City Council · Regular Meeting · March 3, 2023

Action items as part of these plans that they've done a lot or research on as well as extensive Community engagement around them so we really want to kind of use this opportunity to follow those into our strategic plan find the ones that should be done the next three to five years the nature of those are represented we were in the process of developing our objectives it works with staff and about to do our community engagement very happy report that we are on track we are back there with you all now to get feedback on our objectives and that we're currently in the process this spring of working on developing those initiatives this is really the most difficult part of the Strategic plan because the initiative we're really in front of those thought and development because they're actually what we're going to be doing the next few years to reach our desired outcomes and are we still plan to come back to you all and have the Strategic office.

Part of the other process so we'll be back to you about the end of May and then hopefully this will be about this in June so it will follow quick we're going to talk about what we've done so far we facilitated meetings with our department leadership for each goal area we're really enjoying an environmental scan and so much has changed in the past few years and we really wanted to catch that as a part of this refresh process which is met with to look at what are emerging challenges and opportunities and we use that through the outcome of these meetings was a list of potential selfish areas so our objectives that we would then focus on for the next few years yeah very excited to say that we reached out to 543 employees and Collective surveys on our new objective areas for Innovative and high-performing organization Bowl area and we're very excited to review this for in person as well as online with the help of our Communications Department we're grateful for all the assistance.

They gave us and it's like Ricky or able to reached about I think it's about 24 of our employees so we're really really proud of that also this is probably a business holder we're both proud of this year we really wanted to try something new most share Stations don't do expensive engagement rendering plans but here at the stage as we established yesterday when Nas both we really value real estate Communications. So we really focus on peering for residents and making sure that we can draw a direct line through what our priorities are on our plan and what are the actual priorities of our residence so we were able to collect 876 surveys as 203 you know Focus Outreach which included visits to in-person to the holy Center of leadership Rec Center preseel Place.

Nations we were able to really meet the presidents and hear from them and as well as use the residence satisfaction survey which as we heard earlier is statistically significant so people has really represented but we also were able we're really excited to be able to build on the in-house expertise of NIS with their equations blueprint which we use to kind of think about how we want to do this engagement as well as we're really looking to have ums which we were able to also we had to follow them around but they were when they were doing navigation so that was really fortunate that we really had all these folks because they've done for doing this work and we could really build on that.

Right.

And then we're really excited that like when we got the results and we share them exactly the leadership the top two to three priorities by opener residents employees that actually have ended up in our recommended objectives for the Strategic plan so we feel that it is actually Fair representative of their priorities and next I'm going to talk about the sharing he's going to share all the details of what this objectives actually are thank you okay so I am going to go through each of our goals and talk about those three objectives so if you're going to see anything from shocking I think you are very aware of what our residence and what they find important that's what we hope you're going to see in front of you also keep this in mind this is important these are working titles only they will be built out much more when we get a more holistic approach when we are done with our initiative so we know there's some work to do around this.

Language we use a lot of City speaks sometimes and we want to definitely make this much more friendly and usable more residents in the future so keep that in mind so we'll start with the one our shared economic Prosperity I keep looking out here when it's right there we have three objectives so the first one tools and resources to promote small businesses and local entrepreneurs is nothing that is a continuation of what the school has been focused on for quite some time removing our neighborhood businesses build a town to be competitive Workforce you saw that today in our residence survey just how important that is and this last one really building connections between job Seekers and quality job opportunities this is very heavy in oews wheelhouse working with working with the companies and businesses making sure that we have the right training in place for our community going out to save our community together the first two objectives not surprising they came from our last line as well our reduced harm and.

Building trust between our neighbors and our Public Safety providers this third one is very new and as you heard yesterday from our HR Director this is definitely a pain point in the city you're going to see something very familiar in another goal as well this one is really focused around Improvement retention and the wellness of our Public Safety staff it's the different than the rest of the city is very unique and and so we think there's some unique solutions to that in our connected engaged inclusive communities this is really the heart of the community's plan is our goal three these three objectives the first one about cleaning places in local governments we're going to continue and Elevate the work we're doing with our engagement efforts in the city clearly that is an important part of what we do number two I don't think we could even have a species plan without thinking how the cardboard will be a part of that and then our last point is more about expanding our resident access to digital.

Resources as well as our community programs and our resources so making sure that we're connecting residents with the services that we offer angle for our Innovative and high-performing organization goal this is our internal Services goal more of our employee one this is the one we have our employees prioritize objective ideas for this one so our first one strengthen our inner Department of collaboration is this is just about how we need to we will communicate and collaborate better internally within our Department's processor within other departments and we do that better and we'll be better at our services for our community number two this is the one I spoke of well when you've got a recruit retaining and are a Workforce so again a second one we all know why and number three this one yes of course is one thing here are advancing and inventing equity and programs and services this one really is going to be looking at not only internal internal processes and policies that we even think but also looking at how we.

Perform the services and the processes that go out to our community as well and our last but definitely not least goal Article Five driving and vibrant environments we have maintained and improve in existing infrastructure you solve this all over our residence area this morning about our roads and streets and sidewalks our expand renewable energy and efficiency Energy Efficiency strategies we are very lucky that we have a carpetuality plan that will be used to feed into this one private as well as the comp plan which will be used throughout the plan there's a couple hundred action items in that content we'll be looking at as well creation of ideas our last one is divert waste to Alternative Innovative strategies for working hard and see what our Solid Waste departments and their collaborative collaboration with other departments see if we come up with that so I am now going to take you away from the refresh and for one minute I want to focus on another part of the Strategic plan which is the.

All-important implementation of that plan so I I talk about this in October when I talk about it today and I'm for sure going to talk about it in May but we spent a lot of time right now on the development of a strategic plan but this is not the most important particular plan it is these implementation of a strategic plan I'm a local government yeah I've been a mobile government my entire adult life I have been in multiple organizations and every single one of them has had a strategic plan it's not until I came to Durham that I actually understood oh you can actually do something with that strategic plan and nice fantasy covers on them and yeah that was about it so and that's an important part of our strategic plan and so one of the things that we do we do a number of things we have an online dashboard that we update and provide to Residents we use it definitely in the budget process we use.

It just to talk about what we do and we organize things by our strategic plan but one of the things that we started some years back was the Durham strategy and performance meeting we call it these app internally and these meetings are held once a month when we look at those initiatives those working items that departments are working on and we bring people together including our city manager our Deputy city managers it's a two-hour meeting it's not like some quick little you know oh half an hour it is a commitment to do this every month people behind you half of them I think are are part of that as we speak every month and part of those discussions is looking at a long timeline you can see up here at the very small little character but looking at a year in advance what are the main deliverables what are those big Milestones that are part of this initiative what are we looking forward to and part of that being too at the end.

Very end of the 15-minute update because you go through quite a few initiatives the permanent share out the next ABC and D we're going to do ABC and D between now and the next time that we're in front of this group and then on a fast forward a couple months three months they come back and you start the presentation went okay I hope you open your ABC and D so this is where we are with ABCD and it's it's been such a great way to see this continuation and this progression of those initiatives this is such an important part of this I know it's definitely going to start brainstorming how you when we get our plan adopted in June the implementation of it and we want to do a better job of really doing storytelling around that because it's it's great for us to see it but we'd love to share that out and work with our residents just how things progress over time and how exciting it is to see that.

All right I'll go back to the refresh now that was just my my two cents so what's next so we are in the all-important initiative development meeting right now we started this week we're continuing on it will take a couple months this is really the most fun but also the most challenging part of strategic planning behind you you have some amazing people that have amazing people to work for them and there's no problem coming up with ideas for initiative the challenge is how do we get that number down if the bus office likes to remind us we do have limited resources we can't do everything we can fund everything so that's really the challenge so to help us out this time we are going to be working with a decision making Matrix we want to look at the feasibility you know how much are these initiatives going to cost how many people are involved what's you know are we going to be able what can we accomplish in the next three.

Years and then looking also the impacts so what's the impact of that initiative on that objective on that goal as a whole and so we're hoping that this making Matrix will make it a little bit easier to really fine-tune and only in on the most important initiatives that will then make it into our plan and then we will be back with you on May 24th to share out that plan with you all and from there we'll have an entire you know getting out to our residence employee and then we start the all-important implementation part of the one so I like to end on the slide because we love to bring people to our website we I talked about a refresh but we do have a current plan that we're also moving through right now and that current plan is on this website we have 13 initiatives that are going to be staff on a monthly basis so there's more information there about those as well as well especially the United report that's just a great.

Really easy and to go through with graphics and numbers and great for residents to take a look and see what we're up to so and with that I will open up any questions that you may have.

Thank you this is phenomenal I always say it was learning process and appreciate how so alive I appreciate that as well and if you have or how yes so we we did try some demographical information around the surveys and special because they're starting to go through the resident survey or all they have plot system practical information so the 200 plus that we did and suddenly and I went out I was supposed to tag tag along with the PB folks and went to the bus station and other places we had some demographical phrase I believe that we were tracking and as well as locations so just figuring out where folks are from to make sure you're not like in one primary location and not others so we were pretty spread out we did we didn't want to go everywhere we were trying to focus our engagements in certain areas which is why we went with PB the same neighborhoods they were going to we were looking for people that we don't.

Hear from very much that's what we were trying to Target for those so we were definitely not like Randall like this episode thank you foreign. We actually try and do the Strategic plan and oftentimes I'll think about the work problem the council over the years and how it actually aligned with our values our stated values only as good as the leaders that embrace it and adopt with that so I'm wondering about of scoring the do you have is there some mechanism in it in the Strategic plan or around the Strategic plan where we're actually looking at a policy outcomes and work product and scoring whether or not I know we should do it yourself at least as council members but I wonder if we formalize any way of saying yeah that that kind of reports with our strategic plan or is it just to hope that elected leaders will do anything he means like for budget requests what just policy period yeah it gets to budget certainly the place is hard but whether it's.

Electrifying the fleet do we say okay that that's that's a check mark for our strategic plan if it's something that's affordable housing if we're you know putting money into the board of housing initiatives do we is there somewhere is there a sheer sharing team so we're saying okay strategic plan check mark yeah so I would say that.

And this group is extremely aware of that so something may be on a three or five year time Horizon and they're working towards that with dsaps but eventually that time Horizon is going to match up with the current budget right so when they submit that item in the current budget everything gets scored from a budget requests to a CIP request and and part of that scoring process is is alignment stickiness with the Strategic plan is this something that we identified three or five years ago or on a horizon that that we aspired to to complete that's you know without using a lot of fancy women how I will express it no yeah and that you mentioned I do recall on our Council request and the paperwork we've been out I do recall seeing that I admit first was like well you know with the council you know we but it's a wonderful wonderful thing and I'm wondering you know even before when requests have been on the front end I'm.

Wondering if we're looking back after the fact as well because sometimes the council acts when we're just doing our regular work outside of the budget process whenever you know we're looking at Council output and saying you know that was a good idea maybe that's something we should want just as a council we're getting better at that certainly you know I mean something in the in the capital plan we began to do a couple years ago how many requests are reactive and how many requests were playing right which was a question once again and we had a metric around that and we're getting better at that one of the things I think the recommendation that came out of our budget survey last year was to within okay so we adopt this budget but then we don't do a very good at a job although there's a ladder of transmittal and all of that we weren't I believe it was Equity inclusion that made this suggestion to us and said can you talk about what was.

Asked for and other book was asked for what was done so so we can get some idea about on a roadmap what we're able to do or what we couldn't do so that's something that was a recommendation expressed by Equity inclusion last year and it's something we're planning to incorporate this year thank you excellent work can't wait for a new poster it is on the list. Hello. Hello all right first of all thank you so much thank you writing to TV plan evaluation.

96 students in three sections of leadership Community organization and they have to actually do a strategic plan right so they definitely. I look at it a lot in terms of you know me being appointed a name just trying to kind of catch up on what we really are doing so we're not speaking I look at this a lot but also I think they're like anybody said this to the investigation piece of the top priorities is there evaluation piece in terms of you know like at the end of the Strategic we do at the end of the internet we talk about yeah the initiatives and what happened we also the performance measures and we did not mention that and I agree should have but at the end okay we do for more Adventures around it and that's also a big part of our dashboard to Residents and so that's a big piece that I have numbers right you're looking at data so that is part of this which is.

Something we do at the very end after we have our initiatives in place yeah always because we also use like a first chart when we go through some different steps of you know thank you love the work I love this stuff I'm like alert with it but I appreciate it thank you okay thanks y'all this is really really helpful I like the the focusing more that we've been doing lately and you know just having a strength of a stronger focus on viewer initiatives that seems like a good like a good direction and I just wanted to share what we were talking about getting a very good video I'm in right now leadership goes in three organizations and part of two other organizations this is the Strategic plan that I have internalized for those like I could quote this it distribution plan to someone I could not afford any of the other ones so I just think that you know effects of like how we active we use it and the.

Work that we're doing that we you know I I consistently ask whenever I have a request or like you know some of the audacity to move like to do we'll have to happen in our strategic plan and I think it really helps Focus us on like all the Great Adventure goals and it's really helpful especially I mean I a lot of things we demanded to like okay find the line of the Strategic plan that says we're doing this thing is you know I think really helpful thank you good morning for the great presentation I just wanted to comment I love the dashboard I think it's really helpful in my life I'm happy and I like that we have dashboards across you know I think that was sustainability roadmap I just think it's a just a very user-friendly way for this to interact and I just want to comment I like the fact that all we're out with TV and that we were bringing that Resident voice I think when we.

When former mayor School tasked NIS at the time and I think it was a really small Windows like you're gonna create a Equitable engagement blueprint at like 90 days and 60 days I can't remember and at that moment it to me it's just a moment of how students and how that decision has now been embedded you know if you see the through line for DP and now we're saying it with strategic plan and so I do think and then when you look at resident survey like it does connect back with what the perception of City residents are like city government and so there you see I continue you see the outcome in those places and how people perceive our city employees and the Deep satisfaction that there is in the city especially between operationally nationally and so I just have a lot of gratitude for this and I'm really excited about the date and night when you logarithm and I think we're just going to continue to get better and better.

It's one of the reasons that Durham is highlighted so much nationally and I been in calls but it lifted up there on the face so this is actually house what you did kind of process should work your residents should be able to look at the budget item and understand how it relates to them in a very real way and I just think that the city does an excellent job just a lot of graduate thank you. Hi good morning I thank you also for this I have more of a engagement question so the surveys collected were always more resonance instead is that right so we have paper paper surveys that we went out to with residents and our employees and then we had the resident satisfaction survey it was part of the survey Atlanta is this so is this where we engage any practitioners or residents as practitioners it was very it was a paper survey that we went out and spoke with people and kind of worked through with them and.

They just were asked to prioritize their top three in the list we try to keep it as simple as possible it's not so very well first maybe keep it as simple as possible got you and the reason why I'm asking this is our city institution plan I'm thinking about you know the folks who are you know not only live in in the city it's almost like you know you're a pedestrian when you're walking you're driving you're driving so I'll use the term strategic the shared economic prosperity so we come up with that goal we come up with the objectives you know I guess I'm trying to what I'm trying to say is part of the Strategic plan force that it includes not only you know government employees or residents but you know I think the small business Community or you know or or any other private times practitioner that plays a significant you know our role in the community did we not engage that at all so one of the things that you did here.

Staff mentioned Keith and here is we do a lot of Engagement in a lot of different places and what we are doing we also hurting yesterday we are not just taking fresh opinions but we also are incorporating impressions post surveys and other types of information both groups any any other kind of information that we can give because we know our community is three 360. so an example would be you know we did a small business sir of that small business survey gave us the Impressions at the time along with recommendations for improvement and so we take you know we don't just we don't just do those surveys and just you know put it to the side wouldn't constantly mixing it with new information we actually are planning right now to pay a funding another business service because the last one we did I think was about two two two years three years two to three years ago in which they were implementing recommendations that came from that so we want to make sure.

That we're not missing any stakeholders obviously you know sometimes we send a survey or we talk to a person who is a resident they are also might own a business you know they're getting they're bringing that self that part of them into the responsible questions but we still also have to do very specific receive Impressions and information from their particular groups and that is yeah I appreciate that qualification and I think that's what I'd like to see in this report this this this shows that we developed a city strategic plan with own residence.

And we're talking about whole institutions and I want to see all of these stakeholders that are involved in that. In the future just to make put some other words around that we certainly leverage the work that other departments have done around survey because although we hear that the community wants to be engaged and we also hear why invest into that question before you've already asked me the question so let's try and be sensitive to not fatigue people and make sure you know we went through three years of the whole planning process that we use that information and we don't have to redundantly do it again everything.

So there's no one at the TV asked us that it was a hard in which population and so I I acknowledge that we always use all of the different Staples and surveys that we use planning process but it's a great question similarities when she said thinking. Thank you all for a great presentation of this morning and I don't have any further comments other than that in an effort to keep us moving along thank you for a great work thank you all everyone out there so we'll turn now to our next presentation and I believe that will be Dr Michael Walden.

Distinguished professor emeritus at North Carolina State University and president of Walden economics Consulting LLC during his 43 years going back with the NC State wolfen has become recognized as an expert on the state economy and public policy he is a frequent contributor to the National and state media and he continues to write a Bible collegi newsletter columns just shipping throughout North Carolina he had won numerous Awards including two Champion tough awards for excellence in Broadcasting the UNC Board of Governors award for excellence in public service the holiday medal for excellence from North Carolina State University and the Order of the Lonely time so it's my distinct pleasure welcome Dr Walden foreign.

I had a plan and obviously you heard that I do Consulting now but I had a colleague a number of years ago who retired and his plan was to was to take up things activities that he didn't really have time to do when he was working and one of those activities was to learn how to skydive expert.

And finally he thought the notice he was ready to do the solo jump first time his family was all excited his wife his children some of his grandchildren were waiting for him at the site where he was supposed to land which he successfully jumped and lands no no injuries but it was not where he was supposed to last nothing to do with the air currents so he looks around all he sees is formed as he's trying to figure out what he's going to do which direction he was going to walk he sees the distance of spec coming toward him suspect it's getting bigger and bigger finally gets to where he is it's a person looks like the farmer overalls and so the skydiver looks at the farmer and says where am I and the farmer says well you're in my cornfield the skydiver looks back at him and says I bet you're an economist Farmers a little surprised when he said yeah actually I do have a degree in agricultural economics farming is.

Very complicated today it's more about planning you have to know about financial markets how did you know I was an economist the side number says because you told me something that was absolutely true but of no use for me we've been through a lot of trauma over the last several years the pandemic hopefully that's under control but now what do we see inflation inflation's a big issue several homes indicated that's still the number one issue and then now. All right what are we hearing recession so what is going on how do we get here I don't get out of this and what's the immediate first Prospect for the Futures that's what I'm going to try to try to help you with this is the picture I'm not going to get into means of the of the measure here but this is a picture of the path of the economy over the last three years red is North Carolina green is the US look on the left-hand side oops I turned it off okay where's mine.

No no no okay. Okay now we're back okay I need technical assistance. You know Wilmington yesterday too and all the industry in the state okay thank you and the text I said where's the tech person I want you right up here oh okay see a big drop in both lines that's the code with her session it's an interesting recession because it wasn't like I mean I've been a professionally Anonymous for 45 years I think this this was my eighth procession never saw a recession like this because really it was it was determined by policy policy game that we know we added to limit personal contact in order to reduce the spread of the virus and most donors did that as was primarily over the state level Governor Cooper did that as you know he had issued stay at home orders he issued he told several sectors of the economy like the hospitality sector I spoke to yesterday actually not even opened the doors and and we knew that we were going to.

Have a recession we knew we were going to have a session I got several calls but usually I get a call every week from someone in General's family saying Logan sometimes what's what's going to happen in our employment in North Carolina well it's going to go up but how much and pretty much my forecast would would continue to rise as the calls got later in the recession we actually think that 14 anyway bad time unfortunately short left of 2020 we were beginning to recovery two things were behind that one we we began to see the the rules the the shutdowns loosen Governor Cooper loosen his his shutdowns and and some companies were able to get back also the stimulus points started flow through of Commerce passed and almost two billion two trillion two trillion dollars in this plan to the economy in late March that began to flow so as you can look at the line we've pretty much been growing since then back right now we look at the far right hand side of.

The economy is actually back fully back and actually bigger than it was pretty pretty pandemic if you look at okay now I'm not going anywhere if you look at some numbers here I don't like to listen my eyes closed when I look at numbers all the time but if you look at the numbers here what I've compared here for you to bring it down to more more to home is to look at how the economy did at the National North Carolina and our big Metro level in 2019 and 2020 which is going to include the pandemic recession and then the recovery since then we don't have any numbers yet for 2022 at the local Metro level and you can see in 2019-2020 negatives for the U.S negatives for North Carolina but interestingly if you look at Raleigh Charlotte and you know that's the Metro that you're in all positives all positives amazing that on this area the the Charlottesville grew through this through this pandemic recession I mean that's just.

Says a lot about the effectiveness of the scenario but then if you look at the the second Minister column 2021 2020 and 2021 this is the program here right you've been saying growth numbers the bounce back but look at how strong they were in Raleigh well 12 compared to six percent of the national level and Durham almost eight percent again compared to six percent at the national level so again just shows you how fast this area has been growing how attractive it is next time okay I want to next go into a this will compose the ball from my time the next thing I want to talk about are the three big issues that I think has done everyone's mind no matter who I talk to I talk I talk to variety groups labor market shortage inflation and recession those are the big three things on people's minds whether you're the private sector public sectors list next slide these are two pictures of the labor market left-hand side of the.

Unemployment rate and that is North Carolina of the U.S is green and you can see we went up about 14 unemployment in the nation as well as the North Carolina during the code recession but they can find sense then and right now at the national level weekend but unheard of unemployment rate for January 3.4 the lowest in 50 years they don't have the North Carolina unemployment rate number yet for January the Isis pack is going to be in that in that range so big big Improvement in terms of unemployment for what to make what the big issue is all right we've got jobs in your business you got jobs we don't have people who are fine and a number that picks that up is the labor force participation right now what is that first of all labor force participation rate first of all this is based on a a I should say a base of everyone's 16 and over in other words the developers of this number which.

Actually goes back to the 1930s said or soon everyone age 16 and over is a potential worker potential worker.

There were only two groups since they only excluded from the base Little People in military and people who are in institutions and then what this guy simply calculates is all right of that large base how many people what percentage of people are working are looking for work all right if you go to the left hand side right before go with hit you can see at the national level we were at 63.5 North Carolina we're at 61.5 always get the question and I'll go ahead and get it out late why is North Carolina lower are we doing something wrong now we have as a percent of our population more retirees than the nation and retirements are included in the base okay and you can see during coven you can see dips in both those numbers but improve it but the key difference here compared to you know planar rate is we're not back to labor force participation the levels we were prior to the pandemic we're about a percentage and a half down for both the.

Nation and North Carolina actually North Carolina's got a downwards what would that mean if we were back to pre-pandemic levels the Laboratories participation we have about two million more people working nationally and we have about 50 000 people working in in North Carolina next one all right the question is why why is Labor Force participation down before I get to this I should tell you play Forest participation in the country has actually been trending now it's not just the code of things it's been going down for the last three or four decades there are a number of factors here aiding population again as you get older even though that that population is included in the base for labor for participation usually when people get older like me they they retire and so they're not working so we have a bigger part of our population now in that upright category we also saw to coincide with that we saw a lot of retirements among people in that operation right away interestingly.

You might have wires and all because covet are people who are old or afraid to go back maybe they had jobs and so it's probably afraid to go back because that may be part of it there's an interesting study that just came out this is literally all depressed that some economists did that argued that one of the reasons why elderly people people will still raise 55 I'm certainly in that category people over at 65 are not working at the race they were pre-covered not just in a code but it was due to the fact that they took advantage of a hot housing market in 2020 2021 I'll talk more about that later and Soldier house made big profits and therefore said hey I don't I don't need to work this up on that my my retirement plus I made all this money in the housing market so that's an interesting sidewalk the other if you're going to have the bullet point three you know probably in my opinion they're more interesting observation.

We can is the Labor's participation among people at the other end of the HDL 18 to 24 is down and it's down more than ever now you might say well we're in school no the measures account for that same jobs for that it's an apples and apples comparison yeah there's a lot of head scratching that economists are doing why are young people 18 and 24 why are not not working at rates they were okay and that's now I don't I can't give you any any absolute risk absolute to answer to that I can give you some some speculation because this is really not yet been studied it's in the deal by economy one speculation is that student loans now the news that you know but as you probably know also that even going back to the previous administration both by Administration strong Administration have suspended interest payments.

At a certain point when someone graduates and they've got to start paying back the student loan that's what happened for three years federal government said no we'll take it apart and it still Falls and furthermore the the the payment that you would have should have made in the past We're Not Gonna we're not going to hit you with that with interest on top of that so that average is 250 a month so one possibility is that for people there's young people who are graduated and they're out there in the workforce they're looking at a dispense and say oh right now I don't have to pay that maybe that loosens or the reduces their incentive to work another reason and yesterday when I was talking to people about the value industry boy they really perked up with this another reason appears to be that this sort of gets outside of my land of the cons it's more psychology is that young people have a different view of work now different New World.

When I was a person starting my first job my my motivation went I gotta work I gotta work and I got to take what's available saying what by the way nothing I'm going to say here is the criticism the young people now I'm just giving you the perspective but I can hear a lot of information about young people is they need if they're going to work they need to believe in the company and what the company's doing because the damn work is more than just working they want to know are they are they how are they contributing to society making Society better that's important there they also want flexibility they have a they have a a greater interest in a in a work life balance and again this is all praiseworthy in my opinion so and on top of that the fact that we have a great tight labor market has allowed many of them to be picking and Michael stand yourself well if they don't take a job how do they.

Live this is where another statistic comes in the fight you've probably heard about this there's a record percentage of people in the state age category of course living with their parents so anyway so that's an issue and I think it is an issue for us to make it very very much an issue for the city of Europe but it's something that the business group type talk to are very very very cheap on next one yeah now there's also been going on in the labor market and labor reallocation I'll give you a personal example my late father was a carpenter always black came back from World War II trying to get a carpenter working until about age 62 would work longer but he just put into a physically tough work what he called laid off primarily due to the web and they collect unemployment compensation and then when the weather just came to say that this was in the north of Ohio this is mainly November December January February so we expected that he can collect.

Unemployment then when things got better the the sun came out and the flowers were coming up you go back to work is not going to work you know they just expected that that didn't happen so much this time around especially for jobs in hospitality and jobs and personal services and you saw in government because of changes the economy especially the fact that the tech sector during covet exploded I don't I mean not a good way there's no business exploded soon remote work development of the cloud now we got AI coming off the tech sector nationally these are National numbers it's from 2019 to Mid 2022 when they began to realize oh we overdid especially for recession is coming so there's been some playoffs that you know recently so from 2019 to Mid 2022 the tech sector increased employment 250 percent of that now the tech sector includes the wide ranges it's not all people doing code people that work for an Amazon warehouse or because they're part of the tech.

Center and a third of the jobs do not require a four-year College degree so what many congress things happen is when the economy began to open up and people were going back to work if they were working in a job where they maybe weren't happy with the level of pay maybe they weren't happy with the prospect or payment advancement they now saw whoa I didn't get a job over here and with a tech company maybe don't mind my wage so we have a realization of jobs now interestingly very interestingly I think that the latest unemployment report for the nation that came out about a month ago where we're about a week away from the February report you may have noticed there was by surprise at how robust it was half a million jobs added in the nation in January but if you go down and look at the details the leader there was the county Etc restaurants hotels Etc and my theory is that a lot of folks who maybe.

Have been cut from their jobs instead I've been going back maybe to their job that they get prior but anyway this is this is certainly another issue here in this point.

Over the last three years and the the average wage was gone up 28 so they're trying they're trying to track people with with better pay a better working conditions Etc and incidentally we have 28 foreign so clearly that would go to your traditional go-to but I think another another aspect of this of how the labor shortage might be stalled is more technology now let me give you a little Segway here you know I worked at NC State for 43 years NC State I think I think it was created in the 80s and developed an Institute called emerging issues Institute someone who has some of you know I know about that and the idea of emerging issues Institute was every year to try to get ahead of the curve look out there on what's happening in the state and what potential issues are coming up maybe and the idea we will get to that and we'll address that before it really becomes the problems that would potentially can get some solutions.

They've looked at things like health care and education all sorts of sorts of things this year's Institute Focus was on I actually wrote the background paper plan if any of you attended you know the focus there was two weeks and what can we do to reach perhaps populations that that have lower labor force participation how can we help for example mothers with children work so they put a child care was a focus training folks who were who were previously incarcerated was the closest at Etc I I consider that are all good interestingly six years ago six years ago not that long ago do you know what the focus of the emerging issues incident was the focus was the emerging labor Surplus just the exact opposite to show you how things can change and I I don't envy you if you have to deal sometimes with the strain right about rapid change and in the war 86 years ago was this was when there was a lot of news about new technology coming out for.

Example if you were a lawyer six years ago here's the lawyers used to have it with some relatives and law lawyers used to employ a lot of paralegals and when that job apparently those would be in case comes in partner gets a case partner says to to for a paralegals I need research on this but at the library but all the information you can background information on cases of what the defense already what the prostitution arguments Etc and that consumed a lot of hours and that was a lot of work for for Peerless now there are computer programs so some of you probably know this is their computer programs a lawyer can load buy and load into her computer and case comes in type in a couple of keywords whatever ammo in a few hours you can get a stack of papers like that cover all that kind of paralegals a couple days so apparently well let me exactly one one down so if you look at six years ago where it.

Was Labor Surplus now shortage I think hopefully we're going to come to a middle ground where actually technology is going to help and we're already hearing about some employment technology I think the best example is McDonald's my first job 1956. McDonald's has opened so you've probably heard this in all digital restaurants I mean if you've heard about this in Fort Worth Texas All Digital restaurants. There are a couple people in the building I understand just to make sure all the switches are turned on correctly but obviously McDonald's is concerned about their future in terms of their ability to retract workers and with things like the Aging population the birth rate down of course McDonald's traditionally been focused on resource workers and so that may be that we may see more of that my expectation we will see more of that but hopefully we can have a nice balance not the concern six years ago where people were worried about gosh the normal unemployment rate would be 20 that was actually talked.

About I can remember from an expert who was at the emerging issues point six years ago unfortunately so so this is something I think and I and I have no you all need to you all know this but I better buy I have no clue about whether you can employ technology I mean I do know for example so nice people have gone to automated trucks to lift up the bins that's why Raleigh's gone demands we've got three kinds of bins we've got the household crashed and we've got the recycle bin and now we have a yard made in three different kinds and they're picked up at different weeks but we see the the the post come and of course they they it's all messed it up so the same language so don't know if that's that could be your model and clear that and this is going to happen more in the international Workforce next one okay let me move on to inflation.

This is a national issue but I do think North Carolina is in a better situation for the labor force for the Civil reason that we are so attracted to folks moving here from other states I think last year on our memory Thursday last year we were the second in second place in terms of the number of people moving here well let's let's actually calculate is what's called a net and migration this has nothing to do with immigrants and foreign immigration it's in migration which measures people moving to North Carolina from other states minus people who were in North Carolina moving somewhere else in the nation and I think we were second I believe to South Carolina but we did in the top five for four years and I think that's going to be a continuing important probably a more important part of our ability to to to fill our basic jobs because of not necessarily internal generation but in terms of continuing to attract people from from other states.

All right here we go able to move on to what do I stopping with my gosh okay. All right inflation I haven't met someone yet and I thought I'd continue to do a lot of talking to all the writing groups and it doesn't matter if I'm talking to businesses rotary clubs I spoke to your wrote them a couple of weeks ago yeah that is the Walmart beautiful thing everyone's worried about inflation well here's a picture of what inflation has been been doing this is a euro year change in what's called a consumer price index which is the go-to measure for inflation it is based on a survey that the federal government does every month and that compares how that price price in January compared to what it was in December or what it was in the previous January and then they create an average where they don't count each price the same the price was in weights or the price changes to get laid based on how important the product or services.

In the average household budget they didn't understand what are people buying and first though for example I think the biggest way expect a shelter whether it's rent or owning and then shelter weight is going to be a lot higher in the state of wait for our campaign anyway if you look at this chart I probably make to this point I probably should have taken it back to 1990. Up until 2020 for roughly 30 years inflation was a dead issue we had three premise complexion one or two percent was the average between one year there in 2018 but pretty much inflation was offered which is totally different again I'm 72 so I've lived through more Cycles than than certainly young people but even when I was just becoming aware of it economics and wanted to pursue it with this problem the 70s and I got my graduate degrees et cetera I mean we would have the typical situation with inflation of within over years when inflation went low but then we have.

Years when inflation was high no one go back below there was a cycle with inflation usually it was related to how strong becoming was so we we haven't really had that for 30 years I won't get into the leads on how that was accomplished was a major accomplishment though in the country actually there's a worldwide policy nation was pretty much off the table as something that we worry about but then 2020 came and you can see what's happened since 2020 we hope inflation peaked about nine percent last June the hampstein had some downward Trends in inflation the downward trend is being pricing that are still going up at less stapling why do we have why where does inflation problem come that's why while it came because in in the market in the market system we have some called free market system of course not totally including their important things obviously the public sector does like you do but in a market system where the prices really go up and down.

And that whether they go up and down is determined by Supply demand everything in economics comes back man I would tell my students when I was thinking about doing a test which gave I didn't give multiple choice tests yes but that was his name and I would say to them now if you get to a question it's not unusually gets a question you just have no clue this is maybe something you missed you forgot it no problem I get that.

Here's what happened we had a situation developed in the country where the van which means an economics being fine exceeded Supply people were trying to buy more than what was available to buy how this happened and I'm trying to illustrate this I'm not sure if this is a good analogy I've tried it out another audiences but there's a pot of water there and you can see the stove is on and now that that's what my wife said Mike put a bottle of water on for tea I'll do that Ernesto well no forget it and walk away Falls over so she's Spanish.

Is. Anyway one inflation is akin to if you put a pot of water on the stove you're turning heat up like you turn it up too high and the water obviously boiled and Bubbles over that's my analogy to inflation going up to on on the levels that we don't want where'd this come from well on the fine side you know I think you know this well that under two administrations this is not a particle time under two Administration our national leaders specifically decided that they were going to avert an income and collapse and actually I think this is a good thing by.

Businesses up institutions up by pumping a live match in the economy until we got and voted under control and if you look at what was pumped into the economy from the first stimulus plan of homes in this plan that happened in March of 2020 up to the last that was that on the interestingly was March 21 incidentally I'm not including the two what I call infrastructure plans for physical infrastructure plan that was passed and then what I call the Social infrastructure 20.1 so I'm just including those those that legislation that was targeted to putting pushing money economy in order to keep the economy upload 5.5 trillion dollars oh unheard of I went back and did the numbers looked up the numbers for what the Roosevelt administration which was really the first Administration to take an active part in keeping the economy upload and keeping people afloat growing up what was actually depression I went back and added up all the numbers for all the Roosevelt stimulus plans adjusted the dollar values because obviously a dollar.

In 1930 bought a lot more than a dollar today Justin you can you can do that many times make an adjustments it came about preschool wow so we blew past that almost double unheard of it now I get sometimes in the Q a with proofs I thought someone raised their head why don't we do that that's insane my answer is that hey we didn't go to work phone was going to take us and go think of our mindset three years ago they had a clue work over this point we didn't know if we could a ground threat and in the words of internachi was the Federal Reserve chair and during the cell crime crisis of 2007-2008 when he was arguing to the Congressional leadership for a one billion one trillion dollars injection of money and then where he was getting pushback on that I think what sealed the deal in getting Congress to pass that is he told the Congressional leadership if we don't do this we could wake up one.

Morning and not have enough not on the left and that I think that was probably what what children in action so I think we were in the same place maybe even we were in the abortion place group so 5.5 trillion has been pushed in over the last a couple of years but at the same time what would happen on the supply file so if I change problems so when the economy began to open up in late 2020 and continued in 2021-202 and people were were able to start spending that money you might say well what people do with all that money coming and what people do who got stimulus check whether people do about all of their unemployment compensation what do people do who got the Child Care Credit but a lot of people obviously have spent that to to people that was a purpose but a lot of people because the Congress didn't take time to figure out okay we got to narrow this down this who really needs it and I.

Understand why they did because this was an emergency just get the money out there what did people do who didn't need to spend they saved it in 2020 the personal savings rate which usually covers around three percent simply measures how much you save and where we're staying in as a percent of your income usually it's around three percent it got up to 33 percent in 2020. So at the end of 20 at the end of 2020 when the economy was began to open up that was part of this is from Wells Fargo Wells Fargo calculated that collectively tells the ultimate a country get three trillion dollars of savings that they wouldn't have had without the code program and I started trying to spend that so as they try to spend that there wasn't we had a supply chain problems and so what happened what happens in a in our economy what's called a market economy whether you got too much buying relative to what what's available by the price.

Goes up so that's the simple reason at least in my mind I think most Economist lines basically why we had this surgeon inflation next slide now we have seen the rate of inflation moderate again doesn't mean prices are going down so far but most part it just means they're going up at a slow rate why well if I came pretty well with this not totally pretty well fixed much much better than it was in Europe too number two if a slightly gas prices have come down and they're paid to five dollars about a year once it's been that mid-2022 I think early 20s much lower big question about whether we'll stay this low I don't think they're going to get taxed for five dollars approach higher than where we are next slide and I'm going to talk about the Federal Reserve cable has started to peer down on their spending as interest rates have gone up if you look you may have to split to see this you can see.

Most of the line most of the bars are above the zero Line This is percentage change in monthly consumer spending in in November not and December the even accounting for Christmas personal consumption spending went down now you do see a big jump in January that's still one we're trying to figure out and it's going to be interesting to see if that continues so my point here is that part of the reason we saw we saw the Reddit inflation fall from The Escape of 9.1 in June of 2022 down to the current 6.4 is people have started to back off in the steps although January looks like that improved the improve the wrong next one and a better reserve and this is sort of my entry to the Federal Reserve because if you talk about the macroeconomy you have to talk about that Reserve Federal Reserve one of their powers to have this is a car I'm sure you would love to hang up any government would love it yet they can print money.

Print money they can buy stuff with foreign.

By saying now we're going to look at an institution called Federal Reserve let me introduce that by saying how many now this was a day was when people walked up writing checks I I was still teaching I'd have to change this because some people don't use checks I had someone I was I was at a event where I was selling books some of my books and probably two out of three people came up on my book said do you okay I started gonna write a checker okay no we're gonna do the you know the names by the only one that starts with a B you can't do it together yeah no I said no I don't do that I love them anymore.

The stimulate the student interest in the Federal Reserve I'd say.

What in this institution they run a check they don't have to debit anymore and I guess there's maybe computers and actually but then oh wow this is what we need to learn about this so the Federal Reserved us to have the power spend money push it in and back with that five and a half billion as I mentioned the federal government again over two administrations of non-person five minutes during the federal government Christianity from 2020 and 20.2 fortunate of that.

For those of you who are in finance technically what the Federal Reserve did is buy the debt the treasury Treasury Department issued for the payments they deployed and when they do that they just pay with cash that they make up so and you can see on the right hand you can see in the middle there are competitors are flooded in common with money during Covenant again unfortunately and now there's Babies on the back wall so let's let's move ahead let's go one more time but I know let's go back I'm sorry okay so Walden what's where's inflation going there is hope that we are on a downward track of reflection again 6.4 was the latest reading was up at 9.1 there are a lot of there are several I think very respectable forecasted by the end of the year we think we would be at three or four percent but want to emphasize this doesn't mean prices are going down so well so do usually the prices that go down are.

Products that we buy that are not reprocessed like the like the farmer's market products or gasoline those prices will not go down so I want to emphasize let's find this for all my audiences when the better when you hear someone say the inflation rate is going down that doesn't most people unfortunately read that my experience is oh prices are going to go down no it just means prices are going to continue well less slowly and so the Federal Reserve wants to get price price inflation down to two percent that's that was where we were crypto it I think by this year though we could be we could be close to that to three four four percent the other thing I want to mention the real problem with inflation it's not the price will first air going up is that equal salaries don't put commensurately that's the problem so if the energy person the average health or less two or three years has not seen their income other people working Investments.

Whatever fill up anywhere near the inflation rate that's the big problem that's the big problem because that means your standard living point now now if we get the inflation rate the two percent that still means prices are going up and it means that most people many more people can look at that and say well there's a good chance I can get I'll get a pay raises above that so for at least I'll try and water but that's going to take time do you realize that after the when we had the sub crime recession which is that four or four sessions unemployment got up to 12 percent I was going monthly calls with Governor Perdue I mean she was calling me and just the and I I was very honored by that because all she wanted to do is take my brain on what's going on what's going on Association was not a professionally promised obviously and I remember her brain that gosh why she said the coffee's not grooming but we're not.

Staying unemployment and that was a big problem with the cell Prime recession inflation was never a problem it was done unemployment was was stuck about 10 or 11 percent this time we promise flip it said inflation is high and what unemployment is low so my point is if you look at the stone Prime recession of course there the problem was people have lost jobs the inflation did what a little bit it took the everything else about five years five years he did the standard of living back to where it was so that that's that means that a lot of those are going to be still struggling even if we do get down to a two percent okay next one okay let's let me move on to the I don't remember let me move on to the third big problem and that's the borrow quarter session first of all what is the recession well there is a rule of thumb out there in fact be thinking about exploration poet some of you did hopefully hope this.

Is a good experience for me and my wife and it wasn't your problems didn't always established instructors anyway that's my opinion what is the recession where there is a there is a rule of thumb that people use that a recession has occurred if we have a two consecutive order decline a GDP did you give this trust domestic product transplanted it's the value of everything we produce but actually in that in the first and second quarter of last year GDP went down for two quarters and that's won a big debate in the country as the weather we were in a recession already my view is no because it wasn't widespread who actually had to do with some technical technical issues of due to productivity so we didn't have any deterioration the labor market so I don't think we've been in a recession yet but anyway a recession generic definition of recession is a broad-based appliance broad-based means that it affects most sectors and most businesses well rodrigating Define an economic.

Activity of the last person yet period of time that's a very generic term and you might say well who makes that job to the president is it is is he gone is a her economic advisors is it complicated it's not it's known in the administration no one in the federal government it's actually made make a call made by a economist and their their composition changes over time who work with a group called The National Bureau of economic research nber which is a think tank it's it's been around for.

They work in a committee that's called the business cycle dating committee comments. And the problem just I mean this is probably more than you want to know the problem is they think they're good times decides that we have a recession now they were pretty quick with the Covenant recession because it was so awesome but if we get a recession late this year which I'm getting kind of bad I think will I think we will it'll probably be 20 late 2024 before they make the call they are extremely slow because I think they want to be careful okay next spot enough of that understand.

Why often do we have to have a recession in the Cure inflation that just seems to me like we're getting the problem or maybe at the desk we're substituting one problem for another problem and I get that totally I get that totally if you look historically usually when we have wrist leader inflation so it is when when this is controlling inflation is primarily a Federal Reserve account and incidentally the Federal Reserve is not a line Department like this Treasury Department defense department Homeland Security where all the department heads are obviously appointed by the president they report to the presidents that do this to that necessarily so it's not like that it's an independent agency Congress set it up as an independent agent they don't even get their budget from from Congress they get their budget from fees charged to Banks who want to be members of the Federal Reserve now members of the federals are aboard are appointed by the president but they have very very long terms I think.

That either 12 or 16 years I gotta I gotta write this past sometimes in a very very long term the idea being that is the weight down from making broader decisions that a chair of the Federal Reserve does have a short term four years and a chair it is appointed by the president every president not necessarily at the beginning of a test or her term does get a chance at this point the care but after that they're on their own the the chair of the Federal Reserve cannot be removed just because there's a policy difference with the president the president president can do that with any of the any of the heads of the department not on the Federal Reserve so vet reserves out there are going there today they're the prime Point agency in dealing with inflation the fact about I think about a year ago when when inflation was really starting to get the tension present line so I think it was at the press conference and what he learned about.

Inflation so well really this is mainly the role of a reserve videos so what the Federal Reserve has been trying to do in fact let me know going out in other slides okay Federal Reserve has two thick Powers I already talked about one great one and great destroyed money thank you the second thing power they hit is they can influence interest rates now they don't control like mortgage race directly or auto loan raids or personal rights but they control a couple of interest rates directly the the most important is called the federal funds rate which is the interest rate the bank a charges Bank B for a loan and instance and so usually when the Federal Reserve moves that rate up other interest rates of water in an economy and when they go down now if you look at the left-hand side of this slide I think very very instructed London 2029 free pandemic.

That's about a normal rate for for when inflation's not a problem in the economy's growing looking where it was in 2021 in the middle of the of the pandemic it went down effectively to zero money was free pretty much tomorrow and that was reflected in other interest rates 30-year mortgage rates that if you bought a house during this time they were under three percent absolutely unheard of unheard of the housing market roared during 2020 and 2021 was the better reserve we should try to do is motivate people to spend their own spend because that's how they wanted to help they wanted spending to occur because they were worried about people don't spend their repair is going to collapse so they were going there they're throwing their Darkness to get people in business instead by pushing money into the economy I already mentioned that as well as making it essentially no cost so far away now look at 2023 where the focus has totally changed some Focus not only changed the economic growth does.

Not be assumed we've been growing I showed you that in the first line actually grown very well not especially been growing through that but inflation is a problem so now what the Federal Reserve do they go back the opposite direction they have raised interest rates and already showed you how to actually pull money out of the economy Federal fund trend is now around four and a half percent actually it's a range of four and a half of 4.75 and again this is designed when I had I go to the gym in the morning I see a lot of young people and over if you go enough you see the same truth when you get the diverse with them and one young person a great guy he's recently graduated he's opening his own business I mean I just appraised him right and left and a couple months ago he said we're on a mic put on cases he said I wanted to call me no I can't call it but Dr Wallace look the.

Only person I've required to call me Dr Wellness my wife. Especially he said I said I'm going well with my business and thank you for some of the advice you gave me and I'm ready to buy a house but my gosh what's going on with these interest rates he said I can remember a year ago they were under three percent for a 30-year mortgage rate Now They're Up For What right now they're up around seven percent more than no that's the same and so I tried to explain him what was going on and I said well John you know things could be worse he said how much worse than they do well you go back to him before you were born the early 80s we had a big inflation call but it was after a big amazing problem actually bigger than what we have now okay great reached 13 I think was in 1981 or 82.

The Federal Reserve was doing what they do to try to slow the economy down I said they pushed their key rate federal funds rate so high to actually pushed up to 19 the mortgage rates the rate you're looking at now at seven percent.

So anyway my point is that this is standard operating policy for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates now one of the questions that this is the appropriate times that to answer it one of the questions people have was Will Walden are we gonna are the Federal Reserve done is this as high as gonna go my opinion my forecast is no no they're going to raise ready for more. Of course if you're looking for a job that was good and if your employer looked in the Army level that was good definitely a new job twice the number of comments we're expecting I already showed you how consumer spending actually took a big jump in January so I was I was predicting even before that Federal Reserve was going to raise more now I'm bridged whether they're going to rain today I think the federal funds rate could go up to as high as five and a half percent so they're not they're not done yet next one okay.

Now here I I sort of started before remember I told you the guy that yesterday raise the band yesterday I think a very good question why is the Federal Reserve why are they inflicting this pain on the economy is it the only way to reduce inflation to cause recession instead of still I don't that don't make sense and I said to him unfortunately oftentimes yes the Federal Reserve and trying to pool the economy remember my my pot of water examples we're trying to pull the economy I said the problem with with economic policy is it's not like physical science gay Comics is not my business in physics if you do a you're going to get B and you know you're going to get exactly deep getting economics you do a you hope you're going to get B that's what you're expecting but you're probably not going to get exactly need this hopefully in the neighborhood because you're dealing with people and people react to differently people are not available.

And they if they fear that they think we're getting close to the session they may stop I mean they're they're their goals to get interest rates are apply straight to two percent they may stop at four if they think hey if we go any further we're going to have a mistake what they want to do is pause and actually this system you might think gosh that's that's a term I understand why are the obviously don't you use these big big words no one understands they want to cause they want to create a small plan again analogy think of the economy as the plane flying out to 30 000 feet that also that high level that represents High inflation but the Federal Reserve wants to do is cause that plane to come down which will bring inflation down but they want the plane to land segment securely on the runway which means that the economy does not have a recession economy does not print I mean think about recession.

Is a crashing up they don't want to cause depression in time so they are trying to their goal is to regulation to a lower level without pressure and coffee now yeah they know they're going to have slower growth but the point is they don't want to go back to my continentality they don't want to turn a handle they don't want the water to go to Coal high school they want to keep some temperature here and they want to take them and keep the economy going but they don't want to turn off the question is the problem is they don't know exactly where that optimal level of the of the interest rate is that's going to get the economy to to assault planning but that's that's clearly what they want one of the problems with the current federal reserve is and I think they're going to say this in Einstein thank God for the inflation quite late there were a lot of people worrying about I'll put myself in this Camp that we're worried about.

Inflation in 2021 Federal reserve's statement was something in fact this is temporary it's not going to continue they're wrong they're wrong now why were they wrong I think because today we're looking at there's this this this there's this analogy and military finding the last four the concern is you look at the last four to plan for this war and usually any successful board is going to do a lot different I'm sure our people are looking very closely at the Ukraine warm so the notion Jay Palace the the the thought is that the economic policy maker makers and administration thought that the aftermath of the covet recession would be just like the aftermath of the stock primer session the aftermath of the surprise recession was not that inflation to evolve it didn't it was that an unemployment state too hot in fact there was a term going around when we were dealing in North Carolina even with 10 unemployment still three years after the end of the cell primary session that oh this is the.

New normal business The New Normal and so the thought is that the econ policy makers in the Federal Reserve thought that was going to be the problem inflation was not going to be a problem it was going to be unemployment so they they wanted to keep the tickets open the money supply open they wanted to keep interest real slow.

But that is one problem with them oh now you might say he's saying to yourself well then has there ever been a situation where the Federal Reserve has been able to Implement So Soft have we ever had examples in history where we were veterans or was fighting inflation raising interest rates where we did not have a recession and the answer unfortunately is yes yes most race went twice in the 1990s the 1990s there were two recessions we never heard of Brazilian occurs why didn't they occur because of pretty much one person who was just in as amazing in his career at an amazing ability to predict being comments and that was Alan Greenspan Federal Reserve chair for 19 years employment by presidents of both foreign.

There's actually a lot of chatter in among an economics profession this is in websites that none anyone would want to go to where you can read about this about I mean covet has changed so many things so many things that we thought all right this is what's going to happen no it's not happened that way and how the economy has changed there's actually a debate pre-significant Bank among economists of whether we could actually have baseball planning that is a recession without job losses there is actually the person who is the head of this debate is by name Williamson you know one of the Federal Reserve Banks I forget which one but he's his argument is twofold number one why do businesses play off workers during recession well during a recession this business is theater Revenue so they have expenses in order God will Belly Up and normally they've got expenses the most businesses labor is their biggest expense so they've got expenses by firing people I I like to.

Stay hurling people in all people and then when the economy comes back they come back well what's different this time is one we have businesses collectively have so many unfilled jobs the the you probably heard one point in time we had an event we have two unfilled jobs for every unemployed person it's actually a little lower now it's 1.7 but normal is around 1.2 so one Theory this is from Williamson is that if businesses sit around revenue is going down they've got to cut expenses they'll just cut so it's not Bill Johnson because usually businesses will have some money put aside maybe not for all up to the dollar for all those jobs but at least some because if they hire someone they got to start paying them so that one that that one reason why some say well it's not playing separation is businesses will be very lucky they're very reluctant to furlough people require people because it took them so so much effort to get them hard in the first place.

So the idea is that we may get through this material session we made it through this recession with minimal damage damage in the sense of people losing jobs in the labor market because of the how the labor market has changed and we've gone into this with with okay I do want to leave a couple minutes with questions so one more slide I think this okay or do we have any indications the economy is slowing or will be slowing yes we do I skipped over supplied that almost value you know there are a lot of indicators in the National level of the economy of slowing real estate that's fine I spoke with the apartment association in the Triangle the other day they have all kind of numbers things are things blowing in well the one good thing for renters is Supply is way up rents are actually going down on average we're supporting their data so that's actually good for for people who are looking for rent same on the building side I suppose the whole.

Builders a couple weeks ago yeah everything a slowing manufacturing is Flowing so a lot of indications of things are flying I do an index for North Carolina leading in accidents again to the National leading index so that this index goes up it means future economic growth is going to be stronger if it goes down it means economic growth is going to be slow don't necessarily mean a recession and you can see on the right hand side that index has been consistently falling since May now notice though if you move your eye back a little bit and I don't know I'm not going to fiddle with this but I'll probably turn the system off if you if you if I move yeah I can move if you look the self the recession is right here look at how much that drop here's the stuff primer session look at how much that drop whereas now drop withdrawal but not very much so this this is up this is uplifting to me that looks like North Carolina and.

Obviously you're in North Carolina may get through a slower economy not necessarily a full-blown recession but next slide I am actually working in my forecast favorite National recession you can see this is the slide install first if you look at that rain part which is a third and fourth quarter this year I am predicting that we will have a dip so I think will be officially called a recession but it'll be a short dip for a model dip and we'll have a quick recovery so I think for any businesses I think for your budget deliberations I think you should have a contingency plan that hey revenues I'm not saying your revenues will go down but they may not be going up at the ratio that got used to so I think I think it would be better to at least work into some of your numbers the possibility of a downturning economy now obviously what you saw from my early earlier spot what happens naturally is much worse than what happens in North.

Carolina and what happens in North Carolina is much worse than what happens in some of our big growing methods and certainly during travel still as part of that and I have one more slide yes we do have a rise in unemployment again falling with the notion that I hope we don't but if we do how high can go I think great models oh I think the next time we're in North Carolina we're around three and a half percent I think we can go up to five or four percent maybe five what did I say no five or maybe six that's very much consider form one we've now improved by that so that's modest it will create if we did go up to somewhere between five and six percent that's another fifty or seventy five thousand people are employed now three admittedly that's small compared to our base we have about five million people in the labor course in North Carolina but still every person who gets unemployed having.

Grown up with a sip with a father who periodically employed that's challenging so I don't I don't diminish that as an issue even if it's a rather small number so bottom line here is the inflation situation appears to improving I think it will continue to improve Challenger the Federal Reserve mainly is can we can we get into their target without causing a full-blown recession but if we do have a recession I think it'll be modest and model and even more even even more so in in the triangle which obviously includes inclusion so let me stop let's see one more slide I think yeah oh same with one from my latest books I wrote a book that was published last year it's called relaunch that's why I'm going to say it's a really long subtitle I fought the publisher over that I actually think they were right but it doesn't go for where I try to look at what the pandemic did to films and what those pandemic economy.

Will need for families in terms of their standard of living and I look at things like the remote work and look at things like telemedicine I look at things like impact the pieces the economic geography changes the how that impact the the economy employment so I I thought I think it's an interesting book because it's obviously available and what books are sold where one place six times a week and my wife said oh my gosh okay I know you're on a budget time budget I think just watch next so that's that's very important but certainly a couple questions if you have heard any questions I'll have to happy to respond okay.

Okay professors didn't see that's personal retirement looks good absolutely thank you for being with us so I wanted to just use the percentage change in real inflation just GDP as a as an on-ramp my questions first I I remember when our our state referred to the Declaration down I think I think the Warner's action signing the date of the performance it's called that for a feedback that night and back and forth and shut it down and I you know I love the numbers and it's encouraging as a Financial share of the city and the decision makers encouraging to see how our economy did overall it wasn't really helpful when talking to Residents who were struggling working not-for-profits restaurateurs restaurant tourism in our city and others but so but it's good to be armed with this knowledge I do have a question because I I remember 100 level economics learning about GDP and it was it was a national thing but I'm I'm intrigued by the concept of Municipal League I'm.

Wondering what type of variables are substituted to get our Municipal G the opportunity massive military industrial complex or things like that the how do we get the city's GDP what variables federal government Publishers safety numbers and I'm not aware they published GDP at some national level for Regions they published it for Metro areas so you can get up with your own Capital metro area and they published them for accountants so you can't get it for a county I mean GDP essentially is looks at the everything that's produced whether it's a product or service even the public sector is included in there how they value the public sector is obviously a little different than how they value primarily working in sales for production finish that up myself they do adjust your inflation so when you're comparing GDP in one year to another the previous year it's taking out inflation so if your PDP just developmentation of accounts for that and it's also what's part of value-added number so for example if you.

Have if you're a company making widgets which is the you can probably remember that's the sure the.

National numbers right now we've got yeah I think we have four quarter GDP numbers for the nation we don't have the rejects in North Carolina and. Okay then yeah I I wouldn't be intrigued to look that up I do remember wages and I remember guns and butter I think some of my answers to the decision was now about some of my votes are going to assembly. Better if I'm trying to do carefully your entire presentation which I was looking forward to this the most yes North Carolina is number one Indian national for business what number one number one business I'm really interested in the thing that we can reject important it may happen with those participants move it into a potential discussion if you look at in number one in business you would probably make sure that we may be okay maybe you know certainly but at least in a triangle we may be okay but I'm wondering how the working position conditions are going to translate to just the everyday worker.

Well good question hopefully if we don't have massive layoffs households and workers and live through and that's important the interesting thing is if you in fact I have this home and see what NC State website I developed another index for because he prays a good point we thought about growth but then we have the distribution Network and I have without an index that tries to measure both of those and as part of that index on the distribution side of what I tracked for at data for I think 20 years I tracked a divided of the occupations and roughly three groups high in middle income employment okay and I've cracked inflation-adjusted wage rates in those three categories and the interesting thing is when you think you can see here with the national Publications on this is that during covet the biggest wages percentage-wise for at for the low end Warfare and the radish down for that is what sectors had the biggest problem keeping labor it tended to be sectors.

That were on a low paying side like us propelling no I'm not criticizing any one or any institution the hospitality personal services child you know so you know and to survive a lot of them I've already put into the numbers for Hospitality they have raised their wages over three years 28. so so my point is hopefully now hopefully if if we do have a downturn through the lower income though supports don't have the reservoir they don't have the savings so that's no that's always going to be an issue hopefully with a downturn it will be short and modest that we won't have deterioration because I know where your your point is certainly a good point that we want to worry about our brothers and sisters we really don't want people to suffer adversely like a lot of people did for example they're in histo Prime recession what my thought is hopefully we're not going to have that situation repeated is.

We end up finding ourselves in that are good but unrealistic and the concentrated things and our jobs particularly on the top task of trying to find out how would you make it realistic or you have the housing.

Thank all of you who are who are serving I actually was asked there's no serve on the Crowley State Council and there was a vacancy and I looked at my plate with Workman and I just can't fit that in and you all are doing that because I know there's a lot of sacrifice in the time and efforts so thank you for doing my mom Raleigh and David in Durham I do appreciate everyone.

And. This is.

Good afternoon everybody I hope you all had a great lunch we will now review our I think we have one two additional sessions there's one session yeah. Services.

Additionally and our recruits with this session which is around begins and consensus throughout our budget guidelines we have the guidelines up here now and what they are is it's a toilet case from last year with all these updates and so what I will do you know I'll read through all of them one time so what we did last year slowly read through everything and just kind of taking the temperature of council members to see it that we're on the right line but you know if I may I I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna read the podium for this session simply because we could be here for a while and if you haven't noticed I am at University of cloud crops for the last two days.

Decision.

And please stop me at any time if you want clarification on these the ideas I will read through them and if if we if we get from you that you want something new Christina in real time we'll do that that's kind of traditionally what we've done that same energy so these are the fiscal year 2023-24 budget development guidelines we have an introduction the development of the budget guidelines is a best practice that supports the city-wide strategic plan goal Innovative and high performance organization one of the objectives of the goal is to promote organizations sustainability there are four bullets strategic sustainability realistic vision and goals program and service sustainability high quality services and programs Personnel sustainability effective and reliable personnel Financial sustainability reoccurring revenues equal to reoccurring expenditures adequate financial reserve and contingency planning the general fund is the primary fund for the city and supports 24 of the 27 City departments including 1680 of the city's 2368 full-time employees fluid might have changed but I think I think that's.

Good for now the city manager shall use the following budget development guidelines prepare the Foy 2023-24 proposed budget there's an overall statement which reads the budget should prioritize funding based on the city's strategic plan needs related to accommodate population growth State and or federal mandates and initiatives consistent with the city council's priorities this is divided into two sections one the revenues and then what the revenues pay for expenditures so we'll begin with the revenues.

This first bit is a little bit of history for FY 2020 to 2022-23 the two largest sources of revenue support general fund operations or local property tax 49.3 percent and local sales tax 34.9 representing 84.2 percent of 250 million dollars of the funds 256.2 million dollar budget local property tax also fully support The Debt Service fund which accounts for the city's General funding depths or general fund Debt Service obligations the property tax appropriation for The Debt Service fund was 47.7 Million for 2022-23 the city must have used a strategic approach to balance the budget by assessing Revenue enhancement opportunities and cost control for FY 2023-24 budget must support the city's strategic plan and identified funding to finance priority programs and services and then we have the bullets the first bullet the tax rate for the general fund for the moment will remain at the current rate of 31.55 per 100 success value that is for now the tax rate for The Debt Service yes over the years and overall the languages.

Budget should prioritize funding based on following is anybody highlight the revenue plan and I did a lot of London programs and services I I think I can't remember the history I think I think at one point it changed one Council changed it from should to must we we can change it to as an aspirational if that's the pleasure yeah and most of them anyway yeah but but I'm wondering just the consistency of the language between overall our Revenue sure issue. Thank you second bullet and we can with the property tax we can we can discuss if we need to change that when we get to the expenditures for now the tax rate from The Debt Service Company will remain at the current rate of 11.5 cents per 100 assessed value.

The tax rate for the solid waste fund will remain at the current rate of 5.59 cents per 100 assessed value the tax rate for the dedicated housing fund will remain at the current rate of 3.38 cents per 100 assessed value the tax rate for the transit operating fund will remain at 3.75 cents per 100 assessed value tax rate for the downtown business improvement district bid will remain at seven seven cents per 100 assessed value the allocation for the half penny from Park program will remain in a half cent of the proposed tax rate fund balance in the general fund will not be project will not be projected to fall below 12 at the end of the FY 2324 fiscal year non-recurring funds will not be directed towards reoccurring uses propose Water and Sewer rate increases will not exceed an average of 5.5 for the average tier 3 customer that and the bullet on the stormwater were updated by those departments this week and we will you will get more information on.

That that is a not to exceed level that is not in any way. It is fee adjustments will be considered as appropriate to align free revenues with cost of services for better cost recovery units and then proposed increases in storm water rates for typical resident customers tier two shall not exceed 2.69 cents per month. Moving on to the expenditures to balance expenditures against forecasted revenues the city manager will continue to monitor performance data to guide focused discussions with City departments regarding programs and service priorities this includes possible areas for elimination reduction reorganization new Partnerships and or alternative Service delivery models that address the performance and efficiency of City programs first bullet city employees are the core of city services one objective under the city's innovation in a high-performing organizational goal is to cultivate a diverse engaged and healthy Workforce dedicated to public service attracting training and retaining a competent high quality Workforce is essential to being a high performing organization therefore we will continue to consider employee compensation adjustments as a priority.

The following pay and benefit components will be proposed pay for performance plan 4.8 average increase and step plan four percent average increase for General employees additional structure and salary adjustments may be considered yeah pay plan for scoring police employees five percent average Step plan pay plan to Force One fire employees five percent average Step plan pay plan for part-time employees 3.5 average supplemental retirement 401K 5 will increase over FY 2223 budget medical insurance for all employees up to 5.9 average increase for the city dental insurance up to 3.5 average decrease for the city 12.85 budgeted for employer contribution to the Local Government Employees Retirement Systems which is a 0.75 increase for the FY 2223 budget of 12.1.

These are the final items of these people reviewed in some of the information you saw in the last two days the dedicated Street resurfacing fund will increase by five million dollars to 11 million dollars for Foy 2324 and up to an additional four million dollars from fund balance will be considered for FY 225 this one thank you funding for the maintenance replacement project plan will remain at 1.2 million dollars for FY 2324. Sleep replacement funding for general fund will be provided in accordance with the fleet Department's tenure recommendation plan within the debt model and then these last two will frame with saying that these last two particularly the next one is contingent Pawn when you could reconvene to discuss the remaining items that were on the list for City Council budget costs so this can this can be modified based the outcome of that and that is funding for City Council budget requests will be considered and programs may be considered for downsizing or discontinued machine within budget framework.

John the language programs may be considered downside for downsizing discontinuation was that did we not say similar language like that already we did it was a preamble where that that was mentioned okay the same that they are they are we added in for references because it was something that I brought up yesterday I was to make sure that sure an asterisk I mean I'm not I'm I'm not telegraphing that we're moving in that direction I just think that that we want in preparing the budgeting lever we need to have levers to maneuver not to yeah so so certainly John and I spoke about glass and woods very much what he is what comes in Compares what goes out and as you know as well as we consider the new requests compared to new relevant sources it all has the balance so that's why we kind of wanted to emphasize that it was getting new requests are so large that we cannot absorb them and maintain our base that we would have to consider your reduction.

Yeah absolutely everything should make sense I when I read these I try and read them as a member of a public who doesn't do this and if they see the language twice I'm I'm wondering if they might think it's referring to two different sets of initiatives or or pots of money when they see the language but what you say unfortunately it's perfect since yeah okay. Y'all I answered a couple questions and sorry about this is my previous page is there in reference to you you said about the Council budget requests before we consider there's any reference to also all the Ledger requests that came from staff there is not and because I suppose we we assume that's just part of a process there is no harm including that building.

Again it's always considered you know not something we necessarily want to do but if we need to we do so I think including that you know a task increase will be considered would be reasonable especially I mean especially because we haven't hear all this language that the rates are going to remain at least that you know I don't I don't know that we actually know that the rate is going to remain at that level like we should I don't know that we're at that point yet to determine that councilman the Quarry team because I'm your memory is probably better than mine and and I I agree with what you're saying I'm I'm delayed when we use we're considering tax increase number one it's about my Revolution I think the the vetting process at that time will give you a little more in advance that there was actually a percentage not by you know it wasn't that we may consider attacked me if I recall I think it was more considered to be honest you're.

Right and I think that was based upon a little more because we've got to go back and do some work I think it was based on a little more depth to we were a little further along in the process I believe which gave us the ability to identify up to as opposed to just we might raise taxes. We had already talked about.

And also the increase for the payment of the housing Bond tax and I think there was specifically in a previous year not this is my third one so I'm not really children's last time I was coming before but there was because of the market adjustments that we made in our paid plans we asked that specifically that some it's a small portion we considered to cover that so you you recognization it was it was more to specific areas where there's been much discussion about knowing that those were things that we needed to put into continues to that's very helpful I still resonate with councilman Johnson's point though even you know without that I just so it's us you're not at the point that we all are actually asking us for it at this point I guess after but I I agree with you that's correct we had we had specific we had identified what we needed and at this point it's it's kind of an unknown right and I may very helpful you.

May very well so I think Calvin Johnson's pointed out the language is a good one thank you yeah I think I think we just need a little bit more flexibility like right now the latest Teresa is that all the tactics are going to stay the same and if we if we find ourselves when we got when I got programming and I would like to yeah just massage the language a little bit around some of the things too yeah we may consider it I think professional conversations I've heard I might also recommend and it's not to not consider the other funds but I did hear discussions about trying to find creative ways around the capital issue so you might want to add the same language to The Debt Service upon me because I did hear language around that that was a potential what do we need to do in order to advance this finance department development plans director said you know we will we'll show you what we need to do when and then come up.

With a plan scratching from A4 so possible.

It was during the recession and we put it back in the general fund gotcha okay and also the transit fund are we concerned about losing Federal like Transit money and do we you know we figured out how we're going to facts about that yes so the responses we certainly are going to lose we're going to lose some of the covet era operating grants that we've had over the past three years we do do a multi-year prediction for all the funds you saw.

Membership.

Two questions thank you I'll visit around the transit so we're saying that based on your own internal conversations we will be able to maintain peer and reaction of 23. That is great so so yeah we're going to continue it we're we're ready to agree yeah okay great that was a plan to propose to continue right I know yeah so thank you yes okay and and just backing up a little bit about that service number what would determine whether we move back to the police.

You know anytime we are moving overall property tax for any function that is tax supported you know we we are ensuring that both the current year as well as multi-year operations you know can you come up with all of the funding sources yet we would love to be able to fund you know some of these the Enterprise type funds with no tax support but we know that that is not what we're missing so you know anytime we move tax around it takes away the one to put in another unless we raise it so we're going to be looking at it ballistically as to what you know once we're doing it yeah we will not put an ad of this month tax to the transit fund that transplant doesn't need direct resource do it all at the same time.

So did you want to add the same language to the dead service number for poisoning potential increase there yes I think that would be yeah.

Other questions.

Would you scroll back to the top. I wonder about putting more money into the parks with like specialized Apartments funds and I know the parks and rec department has was interested at some point I don't know if they agree submitted that moving that from math I need to open is that something that's under consideration at all Administration. So what I will say at this point is no the department did not send me that timeline request you know we typically there are different things that can happen with these dedicated money so you can feel the bucket where you can actually assess the needs and the timing of those needs and determine how you actually pay for it and I do not recall on a previous step okay so yeah.

Over the years not been doing.

Thank you I I agree I think in the future we do look at it it will come up with a tend to trust that the Department's not asking for is not necessary accent and I feel like this is one of the areas that I trust that the most and so I really am looking for guidance and where we do need.

Maintenance and operations have fun so when we think about putting more money into a bucket like that you also have to think about how you actually Implement operation so I didn't want it to be lost they have requested like other departments new Investments but they did not request new maintenance funds and we always if we if we do decide to invest and then assets then administratively we have to give consideration to be maintenance and operations of those assets and we have been doing a much better job of that in recent years because both of them so we you know we invest in 100 200 million dollars of new assets that comes with new operational dollars yeah.

Other questions. Feel comfortable moving forward with this we will have a meeting around budget guidelines and then the work session on this side of this the March 23rd worship session on April 3rd concerns we are very focused on the progress that we know that we leave this movie today we'll have to work with the court being yours you all staff to get that additional meeting to prioritize your new requests together we are hoping to get that meeting done before marginally there where we will be considering some of the final words with these these guidelines to go on Castlevania you know these things.

And that's our program.

A month okay.

So oh yeah I I hope works and again you know the staff and all the staff here tonight we thank you for an opportunity to be able to help inform your decision making what you are charged to do and is always our privilege to do that I consider today day two weeks another good day for us we've discussed a very important priorities for our organization as well as policy matters that would have a great impact on the future of our city just as a reminder once I pledge of season kicks off the first week of January for our departments I've been working and thinking about the budget development pretty much every day along with all of the other operations which remain ever changing and very complex especially during the time of increasing vacancy rate for employees in the organization but I can assure you and I have have all of these folks behind me that we're bringing our best we're bringing our best to this work and if you saw some of.

That reconnected and the surveys that our residents who who are the recipients of these Services how do they feel about that these last couple of things the dialogue happens they have provided us much guidance for progressing toward a religious responsible for your consideration we will continue to provide back notice and communication of when we will be discussing budget related items at the upcoming work sessions as well as the special budget work session planning to continue your prioritization of your new budget requests and you will ask is customer receive a watering presentation please you saw that here and we're going to love song but you'll have the details that go behind that that's a normal ordering presentation information on our shared economic Prosperity initiatives that are part of our strategic plan about Housing and Community Development priorities and progress so as we move through this budget season we will we will you will see these presentations for your consideration guidelines that we just had a general discussion about we will continue to.

Flesh out and we hope that we can come back with a little bit more informed detail around those guidelines and that we can get them finalized at the City Council when I finalized but the thumbs up at the city council work session on March 23rd as we continue to do the work that we we need to do to get to that day and day so again I would like to thank staff here today for excellent work that they do every day I like to thank the City Council for guidance that you provide that we we need in order to be effective public service.

Thank you foreign.

Thank you yeah thank you so much everyone I just want to appreciate all of our staff that have been here with us in this Whirlwind budget Retreats we usually have a little bit of time in between so I know there's a lot more work through all to get everything ready with you know a two-day a two-day challenge so I appreciate all of you and your excellent presentations and keeping this in the loop about everything that's going on this is like my so like eight letters.

And yeah and it's it's always really exciting to to be at this stage in the process and you know see where things are headed and think about exciting new projects and new initiatives and all our ideas and all of y'all's ideas before we have to actually like dig into the reality of how many how much money we actually have and what we prefer to do but yeah I just really appreciate it caring for everyone and all of your work and I'm looking forward to doing this promise thanks no superheroes and I enjoy being a champion I know it's not always easy I know that there are always peers thrown at City Hall I enjoy you know you know being a shield to some of those fears and take some of those spirits and be kind of just hey this is what it's totally concerned with and help them to translate those concerns so thank you colleagues I appreciate the relationships and open-mindedness our diverse perspective to trying to do the.

Best for our community our residents and our stakeholders are always part of mind and I appreciate that and I hope that will come out of this with you know making it feel like there's a million people that live in Durham only 300 000 in their creative ways to do that I look forward to continuing this deliberation thank you very much. I just want to really thank staff this is always an incredible process you'll just keep that better and the fact that you do that with the vacancy rate that we have is an indication of your of your commitment to public service so we can't do our jobs we don't have the foundation and expertise at y'all so thank you the council member also as a resident of the great city and I really look forward I know we have a lot to a lot lots of the Apple to write off and figure out and okay we're gonna have a lot of dialogue and I also just appreciate it getting out that's too early.

Because I do appreciates that just acknowledging that there's a lot of information out there and I want to make sure we wrap those as much of it as possible we have great opportunities with the circle and our current budget like there's just too much to to this and I want to be really really loud and clear that I want to see something happened around we'll see something happen with the ministry and I am not going to stop shouting I also will say that you know this is this is my six I feel so wrong and this point more but.

And so I really want us to dig into how we continue to elevate our engagement processes I want us to continue to to make sure that we're educated and sharing as much as possible so that everyone knows I mean I don't want to be the one person who understands it or the seven of us who understands what's happening in the budget process we want to make sure that everyone knows and I think that we've done a really good job pre-fold it I'm just going to be back to that so that's those are my comments and did you mention Convention Center Convention Center.

Thank you all so much geography. I need to be able to look at them this is my second budget cycle says becoming mayor of this great City and you probably noticed I would say a lot that's just how I'm trying to listen and do a lot of listening and study and then come back with questions and so I want to thank my colleagues for continuing those who have been here until continuing the conversations as you continue to educate me and the other new people on the on this Council I thank our city manager for leading a well-run organization this city is only as great as its employment and I think the community has told me that nine percent above the national average and the overall quality services 22 above the national average in the customer service provided by the employment that's not news issues yes you are and so I thank you all this the Lord has been thinking over the last couple of weeks I said manager the new state of their future day.

And they have led us terrible our accounting attorney in our city clerk we are helpful grateful to him and the technical assistance that we've received over these last couple of days you know I think about what covet you all never got a rate you're down 500 employees get crimes down and you're getting rave reviews wolves getting strong only because of you are that's why my only budget request is to make sure that there was a bank that I see I see the work that you do and not only do I see you all know I want to give you some time back today that's why I'm consistent that they know that comments for two minutes.

Okay States.