with that and other things living conditions and DHA properties mental health and speed loans all those things are also connected very pebbled into poverty and the the overall the correct of some of the properties in the spaces that we've seen next again is the engagement Barnes which is actually a newer property newer development and this is a surprising conversation that we had they brought up they wanted more lighting more signage more sleep bumps and uh more trees needed and what stood out about this conversation is that when we had this with them their desire was more wasn't that the desire wasn't focused on what

was done wrong but they were saying um now that we have people living in this space What do we do to make sure that we can make a community what we've seen in a lot of these conversations is the desire to create communal space where families and friends can live and uh live and be together next uh we had a series of conversations with a legacy and emerging businesses that operated throughout um the city of Durham and this one was a very interesting conversation because it was not specifically locked to one location but they were able to talk on the different areas throughout from downtown to the other centers throughout the city and one of the things they talked about the most was to access the information and knowledge they had an overall feeling that they were disconnected from the things that are happening or I left outside of the know the things that are happening in our city and they said we want to be a part

of that how can we connect to that how can we participate this is once again hitting on that same language that same moment of uh people saying that they desire to be a part of it they desire to work alongside but they feel like they've been excluded from this process uh other top concerns you see is affordable housing and office space allow you people have been talking about the increase of the price for office space or building so that they can start their own businesses opportunities for youth has been a through line throughout all of our conversations every single conversation has one moment has had somebody say we want more opportunities for you um Community Information hosts has been a specific talking point of saying how do we spread um spread out a set of it being focused just from downtown how do we spread information activities and Community the sense of community togetherness to other locations throughout the city so Community Information hubs grocery

stores there was a uh that specifically someone talked about a DPT substation on Fayetteville Street and um Community wealth production zones which is similar to the information hubs but they're talking about spaces where we can start encouraging more business growth outside of just the downtown Center um Lion Park lion Park is a historic and a Vibrant Community and um some of the things that they were talking about was a historically black and brown neighborhood and we have a lot of safety uh neighborhood maintenance things being brought up handful of screwing lighting speed bumps stop signs but a lot of those conversations are also centered around how do we get the people who have been disenfranchised plugged in they talked about how can we get more job training more information we've had this in multiple conversations I think we've had we're up to now three or four

conversations with this community and with different people the same issues have come up of course it's easy to talk about the physical infrastructure the speeds on the stop sign that tells me that there's an issue with statement that there are cars who are driving through a neighborhood and people are afraid to actually be out in the communal space because of the way that uh drivers interact with that neighborhood there were other issues that were mentioned but I'll just stop on that right now um Merrick Moore is another community that we spend time with their top concerns are crosswalks they're our grills reckless driving around about sidewalks this is all uh related to how people interact with the space this is another conversation about we can't build community because we're afraid we're unsafe we don't have the space that we want to be able to move back and forth including when we talk about roundabouts reckless driving guard rails

all those things are moments where it's how people drive through the neighborhood and there is an issue with connectivity where people feel that they cannot build community because they can't get to each other's safely um this is also another tell uh very very important conversation talking about the most vulnerable populations amongst us is persons with disabilities it is shown that as people age throughout time um they need more accessibility they need more options so that they can age in place so if we think about Durham going into the future being a city that people can work live and play in for a long time not just for a specific moment of time it is important to note that accessibility is an important issue specifically they talk about accessible Green Space is that crosswalks with walk signs because there's a very good there's a big difference between just having a crosswalk and having the signs

even the signs the walk signs that have that make the um sound and tell you it's okay to walk or not in case somebody is vision impaired um housing housing is always going to be an issue that we're going to hear about because of the affordability is um it's becoming harder and harder to find housing that is Affordable to people with disabilities um speed won't stop lights and signs these are all things that we'll hear over and over again is within a common theme throughout but what does that saying we want to make sure that people are driving our streams safely so that we feel comfortable in our spaces uh this is one of the last two I think that we have to cover um the Southeastern so this is actually a coalition of multiple communities so this is not just one but this is a coalition of smaller communities about six and seven of them and um the things they talk about was fencing um home and park maintenance lighting speed bumps and tree removal and

trimming some of the things that stand out with this community is that they were um very specific on saying that they wanted signs they talk a lot about science they talk a lot about respecting the historic communal space and in that a lot of this that you'll see is maintenance how do we keep the the pride in our community how do we keep the pride in our spaces stokesville is a historic area um near Fayetteville Street and it is the similar conversation to have but theirs because of the area has been very um poverty restricted for a while um some of the issues that they talk about cleanup and repairing homes homelessness and poverty security and sanctions these are things that we've been hearing continuously and their issue their desires is that they want a better neighborhood also and as I wrap this part up one of the things that we we learned we had a lot

of lessons that we picked up not just from what they told us about this about the specific issues but also their response to us their words fears that we have to address before we come into these communities asking them for their help before we ask them for how they feel they will not participate if you do not address these fears first so some of the community community fears that were addressed was the fear of being ignored um they were worried about empty promises where we would come out to them talk to them and say hey we're going to do all this and then they never hear anything follow up they are worried about being used so so that we give them all this great information they take all this information from us however at one point they feel that hey the price is just going to keep going up I won't be able to stand in my own home so me telling them to improve my neighborhood is going to eventually lead to me being removed as somebody else enjoying all

the sidewalks that we won't get for another five to ten years this is their response to us they are worried about the information being used against them and there is a large issue with being able to pay that cost or speaking truth to power don't get that let's play around so you do know this is broken but addressing broken things things like courage and it takes the spread of character to say okay he's not like easy solutions are not going to give us improvements and addressing real concerns happening to have and this was a quote that we took from

Reverend Solomon Missouri and one of the important facts that he's trying to say is that people understand and acknowledge that these issues that exist are not quick basis but it takes courage to say we're not going to just go for a simple solution that we're going to push it forward to something deeper so moving forward some of the things that we talked about on how we can address some of the engagement barriers that we face is creating safe space spaces for engagements a lot of our egi conversations were held in their specific neighborhoods in a space where they felt was neutral that they felt comfortable speaking in we set clear expectations and timelines so even as we go through our process of Engagement it's important that we let them know where are we in this timeline where are we in this process and if something changes communicates that with them um we want to be able to make sure that

we respect their concerns their priorities their experience and we can see them best promptly we have to move like this is something that is important to us and once you don't that's when those when we face those issues and it's a big desire that residents aren't just engaged at the very beginning of the process one survey three events at the very beginning of a three-year process is not engagement it has to be continuous and throughout because it is not about engagement it's not just getting in contact with one person that's asking their opinion and never referring to them again is bringing them into the process and when you bring those people into the process it's continual it's like you're chatting with your best friend and that's what we have to decide as our engagement is going to look like moving forward thank you [Applause] hello do you want to acknowledge real

quick we want to acknowledge um a list of people that have been phenomenal um we have at the very top all of our small group conversation leaders and if I named all of them I will be here all day um specifically I also want to acknowledge Latoya Austin who has been our community engagement consultant from the neighborhood she went out and let a lot of the conversations we have cortico and local voices Network they are the ones who dictate uh who um who transcribe all of our conversations so that you heard those clips that you heard were thanks to their software through America's Global City manager's office uh our egi department of Partners we love you all um NIS Department of leadership thank you for allowing me to be here and the community engagement scene foreign

[Music] today I will be sharing about the internal engagement that I've done with residents um so an important part of the internal engagement process is to understand what departments have in existing plans in these laborers I reached out to our water management General Services Parks and Recreation Public Works and transportation departments and I learned that there is some active or planned work potential work being done in these areas so for the most impactful use of funds the consideration of work being done by location and transparency

of this process we found that it will be helpful to Residents to have a place to refer to the work that is being done in these neighborhoods we have gathered data and are creating a passage to report all projects in these communities that is identifiable by project or funding which will include reporting from his PGI work the intent the intent for this will be to set clear expectations timelines and to be transparent throughout this work and this information will be available on the city managers office website which will share um later in participation the resident priority by category so after the review of the first phase of data from the community engagement in a shared by NIS earlier residents provided a lot of feedback one key takeaway we've learned from this work is that there are infrastructure needs but 44 of the total number of concerns or topics that came up were around non-interstructure related

priorities so we want to acknowledge those residents concerns as um they've shared some of those needs are around needs for access to affordable housing and gentrification food child care and youth programs mental health support and safety we know there is a lot of other work around these areas as well but in the next few weeks we will continue to discuss Solutions on how to respond to that day together in these conversations one of the strategies that we have preliminarily discussed is to bring some of our work in the vice president infrastructure infrastructure law funding and inflation reduction Act fundings of this group for collaboration to find additional service related funding for now I've taken this very detailed data from the community engagement and group them into categories for the purpose of this conversation today and they are Transportation safety and traffic calming and this category includes requests for Speed Health evaluation traffic signage and lights

for our grills and roundabouts enhance an equitable green spaces spaces which include the need for green spaces Parks or playground enhancements disability access to Green spaces trees tree bushes and trees Bush maintenance complaints of heat Islands requests for Community Gardens and requests for beautification pedestrian safety and access improvements which includes bus stops including bus stop shelters street lights crosswalks and Ada accessibility at crosswalks and sidewalks so resonate priorities about infrastructure category so in my exclusion of the non-infrastructure priorities from the previous slide here we are left with this visual breakdown of infrastructure category from the resident feedback okay so for priorities from that feedback is 43 Transportation safety and traffic calming 32 enhance

8 million in estimates on this slide is from the sidewalk conditions stood inside watch aspect committed management plan presented by the public works department the council and audreportation the department was a public works was able to pull out the data data and assessment in order for us to prioritize these neighborhoods in this egi work sidewalk and curve rent prepares will occur or city and PNC doc maintain

streets where deficiency were assessed only sidewalks on streets within the battle boundaries of both the city and neighborhoods and within the public right-of-way were considered in response estimates I believe that you will see in the upcoming CIP presentation a request for 10 million dollars for sidewalks and those if those are approved money Department sells them will be repaired through those funds and this is an example of how we are working with the Departments for a coordinated and collaborative funding approach to ensure the best use of UGI phones pedestrian safety access and traffic home so next we have um additional safety and access which was 20 and traffic home in which was 32 of top concerns the cost analysis for this work is forthcoming um with location evaluation alternative solutions to traffic homing needs and further assessment of other plan

2 million dollars in the Americorps neighborhood Americorps one project would create more access to play and provide the necessary infrastructure with it it will feature a nature oriented playground with fencing and planting design and also the essentially feature a walking Track with seating in an outdoor classroom area is being was identified in his Fashions

Splash and play engagement another potential project in Eric Moore is cultural art at the skating rink the public art alone could be along the interior and exterior of the roller range that will be done to view in and respect Community stories another potential project is in eastern CPR surprise conducted multiple engagement sessions for a year around Longmeadow and East End Park as part of the splash of Bank project when the trail already funded to connect as soon as historically divided part 500 000 could be used in a process to continue to enhance the experience at these parts plants would include demolishing abandoned building 15 Paving and planting Lawns constraints cutting clothes and dreams also at Birchwood Park about 200 000 will be utilized for a public or own thing and carbon house concrete basketball in Nicole

cork improvements in Lion park at lion Park in in Lion Park neighborhood at lion Park the public has already selected one area for folks in development which leads three additional areas of potential development that offers a lot of potential um for AGI egi funds could have ability to accomplish more items on the public tuition list like adding an additional basketball court to the existing Court as well as to develop a section of the future connector Trail which will allow running for favoring the residents to safely access the resources of Forest Hill Park and Americans tobacco Trail funds have also helped add folks off work and play features to undeveloped parts of the project the cost estimate is around a million dollars per side and future results also at Mayan Park um a potential project by General construction Department could develop

Place making as a polymer Murray center for about over 2005. in Stockdale neighborhood VPR playground inspectors having identified that the hillside park playground is in need of renovation the need for a pedestrian safe connection between the school and the program has been identified by after school programs instead of Staff who must use buses to transport the children's affordable also the existing connection is team Ania compliant so because corporations in half will be around a Million numbers also on the state Stokesdale neighborhood our general Services Department the collaborate with various schools to explore public art opportunities such as brown plain public art along things cultural work with Indian cities and among student-owned adjacent land for about a hundred thousand dollars and bright town there has been some interest in a trail between Red Maple and Lakewood if it is agreeable that this is the good project for egi funding and planning and engagement study to

further determine Community interest and construction feasibility will be roughly around 200 000 and within a true cost of land acquisition and Trail development would be determined costs could range wildly the 25 is going in 10 million dollars the developing expand could help you with a banner Festival so last week released by a part of dpr's annual Park planning practice if you are identifying 12 focused Focus parks that were selected for equity in the planning process they listen to the community needs make maintenance repairs and envision new opportunities for the Fargo Community Markets CPR news of the park plans to search for Grants and other sources of funding with more coordination or funding is needed we can work closely with VPR as they suggested that they could choose the next year's Focus parts to intentionally align with egi funded priorities

1 million in potential costs on your screen are preliminary estimates from the payment Edition the evaluation results provided by our public works department going straight to within the boundaries of both the city and the neighborhoods and not only maintained by the city and they have not recently received contract payment maintenance for considered for the egi payment maintenance classic estimates from the funded works so I just like to note that I do have

some colleagues that help prepare some of these potential projects for today and so um if you all have questions we have them available to hang out to some of those questions and so we'll talk about next time thank you tonight so um first I want to pause for a minute to ask the questions from the council Nicholas I did have a quick question personally this person this is all great and uh really excited so thank you so much for that um it's in some of the categories just from a late person's point of view how much um overlap is there between categories and by that I mean I can see uh someone seeing something like sidewalks

um also having pedestrian safety implications I mean they're in different categories and Transportation safety being impacted by some of the other categories I was wondering how how did you define the lines between them what's the cutoff that distinguishes one project from another categories or is there indeed overlap in this category I mean that'd be overlapped but we really just categorize those based on the comments that came in so because that is how we looked at them from a project perspective but there could be all that yes absolutely also I was looking at the street and they're also in another also mentioned sidewalks in the discussion right they may be the same person it may not be the same person if it's someone with mobility issues that might be focused on curves someone else may be focused on the sidewalk so there could be overlap yes so these these categories actually organically came from residents this isn't our rubric we didn't this came from conversations these designations so the comments came from the residence and

we put them in the categories for example the categories lined up where we have a street assessment of a payment condition study so those are That Sidewalk data and then we have the straight and then we have the sidewalk and then we have the Parks and Recreation that came from the apartment engagement so they're in those categories because if we words you implement a project it would align the way our internal departmental categories right but the Transportation safety slash traffic home pedestrian safety and access approving that's our language that's our name okay all right yes yes that's our language to align it with the internal Department all right thank you that's a good question thank you thank you thank you other questions yeah I have a quick question uh when when you when you all were engaging with the DHA properties on the back end I think you may address this next exercise

how do we how do we address those common concerns that we are experiencing in the age of problems the expectation for us to supplement funding for eha or I know that they they manage the problems but I think the reason why I'm asking is because I I don't want to have these conversations with uh have these conversations Board of informing the appropriate you know sources of that so prime example what do they do with terrorist practice the city took responsibility but it was like okay DHS what are you going to do about this so I just don't want residents to be misled on who can legitimately address these issues at the

end of the day they're all residents property was managed by DHA or HUD so I just like I'd like some clarity in that I want to make sure that that's understand that's why about the projects don't go back out and share that with them as well and also share with them things that we were not able to address as part of the city's funding and I'll ask Lauren or anything like that so any kind of Engagement we do is going out and setting expectations that we can't make any promises we can't make promises without sidewalks or potholes but that also includes your your point of letting them know we'll take these concerns and show them back to make sure our trading leadership is there it's really important that we want them to feel free to share whatever information they can

with us they're not drawing lines but we'll share it back and I'll share it with my department director an assistant director no help us and what departments need to get that information cheering it up to the city manager especially in this County or DHA or even saving service so at least for the community engagement perspective are focus is gathering the information and sharing that and to your point making sure that we're not setting up false expectations with them the community is a very small piece and that the District 4 staff member Kevin Jones is actually been talking with DHA and it's got information from them recently to be able to do community garden that we can fund through Grant funds that we have within NIS experience in Holland so for housing conditions will say that's not that's not within a city for me that's a piece of the educational component of Engagement also of helping them understand cha versus the school system versus the county and things like that I'm sorry and I just wanted to add a

point that um we are going to be meeting one of our entire EDM work group to talk about next steps and how to respond to the various things I think came out of the community engagement um some of the things that you know we share um they're not necessarily infrastructure things but they are things that like our city departments can um provide responsible services around them so I'm working with um AIS to get some contacts neighborhood contacts so that we can submit service for us and have safety departments respond to those um in real or time as opposed to you know the long-term of the infrastructure and just to add on to that the importance of our relation shifts in these communities is Paramount because we are have some level of like transparency within about what we're able to do what processes we're in how can we utilize the methods available to

us to be able to figure out how to solve the problem so a lot of times they don't expect our community the community members that we engage with they don't expect us to solve the problem but they do expect us to work with them to help find a solution so with that there is not a specific uh word on the city but it is from the expectation that hey where your residents help us find a solution so whatever that ends up being whatever that whatever lens we have to go through those are all connected also thank you uh and I'll just reiterate the motivation for my question when citizens or residents are dealing with these everyday real life issues they are not also thinking about being complexity of this bureaucratic systems so it's just really important that we treat that we have more sensitivity by where you're engaging with them that

they understand you know if the city is asking about what are your issues they may have an automatic expectation that cities don't need a response and some people already I think we need to engage with everything here this is importance but I just want to be careful with you know it's like I appreciate you all taking that sensitivity so seriously thank you um similar question I was really interested in the um and group institutions by the way thanks um thank you everyone I was really interested in the lessons from engagement around Community leaders um but and especially the last one that people are worried about being pushing down people out here will get the benefits because everything else on this list I could see a good Community engagement process being effective at mitigating but the big question benefits that's actually something that we have a little control over and our actions in these neighborhoods are like by improving them are going to increase

the value of the desirability of those neighborhoods so how do you all talk to people about that like that is I find that here extremely bounded and and you know and concerning but also you know we're not gonna but I cannot improve folks neighborhoods but if you make something more desirable you make it more expensive um so I'm just wondering like how those conversations are vulnerable yeah they're the folks out in the community sure um I mean I think this is the piece of the city having coordinated work so understanding those impacts and the piece of the first step of the blueprint is being um really thorough about the positive impacts of putting a sidewalk in essential negative impacts and so as we're putting sidewalks in are we really working with Community Development to make sure that the tax credits or or Tax Grants are available to residents are concerned about you know the needs

to help them stay in their homes and making sure that they have this opportunities that are connected with those opportunities I think it's really just a piece of making sure that we're coordinated and we're improving the community the residents are still connected to your resources so that they're able to stay within the community as well as pieces of inclusion and feeling like they're they actually also alone in the community and when I also hear that that issue it shows me two issues the affordability the ability to stay in the same place but also a Time issue so when they request some changes to neighborhood and then it's placed about 10 15 years then they feel that they're not the ones who are reaping the benefits of the work to um to bring disability to some of their issues so it's a combination of those things where how can we still address their issues in a timely manner so that people know that it's not it's not um

there's no ulterior motive behind the improvements that we bring into their communities so it's a combination but a lot of it is how do we address as many problems at the same time that will be able to let them know that we're not doing this to benefit someone else we're doing this in the time that we have with the resources that we as soon as we can because we care about your voice as much as anybody else's yeah that's interesting what you said about alternative I mean no ulterior motives and it's changing rapidly so um yeah and definitely connecting people with resources do y'all put data if you keep track of things around there we need your engagement all right we have in the past we had it for this process but that's something that we can include I think for the majority most of them were owners especially since I've been in assumed most of them have been

in the community for over seven years and are are over 40. most of the residents that we work with and also engagement is harder with weight renters like that that's a piece that they normally do feel a different state within the community and and so it's it's normally easier to engage over there but that's something that we we we're trying to work on because rent you know renters are still part of the community yeah um I think having that day would be really useful I imagine that homeowner generators have very different um the perspective is also all these questions around the neighborhood change because Runners are more local and they're not going you know or not what we see and then actually I'm sure I make the most likely to even participate in engagement because they know they're not going to be there anymore this is really great though thank you thank you

foreign so you're looking at the person looking at those different systems and how those systems affect the people whether you can progress or not and the fact that you've been able to go out and actually gain their trust is a loss because a lot of times that doesn't happen but one of the other things is that really educating them on the fact that we can't do a lot of the things that they might want us to do because what I hear a lot of the community is you know I'm asking them you know what do we need to improve and like we've been saying this for years you actually missed what are you really going to make a change so I did have to let them know that first of all

this making sure that we are also going back and giving them that feedback to we got their concerns this is what we can deal with and this is what we can but a lot of times people like people are not bringing that communication back so I appreciate you doing that thank you foreign [Music]

anytime someone shows up and does 10 years ago engagement it sounds it's kind of awful to get those calls so we're not appreciate it thank you thank you for the presentation a couple of questions um so really great information um one question I have from this phrase and then if I look at who the kind of for lack the better word average person that you all engage doesn't necessarily track with what the city's younger than 40. um and um I'd appreciate that there's going to be some interviews in Spanish but I think that we see a lot of representation um from other racial or ethnic groups so we look forward to seeing how it evolves I know you all are kind of in the early part of your journey um but with specifically around youth engagement because basically I think folks you know

I appreciate the residents who are mentioning that but I really actually want to hear from and I understand that they are really hard to engage because a lot of them are in school and this is even not necessarily thinking about local government and what local government can do for them so I just want to raise that up as that may be a harder list but I really really want to hear that voice because a lot of the decisions that we make are actually going to be to their benefit right they're the ones who are gonna be in the Parks and on the trails because someone's process has takes so long um so I just really want to lift up that diet I look forward to hearing that voice in these conversations but I was not there right now um the other thing is when we start to prioritize projects it would be really helpful for me to see to kind of overlap with the regular CIP butted up against this like I need to see charts I need to see like okay this is this sidewalk for this community where does it line up in a regular CIP is your overlap to the mayor of protons Point um and then where are the gaps because later on we are talking about

infrastructure Bond and I want to know programmatically what where what's left over and we know that the list is very very long so that we as decision makers can be really efficient and effective about what we're putting in front of the voters if we decided to go on board and I know we all do an excellent job but I do want to raise that up but I um like very much a visual learner so that one time folks kind of come up with that final you know project approval I can see where it is isn't being met um and then know that my decision is as holistic as possible thank you thank you and that's some of the work that you may will be continuing to do with the Departments um we've already tried to Overlay our sidewalk work like we have two that are already in the CIP in year two and that's when she mentioned that if the 10 million is funded and those two will be covered by CIP so we're in between this event but we I definitely talk which is a category question but I have to do that a lot and we have to get them in alignment with the categories in our departments so that's exactly where we

want this the feedbacking on the voices I don't know that's all rentals works thank you so much my colleagues have covered much of what I wanted to uh to ask about I do just want to celebrate you for a minute and trying to put the context out around working and transforming this work is and where you can place in our relative to our peers um in the state so that Equity is fun to talk about but when you actually do policy work it's it's very very difficult because they're pushing me into inertia I think we've done things to the compliment caviaro's Point um you know we we we're actually looking at our CIP Transportation as Wilson products around bragtown um a group of one of my proudest moments is a group of Durham workers were asked to come before the the North Carolina League municipalities to talk about the work we're doing in equity and how we're actually transforming the redder could

be well into actual policy so I just want to celebrate how groundbreaking this is actually doing the work of equity switching our priorities around I start moving money around that's when it gets real you start moving money from one place to another in the name of equity secondly I want to encourage this team as well you are exactly what we need you look like nurm you are qualified to do this work um I can't think of a better team to be our face than doing community engagement you are showing us what the community really looks like there's 300 000 people in the city if it were just a few folks we wouldn't need to pay you guys we could just ask them but but you are showing what community looks like and expanding the voices that we listen to that are at the table you can't really put a price back on so I want to thank you um so much for that work uh that you're doing the work that you're continuing to do this will be transforming this is transformative this is literally putting our money uh where our mouths are and I

just want to take a moment and celebrate that because I know you can get a little noisy sometimes in the Public Square but you know the fabulous on this project thank you Deputy city manager Johnson and your team at United Team always a great presentation we've had a wonderful morning um if there's nothing else we will adjourn for our lunch hour one I'll turn it back quickly over to a budget management celebrities um just to acknowledge the books on this side of the room are like how do I pass that out how do I get

that number but it's really really important we were here a year ago in this space and my first reaction as a budget and I was okay when do we get to spend one and everyone said you're missing this time so we get that fortunately in budget there's a whole other group around Innovation and participatory budgeting I know in the back of the house and they're all going yeah yeah yeah yeah so we kind of balance each other and we recognize that and I'm just really pleased that we did this it's not what we normally do in a budget Retreat it's all very very Financial because it's very important I think there'll be and I am sort of like okay what's the reconciliation between the CIP and this and we'll talk a little bit more about that this morning for this afternoon which I'm standing between you and lunch if you're staying for lunch stay here but some of you are probably going to go off campus we'll start up around 105. thank you

come down thank you [Music] myself [Music]

[Music] [Music] thank you Jesus Christ [Laughter] [Music] thank you very much

thank you [Music] good afternoon good afternoon and we will continue this afternoon budget and Management Services more of the same this afternoon

well good afternoon Memphis councils director staff thank you for joining us this afternoon Management Services Department um the beginning of the table here I think a year ago and Matt Jones and Nikon Nichols had no idea that they were about to embark on a project of completing the budget process with just the three of them which is Monumental path they achieved that in a stellar fashion and then to this day can continue to be grateful and amazing the work they did and then in December we added your list and Llewellyn joined us so we're almost back to capacity we have

one more piece to build which is our CIP coordinator um and we're close to that we entered these last week it's a typical decision so it's taking a little more time and we heard this morning um it's just so people people are learning in a fast way Embrace their case in budget and we transition quickly in this office if we get to keep somebody for three or four years we consider ourselves lucky um but many move on to greater things um and some of them I am still in contact with this so you remember Lisa antique we were communicating on on LinkedIn this week some of you remember Jake Fuller I gave him a recommendation for about a month ago so they're still with us there's still part of what feminine others are in the room uh Ryan Smith is here who was part of our our family Christina tooks despite the fact that she may not want to be here this morning we brought her back and she's in

the back of the room and she's also been um and then at the very back of the room there there are people not participating today but but you had a chance to see them and I'm so proud it was very deliberate in the fall that I didn't take the podium and sharing Metcalf and Cecily took the stage to talk about the Strategic plan and it was very deliberate That Then followed by Carmen and Fallon to talk about participatory budgeting and and I did not want to do the quarterly to the corporation I would be standing here but that's where we and Christina and she just saw her about it so I'm very very grateful the city is very fortunate to have a very again deep bench and then there are others here and I want to acknowledge other assistant director is cannot be with us today and Andrew as always so I I know at some point in the 40s I just can't remember where uh Eric Pena Mary Grace uh Lindsay make up our our

strategy and performance and Innovation movement um and if I miss anybody excuse me but who I don't want to miss is Francesca Fabian who is our administrative senior administrative specialist and she's new we lost Delta Barrington to NIS again we were happy with that we were lucky to have Delta for a year and not Delta's within us and uh and there was Francisco waiting in the wings who we just brought in first of January and is responsible for all of the organizations the working out the logistics with the water department to make sure more liked and we have placards and their balloons so you know where you're going and that stuff isn't easy and it's often order books and I really really appreciate it so again it takes up too much time but a great acknowledgment and thank you

moving to the capital Improvement plan um and uh so this is a split presentation with myself and then um I will be here briefly and then I'll turn the floor over to Tim Flora Finance director and he will talk about other components but I want to give you uh an update on where we are in the CIP process um so kickoff comes a little earlier than budget kickoff budget budget annual budget kickoff comes in the first of January but CID and stagger things in December so we met virtually with all departments kind of gave them the running order and expectations for the year uh CIP requests were due uh January 27th and we are in the process of the third bullet here which is presentations from departments to both internal and Resident story scoring committees and we

meet every Wednesday afternoon from Regional about five and we go over and I mentioned you this morning it is going extremely well um and and with all of this there is a complicated calculus to arrive at a recommendation in April and then move to an adoption um in June and that has to do with an abundance of projects and figuring out the function source so we certainly talked this morning about that Penny and the potential for 25 million dollar projects and where does that fit into the capital plan you're absolutely right now listening sort of right we're now in that process of going okay has this project been mentioned before and is coming forward um is this is this something are we double counting in some cases all of that is going on is this something

there's even questions of is this something that that the department is moving forward and is better suited with our capacities in order to free up capacity in the hot pendant so all of that is going on right now and I I can't answer all questions but we are moving towards a spreadsheet with a Reconciliation thank you this is just an overview of what the public sees on our on our website and a lot of you see a paper version of this from sometimes call this the second stoplight report it's typically the last schedule in your exhibits in the recording report but we've since moved to to an online interactive Tool uh that we we continue to encourage people to to use so we're not using paper but this is always available for people so that they can get A visual representation of our active projects what's being delayed what's on hold Etc

um and then the project viewer is we've been through before Maps where the assets are located and you can drill down into to minutia about these kind of questions we're getting better and better at this every year that we do it so I think once upon a time water assets were distributed if you don't want to go up and now we're trying to really get specificity about that because water is a lot of money you want to know where it's located so that's just some overview on on Project viewer so that you know that's available right can you make ways the next two slides are the most dangerous slides I really do this this morning we have a total of um of about 99 million in general projects last year we had 52 million submitted I believe on the slides that I gave to you that says

5 11 cents because qualified is a user and that's just a way of thinking about the different structures of this and and but in in both senses the the General projects General requests um or a lot and they compete for a very finite amount of resources not necessarily the case in the storm Waterfront or in the water and Super Pump they rely on fees they they do

tremendous cap elastic projections because they have to um we can't just move those revenues to save the general pieces state will allow us to do that essentially will allow us to do that to answer that question so this is a lot of stuff competing for um finite amount of resources I cannot answer every single question about these these projects that's the process we're going through right now I know I I we have seen presentations so far from emergency communications on their two projects and from the fire department on the what we call the scuba replacement oxygen tank basically like those if you've been here long enough you've seen these come up before and they're here again the term one of those things is short and they sort of come around um and the general Services projects I I

6 million dollars we asked this year but it has a tail on it of an additional 41 million the Longmeadow uh project is approximately 45 to 40 million a question was asked about

Bond capacity uh Bond referendums you see here we talked about Street repair excuse me annual repainting do you see the need of 20 million sidewalk repair you see a need for 10 million but then you see the price tag on the up year of uh 150 million in that alone so there's there's a lot that needs to be decided here if you look at the finite amount of resources and that is the process we're in right now moving to our Enterprise funds um so these are funded within the the fund themselves the solid waste funding to store more Fund in the water and sewer fund These funds tend to have the capacity to complete these projects because there's greater planning involved so there's not the competition that we'll see funds and then we always I don't want to

3 million dollars in cash through their their water and cogs and then grabbing that it's in traffic

vehicles that is all I had to say on CIP requests and I'm going to turn it over to 10 Flora who's going to talk about hey how do we how do you pay for these things um council members command manager department heads other folks I'm Jim Flora I'm your Finance director uh at Melvin your Finance director for one year and one day um

[Music] I almost feel like today completes the cycle of me understanding and going through all the processes this is the first retreating I have a privilege to speak to you I mean and so I don't know if this is appropriate to say this but I know what I've told a few members this as well when I got a CIP for this budget folks my own folks I thought the city almost had another workers comp plan because I did pull out of my chair though and so I have recovered we've started to put it into perspective and measure it to with a function we've got coming in it's easier to swallow it and so let me just say that debt is a good thing um sometimes it gets a bad rap but in our world it is a good thing with the caveat as long as it is appropriate and unfortunately for us here at the city of

Durham and as it is affirmed by our region agencies we are spending it judiciously and effectively and so um but it is to why that and so uh that is just one of many funding strategies to fund our Capital assets and so again what's the capital asset well a capital asset there's something that usually has a a ongoing lifespan usually three years or plus uh it's a it's a tangible item uh it is a high dollar line uh you know buildings the vehicles the roads Parks um and while away from a financial standpoint consider you know twenty five thousand dollars is a tangible item it's something that we depreciate it's something that necessarily needs and we drag it's not something that is actually included in the CIP process or more well debt provides us the ability to

deliver infrastructure of when it is needed it spreads the cost of an initial life of the asset it increases our capacity to investment opportunity we need something we can use that as a rate you get investment quicker it's an engineering and for me one of the uh really um IT addresses intergenerational level which is we're not putting the burden on one generation to supply a benefit to multiple Generations so we are sharing uh the cost of that asset and those who are benefiting from the asset are also involving each available so foreign CIP programs and if we use the theme that the student manager uses for me and our eggs in a basket is we also again

just as a representation of how much we use that I just pulled the two of us to see if the ordinances that we averaged at the general Capital ordinance as well as the water CIP project or this is sort of give you an idea of how we are sort of financing those projects and so all the left is our general CIP project ordinance and open 471 and a half million projects that we currently have open uh 57 of those projects are being debt funded with 21 being Pago as John Nixon it's the hash money piece and then um 11 respectively using grants intergovernmental and impact fees uh for the other pieces of it if you look at our Enterprise fund our water management uh there are more project ordinance you'll see the debt is a higher percent of that 68 located 30 percent and uh grants and uh Capital facility fees respectively at one and two percent you'll notice that that Grant is a pretty local percent the

reason for that is just because uh uh cities larger cities uh have pretty good programs in place of containing their infrastructure and most of those grants that are going are going to those smaller water uh um systems that are severely underfunded because they just don't have the expertise or the planning capabilities that we have that's a quick question for sure just very quickly um what is what is the uh price threshold of the thing about is it under 100 Grand or do we so uh our policy or what we try to our guideline is we're trying to uh use ten percent as uh our measure of what comes into the debt fund it's 90 90 to 10 uh they go but in those percentages where I was looking at some of that some of that revenue and that's from the general the general CID um when I was looking at some of those projects that were made of it was we were selling land and we were using those groceries in the land and so that would become uh to fund and so in some

places when we have like a wind wall of something we would use that um so we we would from time to time spend a million dollars on something that says yes it's possible yes thank you but yes there'll be a certain projects and it's just better for us to to do a Pago and not Finance any of that but whereas um depend upon Russia especially when you're looking at trying the kind of collateral secure that uh some some it's harder to secure some of that so it's just it's

6 million and so I have this slide because I really sort of want to walk you through the different types of them and so um we will talk about a long referendum and the interest presentation but it is one of many uh blending options that we have and so for General obligation bonds that is secured by the full facing

credit uh taxpayers which is that is secured by our building to taxes so uh uh the Water our water our utility the fees that we charge paid for the debt and we'll talk a little bit about that in a few minutes limit on obligation bonds that is where when we go out to issue debt for those items uh that Bond issuance is secured by the assets that we're actually financing or if there's not enough collateral from what we're financing we will find other Assets in our proposal that we can use as security for that [Music]

8 million dollars is where we were at the beginning of last year um I got this since 2015 so you know the first significant increase in our debt portfolio and you know based upon the growth of the city so I fully anticipate that we are very easily going to go for a billion dollars uh

38 to fund that and so that is not part of the debt fund that will be funded out of um I think the dedicated housing fund and so we are accumulating those funds um so so but just to let you know that that is that that has not been issued yet and we are working we're continuing to work towards that the ethical and green projects that you heard about this morning that doesn't include the 25 million dollars that will be protected that's available for that it has a dedicated representative and these next ones are all uh recognitions out of the

7 million dollars and so that is not included in that 660 million dollar member that we have um and so but all of that uh again if you include that 95 million dollars from

5 cents that we have uh foreign

and so again this excludes 330 million dollar line of credit that we had this next uh charts shows sort of the trending of the uh principle and interest payments and just rolling in what we project for that line of credit 123 million it just sort of gives you an idea that very quickly when you start adding things to that capacity um it's eat up pretty quick with just uh existing sort of obligations that we already had out there for that and I do want to point out uh I I sort of skipped over is I sort of pivoted uh uh I am now just really talking about General the general capital projects that we have um one of the things I didn't intended to say when we were talking about the water uh fed and the revenue bonds is the fact that for today's discussions I really sort of just focusing on uh

those General Staffing projects uh because uh we've worked very collaboratively with the water management folks our consultants in the role model that is all part of a whole other discussion that you will be seeing later on all of those Capital needs are built into that rate model um to help fund those and so because those are supported by the revenues really the discussion today is more about uh those projects that have a tax impact so this is where I kind of get to the depth um and I don't expect you to to see these numbers uh because they are they are pretty small and this is what I sort of call demanded the envelope very uh ten thousand foot uh high level view of um how we determine what the capacity is for uh the Project's submissions and so uh this is the net fund uh it is funded by 11 accents 11 census for General CIP

5 million dollars and so uh what we're looking at uh this

8 million dollars um that can be leveraged uh for Paco and that service taken into consideration of all those other projects that we um have yet to uh so this just sort of gives you sort of a higher level to see okay this is the available availability of funds and then when you look at it at the end when you add it to our fund balance so The Debt Service fund at the end of fiscal year uh yes I'm sorry you spent 15 20. 9 what we're also looking at is that if you look at the uh

out there but a lot of that is sort of funds that we already sort of obligated to pay for um other things and so if you just if you're a very high level you'll see that if we didn't do anything pay for anything else out of it just have ego that that gets to 299 million dollars over the course of 10 years well if you remember a few slides back we were at 290 million dollars or 277 million dollars that we already have some Republican but again this is if we were only 100 paper but we're not so the community is is that we are leveraging debt in order to get us where we want it to be in um and so all that is just to sort of give you a big higher level of what really is that capacity well that capacity at this point really is it depends as as John mentioned you know we've got the request from the project we've got the requests from from the Departments we've been out in the community we've

had all that collaboration and we put those numbers together now they brought it in um and as a budget now finance and the Departments actually start working through those numbers we are now in financing a better sense of when you need to know where does that money needed so that is the important thing is there's the collateral the collaborative process that is going on now with the budget books the finance folks all the Departments the project managers they've already had the collaborative process as to what the needs are now it's how do we how can we strategize to fund those needs and so uh we're working very closely and part of these ongoing meetings that we've been having uh the budget has been having uh that we've been tagging along to asking very nagging questions to the department is when do you need the money so we know the extent of the project but what is the cash flow of these projects um and and then again tell us a little bit more about the project so you know is this is this something that has a

usual life of five years is this something that has a useful life for 30 years so because what we're trying to identify is what cash flow needs are how long uh the debt because again when we go out for debt you only will get funds for the expected useful life of that asset and so those are the kinds of things that we are that we are working on right now um and one of the things we are working on is we've been working with our financial consultants uh to develop an enhanced uh debt model where we can go in taking all the information that we have gathered from the budget codes from the Departments that we can load all of this in and with all of our projections and then we can start turning off the online projects based upon the phone to see what that impact is and it may be that we have some projects that we need to get going right now that doesn't have a cash need cash flow need for maybe two or three years

we can program that in we've got a program program into our model so we know well if if it's an engineering I think it's a good example and I have a question for this or not but uh talking with our fire chief our ladder truck right now I'm working with our lip boats it takes three years it's a three year laptop well and so in three years is there going to be a really urgent need that we need to approve that this year or if we do that's you know 2 plus million dollars that we don't need to program in right now because they don't need that patch right now I've only been in three years but they need to be able to create that purchase order so they can make that purchase that then means that maybe a project that's further out they get moved up into the queue and go ahead and get started so those are the kinds of things yes so Tim at everything you just said I I kind of assume that's what you were always doing and based upon you know past conversations I know you guys are gurus of you folk are gurus at timing and not drawing until we need it so when

you say implementing a new desktop system yeah so all sort of spreadsheets and the new model actually will give us the ability to in real time while we're having meaningful discussions turning on and off different projects so it may be oh what is the impact if we do not do this project this year oh well that means we can then do you know three or four projects and so we do a lot of that it just takes more time to do it because we're actually having a rerun the numbers uh this model actually is uh this uh first round is our financial advisor so this is a tool that they use with many of their clients and so we're moving from our older spreadsheet versions to a more sophisticated that then also provides more Graphics as well it's Trend information it also um if we use the enhancements it also will give us what is the impact on on our credit ratings and so one of the other factors when we talked about debt and capacity there's a financial

component to it but there's also are are we overextending ourselves such that our physical our financial scorecard from the radio agencies is not being impacted here we want to make sure that we're not doing too much of our annual budget on debt service um and so we're getting over extended it so a lot of that other modeling will can also show us the oh if we do this this and we do all these projects uh or ratios start to get a little bit skewed and it could impact our debt rating and what we always want to do is make sure that we maintain and we work very hard to get that AAA that triple triple uh that we have because what you have when you have

um it's like taxpayers or we can expand our programs thank you so what I'm also just as a side note is you know going out for debt is is not just like going to the bank pulling out an application and being approved it is a it is a variable process between local government commission our financial advisors the work that we do with um the Departments uh Bond Council the underwriters I mean it is uh and all the different approval processes you know uh you know the public hearings that are involved with that so it is a very extensive Penny wall process there are lots of working parts to that piece and so that when we do actually go out and issue that that there is an insurance out there that is embedded to prove improved but we are getting the absolute best deals

I think I've talked a lot about this but this is just some of the exceptions uh that we do in our debt modeling um again the um the tax rate whatever happens is um and then our general CIP um it also assumes um that we will do the draw programs that we will go from the line of credit so we're only getting the interest only that's the point that we've been actually flip it uh as soon as the 10 pay go um that reports that and and that we always ensure that the projects are debt funded over there just anticipated Just For Life and uh also most importantly that we do not use that for operating costs because of that is um so I was asked to talk a little bit about the general obligation Bond referendum and so I thought that would expanded just a

little bit of time on that and so again I would like to point out that we either have that AAA uh bond rate and so that's AAA Bond rating that rehab is based upon rgu Advantage but that is what they rate US on that is what we usually always refer to and so uh the general obligation of referendum really is a primary source of funding for many infrastructure projects which allows us to keep Pace with our ever expanding population of infrastructure means usually uh it's identify your very costly programs from and and the reason for that one of the big reasons for that is um it's easier to package it's usually a more important need that we have that we can go through our business because uh it is secure about a full payment credit of uh the city which is our taxi and Authority which at the end of the day means that our uh

ability to do that is approved by the voters as part of our referendum launch and so um they've now been used for operating costs and so if you can do something like that uh it gives you the ability to um parse out some of these more uh important larger I don't think critical needs but um things that can be uh um taken to our residents that they can understand so you know whether it's streets and sidewalks um you see a lot of that used for in uh Andre fragrance Parks um big facilities you'll see out there and so what happens is when you do that

um in this you send it out to the voters uh with the hope that certainly they approve the referendum um I will say that if doesn't get approved as I mean you can't do it although it just becomes a little bit more Awkward tougher to justify when you then have to Circle back around and do something that was done through a referendum foreign projects identified very much like uh the processes that we already go through lots of um collaboration Community engagement um thank you also strategic priorities adopted action plans Master plans you know restaurant requests and again the community engagement followed by staff analysis and then um [Music]

I also say um you know when you I would say in most cases and I think the city tradition has done that when you go about four Bond references and it doesn't get approve um we usually automatically go ahead and tackle on what those costs to cover uh those that that service is so just like we did with the housing balance we estimated that that service would be one point create sense and so if we were up you got foreign residence actually and then ultimately the city council reviews the list making their recommendations additions quick positions approves the final project for form package to replace to give you a general idea of the referendums that we've had in the past uh 2019 we don't know that the 95 million dollar housing bonds

that we are currently working on a 2010 2007 20 million dollars that we have for streets and sidewalks and then before that it was 100 10 million dollar Forever and done in 2005 for um to put together a calendar of the process if we we didn't do a referendum I will say I asked them to do it for calendar year 2024 that's not to say that it cannot be done for uh 420-23 except it is sort of an awful election year and so uh and uh timing is short usually we work on uh sort of referendums you it's it's a pretty extensive thought-front work trying to parse out what would be uh included in the bond

referendum I think you might be very sort of specific about what you want to point and so um while it can be done in 2024 I asked our ball Council to put together a calendar for uh or condemned 2023 uh ask them to put together a calendar for 2024 just to sort of give you an idea of the different stats I don't know if the reaching these steps but you'll notice through that there are several three uh Council actions you have to approve resolutions then there's advertisement English papers and then there's you know contacting the county um election services to give to make sure you get that on the ground and with that that is uh the end of my presentation certainly open to any questions that you might have I wish I could have come to you today and said hey this is you know what we have available upon but again it really goes magically it just depends on

many factors that we are continuing to work through for the next several weeks foreign this year or next year and some range of possibilities in terms of the

amounts while he you know while he's not a you know decision-making meeting we were hopeful that the council will discuss that with us if possible thank you for um a great presentation that's congratulations on your own one year anniversary at this past night we recently sold it feels good to be around and making things happen there have been quite a number of citizens who have expressed a desire uh particularly from a couple of neighborhoods for us to seek an infrastructure on what this year 2023. I just wanted to talk about the feasibility that I guess for me um things that our like for us to kind of focus in on would be of course the infrastructure but talk

about uh how we can incorporate some other things for our parks and also on some ideas around affordable housing in the 95 million dollar funds that we know is a great bond in making time but it is still not enough and I do think that um is looking back to the taxpayers and for another time I would like to include some more financing and affordable housing space particularly in light of some of the conversations we were having last night planning permission on land banking um and how we fatigue some of those houses affordable for years and years and uh just trying to include some of our parks and as I was going through the list there are many things that are part of me as well as I think

one of the things presented just about everybody had some type of but I would think that when we look at the uh last Bond that we did perfect similarly it's 110 million at that time and that was several years ago so I repeat that kind of be in that space so just wanted to get your your feedback on the feasibility one or something being done maybe this year number two what does it look like to include and I'm pretty sure others around the statement would have some other ideas you know infrastructure yeah and some also another look maybe in a

different Lane on the affordable housing sure uh and and again so it is doable in in 2023 this is an off election year so it is so that you have to consider a bad engine consideration as to you know you're going to get the kinds of participation support or participation that you would you would like something like that um but um it's a municipal election year so all of the city's photos I'm sorry yeah so it isn't yeah I know where there's an election but I was anticipating that it probably wouldn't be asking about yeah so it is doable it is doable um that standpoint um what may be more of a stretch is when I also uh some of my colleagues were talking about capacity is also uh uh staff capacity in order to be able to put something like that together and to get it through and then

um are we able then to to start that spin immediately when we have so many other projects that are already added that we are sort of working our way through so so I would say that yes it is it is it can't happen um but it would be it would be you know sort of a hardcore press what to do thanks so much I want to associate yourself with everything the mayor said um in terms of the need i i a couple of things that though are important to you first off I'm a little better version and I know AAA operating is important for about nine years I think that passed between a 20 million dollars refund of a point of a housing Bond um but about 40 20 things in 2010 2019 so a good amount of time for us to kind of reload yeah maybe four years less

than five years since you're worth a housing Bond so one of the things I think that was important in the successfully we're allowed in the north of 7 to the electorate approve of it it was a good vacation campaign time we had to to form folks so my only reticence about this year would be giving ourselves enough time to do the education on it to to make concrete what exactly are we asking for uh and identify those projects and I think that that would 24 would allow us to do that um so you know from an educational point of view to limit the success we've had the other thing is also with a little will to raise taxes and to talk about the least possibility of a tax rates to fund that debt um I will also you know given what we're doing with the egi already the impacts we're making already um to make sure we're not mimicking what we're already starting to do with the CIP and with the the DGI the Equitable green infrastructure we actually talked

about possibly a Bond as a second part of the Epi remember we were talking about either the the tax raise or the bond I think we came down on how many tax raise thinking about the possibility of doing uh a bond so maybe this could be the set and part of that repackaging these this as the second part of that eei that resolution we're not mimicking or over you know doing the other thing is the question for me is if we float this down and you know how much a week is it going to be a significant difference in terms of cash available in the new projects that our regular process isn't already yielding us for example is is it you know how many more projects 10 years from now are we going to get done from this vote in this debt and taking this potential thing to our credit rating that we would under normal circumstances what we're doing right now particularly media so those come at what time some of the questions I would want to put out there but I think the marriage I've sent them in the public is is is is right for it

um but those some of the technical questions I want to answer I would like to answer and I would like having to do an education project to assure that this thing is embraced by the public good afternoon thank you so much for the presentation I just want to share that we've all refer a lot from residence in support of I think the timing is is the is the question and I do want to bring up an email that City attorney rayberg sent us about the different options of when to put a load of referendum or referendum the other option was potentially the primary in 2024. um and so I'm throwing that out there because it kind of if we come to consensus of doing it personally I don't think staff between the vacancy rate everything else that's happening I want to be real confidence in the staff capacity and that whole question I've burned out I don't want to

play something you can um alleviate that on the flip side I know there's a lot of urgency out in the community and so I'm hesitant to wait until the election of 24. um and so I I'm interested in hearing from folks if potentially the primary which is essentially puts the difference in time is is an option that we're legally allowed to do it then so would that potentially give staff the capacity to get the project to do the education campaign to the mayor protest point there was a lot of into a lot of conversation in the community around before and it was really um Community engagement um so that that's just my curiosity thank you I had it um a couple thoughts thank you this is really helpful um and I like numbers so it's fun to look at all the um out of your projections um I agree I think in construction bond

is um the right direction for the city I also think we need another housing bonds um as soon as soon as we you know configure it makes sense um the fact that we've already allocated pretty much all the money in our Five-Year Plan and you know we're still um facing a lot of need and I don't think the city can ever totally be but I think it makes sense to um to do another round especially because we come out built up the capacity of our housing developers to build more affordable housing and there are projects I mean we had to turn down private we didn't have enough money I need that you know when we were first thinking about whether we could do a housing plan like any concerns was well we'll have this money what was one of the capacity and then you know developers to actually put it on the ground now that we have that I feel like we should Chase it a little bit before they decide to go somewhere else um in terms of the amount I'm wondering how much money we could

like how much money it would be reasonable for us to buy out if we were to increase our debt fund to 12 cents so like if we had another half cent how much would that get us um including any capacity that we might already have based on what you said about you know we have 220 million or something it didn't seem like we had much left in like what we've already got um so if we were to do another like half cent or even like an understanding would be that fund how much could we get I don't know if you are a genius and have that in your head yeah and so I have said that's what uh generate about a few million dollars correct um and so um a lot of that depends up again depends upon the length of the time that we need to take out the debt the interest rates uh but I would say you know uh we're looking at you know a half penny

4 million dollars so if you're looking at an additional 10 million dollars a bit at four percent for 20 years [Music] is that

okay yeah that's a lot yeah um that's that's pretty close to what we're looking humans so okay um thank you that's super helpful yeah and in terms of the timeline I feel pretty agnostic I think it makes sense to have a musical thoughts happen with the Municipal elections which would be the fall of this year I also totally recognize what you know I said we um and want to be very sensitive to the staff capacity I don't want any one

um to have more work that is reasonable workbook um the primaries and interesting idea about representation idea I think that also like we are we're in a good enrollment right now for bonds and people in Durham are overwhelmingly voting for bonds over the last five years like there haven't been any bonds that were even close to not passing and so I think people are in a mood to invest in our infrastructure in our community right now and um I think the building the opportunity is you know um when I look at it is running strategy and So based upon our community engagement based upon the projects that we're based in the response you know what are those needs well let's set those things aside and let's see what kind of strategy that would you develop and you know the longer foreign foreign

additional mean on top of what we may already be comfortable with and so that may then have the tax impact and so a lot of it is how we package it what are we calling out to show that this is specific to this so we can afford to do all this other stuff yeah yeah that makes that makes a lot of sense I think you know logically I understand that when we must leave at night but it doesn't feel that way you know like it feels like there is no way to ever meet like the need that the community has with the relate with the resources that we have as a city so I feel I mean you can we could we could use we could use a million dollars yeah we look a billion dollars of affordable housing right like then maybe um obviously let's go outside of school and we have a capacity to do so um yeah I mean I I think I think we could use any amount of any amount of money that like is you know that is possible within a reasonable process

um but figuring out like what's the what are the biggest priorities what are the people in the community like the most concerned about um how do we yeah how do we deal with the biggest problems as quickly as possible for all are all good questions but yeah sometimes it just feels like it's kind of a you know loud and less need and they're really know it's really hard to feel that an end to it thank you the only one here frustrated that we're still I I just wanted to declarity the egi items those are items for the bond and those are items outside the garage right now they're outside I really want to think about using this year to figure out how to drop that 50 million dollar ass

I'm trying to understand what's still left in the 25 well 25 million requested one that we're talking about today and so the the 25 million is really sort of just backing up just to what that asset and afford and then once we get going on that and we can see what the terms are what the projects are because in the end you're looking at what are the terms of the debt that we need to use once we we start with that maybe four stronger projects and we can see how far that asset goes then we can see what will be available to continue um to continue the work there thank you and I think that goes back to my initial questions to John about whether or not we were looking at you know paying down debt or investing or whatever like which direction we were kind of getting a push towards and I'm really looking to staff because I mean if we go back another year and figure out how to squeeze another 25 playing out then this 30

million you have sitting in Surplus to go towards the payment and expand how much we have available to director will speak to is we have a Casper you're speaking of 30 million that is this fund balance and earlier we spoke about how could we pay down some of the debt that we have to make make more capacity but we are a debt paying entity and we pay debt over 20 years 30 years for a reason because

the assets that we are investing in last that long sometimes it's a vehicle in seven years or it's 10 years but there's really not ever a benefit for us to advance payment so that is the responsibility structure are dead so that debt does get paid down a little bit quicker so you've got more capacity is instead of a level of debt maintenance which is you've got the same payment every month the LTC likes you to do a level of principal payment so what that then does is your pain is you're it's a level principal payment so then your actual interest rate goes down quicker and then your action so you start off paying uh for a hundred million dollar debt you're up here but by the time you get to the end

of that day your debt payment is actually much lower because you're paying uh interesting I I can appreciate what some manager saying that and I guess what I'm asking then is what it looks like if we are doing that principle that way down much faster so that we have more I mean essentially a larger um acid base to create the right one yeah we're always looking at I mean and so our capacity is sort of almost ever increasing because when you have growth and so if you know our weapon asset tax rate you know that base is ever increasing so so every year you're getting an increase there and then you've got your little interest payments and your back door down so it actually creates more capacity but we will we will always have debt I mean it's just managing it's managing that debt level and what it is relative to our total budget um our total expenditures over here because there's a certain ratio that

rating agencies like to see to make sure that you know you are operating sound uh financially um and you want to you don't want to over extend yourself because then that's when it starts with them thank you I'm trying to nail it all down but I I appreciate where you're going I know that um the last three years we've been talking about this mentally in infrastructure that [Music] [Music] the community can use this infrastructure and it will help in some of these conversations and what's happening so I I'd love to figure out how to get things thank you um colleagues I

I just I guess what I want to say is the the urgency of what our community wants um the needs that we have right now are are things that there are some other ways we can make some immediate action happen right now because bonds are strategic what we haven't even begun to float today for the 95 million dollars yeah so if you want to address immediate urgency with urgent responses you know the money if we pass this when we pass this bond that most of us probably only be here when we start floating that money or pulling it down to address the needs right now we can exercise the political will to move some things in the CIP right now if we want to have a urgent kind of immediate response to what people need we can we can you know move money around in the general fund right now to address those needs but what I guess what I'm concerned about is that you know if you know that's why I do cheers in the city if we if we float this dead we're not it's not like next year we're

going to be getting money from those projects and these are shuttle around projects but what will impact us right now is if we start banking the money through a tax increase so whereas we intend on addressing the Urgent needs of folk right now we're using an instrument that's actually strategic in nature it's long term but we need to you know we might have to start paying those taxes on it right now so they'll get a tax increase but not necessarily get anything any quicker than what we're doing right now with Epi do they have pain um we can move things around on the CPI CIP um right now so I would just you know just you know um put in the atmosphere that we understand the urgency of of wanting to do things right now but I think we need to understand or just remember you I know you understand remember the nature of of bonds and how far from realizing the benefits of bonds are our affordable

housing Bond right now and perhaps look at some other things further exploiting EDI um moving some things around right now that are coming up on the Seattle like we've done for um sidewalks and then the Brad counter up 98 rather so there are some other instruments we're interested as a council in doing some things in the immediate short term there are some steps we can take um you know floating debt in the name of the city is a serious matter and we should do it but I think that if we're looking for immediate responses to what our people are saying now then we may want to look at some other things besides just the bond because bonds by their very nature are strategic and long term and don't yield as many benefit as immediate sense symbolically they're important I think but in terms of addressing what we're trying to do in the short term here are some other things we can do as accounts that are within our burden so

um thank you for that because you know I'm always wearing my solution focus on what is going down and I realize that that stuff can't happen I'm realizing that but I like to have more of a conversation about what he talks about in terms of moving something surrounding trying to do something around me immediately because again the community is saying they're telling us that they want the infrastructure and affordable housing so this way as you're saying that we can do that I'd like us to have um to have more conversations around that thank you so I think if what I'm hearing is that there is some interest in talking about upon as a possible if one possible strategy in dealing with some of our infrastructure needs and other needs of course timing is a concern I do not hear a lot of interest about wanting to press the staff in terms of moving really fast toward the

the upcoming election this year as I was talking with the county the city manager though I did ask her you know it's just the kind of situation where you can bring in some help to get it done if that is the will of the people and the council to move some things or where do we where do we buy this apple do we first talk about the needs that we have now and then um gather that information then we move to the strategy on which of these Financial Resources being a bond to the other funds that we could use to address that so how do we move forward I think they live we have interest in moving forth on some of these things and not being correct in that and allowing them to go ahead and begin that process [Music] so and it's a matter of trying to then

once we determine the scope of what we're looking at then return to what Financial strategies we would use to address the urgency of that as well as we're thinking about long term does that make sense does that sound something like something reasonable to just start a process and um for us to talk about exactly what we're going to be asking for then come up with the strategy the financial strategy to feel those requests [Music] so as we're talking about that um I think this is a problem I did one colorful shines would be created within the budget um

so if we're talking about bonds or or addition of that what are some ways that we can Etc whether we generate Revenue taxes um but is there are there other mechanisms that we could you know really enhance uh maybe expanding the sales tax please uh created ways of getting more people to participate basically uh you know yeah I could be out around here I'm trying to explore it if there were if businesses in the community were generated more Revenue they were obviously paying more taxes because that I mean we're collecting more taxes worship also as a sum on what we are trying to explore in in debt all right so I guess what I'm asking is raising uh

it's important a bond which would increase that are there other things that we can do to offset having to ask for a particular amount because we ask for a lesson we're increasing elsewhere I'm trying to clarify this question about I'm confused so I'm not sure and so we actually responded to your question but I didn't want to bring together a few pieces of information that you've already seen today um and because it is you know it is part of our continuation of bringing a CIP and operating budget forward when you want to approve one of the things that um the director lord said earlier is that our departments who manage facilities and parks and streets and solve everything that you just mentioned there um they presented requests of almost 100

million dollars of new Investments for the next virgin year we know that it's always going to be a lot of needs and a lot of asks but one of the things that he said was that that number last year I believe was about 51. so the the directors and the experts that we uh you know that we are relying on along with their partners and Community uh the number and dollar figure for projects requests are in are increasing when you heard the the financing rate to talk about the capacity that number I will let ask him to repeat it but the capacity is a bit quite a bit far away from what has been asked so that innocent and I believe the the you know and again all of these products have to prevented

um you know and I won't repeat you know what goes into bed but a lot of them we would have to be better but um the long term portion of this which for our purposes is six years uh has another number there that is um about 100 million dollars for for these product types over about six years so the request s are increasing for investment and you all need us to provide you more information about um you know the the requests that are being asked the timing for when money will be needed for those requests before you know if you want to add additional projects to what you see or if you're not interested in us pursuing some of these projects But ultimately it will boil them to a

capital recruitment program that we need to plug some kind of way and if that's when we rely on the financial experts to you know if they're going to you know they're going to use logs or they're going to be General uh Geo mods or other kinds of tools to get us there um the bottom referendum is Authority and it directly involves directly about the residents and when they recruit it the approval of tax increase when we use some of these other methods um we do have to have tax increases in order to cover the debt because you have to pay acrossful interest but then you know it is another kind of increase it's just as you are deciding you know what your budget is going to be next year they're going to increase taxes like we did the half staff um in order to make uh funding available in the projects that was a decision a decision that the

Council made that can make those cousins in the future so that was just a point I want to make the question that we've had is where do you get other Revenue sources and I think you've asked me that before and we're municipal government and there only certain kinds of regular sources that that we receive in order to do both operations and investors and in our Capital infrastructure and you know we take profits we take donations we don't fundraise in in that sense but um we you know right and I think that's what I'm getting at um you know yeah so the population in our city is 100 people and only 60 people are getting taxes that did not help us if we could have an

initial attend if it's an legal paying taxes under that 100 population and where I'm getting with that is we're talking about one strategic way of generating revenue and have to do taxes so what I'm saying is how do we expand more contributions from those tools that are already existing so is Durham in its strongest position economically and I'm looking at you know the contributions that does come from the private sector are we exploring those ideas are we doing what we can possibly do all what we can possibly do to uh to increase that capacity so I'll think about businesses being strong and people spending money the more people spend money the more taxes so that's that's the reason I'm looking at I'm just trying to really get us to think more than just one Avenue of representative that we already do yeah

so uh was you know making its projections that's where that comes in so when we are looking at how our tax base grow grows over time I think we've used three percent um you know as a projection that does include you know the growth and you know the additional assist valuation that we have additional Investments whether it be residential whether you know whether it's commercial but that's how our tax revenue grows based upon the tax base in this community growth so that that growth obviously sales tax you know it will pay sales tax and the more people purchase more sales tax Grows Where the higher prices are the more tests that's paid on you know on the commodity so all of what you're speaking about is is the result of growth in our community and on the

left side of that but we have to appropriate in order to serve that community grows also so you know that's why we have to have all of these baskets um but I will attribute to the conversation that the more we can stand especially the faster sales tax without necessarily it being both that are having to move here because I know people are moving here and they will contribute tax-wise but we did have more amenities for more whatever where people come here Spin and leave they need to live somewhere else and therefore we're

generating uh we're generating more funds that doesn't necessarily require a return of services that's what I'm sort of getting at and I don't want to oversimplify that but if we did have a Convention Center we're about four and five thousand people here they're coming here they're standing in the hotels they're spending money this is making more money and then they're leaving and we don't have to provide a service for this so that's what I'm getting at and anytime we talk about that I want to add that to the conversation foreign

um engine producing um contract development like all of the things we do with the bosses spend money at that money spent usually is spent with businesses to spent all its services and it usually creates the type of investment if it is sincerely around you know the green and Equitable infrastructure it could be pedestrians Bridges across you know Street lanes that we've talked about it could be like in Winston-Salem the way that the Bridges connect the hotels and creating this off the room like those people that's around safety but I know when this is this competition initially started it started in 2019 20. and there was more of a like we need

women's solar Farms and we kind of Grew From there from the green aspect into this Equitable you know we need to serve you know you know to cover those communities that have not been served and as we continue forward the evolution is great I mean it gets better every year but it's still frustrating to not touch any of those things and adding on to it a Convention Center or a weak developed Convention Center I mean it's phenomenal but at what point do you actually pull triggers of actions get it done [Music] thank you like

for a lot of different things is there consensus around um around yes we're interested in a bond or we're not I just want to make sure staff clear ance here when you were you were talking about continuing the conversation on what they were interested in right or I think what we agreed upon that we are all interested in a bond but as a part of a financial strategy based upon what we want to Define so I mentioned for me it will be some more housing um also the quote infrastructure and streets all the stuff that the the Departments are are looking at and they narrow that down we've now heard your

idea of a Convention Center so I think if we give them a list of things that we want to consider if I were talking about the city managers the clear way and I think we've already heard it from all the financial folks the clearer we are and the more concise we are what we're trying to to find that gives them the opportunity to be kind of nimble and how we funds so I think the part of a conversation I want this viewers to now know that we're looking at upon but that's the inner part of our strategy for what are the things that we want them to look at in terms of where we are what what we're interested in funding other than the ones that I've outlined affordable housing the convention center um and of course all of the requests from our department is there any other areas that you all want them to look at so I think it goes back to that

um three piece of this and all those dollars that are now available generally um I think we're going to really be serious about adding solar panels we're going to bring our older buildings if we're going to bring our older parks and rec centers I mean like there's so many different projects that just come forward um and I want to say again that the safety aspect of figuring out how like it's still present thank you so to that list now we we have green solar energy I just want them to have an idea and then and kind of cap it so that it just doesn't become everything that we absolutely think of wrong you know if so I I'm now at

kind of four things go to my house a Convention Center all of the needs that our department has that are reasonable and we know they all are which would include the book of the infrastructure and parks and things is there anything else so that they have released for me the important Clarity is are we talking about infrastructure one that's in addition to the projects that staff always proposing the bond is I'm thinking that the bond is a part just one part of a financial strategy because here you know they're the experts and they're able to tell us okay maybe this is what amount you may need to appropriate in a bond and maybe this these things need to be stay in the CIP and making these things seem to stay in the general fund so that we have a way to kind of

have a package rather than just focus specifically on the bond but just a package of teams that we can kind of look around that's not something and I'm not really Financial financially literate space but I'm thinking we tell them what we want they tell us the best way to fund these things and if in fact it's reasonable to have all of those ones and in this one kind of idea opportunities it's real simple we hope you're discussing currently does not immediately impact my staff because my staff is focused on the opportunity foreign [Music] excellent presentation

Parks and Rec 45 million dollars due to the parks I can imagine that that is is would be hard it's a big ticket item and in my mind I'm like yeah it doesn't make sense to put it on a Starship around or a parking construction or apartment right so I think that that's how I want to see it I want to see the best like it makes sense to fund it this way that is a lot of money maybe you don't do it that way and then is there a package that would make sense to book on front brokers are we looking for John Deere 24 are we looking for 23. I wanna I wanted to just step back to to downloads but like statement what you're saying is that [Music]

is speaking about is you know a lot of referendum thing that or any of that doesn't have anything to actually do with the current the current budget that we're working on is primarily the financial staff and other team members that work you know particularly project um you know heavy departments that work on the research and the back you know the back end part of you know pricing you know what would be a you know the an appropriate amount to but it will be doing that in advance of a schedule that we are required to adhere to in order to put that package together first and then put it you know put it on the um put it on on an election

um we you know we we have had a lot of discussions there and our budget Retreats and can refer them all that year we 've taken longer to look back and get together and they get to see the most recent ones were like a single you know a single type bond that is easier you know to put information together for uh compared to the one I believe that was 110 million that was very um it involved different um different projects and different Investments and that took a lot longer and a lot a lot more people and a lot more engagement of the community in order to do a bond like that so that's not picking a year or time but it's just you know it would be as the phonics

director said it would it would be a lot to put together that for um [Music] what the staff needs to talk about and I think we need to have another conversation throughout the council I would just also say that I think the the most compelling argument I think that can be made for this can be 24 7 23. it's a conversation with your dad I think the people of the city deserve to have this kind of conversation as well uh about what this needs to be to focus on what what relational responsible for overflowing debt as municipality for what we've just done I think the people who have the time to do as well I think uh lends itself to the the educational process which made the housing Bond so

successful over 70 some odd percent um I'd like to see that same type of uh success with this Bond and again the final point then we we have there are some things we can do we can pick something off the CIP right now and say instead of spending six million there let's put it in America they're they're so right now we have that power do that right now rather than look at five to seven ten years down the road thank you on there and and I'm looking at a email that turn the reader just stand concerning when we might present a bond referendum and we have a couple of dates November 7 2023 March 5th 2024 and November 5th 2024 and I would agree with mayor Pro tem I think these issues are so important and keeping in mind that our staff is already we are already compressed with them I think we need to

to do all Deliverance but not live time of this year become the driving component because there are some things that we can do and it would be nice to be able to have our city engaged to the extent that it allows um and we're in March now so to do it really good job and put people under that kind of pressure you're talking about seven months eight months that's not a lot of time and uh if we give them the word with all within the parameters that we instead and we come back and have another conversation you know uh in the in the next couple of weeks as we go through this process I think it will lend our it will uh reveal what is the correct time I don't think we got to decide that today I think we need to give them a time enough uh to

understand what we think our priorities are give us a financial strategy to get there and then we can worry about yeah does that make sense all right do we have thumbs up on that all right so just to recap just to make sure because I don't want us to come back and have 50 other media things for them to look at right right now we have a list of about five Convention Center uh infrastructure needs which will include our departmental requests uh which includes our Parks or the street and solar energy or what what a wing items on what one twice and affordable housing that's it that's it okay all right we've gone over time [Music]

1 million

next year we have 12 requests at 2 million last year's six requests at 2 million FY 24 where we are right now 25 requests and spent 44 million um and so you know the points um to frame that and this is theoretical theoretical but we all know now with those two depending on the tax rate this is about 14 theoretically if we were to do all of that it would cost us about 10 cents companies proposing will do that we certainly you know something that that hasn't been discussed at all today is part of the helmet and I'm sure a lot of people would make someone lessons with that in mind so that we will get to that we acknowledge that in some of these requests there may be redundancies with weapons putting in parallel requests don't we want to get to that discussion we also recognize in some cases some council members make duplicated requests possibly but we want to get some language around that

um certainly when we got these requests our department did some limited evaluation around this um and I'm just going to quickly go through this around impact population strategic planning on funding the frequency administrative impact we looked at this but in a very accelerated fashion we have new staff um and we didn't have a lot of time but what we're really trying to do is hone in on a number and try to get some clarity with departments about capacity issues um and and redundancies are you already planning this with those kind of things but what we really want to hear today is the requesters the words around what they were requesting and to help to help us understand what it is um so again as I said those are the goals to to to review each briefly uh Hillary and Elena are going to take us through it's

it's a stoplight process so they want to try and remove very very rapidly to some consensus around what can everybody agree on either move forward for consideration in the budget or what can maybe be delayed or there's another there's another Avenue for that so that they can concentrate for the subsequent discussions around the Yelp I mean where do we need more discussion in the time that we have here we got a little over but I guarantee you the city manager does not need a apple so we're we're I mean I think the other point that that I was I want to address is um if we were to add a lot of these or if we were to add a lot of these are also there are also departmental budget requests um there is not capacity there's a capacity to do some but I don't think all and so

you think how do you fund that the world is really two Avenues here um increased revenue or something that we haven't talked about in a while that budget cuts we cannot pass departments this year to go through an exercise of what we call contingency Cuts if you needed to short down your your budget what would you do in order to achieve that and I and I only can bring that up because if that were an Avenue we had to pursue in order to arrive at some consensus it would require additional work from departments that they were not planning to do and and I would say added to that you know there's some discussion around the bond and things like that could be Outsource things like that I would add that realistically the people who do the work around this area about about project scoping about the cuts um about Department requests and

evaluation are the same people they're building capacity in the 24 and 27 departments but it's largely the same people because they are the keepers of the knowledge so we've got it it is you know I don't want to over emphasize it I think we're all servers but it would be an extrovertent on departments and I don't really say that so I'm going to close there and give the floor to Hillary in Atlanta we're very happy to have you here I guess the the final thing I would say is why did we bring them in here we just think it's a better approach to have them come in and discuss this it lends an element of to facilitate this Mutual perspective that we really appreciate sorry good afternoon um so as John mentioned we're really thrilled to be here with you this afternoon I want to give a little bit of perspective from triangle J I know some of you have worked with us excessively

and some of you may not have I know one of their house members of our board chair so in that customer well represented at China there right now um we are an organization that is regional and scope and so a lot of our work is working to coordinate across communities and so that is a lot of the stuff that you are probably engaging with us on a daily basis one thing that we found as a way that we really can be useful for our members which is the local government inside the city in Durham it's through facilitating these conversations over the past couple of years budget Retreats and Council Retreats have become something that we are often asked to participate in because they're really sort of technical conversations for you as track members and your staff to decide you know come to consensus on what the urine had to look like it looks like in here and so I just wanted to share that we're really thrilled to be here with you and we're free to get to hear some of the previous presentations um so as John mentioned we do have a pretty intense I guess it's the best way to put it process we're going to go through with you

um and you hope that you'll you'll work with us through this process we budgeted or we've allocated an hour and a half we're a little bit behind time starting so we're going to just adjust as we need to we're going to try and stick with those returning slots so I have a process document here we're all going to have to work together to shift the timing in our brain so we're going to start with process we want to make sure everyone really understands the process that we've outlined here so that it goes smoother once we get into the next steps then we're going to do what we're calling categorization so I provided each of you with three color cards and I know some of the sites feel kind of odd we're going to be using the stoplight method so we're going to be going one by one through this project list that you've all hopefully almost over a little bit beforehand um that was submitted by all of you um and we're going to be going one by one for each of them and each of you are going to introduce your items so you all have submitted these projects um for consideration by the city manager

we're going to go one by one through each of these projects we're going to ask you to introduce your item as it comes up and then we're going to give everyone a few moments to provide to look over the items and then make a decision as to what category you think this project would fall into and there's three options is the red the yellow and the green and I'll talk in a minute about how we sort of identify these colors just what they mean specifically and I do want to stress that I know the previous conversation was future bonds and we're talking about the next budget this is fiscal year 24 budget season right so this is making decisions are these projects in that budget and then we are going to spend some time focus on projects that are in the yellow cab and actually I'll stop for a minute and explain just that everyone understands so um besides this Reggie and you'll see three definitions for red yellow and green and these are how those colors translate

into what city manager page will consider in your budget and we're looking for consensus so we're going to be going by majority rules with colors um so if you hold up green you're indicating that you think that that project should be considered by the city manager in the facilities can you hold every yellow you think maybe it should be considered or you have questions right so there may be some things you just don't understand about a project you want to ask further of your counsel with your fellow council members that can also be valuable and then read would be that you do not think it should be considered in fiscal year 24 budget and we're going to have we're going to count by the majority of where those go and we're going to be putting them up on these boards and then we're going to spend time focusing on the yellow so that's where if you held up with yellow you might have questions about the project so we're going to focus on those questions now I want to make sure that this process if everyone understands how we're going to go through this process

are there any questions at this point about categorization or discussion of yellow yes I just want to say I didn't know we wouldn't be doing it this way the fact that usually this is all yellow because almost always instead of the person that presented it the David green and you know the yellow we all have clarifying questions usually yeah so I'd rather than doing a lot of yell not because I'm red but because I just have some questions so we know that there will be a lot of things in yellow but what we want is right we do want that guy reaction first um and we want that from everyone there's a lot of projects on this list right so John just went through the numbers he showed you what we've seen previously um you heard about constraints throughout the day for the budget already and so we want back our reaction of Randall or green and then yes we know

there's me lots of yellows potentially and that's okay um our goal is that we actually end up in a yellow discussion longer than 25 minutes so we can allocated 25 minutes without just knowing that we have a lot of projects and you also have the same analysis criteria that his team uses on that sheet there's six different areas but if

you would like to do that you're welcome too um you are encouraged to use those analysis criteria as well so I think with that I'm going to turn over to Hillary she's just going to do a reminder because I know we're jumping right into this process of how we're going to do the categorization and then we're going to Jump Right In um so I'm going to hand it over to Hillary thank you Elena okay so the process again um we're gonna have um the council member who has recommended the item briefly introduce the item you'll then have a few moments to decide if you think it is green if you'd like to categorize it as green which means it will be considered in the city manager budget yellow is it may be considered as a manager's budget or you have questions and red is it will not be considered in the city manager's budget once everybody has shown their color you'll have a moment to reconsider when you see what your other councilmates

have shared and then I will call for a final color and then based on that we will again majority rules put it into green yellow or red okay yes and my name is Hillary I know this is live but where's the color yes so if there's a tie we will put it in yellow um and I just want to remind people we are working to have understanding around areas of consensus and areas of uncertainty um okay do we want to give it a try okay a good person okay all right so I'd like to ask council member Holden Hyman who

introduce request number one Escape hello and I would have to go first okay so mine is the annual National mystery month celebration also this year we were able to do that with it we actually supported the council and I'm an experts on funds to do that until going forward I was told that I probably about what we wanted to do again that we need to probably put into the budget I will say it was very successful um and the mentoring organizations were very happy with the fact that number one they've always they were all able to get together and also be honored by the city because they're doing great work and again I want to say this is so this was just our celebration for one night but I'd like to take it to a further um is because mentoring is a evidence-based uh evidence-based model in terms of safety and communities and working on

risky behaviors for you so that was the rationale thank you and I forgot to mentioned there is a suggested um information to be included when you introduce your items so we need the comic name the budget impact and the project purpose so would you mind also providing the budget impact okay I think our Facebook is that for 50 000. okay three years okay all right so please um council members prepare your colors okay it's overwhelmingly yes all right next I invite mayor O'Neal item number two so I asking for a calendar year your opponents of city employees this is my only budget request

um this is coming out of with the annual budget of 300 and and the reason being simply you know I've had a think about it and I always try to uh clean up around my own front door first and so I wanted my budget request this year to go to those who make it happen for the city and on top of that the other agencies that I would work there at least in a turkey or something interesting so um 300 is not a lot uh it might buy you a turkey and and the dressing and all that but at least it's something so that's my only budget request and I hope that it won't be one time I hope that it will be reoccurring and we will increase it next year and the budget impact for this year [Music] uh so please prepare your color

all right item number three council member Jose okay the city of Durham entering Alliance collaboration pilot program the rationales for the city of mentoring Alliance collaboration program to enhance Community Partnerships to Mentor Youth and provide a one-time shop for community members to up to be updated around information to run out of the communities of where these programs are and what they what the programs offer to service you and so it was a 230 000 reincurring annual budget profession thank you all right is your favorite color all right you guys

thank you um so this is a proposal to restart a community engagement program that we ran um several years back where the city that County and the school board all collaborated to do a series of in-person meetings around um the budget of all the public funds we were planning to restart it uh in 2020 and then covet happened and it was indefinitely um postponed so this proposal is to restart that with a little bit of a Twist um which is to instead of just having it be a open invitation for whoever can show up to choose people to participate in a similar way we do our community survey in order to try to get a representative sample of their residents to participate in the conversations and then instead of us people with monetary like with payments to actually come and do the engagement with the goal of being able to have a little bit of a deeper engagement than a survey that the same

kind of representation across the entire city that we would get from that kind of like scientific based choosing of participants um the budget is 163 500 [Music] um if that's recurring but it probably wouldn't be an every year thing maybe like in every other year kind of thing and it gets it's a really luxury review okay if you when you're talking about budget impact it'd be great for I know we've got a note taker and this will be helpful verify how you got that number would be really useful so when you're when you're providing your budget member also just where it came from so that's in the document that we submitted I don't know if y'all have access to the form that we submit where we had to get into more detail you know

that was going to be kind of a lot to like okay we have that and if there's anybody okay um item number five councilmember Williams so um this came from working with the two non-profits in the uh Community uh specifically uh the co-workers Suite so we're at research is a community of beer are non-profits that are doing a lot of the students work this is an opportunity to uh provide to think of you the engagement ever right now our community engagement is and this is an opportunity for folks to actually be a part of a real solution space um culture and the 25 000 past came as a supplemental for what the organization of what we're putting in as well uh so not asking the city to truly find it but

ask me to you know they're sitting to supplement what community members already actually wanted it's called the community Design Lab thank you all right item number six council member Williams uh so really simple I think the uh dark Convention Center capability Society basically working with item number 88 000 came from uh working with the current conventions that are in their team and the past hour that has a company that did the feasibility study of the original ones who are still local um whatever a city has a thriving local

economy is because they're doing things by they're doing building such as generating Revenue that is not necessarily a buffet or having to go back into the actual um basically you're not expecting the tax base only by the people who are looking there but you're actually expanding the tax base by creating opportunity to pull from other areas where folks live so we may generally you know we're generating you know 100 million dollars [Music] [Music] and to expand downtown right now our Convention Center capacity is around I guess 300 to a thousand people imagine if we had 3 000 people I think that was a person's capacity Convention Center that would that would break down a lot

of money online so thank you all right great yes okay um number seven customer Williams all right [Music] um so I you know one thing to go to sleep has shown us in our federal government is at that adjustment in the Arts it's just something that doesn't work and in this case uh I I drove to be a leader at appreciating the Arts again and when you go to successful dead size to large size cities one thing do you really see then capitalize on is the Arts and so not many people know that we actually have a symphony the Dork Symphony and Orchestra and what this is doing is basically uh supporting them like we used to uh documented uh we have

a robust section here we perform at um the Carolina Theater and there are many people just like the number shows like the impacted with kind of shows the Carolina [Music] [Music] thank you um [Music] [Laughter] all right so next we have Catherine Williams item number eight oh okay so this one um so the president of Biden just allocated I believe 30 over 30 billion dollars uh for vocational training uh 37 I believe uh location Across the Nation uh many municipalities around the country and including Charlotte and

they're kind of taking advantage of this uh with the higher workers Association where they have the curriculum already they have the um all of the resources to to break it here but they would need to be planted here and what 50 000 would do is supplement what they will be contributing to as well then establishing a city-wide apprenticeship program that would really uh I want to just talk about this one in the welcome Adventure Park case with the bragtown community this is doing that same thing except it has the money that comes with the organization that would provide 18 to 35 an hour for folks that are literally just starting now they're part of our paintings for and workers Association is really important our workers Association which covers all traditional trades from electricity or drywalls and painting they get paid for these uh program participants 18 to 35 an hour health care and pension is a four-year program it's been eight weeks in the classroom

and then they're on the job site this is creating jobs it's expanding our tax base and uh it's actually solving the labor choice that we have in a lot of our construction projects and uh based on similar contractors that are still kitchen then all the pool specifically from this program and there's over seven million uh I can't remember the number but they're oh seven years worth of work lined up right now to this short board thank you all right others as a spring all right um next we have item number 10 council member Johnson thank you um so this is a repeat item that I also put through last year um which did not move on to the budget last year which is to contact the local nonprofit in the North Carolina employee ownership Center to provide technical support for employee companies the contract would be managed by oeta Beauty there's a work that will be done by the

contractor and employ other companies you know just have sort of more like specific technical support needs than traditional businesses and they also invest in really incredible benefits particularly with regard to our strategic plan goal of um Prosperity uh so this would provide um 75 000 a year for two years to build up with that programs to support that thank you all right and item number 11 Council Library adjustments thank you again um so the Supreme explanatory we currently have a Bible instructor program at Brisbane um six census checks is the partnership between the city and the county uh this would be allowed the perfect expand to additional four tracks uh when the VCU

folks came to a council um last year their director spoke a lot about their desire to continue growing and expanding the county is putting a big investment into them in their view in their own building and so this would increase the city's investment as well um into into this Earth excuse me president green and number 11 customer Johnson thank you um so yeah this is pretty self-explanatory we currently have the hard prints and funds program that provides focus in one part of the city um for um about um this would increase the coverage to the

24 7 service 81. you know the question of whether we go to 2017 why is really a separate question from the service level which is really the budget question like we could right now have our folks respond to calls anywhere in the city it would be harder to go 24 hours with our current Staffing but we could say okay I respond to close anyway in this video without adding more staff that would of course um be the opposite of you know what we're trying to do with making staff not have a great gameplay um so I think having you know having additional staff to do that would be necessary the question of how much that I think is something we would have to work out as we move forward in the discussion and also of course the conversation with um with the department but um I think that it's really important that everyone in our community have

access to um to the hard service and we've had a lot of folks in um in the community Express the desire to access it um and it's been really successful it's been an incredibly successful program um and I want to keep it keep it growing and keep it moving all right and we have three yeah one step further um you know we have our crisis called diversion can you responsive we have our case navigation care navigation and I think right now that the kid education navigation excuse

me they stay with the family for I think 30 days what I'd like to see is kind of our case management where they are staying with the family a little longer because sometimes when you go out to the family that particular person that because it was pulled up it's a whole family that sometimes you have to wrap services around and sometimes there's barriers to linking the families to Services I didn't really know how much this was going to cost so I can put in and out the businesses around here and then it says two years but I wonder if the media current so I think yes [Music] all right number 13.

S cities and for

the most successful Pilots of guaranteed income in our nation's history we received 500 000 from Jack Lewis who's a former uh CEO of Twitter uh we added about 135 000 in City administrator funds we had over a hundred uh justices involved individuals participating in the pilot not one of them had any cases of their facilities during that time participated in guarantee and gun pilot um the last check went out I think last week maybe a week and a half ago our partners around the country are going to engage in about eight months a year months year month year long study um I think Mission keeps going I think we I'm asking for a place holder of a million dollars to nearly double the number of participants to be determined whether or not those will remain Justice involved individuals or with our partners at Stafford Durham and others I expand that so that's it in the nutshell all right foreign

like just the decorations that we see one of the details in the housing in terms of how can we move all of our some of our residents who are renting to you know buying um and so I just thought about that and I said trying to have a pilot where our residents are educated around navigating from the path to you know home ownership because that number was so large that all of us at the table were like oh my goodness so just maybe try to clean up with a pilot to be able to do some workshops or whatever to kind of move them from renting to home ownership right yeah thank you um thank you um this is just continuing funding for the Immigrant legal defense fund which we're already funding for one more year and then while it wouldn't

impact this budget cycle of mirroring what we've done with deer which is that we continue to fund here but just at a lower level and they have been able to expand um their donors it's a it's a 250 000 assets recurring we already have the contract with the nonprofit yeah thank you um this is uh two more positions an immigrant sheet it's basically to create an immigrant Refugee Affairs Department we already have one position this is uh position that holds the city and the county fund the program was actually embedded in the county not in the city the commissioner Alum on the county commissioner's side has already put for Budget requesting on the County Commission side and it's basically to expand it to from a one-person team to a three-person team we had gotten some information from one of our former

employees around being able to create a supervisor role somebody who would focused on Refugee Affairs and somebody didn't work for a focus on immigrant Affairs because they have different needs in our community and as folks have seen in the last two years we've had a massive increase in refugees either from Afghanistan or Ukraine to that pressure in our community is growing um and we would see the county it's a 50 50 split and we would have to just update the interval program and it's a I'm sorry it's 175 000 a year it's reoccurring anything um thank you um I think this is probably one of my most passionate about so everyone holds a great yard stuff uh you know black uh [Music] you know academically proficiency-wise

according to the data that's been reported are at the lowest of its own pole but when it comes to crime we just have to be at the top and that's just I think that's backwards and when you look at our crime uh our criminal behavior in Durham especially gun violence is always the young black man on each other and I'm so sick and tired of Boston careers and I'm tired of praying hands emotions but we aren't doing anything but reactively acknowledging that our love for uh to want to send the fans like Boston did uh where they created an entire office on the Affairs of black men divorce or like Miami where they created an entire city-wide Initiative for black men boys [Music]

[Music] thousand dollars thank you um this is the creation of the Visions you're a coordinator I know the transportation department has also put this budget request request and um staff um put the uh sorry the amount at ninety thousand because that was included their analysis it would be reoccurring I do want to emphasize that this request came to me through uh vpac design pedestrian advisory commission which is we're on an established on so I'm just lifting up a professional Community I just finances colors

[Music] and lastly uh um it's a place where folks want to meet and we should assume that when we were dropping into the city at the right now our welcome to the Durham side was so good evening welcome to the city of medicine it sounds depressing when you look at that time so I worked with discover Durham on this uh to do a feability study they call for that usability Center was 25 000 it would basically redesign but basically reasons well it'll inform us on the redesign the community engagement should be designed in the placement and uh it will just really update the imagery of our city when you're driving into uh I started and again not no it'll be the uh

uh Sciences but the assignment does not pay the sizes [Music] to prepare to implement the project okay um so number 21 is the cfp item that industry Planning Group request moving this item just acknowledging that this project was a project that was held out from 2009 or 10 and all of the other projects were done throughout closed Andrew driver all five points uh West Chapel Hill Street um East Main Street and Federal Street is

the only one that was never done and so over the years it's been kind of operating to watch um just acknowledge that this would be a way to essentially create more vulnerable sidewalks making sure that their handicapped accessible um with ramps and the concrete had gutters and down downspouts so to speak they'll catch like catch Basin drainage and that actually met the DMT standards consolidation of our overhead utility wires to hide poles and looking film on the street side and on one side of the street as opposed to both and Congo express service connections uh [Music] it feels awful that it's not done already [Music]

yellow um so the paper Justice reborn um Justice movement this is actually it should be six million over three years but uh it's essentially created in this backbone system that would would kind of house the supports for our formerly Justice involved folks uh this is being led at this point by folks who aren't Justice involved but the whole we get to that point where they are I know that business propositions in the background to try and get them set up um with the triangle foreign

S cities and see the results of the of this investment by our own government um I think we have an opportunity to do something historic uh we wasn't the first by my research the first municipality uh in the United States the places significant placeholder in there but it named specifically at Equity redirects for the past uh injustices now to concretize this many more specific but there are a number and Captain

America and I think there's there's a number overlap there are a number of voices uh improved in the hay tie and this will be firstly be focused on behaved on the historic Community for a couple of reasons one it is the most dramatic example that Durham has of sucking out wealth and destroying black wealth in our history Merit more Brett and a lot of other neighborhood but for us the one that's most nationally and internationally known is what happens Black Wall Street particularly pink top 147 is a reminder every time you drive on the second one uh from the city's um uh tourism point of view this is not just about lacking um there are places in this country Sweet Auburn in Atlanta when you go to see Dr Kingston Sugar Hill Apartment uh many other places uh where folk actually make pilgrimage and spend a lot of dollars uh in cities to come see these places um I believe that I spoke with the folkat at Discover Durham that we need to place paint eye on footing to become

that for Durham to generate uh tourism developers not only to preserve the history and try and be right by some of the descendants that still live there but also make this a place that we must come see when you come to your arms um so part of this this money and Marshall Plan that is a marshall type plan for the nomenclature will probably be different part of it would be to stand on the Hayti Community Development Corporation um they are which could really act as a Clearinghouse for all of the different voices and plans that we have along available as we record or it would also be a place where not to be spent all at one time but a demonstration that Durham is taking equity and historically a seriously

foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] like this has been the and so in addressing some of those

7 effectively just nailed much of the last Friday night activities endurance urban renewal program in late late 90s 60s and 70s combined with the freeway that caused a long-standing or long-standing stars of community trauma well construction and so this plan that your library has put together would would was put was pushed through or food-friendly heads to me as well

asking for a placeholder with a million dollars foreign a number of requests that came forward but there weren't any dollar amounts tied to where it was back and so I just wanted to make sure that there was a placeholder on my list for any items that they may have needed Okay so we've gone through the list so I'm going to pause for one minute we're

gonna We already moved into three dollars and talk about those a bit more but before we do that we just want to so [Music] bring the info as a consideration um so I'm gonna ask whoever thinks thank you so right now we've got 14 million dollars and 61 3 [Music] Millions foreign [Music]

we're focusing on the yellow focusing on the yellow board and if we want to go numerically we can we do not oh can I make a statement oh we were going to go in order oh I'm sorry we can start at either end sorry I was thinking clockwise um I guess what would be helpful for me and for staff is to take some of these items and line them up with like especially with the Bell Street Corridor I know that we had oh I guess the grant that was that hate I did hit the heritage heritage center did around what folks were wanting to see and so I would like to see a little bit more kind of collapsing of all of that information because these are some big ticket items and I want to see what's what's overlapping what's repetitive and they seem like similar items and so

I think in general anything that seems like it might be overlapping um or potentially aligned to the other work that's already being done because then essentially it goes off our Ledger [Music] um and and um more manageable and actually wow so that's just a general overall request um I think honestly until that's done I don't really have an opinion it's like I'm not going to fund probably 44 million dollars worth of I'm gonna say yes to 44 million dollars whatever the total is a council request is when I also have to think about it so until some of that kind of collapsing of information or people get of effort has done it you'll have a clear yay whatever video sorry I think it would be helpful um

[Music] let's do that yeah okay so starting with um item number one the annual men for a month questions or comments my big question was about you now if you get doing this as great any fifty thousand dollars is [Music] connected because I did 1 500 angles here okay so let's lower it and what we need to go but I mean this is I'm new so I don't even know but yeah sponsored [Music] [Music]

so so again the reason so again like it was our program what really made me do this because I saw you know illegal cities and this is what we go for a lot of different relations between our lives but cities and interim right so that's what I wanted to talk about wow so that's why I put it back but this was our first time ever right so it doesn't have to be 50 000 but I wanted to take it up a notch so we did an honoring so let's do something like a conference but I do agree with you in terms of being able to get some sponsorship so I don't have to have we don't have to have fifty thousand dollars we could be lowered but I really would like to see it I suggest the amount um there are some things is there any way we can just handy break this into our menu of things we do uh

each year I know we do this is the volunteer appreciation reception yeah we already have a template kind of like um you know doing things for different boards and commissions I'm wondering could this be assemble is this adding to the menu of things we do already under the budget I think it's our interview um so can we just augment that budget we do conduct the volunteer appreciation reception every December and then this um event would happen in January uh we have used the entire department essentially to organize the volunteer appreciation discussion so this would entail another event going on as well um you know it will stretch us then I just wanted to let you know is this something that we can just add

can you kind of project what you would need to augment your budget whatever that looks like and just add that to our list of things we do receptions we do uh because I I don't I don't know where else it would sit other than in that you know in your department so depending on when we do it it would probably involve some karaoke funds [Music] or whatever they're doing so that you know it doesn't you know fall on the first Department to carry it out because I'm sure they are doing something well exactly the money there yeah they usually bring the mentoring people and uh and honor them I'm sorry I'm sorry they usually do they bring them interim programs and honor them so honestly this

is like the first time that there was a program in the city or county where they actually kind of had a program right so I you know we can work in collaboration I like mayo or Cortana idea but honestly this year we got it done with a lot of uh interns and and health and some staff there and um we are taking extensive notes so that your budgeting can work with this conversations so so spondylolizes I I would be willing I wanted to you know to if we can lower it down like I said I did the program with a thousand five hundred dollars so I would like I just wanted to take it to the next level and do something that may be a conference you know and make sure that we as a city do something every year for mentoring them because other cities are doing it and I would love for us to continue okay uh next calendar year and bonuses

to city employees questions or Curiosities a year in Bones you can mess with the amount if you want but yeah I just think they need I can too I agree because you can mess with the amount but we need to give something to keep a meal uh yeah my main question but I just wanted the city rendered away in because I meant you know there's extra races and when we did the bonuses before my entertained was that it was um that we wanted to get raises but we didn't have to return money until we need bonuses for her to just give people a raise rather than a bonus if if we're trying to increase um salaries it seems like a lot of money in the city to give everybody kind of a small amount of money but I'm not I'm not opposed to it like it's great professionals it just doesn't

seem like much better for your buck overall um getting the budget impact and like the small amount that we'd be able to do before like I said one of the reasons why I asked myself um you know one time and I had no regard for whether people got rated so it's just kind of out of my purpose but I do I I know that I appreciate it um at the job that I Network for for at this year and bonus around Christmas time it's not a lot but it stands a lot when you can uh give people something it may not be a lot but I do think that 300 for each of us in here today and we got it today we would be real happy today so I begin by saying that whenever the city uh Awards or Rewards Employees with

the bonus um I know we're not going to get into the details of the funding sources or something that's right today but it is you know it comes out of one of them one of the baskets which is more of a one-time item that is not you know it's not promised with to the Future so any bonus that we give um whatever the amount it would be coming off of you know out of about primarily um what I didn't want to just remind and it's not necessarily related to this bonus but in John's projections the earlier today we are only projecting uh the paper performance step well step increases for our employees which we budget around five percent uh also our current salaries for those increases for employees we know that we are going to have to lose some of our uh our paid wages because of

the minimum liberal wage then we have not calculated what that amount reports we get uh but it is not included in our projections so also right now we do not have a bonus on what we do have included in our projections the the step the five percent increase primarily for our paid performance schedules part [Music] something I think the staff uh just you know put a round number in because it's able to feel the positions so you know I'm not that we can use 2500 so it was probably more at this point

accommodation but it's just an estimate foreign staff is lowest in December much lower than it was Eve you know some of that other times or we might have seasonal employment all right ready to move on to three mentoring cooperation pilot programs questions number three questions and curiosity

can work with these okay and Anna can I say John would you no I just think there's an infusion because the first one did disappear again yeah and oh I didn't realize you changed up the Technologies yeah we were just planning to not because we just want to have all the questions discussed okay we've already sort of made the gut reactions and now we're talking through items and then [Music] excuse me if there's consensus yeah I'm gonna keep that but we're not going to vote for the future ones to move them we're just going to discuss and imagine know that that's something that we've got a seven in the backside of everything that's being said yes there it is being taken about these Discretions um and that will be given to you on you know this conversations

do you want to vote yes please show your color number two vote two we're doing number two in the book okay okay real quick um again we can lower this amount uh again we have our office and I know we fund most of that office because it's been accountable and I just know like I said I'm talking to people in the community a lot of time even for me just trying to find out what were existing mentoring programs what are each people doing some of them are not even doing what they were doing before so parents don't can't really understand that like so I want them to be able to have a one-time shop where they can call the city and be able to know to be able to link their their kids or their family to services to help them and it doesn't have to be this amount because it'd be a problem too

absolutely will be available for that to just occur from the office on youth I don't care where it goes so much concern with this is that that we have an office on you've been that big set priorities that don't include this and I don't think that we have another crazy message for this to live and I and I think that we should um continue to do our relief work through the office on news according to like the plan that they set out um so I don't need this I I while I you know appreciate this you know mentoring Services I think it's great I don't think that it's the right time which is for the city to step in yeah more muscular and and um trumpeting this to our residents and citizens I don't think it's a 213

the directive with the directive to uh muscular about it we're ready to go to driverization degrees okay oh yeah zero and then it just happens we're gonna we're gonna show that others them okay what are we doing yeah so one of the things for the council but if if there's no resources that are apply to something um then that's that essentially means I I do understand you know maybe something more you know amplifying it or those

kinds of things but we would you know we would have to have an opportunity to evaluate how we actually do that with no additional resources so if there are not going to be any additional resources and we just make a zero but turning green that's kind of a different thing that we've been be directed There was zero so even you know we need to be read or we would just have heard the direction for the council about how the admirable mentoring or how we better you know kind of collaborate with mentoring agencies all right so then I think what we can do is keep we can um if we want to just provide a directive that can be something we vote on or if you want to keep the number up and vote on that those are sort of the two options [Music]

for lower money but keeping it in the office of human um I think if it's directive I don't think it has any I think for purpose of this exercise we need to have budgetary impact or it doesn't I don't it doesn't have any budgetary impact but the the staff has heard our wishes to have we pursue uh being more local in terms of mentoring so for me there's no budgetary like that so it's great for this action that doesn't speak to its importance is with this exercise that it's not going to impact the budget um should change their direction or their work to incorporate more focus on that energy I don't want to I don't want to give that direction to staff I want them to

[Music] because yeah are you looking to establish money to support events records that are already going to work or are you looking to create an initiative Network um that was sort of a model or ability of what's been done no I I kind of would want it like I said if somebody calls an office on you if somebody calls a law course on you and they are looking for some services for their kids that we can be able to give that information to them like I said for me even just to find what what mentoring programs are here what ones are really being still existing it was crazy they're saying that we have a thousand mentoring programs in the city but that's not true so I just want us to be able to have more more of a concrete we have people looking for services they can pull and they can speak to someone to be able to direct them to link them to the already existing mentoring program get information collect you know

connection I know they do it in Charlotte but they do from with a not-for-profit standpoint the not-for-profit does it in coordination with the city yeah I think that and to councilmember Johnson's point the mission of the office of Youth as well well um Define but with respect to the last part of your language behind me the possibility of enhancing sacred communities I'm sorry wrongful um uh to obtain updated information regarding access to youth mentoring Services if it's just as simple as calling the office of using they can say hey this is the list of youth mentoring in the city I don't think that would be violence to their their core Mission um you know if it's just even having a list in the office of what it is an updated one that citizens can and there's nobody in fact I don't think it would be violence to the mission of the office of you we just gave them a list of mentoring organizations to say hey let folk know

that this exists so like but somebody on the steps with me but and I think that that's a purpley situation to do because I've talked to the office of Nathan it's like they started doing it but they don't have the staff to really continue to keep that up but I do know when I'm in community they're like well this is this problem existing is this program and I understand the counter doesn't we have kids in the city too that are dying every day that also need to be willing to services so I know it doesn't have to be this amount of money but I just want I want us to be able to if we have the offers on you if I understand their mission but when you think about the office of you you're thinking about okay I can call the office of Youth and then I can find that information about how I can link my child to whatever Services too is that if there is a need for additional work there will be a vegetarian effect and so just that will have the issues so and I think that's also you're sort of acknowledging that as well um so I think we just I think maybe as a group we can decide okay if you want

M or unanimous consent yes okay thank you ladies out we've started

a great process but I'm going to turn it back over to uh I think we're ready to pause right now so Corporation in all of course everyone stands the cabinet videos facilitators to conduct transcription um you know I think I think that was valuable I think that was productive I think um there's some discussion particularly around the ending items the large ticket items sort of as you know if you'd like more information on that I think administratively is

the same we would like more information on now we're not really sure either so if someone would ask me where is this project in the CIP plan I don't know the answer to that I don't know what the answer is it's not or departments have sculpted or I don't know what it is so I mean those are ones what I'd say is I don't know if it has an FY 2014 apps that does not mean we cannot begin to do the work for almost that's all I would say um I'm going to turn it over to city manager page for any closing monoxide the adjourn for the day and return s everybody

it's been a it's been a long day for the midday and again I say thank you I think to staff thank you Council for helping us kick off this this budget uh budget Retreat cycle so after uh you know presenting our financial projections the budget out books uh Recruitment and Retention challenges uh Edward Rule and green infrastructure update Capital Food Bank proposals debt model and the beginning of a full discussion and prioritization of City Council budget requests day one of our Retreat is coming to a close uh we have highlighted how we have made some changes to the way we incorporate as we uh throughout the budgetary process both are operating and our Capital budgets we are always hopeful that the topics that we choose

the real-time updates that we have selected provided a very important information that you that you need to begin to provide budget guidelines to us that will move us closer step by step to a proposed budget for 2023-2024. again I would like to thank staff here today for experts and they do this work as good as anyone and better than most as you heard uh we we have to make some new staff a lot of our staff afternoon or they might be new in the role that they currently have we have significant vacancies that you've heard about that earlier today but we still keep our operations going uh we still serve our customers at very high levels uh these these staff members in this room and others have worked hard to bring this information to you today and I remain proud of each and every one of

them as well as our stakeholders in the community and others who've joined us to hear these deliberations uh the budget staff okay they've been recording you see all the computers over there all of the questions all of the insights issues that we need to uh get additional information do additional uh analysis on and follow-ups as we prepare close I think you will agree that we have a lot of work to do but we can do it fbm discussed here today we need to continue to refine prioritize many new uh funding requests continue to evaluate how we effectively fund what we already do uh day to day and that our students rely on us and our residents rely on us to continue we will continue to engage you our native officials our residents and our other stakeholders and prepare this

additional information to inform your decision making as we move closer to a budget recommendation in May thank you foreign