Good Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us on February 24th, 2026. Before we begin the meeting, I'll turn to Councilwoman Gorgado for a recognition. >> Thank you, mayor, so much. Um, I want to take a point of privilege um and for us to take a moment of silence and think about the crisis that Mexico is going through right now. We know there's a lot of us um that have family in Mexico. Um, we see the situation that is happening there right now and I would love for us to be able to take a moment of silence as we think of everyone um in Mexico at this moment. >> Thank you, Mayoros. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Councilwoman, for that important recognition. We'll now call to the order of the meeting. Will the clerk call the role? >> Councilwoman Wardado, >> here. >> Councilwoman Hernandez >> here. >> Councilwoman O'Brien >> here. >> Councilwoman Pastor >> here. >> Councilman Robinson >> here. >> Councilwoman Stark >> here. >> Councilman Wearing >> here. >> Vice Mayor Hajj Washington >> here. >> Mayor Ggo >> here. We'll begin with council information and follow-up requests. and we'll begin with Councilwoman Pastor. >> Thank you. Um I have many slides so I'm going to go quickly. Uh how we do weekends in District 4. Uh Saturdays are filled with neighbors coming together to serve their communities and connect with one another. We be we began Saturday morning with our monthly community cleanup near 35th Avenue. McDow Green Gables hosted their neighborhood tree planting. Whitten neighborhood gain brought multiple neighborhoods together at Long View Park, Whitten, Long View East, and Idaw Wild Park. I want to really give a shout out to Josh and Foran uh Shotfield for attending not only the cleanups, but also their the organizers of the Whitten neighborhood too and their uh their neighbors from there. Next slide. Del North place block party brought neighbors together for snacks, conversation, and connection. I stopped by Jesse Holland's retirement party. He just retired at the end of January in the city of Phoenix as a city of Phoenix park ranger for 21 years. He was very surprised to see me. Uh I attended the Arizona Science Center Galaxy Gayla with some of my colleagues. I want to thank uh Councilwoman Hajj Washington for the picture. It was a great day in the community and thank you to all the District 4 residents. Next slide. It's that time of year. District 4 historic neighborhoods are showcasing their homes, highlighting the unique historic architecture. District 4 is home of the majority of Phoenix historic neighborhoods. Willow and Coronado recently hosted their home tours. Up next is Winter Square Home Tour on March 29th. Hope to see you there. I have heard many concerns from District 4 residents about the statewide required middle middle housing ordinance and the impact to historic neighborhoods. District 4 is home of 30 out of 36 of our historic neighborhoods in Phoenix. I spoke at the state capital to provide testimony in favor of HB2375. HB2375 gives cities the flexibility to protect historic neighborhoods while still allowing responsible housing growth. We need to expand housing options without losing the neighborhoods that define our city's history. And I want to thank um Gres and Marcus for introducing the bill. Next slide. Kraton University's Health Sciences campus has become a driving force in Midtown and the Phoenix Medical Corridor. This newly renamed stop near Park Central reflects that impact. Light rail connects people to opportunity and the station will serve as an important gateway for students and residents every day. As the chair of Valley Metro Rail, I'm excited to see continue investment and growth in our light rail system. Next slide. Phoenix Chinese Week is an annual cultural celebration that highlights Chinese traditions while bringing our community together. I kicked off the open reception and attended the cultural fashion show. The fashion show featured artists from our sister city Changdu. Thank you to President Eva Lee, the Phoenix Chinese Week Committee, Phoenix Sister Cities, and the many people involved who continue to make these events possible. Events like these help strengthen our cultural understanding and showcase Phoenix as a global at globally as a connected city. Every year, 1 and 10 hosts Fresh Brunts to reflect on their accomplishments and focus on the future growth of their youth programs. I'm a longtime supporter of 1 and 10 and their advocacy work for the LGBTQ plus community and youth. I am so excited to serve as an honorary co-chair for this year's Fresh Brunch. We recently hosted an event to thank one in 10 staff and volunteers for all they do behind the scenes to ensure progress is being made. Ready to continue the work. This Saturday, I'm hosting a listening session to discuss the proposed rate increase for solid waste services. Join District 4 and the public works department to learn more about the rate increase. 9:00 am at Long View Neighborhood Recreation Center. You can scan your code and of course if you have any questions, please contact my office. Thank you, Mayor. >> Thank you so much, Councilman Gordado, and then the vice mayor. >> Thank you, Mayor. We are thrilled to invite you to the VIA debas event this Friday, February 27th at 5:00 p.m. at the Pentag Community Center. We are excited to join the VIA de Buzz Blockwatch for a wonderful gathering focused on fostering community spirit and safety. Join us for a day filled with activities, games, and opportunities to connect with your West Valley neighbors. This event promises fun for the whole family, including food trucks, kids activities, and informative booths from local organizations, and our amazing city departments. Come and be part of making our neighborhoods a safer and more united place. I'm also extremely excited to invite you all to be part of our momentous occasion as we celebrate the opening of Myrtle Avenue walking path with a ribbon cutting ceremony on March 6th at 5:30 p.m. on North 32nd Avenue in West Myrtle. This new walking path is designed to provide a safe and scenic route for residents to enjoy daily walks, jocks, or bike rides. After years of community building and my office's continued support in activating the area, I am proud to see this come to fruition and celebrate with all of the neighbors and community members. Join us for light refreshments, meet city officials, and be among the first experience this beautiful addition to our community. Also, come experience the vibrant culture of our Mville neighborhoods at the Mville Marcado. Join us on March 7th from 12 to 4 pm at the Marva Community Center for an afternoon of delicious food and lively entertainment. The Mercado will feature a variety of vendors selling unique items, kiss activities, and indulge in delicious food and enjoy performances by local musicians and dancers. Mark your calendars and bring your friends and family out for a wonderful afternoon. Thank you, Mayor. >> Thank you so much, Vice Mayor. Thank you. >> Good afternoon. I just want to take a moment to reflect on the many ways we've been able to connect with and celebrate our community over the past several weeks. From cultural celebrations like the Chinese New Year's Gala and the Matsuri Festival to neighborhood gatherings such as our Lavine Quarterly, coffee chats and the Lavine barbecue. These moments of engagement continue to ground our work in the lived experiences of our residents. We are I was honored to join the community in celebrate You're going too fast for me. Can you go back to the Thank you. I was honored to join the community in celebrating the Chinese New Year's gayla recognizing the rich cultural traditions and contributions of our Chinese and Asian-American communities. Celebrations like this reflect the diversity that strengthens our city and reminds us of the importance of inclusion in both community life and public policy. I was also proud to support the Mansuri Festival, which showcase Japanese culture, heritage, and community pride in a vibrant and meaningful way. Events like this highlight how cultural celebrations bring people together and reinforces our commitment to be in a city where every community feels seen and valued. Next slide. We also hosted our Lavine quarterly meetings creating space for residents, stakeholders, and city departments to come together for updates and meaningful dialogue. These regular touch points are critical to transparency, collaboration, and ensuring the community stays informed and engaged in the decisions that impact them. I was also honored to attend the Morland groundbreaking ceremony, marking an important investment in housing and long-term community stability. This project represents the kind of thoughtful development we need to continue supporting as we work to expand opportunity and strengthen neighborhoods across our city. Next slide. I was proud to attend the Lavine barbecue and spend time connecting with residents in a relaxed and welcoming setting. Gatherings like these strengthen relationships, build trust, and remind us that strong communities are built through consistent engagement and shared experiences. I was also able to support the Phoenix Homestead Tree Planting event, which reflects our commitment to sustainability, neighborhood beautifification, and environmental stewardship. Investments in green space and tree canopy are investments in public health, quality of life, and the long-term resilience of our community. Next slide. We also were able to celebrate with our Greater Phoenix Chamber Council connection event and the Arizona Science Gayla. Each represented investments in economic growth and our continued investment in our cultural icon, cultural icons. All of these experiences reinforce that policy is not abstract. It directly impacts the neighborhoods, families, businesses, and public servants who make Phoenix what it is. Next slide. Lastly, I was honored to attend the city of Phoenix employee memorial where we paid tribute to Frank Contrarus, Anthony Mock, and all of the city employees who lost their lives in service to our community. Their dedication and sacrifice remind us that public service is not just a profession, but a call-in, and we remain deeply grateful for their lasting impact on our city. Next slide. As always, if you need help with city services or notice an issue in your neighborhood, please don't reach out. Don't hesitate to reach out to the the district 8 team. So, please reach out. That's all I have. Thank you, mayor. Thank you so much. Any additional updates? All right, then we will go into our main agenda. We'll begin with the budget update. I want to start with a congratulations to Amber who has served as our longtime budget govern director and now serving as our deputy city manager and then our new budget director. So, welcome to Erin, but I'll turn it over to our city manager to introduce this item. >> Thank you, mayor, and members of the council. This officially marks the opening of budget season, for what that's worth, uh, with our our forecast and look ahead. Every one of these budgets has a story and the story this year I would say is that your hard work, fiscal responsibility and difficult choices in the past are paying dividends today. So fiscally responsible actions you've taken now give you options into the future. And like uh every other story, however, there are some possible dangers that you'll hear about. any sort of state legislative actions that affect city resources are something we always monitor closely or federal actions that perhaps affect uh our economic situation. But I think our staff has done a really excellent job in in baking as much as they can into their forecasts trying to be responsible in their forecasting to establish a baseline from which you are able to make decisions into the future. But the bottom line is that with these actions, there are resources available to you uh to continue your fiscally responsible work. With that, mayor, thank you for recogniz recognizing Amber. I too want to recognize Amber as this is her last budget season uh in her career with the city. And we're very excited for her to be mentoring and bringing on our new budget and research director, Aaron Mertz. I also want to thank the budget and research staff and also my predecessor Jeff Barton who did so much work to lay groundwork that we're seeing today with you all. With that, I'll turn it to Amber. >> Thank you so much, Ed. I appreciate that. And mayor and council, um, very pleased to be here today. We are going to present to you the budget status for fiscal year 2627 as well as the multi-year forecast. A lot of assumptions go into our forecast. Really strong analysis. We do have good news to share with you today and that's really because of your strong leadership that you demonstrated last year and having to make some difficult decisions to ensure we could present a balanced budget. So I'm not going to steal any thunder from our new budget research director to walk through the presentation. So Aaron Mertz is going to do that right now and we can answer any questions once we're done. Thank you. >> Well, thank you mayor, members of council. Yeah, it's my honor to present the fiscal year 2627 preliminary general fund budget status and multi-year forecast. So on today's agenda, we'll go through the multi-year forecast purpose, give you a brief overview, and then we'll dig right into general fund revenues and expenditures. We'll talk about the general fund status and our baseline forecast results, and then we'll discuss next steps. So the multi-year forecast first and foremost is a financial best practice as defined by the government finance officers association. It also provides the framework that we use for adopting a balanced budget every year and really for really ensuring that we have a balanced budget not just next year but going forward into the future budget cycles. It helps guide decisions to protect city services and we also consult with a variety of economic experts. We work with the University of Arizona who have helped us develop an econometric model that informs some of our re revenue forecasting. We also monitor the joint legislative budget committee and finance advisory committee, Arizona State and and several other partners to really inform our revenue projections and ensure ultimately that we have as accurate a budget as possible. So, as far as the the budget forecast goes, it's actually a fairly straightforward piece of math here. We're looking at our resources that we have to work with in the general fund. So that includes our city and state sales taxes, state shared revenues, our fees and charges. You see the other items there, including our fund balance, and then we're setting those against our anticipated expenditures. The first and kind of biggest piece is our employee costs. They make up about 80% of the general fund. Uh contractual costs, commodities capital equipment and contingency. When we compare those two numbers, we ultimately end up with either a positive number. That is, we have more resources than expenditures, in which case we have a surplus. A surplus could be used for new or uh expanded programs and services, potentially employee compensation, and also uh potentially set aides to balance. If our expenditures exceed our resources, we would have a deficit. And in that case, we would be looking at potential reductions to existing programs and services or increases to revenues to bring us back into balance. So, I'll dig in here to the general fund revenues as a reminder of of where our general fund revenues come from. First and foremost is our local sales and excise taxes. This is your city sales tax primarily. That makes up 42% of the general funds estimated revenues. The next largest share is our state shared revenue and that includes three different components. That's your state shared income tax, your state shared sales taxes, and your vehicle license tax. A smaller piece of the pie here is the primary property tax. It makes up about 12% of our general fund revenues. It's from the it's derived from the primary rate of our overall property tax rate. And then we see user fees and other revenues make up 10% of our total revenues. And I'll get into some of the specifics on those in just a moment here. So looking at our 2627 actual estimates for revenue, we're looking at approximately $834 million in local sales tax and excise tax forecast at a growth rate of about 1.8%. So we forecast moderate growth next year. State shared revenue uh grows or excuse me is $710 million grows by about 5.6%. That growth rate reflects growth in uh state shared income taxes. If you recall, our our state shared income taxes are always two years in a rears, right? So the tax revenues that we're receiving now are for incomes that were derived in fiscal year 2425. So during that time, there was significant wage growth, also significant growth in capital gains taxes, and that's what's driving that slightly larger percentage growth rate you're seeing there of 5.6%. Again, the primary property tax rate that we just discussed, the amount that we forecast is $232 million, about 4.1% growth rate. That really reflects just the increase in the assessed value of properties in Phoenix also reflects new construction. So, the the primary property tax rate is roughly the same uh has not gone up. Uh but the increase that you're seeing again is because of that increase in assessed valuation. And then user fees and other revenues. Uh relatively modest 1.9% growth rate for a total general fund forecasted revenues of just under two billion overall growth rate of 3.4%. We'll walk through here a little bit of history on general fund growth over the years. So you can see the years before COVID and now you're going to see the years during CO and what a significant change in revenue growth we experienced. Now there was a couple of things that are driving that growth that you see. Um the first is obviously there was a significant amount of stimulus money that was flowing through the economy. Stimulus flowing directly to our residents and also stimulus that was coming through uh organizations like our own through things like the American Rescue Plan Act, right? And so we were using those dollars out in the community that was further stimulating economic growth. We also experienced significant inflation during this time. And so when you experience significant inflation, the cost of goods goes up and therefore the taxes uh derived from those goods goes up as well. Now, all of that changed in fiscal year 2526 and that's due to the loss of the residential rental tax and the income, excuse me, the impact of the flat income tax rate. Those two actions had a significant negative impact on our general fund growth. You can see it there. In the current year, we forecast about 4.1% growth. That reflects the TPT increase the council approved last year. And then, as I mentioned in the previous slide, we forecast 3.4% growth next year. I want to dig in really briefly just into a few more general fund revenue trends that we're seeing. And the first one I'll show you here is our overall um total general fund revenue. This is a cumulative year-to- date chart that is showing you through the first six months of our fiscal year. And and the takeaway from this chart is that in overall general fund revenue, we're seeing a decent amount of volatility. So, as a revenue forecaster, when you see volatility, that gives you some pause and it makes you want to be really thoughtful and cautious uh with your revenue forecast going forward. Now, this chart dovetales with the next chart you'll see. This is our state shared sales tax revenue. Again, cumulative year-to- date growth. And and the trend that you're seeing there is obviously some some weakening sales tax revenue over the first six months of the year. Sales tax is a pretty good indicator of overall economic activity and where consumer spending is at. So, when you combine this chart with the previous chart, again, that that makes us want to be a little more uh cautious in our revenue forecast going forward. Now, as Ed mentioned, there are other larger economic considerations that we take into account. The economy does continue to grow. Um, but there is some uncertainty out there. That uncertainty is included in federal actions, whether that's the Federal Reserve or actions that could be taken by the administration. And then here locally, uh, affordability cons continues to be a bit of a challenge. We've seen some cooling in housing inflation. I I'll talk about that in just a moment, but it remains a challenge. And then in the broader labor market, we've seen the unemployment rate tick up slightly as well. So again, when you combine all those different pieces, it really leads us to to forecast just moderate growth in the near term on revenue. Um, again, it's not a terrible economy, but it's one that we want to have some caution with as we move forward. There are two items that uh specifically relate to state shared revenue that I want to call out. The first is the impact of the incorporation of Santan Valley. So Santan Valley was the largest incorporation in state history. They estimate that there's about 100,000 residents in Santan Valley and so they uh therefore reduce our state shared revenue that we are anticipated to get in fiscal year 2627 by about $10 million. The other item is the impact of tax conformity with the one big beautiful bill. Uh the governor and the legislature continue to um discuss what they will land on as far as tax conformity goes. The numbers that you see here, $21 million impact in 2728 and then a $16 million impact in fiscal year 2829. This reflects the cost of so-called full conformity with the one big beautiful bill. I know the governor had her own proposal, the partial conformity with that piece of legislation. The partial conformity also would uh reduce state shared revenues to the city by about 12.5 million. The amount you see here, full conformity, is 21 million. So, we're we're factoring both of those into our forecasts uh going forward. Again, we also continue to monitor state legislative impacts, and there are several items out there that we're monitoring very closely because of the size of their impact. The first is Senate Bill 1745. This would prevent cities and towns from having a TPT rate higher than 2.5% unless it is approved by voters in an even uh numbered election year. You can see the estimated negative impact is significant, $87 million to the general fund. also significant impacts to other funds that are funded by sales taxes. So your parks and preserves initiative, um your transportation 2050, items like that, they also would be negatively impacted. House Bill 4096 withholds an incredibly large number, $333 million in state shared revenues annually from fiscal year 2627 to fiscal year 2829. This would be to compensate property owners for loss of property value caused by zoning ordinance or other city actions. believe this may have to do with data centers, but again, this is one that we're monitoring given the size of the impact uh on our budget. A smaller one there, HB2269, but still a negative impact, $9.4 million that we forecast from this bill, which would uh provide a tax deduction for income derived from GL, gas, and electricity retail sales. I'll provide just a couple other uh pieces of legislation here. The first is Senate Bill 1504, which would change the benefits for public safety pension retirement system tier three, tier 2 and tier three employees. It would allow them to retire earlier, would also move up the cost of living adjustment. This would have a significant impact on the city's contribution rates, increase our costs, and again, that would have a net negative impact on our budget. Um, there number of other bills that have that could have positive impacts on city revenues. several examples here that have to do with tax exemptions for data centers. If any of those would pass, they would increase state shared sales tax revenue and city sales tax revenue. So, we continue to monitor both negative impacts and positive impacts. Keep close tabs on those. And then the final one here, again, the impact of tax conformity that we have factored into our uh forecasts. I'll shift now and talk a little bit about general fund expenditures. This chart will look similar to the revenue growth chart, but focused in on expenditures. And again, you can see the growth that we experienced during the COVID years. Um, a significant impact there is the impact of inflation. Again, we just saw the how much that influenced uh the costs in our general fund budget and really in all of the all of the budgets uh across the city. You see that number start to come down in in fiscal year 2425 and then see it come down quite a bit in fiscal year 2526. That's really a function of the efforts made during the last budget cycle to find savings in the general fund and then we continue that process during our 3 plus9 technical review process and really work closely closely with departments to identify savings, try and find ways to uh do city work more efficiently and save as many resources as we can. You see a return to a more normal growth rate there in fiscal year 2627 of about 4.9%. I mentioned the impact of inflation and this chart highlights it well. You see how how intense things got there in in calendar year 2022. 11.5% inflation that the Phoenix Mesa Scottsdale area experienced. For reference, uh $100 in 2016 is roughly about $140 in today's dollars. So you see that trend slowing and that's a positive thing. But again, those prices that we're paying for our vehicles, for with our vendors, uh for goods, they have all gone up and they are not going down yet. So it continues to be a challenge on our general fund budget projections. One item I wanted to talk about as well briefly is about the impact of prior labor agreements and the class and comp study. This was a a necessary investment in city staff. Uh we were experiencing vacancy rates that had really ticked up during COVID. I I believe in the general funds for civilian employees before the class and comp study the vacancy rate was about 17%. That number is now down to about 10 and a half%. So you can see the positive impact of this investment, but again there there is a dollar impact as well. So you see in the right hand column there, the total impact over this three-year period to the general fund is about $460 million to all funds at $740 million. So again, as we think about general fund expenditures and sort of the state of where they are, class and compton continues to have an impact. I'll also talk about uh general fund pension costs here briefly. Um you can see that there is continued growth that we are forecasting over the over the forecast period about $46 million from the current budget year to fiscal year 2829. Um there's a a small bit of good news that COPER's growth is actually flat over this period. So you're seeing the positive impact of pension reform taking hold, but again public safety pensions and both police and fire continue to grow and continue to represent a significant burden on general fund the general fund's costs. So big picture, the items that we've discussed, pension, the impact of class and comp, inflation is cooling, but we continue to deal with upward pressure on costs, and then I'll just call out um increased costs that we anticipate for vehicle replacements. We have about a 26 27 million general fund vehicle backlog. So we're including additional resources in next year's budget to try to bring that backlog down. that that is again another item that was impacted really significantly by the inflation during the COVID years. So this gets us to our our general fund status and baseline forecast for fiscal year 2627. We've discussed the resources together already and we just talked about expenditures. There's a couple of other items that I want to highlight before we can really understand what our true uh remaining available surplus is. The first is a set aside that is needed to balance fiscal year 2728. That set aside is $75 million. Now, that set aside um is necessary to ensure that we have a structurally balanced budget going forward, a sustainable budget. Um set aides are a tool that council has used in prior budget years to success to ensure that we have a sustainable budget. So, the number for 26 or excuse me for fiscal year 2728, $75 million. Again, that does reflect the impact of full tax conformity. The other item that we want to make sure we take account of are resources that are needed to replace expiring ARPA funds for the office of homeless solutions. That makes up the vast majority of that $18 million that you see in that row. And then we have two parks that are coming online. One park in district 8. It was a geo bond funded park, Estabbon Park. And then there's a park in district 2 as well, Lone Mountain Park, coming online. So we've included the operating costs needed to run those parks in that number there. That leaves you with a remaining surplus of $62 million that we're forecasting for fiscal year 2627. That surplus is broken up between ongoing and one-time uses. So ongoing resources of $36 million and then onetime resources of $26 million. Now I have a chart here that I think helps to understand that idea of a structural budget and what we're trying to make sure that we achieve with the city budget. You can see that this chart is comparing in the green column our ongoing revenues and transfers versus our ongoing expenditures. And you can see that in fiscal year 2526 and fiscal year 2627 we have more revenues than we have expenditures. We have a structural surplus and that's a that's a positive thing for the city. The challenge that you're seeing there is in fiscal year 2728 and that's what highlights the need for the set aside. We see there that expenditures exceed our revenues. And so in order to bring that back into balance and ensure that we have a sustainable budget going forward, uh we recommend setting aside that $75 million. Now, that set aside I mentioned before is a tool that council has used uh in actually in fiscal year 2425, council had set aside $80 million to ensure that that deficit between expenditures and revenues was made whole. And you can see um how that worked in a prior year. So I'll shift here briefly and talk about the the multi-year forecast. all three years of our forecast. You can see the projected deficits and surpluses for each of those years. Again, our baseline forecast shows 155 million in in total resources in 2627, but after accounting for the necessary set aside and the OS and parks items, that leaves a remaining amount of $62 million. You see that in fiscal year 2728 with that $75 million set aside, that leaves a small surplus of about $14 million. And then in fiscal year 2829, we actually show a very minor deficit of $9 million. That's the third year of our forecast. And so we would feel comfortable moving forward with that small of a deficit. We would return to council next year to make sure that fiscal year 2829 is in good shape. Um again, we talked about the difference between ongoing resources and one-time resources. The use of one-time resources for the set aside, and then the use of ongoing resources for OS and parks. So to summarize the discussion again, we talked about the need for the set aside of $75 million. Uh the need for ongoing OS operations and then the two parks coming online, the geo bond park in district 8 and then Lone Mountain Park up in district 2. That leaves a remaining surplus of $36 million ongoing, $26 million on time. that could be used for negotiated labor increases um potentially for the housing trust fund is an item that council heard earlier this year or other council and community priorities as they're identified. As far as next steps in the budget process, we'll come back in just about a month from now, March 24th, with the city manager trial budget and preliminary CIP. That trial budget will make a proposal about how to allocate our available resources. And then we'll move into community budget hearings, an important part of the budget process to get community feedback on the city manager's trial budget. Those run from March 30th to April 16th. We'll come back on May 5th for the city manager's proposed budget. The council has a few weeks to consider that. And then on May 19th, council will vote on the council budget budget decision. That's the first vote on the budget uh for next year. Then there are a couple of procedural steps needed. The tenative budget adoption on June 3rd. That's the second vote. And then the final vote is on June 17th. our final budget adoption and then one final item on July 1st is our property tax levy adoption and that brings us to the conclusion of the budget process. Uh with that I will conclude my presentation. We'll be happy to answer any questions. >> Wonderful. We have one member of the public to testify so we'll begin there. Diane Barker. >> Good afternoon. Thank you, Mayor Ggo and Council and Anna Hernandez, District 7, Diane Barker. I'm glad that I came and listened to the director's presentation because I have to admit I didn't go line by line, but I was at the transit committee meeting, you know, a couple weeks ago and I was looking at 2050 and the graft and as I remember they had 77% for public transit and 66% of that was to go for light rail. Now that was that graft that passed but if you read the light rail 2050 it is 52% that is bus and I'm listening also how that 2050 could be affected as director said at the state level with certain legislation. Um, I remember being here recently and uh Jim was getting uh what 41 or 45 million dollars from the federal government for Mayo for bridge. But I saw the KZ uh interview on that and that's multimodal Jim that that that federal money and the federal oi might like to hear about it if you're using federal money when things are multimodal. Now, the reason I'm interested is is that I help people, the user of transit, get around. And I found my worth that day when I could help developmentally disabled, people that needed a ride, people that maybe had a hard time speak English, people that didn't use a smartphone. We didn't even have them then. But I'm saying there are people out there that need help. And we can start Anna Hernandez by good bus shelters because I go out there on Indian school and I see people need it and it's getting hot. >> Thank you Diane. We'll now go to council comments and questions. We'll begin with Ann O'Brien. >> Thank you mayor and thank you all for um the presentation today. I um you all put a lot of work into this budget every year and and I very much appreciate that and thank you to the city manager's office for um your leadership as well. Uh, I do want to express my continued concern about our friends at the state legislature uh and their attempts to preempt especially charter cities and our ability to make the decisions that we need to make for the betterment of our citizens and the communities that they all live in. uh it makes it difficult at at a minimum to properly plan and and understand what we can do uh with that constant threat of preeemption. We have some options this year and I would like to see us uh consider making an additional investment into either our community land trust program or into offsetting some permitting fees around affordable and attainable housing given that planning and development is an enterprise fund um and those funds are used to ensure that we have the proper resources uh for folks who come through. So, we would if we could look at how we might offset some of those costs with some of the surplus, I I would very much appreciate that. But again, thank you for your your hard work on this budget. Look forward to the continued uh discussion and thank you for highlighting how although things seem to be looking better with inflation coming down, it has not come down so far that it is reversing um the amount that it has gone up. So, we are still paying more today and we continue to pay more every time that it goes up. Thank you, Mayor. >> Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilwoman Hernandez. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um, you know, my team and I, as this budget season is kicking off, uh, which will be our first full budget season to be here in office, not just the tail end of it. Um, but we take this budget, the city's budget priorities very seriously. Uh since being sworn in, we have been meeting with budget and research uh monthly. We've been engaging with community partners, talking to residents, uh communicating with other cities, budget departments, and conducting our own internal research and assessment of on best practices. Uh so it's really great to see that the city of Phoenix has a surplus. So really really want to send a thank you to the budget team and all of the city staff um who has worked so hard uh to keep us balanced and to find that extra money and making really good fiscal decisions for uh the city of Phoenix. Um, I would be remiss to say that and you know because of your very very hard work um and leadership, the city of Phoenix is seeing a $62 million surplus which is 36 million in ongoing and 26 million in one time. Um, so again just kudos to the hard work that you all do uh to really get us there as a city. Um, I'm also very very glad that we are factoring in uh that we have factored in OHS funding to make sure that that's accounted for so that we can continue the services that we have established. Um, when we're talking about housing and homelessness, especially homelessness, that it's a critical piece that we need to maintain as a city. So, I'm very thankful and happy to see that that money has been um identified so we can continue to make that long-term investment into housing into homelessness and housing. um just have a few questions, just really quick questions before I get into my overall thoughts, but um Ed, can you explain the tax conformity for us? And I asked because you know in the presentation or whoever wants to take that one, um the 2026 2027 fiscal year budget is really depending or will fluctuate depending on some of the actions that happen at the state legislature and how they respond to Trump's big beautiful bill or budget, whatever trash he wants to call it. So, can you help my residents understand what tax conformity is? >> Yeah, mayor, members of council, Councilwoman Hernandez, that's a good question. So, the state's income tax law uh typically conforms with federal income tax law. There was a number of changes in the one big beautiful bill, things around um taxes on overtime, on tips, some items for seniors. And so, there's been debates about how to bring uh state income tax law into conformity with the federal law. Now, a couple items to be aware of. This does not impact us until fiscal year 2728. Um, as you mentioned, the the forecast that we're showing is the the dollar impact to bring us into full conformity with the one big beautiful bill. So, that that's that $21 million figure. There are other approaches. The governor had proposed a partial conformity approach. So, again, that one is $12.5 million impact starting in 2728 uh to the city, but but that's the that's the lay of the land that we're looking at when it comes to tax conformity. Does that answer your question? >> Yeah. Thank you so much. I just want residents to understand that a lot of the fiscal decisions that are made at the federal level really do have an impact on our day-to-day lives and the services that us as a city are able to provide to our residents. Um, and you know, and that's funneled through state action and what happens down the street. Um, I also echo some concerns with legislation that is moving down there right now that has a negative impact um that would have a very direct negative impact to the services we're also able to provide to our residents, which thank you for highlighting some of those legislation pieces. Moving. Um, my next question is really is around and it wasn't talked about in this presentation, but as we kick off budget season, I want to make sure I vocalize that early enough. Um, I have a question around lawsuit payouts. when the city has to pay out a legal settlement, where does that money come from? Um, is it from a department or is it like a legal fund? And does the city uh resupply that legal fund and where do those funds come from? >> Thank you, Councilwoman Hernandez, mayor, members of the council. The city has a self-insurance reserve trust and that trust is funded by all city departments budgets and so we put an amount into that trust to be able to pay out any claims. >> Okay. Thank you, Amber. Um, I really wanted to ask that because I was reminded a few weeks ago about potholes. Um, right. Potholes put our safety and our residents safety at risk. They can c cause car accidents. They cause residents time and money. Um, which that they could be spending on rent or their utilities, right? Affordability is a big focus right now for our citywide residents. Um, and they often result in lawsuits. And so instead of investing more into fixing potholes, which is an example of a preventative measure, um we really waste money on lawsuits, unnecessary lawsuits that and our residents still remain unsafe. Um so essentially to me, the way I I'm hearing it is every lawsuit is eventually covered by the taxpayers and because the funds come out of the general fund. >> Councilwoman Hernandez, mayor, members of the council, all city funds, >> all city funds >> contribute. All right. Um, thank you so much for that. Um, those are my two questions and you know, once again, thank you staff for the very hard work on the budget. Um, as we really get into this 26 27th fiscal year budget planning session and the entire cycle, um, it really should come to no surprise to anyone that I will be focusing in on the police budget. Um, the Phoenix police budget remains the biggest department and the biggest investment in our general fund. police has the most programs, 66 programs, while most other departments average less than 10 programs. Um, every year we see the city increase money, the money going into police. Uh in this last year's budget, you know, a few items that we saw, uh the streets enforcement unit increased by four 4.3 million, audits and inspections increased by 7 million, patrol division increased by 4 million, um impound property and evidence increased by 7 million, and policing on public transit increased by 5 million. Um we also saw uh our PPD aviation get $16 million increase. Um, a new program came online, the field investig investigation unit, which got an extra extra $800,000, bringing that new program's budget to 3.6 million. Um, you know, PPD gets so much of the general fund. It gets the majority of our general fund. And ultimately, this is an investment in criminalization, which means that criminalization is the single biggest investment uh this city makes every year. And because you know the way I we see it is that criminalization does not create safety. So we spent all this money and don't ultimat get the actual results we want. Um it cost other programs and cost other opportunities for investment in our communities. investments we could be doing into harm reduction, violence prevention programs, mediation centers. Um, experience deescalator mediators and facilitators, increase deescalation skills, and foster relationships among community members to support friends, family, and community experiencing um unmet mental health needs, domestic and sexual violence. Um, we could be increasing our investments in human services and parks um and libraries to subsidize where we have lost federal or state grants. Um, we could invest in early childhood education and family stability. Uh, just in 2024 2025, the Head Start program um program lost nearly $75,000 in federal and state grants, but at least five police programs have received over between 4 million and $7 million each. Um, in housing, we could invest in community partnership programs, which is one of the areas that holds our community land trust, which I am very supportive of. Um, and that lost $2 million in federal and state grants. Um, we could also support more transitional and short-term housing that would help individuals experiencing homelessness um to get off the streets, get on their feet, and get into housing stability and independence. Um, instead we have spent over $5 million to continue policing these communities who are looking for safety and comfort. Uh, we could even increase our support for senior housing. Right now, they only get eight uh $100,000 from the general fund to meet their needs when we could be doing so much more with better investments. And thank you to, you know, one of my constituents just raised maybe the opportunity to expand public transportation um investments to deliver more um multimodal forms of transportation. And you know, finally, I I know that I've I've got a lot of doubters and some individuals who are severely misinformed about policing that want to equate uh moving funds out of the police department and into other investments as an attack on police. That's just inaccurate. Um, we are not attacking the police, the goal is to create safety. I think that's a goal that many of us can get behind. Um, and truth be told, every time we increase uh, Phoenix police funding, we are really defunding other programs that we truly need to stay safe. Um, other cities have taken up this mantle successfully. Since 2020, Minneapolis, New York, LA, Chicago, Seattle, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and Baltimore have all moved to reinvest in community over criminalization. Um, we can do that here in Phoenix as well. Uh, save ourselves some money along the way and actually create safer, thriving communities. So, I personally will continue to push the city to reinvest um from police into other forms of public safety because public safety is broader than policing. Um I will continue to push the city to reinvest into our residents um and not into criminalization. Thank you so much, Mayor. >> Thank you, Vice Mayor. >> Thank you, mayor. Um I'm going to start off by saying thank you to the city manager and this uh budget and research team, Aaron and Amber. Thank you for your assistance in presenting a comprehensive overview of our budget um upcoming. I appreciate the disciplined um planning that has positioned us to project a surplus in the fiscal year 2026 to 2027 while also preparing for the uncertainty in some of the years projected. Um for me, one of the things that I found um I guess noteworthy were slides nine and 10. um they show volatility as you mentioned and um we also see a decline or weakening sales tax on our primary revenue. Um I think when you layer this with what we're seeing on our I'll call it the broader market in the in the country whether or not it's tariffs or our stock market we generally see a level of uncertainty that gives us um some concern or gives me some pause. I presume our projections based on all of that are more of a conser more conservative in nature. Can you talk a little bit about how our projections um account for some of that uncertainty because you do mention it um on slide 11, but I think it might be helpful to give a little more explanation on how you've accounted for some of that. >> Yeah, thank you mayor, members of council, vice mayor. Yeah, I mean ultimately our goal is to provide as accurate a forecast as possible, right? We want to be re as realistic as we can and that does take into account the the items that you just mentioned. When we see some of those uh broader market indicators that indicate to us to exercise a bit more caution, we take them into account. But again, we also compare that against the the other sources I mentioned I think at the start of the presentation. So that econometric model that the University of Arizona has helped us develop, we're reading, you know, what the JBC joint joint legislative budget committee is forecasting as well. So all those do inform our our forecasts and ultimately I I don't know that I would call them conservative other than to say you we believe they're the most realistic approach to that. Again there there is going to be variation, right? We know that that going forward that that uh the economy could be slightly better, slightly worse. We show that in our multi-year forecast, but some of the ranges and the outy years that you see. Um but but again we we just tried to get as accurate a picture as we can. Um yeah, >> thank you. Um the other thing that you noted on slide 11 that I thought was worth noteworthy was the affordability concerns. Um as a general matter that's one of the con one of the concerns that we hear throughout our community. I think each and every one of us will have residents that are facing more more affordability. So I want to say this while we are see I am encouraged that we're seeing a $62 million surplus. I think it's important that we approach these resources thoughtfully. Residents continue to feel pressure about rising costs and I think one area that has generated quite a bit of concern in the la last couple of weeks is the proposed public works trash pickup increase that is projected over the next three years as we consider how to allocate the mix of ongoing and one-time surplus funds. I would like us to explore whether a portion of these fees could be used strategically to soften or phase in those increases for our residents. Um, if we can provide temporary stabilization, particularly for our seniors, working families, and residents on fixed incomes, while also protecting our long-term fiscal health, I think it's a conversation worth having. I am also very excited to see continued or anticipated investment in the housing trust fund as well as supporting the office of homeless solutions. That continues to be also a concern that we hear in our community. So I definitely want us to ensure that um I I want us to remain mindful of the forecast tied to and um some of the broader economic uncertainty, but I also think we need to balance immediate relief with some structural stability. And I think if we have a surplus, we should see how we can maximize this impact. So I look forward to continuing this conversation and discussion as we head into head into the trial budget presentation and identifying potential solutions that reflect both compassion and fiscal responsibility. Thank you, mayor. >> Thank you. Who's next? Councilman Gardado. >> Thank you, mayor. Um once again, thank you guys so much. Amber team, everybody, thank you for all of the hard work. Aaron, it's your first um budget with us, so congratulations. Hoping to see you around for a long time. Um but with that being said, I I love seeing the surplus. I'm not sure what we were going to see at the at the end of the fiscal year, but as everyone here knows, I'm always going to be looking out for the workers, for the members, for for all the different labor groups. Um, when I first came into office, we saw um the turnover. We saw um a lot of employees leaving, going to other places um where they would pay them a little bit more. And I just want to make sure even though we I know that there's a big challenge right now um um in in terms of what is it that we can do for our employees and we hopefully we can just keep that in mind that I would not want us to fall back to where we were at in 2019 where we were losing people where we were not compatible. Um, we have to figure out how do we stay on top on top of that and how do we make sure um that we make um the people that make our city work um full and we continue um to pay them that that respect. I know that the class income study has done a lot of that, but hoping that we continue to see what other cities are doing and making sure that we don't get to a point where we start losing our our employees um to other cities um because of because of wages and and I get it. I understand there's still restraints. There's still a lot of things that we have to do for our neighbors, for our neighborhoods, for our for our community. Um there's always a lot of ask out there, but I'm sure um I still remember the days where we couldn't pick up the bulk trash. Um where we were having a lot of challenges in our parks because we didn't have enough park rangers and we've been able um to do a lot of work. Um so hoping that we don't fall back from that. Um we see our firefighters continue to struggle with with with the timing and how fast they can get to a home. And I know that we're working um towards those challenges with the different fire stations that we're building. And I know with that comes um more money that we need to spend. So I'm hoping that we continue to keep that in front of mind as as we continue um as we continue to make these decisions. But again, thank you guys. Great job everyone. Um love seeing this budget. Thank you. Thank you Mayor. >> Thank you. >> Anyone? Counciloman Pastor. >> Thank you. Um, Amber, you've been doing doing this quite some time and uh congratulations uh on your retirement. Uh it'll be how many more months? >> Five more months. Uh this is your last budget cycle. So, uh congratulations on keeping us moving and healthy and balancing the budget. Uh welcome Erin. Uh right now you're you're just stepping in. We'll see you in 28, 29, 27, 28. See what that conversation's all about. But, uh, thank you for taking that role. Um, as always, I am a supporter of our employees and staying competitive and being able to compete uh with other cities. Uh, that would be one of my uh one of my top priorities. Uh the other area that I'm looking at is um the refugee and immigration support. Let me get the right title. It's the office of refugee and immigration support. So uh looking at that and providing some funding uh for that area due to the fact that uh we have a large refugee population uh about 6,000. The total is probably eight to 10, but in our area uh and uh there are some benefits that are being cut and uh I think the city should um assist in supporting um like in rental assistance and food assistance and uh Lutheran services and IRC has been visiting uh many of us regarding that and so I'm just pushing a putting a plug and advocating for that. Uh thank you again for the presentation. Um shout out to everybody in doing this. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thanks so much for the presentation. Lot of uncertainty right now in the economy, but it's good to to have options. Erin, you mentioned the sales tax is our biggest source of revenue. want to draw attention to the fact that in our economy, AI and data centers has been the fastest growing sector and yet they get an incredibly generous subsidy on the sales tax side. That hits public safety hardest in our community. Data centers have often on-site diesel generation, on-site batteries, which can be very complex fires to fight. They ought to pay their fair share. they ought to pay at the same rate as the small businesses which often have much less complex public safety needs. So, I think we need to really focus on a fair tax code. There are many proposals that would put us deep into a a deficit budget that are still being considered at the legislature, but there's also some bipartisan hope to make the tax cut that tax code a little bit more fair, particularly in our fastest growing and wealthiest segment. Any additional comments? All right. Well, thank you so much for this important presentation. We look forward to hearing from the community about what our residents would like to see in the budget and where your priorities lie. Thank you. We will have one hearing on agenda items for related to heat. This includes the city heat response plan as well as some action items that will let us move forward on that heat implementation plan. At the city of Phoenix, we think about heat year round. We treat extreme heat as the public health emergency that it is. And each year we learn from past summers and improve upon our heat relief efforts. The city council and I have one goal in mind when we invested funding and staff power for heat relief over the last few years to save more lives. Even one heat death is still too many. With the dedication of our team you'll hear from today, as well as countless city staff nonprofits partners faith community, and other leaders with they've helped us reduce the number of heat related deaths over the last two years. Last summer, we hosted a 247 cooling center once again staffed with on the ground support teams that helped connect residents with resources and community services to end their homelessness, address substance use, or address housing instability. Our hardworking staff were able to connect 751 individuals with life-changing resources. We celebrate every life saved and every life changed for the better. And we continue to fine-tune our efforts. Operating a 24-hour cooling center requires significant resources. And it's not just as simple as identifying an available building. Not only does the city provide that building, but we must fund 24-hour security, staffing, increased custodial services, and other resources. We know that saving lives is one of the best investments we can make in our community, but I want to be clear, Phoenix cannot do this alone. More illnesses would be prevented and more lives saved with additional support from the state and federal government as well as other cities in the valley. Heat does not stop at municipal borders. I'm grateful to Mayor Kevin Hartkey and the city of Chandler for recognizing the need and providing 24-hour cooling center in Chandler. I'm proud that this summer, thanks to a partnership with Y, Mom, we'll be able to provide emergency shelter for families. We'll also continue to push the frontiers of heat health innovation and we'll soon have more resources to do so. We're in conversation with the leadership team at ASU Health about opportunities to make their new downtown campus a hub for impactdriven heat health innovation. I want to thank our deputy city manager, Gina Montes, Chief Christ, Rachel, and Dr. Hondola for your and your team's hard work and dedication. Also want to thank our partners at Maricopa County Public Health for your expertise. And now I'll turn it over to our deputy city manager to introduce her team. Thank you, mayor, members of the council. You provided a great summary, mayor, um of of our work so far. So, I'm going to do just a brief introduction and forecast of what the team's going to discuss. As you know, we bring kind of the whole team. It is a a heavy lift um as you alluded to to make these services possible, but really also critical. Uh we're going to talk about the data and and why it's such a challenge um in the summer heat. Uh we'll go over last year's results and kind of review how that went and adjustments we're making. We'll talk about what what our proposed plan is for summer 2026. It's only February, but we need to get everything in place so that we're prepared. And then finally, we have um several actions we need you to take for us to be ready to um start the the heat season on May 1st. Before I turn it over um to the team, I'd like to just acknowledge some of the partnerships. And this is is perhaps not all inclusive. I do want to call out Maricopa County for their support, their financial support, and they are truly part of the team with us. And we have um we have Dr. Stop here who's going to take over after this. And then I also want to acknowledge community bridges. Um they u um staffed our our our extended hour and 247 last year. And it is a also a very heavy lift to staff up for just a temporary period of time and work together with all of the volunteers and other partners. And so I just want to acknowledge them as well from last year. Um also want to acknowledge all of the city departments that are involved. does take the whole city to make this possible and I want to make sure that we as we get started acknowledge them and now I'll turn it over to uh the medical director for Maricopa County Dr. Mick Stab um to um continue the presentation. >> Great. Thank you, Deputy City City Manager Montes. Uh very happy to be here with you all this afternoon um and take a look at some of the data that drives our programming at Maricopa County. Um, and I know in close collaboration with you all, um, helps some of your activities as well. So, this past summer, as we have since 2006, um, we have, uh, looked very closely at the data surrounding heat related illness and heat related deaths in Maricopa County. On this graph from our dashboard, you can see at the top there, the red line um, is showing daily high temperatures, yellow is the daily low. Um and on the bars there on the bottom are heat related deaths um that have been investigated and and recorded in Maricopa County. So I will have a graph for you in a moment that shows the trend over time. U but this is the most updated counts which show 427 confirmed deaths this past summer during 2025 with one death still under investigation. We break those deaths down uh to focus on uh those individuals who are at highest risk. You can see here in the top left uh we have a breakdown by age and you see the impact on um individuals of middle age between the ages of 35 and 64 being the majority of these deaths. On the upper right, you see that this dis disproportionately affects males. Um, as well as on the lower left there, you see with race and ethnicity, a disproportionate impact on uh American Indian and black and African-American individuals. And then drawing your attention to the lower right, you see uh individuals uh who have died from heat. Uh those involving substances make up a majority of our cases at 64%. That's a a percentage that has been relatively consistent since we have been tracking it. Um and then the 48% below um represents deaths among individuals who were unhoused. This portion of our dashboard um shows heat related deaths uh by zip code. Um I like to use this as an opportunity to say that that heat touches every city within our county. Um although we are uh here today to talk about the city of Phoenix, but um you certainly see here that that all parts of the county are affected. Um top right there shows uh individuals who died uh outdoors uh at 73% versus indoors at 27%. And when we look at those indoor deaths, we really try to focus on um whether or not they had resources in place to stay safe indoors. Um whether they had working air conditioning and whether um electricity was turned on. And we also take a careful look at heat related illness. Um I think this is an area that in coming years we will take a closer look at because it does um affect a different part of our community. Um you can see in the lower left hand corner here um where we're looking at the breakdown by ages. You can see the um impact that it has on older individuals. You can see that the breakdown by sex uh is a little more balanced uh between male and female. Um and over there on the far right in the lower in those two boxes, you can see that the impact on individuals who are unhoused as well as those cases involving drugs um is far different than what we see amongst heat related deaths. Um this data likely is is more representative of a larger percent of our population in the community. Um and so we will be spending more time in coming seasons uh to break this down and really focus programming um that looks as much at heat related illness as we look at heat related deaths. So again a couple of the trends that we saw um in 2025 we are very um we are excited to see this continued trend of decreasing heat related deaths in our community. the decrease from 2024 to 25 is a is a 30% decrease. So, a very significant decrease and um we are busy looking into um what could account for that. Um I'm hopeful that much of our effort in the last couple of summers um expanding access to heat relief uh sites as well as putting out more information about the risks of heat related illness and death um is percolating into our community and establishing itself uh so that we can have um better results um especially amongst these most severe cases represented in our deaths. Uh in this chart you can see um that we continue to have um a high number of cases uh occur on those days that have an excessive heat warning. Um but this past uh summer 42% of deaths occurred on an excessive heat warning day. Um indicating that this is a problem every day of the summer and not only on those that are um the hottest or may get the most attention. Um on the evening news here you see that 84% of our heat related deaths are occurring in Maricopa County residents. So our own residents, not those who are visiting from out of state um as much or who may be um less acclimated to our our climate. We know that um the bulk of this uh burden lies on our own residents. Um and here that's shown even more that um these deaths are occurring in individuals who've lived here for 20 years or longer in most cases. Um and so these are established residents in our community who are at highest risk. And so this has gone on to inform our programming in Maricopa County um which we share with the city of Phoenix. Um our effort through the heat relief network to establish cooling centers. Um we are very focused at increasing access to these sites. um working um with many partners including cities and towns to expand hours of operation. Um we are using our public health liaison who work in every uh section of the county um to reach out to these sites, make sure that they're operating um by the standards that the heat relief network sets forth to keep um individuals who are using those sites uh safe and welcome. We continued our partnership this past summer with 211 um to ensure access to sites not only through um the online map but by calling 211 and being directed to the nearest site um and being offered a ride um if they did not have one. Um another big emphasis of ours has been to highlight the added risk of substance use and heat related illness and death. Um we've done a large campaign um with our community-based partners um as well as cities and towns to get information out regarding that added risk. Um really hoping that in coming uh in coming years we see a decline um in those numbers of cases that involve substances. So now I will pass on the presentation to Chief Alexander. Thank you. Mayor Ggo and members of the council, I truly appreciate the opportunity to highlight the Phoenix Fire Department's perspective and role in supporting the city's heat response unified team and heat response plan. This collaborative team and the fire department's missions are both aligned and focused on saving lives. Over the past two years, we have emphasized the valley's heat season creates especially challenging conditions for emergency responders. Along with a rise in heat related calls, we experience increased fire activity, mountain rescues, and other seasonal incidents. These demands combined with long hours and extreme temperatures can significantly affect service delivery. Our strategy for the cooling centers remains grounded in the principle that people cannot die from extreme heat exposure while sitting in an air conditioned building with a cold bottle of water in their hand. Ensuring vulnerable residents have timely access to cooling centers continues to save lives. These centers paired with navigation services, sheltering options, and long-term care that supports lasting stability is are essential components of our approach. In 2025, heat related emergencies continue to trend below the peak levels recorded in 2023. This map indicates where heat related calls for service occurred during the 2025 heat season. This map was created using the 1751 incidents reported by our members as heat related. This information continues to drive the discussion on areas of focus for heat relief efforts and aligns very well with this coming season's plan. Council supported initiatives such as ice and cold water immersion and chilled introvenous therapies programs are now nationally recognized within emergency medical services and have become best practices. Our fire department's use of these programs have been highlighted by national and local news this past year for their ability to save lives and reduce serious long-term consequences of heat emergencies to our residents. During the 2025 heat season, paramedics performed 155 cold water immersions, a reduction of 24% from the previous season. The decrease in heat related deaths and the decreased need for more advanced interventions likely indicates our strategies are lessening the need for extreme treatment. The fire department's heat stress management standard operating procedure protects first responders during extreme heat through structured monitoring, rest, hydration, and cooling practices. When temperatures exceed 105° Fahrenheit, the department activates additional resources and enhanced rehabilitation to prevent heat related impacts on personnel in the community. Thank you for your continued support and I'll now pass it to Dr. David Hondula. Thank you, Chief Alexander. It's an honor to be working alongside you in these efforts. And good afternoon, Mayor and Council. On behalf of the many departments that Gina referenced in the introduction, I'm proud to be here to share the city's comprehensive heat response plan for 2026, which is oriented at trying to reduce the severe public health impacts that my colleagues have described. This year, our heat response plan is organized around six strategic priorities with approximately two dozen specific programs targeted at reducing heat related illnesses and deaths in the community. Those six strategic priorities include ensuring that our first responders are as well equipped as possible to do their work in the summer, to provide publicly available cool space and drinking water throughout the community. To help ensure that our residents have cool and safe home environments and can safely move and recreate throughout our city in the heat season. To ensure that workers are safe in the city, not just the city workforce, but increasingly beyond that workforce as well. and to educate the community and to engage with a wide range of partners. To showcase the breadth of the heat response plan, I'd like to share just a few highlights of programs that were included last year, and that includes our participation in the regional heat relief network. Phoenix remains a cornerstone of this regional effort. We offer the most sites of any organization in the heat relief network with more than 60 out of the 200 countywide. And we also offer very high quality of service at our sites as well. We've been supporting other partners performing heat rel re heat heat relief work in the community for many years through various forms of assistance including grants and providing direct goods to them like reusable water bottles, hats, cooling towels that enable them to extend the reach of city efforts to help vulnerable residents. Our neighborhood services department does a great job promoting and enforcing the city's cooling ordinance, which is a critical part of our strategy to keep home environments uh cool and safe throughout the summer. And we'd like to acknowledge the more than 200 volunteers that joined us at city trail heads last year to provide heat safety education for residents and visitors headed to enjoy recreation during the heat season in an effort to prevent some of those technically difficult mountain rescues that the chief alluded to. Each year we review the data and we discuss with our uh fellow departments and many external partners what what went well and what we can do better. And in addition to the patterns that Dr. Stab described, we reached a couple of other insights from our work with those departments and partners. Uh number one, as the chief alluded to, our high need areas continue to include downtown Phoenix and the I17 corridor. That's where we see the highest rates of heat related illness and death. Uh the second which we'll hear about in just a few moments. Last year we really saw an emergent need for specialized resources for families seeking heat relief. And we've also continued to hear from our city department colleagues and others that there remains an opportunity to improve how we're promoting and connecting our residents to city programs that can help keep them safe in the summer. Guided by those insights and the data we've we've heard about, we're proposing four considerable uh notable updates to the heat response plan for this year. One is a modification to our operational program for extended hour and 247 heat relief locations. Second is a new training program for city employees. Third is a restructuring of our assistance program for community partners doing heat relief work. And fourth is to expand outreach to particularly vulnerable communities. We'll now take time to go into each of these four updates at some detail. Starting with Rachel Milley in the office of homeless solutions for update number one. >> Thank you, David. Mayor and members of the council, you will recall that last year we focused the majority of our resources and efforts on our what we call our four extended hour and 24-hour locations. Last year was the second year uh that we offered a 247 location. We offered that at a leased site at 20 West Jackson. It was a very comprehensive site. So, not only was it open 24 hours a day, the Office of Homeless Solutions staffed that site alongside Community Bridges, Inc., who was there um every day of the summer, May 1 through September 30th. We utilized private security inside the site and we partnered with Phoenix PD outside the site to maintain the neighborhood. We also offered many volunteer opportunities at that site including Circle the City, ASU nursing students and Teros behavioral health. Our three extended hour sites were located at Harmon, Choya, and Yaka libraries. These three libraries offered full library services every day May 1 to September 30th, including Sundays and holidays until 10 p.m. In addition to full library services, we also placed uh CBI navigators with access to transportation at these sites as well in order to offer additional services to people who may be experiencing homelessness looking for additional resources. In total, these four sites saw over 5,600 unique visitors, unduplicated visitors, of which 523 were were um families with minor children. Um and and from all four sites, we saw 751 placements. And those were placements mostly into emergency shelter programs, but also into treatment programs, diverting people back to friends or family, and also housing. This year we plan to um build on what we learned last year and all of the data that my colleagues have have uh have gone over. Um first and foremost, we'd like to extend two of our sites and and bring two additional sites on. Uh the first site that we'd very much like to extend was 20 West Jackson. Uh we really want to build on what we learned last year. It was our most popular site, our most visited site last year. We plan to operate this year in a very similar way with Community Bridges, Inc. providing those uh the 24-hour services including navigation um and connection to other resources at the site. Um partnering again with uh private security inside the building and Phoenix PD for to monitor the outside of the building and also bringing in some of our volunteer groups like ASU nursing and circle the city. We also would like to continue the Choya Library uh site with extended hours. Choya Library is located by the former Metro Center Mall up the I17 corridor which Dr. Hondula referenced earlier. We plan to operate this in a very similar way that we did last year as well with CBI on site with full library services. However, cutting those services at 900 p.m. um this year um but again offering transportation to individuals who are looking for additional resources and navigation services. The first new site that we would uh like to uh add this year is the justice center. And if you're familiar with the justice center, it's located downtown just outside the Key campus on 10th Avenue in Jefferson. It is a senior day center. Um they would they would like to partner with the city to open up their doors at 3:00 p.m. every day to anyone, not just seniors, but anyone in need of heat relief from 3:00 to 9:00 p.m. every day this summer. Also offering navigation and transportation services. And finally, as has been mentioned earlier, we learned a lot last year about uh the needs of families with minor children. We did have a unique space at 20 West Jackson for families with minor children. However, that space often got overwhelmed and some families had to spend several days in that space. So, this year we'd like to uh uh offer um a contract with Yom to provide family specific services. So, anyone who comes to any one of our heat sites can be referred to where they will offer um client intake um diversion services, shelter coordination, and help those families with their unique needs um work on ending their homelessness and certainly getting out of the heat. And I will turn it back to David. >> Thank you, Rachel. The second update we're proposing uh for your consideration, mayor and council, is to to develop and implement a new training program for city of Phoenix employees. This would be a modular program launch launched in the city's online learning management system, Phoenix U. Our goal is to increase the capacity of public-f facing city employees to connect residents and visitors to all of the important programs and services that we offer as a city that can help keep people safe and comfortable during the summer. As such, the training program wouldn't just include information about how to recognize the signs and symptoms of heat related illness, the graphic you see on the slide here, but information about the wealth of city programs that are available. We are working quite collaboratively with many city departments as well as other public health partners uh to build the curriculum together that we'll offer to city employees uh later this year. And we'd like to acknowledge support from the Federal Emergency Management Agency who has grant funding available to us that's help helping make this possible. Our third update is to the heat relief supply program that the city has offered for for many years. Uh in fact, mayor and council, you helped launch and accelerate this program with American Rescue Plan Act funding just a couple of years ago. And over those few years, we've learned a lot about how this program can succeed in helping community partners like our community leader shown on the slide here, uh, who's, uh, very happy to be picking up heat relief supplies at one of our distribution locations. Uh, again, to refresh your memory, this program supports partners who are part of the heat relief network. So, not specifically city of Phoenix sites, but other sites that are operating uh within the city of Phoenix and serving our residents. And through this program, we've distributed a wide variety of supplies, including hats, water bottles, electrolyte p packets, etc. And we learn each year about the supplies that will be most beneficial uh to these organizations. Uh through various operating modes of this program over the past few years, we've now come to propose a way forward that we think has has permanence and sustainability. Uh in front of you today is action to onboard a new partner who can coordinate the community engagement as well as physically house and distribute the tens of thousands of supplies we're talking about. And we also have in front of you for consideration a new contract uh for the heat relief supplies that would be part of this program. And fourth, we'd like to expand some of our outreach efforts to some of our most impacted uh uh populations and communities. In particular, when we look at the heat related illness data that Dr. Stab described those include residents of mobile and manufactured home communities as well as our senior residents. Our outreach campaign to these neighborhoods uh started at the invitation of the Red Cross uh last year and has developed into a quite a comprehensive partnership not just with the Red Cross but with the Arizona Mobile and Manufactured Homeowners organization, multiple city departments as well as a great core of volunteers. As has been a theme through the presentation, our our goal is to focus on populations that have higher rates of heat related illness and help increase awareness of all of the resources that are there, city programs and others that can help keep people uh cool and safe. And we would like to acknowledge the contributions of many volunteers that helped make this program possible last year, including University of Arizona nursing students shown on the slide here on one of our outreach campaigns. As we look into the summer, uh you and and the public can expect uh considerable coordination and reporting uh on a continuous basis uh from from the heat leadership team. Our 247 and extended hour locations again this year will be coordinated by our unified command team that follows an incident command structure. We will be providing weekly heat response uh reports directly to you, mayor and council, as well as city management and to the public posted online at phoenix.gov/heat. /heat that shares progress on the wealth of actions included in the heat response plan as well as key public health indicators. And we are continuing to try to do uh even better each year at our ongoing cross departmental dialogue and data sharing to ensure that as best possible the heat response plan is working in harmony that all the actions are working together to solve our public health mission. in front of your requests for action for a few items that have financial implications. I want to highlight a couple of those for you as we conclude the presentation. With respect to the extended hour and 247 sites, we have a projected estimated budget for this heat season of $5.25 million. And we are proposing to blend together three funding sources to support that operation, including American Rescue Plan Act funds from Maricopa County. Thank you, Maricopa County. City of Phoenix opioid settlement funds as well as City of Phoenix CDBGCV funds. Those can support uh the extended hour and 247 sites. And those costs cover a wide range of services and operational needs that you see on the slide here, including the contracts in front of you for action today, the the security and staff support that you've heard about, the physical supplies, our communications uh tools and contingency fund. uh for example, if we need to extend beyond our intended date of September 30th as we did two years ago. Uh so to conclude, we have several requests of the the city council today for action, including uh item number two on your agenda, approval of the overall plan. Item three, the lease for our 247 site. Item four, the contract with Yum. Item five, contracts for our additional social service providers. Number five, a contract with All Thrive 365 for heat relief supply distribution. Uh the seventh item on your agenda is our contract for heat relief supplies. And last but certainly not least, our contract for digital content management uh for the new employee training program. We very much appreciate your support of the the full breadth of the heat response program over the past several years and look forward to your questions. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. These agenda items include some formal meeting items. So, would the city clerk please read the 24-hour paragraph? >> The titles of the following ordinance numbers on the agenda were available to the public at least 24 hours prior to this council meeting and therefore may be read by title or agenda item only. Ordinance is numbered S52627 through 52632. >> Thank you so much. We have one member of the public to comment. Uh Saul, the floor is yours. Good afternoon, me uh members of the council. Uh mayor, um my name is Sal Pam Moreno. Um I was here a few weeks ago pertaining to the light rail capek extension and I'm uh here a longtime resident of of West Phoenix in Mville. uh born and raised my entire life and um and I'm part of the group uh called Rumbo, which is a grassroots organization by residents of West Phoenix for res west Phoenix pertaining to um uh uh action against heat relief, heat island effects to provide um uh to advocate for resources to uh specifically to residents of West Phoenix for um heat reliefs. um especially a as West Phoenix is disproportionately impacted by um by the rising temperatures especially in summer that are several degrees uh warmer than other parts of Phoenix. Um and with that uh I do agree uh with with uh everything that they requested in terms uh of the Phoenix um through items 2 through 8 through everything that uh that is in support for uh resources that pertain to um uh the reactive and proactive uh responses um for um for the for the uh city of Phoenix. Um as this benefits uh not only um the people that live here that that are that are housed that are of low income but also um greatly benefits that of uh of the unhoused and those that live in uh trailers uh mobile homes or those that have very poor inadequate um uh air conditioning systems like old swamp cools and such. Um, so my my organization that we that I'm a part of, we specifically uh survey and ask um what the what the residents of Mville want and uh pretty much everything what they ask for is is very beneficial to us. So yes, thank you. >> Thank you so much for that testimony. That concludes public comment. We'll go first to Councilman Robinson. >> Thank you, Mayor. First of all, I have a comment then a quick question for Dr. St. But um I want to thank you all. I think it's an excellent presentation and you know I think what we're able to do as a city in the summer months is invaluable and the in a discussion I had with city manager and a deputy city manager um Amber Williamson was that anything we can do with any surplus to move toward the office of homeless solutions because you guys are doing a um a yman's job had a community meeting last evening that was a big part of it people asked a lot of questions so they're seeing an impact and clearly these are the vulnerable. Um, and Dr. Stop, the question I have, it was on slide number eight, and it's more a curiosity than anything else, and maybe it's something we can then focus our attentions on, but the um, folks who are dying from um, heat related deaths involving substances, have we been able to narrow down what those substances are just yet, or is that still still under consideration? Yeah, thank you, Mayor, Council, uh, Councilman Robinson. Uh, yes, we have a more detailed breakdown of what those substances are. Um, working with our Office of the Medical Examiner, they've been using toxicology results, and we've been using those results, um, to look at, um, whether we're seeing predominance of opioids uh, or um, methamphetamine or other stimulant drugs. Um, what we see in most cases is a mix of drugs. So oftentimes um many different um drugs in at the same time but again these are toxicology results so we don't necessarily know what was the number one contributing drug. Um our big press in terms of education is specifically around stimulants. Um opioids get a lot of um a lot of uh attention because of the settlement funding um that has gone into that response. Um but it is the added effect of stimulants and heat um that is the biggest risk in the community. And so that is part of our campaign both at the county and at the city level to really emphasize that to uh both community partners who are working with that population as well as to individuals themselves. >> Okay. And thank you answered the second part of my question. the fact that you are, you know, zeroing in or at least identifying the fact that what those substances are and making sure that population is aware of it. You know, I I I say that because I know I saw Chief Ordono Gordono in the back and I know it's something he and his folks can not necessarily from a criminality standpoint, but they're going to know when these things are happening in certain areas, but it's probably something that they could probably use that information to help them in certain areas of of town as they go about with um doing their duties because it's, you know, there are certain things, you know, and my guess is our police officer you're going to know some of those some of those areas that are hot spots for it. And my guess is as you get together and talk and find out, there's going to be some correlation there with where these deaths are occurring or at least where these people are picked up in certain areas of town that the officers are well aware of. So with that, again, it was an excellent presentation. Thank you very much, mayor. Thank you for the time. >> Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, mayor. Um, I also want to say thank you to staff. Thank you for the county for the a very detailed presentation. Um it highlights the importance of coordination and the urgency that um reflected in this in this year's heat response plan. We know extreme heat is not a just a seasonal inconvenience. It is literally a public health emergency. And every year we're reminded that the stakes are higher and higher particularly for our senior senior population, unsheltered residents, families with children, and individuals with underlying health conditions. I really appreciate that this plan builds on the lessons that we learned in 2025 and it continues to strengthen our partnerships with organizations. Um I have a couple of questions maybe maybe helpful. Um on slide nine I believe. Yes, nine. Um what stood out to me was the number of individuals um who had an air condition present and yet it either was turned off or non-functioning. My first question if you can is does AC present include swamp coolers? >> Thank you uh Mayor Council uh and Councilwoman Washington. I so air conditioning specifically does not include swap coolers. So it is a functioning air conditioning system >> of the other sort. And then my second question, I I don't know if you have this detail, but I would be curious if maybe we could look into it. Um, as to when we say nonfunctioning, whether or not there are programs that if these individuals were aware of, we could have addressed the situation. So, for example, through neighborhood services or some other um some other agency. I'm just curious whether or not they meet the thresh threshold. It's I see everybody looking down. Go ahead. I'm sure there Go ahead. >> Yeah. Mayor and Council, uh, thank you, Vice Mayor Hodgewashing, for the question. Uh, yes, that that's exactly the spirit of our review of the data each year and our discussion with with city departments. Uh I I know we have other city departments represented here who may may wish to weigh in, but it's absolutely our goal to understand how many and which and where of these cases are a good match for city programs and then what what can we do to make connections to those programs. That's a dialogue that we have have every year and the data here suggests we certainly have more work to do on that front. >> And I see um our neighborhood services director Spencer Self is coming to the table. uh mayor, vice mayor, Hajj Washington. Yes, we do have programs uh available for folks who don't have functioning AC. Uh and that works in two different ways. One, through our code enforcement efforts uh for tenants who are renting spaces that don't have working AC. That is a violation of the city code. Um, we also have our uh weatherization program. And while it is not intended nor able to be an emergency uh HVAC repair or replace program, um it does allow us to uh get into the unit, we do have portable coolers that we install to give temporary relief as well as connecting uh those residents to our other programs uh that the city provides to provide some immediate relief while we work on the underlying issue. Thank you for that. Um because I would presume that if someone decides to have to either turn off or not repair their air conditioning during our um trying to find a nice word for our summers summer heat. It is probably an affordability concern and I think some of this could be maybe we could do a little bit more in educating the public about some of the options that are available. Um, so that was a point of trying to figure out whether or not these individuals that would have qualified and they did not know about what we what we have as a city. So it's just whether or not this is an opportunity for targeted education. Um, I really wanted to say I also appreciated the um moving forward the emphasis or focus on our seniors and those that live in mobile homes. Um, I have heard some concerns from individuals in mobile homes within my community and I think they don't fully understand all of their rights. So, I think that's part of the conversation that might be helpful as well. My other question um had to do I just wanted to understand a little bit between heat cause and heat contributed how that determination was made for slide number seven. >> Thank you uh vice mayor. So um heat caused and heat contributed is part of the investigation by the medical examiner as to what the primary or secondary causes of death were. So heat caused is when heat is listed in that primary cause of death and heat contributed is when it's listed as a secondary cause. And if I recall correctly um there has been some criticism regarding how these numbers are calculated and when it is u what is it unknown or undetermined even though heat may have contributed have we may have do you know if any adjustments have been made to the categoriz like I want to say categorizing but the determination of heat um heat death resulting from heat. >> So the best person to respond to that would be our medical examiner. Um, I will simply say that we have been um strategic in our in our work with their office um to not make significant changes because we know how important um these trends over time are and um for our community to know whether our efforts are leading to change or not. Um so there has not been um any change in the categorization um of those deaths. Um we do um that office continues to work at a national level um to make sure that we are following best practices. >> Okay. Um thank you for that. Um I just really wanted again to emphasize that I really appreciate the intentionality of this plan. I really am look forward to us measuring outcomes and maybe if you can talk a little bit about what are our performance metrics that we're looking at not just for us as a city but as our partners. I mean I think the number one metrics is a decline in heat related deaths but I think it might be helpful to articulate if there are other additional metrics that we are looking at to determine the um success of our heat response plan. >> Mayor, members of the council, Vice Mayor Haj Washington. So, the number one thing that we're checking and we check at um uh both our 24-hour site as well as our library sites last year and plan to do at Choya Library this year as well as justice center. We do an hourly count of numbers of people in each site. So, just a baseline of how many people are using our site at what times of day, how they're getting there. We do a full intake for anyone who wants to. It is not required. Um but anyone who wants to will do a full take intake of of their needs. Um and then for OS specifically, one of our highest metrics of success is that um additional homeless service if people are um seeking additional services, the placement numbers into additional programs that can help them end their homelessness. >> And I presume fire means a less number of calls that you have to respond to. >> Yeah. Uh, mayor, members of the council, uh, Councilwoman Hodgej Washington, um, from a fire department perspective, obviously calls for service is one of the metrics we look at, but again, um, we are in a in a transition phase of the way we look at our data. We looked at CAD data and now we're looking at um, user input data uh, through our EPCRs. And so, um, right now we're just establishing that trend line that that, uh, the others had talked about. Um the other things that we look at is obviously a decrease in deaths, but we also look at a decrease in acuity. And so what we're trying to affect on our side that um we think reflects in um uh a general increase in the well-being of our community is uh fewer calls, less resources on those calls, and lower times on calls. And so if um we're seeing a trend line where um we uh can decrease the um the more um extreme measures we have to take to to do life-saving measures such as the the immersion programs or the introvenous things or uh rescues or other types of calls. Um that to us is is an indication that our strategies are working as well. >> Thank you. And I presume that our the part our 2021 heat response overview continues to include um the 211 as well as the ride coordination to coolin centers as we consolidate or reduce the number of sites available. We are still providing um transportation to those in need to the actual coolin sites. So >> Vice Mayor Hodgej Washington yes 211 will be uh operational this year with additional transportation. We do have built in our budget as well a a full communications effort to get the word out of where our sites are. Um and then additionally, if we have families at each one of those sites, uh we will be uh that that are looking to connect with yum, mom specifically for the family specific um services, we'll be partnering with the uh with the CAP teams, the community assistance program to to provide safe transportation with car seats and boosters and what have you for for those minor children as well. >> Okay. Thank you. And I would close by saying given that we've seen uh some the numbers of individuals who have air conditioning that are not working, I don't know if we want to include an information campaign to explain how dangerous it still remains to be in a home with air conditioning not working, not functioning properly. Thank you, Mayor. Those are my questions. >> Thank you, Councilman Hernandez. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um, and you know, really thank you to all of the staff and partners um, that you are really doing the hard work of getting us here um, and building the plan on how we're going to meet um, the needs this coming year. So truly truly thank you for that. Um, I really appreciate the honesty in outlining how heat related deaths are the number one cause of weather related casualties um, across Phoenix and Maricopa County. Um, I also think it was very important that it was noted that being um, unsheltered, poor, homeless, or a person of color really leaves that individual in a uniquely vulnerable um, position to heat related death. Uh, so it's critical that we are very clear with that, very honest with the community about that. Um, just have a few questions. I think David, you might take most of them, but I think you and Rachel might take some of them. um our contract with you, Mom. Can you walk us through what that referral process is going to look like? >> Sure. Mayor, members of the council, Councilwoman Hernandez. So, the the contract with Yum, Mom is an up to $300,000 contract for them to provide the services for uh families uh looking for heat um heat relief. This summer, we will provide transportation if families prot present at any of our heat related sites. Um this the contract specifically sets aside 20 units of shelter uh a specific building temporary shelter for families. If those are filled, we have worked with you, Mom, to identify a gym that could be utilized and and um sort of um use uh room dividers to make sure families still have some private space. Um so we'll be able to use that space and even if if if those two spaces are filled, we also will have hotel vouchers. Um, so those are the three spaces, but the the services that you will provide is an intake to every family who comes in for their vulnerability to get an idea of if they could be diverted back to friends or family if possible. Um, coordination with other family shelters throughout our community and then certainly the housing support if they are um they go to the more um permanent not permanent but if they end up being sheltered at Yom in a in a longer than temporary fashion. >> Thank you for and thank you for that. I know last summer we were in constant communication about the increasing need for family support at the 24 um7 at Tony West Jackson. Uh I think I was calling you I don't I don't know I lost count of how many times I would have to call you for for support there. Um so thank you for that on the uh heat supplies um contract which I think is item number six. Um, do we have paths to partner up with more community partners that would expand our financial resources um to expand attainability for those heat supplies? Uh, thank you for the question, Councilwoman Hernandez, mayor and council. Yes, I I think bringing additional financial support into the regional heat relief network is an ongoing dialogue that we have with with the county and and many other partners. we participate in as many workg groups and collaborative forums as we can to engage with those partners to communicate what the need is. Uh so while we don't have a a new large title sponsor in front of you today those are conversations that we are we are absolutely working on Dr. St. I don't know if there's anything you can you can add on that front. >> I will simply add that it's definitely top of mind for us because we are are looking at a a time limit on the funding that we have been able to use in recent years to support this activity. So um both in conversations with our board of supervisors as well as a variety of different community members with the state um we are focused on ensuring that we have that we can maintain this level of um of service uh with regards to heat relief um and expand it. >> Thank you so much. Um my next question on the um supply the heat supplies contract uh can you walk us through what the 2.6 6 million will support. Um, you know, I don't think that's enough, but I know that that's where we're at. Um, and is that a one-time only amount? Thank you for the question, Councilwoman, mayor and council. Uh, this is a a multi-year uh spending amount that is approximately 500,000 per year over 5 years. And we're talking about the physical goods that you heard about in the presentation, reusable water bottles, cooling towels, a really wide assortment of of items that we continue to talk to the community about what would be most beneficial to support their operations and of course learn about the quality and durability of different products over over time. We have not had a year that we've been left with a surplus of of supplies or money in any instance of of this program. The need out there in the community is tremendous. But this commitment makes a really large dent in that community need as well. It is a a meaningful and powerful uh resource that we're able to provide. >> Yeah, thank you so much. I don't disagree with that. I think if there's opportunity to find more resources, definitely would love to see that um be shifted over to make sure we are providing the resources out to the community. Um, can you walk me through how our heat relief plan um intersects with our Shade Phoenix plan if there's any overlap there? >> Thank you for the question, uh, Councilwoman, mayor, and council. Uh, when we think about the the entire portfolio of what the city is is, uh, is working on related to heat, it is a it is a vast array of actions. the the tree planting events that we heard about in the council reports earlier today to the immediate life-saving work that our paramedics are doing in the field. Uh I view the plans as as stacked and complimentary upon one each other thinking about different components of the need in the community. The way this is described in the the national planning uh literature is a recommendation to focus on heat mitigation strategies to to cool the city and make more comfortable spaces and heat management which is what we're talking about today or what we call heat response. All pieces of a comprehensive pie that we are trying to build to ultimately have the most resilient, cool, safe, affordable city that we can imagine. >> Thank you so much for that. Um, yeah, I work Phoenix gets hotter every year, so definitely have a lot of hard work in front of us. Um, my next question, uh, what barriers exist that prevent us, um, from opening up more city facilities to make water fountains more accessible or installing more water stations? I think I have a guess, but would have staff answer. Um, Mayor, Councilwoman, you're you're talking about additional facilities or making them open longer in terms of additional facilities. >> Well, I mean, we um if you're talking about additional construction of facilities, brand new facilities, those are kind of all what's been programmed um through our capital improvement program and bond. Um we do try to make many many facilities available more than 60 um facilities available for the city from city facilities where people can get a bottle of water and come in. We are um in the process of identifying more locations for our chilled water um station program and are are constantly looking for ways to um make water available to the community. >> Okay, thank you Gina. Um and then I uh another question in the overall strategies uh number six was listed as educate the community and engage with partners. Um what does that look like? Um like how are we starting that? Where are we starting that? And are we getting that those services to the target population so they can navigate the the heat cycle? >> Thank you for the question uh councilman uh mayor and council. If I may, I I would frame as a continuation and amplification of efforts that we've been doing for several years on this front. And it what communication and partner engagement looks like takes a a really wide form. For example, the you may have seen over the last couple years, the county has had billboards along the the highway corridors promoting heat relief network locations and our communications office works very collaboratively with communications from public health on a joint coordinated public education campaign each summer. It also is is small group meetings where we might be working for for example with public health focused uh community groups to think about what should we include on a particular pamphlet or in a particular a message about the intersection between heat and substances for example. It is is a really wide range of both public facing and and strategic dialogue uh in which we're hoping to improve our collective messaging and I think achieve that that followthrough into the community that Dr. Stab alluded to. >> Thank you for that. Um I think one area where I'm excited to see or looking forward to having more dialogue and discussion is around the uh the hiking season right in in Phoenix. Well, in the greater Phoenix area, I know that the uh mountain rescues are very critical, but they also really put our fire uh our fire responders into really precarious situations um doing those rescues as well. I know it's something an issue that has brought been brought up up in my community meetings like how are we going to address that? So, just really want to um dive deeper into those conversations when we're talking about engagement and education out there with all of our visitors that don't really understand what the Phoenix heat season is um even at night time. So, just a lot of concern there. Um that was all my questions, but really thank you all for this. um you are all really doing the work um to get this done and tackling a problem that you know we are way behind on bringing solutions to. So please consider um the D7 office and my entire team as a resource as a thought partner. Um you know I'm looking forward to supporting um you and figuring out um ways to best address our heat relief um measures and just the program overall. Um, I really would love to see our heat relief program um, lead the nation in innovation and solutions. Um, so just here to be a good partner with with you with all of you um, and how we build that forward. So, thank you so much. Thank you, Mayor. >> Thank Thank you, Councilman Wearing. >> Uh, thank you, mayor. I'm on page four, uh, panel, I guess it would be eight. Uh, I'm not sure who was presenting when this came up. the heat related deaths involving substances. Uh so what does that mean exactly? Does that mean you're on a substance then or you have a history of substance abuse or how is that determined? >> Yeah, thank you uh mayor, council, and councilman. Um so the substance use data and at the intersection with our heat related death data or heat related illness um is is a little complicated. We get the data from different data sources. So as I mentioned um working closely with the office of the medical examiner and getting that data from um from toxic toxicology results. So actual tests that are done um on the deedent during the investigation as well as um we may get um reports from the investigators who are on the scene um collecting evidence uh that is reported back. Um we also examine medical records. So we look at um uh recent medical records uh admissions to um emergency departments um and if there is an indicator of uh substance use in the past um that may influence the medical examiner's investigation and ultimately what they report on those um causes of death um either as a primary cause or a contributing cause. Mayor, I assume we're talking narcotics, not maybe one marijuana cigarette or something or the person got busted for a DUI 10 years ago. That's not what we're talking about. I assume I assume maybe they were doing autopsies or something. It sounds like >> that's correct. So these so these these data are results of the medical examiner's investigation. Again, the data comes to the medical examiner from different sources. ultimately is up to that investigator and that medical legal investigation process to determine whether substance use was a contributing or or primary cause of death. Um, and again, there are cases where that is ruled out if they can determine that it wasn't part of that chain of events that led to that death. So, I guess if I took away something from this, 64% of the people who passed away had weakened their system with it sounds like some serious drug use over a period of time, if I hear what you're saying, had drugs in their system at the time, something like that. >> Um, but it ultimately was the actual heat that killed them. >> So, again, it's >> otherwise maybe they shouldn't be on this list. Well, so again, it gets into so when we have the heat caused versus heat contributed, again, that's where heat is listed on the death certificate as contributing or a primary cause of death. The substance use is either a primary or contributing cause of death depending on the case in the investigation. But the 64% that involve substances have substance use on there and have heat on there as contributing or primary causes of death. >> Okay. Um All right. So I guess part of my question is trying to get it. This is a tough neck to track. I mean no offense the 8 10 of you sitting up here are not going to prevent people from using drugs. I know shocker try not to look too surprised. So, it it is hard to overcome this. $5 million isn't going to do it. Um, but you can mitigate some of that damage by giving people a place to go. If I was trying to frame this to a constituent, like, what are we doing here? I guess that would be it. Um, trying to put people in a safer place than they might otherwise be, left to their own devices. Which brings me to, and I can see her cringe. Hi, Rachel. Um, so we've talked about this specific incident before. I will hazard a guess. Uh you can tell me later in private. You, Gina, and Jackie, uh who works with you. You probably don't catch any more calls from the guys up here than you do from me. So, um I've called about Scott, 300B 70-year-old guy. I know this because you've contacted him. I've had police contact him. We talked about this recently, but since we've talked, he's still out in the median. He's still panhandling. So, he spent all last year panhandling in 110 degree heat. You contact him. He did accept services after quite a few trips out. Um, police have, I guess, cited him now. That was a little unclear, but they've certainly contacted. And I saw him as recently as I think last Thursday. They probably could see him every day. If I left this meeting right now, I probably would. He's usually gone. I get home later than five. So, it's frustrating that I I don't know. It might be more than 20 calls. I just I look at these statistics. I see a 300 pound 70 year old who stands out. Now, it's not 110 right now, but it's going to be 110 soon. And it is clear he is not moving. No matter what we tell him, no matter what we do, no matter what police tell him, he has rolled right through that for about a year and a half. Um, you did mention when we talked about this in my office here recently that at some point he's a danger to himself. Well, I've got some news. It's going to be 110. He's going to stand outside all day panhandling where he's not supposed to. Illegal. So even that's dangerous. He's a danger to himself. At what point do we step in so he doesn't become one of these statistics? This is one that we can prevent whether it's through this program or just any of our programs. But I have to tell you, if a citizen askked me how effective this is, well, I'm a citizen. I should count. and we haven't been able to do anything with Scott. So, what would I tell them? >> Councilman Wearing, um, I actually do have an update for you on Scott that maybe I'll give to you after this meeting, but I I will say your >> I have to interrupt here, mayor. I did tell her this question was coming in advance. So, >> um I I will just say yes, you all letting us know where there's someone who frequents a certain space is exactly what we need because then we send our liaison out and they make that connection and they build that relationship and and an individual might not be ready to to join us on on a trip over to shelter or treatment program that day. But building that relationship helps us get them to eventually one day. And Scott, as you know, has um has taken us up and I I do have an update for you that I'll provide you after this meeting. Okay, that's good because I mean again I I I worry I I just was sure I just happened to be going by a spot where he was sleeping. I would see him. I just thought one day he's not going to wake up and it just killed me every time. So I called you pretty much every time. Um and it just it I I see this and I think that's one that we could prevent from having this kind of end. It just seemed like it was almost inevitable the way it was going. So I hope you have good news. But um what steps can you take if someone is simply not responding to anything? >> So Councilman Wearing, if someone is a danger to themselves or others, um our team is familiar with the petition process, so we will go down that route. Um our team has not felt that that was the the case for Scott at this time. >> All right. Thank you, >> Councilwoman Pastor. >> Hi. Thank you for all the good work and thank you to uh the mayor and council for supporting the work because it's greatly needed and a shout out to the city of Phoenix of doing the work. Um, I want to I want to explain something um regarding families in the 24-hour uh heat relief area. Um that became a challenge this summer because we had probably more families than what we thought. um there wasn't an area really to um an area for children to really have a an everyday life in that space. I know that at that time um family um employees or we came up with a solution and tried to figure it out. Um, also what what was the challenge in that space was also food, having food for them. Um, and so I'm I'm happy to hear that you, Mom, is a partner with us, uh, because that's probably a better space and place for them to be. Um, there's also outside to play and not that you're playing in the summer, but at least to get out in the evening. Um, and there's resources for them. So, I want to thank staff for really uh looking at that. The other piece is uh I think we're going to start to see more and more in the statistics is moving on our elderly population and uh either being evicted or some health crisis coming about and uh becoming uh a bigger population in our unshelter arena. Um I don't know something's giving me allergies in particular dementia arena so the these are bigger problems and issues but I just want to put it in the forefront. Um I also I want to also talk about the air condition the air condition piece. Yes, we have it. I know I'm trying. And um the thing about it, it's very cumbersome to qualify and go through the process. So I think as us as u policy makers, we probably really need to look at the process in order for people to um get the access that they need and and be able to get the proper equipment. So, I would like to I know that you can't, but I'm just dialoguing and and be able to look at that. Um, one of the questions I have is it's 64% that famous page eight of heat related deaths. How many are of un unhoused? >> Sorry. So, uh, mayor, council, councilwoman, can you, so of the 64%, um, involving substances, how many of those are unhoused? >> Yes. Is that possible? I don't know if it is. >> It certainly is possible. Um, I don't have Oh, Dave has it. Uh, 80%. So, so it's definitely it is it is a trifecta of the heat related illness substance and being unhoused and and I think that is where we are going to see um more difficulty as we really do bring these numbers down in terms of what we are going to need to do to be able to bring services to these highest risk individuals. >> And I think that's important to know to know what the challenge that we're going going to face. And I know that we're really pushing or have high expectations, but to understand the challenges in front of us in order to try to move that number down. Um 80% is a lot. Um, and I think that also goes back to back to really of what's available to them um, in that arena of rehabilitation and the possibility of rehabilitation and where you kind of meet them in the middle or meet meet them where they're at and trying to move them to where we need them or where we think they need to be. Um, and so I think it's important when we have this dialogue dialogue to understand the work that we're doing, but also how we're going to try to change a behavior and a mindset. Um, and that is very challenging in general. Um, if anybody has kids or deal with adults and trying to move people to a good solution is sometimes very very difficult. So, I just want to put that out there to to paint that picture as to that's where we're moving and going and another appreciation out to everybody that's doing the work. And so, thank you again for your time and the mayor and our council for really uh taking this on and have a great understanding about it. So, thank you. >> Thank you so much. All right, Vice Mayor, do we have a motion on items two through eight? >> Yes, mayor. I move that we approve items 1 through eight. >> Second two through eight. >> Nine. Sorry. >> One was the budget, so >> apologies. >> Okay. Through two through eight. >> Okay. Second. Just wanted to call. >> All right. Roll call. >> Ward. >> Yes. >> Hernandez. >> Yes. >> O'Brien. >> Yes. >> Pastor, >> yes. >> Robinson, >> yes. Stark, >> yes. >> Wearing, >> yes. >> Hodgej Washington, >> yes. >> GGO, >> yes. >> Passes 90. >> Thank you to our returning partners such as you, Mom and CBI, and congratulations to Justice Center. We are adjourned. of transportation is their scooter. So with us being able to come in and help overcome some of those barriers, it makes a big difference. It it's it's our way of uplifting the community. through some of the funding from the city of Phoenix, they