City Council · Regular Meeting · May 22, 2025

Consent agenda with items 17 19 22 25 26 and 34 pulled now go back up to u oh are you going to do the resolution consent 38 keep that on consent yeah well unless someone Sometimes you hear. Us. All right. So, now these are all the items that are pulled. I'll go back up to citizens matter, which I have, let's see, repeat online speakers.

Okay, just point of clarity, Madam Clerk, are are residents filling these out or are we filling them out at the clerk's office for them?, the virtual registrance they're actually signing up through the city manager's office Zoom links. Okay. So, I received that list from Mary right before the Okay, Mr. manager. We can just have maybe drop down options for the the item just so it doesn't confuse me because there are different citizens matter, citizen comment, innocent bystander, right? I'll work to clarify that. Thank you. All right. I'm going to assume that these are all citizens comments. So, I'll start with Ronnie Howard. Rammy Howard.

Ramy, can you hear me? Can you hear me? Yes. Welcome. You have three minutes. Oh, yeah., I wanted to talk about the innocent bystander thing. I was trying to see if McDub projects and Co Wallace and, you know, the rest of the projects. cuz I don't know too many of them cuz I'm from South Carolina and this is my second time being an innocent bystander shot in the same area and I'm going through a lot right now. But I still want to be able to help the kids like with like see if the projects can start like a little curfew on the weekends for the kids like not not too early but early enough to get the kids off the streets. And somebody told me to ask about a a victim's compensation because this is my second time getting hurt in in this state and I'm from South Carolina. I I come visiting family and sometimes I work here. My first time coming here was in 2019 and it seemed like since October the 22nd.

I have been a unlucky lucky person. So, I would love to help out with the innocent bystander program for trauma traumatized people that has lost children through innocent bystanders and that has lost family through innocent bystanders and gun violence. I don't know how to go about none of this. I was in the hospital and just thought about it and they they sent me to this website and I don't really have too much to say because it all of this came up in my head because I lost a friend to innocent bystander in South Carolina and this is my second time. So I said I got to do something, say something or be heard.

Well, thank you so much for reaching out. first I'm so sorry that that's happened to you., but I'm also grateful that you are still alive to be able to even ask for support., we have your information here and someone is going to be reaching out to you very soon to speak with you about how to navigate these resources. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Next, I have Miss Jacqueline Wagstaff. Miss Wagstaff, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Can you hear me? I can welcome. You have three minutes.

Okay., first of all, I have to start off by thanking, Councilman Baker and Councilwoman Freeman for actually addressing my issue that I brought before this body, two cycles ago at the work session., the issue that I've been that we've been dealing with in my community has been an issue that on the books say it should not be happening. We have trucks that are parking on our street. We have a school here and we have we did clear up the box truck convention because the family that was have running the business the commercial business out of the home they actually moved. So that took away the box truck but we still have the 18 wheelers that are parking on our street and Councilman Baker as soon as you contacted the department that needed to be contacted. They contacted me and they did send someone over to I guess try to catch this this person that parks on our street every day. And that person came, but they left before. And I.

Told them that if you want to get these people that are illegally parking on our block, it would have to be after 5:30. So, I know those are the hours that staff would be off, but we have to do something about this because like I said before, if I was calling from Crosdale, this problem would have been eliminated when I made the first call. But it seemed like I'm not getting any way on removing these trucks off our block and tearing our street up. You know, I wanted to know how much of that $200 million bond money was going to be put into these sidewalks and streets over here in this area. But I'm actually at this point I guess I'm just gonna call up one of those investigative reporters and see if they can look into what the policy is and why the policies don't get enforced that are on the books. Even with the chicken ordinance, we have a policy about roosters not being part of that. But everywhere I go.

In Durham that a person in the city has chickens, they have roosters. And that is on the that's part of the policy. So, who's policing these policies and why are these policies being followed? So, at this point, I just like to thank you, Councilman Baker and Councilwoman Freeman, because you actually came to my block and visited my block to look at it and see what was going on. So, I thank y'all very much and I'll continue with this effort to clean up this block and get these vehicles off my block. And there are some other things that we'll deal with on the budget, but that's all I have to say today.

Thank you., next I have Dewan Langley. Dewan, can you hear me? I can. Can you hear me? I can. Thank you. Welcome. You have three minutes. All right. Thank you. My name is Dean Langley. I'm here on behalf of the Charles Hamilton Houston Foundation and we are organization that works to expand opportunities for boys and young men of color through mentorship, academic support, career readiness, workforce training, and connection to career oriented employment. Unfortunately, I have to start my remarks with a moment of silence for the young man the boy of color who was killed in Mcduga Terrace on May the 10th. He was 17 years old. So I would like to observe a moment of.

Silence. Thank you. Workforce development is not just about jobs and our budget is not just about money. These things are moral documents, moral imperatives of our community about what we value and how we codify our values and what we do. Justice, opportunity, and long-term equity requires investment. For boys and young men of color who often face systemic barriers rooted in generations of devestment, marginalization, and limited access to opportunity, workforce development must be reimagined as a tool for constructive disruption, breaking old patterns and building new intentional pathways to success. Construction constructive disruption means challenging the traditional models that have excluded or underserved these young men. It means designing career pathways that don't start at age 22, but as early as middle and high school with programs that integrate mentoring, skill training, and exposure to highwage careers and leadership development. It means collaborating across all sectors, schools, community- based organizations, our workforce development board, employers, so that we create a pipeline that affirms their identities, develop their talents, and connect them to real.

Economic mobility. We must ensure these pathways align with the future of work that we see happening in our community. But yet often technical skills, we must also foster the confidence, self-awareness, and resilience that enables these boys and young men to lead and thrive. This is just not a programmatic challenge. It's a moral imperative. By investing in systems that elevate, not exclude, empower, not punish, prepare, not push out. We don't just help individuals succeed, we transform families, neighborhoods, communities, and Durham. Let's use workforce development. And when we do it equitably and strategically, it can be the leverage to disrupt cycles of poverty and construct new legacies of prosperities for boys and young men of color. I'm waiting for the outreach.

Let's get to work. Let it be reflected in the upcoming budget. Thank you. Thank you. We'll now move to in person speakers. The first person I have is Mr. Chavis. James Chavis. Welcome.

Mr. Chavis, you have three minutes. Good afternoon to all city council members, mayor, and others. I'm the pat co- facilitator for district 1. Miss Burrus, who's a part of district 5, was would not be here today with me. But as you know, we have been asking and trying to get the the city of Durham to sign off on our proclamation for this asset preparedness go forward. We'll continue as a community to do this and we going to continue to do it until the city decide they want to be a part of it and to the school board. The county has signed off on it. They said it took him one day to do it and I thank them. But I come to tell you on on Saturday, June the 28th, 2025, we will be having a a peaceful standoff to bring the city, the county, and the city, county, and school board connecting together to help us get our city of Durham resident ready for a disaster is something to happen. We.

Don't know what kind of disaster will, but if these people and you all help us to get them start preparing for one, as you may know, Ronographic just had one last week and they are in disaster. So, what are D going to continue to do? wait till disaster come and not let the citizen of D know know anything or help them start preparing or give them some information. So on the 28th I'm asking all you city council members the mayor join us in that peaceful standoff on the sidewalk. We're not going to block the street because we got a fire station right there. Please join us. help us to let other folks know we're in consolidated with everyone to please get people ready before this has to come because as you know two weeks ago once again my lights went out and it was at night time and I got a generator but I could not get down there and hook up my generator so I had to call my sister and she.

See, these are the things people need to know and understand. But what was done as they say when our lights went out that night? Where was you at? Were your lights out? So think of others, especially the least of us, to help us to understand our great needs for the city of D. Put your foot in the ground and make it work for everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Chavis, real quick, what was your request again? My request is for you all to come to our 28th on the 28th. That's the event. You said there was a proclamation or something. Yes. A proclamation.

Okay. Okay. Yeah, because I I haven't seen anything. So, well, I'm sorry you have not seen it, but it has I have been If it's online, then it'll get to me. I I haven't seen it yet. So, Diana has Okay, gotcha. Thank you. Thank you. I just I didn't want you to think that folks just aren't responding. Well, only thing I can go about is I have not gotten a response. You understand? Yep. Same here. Thank you.

Next I have Italio. Medilius Italo. Okay, welcome. You have three minutes. All right, hit that button there on the right on the the platform with the microphone. There you go. There we go. Can everybody hear me? Wonderful., Mr. Mayor, city council. Thank you for having me., it's great to be here. My name is, Italo Medilius. I'm, the secretary for Carolina Masonians United for Solidarity and Empowerment., I also sit on the Durham Workers Rights Commission., and I'm here to speak in support of a resolution, that was kindly introduced by, Council Member Maker and, we passed it in the Durham Workers Rights Commission, unanimously, to see if the city council would, consider it., this resolution is mostly to support the organizing of Durham Amazon workers.

I don't know if you all have heard but a couple months ago we had an election in Garner at the largest Amazon facility in North Carolina and it was a loss but we did get about 822 workers to support us. That was about 10% more than what happened in Bessemer, our great friends at Bessemer. And what happened at Bessemer was in Bessemer, Alabama in their second election they pretty much almost tied. So, we are gearing up over in Garner to do another election. That time, we will win. And this time, it seems like the field is turning all the way to Durham., we've had so much support from labor organizations in Durham specifically to the point where the first, Amazon Workers International, the, global Amazon, reunion for the first time in the United States might happen here in Durham in 2026. So, that might be something we could work on you know at some point later on. But with this specific resolution, it's very basic and we try to make it as.

Non-controversial as possible. Pretty much just saying the Durham City Council supports you, you have the right to organize and while you're under attack by the federal government, at least your local government supports you. So, we hope that you all will consider the resolution. if if you have any questions, the Durham Workers Rights Commission is happy to answer. and we hope that you will vote in favor. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Next, I have Miss Gwen.

Silver. Welcome. You have three minutes.

Okay. So, I'm here again to al not again, but I'm here to speak on box trucks parked in our community. And I understand the frustration that Jackie had because we've gone through it pretty much for about seven years. We started with commercial vehicles, 18-wheelers. This is our history that goes back to 2018 and in 2017 2019, I sent an email to Zepekus, our captain, for help and we got no response. So, here leave this for the clerk and you can read it.

Then in October 30th of of 2024, I sent another email to Captain Sepeekus asking for help and he said he would talk to his staff and see if they could address these concerns and see if there were any violations. We got no response. That's the only response we got. So I will leave this for the clerk. And this is the code that we sent when we began to write to 18er companies like Mayflower and JB Hunt, Napa and all of those. That's how we got the biggest response because we wrote to the corporate offices and they are the ones that got on their drivers to get out of our community. So you already have this but I'll enter it again.

Well, I think from January until April, we were we we were working with neighborhood improvement services, the planning department, and with the captain with no results. So on April 29th, I sent an email to Landis when four those four box trucks that you saw were lined up and the person who lives on that street sent it to the board, the HOA board, and I'm a member of the board. And I said, Landis, my community and I are very unhappy with the zero results of this complaint to the city that started in 2024. I asked Landis this question. Is planning planning department waiting for the street to become a truck stop? And to Captain Zepeekus, I asked, are you waiting for this area to become criminal activity? And the final analysis, my community is not interested in activity.

We want results. I'll intervenence. I got your response from the mayor, but also other members in my in my community have been doing things as well. The person who took the video reminded us this is the second time the city has filled us. In 2008, developers left our city and left our community with streets that had not been paved. It took us 10 years coming back and forth to council meetings, beatings in the community. we were here, we were in the paper, we were in the courts 10 years before the streets got paved and she's saying, "Well, they're behind." And also this from the person who said she had also called dur call with no results and this is our list of persons that we dealt with. Thank you so much for your time and we're waiting for results. We also asked for the city to wave what we owe in in fees. Thank you. Jana May is next.

Thank you. Or she walks away. Miss Silvers, I do want to just let you know I did get your packet and I am following up with staff. Thank you.

Welcome. You have three minutes. Good afternoon, mayor, all presiding council members and staff. I Regina Mays I usually don't announce my address for various reasons but this day I will for purpose. I reside at 2011 North Black North Street which is currently known as Franklin Village but a lot of people still refer to it as Few Gardens. On May the 4th, we usually have gun violence in my community, but that changed mine and my family's life in a great way. There was a young man murdered, 16 by 15year-old is how the news highlights it.

I came to you all not with blame but a sense of urgency and asking for respect because the strategies for community engagement centered around housing and such violence is not working. I'm not saying that there are not solutions, but I'm saying that we have to have a different approach approach to solutions. I realize as you as a council and city manager re are currently reviewing budgets and have decisions to make about funding from everything from bike lanes to very essential salaries. And I'm sorry, I don't even like having my back to you all as I speak.

We need a different approach that is built on true collaboration. I have attended mo multiple meetings centered around violence, but yet to see any property managers in a room. A lot of residents do not show up because they do not feel heard and seen. And though my son is the one that made that call to 911 on May 4th because the young men that were with the deceased could not even speak clearly, think clearly or anything. My 24 year old says that he does not want to attend meetings that speak about it because he feels like it would be no change. My 13-year-old lost her childhood friend that day.

And it was on the same day as her dad's death anniversary. As I received a call from my son from returning from celebration of life for my daughter's deceased father, I panicked, not knowing if bullets had hit my house, if any other of my sons was injured in this situation. All I knew was I was pulling up to Yellow Tape where I could not park even at my back door. Thank you. Sorry the kids I had to go through that. It's my final speaker. Colleagues will now move to the pulled items. Item number 17 is the first.

Item. Did you pull that? Council member Cook.

This is the budget amendment and capital. No, you're yeah, I just had a couple of quick questions. I guess the first one is that the dedicated housing fund budget increased from 21 million to 27 and the debt service fund from 57 to 70. Both of those are like 20 to 25% increases which were noticeably larger than the other increases. So I was hoping you would just speak to those quickly for me. Sure. So, Christina Reen, budget and management services. so the debt service amendment it includes a transfer of some interest income from our capital improvement plan into as well as a transfer from dedicated housing fund. so that is some of that is going into both of those funds. So I I read that and I I noticed that it in the memo it states that there's money moving from the dedicated housing fund to reimburse debt service, but they both the expenditures increased in both of those. So, I'm just curious. I the way that the memo read was that money was.

Moving around, but it's not what the numbers looked like. So, can you explain that a little bit more?, sure. I think and I'm going to to our Matt, do you have some information that we can share with Council Member Rook? Okay. And I I'm gonna have Tim explain some of what's going on with those funds. I think u we have my understanding is that the capital improvement plan has e extra interest income that is going into those funds. So that's why they're both increasing and then there is a transfer from the dedicated housing fund to the debt service fund to pay off some debt service.

Hello Tim Flora city chief financial officer. So yes director is correct. So what we're doing is there was has been interest income accumulating in our capital projects fund and so really what it should be doing is it should be accumulating in our debt service fund and so what we have done over the years we've been accumulating that interest in there and so what we're trying to do is because the capital project fund is where there are projects the actual funded projects that money should be sitting in our debt service fund for actually when we decide on our capital improvement plan. So really what we're doing is we're just shifting some reserve funds that were sitting in the cap the capital project fund over to the debt service fund for future allocation for capital projects. That is for the CIP piece of it for the dedicated housing piece of it. Those property tax revenues are coming into the dedicated housing fund. Yet we have funded the the the the housing bond in a different fund. So,.

We're just moving those funds over to where the debt service is being paid. Okay. I thought it might be bond related. So, but I'm just curious like we we knew where that money was going to be. I know we normally see amendments, but I'm just I'm curious about why we're seeing such a large transfer this late in the year, like why we didn't didn't account for it being or why we didn't move it sooner, why it's being. So, sometimes this is kind of our cleanup amendment. So we often do kind of things that we find out you know that we are that we may not have anticipated when we pass the budget or you know things that this is the time of year where we kind of make those transfers before we start a new fiscal year.

Do you have something? Sorry. sorry for the dedicated housing fund as well that the the housing bond proceeds were done since last year. And so that is this is the first debt service payment that we are actually making on those on the on the housing the affordable housing bonds. And so that is why we're we're we're now making the why we move that money over. Wait, sorry, say that again because we've been that bond is finishing up next year. So the bond is finishing up. Yes, those projects, all those bond projects are, but we we have not gone out for all of the all of the we've not issued all of the tranches of the dedicated housing fund from the bond revenue. So, we just went out for one tranch of that bond last year for those projects. And so, that is so we're just now seeing the debt service for that. The projects have been going on for years, but we have been cash funding those projects. Now,.

We we had the funds to cash fund them. Now, we went out for the debt proceeds so that we can reimburse the city for those costs. I see. Okay, that is helpful. Thank you. I think those are all my questions. Great. Thank you. Next up is number 19. Baker. I'm only talking to you about this one. Just I just wanted to confirm a couple things. to literally two things. One is for so in this draft and I know that y'all have been working on this for a while. for this draft for introducing a new item, a council initiated item, we're now saying go to Mayor Williams first and then bring it to to the full body. Right.

That's that's the the one of the changes. Can you point me to the section that you're referring to? This should be there's not a page number on it. It's the paragraph 4 council member initiated agenda items. Yes. Okay. And so your question I'm sorry council. So I just want to confirm that that's a change from the existing rules of procedure is now we go to to the mayor first before we bring it to a work session to get kind of four thumbs up from council members.

Yes. I mean in the current procedures it's not set out with this level of specificity. So this was an attempt to try to clarify and create more distinct process because I think you know up until now there hasn't been a distinct process and so things have kind of come in differently every time and it was just an attempt by the procedures committee to systematize it. Okay. And and I think what we're also trying to do is we're trying to better as we're shaping the agenda, trying to better better streamline from the presiding chair whoever that presiding chair is at that point in time. I think that's some of the conversation around it. Just streamline it. The manager and I go over the agenda as we're setting it to bring before the council. So basically, it's you know, you can you can always just mention something Like when we were walking in here, council member Cook said, "Hey, I want to talk about Did you talk about the way?" Okay. Okay.

Yeah. and I was, "Okay, great." So, right now, I just kind of like acknowledge it, but this would now start being added to the agenda. My my staff would basically provide this to the manager's office instead. They're building out the agenda. And these are these also are guiding procedures. If something comes up and you know, it's also like, "Hey, I want to bring this up." We'll still acknowledge that. And then the second question I have is in the current rules of procedure, there is a provision that allows for introducing an item dur during a city council business meeting that can be voted on. It would need five votes and we are removing that.

And can I just we haven't even used that., so it hasn't been abused, but it does seem like something that could be useful to keep in our back pocket. So I was just curious about the thinking behind why why would we why would we remove that? You would have to ask the council procedures members the thinking. I am just the scribe for the most part. So in the the Thank you. in the current procedures, we we have a provision that allows for introducing an item day of in the meeting that would need five votes. We haven't used that.

I've never seen a council meeting where it has been used, but it seems like something that would potentially be useful to keep in the back pocket if there were something that we needed to to do urgently., so I was just curious about the reasoning and and obviously since we haven't used it, it also has not been abused in any way. So I'm just curious about the reason why we would intentionally get rid of that provision. I mean it's not it's not it's been taken out so it's not in the document you have in front of you. It's been so long I can't even remember. I mean we may have to consult with Fair enough.

Copier is chairs that committee. Sure. Sure. I will I will direct my question to to her. Sure. We'll put it on GBI. I'm good. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much. All right. Council member Cook 22.

Hey, good afternoon., okay. So, a few questions on the HVAC preventative maintenance., the memo says that this is an annually recurring cost, but then it also states that moving this to a contractor will free up time. So, has it previously not been done with a contractor or is it in fact an annual recurring cost with a contractor? Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor and council member. My name is Roger Commerce. I'm with general services. we asked for these funds last year and you graciously gave us those. This is the to answer your question, this is the first time we are using a contractor. We asked for the funds to create that that pathway to supplement our in-house efforts based on technology the new technology and things that we are just not as up to up on with our staff. So it is a new program.

We've been doing maintenance but not to this level. Okay. Yeah. I think the way the memo reads it's it's confusing because it it sounds like the money for a contractor is a reoccurring cost and then it immediately talks about that it's a a new thing and I understand why it's new but the memo is just a bit confusing so just wanted to point that out. And I read over the scoring and I understand that there's like some other complexities in terms of why this contractor was chosen. but the costs are significantly different like double and then and I know that cost was only one of the things that was looked at but I just was hoping you could speak to that because it's a hu it's a huge difference. There is quite a difference from between the three contractors. we did review it pretty carefully myself as the facilities operations manager, our supervisor for that for the HVAC and one of our better our top mechanics technicians and our energy management.

Engineers. So, we went through them pretty carefully or very carefully because of the the the dollar differences to be quite frank. One one of the vendors just really seemed to miss the mark all the way around., and then the other two, there's still a difference between them, but if you look at the we paid a lot of attention to the staff, the experience level of the staff, the amount of staff available to us for the program and and quite honestly, there's also between the the top rated and the next one that we they do work with us as the city, but we have had historically very good luck with our choice.

So unanimously across the board that's kind of where we across our panel that's where we landed. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. I mean I saw on there that there was they had a long list of resources and their scope was more detailed. So and I totally understand that these are just numbers that folks send out and and we have to know right what what those are actually going to look like. So that makes total sense to me. My last question is about the financial impact analysis which is quite different than the projected cost that the was received in proposals. Is that just an allowance for the potential additional services that makes that go I mean it goes up like four to five times? It it is first the numbers came back better than we kind of projected but that is the difference is we were trying to build in an allowance for the things that we know are going to come out of this. Most of our equipment is got quite a bit of.

History and so we know we're going to run into some of that. So we were trying to build that allowance in to improve and extend the life of the equipment. So, so when you're saying the numbers came back better than projected, that was the proposals that you received lower than that we had initially., but we know because we hang out with our with our machines might need some repairs that are heftier than the just the maintenance. Okay. Yeah, there's a there's a lot of history there. Yes.

Understood. Okay. Thank you. Those are all my questions. Thank you so much. Anyone else? Thank you. Thank you. Item number 25.

So this I'm just going to talk about these two in tangent. This is the contract for pre-employment psychological testing and the contract for post hire psychological services. My main question was that in the memo the alternatives listed one was to hire an internal psychologist and it was it was listed as being significantly more expensive. but these two items together are costing about $110,000 a year just as they are. So, I'm just wondering how we get to the like significantly more expensive to have a person on doing it as opposed to a consultant.

Sorry about that. I saw five other people come up here and do that and I I still didn't turn it on., good afternoon Mr. Mayor, council members, and city manager Ferguson. I'm going to have the physical services manager, Sean Leonardo Williams, answer that question. Good afternoon, Sean Huey, physical services manager for the police department., so to get a qualified psychological person that would be able to do all the analysis that we need both prehire and post-hire. honestly, we'd probably require more than one person because of the number of services that we require.

A a qualified person would be over $100,000 a year base salary. You add that you add to that at least 25% for benefits. and that's not including healthcare and such. So you're talking probably $1500 to $200,000 per year per person. So, if we hired two, we would be talking over $200,000 a year, which is significantly more than the what 85 $90,000 a year for both of these contracts combined per year. So, it would be at least twice as much.

Okay, thank you. I totaled up 110,000 a year, but I would it would still be a lot more. Yeah, I understand. Okay, thank you. That is helpful. Those were my questions. Is that for 26 as well? Okay. Thank you. Item 34.

This is council members Rrist and Baker. Welcome. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you for being here. just wanted to ask we can be brief. I just wanted to the staff report excellent but I was just wondering if you could tell us where we are first of all how do you pronounce it PAS tell us where we are in layman's terms and then in terms of the research on on PAS just because it's been getting a lot of attention lately if you can explain a little bit about the the thinking around PAS and what we need to be looking out for sure. Good afternoon, mayor, city manager, members of council. My name is Lori Shanetta Burris. I'm a senior engineering manager with the department of water management. So, we studied we began studying PAS with HDR as our consultant back in January of 2024. But even before that, the city had proactively started sampling for PAS in our raw water supplies and in our treated water for for several years. So, the EPA released regulations. They.

Implemented regulations in the spring of 2024 that set compliance limits for the first time for PAS. And I pronounce it PAS. I don't try to say the long the long name either., so we are we did our study. We've we've done a lot of sampling., we evaluated several different treatment alternatives through the study to determine what was the best treatment alternative for our particular source waters., we in Durham, our source waters, we're pretty fortunate. We do have PAS concentrations that are elevated enough that our existing water treatment plants do not remove the PAS with the processes that we have today. So we do have to build additional treatment processes to remove the PAS from our water and meet the regulations.

We have completed the study. We will have final reports from our consultant HDR by the end of this fiscal year. They're just finalizing the reports, but we've reviewed the draft reports. We have their recommendations and we've decided that powder activated carbon is the best treatment alternative for us. It it will allow us to meet the forthcoming regulations in a relatively cost-effective manner because our PAS concentrations are relatively low. PAC is sort of one of the first line of defense technologies that we can use and we actually already have some experience using PAC at our water treatment plants to remove taste and odor compounds. So, the systems that we have today are not adequate to be used on a 247 daily basis. We need to improve the systems that we have and we need to locate them at the Brownwater treatment plant. But that is that is our plan. So, hot off the presses, on May 14th, the EPA actually announced, that they are extending the compliance deadline, which was previously April of 2029. They they.

Intend to change the rules in the fall and finalize them in the spring of 2026 to provide an extended compliance deadline. and they are rescending the regulations for a few of the concentrations and they're going to study them f further and decide what they want to do with with those regulations. but going forward that that delay gives us a little bit more time but to to get our systems built and to get some experience and some operating time under our belts.

So it's a good thing that we have a little bit more time but we believe that the path that we had already decided upon with implementing pack treatment is still the the best solution for us. So this amendment that's in front of you today is to amend HDR, our consultants contract to provide owner advisor services to move forward with the next phase which is to move on through with design and construction under a progressive design build delivery method approach. That's great. Thank you for that explanation. Appreciate it.

Thanks, Miss Montgomery. Appreciate you coming in. Yeah, I just wanted to highlight the item. I think it's really important for folks to know that that the our water management department is on the ball working to eliminate PAS from the water supplies. I really appreciate that. I know that the deadline has been extended as you mentioned. Do do you know when we plan to meet that regardless of the new sort of changes when we plan to meet that the the standard? I think that we're on track to be able to meet the standard sometime in 2028., and thank you for for your recognition and our and our hard work and dealing with this issue. And we I wanted to let you know that we are planning a public outreach event to let the public know what we're doing about PAS and let them know the work we've done to date and what our future plan is. And that will be on July 15th.

Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Oh, I'm sorry. Just didn't want you to walk away without addressing. Is there a way to eliminate PAS in the water supply? There are I just want to make sure that there's clarity that the technologies are evolving. the technologies that exist today vastly reduce PAS. Some of them will completely eliminate PAS. There are destruction technologies that are still being studied., but there are one of the the nice things about us having a little bit of additional time and us starting with this pack solution to meet the regulations that will be in front of us in 2031 is that that will give us a little bit more time to continue to study some of these evolving technologies. the technologies are evolving quickly and I think that we will continue even after we implement pack to study and as regulations evolve in the future 10 years from now there may be very different technologies that not just remove the pack and sort of.

Trap it in a media that we then have to deal with that media but fully destruct PAS and that would be phenomenal if there is a way to destruct to create the destruction of it. What I want to what I want us to take a step back from is just to to to know what PAS actually is for folks. I know the polymeral like all of that sounds very difficult but it's really clear like all of your water protection chemicals, all of the, you know, the Teflon, all of those things that are in the water. Now, you just want to be mindful that you're you're using you're using water that does have PA fast and how you how we're working to eliminate or decrease the parts per billion because that's what we know will have an impact on on a human's system is really an a proactive approach.

But folks have got to be more proactive on the personal side as well and not using all of those types of chemicals that end up in the water. Especially just kind of like that runoff in in and of itself is where it's coming from. And so I I just know that it's a collective issue and it's also an expensive issue. And so these are I just want to make sure I didn't miss that. It's an excellent point and that is a lot of the education that we hope to start doing., you know, PAS is a a group of hundreds and probably thousands of synthetic chemicals that are in our environment from things like firefighting foams, waterproofing materials that are used to make our raincoats and water repellent clothing., even food packaging has PAS. It's in everything. It's in a lot of things that we use in our home every day. And those are actually very little of the PAS that we are ingesting is actually coming from the water supply. People are more exposed.

Through some of these other pathways that that you mentioned. But we have Kate Keenan here from HDR Engineering and she is our technical expert on PAS. So I will if there's anything else you would like to add to that, Kate will be able to answer those types of questions. Are you do you do you have any other questions on I if there was anything you would like to add, I think I think you covered it fairly well, but I know that it's it's it seems very far away from where like the average person, average resident is, and I just want to make sure that they're not like abdicating their role in what happens with these masks. We will make sure that we continue to pass that message along in our educational materials and the sessions that we'll be having. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you all. Right to our.

Presentations. Madam Chief, you can go ahead with yours.

We could have rock papered scissors for it. It would have fought. All right. Well, good afternoon Mr. Mayor, council, Mr. Manager, today I'll be presenting to you our first quarter report for 2025. So, as you all know, and you could probably say this just as well as I can, this quarterly report each time covers five performance measures. So, part one, violent crime, part one, property crimes, clearance rates, response times, and staffing levels., before I start, I do want to acknowledge, newly appointed, executive, command staff members that are that are here., one member is not present, assistant chief, Tom McMaster, but present with me are, assistant chief, Nate Baker, Campbell. So, she's saying hi., assistant, chief Raul Garcia.

Good afternoon. You could see who's out outgoing one of the two. And then we meet deputy chief appointments. so deputy chief Mark Clancy, he was appointed from assistant chief to deputy chief. You've met him already. And deputy chief Germaine Jackson, he was also appointed. All right. So over a period of time, you'll be seeing them off and on in various ways. So next, please. All right. So, let's talk about our part one violent crime rates. So, immediately what you notice is that we saw an overall reduction in our part one violent crime total. So, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Where you saw an increase was in our homicide. So in 2024, same time period, we were at six and then that the nine for that same time period brought us up to 50%. Year to date, so as the as as to date, we have had 15 homicides. Of the nine reportable homicides, seven were criminal with one being domestic violence, two negligent manslaughters, and one justifiable homicide. So, forcible rape, we were we.

Were down. So, those are all reported incidents of forcible rape. 26% of those occurred in previous years, which is not out of the ordinary to have many of our reported rapes that have occurred in years previous or in prior months having belated reports. Robberies. So, in the first first quarter, we had 103 robberies. Again, we are down from this time last year. we are also down in the percentage of individual robberies from people that we saw. But where we saw a slight increase was our commercial robberies. Those actually did go up and 84% of those commercial robberies involved retail businesses.

51% of our robberies a firearm was used in those. And then finally our aggravated assaults. So, we were down in the aggravated assault incidents. 59% of those aggravated assaults also involved firearms and 27% it was down just slightly were domestic related. Next, please. Thank you. All right. so, the next slide that'll be coming up will actually, you know, we we give you kind of the the line view for all those that are visual. and so each one of these lines represent the part one violent crimes that I just talked about. So we capture this over a period of 10 years to give you a snapshot as to as to what we look like. homicide is your blue line. we are running average. So it's almost somewhat flatlined.

With the lowest point being in 2024 and then we're we're really kind of holding steady this quarter of 2025. Our reported rates, those are your orange line. we were down in the first quarter for the second consecutive year after three years of pretty noted increases in our reported rapes. Robberies is your green line. We have overall we're we're coming down in our robberies, but you know, we still like to be able to track the breakdown of what does that look like. So, recently we have seen a continued impact with our Hispanic and Latino victims in our robberies. 32% of those individual robberies in the first quarter had at least more than one victim involved in that robbery. And so that ratio though was much lower than our normal percentage aggravated assault. So anything you see involving firearms you know assault by just any type of weapon that's your purple line. So that's your that's your top line. those have been kind of variable over the last 10 years,.

Right? But if you notice for us now we've had the first quarter 2025 the lowest percentage or the lowest incidents that we've had since 2018. Our intimate partner domestic violence incidents were about average with 27% of the total and the incidents involving firearms was about 51% versus 52% from this time last year. All right, our shooting incidents. So during this time as you see overall shooting incidents are down with our fatal between 2024 and 2025. There has not been any percent change there.

Of all violent crimes in our first quarter about one quarter of those came from incidents where a gun was fired. Our shooting incidents did decrease about 11.6% 6% compared to the same period in 2023 and 2024. the number of persons though that we had shot had also decreased and all of the decrease was observed in the non-fatal category. The gun seizures so we've had 183 firearms seized in the first quarter. So I don't know if this is good or bad, but that's that's down 30 per 30.7. So almost 31% from the first quarter and the seizures came from 136 incidents. So about 1.35 guns per per incident. Thank you. So this is your cumulative gunshot wounds. This combines fatal and non-fatal wounds. We wanted to look at it by week of each calendar year through from 2020 all the way through March 31st, 2025. So you'll note that 2023 had the fewest total gunshot wounds with 207.

The most that we had was 318 in 2020. year-over-year declines had occurred since until 2024. So the 31 gunshot wounds in the first quarter were were below were well below the trajectory for years 2020 through 2023 as you kind of look at the lines there and close to where we were this time last year in 2024. So I do want to note that we we are we see our gunshot wounds at times that are reported to the hospital. So the gunshot has occurred, the person or people are loaded in a car and they're taken straight to the hospital. So the hospital will then call us. And so during this quarter, we had seven incidents that were reported by the hospital when that person has arrived or people have arrived at the ED, which obviously makes it a little bit harder for us to be able to f find where the actual crime scene was, where the incident happened, unless we have a cooperating victim.

Otherwise, we just have to do some backtracking through some of our investigative work. So let's look at part I think you mentioned that in the past there's so there's it sounds like there may be some reluctance on the part of some folks to call 911. Is that what's going on in part? So it's been really hard for us to to be able to nail down an exact number because we don't know if the shot happened and you know the the people just just didn't want to call and report it for whatever reason. So, it's very hard for us to know if there's going to if there was a corresponding 911 call or not because often time by the time they get to the hospital, we don't know where the incident happened.

And so, that's where that backtracking comes from. Shot spot played a role in helping them with that. Yes. Yes. I'm sorry. Yes. All right. Okay. Great. Part one, property crime. So, overall, we are down in each one of this c these categories. And you've heard me say that property crimes can be very difficult to to actually investigate, let alone have a successful clearance cleared by arrests. so if we take a look at this, we've had a decrease in residential burglaries during this quarter, but what we've seen is an increase in a lot of the retail.

We've seen where in businesses anything from you know tools tobacco products have been one of the things that are really highly targeted in these types of property crimes. Our larsenes are down. So generally our driver of some of our larsenes can be shoplifting. In the last couple of years it's been our motor motor vehicle breakins. So 38% of those overall larsenes were from motor vehicles. Again, tools because they're just harder to track. Most people don't keep serial numbers for for tools. motor vehicle thefts. So you know, we're very happy to start to see a decrease in this trend. As you know, the you know, the last couple years for us with motor vehicle thefts has been really high incidental years. we are coming down 16% in this category. 82% of those vehicles that had been stolen have been recovered. So that's tremendous tremendous for us to be able to recover these vehicles for the first time I think ever in an in a long time. Hondas are not up there. So.

Hyundai's, Kias and Toyotas in that order are what we see is the higher incidents of vehicles being stolen. And and I would say that the work that our because these are just not oneoff this one person this a separate person. What we are seeing are are rings of car of networks of thiefs that are coming in and working as a group and a team and are either breaking into motor vehicles, breaking into motor vehicles and stealing them and then they go on to commit other crimes with those vehicles which I think is why we've also been able to recover at at a higher at a higher rate. but staff have done they've done a a fantastic job working to identify and apprehend those individuals responsible. So here again is our breakdown of our property crimes during the first quarter. if you'll see lararsenes are are a little bit they're they're still kind of up and down. What you can note though is our motor vehicle thefts. will see the the.

Increase in at the peak in 2024 and we're starting to decrease from this time last year and we're hoping to to continue that trend. The things that we're seeing that are that are being targeted for thefts with commercial and retail they're cigarettes, beer, lottery tickets., cigarettes are very popular to steal and apparently beer is too. Next. All right. So, we'll look at the guns stolen by week and by year. So, this chart this chart will show you the cumulative number of guns stolen by week in 2025. So, we are at the yellow line right now for this quarter., on a about five-year cumulative average or chart., there have been year-over-year increases, as you know, since 2020. I'm not saying anything that you all don't already know., 2024, we experienced a 29% increase, over 2023. 127 guns have been stolen, first quarter. So that was above our trajectory for previous years. And then all the guns that that were stolen in the first quarter, 73% were from motor vehicles, which is definitely a a.

Higher rate than normal. So 56% is where we normally were., window break is has been now the the mode of entry for the 68% of the guns that were stolen. They broke windows to to actually retrieve those guns. Clearance rate. So I this this really does demonstrate where teamwork makes the dream work. whether it's when our patrol officers respond and our forensics, our crime scene investigators respond to the crime scene to process. All of that information, that evidence is taken in. Our investigators work really well with our intel and and everything just comes together to to really lend itself to what you see here.

So, what jumps out the most at you is that overall violence and property crime totals we are clearing above the FBI national average and homicide 155.6% clearance rate. So, how how exactly does that happen? So, so thus far we have cleared eight of our nine homicides this quarter. So, those have been cleared. Now we are constantly in investigating cold cases. So we are you know we we we our investigators circle back and check in and look relook at evidence and evidence that were taken from the scene to see if we can reprocess and if we can actually identify a suspect in in any one of those cold cases. So six additional cases were cleared from that occurred from 2023 and 2024. So that is fantastic work by staff. So our clearance types.

So I do want to note that 93% of the violent crime cases that you see of the clearances they were cleared by arrest. That means someone or a group of people were placed under arrest. for the violent crime offenses that you see there. 7% of those were exclared. So that was where something prevented a full clearance and and identification to be able to obtain a warrant. 99% of property crimes were cleared by arrest. 99%. That is unheard of. And I would put that up against any jurisdiction clearing this many property crime crimes cases. 1% were exclared. fantastic fantastic work by this entire staff.

Next, please. So, we had had some conversation the last time I presented and stood before you all. We had had some conversation about looking at response times and calls for service. We are working on identifying what's the best way to to really capture what our average response time should be for a jurisdiction our size and then what the what our targeted response. So where do we set our goal at that we need to be as you see we are we are really creeping up on our response times and we just have not hit our goal in several years.

So we had overall for this particular first quarter nearly 2,000 priority 1 calls for service in 2025. Now that was down 7.2% from 2024. Next. So this just gives you the same type of graph that I have shown earlier. the things that we've we've really been doing to to try and eat at the response time. we have monitored our staffing rates. We have added our slide and supplemental officers. So utilizing our lap salaries that we have, we've utilized that and added more officers to fill in the gaps.

We've been made we've made numerous efforts to divert lower priority calls for service from our frontline officers. So, we are really pleased with the rate of folks that are filing reports through our PTOC, which is our web-based system of filing reports. we've used our part-time retired officers to handle some of those 911 calls by telephone, so TRU. our mandatory patrol shifts by officers. So, we still have officers in all ranks that are actually still out riding and taking calls., I do want to shout out community safety, Ryan and his team., they I mean they are right in the mix with us, really helping us out with some of those calls that would have that they take that would have actually been an officer would have had to respond to, which helps us get to those priority calls a little quicker.

And then coming soon and we will you'll have further information on that our CI civilian traffic investigator program in a little bit in 2025. So looking forward to that. So let's look at our staffing. So as of January 1 to March 31, we were 72% staffed. we we have just graduated an academy, our basic law enforcement academy number 60 on March 14th. But I do want you to note this. Right now we are at 78% staffed and we are seeing biggermies.

We are seeing less folks leave the agency. We have retirements that are coming up. So, you know, we certainly don't want to keep people from retiring, but we'd love for them to stay longer. But we we are now seeing the the rate of officers that were leaving to go to other departments really that has slowed tremendously., we are seeing officers coming back from other departments and coming back to the Durham Police Department in in numbers. Yeah, we are 78% staff. So that's 388 positions filled out of 533. Yes. So our nonsworn or our record staff, all of our nonsworn folks that keep us going they are 87% staffed. we it was 88% and we're currently at 87% staffed. We have had some folks retire, but we do we are actively filling positions as we speak.

So you said we're now at 78% staffing. Yes. What were we a year ago? You recall? You know, I think we had gotten down as low as 71% 72% roundabout. Thank you. All right, let's talk about our recruiting initiative. But we continue with our 30 by30 really bringing women into the profession and obviously our goal is to increase the percentage in the number of women in our law enforcement ranks by to 30% by the year 2030 which is gosh it's quickly coming upon us. so 16% 16.6% 6% of our sworn officers are female and that is still above the national average.

And as you see we we represent well within our not just our officer ranks but with within our ranking officers as well. POPAT we are you know we we have taken our police officers physical agility testing on the road. recently we've been doing some u POPAT testing at NCCU. you see here displayed is UNCC Wilmington. The students love it. They get in they get into it. They make it they compete and make it a competition. and from that we either u we gain applicants folks that are interested as well as we've got some interns that we're looking forward to bringing on board with us that hope to transition over. our lateral officers we are seeing officers with that bring to the agency either experience from the Durham Police Department where they left and came back or experience from other agencies.

And then we have partnered with with LA and we are doing a marketing campaign specifically to target not just lateral officers but also it helps us with our Spanish language recruitment radio campaign with LA radio. LA broadcasts across more than 50 counties in North Carolina. So Elen to Kinston if y'all know where all those are. as well as southern Virginia. So, we're we're everywhere and it reaches about 50% of our Hispanic and Latino population in the state of North Carolina. So, I'm very proud of the work that our recruiting unit is doing and has and will continue to do.

So good news is this is we are filling ourmies. Our current academy we started with about 24 we did have one or two from other agencies that we had agreed to to sponsor through through our academy. we have we kept we've tried to keep as much as possible but we always have a rate of folks that decide it's not for them or they are not able to fulfill the states the state's training requirements and so now we have 14 that are currently in the academy they're almost done so we're going to hold on to that 14 currently we have hired 19 for academy 62 which should be begin in August as of this past Tuesday. we've have four more scheduled to join our prehire program. So we hope to I hope that we'll start with more than 23, but I hope we can squeeze in some more. And then finally, I can't you know, I can't say say enough about the work that our public affairs unit does with all of our social media.

Outreach., you know, we'll we'll start to see more stories about our officers and our nonsworn staff as well to include we have an officer that is in his off time. He is pitching for the chili peppers, the glow emojis. So, you might have seen him at the Durham Bulls ballpark in his uniform and and so he is helping us, you know, with with that effort and bringing more folks into the Durham Police Department. You can't be a baseball player, but you can certainly join the Durham Police Department. So, that's it. Thank you so much for your time. Thanks, Madam Chief. Any questions, colleagues?

Thank you for the presentation., it's always very informative and, a lot of information to take in. I just I just wanted to just follow up. There was a speaker earlier who was speaking about survivor care and I was just trying to figure out if there was any connection between connect community safety and wellness and the police department and survivor care. I know that that was implemented over the last year or so. Yes. So what I can say is that our so you know we have victim advocates within the police department and so huge shout out to them. they are an entire team that's embedded with our homicide violent crime unit. They actually go out on the calls. So they they have an on call rotation and then they also provide connection to some of your victim services. So what the gentleman was speaking about, we actually provide that connection., but answering your question, yes, we we look to be able to connect them with because what they do.

Is a lot like what we are referencing with the officer office of violent crime prevention. Yes, if I can add to that, Council Member Freeman. So, as council knows, you directed the community safety department to stand up an office of survivor care this year. They're in the final stages of implementing that. But I've traded messages after the gentleman spoke today with Director Smith. He is going to have one of his staff who has been hired, but they have not launched that program yet go ahead and reach out to them. And the office of survivor care works closely with the police department and the victim advocates. So they don't duplicate each other's efforts, but if they determine that that those are the best resources to address, but that that person is going to be contacted today. Thank you.

Just want to say thanks, Chief Andrews. Appreciate the report and obviously it's always great when the numbers are trending down. That's always good to see. I know I've been on the council a short while, but I know these these numbers can be somewhat cyclical, but it seems like the trends are looking good. I just want to give you a chance to sort of comment on what like what maybe behind these trends what you're seeing or maybe sort of theories kind of what's so I you know so what's working is I think we are well I don't think I know the amount of information sharing that we share and work with other agencies the work that our you know our units are doing you know just with each other so our criminal investigations division and our organized crime division we were really working hard at at identifying, you know, people that are responsible for driving much as much of our violent crime. recently, you know, when we have neighborhoods that.

Are are really hit hard with violent crime, we work to ensure that safety is restored, safety and security are restored for those residents. there was recently an an operation in which I think it was 20 or so guns were were seized you know in a three-day operation. So we're working very hard to be able to address who is causing this violent crime within the community. We're working with our federal partners in order to make sure that if they if they qualify for enhanced charging that we are pursuing that option. And also too, we're having just the conversations with the communities, right? We're letting them know. You can you don't have to tell us who you are.

You can give us the information. You can partner with us. So, and I think that that's helpful. I don't know that there's you I think violent crime for us now is happening a little less in cycles., but I think what you'll start to see is now that our kids are out of school, you might see an increase in vehicle breakins and vehicle thefts, right? Because we've identified that we do have repeat juvenile offenders that are linked towards some of these other groups that are responsible for committing a lot of our non-fatal and fatal gunshots and and violent crime.

So, I appreciate that. Again, you you and your and your whole department have our sincere thanks. So, appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah, go ahead. Hey, thank you for the presentation. I just had a couple of follow-up questions. I heard you say that, when we're talking about the overall shooting incidents that there were gun seizures in 130 incidents and then you said a certain number of guns per incident, but I missed it. Yes, I believe it's one. So the at weight average is 1.35.

1.35. Yes. And is that that trend is is up. We're seeing more victims now. I remember you saying last time and we're seeing more weapons being used by incident. Yes. Okay. Yes. And then the track I know we talked about this last time, but just to revisit it. Sorry, hair stuck in my glasses. Okay. just to revisit it. The guns stolen from vehicles number is hugely increased. we talked about tracking of the stolen guns last time and so still are these numbers just reports of stolen guns or do we have any method of if they're recovered in an incident? Do we have a method of going back and and amending those numbers of stolen weapons? like if they're not reported and and you later find that it was used in a crime that's not related to the person. Correct. So we well so we have to so if it's a stolen gun then that stolen gun is entered into a national database and so if that gun is.

Used in a crime it leaves its own signature mark. Right. So so if we recover that firearm or any firearm we always will test fire that that firearm that's recovered., and we will be able to retrieve that casing to find out, okay, was it stolen?, and that's how we can backtrack if it was if it was stolen and maybe not reported., or or if it was stolen and reported stolen and where it was what crime it was used in.

So, we can we have to have the gun first in order to be able to get the casing off of the the fingerprint, I would say, off of that casing that the gun leaves. Yeah, I saw it when I came, actually. That's right. But so we we do go back because I think I thought last time that we talked about that we only knew stolen guns that were reported. But if we if we find in the fing in the gun fingerprinting or whatever we're calling in the comparison that a weapon is stolen, we're going back and adding that to our our sheer number of stolen weapons. Yes. Correct. Okay. Correct.

And you said and that number is overall weapons stolen is well above 2024 and then we've seen the huge increase of them stolen out of vehicles. Do we know when they are stolen out of vehicles? Do people report where they were storing? Do we know if there's storing issues? I mean obviously they're not locked. Yes, correct. There there are we still have storing issues, right? I mean ultimately we just don't want people to leave them in the cars at all., you know, we have had people that have safes, but the safes aren't bolted down and secured to the vehicle., we've had people that just leave them in cars and just tuck them under the seat., we've seen trucks that are targeted, specifically because they, you know, there's this thought that people that drive trucks are going to be carrying, you know, I don't know, big firearms, right? And so there could be nothing in the truck, but the window gets broken just to see what might be inside. So,.

But we do we we still do find, a number of firearms that just the the owners are not securing them at all. Okay. Okay., I think those are my questions. Thanks. Thank you for the presentation. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Chief, for being here and for your presentation. always reminded that behind each each and every one of these numbers is is a person who who's gone through something terrible, maybe one of the most painful moments in their lives and something something to always keep in mind.

Even when certain numbers are are trending down which which many cities Baltimore famously have have been seeing over the past year or two. So, I had two follow-up questions and and first of all, congratulations as well on the on the homicide clearance rate., that's really fantastic work by you and all of your officers. Two questions. One, you know, you mentioned some of the officers are coming back to Durham after having left. Have you had a chance to talk with them and ask them why? I mean, is it the salary? Yes. So, it's it's a combination of things. It's realizing that the grass isn't greener on the other side. it's, you know, not there isn't that feeling that they had when they were at the Durham Police Department. I've because what'll happen is when an officer wants to return, they specifically have to they'll send me an email and request to be able to reapply. and in their reapplication or their request, they often say, you know, there wasn't there's no opportunities.

You know the salary will come back you know because we can we can still manage the salary. There are some officers that return from agencies that are making a little less than we are that return for that reason but mostly it is that combined with this with the salaries combined with the opportunities and just the ability to learn more. Thank you for that. Yes. my second question is the immigrant community. I'm curious about how the relationship between Durham Police and the immigrant community has changed over the past year and if there are any actions that the Durham Police Department has been taking to to improve relationships with the immigrant community. Not not improve because of bad relationships built by the Durham Police Department, but because of the narrative that's been taking place at the federal level. Yes, of course. So I think that communication is key. I think that you know when we have meetings like the meeting that we had together is is certainly an opportunity to have those conversations.

Our our our community engagement, you know, through through all of our officers, but specifically our our Hispanic and Latino officers because they they also they're not always on duty, right? they have been some of our biggest, you know, message messengers for the Durham Police Department stance on, you know, immigration as well as the city of Durham, right? And so that's been huge for us. Plus also making sure that we are very purposeful in including in our messaging that also simultaneous messaging for our Latino community as well and being open to meet, right? So there's never my officers or I've never been too busy to meet, right? Because that is a legitimate concern with with our community.

Thank you so much. Thank you for your work. Thank you. That actually reminded me that I had one more thing that I think I missed. at the very beginning when you were talking about violent crimes, you were talking about crimes that had at least one Latinx victim. Can you say that statistic again? Yes, me two shakes and let me see here. So it was our robberies so yes so we were 32%. That is what I wrote down. Okay. Yeah. That's extreme given the population.

Do we have any any thoughts around are folks being targeted in specific communities like Yes. Yes, for sure being targeted. So, the robbery trends that we have seen, which we've made arrests in all of those, what we have seen is our Hispanic and Latin Lat Latinx communities some of them have been followed from, you know, where they cash their checks. you know, that they know the folks that are doing it have followed them, watched them. They know they're carrying a large amount of money. and and so that makes them unfortunately a a target for a robbery. and and there have been times where it's been more than one victim within that same incident that have been robbed. And so when we identify those trends, we immediately make sure that we are communicating that information to our partners in the Hispanic community., I think that's first getting that information out.

We've tried to be very careful about what we say because we don't want to further shine that light on them, right? But we've also been very understanding and and really do understand that there is still this distrust in keeping your money and where you're keeping your money and banking and all of those things., and we've we've been we've wanted to understand that. So, it's been a constant message. Yeah. that's a complicated issue. It is what that's I'm assuming an increase in what we've seen in the past. Is it a significant increase? Is it just an overall upward trend? What does that look like? No. So what what will happen is we'll have this cluster of trends that will happen very quickly. and it will drive up the the number that you see here. once that once those those individuals are captured are identified, captured, arrested, then you'll see that trend go back down. but it happens in such a very sudden manner and it's generally several incidents that.

That may happen within a period of a week or two weeks and it drives when we're specifically looking at that group it will drive it'll drive those numbers up for them. Okay. And that's what we've seen with this one was there were several incidents close together. Correct. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. obviously this is something that you know still rings personal. and I'm not sure we'll mostly all be on the same page ever on this. Do you know off the top of your head whether there was like a big shooting on Tuesday night around 8 8:30 p.m. in McDougala Terrace that resulted about 20 or 30 shots? I didn't sit in to watch.

Report. That's because no one called 911. Yeah. And we didn't get a report. But some neighbors called me., and they didn't call 911 and I asked them to, but they didn't. I I I just feel like, you know, I think folks feel like they're not being listened to. And we are not the council. We're not on the same page when it comes to Shot Spotter. We had a lot of advocates come in here and say no to Shot Spotter, but I know for a fact that it provided a tool. It was just a tool in the toolbox.

And Shot Spotter would have alerted alerted you guys. I and I'm looking at other technologies. I'm looking at other resources. Yesterday at the mayor's violent crime reduction round table, we had Cities United respond because I want us to take this issue just as serious as we take the other issues, if not more so. my phone blew up yesterday because we had two tree crisis. I wish we had the same concern over this gun violence like we did the trees.

I don't know what it's going to take. You know it I do know that it's going to take us a holistic systematic response. so that means the school board, the Board of County Commissioners, the sheriff's office, the DA's office, the courts, the defense attorney, everyone is going to have to play a part. But we literally had 20 shots or more fired the other night and no one called 911. Why should they? And where are the advocates? Where are the activists? So I I for the life of me, I never understand that. You just stated that there are some things that you all you had happen. You now got to go and backtrack and do extra work to find out where the shot happened, where the crime happened. I don't understand why this is not personal to everyone. and and we just won't be on the same page on that.

And when I say we, I'm talking about anyone that's just not prioritizing this as it should be., and and that is it just extremely frustrating because there are folks that are actually living in these neighborhoods that are calling saying, "Why do I have to live like this?" You know, we have a response for everything else. We have a response for everything else, but we don't for this. this is just another report that's just going to go in and go out and you'll go home and we'll go home and on to the next day. So for me, this is a crisis. For me, this is a state of an emergency., but I'm just me. So I I I do take this personally. I don't really care how anybody feel about that.

But this is it's shouldn't happen. These are young kids. As a matter of fact, they're mostly young black kids that are dying and that are killing each other. But DMA is dope. But in this is not, you know, and I I don't know what it's going to take, you know. But kudos to everything else., I wanted to ask you on another topic. Oh, by the way, for everybody that came in saying Chicago does, Chicago, they actually have an RFP out to bring Shot Spotter back right now., so be I wanted to ask you about the on another topic.

We had a resident earlier talk about box trucks. have y'all been able to really respond to that? Yes, we have responded to it several times. we have pulled officers to make sure that they are patrolling that community and issuing the the parking tickets where where it's appropriate for these box trucks. we had we put a a so before we can tow a vehicle. So if the vehicle is is out of registration or it's not properly registered, which one of those trucks were, it was not properly registered, we have to put a hey, we're going to tow a pre-to notice, right? We have to give that owner ample time to even bring that vehicle up to standard or remove it from the street.

And so officers did that. when they came back to see about that vehicle, it had been moved from the street and so but they continued to issue the the tickets to the other box trucks that were there. So we have we have addressed and addressed and we will continue to do that. we will continue to provide whatever reports that we need to you know we're we're doing everything that we can within our our legal realm. This is probably a question for the the manager., so is there a business being run over there? How do we know if there's a business being run in the residential? Is that I don't have that information. I I would add to the chief's response. staff enforcement staff from the planning department has have also been going out because it is essentially a violation of of their code enforcement responsibilities as well.

So, but as the chief noted, the you know, the ticketing is the extent of the authority that the city has unless the vehicles are illegal in some other way because we're they are not supposed to be parked there, but that does not give us the authority to tow them unless they're unregistered. So, okay, we'll continue to work on it. It's been a a team effort between several departments. NIS was mentioned earlier. We certainly understand and concur with the frustration of the residents. So, I'll just assure the council that it will remain a high staff priority to use all the tools we have and certainly if you have questions or ideas about methods we haven't used yet. We we welcome that feedback. Okay.

Just a reminder to I know I've been making sure to send those to the residents for them to report it to Durham one call and to the non-emergency police number 919-5604600. the more that we have on file to say that that's happening, what street it's on, the better the response can be. And do you know we've spoken to the owner of the trucks to find out what's going on there? I do know that there have been attempts to speak. I can't confirm if they were successful. I do know that that they there there was doornocking. I don't know if that was police or planning, but I did see that in a report that there there's been an attempt for sure to to contact them.

And based on what I've been reported that they are aware that they can't be parked there. and of course the the fines will continue to accumulate. So it it there will be pain until there is compliance. Thank you. I want to go back to another thing real quick. I appreciate the report. Where is in regards of the gun violence, the homicides, is there are there specific areas where majority or higher concentration is happening in the city? I can provide that information to you. I can provide it in a follow-up. And if you'd like, we can actually we can start to maybe include that in the quarterly.

Absolutely. Maybe a heat map of some sort. That would that be helpful? Okay, we can do that. Very helpful. I I I'm asking a question I know the answer to. But I would like that I would like that data for you. Take that data so I can just put it out. I think people will see some glaring parallels, right? Yes, ma'am. thank you. I do appreciate the mayor always staying on that shot spotter point., just want to make sure that I add to that the context of making sure we're not focused on the after effects and really just really just hoping you know acknowledging that this decrease is not just because of police. It has actually been the work happening with community members and there are a lot of things that are happening unspoken and spoken that I hope continue in the background.

I know that our city manager's office supports many different initiatives and programs and our can county manager al also as well. Outside of just the things that end up as line items in our budgets, there are lots of programs that need support and I hope that we'll continue to support them and doing the work that they're doing on the ground in our community because it's all beneficial. Thank you. Thank you. There's not enough men though. Go ahead. It's not enough. Not enough.

Yeah, I I I I think it's this is now, you know, abs absolutely one of the most important things for us to be working on is addressing the reason why young people are dying in our city, which is guns and car crashes, the two biggest killers of of young people in our city. And I think we need we need that comprehensive I mean there is so much work that's going on and we need that comprehensive vision and approach., Council K, I remember you mentioning the vision zero for for gun deaths and u I know Mayor Williams you you mentioned that as well and and others and I think I think we need we need to continue talking about something like that. continue working with the police department, community safety and all of the other actors that are doing the work before crime happens.

Violent crime happens. because it is absolutely one of the most important things that we can possibly be working on. Thank you. We responded in one of them. One of one of them we're not. But I I appreciate it. But we can Do you have another point? Go ahead. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I just add on to the to this conversation with the fact that we we have a lot of tools at our disposal to decrease crime. And I remember at my very first crime report asking the chief, you know, what what do you think would actually decrease crime?

And and we talked about programming for kids. And another huge trigger and I I think that this heat map idea would be super great information to have because another huge trigger is is homelessness and poverty. And what I think that we're going to see is that folks who are housing insecure are in these areas that are facing the most gun violence. and you know, Mr. Mr. Mayor, you said that there was we have answers to all of the things, but another huge thing and actually the number one concern for our residents year after year is housing and affordable housing specifically, and we do not have answers for that one., so I yeah, I mean this is something that I feel like we a lot of us are really really passionate about, myself included., and that like my colleagues have said that the answer to me is is pree is preventative work. I think that Chief Andrews like myself doing eviction work like we would rather our jobs did not look like what they.

Look like. I would love to be doing something else rather than defending evictions all day long because I would like for our courouses not to be filled with people facing eviction. And I would imagine, and I'm not going to speak for you, but I would guess that Chief Andrews would like for her job to look differently as well. We don't want to be responding to gun violence. We want to be we want to be assisting the community. We want to be like doing parades and having celebrations. We don't want to be responding to shootings. That's not what I imagine our police officers want to do either., so yeah, I mean when we're talking about we bring Shot Spotter up again and again and and to me it's it's a tired conversation because it is a reactionary tool and if we want to put that money into something that's preventative, I really want to see that happen., and I want to see things that are actually bringing results that are actually.

Making the population safer., and one of those things, one of the biggest indicators is housing. So, I'm going to be pushing for that a lot this year. Do what? Yeah, summer camps. Yeah, like programming for kids, having folks. I think there was a speaker that came to talk about the population of young black boys in this community who will not be financially secure before the age of 25. And if we are going to not allow them to have opportunities, then then we're condemning them to live in this state of violence. So, yeah, just just want to add my voice and say that this is a concern that I think is top of mind for many of us and certainly for myself and working on it from pulling thread in in many different directions is is the goal here. So, thank you very much.

All right. Well, I'm I'm done talking about it as well. on June 3, I'm just showing you what I'm doing. As I stated in the last meeting, there are 15 youth organizations where we'll be giving out money to. We'll be giving out two $50,000 awards. we'll be giving out three we'll be giving out three 25 $50,000 awards. two $25,000 awards, three $20,000 awards, six $10,000 awards. I was motivated to do this because we're just not on the same page. We're responding to one issue that's killing people. we're not responding to the other. In the real world, people are dying and the police do have to do investigations. We have to know where the things are happening so that we can backtrack. That is a reality. I want to prevent things as well. That's why I'm doing this. But we took action to take away tools and things are still happening. We have not taken a lot of action before. We can talk around it all we want. It's just not happening.

There's something we're responding to and there's something we're not. and there I'm grateful for the organizations that are doing the work. it it's interesting we never really name those. But I am going to name them when we give this money out and this is private private money with these nonprofits. we'll keep on doing that type of work. But I'm going to stand firm on this until we have a firm response to gun violence in this city. And interestingly enough, you know, we have zoning cases that come through. We're providing housing. We need housing at every type and I think our actions are going to speak for themselves. So, but Madam Chief, thank you so much. We'll move on. Next up is the finance report.

Good afternoon, Tim Flor, city chief financial officer. Thank you, Mayor Williams, city council members, city manager Ferguson for allowing me to give you an update on our third quarter financial report. for those who are very observant, you'll notice that I say third quarter financial report as opposed to Chief Andrews who said the first quarter financial report. We are talking about the same period which is through May 31st. hers is on a calendar year. March 31st. Thank you. March 31st. hers is on a calendar year. Ours is on a fiscal year. So and I also appreciate the opportunity to allow me to speak on one of my favorite topics. So with that we are going to go over the third quarter financial report. So just as a heads up that report is on the website. So this is just a summary of that report.

The report is about I think this go around we're around 80 90 pages of financial information and it can be found on the website. So it is on the agenda link but after the presentation it will also be in an archive link with all the other quarterly reports. And so just for our residents this is a good report for a budget actual information, a debt update, information on our investment portfolio claims and contract information. there's a very lengthy report on our capital improvement projects showing progress on those as well as some required reporting information on general services real estate transactions as well as we've included just a brief now update on the America Rescue Plan Act just so you have that information.

So, we're going to start with the information on debt general obligation bond update. And so, as city manager Ferguson had pointed out in Monday's meeting, we did get affirmation of our AAA credit rating from all three credit agencies. So, that is something we are very excited about it. one of the reasons why the financial report is a little bit longer this quarter than last is we did include all three of those credit agency reports in that update. just so you and our residents can really see what we are being evaluated on. This is not just something that is once and done is a very extensive review every time we issue debt. And so one of the things I would like to point out is that yes, in in addition to having our AAA credit rating affirmed, there's really a very important piece of that credit rating that I also would like to point out on all three of those reports. it's the qualifier is also the outlook is.

Stable and so that is something you also want to look at and I I only highlight that is because if you have been watching the news recently you will real you would have seen that the federal government Moody's downgraded got downgraded from a AAA to a double A1 which is still let me say a very outstanding credit rating can you also say that Durham's AAA credit rating is better than the United States can you say that on the record so with with the downgrade by Moody's That means all three of those credit rating agencies that have rated us as a AAA organization has downgraded the federal government down. So that I think has been going on since like 2022. So but yes, our credit rating is for the general obligation bonds is higher than the federal government rating. And so and this was all part of the general general obligation bond referendum that we had back in November. So, the the voters approved, as you all know, the $200 million for our parks and.

Roads and sidewalks. And so, as you also know, it was approved in November. We went to January where we actually budgeted for all of those projects. And so, then here just recently in May, we have gone out for the first trunch of that $200 million, which was $100 million. And so, Council Member Cook, as I mentioned earlier with the housing bonds, we waited a number of years before we went to that debt., because really of the the new branding of our our new program, the Connect Durham, bond program that we've got, we really thought it was, more wise to, sort of match the revenues with expenses. And so, that is why we we've, gone out sooner rather than later for this, this tunch of funds.

And so $100 million., as you all know, the market has been a little crazy if yo-yo could be a verb. It was yo-yoing there., but ultimately as it worked out, we had a very good bond sale. We had very competitive with with 10 biders. And so we got a true interest cost. And so in the hundreds of pages of bond documentation that I get right after a sale, I'm always going to like page I don't know 19 where where it is is what was the interest rate that we got on that debt. And so that is the TIC which is the true interest cost. And so for that issuance and that and so that's the all-in cost. That's our debt issuance cost. That's that's all the work of the lawyers and all of the the other folks once you add that in and what that true interest cost is. And so our interest rate was 3 813% which was very good. I was hoping for it to be.

A little bit lower but back in November the market was a little bit more stable. but 3.813 was is an excellent sale that we had on that. And so, what I would also like to point out is when we were going through that, the marketing, so to speak, of the the the referendum, what the rate that we had to use by state requirement was 5.34%. And so, that's a pretty big difference. 5.34% be, is what we were saying telling our residents, the interest rate, could be, and in fact, we got it at 3.813%.

And so just for comparison, so our debt service, cost at the end of that for that $100 million is going to be $138.3 million. So the $100 million of principal, $ 38.3 million of interest had we h sold it at the 5.34% rate that we would be looking at $156 million. So in essence, this is the value of the AAA credit rating is we in essence in this issuance saved our residents about $18 million over the 20 the life of of that. So we go to closing on that bond sale next Tuesday. So we're very excited about that. and so I appreciate the efforts of all of those involved in that process to get through that sale.

There is a lot of work. This is not just like getting a car loan. There's a lot more involved to it and lots of other people involved. And so we'll be glad to to to do the closing on that. So next I would just sort of like to give you an update on our investments. And so this I wanted to sort of point out again because on one side we're paying debt. On the other side we we have investment we have an investment portfolio. And so I I did want to sort of point out there on the right in the middle of the graph it shows what our investment portfolio was as of March.

$718 million. So that is a lot. That's a big number. But what I also want to point out is that is probably as high as you're ever going to see it over the course of year because the property tax revenues are coming in in December. and so this is the highest time of year. And so what you what we will see with our cash flow is that between now and the end of summer that number keeps ticking down. And so, there towards the end of summer, I don't want to say we're sucking air, but, it is, it it it gets a little bit tighter on the funding. And so, while we have, those funds in our, hands, we want to make sure that we are getting absolutely the best investment that we can. And so, the chart on the left really is just sort of a chart that shows you we are the red line. And if you look over since July of 2013 we are getting interest rates now on our return on.

Investment somewhere around 4% which is again I like to point out higher than the interest that we are paying on our debt service. So next just briefly the American Rescue Plan Act again just a very high level overview we were awarded $51.8 million from the federal government for our ARPA programming. So, as of the end of March, we have expended to $23.4 million of those funds. all those funds were appropriately appropriated at the end of December of 2024. We now have until December of 2026 to spend those funds and so I think things are moving along nicely on that.

I will also add that this number does not include the city as the subreient of additional county funds. This is just the the the funds that we received directly from the federal government. So we have a total of I think 30 projects. I think it was like 34 contracts u multiple contracts on a couple of the projects but we have five projects completed and so there are still 25 projects that are in process. If I could just add I I really appreciate the links that you've made available in the presentation that tie right back to the website. Okay. So thank you. Okay. Thank you. So, thank you, Julia, who it is so nice having someone who can work on a lot of that stuff and do that for me. So, jumping into the general fund, this is the actuals through Q3. And so, really what I'm just trying to show here is the the line graph is the actual approved budget. and just really want to show you that over the years, we're.

Trending right where we need to be trending. three quarters in. Expenditures are $221 million and revenues are $231 million. But again, nothing jumps out as weird or unusual that we that that we have concerns about. so for year, so now quick Mr. Are you predicting a small surplus that looks like that's trending towards some surplus, right? When usually Well, no. No, that's that. No, and we're gonna get to it in a perspective. I would like to I would like to tell you that. so really here so when we look at the the projection side of it and again this is sort of a combined effort between the finance team and I I I meant to give kudos to budget management services earlier because they do a lot of work. We work in tandem and collaboration trying to get to these year-end projections and so a lot of work has gone a lot of work and staff time has gone into these projections.

And so what we're looking at for the year-end expenditures are projected to be about $8.3 million less than budget, which is good. unfortunately, revenues are also projected to be $2.1 million less than what we budgeted. So we're we're monitoring that. That's mostly related to the sales tax. Not a surprise there. and so our overall budget variance is a positive, which is $6.2 million. But really what I want to point out in this is that we used appropriated fund balance or reserves in order to balance the budget.

And so basically how we are going to get through the end of the year is we will we are anticipating at this time to use about 16 $15.6 million worth of reserves. So not really what I would call a surplus. We are actually going to be using reserves. It's not typical that we use that much and it's it's not concerning at this point. But what really what I want to say is while we are still above that 16.7% threshold of of expenditures that we want what it is just saying is that we are you know not having all of some of these extra funds that we have seen in prior years because of the the growth in sales tax and so things are getting a little bit tighter and so we are we are making sure that we are watching things a little bit more closely. Can you just tell us what normally we would be using in reserves because it's weird to see that we have a positive variance and then we are.

Additionally using more than we so so what happens is when basically what what we what we did to balance the budget is we use reserves to balance our budget and so basically those reserves are just sort of what was considered unassigned fund balance and so it's just it's it's it's fund balance from a prior year that has not been really assigned but it it's typical for us to use appropriated fund unbalance to balance the budget. Usually though, as as we've seen in a few prior years when sales tax was really hot is we were getting lots of surplus and so we were building up bigger reserves. And so we had a pretty big a good reserve.

We're just now we're just using those reserves. and so not necessarily a bad thing. as long as those reserves stay above the the the ratios that we we need them to and and that's exactly what they're doing. So, this is just the projected year-end expenditures. So, we're looking at expending over $311 million at year end. And I'll just point out, you know, 75% of that is to cover personnel cost. And when you look at the general fund as compared to like our enterprise funds, you're looking it is much more heavy towards our staffing than it is the enterprise witch funds which really represent almost like 25 to 30% of those budgets. and for the year in revenues just go back to that this one that one.

We're looking at 295 almost $296 million of revenues. Again, the two the two big revenue streams are property taxes 52% and then the sales tax at 35%. Going into the revenues for the the general fund revenues. like I mentioned before, we're we're looking to have to come under budget by $2.1 million. a big chunk of that really is the underbudget of $2.7 million for sales tax. We'll talk I'm going to talk about that just in a second. Utility franchise taxes. there's been lots of shifts in that $859,000. But then we've also had, you know, surpluses and or higher revenues coming in for PAL bill and some others.

And so, but the net effect is $2.1 million for property taxes. This just sort of gives you a year-over-year. Just one question about sales tax. So, just again to confirm. So, we're under budget, but we we still have more sales tax revenue total. And I have a slide coming up on Delax. How's that? and so, so with property tax property taxes, again, just showing you the growth year-over-year. So we've we have good growth. Just one of the the things I want to point out is we had a 16% increase in growth, but that is also because that was related to a a property rate tax tax rate increase.

So that's why you're seeing the big jump. So but but in the prior years that is just actual growth. so for sales tax, next slide., again, you can see the year-over-year the growth and you you can see where in 24 we we we had 50.4 million come in. We're projecting now 49.3. There is a there is a a slowing down of the the the the sales tax leveling off. But I want to point out that, you know, this year we're looking at $2.7 million less. The prior year we had $2 million more. What I will also say in that is there is some there at the year end there were a couple quarters where the department of revenue was doing some wonky things with us and so they were having negative refunds and so so I don't necessarily at this point equate the the prior year $2 million over and the current year $2.7 million it it it's somewhere in between there because of the way the department of revenue issued and issued.

The the payments and the way then they they took it and then they they gave it and they took it back and and so there was some wonkiness there at year end that I think also has to play with that and I do know that we're going to cover sales tax I I believe at the the budget work session. So is it fair to say that like right now in this current environment sales taxes are kind of flat essentially? Yes. Yes. Very much very much so. and and we see that across the board. all of my peers.

Those are those are one of the the top items that we we we've been talking about in anytime we get together. Yes. So I just briefly will go over the enterprise funds water and sewer fund. to the keen observer of the financial reports, you will see that in the into Q3 that the water and sewer fund was looking to be have expenditure budgets over $484,000. and we all know that you cannot spend more than you have budgeted. but in this cycle actually that is being taken care of through the the budget cleanup. So they are aware that this is just again a Q3 number. and so we're looking good there. All all is all is well there. So, transit fund, overall a negative budget variance of $1.3 million. Again, I think this I think some of the fixes in that is in this budget cleanup for this in this cycle. So, not a big story there. Solid waste overall budget variance is a negative $1.7 million. So it so I will say there.

Lots of negative budget variances in that. So things are I mean I I think we're seeing things sort of cool off in all areas and all of the issues that that we are have been keeping an eye on I believe through this next year's budget are being addressed. And so again no concerns on our part but the 1.7 million dollars from solid waste will be covered out of cash reserves. But I will also say that that fund that will pretty much tap out the cash reserves that we have in in solid waste storm water fund. they anticipate using $4.6 million of fund balance, but that is not unusual.

That is something that is always planned for that works towards capital projects. what I will say is historically we do not fund we have not been funding any of their c major capital projects with debt. what I will also say is that they have been working on a new rate model. and as that program continues to grow I would anticipate probably in the next couple of years that we will begin funding some of those projects through through debt service parking fund again small fund.

It's it's a fund that struggles but it's and and so what I would also say there is they are from a these are smaller numbers but but ultimately we are using reserves and with the parking fund the parking fund really is we're sort of floating them loans from other enterprise funds and so we we certainly are keeping an eye on them really how I'd like to close is just highlight again sort of all of the financial mechanisms that we have. And so there really are three that that I work on two, budget management services works on one. and so what I want to highlight is the fact that and these quarterly reports are all part of one big they're all interrelated. And so we start with the budget. You've been working through that budget process., and there's going to be the budget document that that absolutely comes out is going to tell us what we're going to do. Then we circle back around in finance at the end of of.

Of the year and tell you what you did. And then what ultimately do because the financial reports I will say our financial reports are 200 pages. What we ultimately then try to do is come up with something a little bit more useful to our residents which is what I call the residents financial report. I think it's called a popular annual finance report from the GFOA. But really what I I like this document because for me this is what we use to highlight to our residents their return on investment. You know they're paying property taxes, they're paying user fees and what I like that for them to see is you know in a as brief a document as possible what that return on their investment is in the community. And so we'll go to the next slide I think.

So the comprehensive annual report again audited 200 pages and then this resident report and then I I would have brought in the budget document but I did not have a hand truck available because it is a 400page document very important information in that document and so which is why I think ultimately at the end of the year again I will promote this document it it came out I think in December. We do have copies in the lobby and in key points around the city. And so this is this document is both in printed as well as online. And what I also wanted to highlight was the fact that these three documents are best practices from the government finance officer that we do and they are all three part of their award program. And so the fact that we actually are re receive outstanding awards for that actually we are also designated as a triple crown winner. So, not only are we a triple triple credit rating agency have.

That, we also get the triple crown of awards from the government finance officers for our financial reporting and and I think that is really also one of the key one of the key things that to show our solid financial management that helps in those rating agencies with that. Any questions? It's phenomenal. I'm sorry, what? Yes. still get a physical copy of this of the no of the of the of the full the budget book or I I will need a binder. So we don't we don't normally print physical copies but we can print them on demand if people need them. Yep. I will make sure that you get one. I I will make sure that it's hard to we will we will print them for counsel. I I just want to say to treat people I have nothing to do with this. Right. Go ahead.

I I and I will say this copy sits next to me and I probably open it every day of so I understand the need to have a hard copy in some in in some situations. So yes. Yes. Yeah. my just one side comment which is that the link is taking me to the report from 2024. On the residents financial report that's just Yes. And that is exactly right because that is the 2024 report. This is what we have. We haven't come out with the 2025, right? The 2025 report comes out after the audited financial statement. So you'll get the 2025 in December. December. Yes.

Okay. Yes. Thank you. Okay., I just want to pop back to storm water. Okay. You've said this to me before, but I am unclear about how they're financing these projects, which are huge. So, I was hoping you can give me a little bit of a summary again. Not using debt service, which does feel like a really effective method. My understanding is that there are no storm water projects that we are you that we are debt financing at the time. we've just been funding the the those projects out of out of fund balance out of reserves but we are we are transitioning we are looking at with our rate model we are actually looking at probably in the future going to that I was going to say yeah you will see a transfer in the solid waste fund to the cap to capital so there is a large transfer that happens in the solid waste fund every year and that's storm water sorry I apologize storm water and that is what pays for their.

Capital projects. Okay. I mean I'm just curious about the decision but but it sounds like we are going to look into debt, right? So we've not really needed to. I mean it it yeah the projects have been small enough that we really can fund as we go. but as as we continue to grow and that infrastructure is having everinccreasing needs, we we will ultimately be shifting to to debt funded projects. Okay. And that really is also to keep the rates, you know, keep those rates low and consistent.

Okay. On a on a different topic on a much larger expenditure topic when we're looking at funding for for example our really large one the Jordan Lake one in the CIP can you talk about where that funding is coming from? So the Western Intake Partnership Project the the big one. Yes. Yes. So so that funding comes from revenue bonds. So, we fund that through it's a different it's a it's a it's a different debt mechanism, but it's similar to everything else we do, but it is paid for by by the the annual fees that or the the monthly fees you pay in your on your water bill. That's paying the debt off. It's part of so the in right so so so the water management fund is an enterprise fund and it is completely supported by user fees and so they've built all of those construction cost into their rate model and that is how we back into the rates that we pay and so so we are the debt service will will be.

Paid through what they call revenue bonds which is we go to the market and it's the same kind of debt okay it's usually a little bit higher interest rate but but that is that is how that project is getting funding. So it it will be funded by several hundred million dollars worth of debt. Okay. But similar in terms of like how the money is structured to other types of absolutely that we issue. Yes. Okay. Now the general obligation bonds you get the best interest rates because that's secured by the the the taxpayer the tax rate., revenue bonds are are still you get a competitive rate but it it's a little bit higher interest rate and it's paid by the rate by user pay. Yes. Okay.

Yes. Okay. Thank you. Helpful. Any other Thanks Mr. Floyd I have two questions. So back to the original conversation, you were talking about u fund balance and using some cash funding some projects and now with the sort of like the idea of we want to market the bonds the connecting Durham that we're sort of like now going quicker to the markets to to to to to debt fund those projects. So I guess my question is if you could just talk more about that about the sort of pros and cons because obviously cash funding in terms of total cost is like less expensive right? Well, so when I say cash fund, what we're doing is we're just using we're just using we're using available cash that we have and then we ultimately we ultimately reimburse ourselves once we actually go out for debt. we actually reim in re reimburse ourselves for so the cash funding that we do now we do I think our policy is we we do payo so.

About 10% of our capital plan is paid as year to year is just cash as a pico. But but when like for the h revenue for the housing bond projects, we were just we had available cash reserves that we thought was back I think probably the interest rates were also we weren't getting enough investment interest on that and so we had available cash that was it was less expensive for us to cash fund it at the time knowing full well that we were going to reimburse ourselves eventually through the bond program. So now so interest are higher. So now like the c our cash is a little more valuable. Right. Exactly.

Okay. Right. Second question was on water and sewer. Yes. So that I just want to make sure I understand. So this is a this is pretty substantial negative budget variance. So just I want to help make sure I understand that. Yeah. And I might need the budget director to help me anything or what's going on. because again this is enterprise fund folks pay for it through their water rates, right? Yeah. I mean I think that they have had several things happen in the fund. There was some they had some hiring going on. So they had some personnel costs that were probably their vacancy rate was a little lower and then I they did have some chemical costs and other things associated with that. That probably is an explanation of that u budget variance.

But not not an overall concern for the fund since it's got a healthy fund balance. And again, I think you mentioned in the coming years, so these are all this is all being addressed in our Yes. And I also with the water and sewer fund, we probably were a little overaggressive with our investment income pro projections. and so they they came in less as well. That that is that plays a part of it. But again, their their fund balance was I mean they've they it is a healthy fund. So thank you.

Well, thank you. When people look at Durham and, you know, think about how we are such a well-run city, it's because of folks like yourself and your team, your teams. so thank you all so much for managing all of these moving parts. All right. Thank you. Well, colleagues, I believe that is it. Mr. Manager, pass it over to you to settle settle this up. this one is quite a doozy. So if anyone wants to listen along and make sure I've got this right and needs to correct me, please let me know. all right. So for settling the agenda I have on consent items 1 through 3, five and six, 9 and 10, 13, 16, 18 and 20 through 34. On GBA I have 4 7 8 11 12 15 19 and 38.

GBA public hearing. It's item 36. Item 14 has been referred back to staff and item 35 has been disposed of by receiving the report. In your in your original consent agenda, did you have 17 on there? I think it needs to be on the consent agenda. Did I I'm sorry. I should I should have said 16 through 18. Did I not say that? I apologize. 16 through 18 is part of the consent agenda. So yes, great. And if that is accepted by council, there was one other announcement I wanted to make after after settling the agenda. So right, I'll enterain a motion to settle the agenda. So move second.

Move probably second. All in favor? I at the risk of upsetting council, but at least making sure you are well informed. We are anticipating a very full agenda at your next work session. a number of critical items are are coming together at the same time. We we do try and manage that wherever possible, but with the forthcoming July break, it was our our determination that bringing these forward at this time is is unavoidable. So I just did want to prefer let you know that in advance. We will do everything possible to be as efficient as we can in that meeting., but I wanted to put that on your radar screen now.

Hi. Be efficient. Yeah. I actually considering that colleagues, if you don't mind, I'd like to reach out to your admins to see if it's possible to start an hour earlier., if that works for the schedule, for the work session. Yeah. Well, so what we'll we'll reach out with some correspondents and see if it works for everyone. If it works for everyone, then we'll we'll do that and work with staff. If it doesn't, then we'll just stay stay on at one.

Is that date the same one that's also potentially for budget hearing? You just have that morning blocked off. Okay. So, we're going to be here starting at 9:00 a.m. any if we need it. If you need it to June June 5th. Yeah. Yes. Right. Most of the time I need it. June 7th. Yeah, that's my anniversary. Are you serious? Oh, so nice. All right, we're going to have she going to share. That's very cute. Look at the council city. Without just making sure to say I I I understand the mayor's passion and I do want to just note that I know we're not doing nothing about gun violence. I know there's a lot of work happening at the at the staff level around it in different ways and shapes and forms and I just want to make sure we don't over you know cast. There is work happening. It may not be enough. I agree on that point but we'll continue to do what we need to do. Thank you. That's all.

Nope. I'm not going to respond. I think it's clear where I stand on it. U all right colleagues. Thank you all so much., we adjourned at 3:49. Take a second. Yeah. Do you mind my office? Yeah. Can you give.