Budget Review Commission - April 7, 2025

Good afternoon. It's 10:05 and we will
now call the budget review commission
uh in order. April 7, 2025 and begin
with a roll call.
Chair Smith, present. Vice Chair
Schwiker, present. Commissioner Carla,
here. Commissioner Newman, here.
Commissioner Ransco here. Commissioner
Sites here. Commissioner Stevens here.
Thank you. All present and accounted
for. At this point, we do remind the
audience that anyone that would like to
uh speak uh and give us their thoughts
can do so by filling out a blue card
over there at the table to my right or
left. And um since I have no cards um
we'll scoot by that part of the program,
but in any future meeting if you wish to
do so, that's the
process. The uh first agenda item for us
this morning is the review and approval
and discussion of the minutes of March
21,
2025. And I see I have a comment from
Commissioner Carla. So proceed. Thank
you. Um the first item is on page one
under public comment. It says Mr. John
Zikius of the Mcdallisorin
Conservancy and you need to add
representing over 600 preserve stewards
as introduced by the
chair. Um the second items are on page
three.
uh the end of the first paragraph that
starts with Mr. Rose explained um
failure to include the expected outyear
costs is an incomplete sentence. I don't
know what goes there, but maybe if staff
can find what makes that a full
sentence, that would be great. Um and
then the third paragraph down
um though he would need to verify the
city's approved budget of 48.4 4 million
was based on well was based on what so
again that's an incomplete sentence
please and I don't know what goes
there and then the final is on page
five second paragraph first sentence
commissioner Carla stated pro
that the prop
420 the 2018
measure authors
ers have publicly explained that they
included a section
specifically to allow for things like
the land bridge. That was the complete
explanation there. And then the second
sentence, but the widening project
apparently is not a high priority for
the transportation
department. is more accurate. Thank you.
Commissioner
Stevens, uh, with respect to
Commissioner Carlo's comment on page
three, I'm just guessing that it says
the approved budget of 48.4 million was
based on something like the city of
Scottsdale portion. I think that's what
that was. But like you said, let them
just see what it says and not because we
don't have to pay 1 to3 billion. Uh I
have two other items. One is on page
um on page eight. The third line from
the bottom uh it has the word respected
and that needs to be
respective. So that just needs to be
respective.
And then the other thing I I I guess I
if I can get I I wish I understood
better the purpose of the minutes
because some of these things are really
kind of not really particularly
communicative but you also don't want to
make them longer than the nine pages you
have. Uh my comment on the page six the
first full paragraph it just says
Commissioner Stevens asked about BKO6
which you don't know what it is. It's
the cactus pool and they just said he
said it was early in the design process.
I went back and listened to the 158 mark
of the tape and my points there actually
were it was supposed to be started and
finished in the next year which seemed
unlikely and he also indicated that it
wasn't even started yet and I noticed
that since then in the revised book it's
been pushed out at least one year. So, I
guess I don't know if staff can educate
me a little bit about to what degree do
we want minutes to
include key items or is this just total
totally subjective or do you just want
to keep them as skinny as possible?
Because I would have preferred that that
said the question was about uh the type
of contract being used and that the
response was that um funds haven't been
spent yet and that I cautioned the staff
that this could be a problematic one in
the future. Is there any guidance that
you can give me or should I just propose
alternative verbiage?
Um, Commissioner Stevens, the the
minutes are there to give a summary of
what occurred at the meeting. And if you
think that uh the summary on the
proposed minutes is unclear, then you
can certainly propose an amendment to
what you have in the packet in front of
you.
Um, okay. Let's just do this. I propose
that we insert a sentence and the third
sentence before it starts, Vice Chair
Schwiker,
uh, because that's the only part I care
the most about. And I propose that the
addition be Commissioner Stevens further
added that this project sounds like one
that could be problematic in the future
and encourage the staff to do what they
believe is needed in developing
estimates for the cost and timing of the
project.
to uh council. Let me ask the question.
Is this in the form of a motion that we
have to uh vote on?
Yes. Uh you can certainly have a
all-encompassing motion to approve the
minutes as uh amended um by Commissioner
Carla and Commissioner Stevens.
I think that's the more common way we do
it, but it will incorporate uh your
thoughts. Uh Commissioner Stevens,
Commissioner
Newman. um a little bit detailed here,
but on the first paragraph at the last
sentence, um it it implies that I
support the wildlife bridge, which we're
not there yet. We're having a thoughtful
discussion on that, but uh I would maybe
that word instead of support should be
engagement of this
item, at least for myself. Carla may be
different.
Let me ask you, Commissioner Newman,
where are you? Um, what section of this
report are you referring to?
First page, first paragraph, public
comment, last sentence. And your your
restatement of that would be what?
The fourth word from the end of the last
sentence. Change from support to
engagement.
I understand engagement on
engagement regarding yeah engage. Do I
have any other comments on the minutes
before we uh approve them or not
approve?
I will then entertain a motion to adopt
the minutes as modified by the three
speakers who addressed them. 5 million.
So move. Thank you, Vice Chair. Uh, do I
have a second? I'll second.
Second. Commissioner Sites seconds the
motion. And now, uh, do your yes, no,
and maybe button to approve the minutes
of March
21 as amended.
Item two is to have a review of the
proposed
2025 26 budget. And Sonia, I think, has
a variety of slides and presentation to
give us at this time.
And by the way, um I think only we'll
have questions only at those points
where she has inserted a discussion or
questions uh slide in the presentation.
Otherwise, let her zip through this and
we'll circle back.
Thank you uh Mr. Chairman and uh
commissioners. I am very pleased to
present the fisc year 2526 proposed
budget to the commission. Um, before I
start, I would really like to recognize
the budget staff, especially Scott and
Analyia and all the budget staff who put
a tremendous amount of work into this
and also all the departments who have
worked with us for the last six months
to put this proposed budget together.
Thank you. Next
slide. Our fiscal year 2526 proposed
budget is 2.207
207 billion consisting of
885.5 million operating budget, 950
um 2 million capital improvements and
370.4 million in contingencies and
reserves. Next
slide. The proposed budget is a 3.8%
decrease from the current year budget of
2.29 29
billion. So you can see the um numbers
that are in the box. That's our proposed
budget and the number in the column to
the right is the change from the
existing um adopted budget. As you can
see our um operating budget current year
is
761.7 million. It is a
16.3% increase consisting primarily of
50 million that we have proposed in the
budget for additional PSPRS pension
payown. That is a one-time operating
expense. We also moved about 12.5
million of costs from capital to
operating primarily the um project
management um department was originally
accounted for in our capital funds. We
have moved that department into our
operating funds. We have also moved
there was um police and fire equipment
and radios that we used to account for
in our capital budget. We have moved all
of those into the operating budget. So
the 12.5 million represents that
transfer. So it's not an increase per se
from a total city standpoint. Is a
transfer from the capital budget to the
operating
budget. The capital uh operating budget
increases related to actual budget
increases is the first line that you see
there. The comparison more apples to
apples would be the
761.7 million this year compared to the
823 million um next year. I have a slide
after this one that will go through the
details of that. So let me finish up
with this slide first. Um capital
improvements is going down from the um
1.68
um billion to 952 million. again the
reclass of expenditures up to the
operating and also um reducing some of
the uh capital budget and our reserves
and contingencies going down by 20% from
464.7 to 370.4 4 million. Again, I will
have a slide detailing the change in
that as
well. Next
slide. So, the operating budget going
from
761.7 million to 823 million. Most of
that is in the new full-time equivalents
that's included in the budget, 98.16 new
FTEES. and each department will speak to
that as well when we hear from each of
the department budgets. Also, you should
have your binder with the um entire
proposed budget um provided to you and
there is a detailed listing on all of
all the uh full-time equivalents by
department division in in that uh budget
packet as well. salary adjustments of
12.5 million that includes market and
merit adjustments. Um
non-personnel there is the new 0.15 park
and preserve tax expenses of 7.9
million.
For fleet acquisitions, we had about
11.9 million of vehicle acquisitions
that we anticipated this year because of
the long vehicle acquisition lead times.
We have to carry forward those um budget
to next year because those um
acquisitions could not be completed this
year. We have a decrease in debt
service. Um this year we finished paying
off um the uh preserve uh debt that is
uh supported by the 02 preserve tax as
that tax sunsets and so next year that
debt service comes off the books. We
also have some increase in tourism
expenses and increase in insurance costs
and a lot of miscellaneous other
increases across all departments. And
that is basically the change from our
761.7 million operating budget to the
823 million and then we add the 12.5
transfer from capital as we spoke
earlier and also the 50 million onetime
PSPs payment to make make up the 885.5
million operating budget this
year. Next slide. Our budget is a
balanced budget, meaning that our
resources equal our expenditures plus
our ending fund balance. We begin this
year's resources with 1.39 billion. We
project revenues of
1.195 billion. So our total sources is
2.588 billion. Our operating and capital
budget, which we just talked about, is
1.8 8 billion leaving us with an ending
fund balance of 751
million. Next
slide. So the change from the uh 1.39
billion of fund balance to the
751 million of fund balance is broken
out by fund as shown on the slide. With
the general fund, we anticipate a draw
down of 79.7 million and that draw down
is due to the 50 million of one-time
PSPRS payment and also 33 million of
transfers of general fund fund balance
to provide for capital improvements. So
33 million transferring to our capital
um improvement funds for capital
projects for the CIP funds that is the
largest draw down in terms of fund
balance that is mostly because of um
delays or projects that haven't been
started yet that were budgeted for in
the current year and we will be uh
carrying over or carrying forward that
fund balance to be used in uh the new
fiscal year and enterprise funds.
There's some draw down of fund balance
as well primarily for capital
improvements. The fleet fund as I
mentioned the uh 21.2 million in
beginning fund balance is because of the
long vehicle lead times and so we were
not able to spend the 12 million that we
anticipated to spend in this fiscal year
or we won't be able to. So we will carry
that forward to be used next fiscal
year. And um so that makes up the change
in that fund
balance. Next
slide. So I wanted to um talk about the
revenue outlook and economic and revenue
outlook and how we projected the
revenues that we projected for our
fiscal year
2526. Next slide. So on the positive
side, the city's population continues to
grow. We anticipate our annual
population growth to be about 1.4%.
4%. Next
slide. Our employment is very strong.
Our 2000 2024 unemployment rate was 2.7%
better than the state average. Our
economy is still very um healthy in
terms of our wealth levels remaining
very strong. Medium household income
continues to grow and is higher than the
state, county, and national averages.
Next slide.
This highlights some new developments
and buildings that will continue to um
help the economic um um development in
our uh community. The just uh you know
um some examples of developments going
on the MAC Innovation Park, the ASM
Semiconductor Headquarters, the Bana
Health Medical Campus and the
park. Next slide. Our tourism industry
remains thriving with our signature
events and we have um more than 11
million visitors a year. So all this
good news should point to um robust uh
revenues for us. Uh we also have a
diverse economy. Next
slide. So this diverse economy shows us
that our sales tax collections and our
tax collections come from a diverse
source. is not concentrated in one or
two
sources. Uh next
slide. And so despite all that um uh
strength in our economy, we do have a uh
decreasing GDP growth in the region.
This is the um latest Bureau of Economic
Analysis released for the uh GDP in the
Phoenix metropolitan statistical area.
It shows that the 2023 GDP growth is
2.9% coming down from a high of 8.9% in
the pandemic. The
2024 real GDP for the nation in Arizona
grew at 2.8% and 2.7% respectively. The
Phoenix MSA is likely to be the same as
well. So despite our strong economy with
population growth, the diverse uh
industries that we have, the thriving
tourism that we have, we are also
looking at uh reduced GDP growth for the
region and for the state. Next
slide. And as you all know, this recent
week, we've had some significant shocks
to the stock market with the um
um you know, what's going on nationally.
But even before that in February the uh
consumer confidence has been trending
downwards and also the leading economic
indicators have also shown some uh
decreasing trend for a third consecutive
month in
February. So putting that all together
next
slide. When we put our revenue
projections together we considered all
of that. We considered our strong
diverse economy, our thriving tourism,
but we also considered the slowing GDP
growth, the uh declining consumer
confidence and economic uncertainty
that's out there. So, we factored all
that into our revenue projections. Um,
we also um want to highlight these
changes to our revenues. The sales tax
rate will be decreasing from
1.75% to
1.7% in fiscal year
2526 mainly because of the sunset of the
2% preserve tax and the
new.15% park and preserve tax that will
be effective July 1 of 2025. We also
factored in the loss of residential
rental sales tax revenues effective
January 1. So this year we saw half a
year of that loss and next year will be
a full year of that loss. So the
residential rental loss is a 16 million
loss revenue loss to the city. So half
of that was realized this year and the
whole 16 million will be in next year.
The
um then we also have state shared
reduction from the implementation of the
flat tax. The implementation of the flak
t tax tax was effective in January of
2023. That means it impacted the state
in fiscal year 2324 and we have a 2-year
lag. So whatever the state collects two
years ago is what we're collecting now.
So the state distributed income tax
receipts to us two years after they
collected. So the impact of the flat tax
will hit us in 2526. So you'll see that
reduction as well. that reduction in our
um projections is about six million
because that reduction would have been
higher if it's not for the strong wage
growth and strong labor
market. We also factored in the rate and
fee increases in our budget. The f rate
and fee increases were presented to
council in March and appro um and will
be approved by council in May. The
larger increases to note are the water
uh rate increases of 4.5% which is
expected to generate revenues of 7.7
million. The sewer rate increase of 6%
which is expected to generate uh
revenues of 4.8 million. Solid waste uh
for residential is 5% and that's
expected to generate 1.7
million. Next slide. So, with all of
that, this is what our um local sales
tax revenue trend look like. This is the
1.7%
um sales tax rate that we charge. As you
can see, I'm sorry, it's kind of small
on the slide. As you can see, we
anticipate to uh collect 309 million of
sales tax revenues this fiscal year. And
we anticipate that will drop to 292.8 8
million for all the reasons that I just
went
through. Next
slide. In this slide, you've already
seen it shows where our sales tax rate
is compared to all the other cities in
the valley. We have one of the lowest
sales tax
rates. Next slide. And the slide shows
the state shared income tax and sales
tax. the blue being the state shared
income tax and the orange being the
state shared sales tax. So as you can
see for the income tax we anticipate
collecting 51.8 million this fiscal year
and because of the flat tax it will drop
to 46 million next year. and the with
the orange bars that is the state shared
sales tax and those are based on the uh
projections from the
state. Next slide. And our other largest
source of tax is our primary property
tax for operations. And as you can see,
our property tax levy is expected to
grow from 30 39.6 million to 40.3
million. Next slide.
And this just shows our combined
property tax rates with the uh primary
property tax rates at the bottom and the
top bars showing the secondary property
tax rates which are used to pay for uh
voter approved bond programs. And
because of the increasing values
increasing not just uh full cash value
or market value but increasing assessed
value um our rate continues to decrease.
And I will pause here for any questions
so far.
Commissioner Carla.
Yes. Thank you so much. It's uh good to
see that it's down
3.8%. Um first I have a couple of
technical things in the budget you gave
us in the table of contents. Um
for you refer to the McDow Mountain
Preserve, the McDow Mountain Preserve
for sections B8. Um and B9 that is the
McDow Sonor and preserve please um to be
correct. And then the second thing is um
on page
B16, I appreciate you changing the date
about the 2004
um preserve tax sun setting. Um however,
the sentence is still incorrect. It
says will sunset June
2027. That should more accurately be
could sunset
2027. Um it's a voter approved tax.
Staff does not have the authority to
sunset it. Um, as a matter of fact, the
sitting council at the time we enacted
it said that the sitting city attorney,
I mean, um, said that council doesn't
have the right to sunset it, that they
can refer it to the voters, but because
it's a voter enacted tax, the voters
have to amend it. So if you are
referring to the debt service will
sunset then if you could clarify that
please because staff and council cannot
sunset that has to have a community
discussion and go to the voters. Um
Carla if I can interrupt you. Appreciate
that. Can I interrupt you for a minute
and let's ask uh council here. Are we
kind of off the agenda here? Um
but she said twice in her presentation
that it sunsets. If I can finish. Okay.
The the slides that we were shown the
documents that we're discussing is for
the
2526 budget. Uh should we be going
into footnotes and out out actions uh on
the um that may be in the in the full
budget that goes for the fiveyear
adoption period.
Do you have an opinion to guide us on
that?
Um, Chair Smith, I I do think it's
appropriate for these types of comments,
but certainly we're going to be
providing additional information to
council, but but these types of notes as
the budget is presented, um, certainly
staff can look at that and make a
decision about that as it moves forward.
I I appreciate that because it is in the
budget that has gone out to the public
and it is inaccurate statement. So
that's why I bring it up and I
appreciate that it it is appropriate.
And Commissioner Carla, my only advice
would be if you're going to talk from a
document that has not yet been presented
for our discussion here, just annotate
what you're what you're referring to.
Okay. I I understand that. I thought
this was a public document as of Friday.
I think it uh staff can correct me. I
think it has been posted, but it has not
been presented to council and it's not I
mean it's it's the posted budget on the
website. Um it just didn't happen to be
what we were presented with here today
to discuss, but
keep going.
So, um Mr. Chairman, Commissioners,
Commissioner Carla, this um proposed
budget has been provided to the city
council and the budget review commission
and is also posted online and we will
make those changes. Thank you very much.
Thank you for catching that.
Commissioner Carla, did you have other
items?
Commissioner Stevens. Uh yes, a couple
of things. Um with respect to slide
three, can you can we put slide three up
there again, please? I this is for uh
the benefit of the the uh my fellow
commissioners on this. On slide three,
just want to call to your attention. It
does show that there's a 3.8% decrease
in the budget, but understand that that
includes that's largely made up of
capital and reserve items going down. A
lot of people sometimes just focus on
the operating line as the nut line
that's pretty important for how you
manage a city. Uh I do agree with the
discreet items being pulled out and
thank you for breaking those out. Uh but
I I just want to highlight that 8%'s the
increase in the operating budget. Uh
which is about 62 million. Uh through
January, I believe the general fund was
running favorable by 12 million. So you
actually had a head start. So operating
expenses right now are going to go up by
about $74 million beyond what we're
tracking at right now. Now we're going
to hear good reasons for why they are. I
just wanted to make sure everyone kind
of just was aware of that. And then can
you go to slide six for me? Uh slide
six. I I thank you for putting this
slide together. This slide again to my
fellow commissioners. This to me was
very important because what fund balance
is fund balance is the accumulated
summary of past excesses that you've de
developed that you can then use to a
certain degree for future purposes. Uh
uh we've been told treasures told us
that certain amounts need to be there
for bond rating purposes etc. But what I
just want to call to your attention here
is the general fund reserves are are you
have a lot some flexibility on those.
Those did go down by about $80 million
in this current budget. 50 of that is
advanced funding of the police punchin
and the other parts capital. So that's
that's kind of at least you understood.
And then CIP can really vary
significantly because we underspent this
fiscal year. We're thinking we might
catch up next year and that's why that's
there. I just think this is an important
slide because we're going from a million
uh 1.4 4 billion down to 751 million in
overall fund balance reserves which is
all the stuff that you have for
different rainy days. So I just want to
call that to your attention because I'm
still not sure what our charge is as a
commission. I've heard things about uh
certain reductions being desired by some
of our elected officials and I still not
sure exactly what our charge is. So I
just want to highlight that as we go
into the discussions of the various
departments.
And uh and then also I want to share the
revenue numbers. I didn't really have
any questions on uh treasures providing
me some information how they do that and
a lot of those numbers are pretty firm
because of the way the mechanics work of
state sharing and some of the property
tax numbers and the others are tough
estimates but I I do take my hat off to
city personnel because in looking at the
last couple of years budgets they do a
pretty darn good job of being uh
appropriately conservative in coming up
with their estimates. So I personally uh
don't have any discomfort in general
with the revenue numbers to the extent
we we have knowledge. I feel like I'm
drinking from a fire hose on this on
this commission though. So thank
you. Thank you. I
um will add to your comments I think on
page five. I mean it when it's talking
about uh projected revenues of a billion
two and projected operating and capital
budget of a
billion8 this is only possible by
drawing down beginning fund balances. It
is um on an ongoing basis that kind of a
distortion between revenues and spending
is not a sustainable
um is not a sustainable budget. And
you'll hear that word sustainable
probably from myself and fellow
commissioners uh as we march through
several parts of this budget. But um we
want to be sure that we are ultimately
recommending to the council something
that is a sustainable budget on a
long-term basis and is not a a
liquidation of prior
year
resources. That was a comment not a
question. The question though that I
have um and I
is I'm going to refer to page
four.
Um except
I this is talking about the increases in
the operating budget. Um in a particular
line two the salary adjustments uh
um salary adjustments fully loaded. Is
that for only the new people that we're
talking about hiring here or is that
overall in the entire city salary
adjustments? That is the entire city.
And so what gives rise to
that $12.5 million is
that this um I forget what name we have
for it. the comp comp and
um there's some kind of a citywide
survey there, countywide survey that we
periodically do and it has a name for it
when we go around and check with the
other cities to see what they pay
for a receptionist or whatever. Mr.
Chair, I'm happy to assist there. Um
good afternoon to you. So, I believe you
are referencing the class and
compensation analysis that was completed
about a year ago. Uh so that's what
you're thinking of. Uh this includes
compensation increases as referenced. So
we have merit what we call merit and
then market adjustments. Also there's
some first responder dollars in there
and then also uh as part of a new
initiative that we can get into greater
detail if needed. I call it experience
pay is a working title that we have when
we have uh staff members that are topped
out. So including some type of
compensation in that regard that
includes uh the total of the salary
adjustments general
categorization and I think um I was
having a bit of difficulty figuring out
how much in our total budget was
attributable to
um existing personnel versus new
personnel both in terms of the fully
loaded cost and sometimes s the
insurance is shown separately and maybe
that's also a fully loaded cost
for personnel. I I think bottom line and
maybe I'm just missing it here. If you
could direct me to where we talk about
what was the existing body of personnel
in this budget year going to
cost and what will that same body of
personnel cost in the following year.
leaving aside increases that may be
justified for one reason or another in
personnel and
FTEEs. But I'm I'm really curious to
know with the existing body of
FTEES, how much more will that cost us
next year in terms of salary increases,
cost of living adjustments, class and
comp studies, increases in
insurance, whatever goes into the
equation. Do we am I is that number here
somewhere and I'm missing it? I have a
slide in my operating expense section
that will cover that.
You're saying it will be coming. Okay.
I'll wait till then. Commissioner
Stevens, just one more thing for um uh
city staff to look at. I'm trying to get
my head around everything and I believe
you believe structural balance is
extremely important and I think you
strive to achieve that and as I'm
getting these numbers together I notice
revenue somewhat flat but expenses are
going way up. I think that uh part of
that's because you had a lot of uh
surplus in last year that was to be used
for construction projects. But maybe
something to think about at a future
meeting would just be a quick slide that
would show us how even though your
expenses are going up by um the 60 you
know 60 million plus the 50 or whatever
that you still are only doing drawdowns
in such a fashion therefore onetime
expenses. So your balance is in fact
your your budget is in fact structurally
balanced which I think it is.
Okay. Yes. Uh, thank you, Commissioner
Stevens. You can see that in the uh
five-year plans that are included in the
proposed budget, if you look at each
fund, the five-year plans will show you
whether our each fund is structurally
balanced. So, for example, the general
fund, if you have your um proposed
budget binders with
you, that would be on page
B13. B as in boy 13. That's where I'm
at.
So you can see the very bottom line.
This is the general fund. The line in
blue is our sources over uses. It shows
that our
um revenues over our expenditures this
year. As you can see, we're drawing down
the 79 million because of the 50 million
in PSPR's payment and the 33 million
transfers out. Next year, we're going to
end the year in the positive 5.8 million
and then it goes negative 9 million and
4 million and goes positive again. So
the 9 million in 2728 is because there's
an extra um um pay period for that year
and the um additional in 2928 is because
we have some um balloon payments on debt
and those debt will be paid off and that
way it will go back to positive in
fiscal year 2930. So in a fiveyear uh
planning horizon we're structurally
balanced.
Okay. I think thank you.
I'll ask one last question before we
leave this and go on to something
meteor. On page 19, you have portrayed u
I think something we discussed in an
earlier meeting and that is the actual
property tax
collections against the primary property
tax assessment.
Um, and the note is made that the levy
growth is limited to 2% plus new
construction by state law. I noticed
that
between last year and the projection,
you're going up
1.3 or you're going
up6.7. Do the math right. You're going
up $700,000 in expected primary property
tax levy, which is only it's not even
2%. Can you share with us what your
thinking was of why it would not be
going up? Historically, it goes up about
5% the combination of 2% allowed and
then all the new construction that comes
in. So, I'm wondering why it's
conservatively forecast here.
Um, I'll have to get back to you and
then let me pull up the um calculation
for that. But basically the 2% limits
our levy and rate and we also have a um
tort claim assessment as well and the
tort claim assessment may have changed.
So it may be that the tort assessment is
higher last year and the tort assessment
is lower this year. So that may be the
the difference.
But if you give a minute I can pull that
up. Why don't we let you go on to the
next section in the interest of time.
So we will now look at the operating
expenses at a high level for the total
city. So what this slide shows you is a
breakdown of the operating budget by
category by personnel, contractual
services, debt service, commodities and
capital outlay. So as you can see the
comparison of this current year adopted
budget for personnel the 2700 uh
personnel or FTEES that we have and all
the um uh costs associated the fully
loaded cost associated we have a budget
of 346 million this year and we are
proposing a budget of
367.8 million that is a 21.8 8 million
increase and a 6.3% increase and that
includes the 98 um 16 new FTEES that's
and then all the uh fringe and all that
included in
it. Um plus the salary adjustments for
merit market and compensation study.
Um then again we talked about the items
that we moved from capital and then also
the PSPRS payment. And then the
contractual services is increasing by
about 23 million from this year's budget
to next year's budget budget. That's an
11.5% increase. Primarily that would is
made up of um quite a few things. 6.7
million would be new contracts under the
new 0.15 park and preserve tax for park
maintenance and also preserve
maintenance. Um there's also 4.15
million in our human resources
department for um various contracts for
employee programs including an on-site
employee clinic. Um there is 3.7 million
increase in our fire department related
to the ambulance, warehouse lease, staff
training and various other contract
increases. Uh 3.1 million increase in
police department for the drone program,
security uh contracts, software,
licenses, fleet costs. There's also 3
million increase in tourism.
Um for it there's also a couple million
increase in AI and cloud services and
other software licenses. So that 23
million increase in contractual services
really spans across all departments
throughout the city. Um debt service as
we spoke about earlier the decrease is
because we will uh pay off the tax
related to the 0.2 two preserve tax that
sunsets this year at the end of this
year. And so that's why the debt service
is lower. And uh for the commodities,
the 8 million increase that's also um
ambulance related and various other uh
materials and commodities in various
departments. Our um purchase of water
from the central Arizona project is also
going up by about 2.4 4 million for um
under commodities and in capital outlay
the 18.8 million as we spoke about
earlier. The largest piece of that is
the 11.9 million for the fleet
acquisition because we budgeted for it
this year and we won't be able to
complete those purchases this year. So
that budget is carried forward to next
year and added to the uh proposed budget
for next year.
Um there's let's
see. Okay, next slide. And um the salary
adjustments that we spoke about earlier,
the um 3% um merit, 2% market, and an
additional amount for um compensation
study adjustments is primarily because
the city is facing significant wage
inflation pressures since the pandemic.
And um this chart basically shows the
blue line is local government. The red
line is private industry. We've been
sort of behind private industry. And as
you can see from 2020 forward, there's
significant increase in uh wages and
salaries in both the private industry
and state and local governments. This
this shows the 12 month percent increase
year after year. And as you can see,
it's starting to come back down. Um but
we're still um um you know we used to be
for the longest time about 2% u more or
less 2% in terms of market adjustment
and now over the last few years we're
looking at four to 5% in terms of market
adjustments to keep up with the
market. Next slide.
Um, with the 98.16 total new FTEES, 44
of that is with fire, 22 for police,
nine for the parks and wreck department
with the new prop uh 490 tax, 7.25 FTEEs
for our transportation and
infrastructure department, and uh the
remainder is throughout throughout the
city.
So as you can see that brings us up to
um
79 22
2797 total FTEES the 98.16 FTEES there's
some recclasses and elimination of uh
existing positions and that's why the um
amount is
2797 as a total FTE for this uh 2526
fiscal year. Next slide. And from an FTE
per thousand resident, it's
11.2. Um, that's an slight increase from
11.1 this fiscal
year. And next slide. And also then uh
kind of talking a little bit more about
the 50 million payown for the police
pension unfunded liability. What is
included in the budget is and this chart
shows that if we didn't make the payown,
we would retain or maintain the um
contribution rate at
52.55% and the total cost over the
five-year period would be 90.3 million
in terms of pension costs for tier 1
tier 2 police employees. The 50 million
included in the budget allows us to
lower the rate to 40.25%
25% and that we have factored that
savings of 21.2 million in our budget.
So the total cost over the fiveyear
years that's included in our budget
right now is 69.1 million and the 100
million was just to show you what that
would be like if we tried to pay off um
most of the unfunded liability. The
unfunded liability currently at the end
of June 30 of 2024 is 144
million. Okay, next slide. And this
slide just shows you that we anticipate
with that 50 million payown we would uh
be able to raise the police PSPRS funded
status to 80%. The blue line shows the
funded status for the police department.
Um and the uh red line shows the funded
status for the fire pension plan which
is at 84%
currently. And um next slide. So moving
on to capital expenditures. I won't
spend a lot of time on this since the uh
commission reviewed our capital budget
in detail in March. But I just wanted to
uh share with you the changes. In March
when we presented the uh preliminary
capital budget to the commission it was
about a billion
um it was about a billion and we have uh
made some small changes to it and now
the proposed uh capital budget is
978.5 million. The largest in uh change
was the 31 million which was for the um
cactus pool project. We moved it away
from fiscal year 2526 into fiscal year
2627 to allow more assessment and study
of that
project. Um the other uh change also was
in our transportation. We increased um
the transportation budget by 2 million
for old oldtown concrete improvements.
We also increased the transportation
capital budget by another million for
the uh pavement overlay street overlay
program and on top of that we also um
moved 14 million from a Thomas road
project into the overlay. So in total we
increased the street overlay budget by
15 million. So now the street overlay
budget is 43 million uh based on uh
conversations we've had with the
commission and what we feel are
recommendations from the
commission. Um next slide. So um in
total our proposed 2526 capital budget
shows a carry forward of
536.1 million. Again these are projects
that are either delayed or have not been
completed or did not start. So, we
originally for this fiscal year budgeted
1.091
um billion and we're going to car uh you
know carry forward
536.1 million. We're adding an
additional
442.4 million and uh for a total
proposed budget of
978.5 million.
Um, I'm going to actually stop here and
see if you have any questions on the
expenditures before I move on to the uh
debt section.
Commissioner Carla, uh, yes. Um, first I
want to
say it's great to see that 50 million
payown in the PSPs. I think that's
really important.
Um, second question is in the
transportation, the money you're
spending, is the money for 68 street
improvements still in there?
Um, hang else. Yes, it is. It is in
there. Yes, it is. The construction of
like almost three million, right? Okay.
All right. Thank you. And then the
second question is the FTEEs per
thousand residents. Just curious, how
does that compare to other valley
cities? Do you know?
I do not have We have that comparison,
but I don't have it in front of me. So,
we can provide that to the commission.
Thank you very much,
Commissioner Stevens.
Okay.
Um, can we go back to slide 27? I just I
just want to call out a thought to some
of my fellow commissioners. God help me.
I actually got the actuarial reports and
went through them and and took a look at
some of the components of what's in
there. And what was interesting is when
you look at this particular chart, uh,
as I understand it right, by making the
$50 million payment this year, we're
going to say there's already about four
or five million in the budget that's
been reduced. So, if you did not make
that $50 million payment, uh, payroll
cost would go up by about five million.
Conversely, if you made another $50
million payment back to a h 100red and
there was 125 in there at one time, it
would actually take another 4 million or
so out of the budget from an expense
standpoint. And the reason I mention
this is I was probably initially in the
camp of uh why pay any more than you
have to when uh there's no reason to
advance some fund it because most people
don't do that. But the interesting thing
that I I might want to see if the city
wants to look into is assume we have a
hund00 million dollars in reserves and
we as a group have talked about hey
maybe we ought to be using that money to
fix roads instead of paying down a
pension. Uh the interesting thing that
we might want to look at is the city can
borrow money not that I'm a fan big fan
of debt at three three or 4%. you might
be able to say, "Geez, I wonder if I
should pay uh borrow money at three or
4% to do the road things I need to do
instead of using the reserves that I
have." And then if I use more of the
reserves to pay down the pension
obligation, I would then pick up another
four or five million a year in in
payroll savings. Okay. So, this is
something I don't fully have my head
around. And so one of the things we may
want to talk about offline is should we
do a proforma that would say what would
the budget look like if we paid off an
extra 50? What would the savings be from
a payroll expense standpoint? What would
the cost be? Like some interest income
would go away, but interest income goes
to fund capital projects. So that might
not hurt the operating budget. So it it
would just be it's an interesting
thought that I wasn't on board with as
far as prepaying the pension. But now
when I see how dramatically it can
reduce the rate, see that rate goes all
the way down to 28% and that's right out
of page six or something of the
actuarial report. So whenever we're
allowed to talk freely, which I don't
think we ever are, it might be worth us
all
discussing when should we use debt for
something possibly and should we even
pay down the pension a little bit more.
So that's just a observation and and I
guess for city staff it might be worth
doing a proforma to say what would the
budget look like? What changes if I did
an extra 50? uh since you do have a
window of extra reserves right now
possibly. Thank you.
Uh Commissioner Newman, are you going to
talk to that point or something else?
Let me uh let me stay with the pensions
for just a moment. Um and still with
this slide 27, what did you say is the
current unfunded liability that we're
chasing here with the $50 million
payment? What is the current
It's 144 million, but after today's uh
this week's stock market, it's probably
higher. Well, yeah. I mean, and by
tomorrow, it may be higher or lower. We
don't know which. But,
uh, I think to the point of using this
$50 million to pay down the pension
liability,
um, I don't, and this is maybe just my
personal interpretation, but I don't
view this as necessarily a an obligation
of the police department or the fire
department. I know that the manner in
which we pay that
liability is denominated as a percent of
the police or the fire payroll. But it's
in my judgment, it's long-term debt,
very much like other long-term debt,
municipal property, corporation bonds,
geo bonds, or anything else.
And so to pay down this
liability, I would simply observe if we
paid $50 million toward prepaying any
piece of debt we
have, we would see what you call an
operating cost savings in the future. Or
in layman's terms, if I simply pay off
half the mortgage on my house, I'll
probably save money every year on my
household budget. Uh that doesn't argue
in my mind that that's the best thing to
do with the
money. And I think Commissioner Stevens
referred to
um alternative uses that we might have
for the 50 million. I mean, if we invest
the 50 million in some extraordinary
cost-saving uh venture for the city that
reduces the cost of picking up trash or
making fire calls or whatever, maybe
that too would have a return on
investment. Um, so I'm I continue to be
troubled that we refer to an objective
of bringing the debt down to 80% funded
or bringing the cost denominated in
police and fire payroll down to some
lower
number. To me, it's it's a much simpler
matter. We want it we've got $50 million
and we want to pay down some debt early
earlier than required.
And I think I what I'm not seeing here
and have not seen yet is the economic
justification that this is the best
single thing to do with that $50 million
given the needs of the city in every
respect. Um so I'm I'm just go on record
saying I'm I'm still awaiting the
justification
for that expenditure. Thank you,
Chairman Smith. You're absolutely right.
It is not the most important thing. The
commission, you can just stop. You're
absolutely right.
The commission and council can certainly
suggest other um alternatives for the 50
million. I do have to point out that if
we don't bring the um pension rate down,
then the general fund is not
structurally balanced. So, we will be
having to look for um cuts. As you go
back to
page B13, as we talked about this, uh
the general fund is structurally
balanced currently in the five-year
planning horizon because we are project
uh proposing these annual savings. And
so if we use the 50 million for
something else like street overlay or
some other capital project because
they're are one-time monies. So they do
need to be used for one-time needs. We
will have to put four to five million of
cost back into the budget and we will be
not structurally balanced unless we cut
four to five million somewhere. So that
that is uh part of the uh reason. So
absolutely you can you know there's no
argument that the 50 million has to be
paid for a pension but the the the
balance is if we use the 50 million for
some other purpose which is absolutely
possible or you know allowed then we
would have to find four million of cuts
in the um four to five million of cuts
in the budget to offset to be
financially sustainable.
Yeah, I'm aware of that. But I'm
assuming that you'll figure out
something productive to do with the five
$50 million. I mean, I'm not suggesting
you just throw it away on pro on an
expenditure that has no other return to
it, but this is promising a
return just because you're avoiding
future uh debt repayment schedules. um
and what that saves you. I'm I'm just
suggesting that it is appropriate to
look at alternative uses for this $50
million. And I am I I will tell you
frankly, I'm I'm not persuaded with the
alarmist kinds of numbers of what this
amounts to as a a percentage of the
police salaries. I don't really consider
it a police or fire obligation. it is
any more than I consider the obligation
for the regular uh Arizona public
service an obligation of all the other
employees. It is an obligation of the
city. It's because of uh commitments
that we've made to provide pensions at a
certain level and um I I'm just not yet
seeing the sense of prepaying that.
We're we're happy to put together
proarma as commissioner Stevens
suggested the pension debt is costing us
7.2% and if we look at what commissioner
Stevens recommended potentially if we
want to issue debt for um street
construction overlay we can issue that
at 3 point 3 to 4% tax exempt. So, you
know, um there's a a a cheaper way to
incur debt for the city as opposed to
pension debt. So, we can certainly look
at some proforma and some
um calculation of um cost
benefit to to doing this.
We probably beat this to death, but I
would I will make one other comment
since you brought in the market
performance of what we're where we are
today and where the where the Dow and
the S&P may go tomorrow and
whatever. This debt unlike other debt is
a fluctuating number. It in it includes
um the actuarial science
of expected return on investment,
expected retirements, age of
retirees, a whole host of actuarial
assumptions. And I think to presume that
we can beat the system, pay down $50
million, and save X dollars going
forward
is I just think it's a it's a subject
that needs to be explored further by
those who are expert actuaries in such
matters. And let me leave it at that.
Commissioner Newman.
Thank you. Um, slide 31, please.
Okay, so I spent an exciting weekend
reviewing the capital budget history of
Scottsdale on the website and I'm trying
to find out a little bit more about the
$536 million carry forward because if
you go back in history, we run a carry
forward that's about twice as much as
the requests and almost three times as
much as the actual spend. If you go far
enough far enough back, the audits show
what was actually spent. I mean spending
was in the$150 $200 million range. So
we've got this huge capital budget
nearly a billion dollars of which I'll
be generous to30 million are being
actually be spent. It it's puzzling to
me why there's this big bump in the rug
that moves forward. And so my question
to staff is
is what are what do we believe are the
root causes of that? because it makes it
really hard
to really accurately manage closely a
budget and trying to just trying to
understand that and it seems to me it
also ties up a lot of capital because
you have you've collected the money in a
lot of cases it's in a budget collecting
interest somewhere which is not bad but
it also ties up a lot of capital so our
actual capital budget is in the 300
million range not a billion and that
means eight
six 700 million is tied up somewhere
that could be released and used or those
projects get completed and the city
benefits from those. So I'd like to
understand what the root causes are of
that and I I don't know that there'll be
an answer here in that but it's a
burning question I have after my
exciting weekend.
Um Commissioner Stevens, you have
another comment.
Uh yes, I I just wanted in wrapping up
the the pension things. Uh FYI, don't
get freaked out about the seven the um
current losses. Right now, a lot of
losses turn off by the end of the year.
And the way the actuary does it, there's
a 7-year spread. And so, right now, uh
it's like on page 15 of the actuarial
report, the actual assets are higher
than the valuation assets that are
assigned. So, it does kind of tend to
smooth out over time. And then the other
thing I wanted to say was um the I just
want to make sure I understand the
thought right for your proform you're
going to do. If I understand this right,
if you take $50 million and pay down the
pension, you do save the 7.2% of that a
year uh by uh in unless uh contribution
to the pension plan. So that's like 7%
of the 50 million. That's the 34
million. And then what you lose is the
interest income you were earning, which
I don't know what that is, two, three%
or whatever, but the interest income
you're losing is money that's used to
fund capital projects. So you might lose
a couple million dollars worth of budget
funds to go to capital, but then you
pick up four million or so and reduce
payroll costs. And if that's the case
then um and to also honor commissioners
uh chairman Smith's comment maybe the
thing to do we just need to say we can
do 50 million payown and 2 million to
capital goes away four million of
payroll expense and for every 50 million
you do that would then multiply itself
and then hey council by the way if you
have a better use for 50 million than
saving four million you ought to
consider
that I Say that right. Okay.
We're not going to ask you to repeat it.
So, Commissioner Newman, could we go
back to my question because I think uh I
think Treasurer Andrews was going to
answer that and we went on to another
topic. So, yeah, it sounds fine. Thank
you. Mr. Chair and Commissioner, I was
we may end up tag teaming this, but I
certainly wanted to address the
question. I think it there's at least
twofold. One of which is I think we
still have I'll call it the hangover
effect of doing a single-year adoption
for the capital plan. And so the
organization has clearly moved to a
five-year capital plan, but we may be uh
still inclined to load everything in the
first year or the beginning years. I
think we really started to see this year
uh is spreading those out really on the
life of the construction cycle including
some feasibility. At least two come to
mind. Two projects come to mind. one of
which was referenced on the cactus pool
where we have the feasibility. We ended
up actually removing the $31 million. I
I saw a couple of you recognize that. So
again truly understanding how let's get
these in uh the proper order queuing
them up for some feasibility and then
once we know the numbers then properly
assigning them to the construction cycle
which is not a 12 month cycle and at
least 24 and potentially up to 36. So
that's answer number one to the
situation. Uh the other thing is we
still have uh communication that we're
aligning with previously capital project
management now turned in merged with
transportation and engineering to
transportation and infrastructure
communication with that department with
the I'll call it the primary operating
department on the needs in the capital
project to properly assign workload to
all of the projects within the capital
plan whether that be the transportation
or other projects. So set another way,
we need to increase the communications
between the engineers in transportation
and infrastructure with the operating
departments to ensure the project
timeline cost estimated cost engineers
estimate is preferred. Some of these
haven't been engineered estimated I
think in previous years. So those are
just a few uh issues that we've
identified through your uh great
questions and this year uh with a few
different eyes on the on the process.
Thank you. That's great because I I
really believe that I'm I fully support
having a vision of five years and know
what that would be and it doesn't mean
every project has to be done. If you
look at this year's budget, all the temp
projects show up in next year and you
could really look at those and say,
"Hey, do we really have to do those
right now relative to other critical
needs that we have?" So, I I I think
it's a process and we'll get there.
Thank you,
Commissioner Sites.
Thank you for more explanation. I think
I asked about this question when we were
in the capital budget. I had observed a
large appropriation in one year, but
there was a completion date that was
three or four years later. So, I would
appreciate the work that I hear you say
will happen as you uh fix the timing of
the construction and design in the
budget. Thank you.
Let me take you back to slide
23 briefly. This is where
we recap the um operating budget for the
coming
year.
And this is again going to be a a
comment under the general heading of
sustainability. And you'll hear that
repeatedly as we march through this
budget. But I think if you just go with
the raw number at the bottom,
16.3% change without talking about even
what the changes are, why they're
proposed, or what they're going to be or
do for us. Um, that's not
sustainable. It is simply not a
sustainable way to run the city. When on
the other hand, we're talking about
revenues coming in at 2% 3% whatever the
number might be.
um this is a this is a path to
destruction. And even if you leave out
some things that are maybe anomalies,
leave out the uh the fourth the third
line there, that's the anticipated extra
payment to the
PSPs. Leave out the debt service line.
Just talk about the basic operations of
the city. Even if you talk about just
the personnel number,
um it this is not sustainable and
somehow as a city we have to figure out
how do we continue to meet the needs of
the city and the needs of employees and
the needs of citizens
um if we don't have the revenue
anticipated to come in to do
that. I think on the following page on
page 24 if you advance to the next slide
um you made the comment that we have you
know increasing wage in salary pressures
in the city and so on. This of course is
a national chart. This doesn't have
anything to do with Scottsdale. This is
percentage increases that are occurring
in the private sector versus the public
sector.
But again, I think we need we need some
justification
for the wage and salary increases that
we're proposing from time to time. I'm
not saying they're unjustified. I'm not
saying they're unnecessary, but uh a
chart like this doesn't do it for me. a
wage and comp study that looks at five
other cities in the valley and they of
course look to us and it goes around in
a circle. That doesn't do it for me. Um
maybe before I go further, I see the
city manager has a comment, perhaps a
rebuttal that he'd like to offer. Let me
give him the microphone for a moment.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I certainly didn't
want to interrupt, but when I heard the
unsustainable word, it definitely got a
couple of us um bouncing out of our
chairs over here. So I with due respect
I do want to point out on page 23 of the
slide um that the this was kind of
glossed over a little bit but the 12.5
million was previously in capital and
that's a way of calculating for the
staff in a different manner and I'm not
it was properly uh accounted for not to
use like the big accounting word but
just a little a not big a um but this
was a different methodology of how to
fund those operations. So, so that is
not an increase in costs, actually a
shift. And then we've uh talked quite a
bit about the next number. And then when
you look at the capital at 40 million,
so when you pull those out, I and again
as referenced back to B13, it may not be
to the sustainable level that some
community members or some other members,
but it it is balanced with within uh the
operating. And so I just wanted uh to
point that out and then to address some
of your latter points which we will
discuss in great detail when we get into
the operating departments. But
significant uh wage pressure on first
responders and I I was watching the body
language and I may have been misreading
it but for some folks that are in the
private sector we are clearly not in a
tight labor market in many areas. I will
tell you in the first responder we are
still in a very tight labor market. So
keep in mind that at least onethird of
our personnel are sworn men and women
and it's very competitive. I've seen
significant uh studies done on the
turnover uh in first responders and if
you lose them what it costs to retain
them. And I'll just tell you in a very
short version we don't want to lose them
of course. So we work really hard to not
only attract quality personnel but
retain them once we we have them. So,
we'll get into the specifics about the
compensation because I can appreciate
that that is an area where we need to
address because there are some
significant uh I'll call it modest in
non-public safety, but in some areas of
public safety, we're actually catching
up uh from nearly about a 2year lag time
uh on some uh market assessments. So
again, more to come in that regard and
it will spell out uh where these dollars
are going and uh confidence you'll feel
good about them when we're done. Thank
you, Mr. Chair. So Mr. Chairman, I also
wanted to add something is I know we
talked about revenues going down yet
we're showing expenditures going up and
maybe that is a concern that you are
bringing up that how is this
sustainable? Well, I wanted to explain
this. We have had doubledigit
significant increases in our revenues
over the last four years and we have not
increased our expenditures as much as
our revenues have increased. We've kept
a lid on the expenditures because we
really didn't know where our new base
was. We kept projecting a downturn and a
correction. And we have finally over the
last four years feel that we have the
ability to increase our base and that's
because of the inflation and also the
strong labor market the strong economy
that's still there's an underlying um
revenue base that has increased and that
allows us to raise our operating
expenditures without structural
imbalance and that's what we have
produced in this budget. Now given that
if we have a deeper downturn or deeper
revenue reduction that we than we
anticipate, we will adjust our budget
accordingly and put that back in on
track and make sure that it is not a
unsustainable budget. So the city staff
worked very hard to put a balanced
budget together that is sustainable over
the five years and that we would be able
to pivot if revenues don't come in as we
have projected.
Thank you.
Thank you both uh for your comments and
particularly to the city manager. I
would say I I uh I want to see you
impress the public as well as the
council um on these dynamics of uh of
what we're facing in the employee pool.
I'm well aware that um I mean Tom
Shannon's going to talk to us later
about the cliff that he is facing uh
when so many of his employees hit their
30-year full retirement eligibility
u and more importantly the lead time to
recruit new people for those positions
recruit them and train them. So we have
some dynamics here and I urge you to use
those in your arguments rather than
national statistics of inflationary wage
rates and all that all that stuff which
are not perhaps gerine to our unique
situation. Commissioner Stevens, you
have yet another comment. Yeah, I do. I
do, but it's this same chart. I I just
want to give you my perspective on this
because why I'm not freaked out about
the expense, but I am concerned. Okay.
When I look at this chart, the 21.8
million, that's a real increase in cost,
although some of that could be related
to expanded ambulance service that is
going to create revenue and there might
be some expanded um water uh in there
too. But so the 281 28 uh hit me. The
125 I didn't I don't think has an impact
because that comes in with uh that was
with capital outlay and then if I can
jump to capital outlay the city has a
lot of control over the capital outlay
line here because they can just
discontinue some projects. So the part
of the funds that come out of general
fund for capital outlay I believe they
have a broad level of discretion with
therefore the 125 plus the 18 that 30
million doesn't concern me. The 50 is a
one-time decision so I throw that out.
So I'm down to kind of the 218 and the
23 are the numbers that I think are
increased in cost here. 40 45 million.
So that's kind of what I have in my head
that we're looking at here compared to
whatever the revenue sources are. And
again, these comparisons are budget
tobudget. Remember, we have a $12
million head start because we're running
favorable this year and they do budget
conservatively. So anyway, I'm still
concerned about expenses, but that's the
reason I'm not freaked out. Now, am I
looking at that the right way as far as
what I just said as far as where the
real cost increases are? Uh, Mr. Chair
and Commissioner, I believe you have
identified correctly and and one that
has particularly caught my interest uh
that I would like to spend some more of
my time over the next 12 months is the
contractual services. And I will tell
you when we start to talk about our
labor increase, it will it will pale in
comparison to the contractual increases
we are seeing by third parties that do
work for us. So that is an area for us
to bring back as I have previously
suggested to use this commission to test
out in-house versus contractual services
and there is a great number of services
that they do better in the private
sector. I would submit there are some
opportunities for us to evaluate our
potential to bring things in house and
do it at still a very high cost uh
delivery of quality at a lower cost.
Okay. Thank you. You just eliminated one
of my other questions for later. Thank
you. And I'm done now.
Commissioner Swer will give you the last
word.
Well, I just wanted to
thank I just wanted to thank you for
bringing up that contractual services
because I'm a believer that, you know,
when we're paying somebody else's profit
to do something that there are
situations where we can get a lot more
done for a dollar in-house than we can
contracting it out. So, I'm glad you're
looking at that.
I think uh you still have a few slides
to go through on this package. proceed.
So, I just have the debt section to
cover with you. So, our proposed budget
um includes 75 million of new debt
issuance, 25 million for drainage, and
50 million for water and sewer projects.
Next
slide. This slide just simply shows our
secondary property tax supported annual
debt service. That's our bond programs.
So we still have debt service on the
older bond programs like the bond 2015
programs and also the new debt for the
bond 2019 programs. We anticipate we
actually do not anticipate issuing any
debt for bond 2019 in 2526. We
anticipate in uh issuing the remainder
of the debt in 20 uh7 2627. So this
chart shows you the debt service on the
um secondary property tax supported
debt. Next slide. And this slide shows
you the uh annual debt service on um the
debt supported by other revenue sources.
A lot of that is water and sewer. So the
brown bars at the very bottom that is
general fund supported debt. That would
be for the um uh fashion square garage,
the TPC and Westworld land and museum.
And then those other bars are for water
and I think there's some um airport and
um some tourism supported debt as
well. And that is my last slide.
I don't see anybody wanting to opine on
these last three or four slides. So, why
don't we move
uh to our next agenda item, which is
having the police department talk about
their operating budget for the coming
years. And I think Joe
um the pack is going to walk us through
that. Okay. Good afternoon, Chairman
Smith, Commissioners. Uh my name is Joe
Luke and I'm your police chief as you
know. Um I want to start by laying a
foundation that will really kind of
explain why we make the decisions we
make, why we budget the way we do and
whatnot. We are a duly accredited
agency. We're accredited through a state
accreditation program as well as an
international um accreditation program
called Kala. And because of that we have
to adhere to over 500 different
standards. And some of these standards
among other other things guide our
budgeting, our staffing, our deployment
and it really um has us follow best
practices. We've become a national uh
really had have a national uh footprint
uh as far as best practices. We get a
lot of calls from police departments all
over the nation on our scheduling um and
many other disciplines within our
organization and we are a very
progressive tech focused organization
police department. Uh we um really value
finding efficiencies by using uh
technology. We also really value being
light on our feet to always uh follow
the demands of the evolving demands of
our community. When it comes to uh crime
waves or different needs of the
community, we try and be light on our
feet and put resources that can answer
those demands. So, that's really kind of
just the foundation I wanted to lay on
on why we think the way we do in the
things that we do. I'm going to advance
my own slides until there's questions.
Today we're going to go over our uh an
overview over the police department, our
structure and staffing, go over our
budget overview, um our I'm going to
talk about our key cost drivers. Then
I'm going to go into our budget requests
for fiscal year 25 26 and then um we're
going to talk about police department
overtime. So let's get started. Uh we're
divided into three separate bureaus and
each bureau uh has four either directors
or sworn commanders overseeing these
bureaus. Um I we had a great
conversation with Commissioner Stevens
after the last meeting and he brought up
two points which were really important
and I wanted to include them in this
slide presentation. One was our
utilization of professional staff
nonsworn to leverage um nonsworn assets
at a at a more effective cost. And you
can see from this chart that we do do
that. As a matter of fact, um we are a
leader in the nation for um leveraging
professional staff and we certainly have
the most professional staff in the
valley uh when compared to other police
departments. And so we've been doing
that and I I'll go into that on the next
slide uh with a little more detail. You
can also see on this chart that we're uh
asking for um 22 additional FTEES. The
reason why we're looking at 22 is last
year due to the uh expenditure ceiling,
we didn't ask or receive any positions.
And so we're playing a little bit of a
catch-up here, but we're really looking
focusing on some of these critical
positions will which I'll go over also
in this
presentation. So leveraging professional
staffing, um we have a long history of
maximizing our professional staff roles.
It's uh just beginning in command staff.
If you look, we have an assistant chief
that's professional staff, five
directors, executive staff that oversee
our um operational services and
forensics divisions um bureau and
divisions. Since 1970, we've been
staffing what's called police aids. We
found a better way to say, okay, well,
if we can utilize a civilian employee to
answer calls where you don't need to
make an arrest and maybe just write a
report or take an accident report, uh
we've been uh we've been successful at
deploying those and and to date we have
38 police aids at in some capacity
around the city taking those jobs away
from sworn officers. Um, we started the
police crisis intervention, I'm sorry,
police crisis intervention specialist
program back in 1975. And these are
master degree counselors who spend that
extra time bridging services with our
community. Time that would have been
spent by maybe a swarm member of our
staff. Um, but they can spend hours and
hours with families making sure that
they're that they're headed in the right
direction. Then we took a large step
into this in 2022 when we decided to
employ what we call civilian
investigators. These are investigators
that maybe retired detectives or have
some sort of investigative knowledge
that we bring in as a civilian staff
member, as professional staff to do uh
investigations and follow up on cases
and whatnot. And just to give you kind
of an example of the cost savings, a
police officer, let's say roughly allin
is about 160,000 per year or a civilian
investigator is about 99,000 per per
year and a police aid is about 97,000
per year. So we um realized great
savings from that. Also in 2022, we took
11 sworn positions and converted them to
professional staff positions, saving us
about
$464,000 that year. So, we're we're
always very mindful um of where we can
utilize professional staff um to make
our dollars go go further. And you can
see on the slide, there's many other
positions where we're constantly
thinking, okay, can we use a a civilian
investigator? Can we use a professional
staff member to do the
job? Here's our uh full-time equivalence
budget breakdown. Um you can see our
biggest draw is uh personnel services at
174 million. Um, this includes that 50
million PSPs liability payown that we
talked about. It includes a $5 million
uh market adjustment. Um, and then cost
increases uh regular cost increases and
about four millionish in in uh in new
FTS that we're requesting. Um, and you
can see where where the other where the
other uh services what the other
services cost between contractual
services, commodities and and capital
outlays.
Here are some other sources, uh, other
funding sources. Um, I want to spend a
couple minutes just to talk about RICO
real quickly because it does become
important as you'll see in the budget
packages that I present. Some things we
are trying to move to the general fund
from RICO. And the reason for this is
due to recent legislation, legislative
changes have it have been making it
harder for us to seize money from
criminal organizations. Uh not only
that, a lot of these criminal
organizations are using cryptocurrency
and really trying to uh developing
efforts to to styy um us from collecting
RICO uh like we used to be able to
before, but mostly it's a legislative
thing. And so you'll see that our RICO
budget continues to shrink and we need
to start to get out of that and start to
move into the general fund for
that. Here are some of our non-personnel
cost drivers.
[Music]
Um you could see that uh on this slide
that we prioritize um like I said before
we prioritize tech and software to get
the job done make it more efficient. I
have a separate slide on the municipal
security contract. Um even though that
is a citywide program it does uh lay in
our budget um lie in our budget.
Um photo enforcement and jail services.
Uh photo enforcement is actually how
what it costs to manage that program.
And then jail services, obviously we
have to pay Maricopa County to house
some of our prisoners and that's what
that includes
there. Workload analysis and all
allocation. I want to talk about this.
This is another conversation
Commissioner Stevens and uh I had with
um Jeff Walther after the last meeting.
We are very progressive when it comes to
workload analysis and
allocation. We use a highly technical
for the sworn side of the house and
police officer allocation. We use a very
highly technical program called Corona
solutions and I'll go into that in more
detail. But we are constantly evaluating
how much staff we need in each of our
work groups. Um we required to through
accreditation to do it every four four
years but we do it much more frequently.
As a matter of fact, we use the Corona
solutions package regularly throughout
the year and definitely yearly as we do
a rebid for where we allocate our
officers throughout the city. So, we're
doing it a lot more frequently than
required. And that also goes to always
trying to match the evolving community,
the evolving community needs with the
resources that they need. And so we're
constantly looking at that and can we
move this PCN over here or can we create
this work unit and can we do that with
existing resources when we
can. So Corona solutions as I said it's
it is truly the national model for
police deployment. Um as a matter of
fact and and uh Chairman Smith you may
remember this we had the external
management uh report from the center of
public safety management. uh Jim McCabe
who was in charge of that project for us
in that evaluation stated that Corona
solutions is more sophistic is more of a
sophisticated method than even his own
method. It's known nationally uh as um a
premier method and we do get a lot of
calls from other police departments not
only about our scheduling but our
utilization of Corona solutions.
What Corona solutions does is it really
works with parameters from calls for
service to geographical boundaries to uh
how many available officers we have
available hours, but also takes into
account loss time. Um what's the average
amount of sick calls that you're going
to get, vacation calls, who's on
mandatory training, and then it looks at
everything and it tells you what the
most appropriate um model is for our
deployment. and we can move numbers
around and say, "Okay, well, we can make
it very customizable uh to the city and
um and then make decisions on exactly
how we deploy." We have right now we
have a seven squad schedule which works
very nicely with the way we have it way
deployed
currently. This system also allows for
the data to be looked at. it's accurate
up into the last 24 hours. And so the
data is always being crunched and so we
can actually look into the last 24 hours
where exactly we should be at any given
time. Now for other functions, we have a
pretty comprehensive uh method that we
use that not only looks at quantitative
analysis for other work groups but also
qualitative analysis. So we're looking
at things like time per task, backlog
data, um, and then we also ask the
managers to give us a qualitative
statement on what their what is driving
their work no work workloads. And we we
crunch that all into a number. Um, and
we conduct
we conduct that analysis pretty
frequently to figure out if we're at the
right number for other for other work
units. Okay. Budget request. Did you
want me to pause for any questions
here before I go into a budget?
I think uh Commissioner Sites has a a
question first. Okay. I suspect you'll
probably answer this as you get into
more detail, but I was interested in the
um sorry, I'll go back and be a little
more specific. the uh contractual
services. I see the Corona contract was
387,000 or something, but I'd be
interested in knowing what else is in
that contractual services line item.
Okay. Um that's actually not in my
presentation as far as getting into the
detail of what is in the contractual
services line item, but I can definitely
get you that information
in writing. Yeah, some examples would
would be helpful. Thank you. Okay,
great. I can give you examples now. So,
some of our contracts are not only uh
the jail contract with MC Cso, our dry
cleaning contact contract with our our
uniforms, um drones as first responders
program, which I'll go into uh here as
an out of out of budget will be actual
contractual service that we have as we
lease that capability. So,
um that's kind of like kind of a high
level list of some of the things that we
contract for. Would you say that that
it's an increase in existing contracts
versus new contracts? There's been a a
marked increase in existing contracts
over the last year.
Thank you, Commissioner Schmiker.
Yeah, you know, I represented the town
that introduced um photo enforcement to
America. Very proud of it. It's a
lifesaver. Big supporter of it. But you
have $1.3 million down there and I know
there's two bill bills over at the
legislature. One of which, both of them
which would abolish photo radar. One of
which will probably go to the governor
and hopefully she'll veto that one, but
the other one bypasses the governor and
puts it on a ballot measure in
2026. And realistically, if it goes to a
ballot measure, it's going to be
outlawed. So, are you prepared for that
kind of outcome if it happens?
Yeah, absolutely. the the thing that um
we are prepared for is to move the
personnel who make up that program into
other needed areas of our organization.
Uh for one um we don't see any re
revenue obviously as a police department
from any of that. So it won't affect us
there at all. Um but we we will have to
do something with those employees. Um
and then we'll be looking at uh other
ways to really enhance traffic safety
because that will leave a hole in that
for us. Thank you for that question.
Commissioner city manager has a comment
to offer. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was
going to just uh support the chief with
some comments. Uh just as a reminder
that's on the expense side and so the uh
the revenue is much more significant
than that. But you know, we don't do
this for the revenue. We do this because
it improves uh compliance within the par
the speed limits etc. And I would have
significant concern about the
legislature reducing that tool that we
utilize. The calls will go up uh that we
would receive from neighborhoods and
community members about speeding. They
slow down because of the potential that
they're going. So, it's not about the
revenue. It really is, as we well know,
those that have introduced it, it's
about compliance and and bringing safety
back into our our community and our
streets.
Thank you. Thank you, sir. Go ahead.
Thank you.
Okay. I'll start with um personnel FTS
that we're requesting uh uniform
services bureau. We're looking for a
police lieutenant and this is uh to
oversee an additional three school
resource officers and we're moving a
sergeant uh to that unit. Currently, we
have 10 school resource officers. We're
going to be adding a sergeant through a
move that's 13. So, it becomes a
section. It's a span of control issue.
So, we need that extra police lieutenant
uh to oversee um that group. We're
moving from and I'll I'll be covering
this as well as we talk about SRO's, but
we're moving from about uh 26 schools
where the demand is extremely high in
requests for having officers in the
schools to 29 schools. And so, we're
just trying to keep up with demand in
the school resource space and a police.
We're going to need that supervision uh
that that mid level manager will
provide. So, it's critical. The
investigative services bure bureau.
We're looking for a digital forensics
detective. Um, there is no crime in this
city that that doesn't touch that unit.
They do uh forensics on computers and
hard drives and phones and and whatnot.
So, every crime touches it, has a
component of it. And so, we're starting
to grow that unit. And it is worth
mentioning that that unit also does
utilize uh two civilian uh staff members
as investigators. Um and we we plan to
grow in the in the next few years. Uh
with that, we're asking for one civilian
investigator. We really need one up in
our um special investigation as an
intelligence uh area. We were looking
for ways to uh increase the capacity of
that unit, especially in current times
when we're looking at um civil unrest
and other things that we really need to
get ahead
of. and um the the best bang for our
buck, so to speak, is a a civilian
investigator over there, which really
round out that unit.
Well, communications, dispatchers,
uh we want to restore four positions
that were reclassified last fiscal year.
What happened last year, like I said, we
didn't ask or receive any positions. It
takes about a year to train a
dispatcher, but we had critical needs
right away. This is that constant
evaluation we do for needs. We were
opening up our real-time crime center.
We needed to staff that and we also
needed to hire a um facilities uh
manager uh with all the construction
projects and everything else. So, we
were able to restore those four uh we
want to restore those four positions
that we borrowed to fill those. Um this
year, we also want to add one RTC
supervisor and three realtime crime
center uh operators. um those our
real-time crime center we have found has
been very effective in uh getting to a
crime scene or getting information uh
quickly and it improves officer safety.
It improves our ability to catch the the
criminal. Um, and it also provides um
exponential public safety as as far as
um getting eyes on and guiding officers
in and being able to catch the the the
perpetrator um very quickly through the
use of cameras that are located
throughout the city, whether they're
cameras at Fashion Square that we have
an agreement to tap into or traffic
cameras or or what have you. And I can
tell you story success story after
success story about the real-time crime
center. Actually, just today before
here, uh we had a subject threatening
suicide um up on the top level of a
parking garage at the um fashion square
and he had a gun in his hand. The real
time crime center was able to get video
on this person and start describing his
exact location and where the gun was as
the officers are responding so they
didn't get into a situation where they
would come under
fire. Police records unit, we're asking
for two police record specialists. It's
really one uh new position and then we
want to transfer one from a toe fund uh
into the general fund. Um this is one
that our analysis has showed that we
actually need about 10 new records uh
specialists over the next three years
with the invention of the bodywn camera.
Um, so has the requests for the footage.
And uh, right now, for example, in
Phoenix, there's a two-year wait to get
the to fulfill a public records request.
Right now, we have it all the way down
to about 14 months, but we need to do
better. So, we need to expand that unit
based on the backlog and um, just the
workload there. So, we're we're asking
for for one net new and then one to move
over.
We also started covering records uh 247
365 days a year. We really found out
that that is a unit that needs to be
available for officers out on the street
247 be available for our dispatch uh to
run records and do research um even at
night. And so we we are asking for
record supervisor so we have that
full-time supervision throughout those
expanded hours as well. But I'll be back
asking for more of
those. our forensics division. Um we're
asking for one property and evidence
technician. Uh we'll probably be asking
for another one next year. Um that is
another thing that our comprehensive
workload analysis showed that we we need
more of. If we got one more, we would
actually be able to expand um their
operating hours to serve the public by
one day. And we're also trying to keep
up on the backlogs of putting um of
getting evidence out that it's ready to
be dispositioned instead of um just
stacking up in a warehouse where we are
constantly worried about running out of
room and we sometimes get close to that.
So we need property and evidence text to
move that evidence out when it's no
longer needed. It's a critical position
for
that. We're looking at um Prop 490 here.
Uh we had three park rangers that were
in the smart and safe Arizona fund, the
Prop 207 money. We we would like to move
them out to uh Prop 490 or the park and
preserve tax fund and um ask for three
new park rangers, a park ranger
sergeant. We enjoy the largest urban
preserve in the nation with
30,500 acres of preserve land. We need a
dedicated unit that is specially
trained, has special equipment to help
police um that area and and help care
for hikers and whatnot. Uh so that's
what we're looking for there. And then
we're looking for one RTC technician to
support them uh through drone
technology, camera technology
uh as part of that same request for Prop
490.
These are the uh three school we want
three new school resource officers that
with the movement of the other three to
put in an additional three under the
prop 407 uh smart safe Arizona fund.
Um as I mentioned before uh we have
we're moving from uh up to 29 schools.
Um the demand is very high so we're
taking 10 SRO's moving them up to 13
SRO. We're going to move a sergeant that
we currently have over and um we'll have
two sergeants with two squads and a
lieutenant over that section to serve
the
schools. Okay, going into our um budget
requests first. Um want to talk about
technology. Again, you're going to see
real crime trying real time crime
center. And I want to really illuminate
on this slide the usage of our drones as
first responders. Traditional air units
and police departments cost millions and
millions of dollars to maintain and keep
a helicopter up in the air, up in the
air. And we found a much more effective
way to provide that critical coverage
that air units uh provide at about a
cost of for two units uh ongoing cost of
about
$612,000 per year. Um again, many
success stories using uh the drone. we
can get to a scene of a call when a
community member, somebody calls for
service, we're usually over that problem
within 85 seconds. Providing critical
details to our officers. Um, not uh
recently, we found a lost child within
11 minutes. Usually that takes hours and
hours and hours to to find from the
ground. uh we've tracked stolen cars
into parking lots and kept an eye on
suspects where we've been able to take
them into custody without um any issue
or any danger to the officers or less
danger to the community. Uh so they
they've been absolutely essential uh not
only in community safety but also in our
officer safety as we can be the eyes in
the sky uh to um direct them. The RTCC
software and cameras uh is a transfer
from Rico. So this is what I was telling
you before. We're really trying to
engage in an effort to move things out
of the RICO fund and into the general
fund does that as the RICO fund as we're
realizing it's
shrinking. Um, other things to note when
you look at communications and their
non-emergency call diversion that is all
about trying to be more efficient
through automation. Uh, that includes a
program that will automatically take
alarm calls, create a screen, and a
dispatcher doesn't even have to spend
time touching that call. it'll go right
to our officers. So, we're always trying
to invest in automation that will help
uh make our those efforts more
efficient. Police resource management.
Um these are cost increase for uniforms
and equipment and contracted services.
Uh we are moving the airtime for
cellular service which is about
$220,000 from uh RICO to the general
fund. I want to spend a second to talk
about lease vehicles because um as the
treasurer brought up, we we do have a a
challenge with our vehicles. Our lease
vehicles in the police department are
specifically used by our undercover
officers. We have a whole contingent of
undercover narcotics officers, intel
officers, and whatnot. And they utilize
lease vehicles so they can switch them
out frequently and they don't get um
burned by bad guys on surveillance
basically. So, it's a safety issue for
them. Um and uh So we we use a lot of
those. Now to meet with demand, we went
from 52 to about 59. We're looking at
about a 27% increase in maintenance
costs to these lease vehicles and about
a 26% increase in in the contract.
That's another contractual service that
we have is our lease vehicles. We're
also asking for six additional patrol
vehicles with the timing where it works
out where we're purchasing where we're
able to purchase uh vehicles um has
become very difficult on the state
contract. There's only certain times
throughout the year that we can purchase
them. Then there's long upfitting times
to get them wired with lights and radios
and computers. They're truly our office.
And so when a a vehicle goes down, let's
say because of damage, uh or even if
it's totaled, it takes a long time to
purchase a new vehicle, outfit a new
vehicle, or even for a repair. There's a
lot of time that is, um, built into
that. And so, um, our officers at the
very worst would have to double up in
cars, which is extremely unefficient for
our patrol model. Um, so we're seeking
six additional patrol vehicles to kind
of meet that need, keep our officers in
their cars, on the road, in their
offices, on the road.
And here's the citywide municipal
security contract increases. Um really
this is more mostly attributed to added
enhanced security at the libraries, one
civic center in and um city hall, but
there is also a contract increase um
here as well. U right now the city
contracts with Allied uh covers about 90
uh different buildings. They have a 247
365 operation of looking at cameras. I
think we have about 1500 cameras
throughout all the through throughout
the city. Um 2500 different card readers
that they have to monitor. So it is it's
a big job, but this is a contract
increase and then security enhancements
throughout the city. And again, this is
a citywide effort that ends up in our
budget. Okay, I'll pause there for
questions. Press on.
No questions. Okay. All
right. All right. Let's talk about
overtime and staffing.
Um, this is a graph that shows uh where
where our budget and where our actual
overtime is trending. We are constantly
estimating where we will be at at the
end of end of the fiscal year. As far as
overtime is concerned, we've had a
pretty unique year this year. Um, and
there's a couple of drivers for it.
There's patrol vacancy coverage. There's
critical staffing coverages and
communications and detention. And what's
unique about about us is that we have
minimum staffing levels that we
absolutely need to fill. We can't go
under a certain staffing on the road. We
can't go under a certain level of
staffing and dispatch. These are uh
emergency services. And so we have to
fill those
uh with overtime as we look at um our
vacancies. And I'll get a little bit
more um I'll get into a little bit more
depth in that. But what also drives this
number are special events and critical
incidents. Um we had uh an uptick in
critical incidents last year. Anything
from a homicide to what happened at the
Albertson's which draws a lot of
investigative time, a lot of patrol time
and extended duty and whatnot um to the
special events which we we actually
added three major special events uh to
our menu this year and had to staff
those. There is good news in that
because um and I'll go into a little
more depth on this as well. Our on duty
model for special events um
reimbursement model, we will see about
1.4 million in cost recovery
reimbursement that'll go to the general
fund. So as we look at at that we're 8
million I'm tracking right now over
budget. Although I'm I'm very optimistic
by July that we'll see a downward trend
but then again we just had two homicides
so it just is very uh dependent. Um uh
we are going to realize a 1.4 four
million in cost recovery on that and
which would if you added that number
would put us well below our our
line. So I want to talk about how we
manage and then I'll go a little more in
depth on cost recovery. Um we have a
policy that uh right away covers the
accountability around overtime. So for
example, we have um if any officer wants
to work or any employee actually in the
organization want wants to work 20 or 30
hours or more, they anticipate they need
to have permission from their chain of
command. So at 20 hours they have to ask
their direct supervisor. That's 20 hours
in a pay period or at 30 hours it
actually has to go up to the next level
of command for review and justification.
On top of that, we have policies that
dictate how much sleep you need between
shifts. So you can't just work
backtoback shifts. Um so we we control
that. Uh we also have a very
comprehensive overtime tool that we use
that really looks at every single detail
down to the actual employee that's
earning the overtime, how they're
earning it, how it's coded, and we use
that um in staff to review monthly to
make adjustments and layer
accountability where we need to layer
accountability.
[Music]
Um, if we do see uh that there's a lot
of overtime being pushed, let's say in
one direction, we start to evaluate the
critical n nature of that direction. Or
if we start to anticipate, for example,
that we're far over our budget as far as
overtime, we'll start to look at things
and say, okay, what can't we do right
now? What can't we do to keep that
number number uh lower? Like, are we
going to reduce the amount of folks that
are on recruitment missions on overtime
and start really trying to adjust
schedule? So, we're constantly doing
those things. Um, it's one of our
priorities in all of our staff meetings
to review and add accountability to
those things. So, that's just an
example. And you see the charts um break
down what we're looking for is where
we're spending our overtime. And if you
look at critical service and extended
duty, both of those really touch not
only critical incidents, but also
staffing um staffing for vacancies and
things like that.
So we right now um are doing great as
far as vacancies are concerned. Um
relatively back from about 2020 to 2022
we realize realized about a 48 um 48
sworn officer vacancies which was very
very hard for us to schedule and deal
with. There was um a lot of different
things that we had to do uh to we were
bringing detectives out onto the road to
cover shifts and things like that. I'm
very happy to say due to a robust effort
and and an excellent team that we are
looking at about 11 vacancies right now.
But that doesn't mean that we have 11
holes in the street, it actually when we
consider those vacancies, we also have
to add in the number of officers who are
on military leave, FMLA, long-term sick
leave or those are in some sort uh phase
of training. It takes about 18 months
from application to solo office or to
get them out there. And so just because
we hire them, they don't start right
away. It was something that the city
manager alluded to, the expense and time
it takes to train and hire a new
officer. Um, so our feel- like number is
about 41 vacancies and if I can once
those positions start to metriculate out
of training into into these positions,
we're going to be in in much better
shape and it it certainly will have an
effect. So on duty reimbursement for
special events, I wanted to kind of walk
through this a little bit. There's two
ways in which we staff events and one
way is through a 1099. It's called
offduty employment where an officer will
go there and work an offduty assignment
and get paid by that particular vendor
as a 1099 employee and then we have on
duty reimbursement. Now um which the
vendor directly covers the total costs
for that employee. Um, usually if
there's any event that requires less
than 20 employees, it'll usually be a 10
1099 situation. 20 or more, it's usually
going to be a reimbursement um,
situation. So, we started uh, phasing
this in over the last three years
starting in fiscal
2324. Um, and this July 1, we will be at
a 100% of full cost reimbursement for
our officers that are working special
events. Um, it is important to note that
not every Scottsdale police employee
working the event is paid for by the
producer. There's certain things that we
do because we need to do them. We feel
it's a best practice. So, for example,
at the waste management open, we deploy
the SWAT team to be ready for any type
of actor shooter situation or any other
critical event. We'll have undercover
officers doing surveillance in parking
lots uh to make sure that nobody's
lurking out there and everybody is safe.
Um, we have canines do explosive
detection, for example, on the
footprint. We cover the costs of those
things because it's things we want to
do. Uh, we also cover a lot of the
periphery traffic control. It's our
agreement with the vendor as
well. So, this kind of gives you an idea
of the reimbursement agreements um, and
how much we cover, how much they cover.
Now, this doesn't show uh, four really
four other events that are coming up.
Spring
[Music]
training is one of them. We just had
bike week and there's a couple others
that are going to come up that'll change
this number, but then in July one
there'll be a shift as we go to 100%
coverage, but we will always have to pay
a piece of it based on what I just said.
There's certain things that we just do
and that we are going to
cover. So, let's talk about um our
currently open uh positions. I know this
was a a request of the commission.
Um this is what we're looking at right
now. Now, uh we're very lucky in the
sworn ranks that we do not have any
positions o open for um over 180 days.
Uh robust effort in and trying to get uh
sworn um professional staff. We're
looking at about 25. And I will break
these down for you, but these are
usually the hardest positions to fill
like dispatch and detention uh and
whatnot. It's a national issue as far as
trying to fill those positions, but we
are constantly in a cycle of recruitment
trying to recruit positions. Now, if you
look at dispatcher alone, it takes a
year from application to actually
getting on the floor. Um, plus we can
only run about 7 to 10 in an academy per
time for a dispatcher. So, it's during
that time that you're still facing
attrition and whatnot. Um, and so it's
always a struggle to find the right
person. I should also mention that we
accept a lot of applications. Um, but we
are very very picky on who we put out
serving the community in this critical
effort that we do as far as public
safety is concerned. And so um we are
very very picky on uh background
investigations uh their education
pedigree and so forth. Um, so usually
we're right around a 2% agency uh as far
as sworn and and who we actually hire.
Um, but we take a lot of pride in that
because we don't have the problem that
other agencies has have as you look
across the nation that may not be as
scrupulous as we are for that.
Um, this is the process as I was saying
uh the process is arduous and it should
be um through background checks and
whatnot. We have application reviews,
interviews, u extensive, like I said,
background tech, background checks and
whatnot. And all this takes a lot of
time. And then the training component
itself takes a lot of time, especially
when you're talking about dispatch, uh,
detention, and sworn officers. So,
here's a a chart
that lists out some of those um some of
those positions. If you look at
communications dispatcher, like I said,
this is a national problem. um the
vacancy rate in in dispatching. Uh we uh
try and solve that through overtime. Um
and seeking contractual services for
call takers. Um not the most ideal
situation. Um but it's something that
just kind of keeps us afloat. We've
crossrained other members of the
department to come in and actually work
in dispatch. And so we do everything
possible to try and make sure that that
um is still functional. Uh but we we
also have robust recruiting efforts for
dispatchers but like I said it's a it is
a national problem. Some of these like
the forensic scientists it's a very
small pool um uh to that that these
scientists are available. It's a very
highly specialized position. There's
just not a lot of forensic scientists in
Arizona that we can uh draw in. So we're
fighting with other labs around the
state um to try and get them get them in
here. So sometimes we'll be on
recruitment after recruitment after
recruitment just trying to find
somebody. So now I'm uh that's the end
of my presentation. I'm happy to handle
any questions. Thank you very much, Joe.
We obviously have some comments and I
guess I'll start with Commissioner
Stevens.
Okay. Thank you for your presentation.
Out of all the questions I submitted to
you before, I only have two and I've got
one new one that's easy. Okay. I I think
you said it, but I want to understand it
right. On the ones like Barrett Jackson
where you're providing people and
they're working overtime, are we
recovering the overtime pay rate plus
pension? We are. We are all in. We're
recovering everything, Commissioner.
Yes. So, that doesn't hurt us at all
then. Okay. Um uh here's the one I
didn't that just occurred to me. I know
in some departments they have vehicles
assigned to officers and ask them to
make it their vehicle and take it home
with the idea being it doesn't hurt for
it to be seen but more importantly they
take much better care of the vehicle and
so the vehicles last longer. Is that
something that's ever been considered
uh here? And if not just FYI that yeah
you it's been talked about and
considered but it absolutely doesn't
work for a community like Scottsdale.
the expense is so much greater and
having them take them home. Plus, only
about 9% of police officers live within
the city of Scottsdale. So, we'd be
paying for cars that are going all the
way out to Maricopa or Queen Creek. And
so, the cost of gas and wear and tear on
the vehicle, it just doesn't add up to
to being seen by our community, which is
really where the value would be added
there. Okay. And then here's a nasty
question I had to give you a heads up
on. So I said, "What would happen if the
city manager said to you, you know, you
got 25 unfilled positions. You're
getting by just fine now. Love what
you're doing. Thank you for that. Get
rid of those 25 positions. What would
you do other than discontinue service to
where I live?"
First, I'd be shocked that the city
manager asked me that, but
no, I would uh what would happen or what
would I do? And what would happen? What
would happen? we would continue to have
to leverage mandatory overtime. Um we
see a component of burnout in that these
are positions that we absolutely need.
Like we need um for example dispatchers
which you saw were a great percentage of
those unfilled positions. Um we need
someone staffing those telephones. We
need someone out on the radio
dispatching those calls. If we didn't um
so with that minimum number, we require
people to work overtime. It's it's
actually mandatory overtime. So that
leads to burnout. um uh expense um low
morale.
Um so I I think that we would be seeing
a lot of that. Uh these are positions
that are critical to us and um it it
would just lead to a very poor working
environment and then we also start to
look at a trading people as well that go
to other places where they don't have to
have so much mandatory overtime. So I
believe that's that's really what would
happen um if we weren't able to fill
those 25 positions. their critical
positions that we're always trying to
fill because of the critical nature that
they serve.
Okay. Well, that's just the kind of
question some nasty people might ask
because it's like you're getting by
somehow, but yeah, there are some
ramifications to it. So, I I wanted to
ask it. And then the other thing for the
commissioner's benefit uh the way the uh
budgeting is done, there are unfilled
positions that are in the budget, but
there's also a reduction to expense, you
know, like 11 million or so for expected
unfilled positions. That's not something
all cities do. And so it's not like
there's all fluff there. And I believe
the city does kind of manage the degree
to which the unfilled positions start
getting filled too much and puts the
budget at
risk. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman,
commissioners. Thank you for your time.
Uh just a second. Um we're not done with
you yet. Oh, okay.
Commissioner Ransco, uh quick question.
The special events reimbursement, you
mentioned a couple extras you provide to
Waste Management. What would happen if
you asked for reimbursement for the
extras? they wouldn't buy them or just
curious why you don't charge them. Yeah,
you know um uh great question
commissioner that um they we really
balance what they feel that they need
and what we what we know we need from a
pl a public safety standpoint. So they
wouldn't look at those as as something
they would need, they might do without
to make their bottom line better. Uh so
for example, putting a SWAT team on call
when we understand the value of that
from a public safety um uh you know
standpoint that they're just looking for
okay well who's actually working in the
footprint and guiding the people in and
doing security at the different holes.
They may not value that as much let's
say so that I think they're I think um
those are things that we make the
decision to do because we find so much
value and we don't want them to be a
point of negotiation in the contract.
But I don't know, you know, I going down
there and we're always doing that. We're
always in negotiations talking about
things that we want to need or things
that they can cover. Um but uh but it
there's definitely a balance and a give
and take there as well. Well, I and then
the second thing I guess you could bake
it into the rate, right? So if they're
not going to pay for it, the rates for
the officers go up. The rates for the
things they do want to go up. So I'm
just just curious.
Thank you.
I would uh chime in and second
Commissioner Renco's uh question. I I
think the um we have to be fairly
aggressive in terms of what we're
getting reimbursement for and what
things we think are
um it's not really a negotiation. I
mean, you ought to decree to them what's
necessary to bring their event here from
a public safety point of view. along
that line, but not necessarily on public
uh uh events
rather. What kind of reimbursement do
does the department get for the
commitment we've made to the public
schools for sort of in place officers in
the schools that you said that's a
growing need.
We currently have a 75% 25% split with
the schools. Uh and so they pay for the
majority of the officers that are in the
schools. we we collect the 25%.
So there is a reimbursement program
there. Yes. Good. Do you um in a similar
sense do you have an interdep
departmental charge for example
to produce put officers here in civic
center and other city buildings and
whatever. Do you get from those
departments a a reimbursement allowance
or I know that across the street in the
um what do we call it one civic center
or whatever the building is over there
we now have two officers that man the
door. We didn't used to do that. Um
and it's it's hard to ask the question
of is that really necessary because
inevitably something bad will happen as
soon as we stop. But
How do these programs get started and
how do you get reimbursed for them?
Well, we carry um that whole contract
within our budget. I and and I'm sure
you might be able to help on this one,
but I do believe the only place is the
water department that does a cost
sharing with us as far as um municipal
security is is concerned. But I would
just add, Mr. Chairman, from a city
manager perspective, uh if we're not
just generally speaking, if we're not
charging it out to an enterprise fund,
then we're really just kind of moving
money around from my perspective. So,
it's not with all with respect, it's not
his budget, it's our budget, it's the
city, police department, and so on so
forth. So, it's general fund. to answer
your your question. I'm since I have the
mic, I might just also uh back to the
previous uh question regarding event
funding. Just as a reminder, it's
increased significantly over a threeyear
period back to uh increase to recoup
some of our costs. The second part of
that is we have to look at these events
and particularly the one that was
referenced and uh from a city
perspective what are other revenues that
are coming into so that's the beauty of
looking at when we have the hotels the
restaurants and everything else not just
this clearly from this uh cost center
just to use that term I they're a giver
uh in contributing to this event but
when we bring in the broader perspective
uh the city is a huge uh winner I would
say from a marketing a branding camp uh
branding perspective and then purely uh
a revenue perspective. Thank you Mr.
Chair
and I think that's a valid point to
make.
Um, the only reason I raised the
question is because so many people feel
like a big part of our budget goes to
police and fire. And and it does, of
course, but it um it's it's for reasons
other than just providing public safety.
It's to enable and facilitate a lot of
events, meet a lot of needs that they
might other might not otherwise meet. Um
I don't know how we make You're right.
we're just trading money and moving
around
uh moving around chits from one side of
the table to the other. But it's
important to put their contribution and
respect in perspective. I'm going to
yield the floor and but I may be back
with another comment. Commissioner
Carla,
thank you. Um, going back to FTEES and
overtime, I was glad you brought up
staff burnout because I know throughout
our city all departments, so much of our
staff works more than regular hours.
Some are paid overtime and many because
they're salary don't. They but they do
it the work anyway because they're good
staff and they care about the job
getting done. But in you know and people
could say well maybe we just drop that
part of the job or we drop you know the
unfilled FTE but in public safety you
don't have that option because the job
has to get done and where I come about
is the worry that you know some of the
things that we read in that article in
the paper about the number of hours your
crisis response officer put in overtime
and I'm glad to see you don't allow
backto-back shifts But what other mech
mechanisms do you have in place to
address the burnout before you lose a
good officer? Or when do you decide we
need another body?
I'm just curious. Great question,
Commissioner. Uh we we are constantly
monitoring the number of hours that each
officer worked. Like I said, that
overtime tool, we actually can can bring
up the officers that are earning the
most amount of overtime or working the
most. We're in kind of a strange era now
where when I first started, everybody
wanted to work overtime. Everybody
wanted to seize the moment to make the
extra money. And now we really look at
only about 20% of the staff want to work
um a majority of the overtime. So you
will see some folks really rise to the
top and seize opportunities for that
overtime. and the individual you are
talking about um some of that overtime
is uh taking care of a records backlog.
Um so it's not just in their in their
discipline. They're going out earning
extra money in in in these these other
areas by choice. But we we still monitor
that. Um and it is incumbent upon the
first line supervisor to really do those
calculations with permission and say,
"Okay, you know, 80 hours in one pay
period or 60 hours in one pay period,
you're not going to have time to sleep.
we need to um reel that in a little bit
and and those things are happening in
real time. Sometimes you'll see that
kind of come up and then um and then
we'll reel it back in again uh and
whatnot. So you kind of have this going
on throughout the year, but we really
try and be accountable for the wellness
of of those of those folks. Um, most of
the things that they're uh we're never
going to get away from overtime and most
of the things that the the as far as
staff positions that they're covering,
like I said, it's not that we
necessarily need more personnel. We just
need to get the personnel we hired out
into those positions um to build out
those work units um where they are. But
I really appreciate that question. We
have a very robust wellness unit. We we
uh really um look at employee wellness
as as a very critical effort for us and
we're always trying to find ways to
corral them in a little bit even when
they're doing it by choice. Well, I
appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you,
Vice Chair
Swagger. you know, when you're looking
at your 52 vacant positions, um, how
much of that is caused by salary
competition around the valley or around
the state, and if you pay more to be
able to hire those people, can you
recover any kind of significant amount
of that from lower overtime?
That that is a very complex question.
Uh, as far as something that I would
probably want to do more of a deep dive
into to to give you accurate numbers on
what that would look like analytically,
um, I can say just from my perspective,
um, it really depends on where that
vacancy exists. Uh, so certainly, um, in
in a sworn officer, uh, folks that are
coming to work for a city are looking at
the pay. They're looking at where we are
in the market and we will get less
applications, let's say, if we're down
on that, um, down in the market. Uh so
I've seen that happen. But then there's
other positions like I said forensics uh
which isn't really about the pay pay.
It's more about the availability.
Certainly in dispatch um dispatchers are
everybody has vacancies for dispatchers.
So they're they're going to go uh and
seek positions where the pay is the
highest it goes to reason. Uh so we've
seen that um and and whatnot. But um but
yeah, as far as the analysts as far as
pay versus overtime and what we're
spending, I think that that analysis is
always being conducted where we're
trying to stay in market. I know through
human resources and they're they're um
and so we're always moving in that
direction to try and be within market so
we can fill our positions and then and
hopefully reduce our overtime as far as
coverage is concerned. But as far as the
exact numbers that I I don't have that
analysis right in front of me, but can
certainly look into that.
City manager, you wanted to comment.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a couple
thoughts. One uh to the most recent
question. I would uh break some of these
positions up into different categories
just to support the chief's uh response
there. I'll start off maybe with the
hardest to fill, the dispatchers that
are referenced. I've been in this
business 28 years. Had multiple
communication center. I've never been
fully staffed. Never been fully staffed
for 28 years in this business. So, so
there's a a challenge as was referenced
nationally. Some of these other
positions um are lower or entry level
and we anticipate some churn in those
positions. So, that's expected. And then
like the forensics one referenced
several times, those are hard to fill.
Those are really unique positions. So I
think there's really kind of a variety
when when we break this down also that
is uh analogous when we look across the
organization as well. There are certain
entry level positions and we just have
regular churn in those uh particularly
when we get into a tighter labor market
that we've had the most recent years.
That's another example. Part-time
staffing becomes really challenging
those tight labor markets. Again in many
positions we're moving out of that a
tighter labor market. But there's from a
human resources perspective that's how
we look at some of these positions. And
then we have to look at the compensation
for example the the forensics one is it
properly placed or in the dispatch or I
will tell you what we have seen in the
valley is the great wage race over the
recent years and so we'll ramp up
somebody else will ramp up uh so on so
forth. I think some of that is settling
down again with the labor market but
we've certainly seen that in recent
years. And then if I may just go back, I
had one additional thought, Mr.
Chairman, to our conversation about
security. Uh, and another thought that I
had to ponder putting this example
within the police department is I found
that contract management under that
subject matter expert is the most
appropriate uh place. For example, just
to uh elaborate for a minute, let's just
say the security efforts for 1CC could
be put under city hall or the treasury
or something like that. But it doesn't
get the the appropriate management or
the scrutiny when you unless you put it
under the subject matter expert. You
could probably say the same across the
cities such as legal services. When you
outsource, let's just say an auditor for
example, you wouldn't put that under the
management under the city manager's
office. You'd put it under the treasury.
So I think this is a good example where
we have that function that is within our
organization so that contract management
is appropriately done through that
subject matter expert. Thanks, Mr. chair
with that
and I think
um if it was my comment it may have been
misconstrued. I wasn't suggesting in any
way a reallocation of effort. I just
want to be sure that um the police
department gets adequately compensated
if you will even though it's a an
accounting entry but adequately
compensated for the efforts that are
demanded by others. And let me say in a
broader sense, and this is really a a
statement not only to you Joe, but to
the city manager and others, I would
urge you to uh to always make the
council aware of productivity
improvements and efforts and initiatives
that are taking place. There is this
sense in the community, I'm sure among
some, that um we just continually add
people and add and add and add. Um but I
think there is an underlying
uh effort that is successfully
identifying
um cost-saving and cost recovery
initiatives and I particularly was
struck by um your discussion of the
corona solutions and the efficiencies
that that introduce introduces into just
the deployment of manpower. Um and the
drones of course are another example
that the public can relate to and the
efficiencies that that uh eventually
translates into and how you could do
more with less here in the city. So to
the extent you can make those arguments
anywhere in the city any department I
think it is an effective message to
communicate to the public as best you
can. I commend you Joe for bringing it
up. Thank you sir. Commissioner Stevens,
do you have yet another question? Yeah,
I do. I decided there was one of the
ones I referred on I wanted to ask
anyway. Uh I I'm talking to a a
gentleman who was a senior person in a
police department larger than Scottsdale
and then was a police chief in a smaller
one. And what he's I said, "Well, what
should I be looking for?" And he said,
"You know what? They need to set up a
citizens police academy and volunteer
program." And so we said, "Oh, sounds
like a good idea." And then we looked at
the website and you appear to have a
volunteer police academy or no a police
uh police citizens academy and volunteer
program. And my question would be to
what degree are are you having any luck
getting volunteers there? And I noticed
that the website had it said there were
no positions available now. So the
question is just real briefly is the
program active and are there
opportunities there to actually get
volunteers to fill some spots?
Absolutely. Uh, first of all, the the
website is an error and that's a
carryover. So, thank you for pointing
that out. That's going to get fixed.
Right now, we have about 24 volunteers
in different places throughout the city
that do a phenomenal job and and help us
with uh workload in different units. A
great example is one a volunteer that
has worked for several years over at our
family advocacy center that um is in
charge of keeping track of and filing
sex offenders within the city. um the
work he does is phenomenal and saves us
countless hours. Uh with that, yes, uh
we do leverage volunteers uh and interns
uh for that matter um that help us in
our day-to-days and whatnot, but that
program is alive and well and um we very
much uh appreciate volunteers coming to
work with us. So, we'll make a change to
that website, but we we do communicate
that um through our social media
platform and through other
communications as well. And we also
announce in most community gatherings
that we have that way, hey, we're always
looking for volunteers to come out and
give a hand. Good. So, okay. Thank you.
Thank you for that,
Joe. I don't think we have any more
questions, but we appreciate your
presentation and willingness to answer.
Very informative. Thank you. Thank you
for your time. And at that point, I will
suggest we move on to item number four
on the agenda, which is uh to hear from
the fire department their operating
budget. And Mr. Tom Shannon is
approaching the podium as we speak.
Good afternoon, Commissioner Smith and
members of the commission. Thank you,
Carrie. Um what you just received is is
contextual. It's for uh for light
reading at home should you get bored. Um
to give context to perhaps some of the
areas of discussion we might experience
today and then um Commissioner Stevens
then to directly answer your questions.
Um and I'll be happy to expand on that
during the
conversation. Okay, let's move into the
the presentation. So un not unlike all
the other departments in the city
personnel um consume the majority of our
uh outlay. Uh this represents uh uh next
year's budget uh proposed and it's about
419
uh FTEES. uh contractual services as
Chief Leuk uh mentioned have gone up and
so we're seeing uh a modest increase uh
to
187 million commodities at 4.7 and then
capital outlays refer to those transfers
that were previously represented by the
treasurer um that were either in capital
or already existed in our capital outlay
section but uh are now represented more
accurately in the general fund. Okay.
So, uh, getting right to it, the things
that are driving cost increase in the
fire department and in the in the fire
service generally, my generation of
firefighters retiring. Scottell has a
unique history in that we have a bornon
date for a municipal fire department of
July 1st, 2005. Why that is significant
is because on July 1st,
2025, 120 members of the organization
can leave on the day. And so as you can
as you imagine in your own businesses
trying to reboot your organization and
recommmit resources to hiring and
training and uh professional
development, that is where we're finding
a significant amount of our effort. So,
as we look at the incumbent
firefighters, the ones that exist here
today, um fully a third of them will be
eligible to leave on the 1st of July.
Now, we know that they won't they won't
all leave on the same day, but what they
will very likely do is enter into the
deferred retirement option program,
which will put them on a very precise
ticker. uh most folks uh as you look at
the PS uh RS actuarial stay in that drop
about three and a half years and so we
can narrow in a little bit more
accurately on the departure and uh
cadence if you will that we will expect
but what's really important for us to
understand is in the interim we'll see
continued growth of the department we'll
see continued need for professional
development and then anticipating uh
through surveys and through frankly ly
uh firehouse chatter, who might be
considering uh departing. Um we will try
to zero in very accurately by quarter so
that we can anticipate cost. We most
recently did a ser a survey of the uh of
the membership that is due or eligible
to retire uh this summer. And uh we
anticipate about 20 members leaving
within the first two months. So, August
and September. And you would say, well,
that's a modest uh that's a modest
departure. Keep in mind, these are our
most senior members. They they uh they
possess the most attributes in the city,
which would include rank. They may be a
paramedic. They may be a hazmat
technician. They may have uh some other
compensible skill set that needs to be
replaced. Also, simultaneously on a
cadence that replaces the veteran with a
journeyman versus a veteran being
replaced by a novice. And so that is
something that I can anticipate you
would do in your very own business.
Other contributing factors are the
opening of station 12 at Hayden and and
Mayo. Uh phase two of the Scottsdale uh
ambulance uh program will be executed
during this budget year and the
continuation of obviously phase one and
the development of that program. uh fire
station 601 which is at uh Miller and
McDow will see the return of its second
company which left that location in the
2010s during the downturn in the
recession. We had a fire station being
built and of course we weren't going to
open a fire station without occupying
it. But at that time during the
recession uh things were pretty darn
tight and uh it required the splitting
of resources from station 1's area and
it's taken us these long 14 years to get
back to servicing that community. And
and just as a side note, call volume has
only increased since 2010. And so that
is a very very busy house. And uh as
soon as that fire company gets back
there, uh we will have greater
reliability of resources. We'll get into
some of those metrics in just a second.
Um obviously we are recruiting, hiring,
training, professionally developing our
staff. That is an ongoing and continuous
endeavor. uh and really since 2018 uh we
have been on a ferocious pace and we see
that uh continuing quite frankly until
we get deep into what I consider that
that third or fourth year of the drop.
So three years from now in 2028 2029 is
when we should start to see a bit of a
crest if you will. There's two and and I
appreciate the commissioner um the chair
leaving now. Um he used he referred to
it as a cliff. Uh I will refer to my my
analogy as more of a tsunami. And if you
think of your tsunami science, there's
two waves, right? The front wave is what
is the result of that seismic event. The
seismic event was being born on July
1st, 2020 2005. That first wave is going
to clear out all the all the skill sets
that need to be replaced. That's the
that's probably the front end leading
expensive side of that endeavor. The
back end, which is uh I think in your
your uh neighborhood of interest, is the
pension implications. We're about 80%
funded, I believe, Treasure Andrews, 84%
funded now in the fire department. You
might say that's outstanding. Well, it's
frankly because no one's left, but
they're going to start leaving in chunks
now. And you'll see that creep. And so
that back end of that tsunami is in my
view sometimes what gets the most
attention. I want to I really want to
laser everybody's attention to the front
end of the tsunami which is what impacts
Mr. and Mrs. Scottdale most most
predictably. And so this is the
breakdown of where you'll you'll find
our firefighters and our civilian staff.
We have about 30 38 civilian staff u who
are in the ASRS system. The rest find
themselves spread throughout PSRS. And
as I and as I said 120 of them find
themsel or actually 103 now I guess our
number we better look at our numbers. Um
103 now as of the posting of this are in
that tier one which includes the drop
consideration
um overtime. So you can see the the
increase right around COVID. Uh during
COVID, we were that's when we really
started to experience mandatory
overtime. Staff members were simply
running the wheels off. Uh we they we
were uh we had a significant amount of
impact uh from COVID uh on our workforce
as well as uh many of the other city
departments. But because we engaged the
public quite directly uh in the 911
environment, we we saw a significant
impact in that regard. And so we had a a
predictable spike there. Simultaneously
we were growing and we were in we were
adding additional uh staff year over
year. That uh in within including uh
class and comp changes uh has driven
that overtime uh scale up to its current
level. So what is our approach to
managing overtime? So there are, you
know, fair labor standards uh act uh
prohibitions uh that that uh keep us in
a lane of making sure that our policies
don't detrimentally uh in impact uh
employees. What I mean by that is there
is no structural condition where spiking
exists. There is no uh city policy where
the most senior members of an
organization get first whack at
overtime. that's not structurally in
existence. What does exist though is a
uh low hours uh selection preference. So
when we move to select folks to work
additional overtime, first we have to
fill the seat and the attribute
specifically. So if you're a company
officer or you're a hazmat technician or
you're a paramedic, that attribute needs
to be filled quite precisely unless
daily staffing suggests that we have
that attribute somewhere else where we
can move people around. But more often
times than not, it's a like forlike
replacement. So what we do is we use low
hours. So we might go to you,
Commissioner Stevens, because you have
the lowest amount of hours and offer you
that overtime opportunity. Next, you may
say yes, you may say no. we might move
to you commissioner sites and so on and
so on until we fill the seat with the
correct attribute. What we find today,
it's just a condition of of uh um our
society now is that our veteran members
are the most uh consuming users of
overtime. Our newest members tend to
have a I believe a better work life
balance in my my view. uh they are not
as interested in working overtime. That
is just a condition of of of our of our
society. So that places us in a position
of finding and you may have seen this in
the press recently where occasionally
we'll see uh firefighters and company
officers and battalion chiefs making
substantial amounts of overtime
sometimes in well in excess of 20% uh
and 25% of their base income. And I can
assure you that we are on top of that.
We look at that very closely. We watch
who's creeping up. Not necessarily and
certainly very importantly because of
our fiscal responsibility, but because
it's a safety issue. We want to make
sure that these folks are mission ready
and capable to do the job. And so that
that uh overtime policy exists in in in
the in that wonderful uh guide that I
gave you kind of why we do what we do
what we do and the the the references
therein. But we have city administrative
regulation, we have internal department
policy and we have uh legal counsel that
gives us counsel on how to manage fairly
an overtime process. And so I hope that
that uh made made sense. But I can
assure you that when we do have members
who exceed the 25 percentile, we will go
visit them. We we we visit with them. We
make sure that everything's okay in
their life. We we uh there and if it
there is uh and I couldn't remember
quite uh directly a conversation with
the treasurer some a couple years ago
where sometimes it's hard to wrap your
head around the amount of overtime that
that folks are willing to work. Um but
there is no prohibition that we can
place on an employee outside of uh a a
management decision to to prohibit uh
you know within that context if that if
that helps. Um the operating metrics
that we use in the fire service are
pretty much all related to uh time time
related elements. So both your your
heart, your you know your your core and
your building need us there in about six
minutes. And so response times uh
measuring the time the call transfer
time, the getting out of the fire
station time, time on scene at time on
task. Those are all measurements that we
look at very reliably. And I can tell
you that um the city uh some years ago,
I would say probably 14 maybe years ago,
um Commissioner Smith, you may have been
on council at the time, you adopted a
80th percentile versus the 90th
percentile, which is the national
standard. And quite honestly, nobody can
meet the 90th percentile in the nation.
It's it's simply impossible. So, what
the city said is that 80% of the time,
we want you there within uh 6 to 8
minutes of time of dispatch. And so that
is a that is a very reasonable uh
standard. And so these other uh
standards represent return of spont uh
spontaneous cir circulation. Um the
center for public safety uh excellence
is the uh is the overarching entity that
looks at what we call the standard of
cover which gets to where do we place
fire stations, how do you share
resources and those sorts of things.
This is an important time for me to crow
a little bit about the system that we
find ourselves in. You may recall that
prior to 2005, we were served by Rural
Metro. Rural Metro Fire provided a level
of service to the city for 50 years, but
they did so by themselves. They were
alone in doing so. the automatic aid
system, which has been in existence
since the late late 1970s, uh excluded
Scottsdale and rural metro from
participating in that system for a
variety of reasons. It wasn't until 2005
that Scottsdale was invited into the
automatic aid system, which essentially
blew up our resource access capability.
And how that shows itself literally
every day is we receive and give about
equal amounts of calls for service along
our Phoenix Tempe border as uh now and
it's in the areas of about 2,000 to 2500
calls a year for service that we give
and we get annually uh from our from our
automatic aid partners. What that means
is that the closest unit goes to the
call regardless of of jurisdiction. And
that's clearly good for your heart and
clearly good for for your building. And
so the other uh thing that we're really
focusing on now is our our metrics that
we're going to be using to ensure that
our ambulance business that's uh
fledgling and I'll get into here in a
minute is meeting our obligatory
response times so that we meet the the
minimum requirements of our certificate
of necessity.
Um, I'm going to take just a quick
breath there and see if there was
anything uh particularly for
Commissioner Stevens um that that that I
could answer related to the overtime uh
element.
Uh no, no, it's okay. You did a nice job
on that. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. All
right. I will jump into our our uh 2526
budget request. Uh you may recall that
uh fire station 606 is being uh
remodeled essentially rebuilt and we're
going to need to house that crew. Uh it
was this discussion occurred uh in the
capital uh uh conversation and the Noah
building is being temporarily uh
reconfigured uh for that station. Uh we
will need to increase our budget to
support that in in that amount. fleet
upfit. Um, our fleet department does a
fantastic job of purchasing base models
of our equipment and providing the
maintenance and operations uh support
for that. But then when it comes to
upfitting those uh units with the
computers and the light packages and all
the other sunundry emergency uh services
uh accuchima if you will uh that's
something that the department uh funds.
Uh we are continuing to upfit and make
contemporary our technical rescue team.
Uh later in this uh the next slide I'll
talk about proposition 490 but our
existing technical rescue team needs uh
some replacement of equipment. Our
paramedic package has been something
that since 2018 and and quite frankly
well before then we've been aggressively
uh seeking to get ahead of the departure
curve. So, if we if we anticipate
year-over-year losing uh paramedics, we
it takes about a year and a half to
build them to the point where they're
mission ready. And so, we need to be a
year and a half ahead of that. And so,
we're constantly sending medics based on
what we have used both uh actuarial
analytics and then we've hired some very
smart people to help us with what is
very likely to happen from just a a
human perspective. And those uh
analytics have shown themselves to be
quite accurate. We need to replace 80
paramedics out of those 120 people who
are can potentially leave on July 1st.
That's a that's a significant um
schooling endeavor. And to do that ahead
of time is key. And it gets back to that
veteran versus journeyman or veteran
versus novice. Um high-risk equipment
includes being able to communicate in
our high-rise buildings. They're
building uh uh buildings quite um uh
effectively now. But what that uh those
buildings require is a a certain
communications uh capability inside that
high-rise equipment package includes
communications packs, if you will, that
go in and essentially create a a
boosting station inside a building
during high-rise events. Uh we, as you
know, have a new training center. that
training center is finding its finding
its budgetary uh true north. Uh we're in
our first training academy to right now.
Uh we are taking meticulous uh notes and
and literally counting every penny so
that we can rightsize that budget over
the years. It's going to take us a few
years to settle that budget knowing the
amount of trition that we've attrition
that we've got coming. And so this
modest increase suggests what we think
will require uh we will require for
supplies and equipment to make make the
uh budget for next year uh true up
ballistics panel replacement. Just like
our law enforcement uh uh brothers and
sisters, we find ourselves in hostile
environments and we uh those that gear
has a uh a warranty and certification
limit on it and so we replace that
equipment on schedule. Specialty team
training. We've been in this six, six,
and six mode. Six technical rescue
technicians, six hazmat technicians, and
six airport rescue firefighters over the
last few years. We think that's getting
ahead of our attrition rate. And so far,
uh we've been predicting that cadence uh
fairly well. And this represents the
tuition, equipment, and schooling for
those those folks. Uh special events, uh
we spoke a little bit about special
events um or we listened to Chief Leuke.
Um this increase trs up our expenses to
revenues and similar to the police
department we also bill uh for
reimbursement. Uh there are some what we
call uh
uh what do we call our u personal
events? Uh city events signature. Thank
you. I was just fading there. Signature
events. Uh where there's not there's no
reimbursement sought. it's it's put on
by the city, but virtually every other
event then we look for actual cost
recovery. I will be having a
conversation with my law enforcement
brothers and sisters about making sure
that we're uh matching them in terms of
actual billables. Uh I think we're just
a little bit behind them in in including
fringe. And so I'm going to talk to them
to make sure we cover fringe as well. Um
contract increases uh uh include all of
the technology and services that we uh
um uh utilize currently. Everything from
our occupational health contract to our
uh CAD contract increases to our
technology increases. Um getting into
our ambulance conversation, phase two of
our ambulance execution uh will occur
this year. We're on about a a year and a
half uh cycle, year to year and a half
cycle. January will be the start of
phase two. Uh we will receive uh five
new ambulances in October. Those will be
equipped in the fall. And then we will
be uh out running calls with those
ambulances as well. And I'll get into a
little bit more the the analytics of
ambulance for you as as needed. Uh
information technology and software
increases. Uh warehouse. Uh this is it
seems it seems like a small issue but
the acquisition of a warehouse by the
fire department after 20 years of
existence was a big deal for us last
year. Uh we had decentralized all of our
logistical support and I think that that
was wildly inefficient. Um I to be quite
honest I don't know that our our uh loss
control was where it should have been.
Um it was super inefficient when it came
to employee time management. And so, uh,
finding a central location, um, to house
all of our equipment and bring
technology into that mix, I believe is
going to be a great efficiency, uh, in
ensuring that the public's, uh, dollars
are spent wisely. And then uh back
towards some additional ambulance
increase uh software increases to make
sure that we are meeting all of the uh
data and uh reporting structures uh
reporting requirements that are are
required as part of our certificate of
necessity. Moving into 490 we have four
FTEEs and some training and equipment
that will be part of that uh
proposition. uh we ex we
anticipate e executing those hires in a
cadence that stays behind the funding.
So we we will not get over our ski tips
when it comes to the anticipated
revenues in and the hiring therein. So
we'll we'll see the the hiring of those
FTEEs over the course of next not next
fiscal year not all uh in the month of
July. uh hiring and promotions. Uh as
you can imagine, we have a budget. It's
a it's a nominal budget to uh conduct
our promotional processes. Um but we
have been overspending and quite frankly
robbing Peter to pay Paul to meet the
needs to uh conduct uh professional
development and promotional
opportunities uh for the folks who are
departing. And so that that is included
in that request. Our academy package
includes both software and equipment to
make sure that in in in a in um
complement with the physical
requirements that we also have
technological requirements that are
being met for the
academy. And then uh the resource uh
requirements are CAD contract with the
city of Phoenix. We spend about $2.4
million a year for our dispatch
agreement to be in the automatic aid
system. it would cost us 10 times that
to be out of the automatic aid system
and and go it alone again. Um and so
this is a uh expected increase due to
the cost of uh technology increases uh
prevention services. We have a nominal
adjustment um in prevention services. So
the history of fire prevention in
Scottsdale included the use of sworn
personnel in prevention services. Over
the course of the last 20 years and
certainly my 15 years, we have been
turning more towards an ASRS or a
civilian version of prevention services
led by sworn staff at the uh command uh
command level uh staff. Uh this will
this will essentially realign that we
have senior sworn members retiring and
we're going to replace them with
civilian uh ASRS uh members in areas
where we can. And then finally
restaffing of station uh uh uh 601 is
represented in the FTE cost there of
$1.4 million. Um unfilled positions.
This really is is best um described by
the the absence of the FTE and the
length of time it takes to hire, train,
and place on a truck. So what we really
don't have any any uh vacant positions
the the positions that have uh been open
for more than 180 days typically reflect
things like pipeline positions or um
frankly the waiting for an academy to uh
be available and the hiring of and and
the vacancy of the position that is
left. Um and so uh I am quite confident
that every one of these total uh these
these open positions will be filled and
filled on a regular schedule without
much uh delay. Uh the fact that we now
have our own training academy is going
to really speed things up. But we are
still using regional trainingmies. We're
going to send 10 folks this May to
Glendale because our academy won't be
finished in time and we will need to
start another group.
questions and happy to uh dive a little
bit deeper into some of the areas of
inquiry particularly for you,
Commissioner Stevens. Um I hope I hope I
knocked a bunch of them out.
We're going to hear from Commissioner
Carla first.
Thank you. Um first I just want to say
how much my part of town really
appreciates Eldo Station getting back a
second fire engine crew finally after
all these years. Um, I have a quick
question regarding I think it's in the
budget page
C44, you know, and I appreciate the pay
as you go approach on 490, but could I
just ask for a quick clarification of
the difference between your TRT hirings
and the the fire
prevention? Are you pulling in a whole
brand new TRT team this fiscal year? And
then how many folks are you pull going
to be able to use for increased fire
mitigation?
Commissioner uh uh Chairman Smith and
Commissioner Carla. So it it's a little
bit of a convoluted answer. So think of
them in two separate buckets. And so the
technical rescue team, the second
technical rescue team will be equipped.
We have the personnel, so we don't need
additional personnel. We'll be equipped
and trained. And so we will be ready to
stand up that unit once we have that
full complement of equipment and
training in place. And so uh and it's
really kind of back to the future. We
had two TRT teams and during the
downturn in the economy we we leaned out
to one. And so on that issue, there is
no new uh new employees for TRT for the
490 related prevention uh items. We do
have four personnel, three of which
which are essentially the funding of
already committed sworn members who
serve in what we call car 6030. And they
are the the the leading edge of the
community risk reduction effort, which
is all throughout our open spaces of the
city. And what they do is they engage
not only the the citizen themselves, but
the business who might be trying to get
a they're they're a firerevention
generalist and specialist. And so they
engage in homeland home assessments.
They uh engage in permit uh clearance.
They'll do light investigations. There
are terrorism less officers. They're
they're they're jacks of all trades. But
specifically as it relates relates to uh
the open spaces, they are the first
contact with the customer, the citizen
or the business when it comes to the
wildland urban interface and they will
facilitate that process. The fourth
member is uh essentially uh uh Dave
Ramirez who who is a part-time emergency
management employee, but we're really
going to focus on fuel mitigation as a
as a strategy. And if we can get uh
uh gain some ground with 6030 and uh the
wildland fire mitigation positions in
that section with 490, I think we can go
a long way to preventing fires. Okay. So
Dave comes back to your department.
Well, we'll see. We'll
see. He he he likes to go out uh in the
summers and and uh and actually fight
fires. So, we'll see if if it's him.
Okay. Well, thank you very much.
Let me ask you a question from um when
you talk about the ambulances and in the
budget, you need another $4.5 million um
in next year's budget to bring phase two
of the um ambulance
program. How much of that is one time
versus how much is ongoing or will we
always this whole operation of the
ambulance is supposed to be a break even
or even make a profit, right?
Commissioner uh Chair Smith. Absolutely.
Uh so we anticipate break even break
even at about and and I'm talking about
capital investments covered and
everything in about the eighth year of
operation. Four years from so in in when
phase three gets fully executed, we
should see substantial revenues uh
returning. We're uh I have some data
that I can provide to you. Um, in fact,
I've got it on my phone here, which I
left at my seat. But, uh, we are well
ahead of pace when it comes to billing
and recovery. Um, the investment, which
is not insignificant that those one-time
funds for ambulances and supplies and
equipment are substantial, we see that
uh investment being covered. It is
important to note, however, um that two
prior councils uh when when um
approached with the need to return to
this service, you may recall prior to
2005, the city of Scottsdale had its own
ambulance service through rural metro.
Um the previous councils all identified
that they saw this as an operational
necessity and it gets really related to
uh the care of our citizens. But as it
as it relates to the financials, I have
every confidence that we'll be well on
our way to capital asset um recovery in
our fourth year to our eighth year
without question.
Thank you, Commissioner Stevens.
Oh, yes. Yeah. Thank you for answering a
lot of what you answered before. So, I I
just want ambulance a little bit and and
a people thing. Uh did you said break
even? We we show you're going to break
even in a couple of years from an
operating standpoint. Is that what you
said? Did you say break even by 28 or
something or did you say eight years? I
thought I heard an eight-year thing in
there. Yeah. So, what I would say is and
it it may be splitting hairs here. So,
we are well into uh
profitability as it relates to just the
the the straight numbers on billables
and receivables in by year four. And
that's been my promise to the treasurer
for some time because we feel like our
pace is set for that for full cost
recovery of the investment of the of
capital assets. I think that that's what
we're looking uh about four between four
and eight more years or between four and
eight years since the start. Okay.
Because the budget shows that uh by 20
fiscal 28 you're no longer you're
starting to pay back some of the
original corrects. Yes. Okay. Uh, okay.
That's good. And then you're adding 44
more people and you describe
uh 21 of them is ambulance service phase
2, but it says 21 firefighters. Are
those 21 people the increase in the
ambulance volume? Because, and the
reason I asked that is I'm less
concerned about people increases when
they bring more revenue with them. So,
are the 21 people that you call
firefighters in the book, are those the
ambulance additional ambulance hires
that are then going to turn into extra
revenue? Commissioner Stevens, yes. So,
we run what's called a sworn model. So,
we don't run a civilian model and we did
deep analytics on this. Um, prior to
COVID, it really probably was more
advantageous even with the
operational challenges that it it
created to go with a civilian model. But
COVID and the healthc care uh uh human
resource issue that frankly occurred
really blew up the payroll for the
private sector when it comes to
paramedics, EMTs. So today currently the
models like Tempe, Gilbert, Mesa, those
that use civilian models are finding it
almost almost indecipherable in terms of
cost benefit to having a civilian and
then in terms of straight pay and
benefits. And then when you consider the
cost to retrain because the civilian uh
employee is far more transient than is
the sworn member. So sworn firefighters
are here typically for decades, right?
And they're ve very they're very agile
in terms of their
utility. Okay, my maybe I made that more
complicated than I need to. I I if I
would have said 21 paramedics, I
probably would have said, "Oh, I get
it." But it said 21 firefighters and I
didn't know if that meant those are the
ambulance people, but it sounds like
they are. That's it. And then uh for the
other increases in people, they're not
necessarily bringing revenue with them,
but their positions for new functions or
stations that we're not providing
service for. So there's no direct
revenue to that, but the reality is
we're serving an area that's paying
other taxes. So it's probably going to
the general fund somewhere. Is that
right? I'm just trying to see if
whatever we're at Sure. specifically
would be the return of station 6 uh of
6012 back to station 601. So the return
of that company. So that's where you're
going to add the additional
firefighters. And I'll tell you straight
up, there's no there's no profitability
in the fire service. You know, in the
ambulance world, and I believe it was
another one of your uh questions, areas
where we can find ourselves more
profitable is making sure that our rate
uh our rates are contemporary, that our
program and our usages are are
efficient. Uh and then the although our
co doesn't currently provide for it, the
use of uh ambulances for inner facility
transports or planned transports is
certainly a more profitable journey. But
both previous councils and and my
administration and previous city
managers felt like we really needed to
focus on the 911 side which was really
what we believe our our our obligation
to the citizens is and not and leave the
plan transport for the private sector.
Okay. And then the the final thing I
want make sure it right. you said for
your positions open more than 180 days
that you really have kind of have people
already identified for those positions
that are going through various levels of
training in order to fill those. So
they're not really available for
considering termination or not having.
Commissioner Stevens, I may need a
little help just understanding the the
graph because I didn't create the graph,
but it I believe it represents pipeline
and open PCN's waiting for and waiting
for firefighters to occupy them. So
they're in various states of training.
Okay. Thank you.
I think that's all we have for you, Tom.
Um, thank you for your presentation.
You're welcome. Thank you. We're uh
operating in overtime. So uh my
inclination is to go ahead with the next
item, which is the transportation fund
budget, but I will ask both staff and
members here whether uh they will agree
to sit with me for a
while. Seeing no one standing to leave,
um why don't I have
uh someone come talk to us about the
transportation fund. Mr. Chairman,
members of the commission, um I'll be
discussing some of the specifics of the
transportation fund. The intent is to
take a sort of a deeper look at some of
our key other funds other than the
general fund. Uh the five-year plan for
this fund can be found on page B29 of
the proposed budget if you're interested
in following along. The fund is a this
fund is a special revenue fund, meaning
all revenues into this fund must be used
for street construction, reconstruction,
or
maintenance. Could you go to the next
slide, please?
What you're looking at on this page is a
list of revenue sources into the fund.
Uh the three columns on this slide are
the actual revenues for 2324, the
revenues in the adopted fiscal year 2425
budget, and the revenues in the proposed
2526
budget. The first major revenue revenue
source listed is the 2% sales tax which
was approved in 1989. At least 50% of
this tax is required to be transferred
to the CIP for transportation related
capital projects. We project receiving
about 33.6 million from this revenue
source in fiscal year
2526. Next is a highway user tax
frequently referred to as the HERF or
highway user revenue fund. HERF is
administered and distributed by the
state and cities and towns receive 27.5%
of HERF monies which are then
distributed to cities and towns based on
their population. You see that revenues
for this source hover in the vicinity of
around $19 million for all three years
in
question. Next, interest earnings about
three million a year. Local
transportation assistance fund which is
from lottery proceeds and distributed
through an annual application process.
And then we have a small amount of other
revenue at the bottom. So, calling your
attention to the middle column, the
adopted 2425. We originally projected a
total of 55.5 million in total revenues,
but our most recent forecast estimates
that total revenues will come in at
around 58 million um at the end of this
fiscal year, mostly on the back of
higher returns of the 02% sales
tax. Could we go
forward? So, we just looked at revenues.
This shows the transportation fund
expenditures. Our personnel services is
projected to go up. Most of that
increase is due to the change in how we
fund the capital projects management
group or CPM group. That change resulted
in an additional 10 FTE positions being
funded by the transportation
fund. Contractual services are estimated
to increase in large part due to the
change in funding for the CPM group.
Once again, also the ADA phase 2
contractual services. And I also want to
call out that the transfers out CIP line
at the bottom is decreasing by about
five $4.5 million.
Uh I'm sorry that number is incorrect
but the I'm sorry the overall let's see
the transfer out CIP line is is
decreasing by about $10 million from
2425 to 2526. This reflects the amount
of money needed to fund the projects
that we are proposing and we are still
complying with the requirement to
transfer at least 50% of the 2% sales
tax for capital
purposes. Can we go to the next slide?
Uh here's a budget breakdown by
expenditure category. You've seen
similar breakdowns on the operating
budgets for fire and police. The
proposed budget has 103.98 FTE positions
funded by the transportation fund. And
the chart on the right shows the
breakout by category. About 20% for
personnel services, about a third for
contractual services, 40% are the
transfers out that we talked about.
Could we go to the next slide?
Here's a breakdown of the change in FTE
positions in the transportation fund. We
have a list of many different functions.
I included um many that do not have any
changes in FTE simply so that you could
see the various functions within the
transportation fund. Um you'll see the
main change is in CPM transportation, a
proposed change of 10 positions, which
is a shift in how we fund that group,
the capital projects management group.
Transportation and Streets
Administration is uh proposed ded uh
reduction of one position and street
light maintenance with a proposed
increase of two positions for a total of
11. Can we go to the next
slide? Here's a historical overtime paid
from the transportation fund. It stayed
within the range of 150k to 250k each
year. Um for context, the city the city
spent about $16 million on overtime in
fiscal year
2425. Uh, can we go to the next
slide? Well, with that, that brings me
to the end of the budget related slides.
Um, I'll turn the time over to my
colleague Allison Tim Q to take us
through the remaining slides about the
transportation fund.
Good afternoon, chairman, commissioners.
Okay, so this slide shows basically a
breakdown of um the operating items that
are funded through the transportation 2%
sales tax. We have our transportation
planning group. We have our transit
operations which include three trolley
routes and support and paratransit. We
have our trip reduction program. We have
path and trails maintenance, emergency
response, transportation administration
and median and right away. Next slide,
please. And then these are the areas
that are covered by the HERF, the
highway user revenue, grading and
drainage, street cleaning, asphalt and
maintenance, CIP advanced planning
program, traffic engineering, IT,
intelligent transportation systems,
traffic signals, street light
maintenance, signs and markings. Next
slide,
please. And then this slide basically
shows what some of our key cost drivers
are. Um the first would be additional um
personnel. Second is inflation including
materials and contracts. Aged
infrastructure and then we also have
increased infrastructure whenever we
build a new road or um uh multi-use path
or the road has a lot of drainage
features that is all added to um our
maintenance. So we have drainage
infrastructure. We added 25 miles of
multi-use path and added 25 miles of
unpaved trails. Next slide please. So
these are our budget requests for um
2526. We have a total budget request of
1.685 million 12 budget packages. The
ones that are funded through the
transportation.2% sales tax is transit
and bus shelter painting. We have
several bus shelters throughout the
city. Um about we have several um
transit stops throughout the city and
about 150 of them have some sort of a
bus shelter and those require um
painting um maintenance and painting
painting. Uh phase 2 ADA transition
plan. This transition plan was recently
approved by city council and um 400,000
of it will be funded through the
transportation sales tax. We have one
new FTE senior project manager that will
be funded by the transportation sales
tax. And then we have two um new
position requests for an ITNS analyst
and a management analyst. And these were
um previously under the capital project
management area and capital project
management and transportation and
streets have combined to form um
transportation and infrastructure. And
so with that with going away from paying
the project management staff out of
projects, project management staff is
being paid out of operating now. And
since they support not only
transportation, they support water and
general fund projects. Um some of the
positions are split 32 33% between those
areas. So it's 32% of those two
positions. And then we do have one
transfer between funds and that's for
our multi-use path maintenance. it's not
eligible to use her funding for that.
So, we're transferring that to the 02%
sales tax. Um, that's a zero net budget
impact. It's just moving where the
funding is coming from. And then under
the highway user revenue, we have a new
vehicle request for our TMC staff. So,
our TMC staff um they maintain and
oversee all of our traffic signals from
our traffic management center up at the
North Courtyard, but they also are
required to go out on the field um to
visit intersections as well, and they
didn't have a dedicated vehicle for them
to use. And then we have a vehicle for
our grading and drainage at Union Hills
crew. We have a crew that's located at
our Union Hills material storage area.
And again, same same item. the staff did
not have um a vehicle for their use for
city business. And then we have traffic
signal and street light poles painting.
We have um over 1,400 traffic signals
throughout the city which obviously
require maintenance and painting. Um
dented pole replacement. We do have um
several uh we we do we have a se we have
a backlog of several dented poles that
need to be replaced or repaired. So this
is a contract for that. And then
certified laneman lineman contract for
street light poles. So this is a
contract um we have just over 10 street
light poles that are down on the south
side of Shea Boulevard and because of
their location where they in proximity
of high voltage overhead power. Um our
staff is not currently certified the
OSHA certifications required to do that.
So this is a contract to go ahead and
get those um uh repaired. And then
finally, we have two FTE IT signals
texts. So again, um we have over 140
traffic signals in the city, 1400
traffic signals in the city. And um our
IT uh group is underst staffed. FHWA
recommends that each IT tech is
responsible for about 35 signals. Um
right now our staff is responsible for
40 or more. So this adds two more. it
gets them back into alignment with what
FHWA recommends for um maintaining
those. And next slide. And so our
operating metrics, so we have uh 2600 uh
26,000 miles of streets and multi-use
paths per year that we operate that
maintain um over 2,800 lane miles of
asphalt, over 8,000 drainage assets,
which includes bridges, culverts, um uh
channels. We have 235 bridges, over 37
miles of unpaved roads, uh traffic
control, 306 signalized intersections,
and 14 Hawk crossings. And then traffic
signal maintenance, um
1,800 smart devices. And then street
lights. We have over 14,000 street
lights. Next slide,
please. And that concludes my
presentation. if you have any questions.
Congratulations to both of you. We're
going to send everybody else to speaking
class so they can get through the slides
faster. Um, stick with that previous
slide you were we were looking at just
before them. Um, when we talk about our
PCI index in the city, are we talking
about the condition of the 26,000 miles
of streets or or is that street lanes or
what is that number?
Uh, yes, that's
correct. 26,000 miles of pavement.
But the 26,000 is that lane miles or or
street miles? Is that lane miles or
street miles?
Well, if no one knows, it doesn't Okay,
we'll find out for you.
Someone's rushing with an answer. Yeah,
that that's going to be lane miles.
26,000. That's going to be lane miles.
Um, and the next line down, the 2,800
lane miles that we've done asphalt, is
that just what we have done this year? I
mean, we have many more than 20 2,800
lane miles of of stuff that's covered
with asphalt, I assume. So, this is this
just the current program?
I believe that's going to be what we've
done recently. So, either the last year,
the last couple years in our pavement
program. We've talked before about um
and I won't go into it anymore, but
we've talked about the PCI index in the
past. Um and I think it would be
informative for us to know how many lane
miles we have of streets that are in
this composite measure of the PCI and
maybe even know that you know of the
total m lane miles uh how many are in
the top rank and how many are in the
middle how many are in the lower rank.
The point being when we talk about a PCI
index, it is an average for the whole
city. And while some streets and lanes
are going to be brand spanking new and
rate 100, others are going to be in
pretty terrible condition and rank in
the 30s and 40s or whatever the rate
might be. um as we develop that metric
to be more fully informative of how
we're accomplishing the street
maintenance, let's try to have it in
quadrants or thirds or whatever. So,
city manager, thank you, Mr. Chair. I
would uh just uh respond to that that
you're you're spot on. We're just
finishing up a study now uh should be
completed within the month uh by an
outside third party that takes uh every
single street quite frankly and gives it
an one of the index numbers and then we
have a grouping which falls in the I'll
call it excellent and then it goes on
down from there to the the good the four
the fair the poor etc. we will utilize
that to develop a a five-year plan to
address uh really where we have the
failing or decreasing PCI. And as
referenced a couple times earlier
through the conversation, pleased that
we have significant dollars through a
reallocation uh planned for next year
over over 40 million and uh as we
develop the five-year plan, more to come
on how we specifically address that.
Thank you.
Thank you. And the only other comment
I'll make, and it's just a comment, but
so that people understand, your fourth
line down reminds everybody that we do
have in this flat city of ours
235 bridges that we maintain. Sometimes
that number is astonishing to people.
Commissioner Stevens, you have comments.
Uh, yeah, just a couple. Uh, I I just
want to understand what this fund
encompasses and see if I'm right. It
sounds like it encompasses a lot of the
routine maintenance on infrastructure
throughout the streets to keep lights on
and working. Okay. But then it also
includes some of the design,
engineering, and project management for
like the $260 million of what's going to
be in CIP next year. Is that right? That
that's the two things it does. Um that's
correct. So we do have transportation
planning staff, the transit staff, uh
traffic engineering staff, um and then
obviously all the street maintenance and
operations that we discussed, but then
also um moving our project management
staff to operating um a portion of our
project management staff will be funded
by the transportation fund whereas some
of the project management staff will be
funded by the water fund and other
project management staff will be funded
by the general fund. So yes, a portion
of the project management staff will be
you're going to have all the costs here.
Oh, but you might have some transfer in
reimbursement for the way the other
funds are fund are providing funding.
You would see those in the other funds.
Oh, okay. So the cost will be in the
other funds. Correct. Okay. And then the
other thing was when I look at your um
your page for the B29 page, you start
with a fund balance going into this year
of about 35 million and it goes to
virtually nothing about three years
later. So you're drawing down four and
a.5 million next year, then 13, then
eight. So what what are the what's
what's going on there as far as what
needs is there a problem 3 years from
now or
uh what what's the nature of why CIP
contributions are so high and and you
eliminate 34 million of fund balance uh
but then you appear like you're break
even after that.
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Stevens, I'll chime in
and try to answer that. Um we currently
foresee higher capital improvement plan
contributions in years two and three of
the five-year plan uh with the current
um portfolio of projects that we're
working on. Um and then we will need to
bring that back down to keep the fund in
balance. Uh so that's what it is
currently contemplated within the
five-year plan. Okay. So the the point
is that we're taking away $35 million of
reserves we have right now. And so we
need to hope that once we do this, we
can live with the lower level of
improvements in the
future or lower level of contributions
to improvements in the future. I'm just
pointing out that you're taking $35
million of fund balance away over the
next few years. And so I'm always
worried about the structural balance
part and I know you guys look at it.
Yes. So, Commissioner Stevens, if you
look at page B29 and if you look at the
revenues, the revenues for the five
years go from 57 million to 61.8
million. And if you look at the
operating budget, the operating budget
goes from 37 million to 42 million. So,
from an operation standpoint, the
revenues sufficiently cover the
operations and we don't have a
structural deficit for that. Um, so we
can continue to fund the capital at a 20
million level. And to your point, we
will then have to assess at that point
whether 20 million is sufficient for
capital. Okay. And that was my only
point though because you're going to
have to significantly drop the
contribution rate for funding capital
projects in a few years by by 10
million. Yes. Uh, so going by 10 million
a year. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
I um I see no other comments or
questions from
commissioners. So maybe we're done with
this topic.
The next uh item on our agenda is was
put on at the last minute is talk to
talk about the logistics related to our
joint meeting with the city council
which is scheduled for April 22 and
perhaps equally important what uh how
this plays into our meeting amongst
ourselves on April 11 to collectively
get our thoughts together. I don't
really know what was anticipated here
other than a discussion. I think I'll
use this time to reiterate to any of you
that have not yet responded to Sher
Scott with um some of your thoughts or
issues on the um that we might bring to
council. I urge you to do so. Um and I
think these will be for the 11th somehow
assembled into
uh slides that capture the the essence
of the various issues you've raised. Um
I will try to guide us through
deliberation of those topics and do we
agree on item one, disagree on two, um
mixed on three and so on so that we can
come away with a consensus of of what
our
u commission's position is on the topics
that have been raised. And from those
consensus positions, then we'll um draft
them up into some kind of a report to
the city council. I know that's not very
precise, but we're kind of in
unchartered waters here. But what we do
need initially is input from each of you
in terms of uh things that you think
should be
considered in a report to
council. But I'm I open it to discussion
from any of you if you want to comment.
Yes, no, or maybe. And or just wait and
see how this plays
out. Commissioner Stevens, you seem to
have a comment on everything. I Yeah, I
do. I maybe it's because I went through
this before in San Diego in an easier
format in order to discuss things. I
guess what I was hoping the city
attorney all sent us a model saying
here's all these categories I want you
to provide comments for and what
I did was I did a draft of a report with
an intro explaining what we did in the
limitations there and then proposed that
we would go into those and I included my
comments for her to look at and I copied
Chairman Smith with it. I was kind of
hoping that she would write the report
in a fashion that she corrects whatever
we did. So, it actually was a report
that said the commission was important.
Here's what they charge to do. Here's
what they were able to look at. Here's
the limitations on what they did. So, it
provided a little bit more of a scope of
what we did or didn't do. And then it
went into the recommendations. And then
we could read that report. And then as
we went through each of our
recommendations that were included
there, we could then either suggest
edits to it or simply say yes or no,
include it. And then the thing that I
guess I'd like your input on, do we just
include the ones where there's a
majority at consensus or do you even put
in there the majority ones unanimous 61
52 43. So that was my desire. Otherwise,
what you alluded to could just be like
the agenda we were handed out earlier
says. You could just have each topic.
You can throw up the comments there and
we could talk about each one that way. I
did kind of like the idea of a report if
we could all agree on what the words
would be. But if you don't feel that
strongly about it, we can just simply go
with straight recommendations by topic.
So, just please share your
thoughts. And and it's true. I did get a
draft of a report that uh Commissioner
Stevens prepared and I think it's fine.
It's it's kind of an introduction of how
we were formed and our mission and our u
the meetings we had and the topics we
covered and so on. Following those um
introductory background comments, I
thought we would then um proceed into
reporting out the findings that u that
we glean on the 11th. and the 11th in
turn will be uh driven by some of the
issues that you have submitted to Sherry
Scott and somebody there will put them
into a little slide and we'll vote on
them.
whether we report out every item. Uh
certainly we'll report out every
consensus item meaning if we have a
majority or more perhaps uh the total
commission making a comment we'll report
on that. whether we go into some of the
minor items that you know maybe it's a
hot button for one person but not for
the other six I don't necessarily think
we'll be reporting on that but again we
can those will be the kinds of food for
discussion I think on the 11th but
that's the commissioner Carly you have a
comment too
yes thank you uh I guess and I know that
um Miss Andrew wanted to say something
and she can perhaps give us guidance
also about what she's thinking about. Um
my number one request is that we get a
draft and enough time to study it before
Friday. I think that's real important.
Um, I have no problem with a report
because I think that sets the stage, but
I don't think the final report is
absolutely necessary to be approved
Friday because based on what
recommendations we give, it may have to
be massaged a bit. And then the other
thing I would like to add to your report
at the end is parking lot items to to
let the council know that we think this
is important like the discussion about a
one-year versus fiveyear you know but
there's not the time it's not feasible
to come to a resolution on that right
now. So I think we should because we
have a lot of things that we've all
agreed that we need to look at it but
it's not feasible within this time
frame. So, I think that needs to be
added to it. And then, um, my opinion on
the votes, reporting the votes. I think
that's important to do. You know, what
the numbers are on the votes and, you
know, not just send forward what's
unanimous. If something's a 43, it's a
43, but it might be worth sharing with
the council. So, those are my thoughts.
Thank you.
Thank you, Commissioner Carla. I think
uh to your comment on parking lot
items which is a euphemism for things to
be done in the future. We don't have
time to do them right now. Um that will
be part of the report or should be part
of the report. Well, we'll be we'll be
saying to the council on some particular
item. Um maybe we have a recommendation,
but our real recommendation is to pause
and wait until we uh study this over the
summer or the fall or for the next
budget year or whatever the statement
might be.
Anybody else have any comments on this?
Can we hear from Miss Andrew, please?
I beg your pardon. Can we hear from Miss
Andrew, please? only if she pushes the
button, which she did.
Um, thank you, Mr. Chairman,
commissioners. Um, in addition to the
dis discussion that you have had about
this item 5A, logistics related to April
22nd council meeting presentation, there
was actually three items we wanted the
commission to discuss and potentially
approve today. and one is the manner in
which this April 22nd meeting is to be
conducted. um for the uh purpose of the
clerk's um structuring of this meeting.
It can either be um a joint meeting
where basically it's a joint meeting or
it could be more of a presentation from
um one or two representative of the
commission to the council. And um the
city manager and city attorney and I and
the city clerk spoke about this and we
would con recommend the commission
consider a more presentation style. So
once the commission determines the
recommendations, develops the report. Um
the entire commission can be at this
joint meeting but it would be more of a
commission presentation to the council
and the commission would then vote on
and select you know one two or three
representative to then present the
report and recommendations to council
rather than a um a meeting of uh 14
individuals. So we wanted the commission
to consider that, discuss that and
provide direction to staff as to how the
um commission would like the April 22nd
meeting to be. The second thing we would
like the commiss uh commission to
consider is the draft agenda for Friday,
April 11th. That should be um handed out
to you. And this is the draft agenda for
you to consider how you would conduct
the meeting on Friday, whether you
wanted to um go through these specific
items in this order and um have the
commission discuss the recommendations
in this order. And I think the last the
third thing that the um city attorney
would like, this is actually the city
attorney's item, but she's unfortunately
not here, so I'm trying to um fill in
for her. And the third item that the
city attorney would like the commission
to consider is um select I if the
commission would like to do a
presentation style and do a
presentation to the council to discuss
who the representatives should be from
the commission to do that. So those were
the three items we w uh wanted the
commission to talk about.
Well, let me throw in my two cents and
then I'll invite a comment from the
others. Um, I think it I envision that
our meeting with the council will be a
presentation meeting. I do not see it
uh that they will be voting if you say
uh or if you choose on the items that we
present. Um, you know, we may say that
you need to move the PCI index like we
just talked, need to move the PCI index
up over time. That's not something they
vote on. I mean, this is just our
report, our findings, and will report on
our findings. But I don't see it as a
um a food fight, if you will, where 14
people sit around and comment on each
individual item. It is just our report
to the council and if they want to uh um
respond I suppose they can and the mayor
can you know use the response button to
uh have questions of clarification or
whatever from them but it is just that
in my mind a presentation as to who will
do it. Um, I mean, I'll probably do the
initial how do you do and whatever uh to
introduce our commission and to maybe
make some preamble comments about the uh
items, but I may turn to any individual
member who will be I assume intimately
familiar with the topic and say, you
know, commissioner so on and so forth,
why don't you present what we what our
findings were on
uh the topic
heading and as you said the the city
attorney in her letter sent out some
sort of topical groupings for things
maybe there's a last item that's
miscellaneous who knows but uh just a
catch all for other things
but I I visualize that they will have as
with any agenda item that they look at
they'll have some kind of a write up
that gives them the written comments the
written conclusions uh beginning with
the kind of thing that Commissioner
Stevens referred to, how we were
founded, where we what we
found, what we need to do in the future,
call them parking lot or whatever.
Um, so I mean, you'd actually need a
name associated with each topic or
something for this agenda on the 22nd,
or can it be
that ambiguous that we'll we'll be
there?
I think what we were looking for for the
uh city clerk and city attorney was a
consensus from the commission that it
would that you would like to have a
presentation style versus a joint
meeting style to have a consensus on the
uh agenda for the April 11th that we've
drafted for you and to have
um and maybe that doesn't need to be
determined at this meeting but as sort
of a consensus amongst the uh commission
as to uh who you would like to present
the recommendation to the council.
Um well, let me take your questions to
peace meal. First of
all, do we as a commission see this as a
whatever you call it presentation style
to the council? And I think the critical
question there that you're asking is do
we expect the council to vote on
anything? and we do not expect them to
vote on
anything. Um, but am I phrasing the
question right before I pull my fellow
commissioners here? Uh, Mr. Chair, if I
can assist. And the reason for the
inquiry today is we're beginning to
prepare um the agenda for April 22nd
that will be published for city council
this Friday. So uh in preparation for
the printing of the April 22nd we wanted
to I would call it revisit this
discussion. So I would start off to your
suggestion is is it a joint meeting or a
presentation and we've had various
dialogues in in that regard and so
that's what we would and I think we can
do the additional elements once that
decision has been made.
Um, so maybe the question is whether
we're going to have 14 people sitting
around talking across the table at one
another or are we going to have somebody
at the podium walking through some
slides that are the
cumulative conclusions or maybe several
someone's.
Um, so again, I'll phrase for
consideration of my fellow
commissioners. I do not see it as 14
people having a dialogue across the
table.
Um I do see it as us presenting
um with a slideshow, whatever you want
to call
it, the conclusion of our
recommendations. I would like to see I
would like to see it open as you know to
be done by Chair Smith and other members
as he may delegate. uh because I really
don't I'm not the
um the most interested party on some of
the issues and other people are.
Um so but besides that I'd like anybody
that wants to talk about something I'd
like give them the chance to do so. Um,
but then I would see us all as
available, whoever ones can be there
that night, all available to uh answer
questions that the council may have once
we've finished our
presentation. Does that sound like a
plan or I'm not talking about what we do
on the 11th, this just on the
22nd? That makes sense to me. It looks
like one of your colleagues maybe has
some thoughts, but I I tracked that.
Yes, Mr. Chair. Okay, let me take some
comments from the u my fellow members
beginning with vice chair vice chair
Swiker.
Yeah, I would go along with the
presentation. I actually personally
think it would be a more productive
meeting if it was the 14 people trading
ideas back and forth, but I understand
that that's not a real efficient use of
time and everything. So, I do agree with
the uh chairman that we should probably
do a presentation, but I do think think
the flexibility should be there for the
council to ask um whatever questions
they want and then whoever actually
knows the most about that on our side
should be able to answer.
Commissioner Carla.
Yes. I'm what I was going to suggest is
similar to what uh vice chair Swiker
said because before like when we did the
protect and preserve because this is
build as a work study. It's not council
sitting up here and simply listening to
a presentation and
then talking amongst themselves or just
accepting or rejecting. It's supposed to
be a work study. And before they've done
the council at a table up there and then
a table where you have the chair and
vice chair sitting there, but you have
an additional open chair and then either
the chair, our chair Smith recognizes
and asks a specific commission member to
come up and adjust address a
recommendation because it's their
recommendation and they know more most
about it. or if a council person has a
direct question regarding an item, then
they can ask a member to come up and
speak other than the chair or vice
chair. So, it's a hybrid and it's an
actual work study, not just a okay,
here's everything we did and then the
council, you know, talks among
themselves and there's no, you know,
reciprocity there. And that's what I'm
suggesting. And I think in a way to
select, you know, members to speak is
premature before we know what the
recommendations are. So that's my two
cents.
Commissioner Stevens.
Yeah. Um, one one little thing I'm
concerned about is we've got a meeting
on April 10th where we'll get our final
presentation. At that point, I'll have
my final recommendations. I can't get
them into the April 11th meeting. So, I
don't know that this April 11th meeting
timing works right or if we aren't going
to need a separate meeting to kind of go
over some of the comments. So, I'll just
make you aware of that because it sounds
like whatever comments I get in after
today are the only ones that could
possibly make it into that agenda. More
importantly to your question, I like the
I I understand what you're saying. So,
it'll be a city council meeting. We'll
have representatives making a
presentation and then if you need to
vote on something, they can vote to
accept it or not accept it, I guess, or
to request additional information. And
then um and then the final thing would
be I really like the idea of a report
and if we all gave our comments to the
city attorney and we got a report to
read before the meeting that would help
us see every bit of what everyone's
comments were in advance and then at the
meeting don't know that you need to put
every comment up but we could then go
comment by comment if that's too
burdensome then uh then she she can do
whatever she wants with the comments
that I've sent her and you can just go
through it comment by
comment.
Um, so what did that do? How do I bring
this together for you? Uh, and that
means we'd have to put a presentation
together, I guess, too. And if you're
looking for someone to do it, I already
did it once. I I suppose if you want
someone to do it, I'll give you a dra
I'll give you a draft. I sure would like
to do it and then send it out to the
group beforehand, but we can't do that,
right? Okay. So, with that, there's
there's my ideas.
City Manager, you want to chime in here?
Thank you, sir. I I was just uh the
Commissioner Stevens made a good point
there that we probably should have
preference preferenced our conversation
with that. I think the presentation
suggestion was based upon us developing
a report. So I it was uh you really your
report the collective report and so it
seemed as though there was certain a
consensus or a movement in that
direction and so that kind of lended
itself to the presentation. So we said
another way we concur with the concept
of a report the mechanics of how that
gets done is we're still working out but
um from a staff perspective we
appreciate that approach.
I think isn't the current thinking
though that that she was going to get
all our comments, accumulate them all,
and that would be in substance the
report that the draft of the report we
developed upon which we would then
confer because I did send her a copy of
even with my other words and I don't
know what she's going to do with it. She
might come back with something that's
more similar to the outline. I mean,
whatever she comes back with is what she
comes back with. But I I do believe it's
our report and I believe you all have
the right to decide what that report
should look like. But the most important
thing will be dealing with the comments
I guess on Friday. So, however she wants
to deal with that, we'll
see. Let me
uh you raised the question uh
Commissioner Stevens about how do we
have a meeting on the 10th and then
debate some of the comments on the 11th.
I think that's just the reality of the
schedule that we have. Um, I mean, if we
were going to meet tomorrow, I would
quickly scribble out the comments that I
have from today and those will go into
the deliberations. Um, I don't think the
agenda for the 11th has to spell out
every single thing we're going to talk
about. Um, but I mean, we're going to
have a we're going to have a caption
there that says comments about the
operating budget.
And I don't see any way to flesh out
greater detail than that because we only
hearing half of the items today and the
other half on the
10th. Is that a problem in somebody's
mind to be that ambiguous of what as to
what we're going to be talking about on
the
11th? Hearing no
comments, let's uh have Commissioner
Sites talk for a minute about what her
thoughts are.
Um, pull the microphone down a little
closer to you.
Am I
okay? I'm trying to understand there's
there's two parts here. There's the
April 11 agenda and I see a draft and I
want to
understand these
recommendations are about the new
budget and or
about things we might talk about after
this budget's approved and concerns or
issues we might have that we want to
pursue later. So the andor is my
question. Do we are we limited to the
recommendations of the current budget on
the 11th and that becomes a report that
goes into April
22nd? Where do we or do we talk about
things that we want to look at during
the summer and next year for
improvements in the budget in the next
year?
Um, Commissioner Slides, I don't think
you're limited to the recommendations
for just the 2526 budget. Um, the
ordinance that establishes the
commission does um, uh, provide the
duties of the commission to review the
2526 budget, but if you have if all of
you have recommendations for additional
items beyond the 2526 uh, budget, you
can include them as recommendations,
too. and in the report to council.
Thank you.
Then
those issues or concerns or
recommendations are to be sent to
uh Miss Scott to include on the 11th or
on the 22nd or on both? Yes, I believe
um she intends to gather all the
recommendations and have that be shared
with the whole commission on the 11th.
That is my understanding as well. And to
your point, Commissioner Sites about the
um the items beyond the
budget, use the same term that
Commissioner Carla was using. Those are
kind of parking lot items. Those are
things that we think they've struck us
as important important items to address.
um not enough time to do it by the 22nd,
but we um and essentially we're we're
either letting the council know we'll be
studying those in the months to come or
maybe we're asking for their direction
either way. Um but we will have parking
lot items on
there. Uh Commissioner Newman,
it seems that we haven't really had time
to synthesize what we've heard here. We
all have ideas and we're submitting some
things by ourselves to um to Sherry and
so it seems like we on on Friday we will
have our first look comprehensive look
at that to synthesize that. I think from
that meeting on the 11th, the goal would
be to say what are some things we want
to talk to council about and there'll be
some things that get parking loted and
then in that discussion on the 22nd I
don't see where there would be time to
syn further synthesize that boil it into
a report as commissioner Stevens would
like to have um as a practical matter I
think it's a dialogue with the council
and I think as we get further into our
work going into next year I think the
goal should be a fully synthesized
report and then but I think the dialogue
and the discussion is good always
because there's a chance for people to
level set and understand and really one
of our key goals here is to um advise
and and guide council thinking on some
of the more important issues. We've gone
deeper than they'll have time to go into
on the budget and uh kind of a little
bit devoid of the politics of the
situation. And so it's an opportunity to
it's an opportunity for us to advise on
that on what's important in the midst of
all the noise that will happen around
approving a budget. And to me, I think
that's doable on the 11th and the 22nd.
But beyond that, it becomes more
difficult to do in the time we have and
given the time that we've had to kind of
learn and understand what the key issues
are. Thank you,
Vice Chair
Swiker. I believe Commission
Commissioner Stevens, you're you're in
front of everyone. Oh, yeah. Um, all I
was going to say, uh, I have some
recommendations that are like parking
lot items. I simply said I recommend the
consideration be given to I put it in
there because that's a reminder that,
hey, this might be something I want to
look into later. So, that's a way to do
that if you want. And then the other
thing I guess I'd ask I'd like staff to
let me know by what time Thursday do you
need comments so that I can get them to
you so that I can see something Friday
morning so I can at least look at all of
their comments and have a clue before I
walk into the meeting cold if if that's
the plan or so otherwise let me know
what your plan is because it would be
better if we didn't see everyone's
comments
cold. But if we that's the way you're
going to do it then that's the way
you're going to do it.
Let me get a comment from Vice Chair
Swager while they're contemplating or
while they're
contemplating. Yeah. And I really think
you, you know, because of our charter,
we need to abhide on this budget. But
realistically, as an elected, I've been
through four of these budgets. You know,
we got into this so late that by the
time we have that meeting with them on
the 22nd, they pretty much know the
budget they're going to adopt for next
year. So, our real value in this whole
endeavor that we're doing are those
parking lot items, the future things
that we can help guide future councils
into how to make the best decisions, how
to make sure they get the best estimates
in all all the things that we think that
there was room for improvement on. Um,
so I'm really most interested in that
part of it because really we didn't have
time to really get into these budgets
enough to be looking at, yeah, this is a
good project, this isn't a good project.
I mean, that's that's a policy decision
for a council to make. We're just
advisory and and you know, they have to
make those tough decisions. Let them do
it. We're here for what's good for the
city, for the future, and I think that's
what we can best have our impact on.
Commissioner Carlo,
thank you. H how about in an effort to
like, you know, move this baby along,
what if we just say everybody has to
have the recommendations slash comments
they want discussed on
Friday in to
staff by end of business tomorrow,
Tuesday, and
then she can hopefully get them out to
us to review at least a day ahead of
time so we can actually think about
them. And this can include what comments
we want in the report, which again I
think is a good idea. And let's just
let's just fish or cut bait here, folks.
You know, let's put a deadline on it.
Let's get it in and then let's get it
out and enough time to read it ahead of
time and actually think about it so
we're not having five-hour discussions
over 10
recommendations because we didn't have
time to really think about it. That's
where I am. Thank you. Well, and the
only thing that would be missing from
your laundry list would be whatever we
may think about the uh presentations
that we have on Thursday the 10th.
But honestly, none of them are brand
new.
We've discussed them
before. It's almost a rehashing of
things that were kind of hot button
topics. So, again, this is a bright
group. I think I think we know what
we're concerned about about the things
we're going to hear on Thursday. Thank
you.
The declaration that this is a bright
group seems like an appropriate point to
adjourn the
meeting. Actually, I can't adjourn. I
still have item six. Does anyone else
have anything to say on um the
logistics?
Um I see the uh staff huddling at the
table over there. I'll let them finish
their internal deliberations.
And the answer is
uh Mr. Chair, we were just uh confirring
that the commission is on the right
track and we look forward to supporting
you in the next meeting.
[Laughter]
Thank you very much. Commissioner
Stevens, are you uh Yeah, I just I
didn't hear the last part of that
comment, but we've heard from everyone
with the city attorney, so I it is she
the one that's going to be getting this
together? I'm sorry. I didn't hear your
final comment there that everyone
laughed at. It sounded like it was
important, but otherwise, are we going
down a path? I'd like to go past paths.
We'll get your comments by whatever and
then we get a report by a certain point.
So, tell us what you're you're planning.
Um, Chair Smith and Commissioner
Stevens, my apologies. I had to step
away. We had a bit of an emergency we
were working on. Um, but if I understand
what's happened correctly, um, not
hearing all of your discussion,
um, we will try to have a draft agenda
prepared which will include the
supplemental material that you've
submitted that we can provide to uh, the
commission and post for the public. Um,
so so you can have a better idea of
what's being proposed. uh prior to your
um and I think we can do that for the
Thursday meeting um and and you can have
a preliminary look at that before your
um April 11th meeting as well. So I I
think that's how it's going to come
together.
We'll we'll have to submit it to the
budget review commission as part of a
draft agenda that the budget review
commission can look at
um prior to your April 11th meeting.
Does that make sense? Yeah. So, we just
need to know from you when do you want
the if you get your comments by the end
of business Tuesday. Does that give you
enough time to get something in our
hands? What? Thursday morning so we can
look at it before Friday. I mean, can
tell us that timetable. We have we we
should post it 24 hours in
advance and you should give us an extra
24 hours to get all of that done. So, we
need it 48 hours before your actual
meeting on Thursday to the extent that
you can do that for us before the
Friday. But it's Friday is the meeting
we're going to act on this. So, if we
got it to you by the end of
tomorrow, then you would have Wednesday.
I guess you'd have Wednesday and
Thursday to work on it. Then we we'd get
it sometime Thursday evening. I don't
know. What do you all want? Do you want
it by noon tomorrow? Tuesday at 5.
I'm not having anybody here as excited
about this as you are, Mark. So,
chairman, can I just say this? We know
you're on a condensed schedule. We know
that we may not get all of your comments
um prior to having to post the
agendas. Do the best you can to get it
to us as soon as you can so that we can
get the information posted for the
public and out to the budget review
commission. and we'll make sure that the
item on the
11th maintains flexibility. So, if you
have a comment or something that you
want to add that didn't make the agenda
that was posted, you'll be able to do
that. So, we'll we'll work with you as
as best we can. Okay? And I think that's
what we need is flexibility to add items
on the 11th if they've come up and uh
nobody's going to be excluded uh from
making a comment. Your item may not go
forward if nobody agrees with you. I
can't predict that. But at least we'll
have the opportunity to introduce new
items under the general topical headings
uh on Friday. The the final thing I was
going to add, the email you sent out was
pretty clear. It was similar to this
agenda here and you had the way you
wanted it. You may want to send that out
again for everyone to follow unless you
all have it. But she sent out a perfect
email a week or so ago saying, "Here,
give me your comments in these kind of
categories and it follows what's on this
agenda." Okay. With that, I move that
the meeting be adjourned. Well,
actually, uh, you can't do that because
I still have a comment from Commissioner
Sites.
Thank you. Um, I'm just curious about us
all sending you things and will they be
combined or edited? I mean, there's
probably going to be redundancy. I maybe
um do you follow my question?
Yes. I u again Sherry Scott from the
legal department um chairman Smith and
Commissioner Sites I I don't think staff
is going to take the liberty of working
to combine what the commissioners have
stated. You won't yet have seen what
other commissioners have stated. You may
change your mind when you hear the
discussion. I think the point of the
April 11th meeting will be to go through
some of those thoughts, discuss it, and
then take a motion and see what the
commissioners have consensus on. And
then once that process is done, um the
the commission will need to finally
appoint who it is, which representative
of the commission, and if it's more than
one, it's more than one. the commission
is comfortable with delegating the
responsibility to finalize the report
based on all of the motions the
commission has passed. So you'll
designate in my mind one or two members
of this commission to work with staff to
finalize the report based on all of the
motions you have taken and that's what
will be submitted to the council.
Seeing no further discussion on this
item, we brought it into clarity and I
think it's absolutely clear what we're
going to do. We're going to do
something. Item six in the agenda uh is
the opportunity to identify and uh
approve any possible future agenda
items. Uh hopefully no one has any
agenda items to put on there, but Oh,
Commissioner Carla, do you have a
comment or agenda?
Uh, Commissioner Newman and I would like
to ask the rest of our commissioners to
entertain having a very brief item added
to Thursday's agenda either with item
number two regarding the preserve or
right before it um because we wanted to
share some research that um has been
done and we think it would help expedite
the um preserve discussion at that
meeting.
And I concur in terms of uh doing that.
We've worked together to understand uh
the wildlife crossing project further.
We've worked with city staff and have
come up with what I think is a
reasonable uh proposal to understand the
facts around that because there's strong
opinions on both ends of the spectrum
around this. And so this is where we can
add some logic and data and support by
defining that in a proper way and then
coming forward with that. So that's what
we want to do as a part of that and I
think that it's it's relevant to the
discussion on Thursday.
Thank you. Well, we don't discuss the
item here, but um if one or the other of
you can put it in the form of writing as
a motion um happy to solicit a vote on
it. Yeah. Um, I move that we add an item
to the agenda for the Thursday, April
10th meeting. Um, either right before or
as part of the preserve agenda item to
share research on the Rio crossing
project. Second.
Motion's made and seconded. All in favor
u, press your button. Yes, no, or
maybe. And with a 4-3 vote, uh it will
be agendaized as uh recided. Uh three
comm three commissioners uh voting no.
Commissioner Ransco, Vice
Chair, Commissioner Vice
Chair Stevens, Commissioner Stevens, and
myself voting no, the other four voting
yes, and it will be agendaized.
Chair, may I just ask a clarifying
question? I just want to make sure I
understand. So, that agenda item is for
discussion
only. Discussion only. Thank you.
And now I believe I can entertain a
motion to adjourn.
So moved. So moved. Moved and seconded.
All in favor, press the button for yes
and we're out of here. Thank you all
very much. Thank you particularly staff
for being here.