for e about ready to get started everybody kind of get to their seats okay Welcome to our April 30th work session I'll call our meeting to order and turn it over to David Cook thank you and good afternoon everybody uh the first thing I'm going to do this afternoon is ask Fernando to introduce our new interim director of Neighborhood Services Fernando thank you Mr cook mayor and councel last week we accepted Victor Turner's resignation as our neighbor of services director we want to thank Victor for the many contributions that he made to the city of Fort Worth in our neighborhoods during his 4 and a half year tenure and we'd also like to take this opportunity to thank uh Amy Connelly for filling in during the past several weeks as acting director of Neighborhood Services but we're here principally this afternoon to introduce to you someone whom some of you may already know Miss Casey Bess who has agreed to serve as interim director of Neighborhood Services during the next several months while we conduct a national search for a permanent director Casey is a star of our organization and I think everybody who knows her will agree uh with that uh sentiment uh she began her career uh working roughly 14 years with various private sector and Municipal employers came to work for the city of Fort Worth 11 years ago and has worked with distinction in several departments uh budget fire parks and most recently Human Resources where she has served as assistant director I can tell you when the city manager staff convened to discuss a possible interim director it took us approximately 20 seconds to reach consensus on Casey best because everybody who knows her understands how capable she is she is particularly good at baging budgets at solving problems that seem to be insoluable and that building relationships and those are skills that are vitally needed today in the neighborhood services department she comes to us with u a business degree from UT Austin and an MPA from uh UT Arlington and uh perhaps most impressive of all she and her husband uh have four children uh ranging from 3rd to 10th grade I have no idea how she does it but uh I'm delighted to introduce you to Casey best well way to set the bar High Fernando thank you for that I appreciate the support I do appreciate the support of the city manager's office in allowing me this opportunity I'm excited to get to work with the neighborhood services development team Neighborhood Services Department um and has been wonderful in helping um guide me around and fill me in on everything that they're doing so I'm looking forward to it I'm looking forward to being a better um resource to our residents because they do a lot for our residents um and I do would be remiss if I did not thank um my previous boss di G orano for allowing me this opportunity um Holly moror and the team that are stepping up to take my um take on my duties while I fulfill this role so thank you all [Applause] thank you Casey uh next are informal reports the first informal report is on our call center 1234 to 311 and Sharon gamble is available if there's any questions any questions from the council not thank you Sharon for all the good Shar thanks for doing that yes uh the next informal report is a request for proposal uh for for third party administrator for the city's self-funded Group Medical benefit plan and de gordano is available if there are any questions and there's also a change right Donna tell us what that change is in the so I'll share with you the informal report here is that we are conducting an RFP for the city's Group Medical benefit plan and so the change is we posted that RFP on April the 15th and it will actually close on May the 16th not May the 9th and part of that is to allow those that are interested in providing bids to actually analyze all of our claim data and model it with their uh CPT codes and all of the other applicable information so that we get good comprehensive information related to the competitiveness of those that are interested in bidding thank you thank you the third informal report is on Senate Bill 2038 which is about the release of area from our ejs by a petition of the land owner or resident and DJ harell is available if there are any questions moving on the final informal informal report is TCEQ air quality permitting process in the potential City role in air quality monitoring and Cody Wittenberg is available if there are any questions Cody come on up hi there Cody thank you for putting this IR together for us could you briefly walk through it for everybody yeah absolutely so there's three main sections to this particular IR the first piece is really centered around air quality permitting through the tcq so the tcq is the state agency that provides permitting for all Air facilities in Texas and that includes the one in Fort Worth and so whenever an applicant makes an application to tcq it undergos a couple of different steps one is a technical review and the other is an administrative riew review and during that process that they after they complete that they confirm that the application is complete and it completes that administrative review that's when individuals can schedule a public meeting or make comments on those applications as that works through the process the second piece really focuses on Regional air quality and again tcq is the responsible Agency for providing the regulatory monitoring across the region there's an a regional Network that you can access online certainly to view the different types of uh parameters that that monitoring network is looking at and the basically talks about two key challenges in north Texas one of course is Ozone and the other is particular matter specifically PM or particular matter 2.5 and it also discusses the various dual standards for ozone that we're currently under North Texas is in non attainment for ozone and could be a non- attainment one day for particular matter and then the final piece is just talking about a different type of monitoring which we sometimes call Community Based monitoring and as we move into fy2 we've certainly heard from the Community about a request or to consider community- based air quality monitoring so we're currently looking at different grant funding that may be available and working with different partners to understand the capacity that's in that market thank you for that I uh will Echo the community's concerns about monitoring air quality and so I'm completely supportive of any efforts that we put forward to do that thank you Cody I I I have a couple of questions for you when you talk about community-based monitoring are there opportunities for members of the general public to make application for those and if so where is the training and the other involves the feeling of helplessness that many felt after my counil peers you know made us all understand there are some applications that can be made but cannot be fought I want to also acknowledge the mayor for standing with council member block recently in terms of you know saying no even though the powers that b could say yes so can you talk about the helplessness and the public in terms of what they can can acquire absolutely so the first part of that is really focusing on the sensors that may be utilized in that community-based Network and the access to those there's a lot of sensors out there that individuals can purchase on their own from the free market and there's a wide range of of the different types of parameters I sometimes refer to it as a Swiss army knife as a monitor or a sensor with different types of of blades or or gadgets tied to that a monitor is very much similar to that it may have an ozone sensor it may have a particular matter sensor and you can build those and structure those the way that you want so we'll be working to get more resources out on our website that help help everyone understand the great variety of sensors that are out there and in terms of the helplessness we also understand that some of the state regulations that exist and even federal regulations that exist around air quality permitting can be very frustrating very timeconsuming and very difficult to understand and so we want to make sure that if anyone has questions about this process or any application that's been made recently or that's maybe forthcoming in in future months or even years always feel free to reach out to our office and we'll certainly help everyone understand what we can and cannot do with respect to the applications any other questions for Cody I think that's all thank you Cody mayor that concludes my report okay Council um I will move us right into our first presentation today which is with Christian Simmons from Fort Worth lab and our chief transformation officer and car wadell CEO of childcare Associates to discuss our Blue Ribbon action committee on child care good afternoon mayor and Council I'm here just to kick things off for carara um so as you know the issue of child care continues to emerge as um something municipalities are a huge partner in tackling it sits at the intersection of Economic Development Workforce Development and Early Education uh in Fort Worth we're blessed to have a community institution that's been invested in the issues facing young children and working parents for well over 50 years Child Care Associates and Cara wadell is no stranger to most of you here at City Hall I actually just met her today but you most of you already know her so I was behind um but she's the president and CEO of Child Care Associates and entering year 10 of service so she's joining us today to briefly update us on the Blue Ribbon action committee on Child Care the action committee was formed by our own mayor Maddie Parker Arlington mayor Jim Ross and then County Judge Glenn Whitley to form a cross of leaders to tune into the issues of child care and see if we could get some bold things done so Cara is here today to update us on where things are some 28 months later so it's my pleasure to welcome Cara thank you great good to see everybody let's dive in just a little bit good to see everyone today so um as we've said Child Care sometimes we used to think of child care and think that's just for some families um and now I think we recognize more and more that childcare is an economic development issue it is a Workforce Development issue it is an education issue it is an everybody issue um and it became even more clear I think with the issues facing covid um you know Rob Kaplan convened um from the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank at the time brought together 30 40 key leaders kind of from across different areas had a couple nonprofit people in the room and and you'd think I would have bribed them but as they went around the room one by one and they said name the one thing that you think we should focus on with some of these public do that were going to be coming as a result of some of the economic um issues happening due to covid and more and more people began to say Child Care Early Education Child Care Early Education this is our time this is our chance and um we were thrilled with that but very quickly we're like what are we going to do and um was thrilled that we were able to bring together um a really great group of people a different group of people than had kind of been in the room before across philanthropy health care and banking Communications government and you'll notice that a lot of these are focused we were focused on tarant County uh Fort Worth Arlington and tarant County but we also recognize that childcare doesn't neatly stay in our own County boundaries and we did pull in a few people across the Dallas Fort Worth region as well to help look at some of the issues and so specifically the Blue Ribbon action committee on Child Care was looking at bold Innovative and cross- sector Solutions um in the area and they they focused in on four nster priorities I'm going to go what those are and then you can ask me Carol what the heck did you actually get done so the four North store four North Star priorities first was places and spaces there are no bonding powers for early learning um infrastructure schools if they're building pre- classrooms yes but for everyone else there is no bonding power so if you want an early learning facility you rely on Commerce um through you know a commercial Child Care infrastructure or the Goodwill of our philanthropic community and so this was a chance to look at our high need neighborhoods and say do we have high quality infrastructure in high need areas a second was looking at the early educator Workforce you think K12 teachers are hard um man A lot happened um in this space with covid and this was a chance to really look and see what was happening with um the early educator Workforce a sustainable cost model um economists call child care right now the perfect example of a market failure and so we began to say what can we begin to do right now to begin to get some of the numbers um not only to sustain childcare in a pilot but also to have the numbers we need on back end so that we can show what do you actually need to save childcare moving forward and last is the mixed delivery that sounds so nerdy and policy wonky um but what the heck what does it mean to have a zero to five Early Learning System if all three and four year olds are sequestered in schools how do you sustain zero to three year olds in community based settings and that's something that we began to tackle as well so Cara did we get anything done outcome area one um expanding highquality seats for infants and toddlers specifically really looking in at that issue because that's the highest area of need um in our high need areas through public private partnership so there are six facilities I'll say being built we are in theou status we have funds um that have been made available the city of Fort Worth thank you very much has allocated um Public Funding um tant county has allocated funding as has tant County College as has the City of Arlington and together by pulling together your resources we um are have the design phase happening to be able to get these up and off the ground very excited about it Rainer the ribbon cutting hold me to it um should be in August um that's in District 11 we're very excited this is actually a remodel of an existing facility it's beautiful it's on the riverfront we've had so many offers through the years to sell this I can't tell you it is um high quality land and everybody wants it for their beautiful apartments and we are keeping it for children um we believe children deserve beautiful places too um and so we're excited to have that opening soon but also um thanks to this city council we have the stop six and District Five a new facility this is focusing in on Early Head Start this is Public Funding that we'll be able to draw down for some of our higher need families this is not going to be competitive with child care programs this is going to enhance these are going to be families that might not have been able to have even afforded Child Care on their own and this will enhance and make it possible for them also the two tarant County colleges Las Vegas Trail um coming to coming soon coming in the fall also and then um Arling as well so excited about that you can see some of the numbers that are there as well outcome area two sustainable cost model so buckle down with me you know my my masters in public administration can pay off but this um you know the public dollars for child care come to us in Texas through our local Workforce board where we happen to be the contractor that managed those dollars so I know a lot about them I know how they work um and I know we the little like opportunities to do things differently with them did you know that we have 16,000 families in tan County sitting on the wait list today waiting for that um assistance and there's more to be added we only serve about 12% of eligible families today so as you're making your list for legislative session let's remember that Texas could put additional dollars into that so that's something that we're interested in and that's support to individual families that's important but in addition what we're finding is that in addition while support to individual families to import to afford Child Care is important we're realizing that the program oh this has like little here we go look there's there's okay sorry there's the different three different pieces it's very clever didn't know was going to do that those are the three different pieces um but for for the for the individual program what we're finding is that the program can't afford to exist that the vouchers alone the the the payments coming from families or even the government support those dollars enough are not enough to keep that program afloat a mayor came with us to go visit a program in stop six and they said without this pilot contract I would have closed my doors the other thing that this pilot contract has done is allow them to pay what they they were I think they said 1175 was what they were paying previously they're now paying their teachers $18 an hour now $18 an hour is is not even what they say we probably should be trying to pay people in in this profession but we're able to enhance what families are able to pay and create a high quality program in a high need area and this is beginning to get the economic numbers in this so we've been partnering we've not been doing this alone oh there's the plus sign we've not been doing this alone um Rice University Texas policy lab their lead Economist has been coming down and interviewing sitting down with the 19 child care providers in our community and getting their number so that when policy makers ask us what do you need what are the actual numbers we have it and the economists know what's actually needed this isn't only local attention we've also gotten a lot of national attention on this as well and the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank is asking what can we do who do we need to convene to get attention outside of the State of Texas as well so more to come but we really appreciate we were able to take Mike Morra from the Texas Education Agency the head of um um chair Daniel from the Texas Workforce Commission also came out and we were able to show them how their two state agencies working in separate ways how hard it is to make those programs work together at the community level and so you know that's what these kind of programs allow us to do is to say can you see why you need to listen to us and help make a few these changes possible so that's one piece another outcome area is in the area of the early educator Workforce it's a tough problem when Becky outperforms child care and on its pay and benefits and that's what's happening today and so what we when people ask me what are we going to do about early Educators care they're turning over faster 40 50% in general ask me we hire them I've got four cohorts I'm going to be hiring 60 to 80 infant toddler teachers between now and September and we're training all of of them all of them before they enter a classroom to be with with um with anyone's child they're going through a four-month intensive training cohort so I know how tough it is out there with this so what are we going to do we can do nothing without high quality Educators so we don't know today when if you ask anyone in higher education you ask anyone in childcare and you say Cara how many early Educators do we need for tarant County how many do we need in north Texas nobody knows how many do we have nobody knows how many degrees do we need how what are the credentials how many credentials do we need nobody knows so we're going to start with a landmark study um we're very excited to have the prenatal to3 policy Center really the groundbreaking um policy Center nationally is going to be partnering with us thanks to the Morris Foundation Community Foundation of Texas for helping make this happen now anybody of you goes that doesn't really seem like an outcome Cara that seemed like a study um you're right it's a study um but coming very soon is a landmark announcement of an initiative that's a 50-50 partnership with childcare Associates in a major Texas University system for a new center for the early educator that'll be featured here and it's not a degree program it's not professional development it's going to be a hub to create the workforce that we need in north Texas so that we have the child care system that you need in order to have the economic development engine that you want in this community so more to come last up is going to be pre kindergarten we have three and four-year-olds sitting in our um community-based Child Care Centers who could be drawing down pre kindergarten but aren't why are they not well because their families need child care hours they need to work they can't pick up their child at 2:30 or 3: or 3:30 when the schools let out so they're in a Child Care Program in the community and we're going wait we're leaving money in Austin we should be figuring out how can we draw down the maximum every child who's three and four who qualifies for a pre kindergarten we should be figuring out how do we at least draw those dollars down and put that into the mix and so this is an idea that we've been working on for gosh almost 4 years I believe Katherine um to have a hub childcare Associates is trying to say we'll figure it out we know how to manage public dollars we'll function as a hub and we can partner with any school district or even a charter to be able to to help draw down the public dollars that's needed and not just pass money to child care programs but equip those programs to deliver high quality Early Education pass the resources that's needed and hopefully in that same contract ensure that those educators are making the resour to making the wages that they need to make in order to be sustainable so more to come but this is something that we're very excited about because this is this is not you don't need to pass new legislation we just need to be able to prove the concept I know Mike Morra was just here and is excited to saying what do you guys need to prove this concept in the state of Texas so more to come there and this is a a couple pictures from the conference the convening that we just held in Fort Worth two weeks ago mayor I believe momentum we convened about curated about 125 key leaders Governor's office leaders from across 15 key regions and we positioned two of the areas from the Blue Ribbon action committee what are we going to do about the workforce how do we get this community-based pre kindergarten to work differently right now we only have about maybe 1% of pre kindergarten in the state of Texas is happening in communitybased settings well that's crazy we're never going to be able to make Child Care function in the state of Texas and be high quality if we you know we forgot to bring working parents in the room when we designed pre kindergarten in the state of Texas and I think if a working mom was in the room she would say I'd like pre kindergarten to also be available during the hours that I need it and so these are ways this convening is really looking at how do we how do we design a zero to five Early Learning System that not only works for schools but that also works for Working Families in the state of Texas so this is just a little bit of a snapshot and an update of what's been happening and we're excited I think there's some long-term I call them long burning logs that we're going to leave on the fire that I think will um continue to build uh results for us longer term and welcome any questions or or comments or remarks any questions or comments for Cara Macy hi Cara thank you for coming today of course um will we go back to outcome number one yes so as you talk about the six centers how long do you think it'll be for all to be up and running at capacity kind of where you want them to be what kind of time frame I know don't you just love that um I I I need Mr Ranken to join and tell us exactly he knows when all the dollars need to be spend out these are um they're high quality modular builds that's one reason why we know how they're going to be built they're able to build offsite you're able to expedite the process of getting them up and going I've got the date I didn't bring all of that with me so I can follow that up but I'm going to say within two years they are all going to be open operating now full capacity I've got 16,000 families sitting on the weit list and so if I can't pull families off weight list to serve them you know we're trying to focus on serving some of our more atrisk children and families and so that's that's a challenge I know we're approaching the philanthropic Community we've applied um for a couple of municipalities about cdbg funding as Bridge funding that if they qualify for this can we can we provide a little patch through four or five months that they could get some carryover funding until we can pull them off this long-term list but it's it's a real challenge out there for families today thank you uhuh Gina Cara congratulations on the work you do not only for the young children but the families and the communities I got two questions for you please are you in any type of discussions with Dr Ramsey over the possible closings that we know are inevitable but not everybody knows where they are I I've not been in personal discussions with her regarding the closings I know I've been working with David signs on on partnership opportunities and I know that there's infrastructure has been a conversation we've had with Fort Worth iy through the last 20 years of partner in with them so I I do think it's a it'll be a unique opportunity for the city to engage and say if there is infrastructure um that's available you know how can you creatively utilize that in order for Children and Families will be something interesting to consider well I know for my district I know that there will be one or two rumored to be closing and in an area that you would be the perfect fit for and so that's one reason why I was asking that uh the other question are you in communication with corporate leaders in terms of the topic of Child Care on campus you know Matt Rose was a big advocate of that are you in those kind of talks can you talk about it clarification do you mean on like a corporate campus great question there's a lot of dialogue I mean all of a sudden companies are in the picture as a legitimate like companies are not responsible to pay 100% of child care government is not responsible to pay 100% of child care but I think we recognize that they they carry a part part of the puzzle and companies more and more are coming to the table and saying how do how is child care a benefit that we should be considering for our employees um there are some companies that are saying we want to consider on-site when they do a lot of surveys what they learn from families is that a lot of families aren't really interested in on-site some are some aren't and they realize that there's a there's a lot to learn about your employee base and the options that they want and so we always encourage companies to do to to pause don't just assume everybody's going to want to build a Childcare Center and bring them onite site um and also it's really important to look at the um and I I know you've been an outspoken advocate in the best of ways for our community-based child care programs and so it's really good we have mapping and we're more than glad to run for any company that wants to know where are the child care programs in our area which ones are high quality and we can show them so if they want to be able to partner with existing programs in the area that's another really important thing as well is to support our existing small businesses um that are operating in those areas but yes we talk to a lot of companies that are interested Ed in looking at it they're also a corporate opportunities to partner it's kind of overwhelming um I actually had the US Chamber of Commerce reach out and and talk to me about it and I'm like you know like aren't there professional Consultants who do this you know across the country so there's a great deal of of of Interest now at the corporate level and thinking through it and I know the Texas A&M um conversations downtown there's beginning to be bubbling up interest in saying a major barrier to Workforce is child care and so what are we going to do as a community is something that I think most companies um larger companies are asking today and then certainly small businesses are recognizing what you know what can I do as well and my last question where did you all go in my district and stop six I'm curious you you took what what school did you all visit in stop six oh I got it written down it's uh it's on the slide isn't it Sunrise Sunrise thank you I forgot Sunrise early learnings it's right it's right down the street my mom taught there so did she really kind Garden it's such an amazing facility and they the turnover that we described is not happening there those people are very committed it's a lovely facility thank you other questions questions from Council anyone else no Cara thank you so much for all your hard work we're very lucky to have you one thing I'll point out on the mixed delivery um piece just sort of for those of you who don't play in this sandboxes often it's really simple a lot of school districts across the state of Texas when they were able to especially with their bond elections expand space in classrooms they built pre classrooms there's nothing wrong with that but it's at the detri of Community Based care because when you open a three or foury old classroom you're drawing kids away from a community based Center and they can't operate just on zero to three year olds and so they end up shutting down longterm and the point the car is trying to make is convincing our larger districts you can draw down what is it $3,000 per student roughly in addition to what they pay so there's a lot of interesting opportunities here in Fort Worth for child care it's important to us as an employer also and to make sure you have the right level of benefit for our Workforce and I don't think we're the only public sector um employer in Fort Worth right now that's really grappling with what what do they do with child care benefits and to car's Point whether it's onite dependent care accounts which we do have in the city of Fort Worth these are all things we need to be asking as it becomes harder and harder to make sure you're attracting and retaining your top talent in the city of Fort Worth thank you cara I appreciate you next up along the same lines is a briefing on the child care facility tax exemption and Christian Simmons is going to walk us through this I'm back okay yes same vein uh today we're going to talk about uh a new opportunity that we have as a municipality to provide a property tax exemption to child care facilities and what the eligibility looks like um and so let's get started so this is like I said a new opportunity um made possible by the passage of Senate Bill 1145 it was um made effective on January 1 of 2024 following the widespread approval of proposition two in November um and so the Senate Bill added some eligibility requirements depending on um who you are so as the taxing entity which is us um we'd be required to adopt an exemption before July 1 um and the exemption itself can be no less than 50% but up to 100% of the property's taxable value um and then as you know sometimes the property owner might be leasing to a child care provider um and so if you're a property owner leasing to a child care provider um or if you're just a property owner that is a child care provider um the exemption only applies to the portion of your property that you're using for child care um if you're a homebased provider you can't claim both a resident's homestead exemption and a child care exemption so those two things do not stack um and so you'll see later in the presentation we don't really have homes uh in our number but we sort of know what the fiscal impact would be if people just decided to like choose the child care exemption over the homestead um and then if it's a landlord that's claiming the exemption so if you're leasing to a child care facility you have to provide sort of an affidavit to the appraisal district that you'll pass the savings along to the tenant either through a monthly or annual credit to their rent so that's on the landlord to do that um and then if you're the child care provider you have to be a licensed Child Care Facility um and then the next two is sort of where we get a lot of narrowing in the bill as far as who's eligible for this property tax tax exemption so um the childcare facility has to be a participant in the rising star program um and they have to have at least 20% of the children uh of their facility enrolled in the child care services program that means 20% of their enroles have to be subsidized through that program in any given time and so we'll walk through sort of how that changed the eligibility which I don't think I think a lot of people you know maybe voting for proposition two are like yeah like child care really for everyone but that's not how the bill worked out so um this is 338 estimated Child Care locations this St is from Health and Human Services and Child Care Associates um so this includes registered homes which are not eligible under the bill license home and license centers however once you apply those eligibility requirements that I just talked about with the Texas Rising Star program participation um and the 20% of subsidized enroles you see that we go from 338 to 66 um and then the next layer of data analysis that we did in the lab was to take those 66 and say okay well who already has exemptions either for being like a charitable organization or a religious organization um and so you can see that we lost about um 15 million and estimated appraised value that we'd you know that we'd pull back because people already had exemptions um that again they can't stack so we end up with 54 eligible childcare locations that meet the eligibility of Senate Bill 1145 uh and don't have any existing exemptions and so when we talk about those we're talking about 29.2 Mill Ion on the role which estimates a revenue loss at 100% exemption of about $200,000 to the general fund tax revenue this is just an example of um one of our child care facilities this person is a lease a leas child care facility so in this case we're just sort of quoting the language like for this person their property owner would have to apply and then submit that Affidavit of like I'm passing along the savings to youti How would I I appreciate that they'll um submit an affidavit but um is there any mechanism or as you've gone through this for us to verify or is there an annual um annual requirement that they continue to to show us that they're passing that on so I think that verification of Eligibility and continuation is on the appraisal district um and I think once I'm looking at legal but once you have the exemption you you have the exemption yeah does that answer your question want to keep going okay so we're so we're depending on the the appraisal district to verify this annually I mean because if they're renting they could be a short term or even maybe the lease is up and so if we're giving that exemption what what protection do we have to ensure two things one that it continues to operate as a child care facility a qualifying Child Care fac facility I think is important and then two that they are actually passing that savings on on to their tenant um I would like to believe that someone wouldn't falsify an affidavit or that people would do the right things but I think um those you know that's not always the case and so how would we address those two things yeah I think on the first question perhaps since is a new exemption maybe we could introduce some mechanism at the local level for you know checking the the role in the parcels and maybe how they've changed year over year as far as the enforcement I think that's just still up in the air I'm looking at legal in case they have something they want to say about what the municipality's role might be in that um you're right that the bill only really talks about the affidavit and the um you know the enforcement on the appraisal district side all's job to fix actually when it when it comes to the annual affidavit I think we can coordinate with the Assessor Collector since they collect the taxes for us and coordinate to make sure that they're passing that information along to us so that we could double check but I don't know that we have a mechanism we are scheduled to meet with the appraisal Assessor Collector in the near future on another issue so we can talk to them about this as well I would appreciate if y'all could come back with um some proposals on how we would do that yep we can do that so real quick Dennis or or Christian you mentioned a conversation with the tax appraiser collector uh we span five counties we have a significant number of people in Denton County have we had similar conversation with Denton CAD so you wouldn't take it that's fine asking specifically for my constituents so the assess or collector all of our assess assessing and collecting is done by Teran County under contract so all the counties we actually have uh Wendy is it Wendy our ass collector our Sor collector for tant County does all the collections for throughout the city in All Counties so when we coordinate with that office on the backend how do we make sure the p is occurring we just have one spot to touch on the individual uh appraisal districts there will be a filing in each County and we've actually been in contact with those counties because there's a with a new exception coming online the timing is a little weird technically normally the deadline to file for an exemption is the end of April is today um but the assess the appraisal districts which is the other part can extend that so we've reached out to all of them to ask to make sure they have the extension um so we are coordinating with all the counties on the exemption side with the appraisal district thank you for clarifying that I appreciate it w okay Gina go ahead sorry go ahead I'm I'm just going to pose this question because Elizabeth brought in her cynical point of view here so I I gu it'san great question really hadn't thought about that but it makes me wonder staff in terms of how child care providers were notified if they had to be or do they just need to check the federal registry every week like crazy people people or do you even know um we have not made any official notification I believe Child Care Associates has been in contact with their list of child care providers letting them know that you know the different cities and counties were taking up this issue I'm looking at Katherine she's nodding her head um so not through the municipality um but through Child Care Associates they've been notified that this was coming and and the deadline I think is tomorrow APR I think technically today April 30th okay for them to apply so some were encouraged to go ahead and apply so they just like be in the queue um if the county or the city took up this exemption um and then we have the word from Taran Appraisal District at least that they're extending that deadline for application by 60 days upon council's taking up of the issue well I I want to thank council member Beck for raising the question about the property owner relationship with the Lei because I really hadn't thought that far so I like the idea of extending by 60 days so that we can do our job as you know Ste to let people know yeah not cynical just critical since you're not dealing with that many Child Care Facilities presumably you could spot check over the year and contact a few that are leasing space to say did you receive a discount or a pass through that was supposed to be made available under the ordinance yeah I just want to make sure if they're um we're giving this benefit that it's it's reaching the intended um subject that's all go back to the map on 300 plus the one right before that so 3 38 they go to the next one that's not good you want all 338 on TRS um for quality standards and so there's a presumption under the way the law was passed that rather than just giving cart blanch every child care facility a property tax exemption you're putting additional incentive in place for them to enter into TRS and contract appropriately to go work through from two stars to four stars so maybe we work on that collectively it may not happen overnight of course but you want as many of your child care providers to be high quality as possible absolutely yeah thank you [Music] mayor okay um and so as I mentioned um the municipality we can't do less than 50% so we just thought we'd show 50 75 100 um how that relates to the revenue loss on this year's tax rate and then how that translate to the translates to the annual tax or rent relief to the average provider so at the 100% exemption level for instance we'd um see a revenue loss in the general fund of approximately 2 $ 200,000 which translates to an annual uh relief of $3,641 off the tax bill for that average uh child care provider and you can see the other levels there quick question is the is this going to be an annual thing that we have to review or is this is there a time frame that this isn't effective I think once we adopt it we've adopted it right yes okay we could Recons we could reconsider as part of the budget process and then I guess if the legislature makes changes we can bring those back and you know if they expand eligibility and things but I think it'd be part of you know just as we're going to revisit like the over 65 disabled exemption as part of the budget process we could we could look at this one every year too but you don't have to reopt it every year okay I guess my my thought process on it is if you know we adopted 100% this year and we are struggle to um monitor or people are not in compliance is there a way to go back the following year and and and adopt it or change to 75% or change it to 50 whatever just to see if we can make it work and figure out what those nuances are that we need to fix yes yep we could do that yeah good question okay um so we talked a little bit about the funny timing um so we've worked with appraisal districts to extend the application deadline for 60 days like I said we have the okay from tarant on that and we're working with the others which um you know there's there's a couple of other license centers that fall into the the bounds of the other appraisal districts um but you have to take this up before June 30th we've actually scheduled it for May 14th meeting so you will hear this for consideration in a couple of weeks but we have time to do any follow-ups before that so we can talk about some of the audit mechanisms and things um happy to send a followup on that any other questions on this yeah Charlie I just have one so that $200,000 Revenue loss if the goal is to make childcare more affordable I think maybe that's what Elizabeth was going to as far as the tenants but as far as the actual family how do we I mean if it's going to come off the tax rules and then of course taxpayers paying for that so how do we make sure the families are actually benefiting from it not just that child care facility it's just increases their bottom line you know what I mean so if it's supposed to improve their work quality well I can speak to that unfortunately a lot of these facilities don't have a bottom line I mean they are struggling to really keep the lights on and the doors open and so this is a very small incremental change in the state of Texas back to carage presentation on what the business model looks like it is incredibly broken um and the ones that won't qualify are the for-profit um providers that are probably much more able to bank roll you're you're those that are going to qualify here are um I'm trying to the examples like when my kids went to school I mean they they probably might pass it through in less electric bill burden or be able to pay their teachers a dollar or two more per hour um but it's not the type of Industry you get in to make a lot of money unfortunately so that's a good question right um y anyone else no thank you Christian appreciate you so I guess we're for no issues in bringing this back miday is when you're kind of mid May 14th on the agenda okay yep Council agend yes please Jared I just put two cents in I'm glad we discussed this I'm for 100% thank you my iPad just died what's the next item I'm so sorry it's a thank you David presentation e development program with it Logistics and tree Gordon thank you there it is it's alive thank you mayor and Council the purpose of this presentation today is to discuss a proposed 380 agreement with it Logistics it Logistics is a supply chain Logistics and technology company a premier third-party company that provides Supply Chain Solutions they're number 21 in North America number 11 in drage they're a in a um fastest growing company today they have a location that's up in the North Point area kind of where um we have arot and the dollar store General Distribution Center so up north of the BNSF Intermodal Logistics facility it's a over a million square foot um Distribution Center that we have with it s Logistics today um Nationwide they have 800 employees annual revenue over a billion dollars um again as mentioned a fastest growing company number 1751 on the Inc 5000 and that existing presence in Fort Worth that came in 2022 they have a new um proposed uh Center for um operations and technology that would be at the third floor at 1 West 7th so this would be the location for the project and that project overview they're seeking this new location for office operations and service support mainly to um staff up for a offering they have called container AI which is a AI Cutting Edge container management visibility platform so it's a location to accommodate 339 employees with average salaries of over $100,000 the capital investment is up to a milon do in tenant improvements and they do have multiple competing locations the commitment is to lease at least 15,000 square F feet of office space before 6:30 2024 with that proposed minimum capital investment and then the required minimum new full-time jobs would D 250 full-time jobs by December 31st 2027 with that 100,000 minimum average Sal annual salary but in discussions with the company we do um see the potential of that being um higher um and then we have the um 15% construction cost to be EF companies and the proposed incentive terms this is a company that's in our Target area Mobility um and with the average salaries and the jobs we're proposing a 380 agreement for Grants over three years not to exceed 847 ,500 total so it's based on 2500 per full-time equivalent with minimum wages of 100,000 um and they would do um over three years so they're expecting a hundred of the jobs which would be a 250,000 payout by 20 March 31st 2026 100 jobs are 250 by 2027 and then the balance in 2028 their commitment is at least 50 of those jobs in 2028 but again this is up to the 3 39 total those jobs must be maintained for a minimum of 3 years at the required average salary and there is clawback provision if they do not um meet those requirements to recapture the grant funds on a default so that um development summary 55 15,000 squ foot lease million an tenant improvements but creating 250 or up to 339 total jobs $100,000 in wages um and doing a three-year Economic Development Grant agreement to bring this to Fort Worth our recommended next steps is to enter into that agreement and to go forward with MNC on the May 14th agenda I like everything I hear but I do have a couple of questions I hate to use the word but but you know ranked as number one you know there's a good chance that they'll meet incentives meet requirements sooner and I know we've got clawback Provisions in uh do we have incentives if they meet them sooner or if the salaries go even higher we do not but it'll be a great Advantage if it does well is right number one I'm I'm very optimistic uh the other the the real question I have is what the heck is container AI when I hear AI I think what AI is but what what do what is that no so this is a transportation management system a TMS so it has to do with your Freight movement and container movement throughout the um the us and this is using artificial intelligence to to optimize that movement and to move it most efficiently thank you ma'am I knew you would have all of my questions thank you I just want to let my colleagues know I support this and in large part because of the location where it's going as we work to um reimagine what West 7 looks like to have the types of business businesses the restaurants um that we want we have to have the people going to those and that really takes daytime traffic as well and so making sure that those buildings are fully staffed I think is really important to help support some of the positive changes that the folks um at now Artisan Circle are working to um to make and we want to keep Terrace coming back we want to keep it around and so that's how we do that make sure that they've got folks there to to patronize it thank you thank you Council that's the last of the agenda items on our work session agenda do we have any future agenda items before we move into our special call work session on the budget Gina I even wrote mine down I'm going to do the one involving children first while Cara is here because I I know I can reach out for for help I'd like for staff to give some type of report or study on academic achievement u in the range from Z to three or 0 to 5 whatever it is as it pertains to private child care providers as opposed to traditional licensed I'm trying to see what what's what's happening with the children who don't have benefit of childcare and Associates and so I first got into this discussion before covid and found out that a lot of the providers who were uh somewhat disenfranchised to use their term didn't have the certific a that were needed and so I've seen Improvement there but yeah we kind of need to know how our children are doing no matter where they're receiving care from and mayor I expect you to help me clean that language up but I think you know what I'm getting at we really do need to know how these kids are being taught and please don't tell my mom I said kids children so that's one uh the other I know we're working on the city website if you look at building standards board commission whatever it is you have to call to get information on what a case is about it's always been that way and so I'm I have the question will all boards and commissions agenda be searchable and so that's for the city secretary's office and finally last one we know how Code Compliance conducts trainings for multif family operators well I've been getting quite a few complaints about trash outside CVS Walgreens and we always have to scare off panhandlers in every part of town and so I'd like to know if there's a way that Cod compliance can do a similar training for retail operators when it comes to their responsibilities with trash now in mebrook the operator of the CVS at mebrook and Handley told a complaining citizen well I don't have enough people to go pick up trash and so I did my driveby and I took pictures of trash apparently she she skirted them enough and they picked it up but I don't know if Code Compliance is working with them to let them know so those are my three things that make me go H that's all thank you Charlie so David you may have to help me out with this one but this will go along with mayor Pro Tims so if we need to combine them that's absolutely fine um just a report or presentation that we can go out and give our business owners and our residents on the difference between private residential and private commercial and if there is a discernable difference and how we can make these absentee commercial owners uh hold them accountable for these vacant buildings we have it all the time where the Poli they Unfortunately they can't do anything because it's private property so they can't run off these homeless camps which I think is you have somebody who wants to come and open a business but then they see all these the homeless folks that are living there they're refusing the services which again you can't force them to that's fine but police can't tell them to go anywhere that potential business owner says oh this must be a rundown area so they go somewhere else again if we are going to lower our property taxes by bringing in the right businesses then we need to hold these absentee commercial owners more accountable for these properties and I know commercial or code commercial guys are doing a fantastic job going out there they do the cleanups eventually and then they they find them but I think we talked about this last time too about making more teeth behind those spines to where it actually hurts them um but it's something we can go back to our property our tenants in these shopping centers and say listen you have rights to even though you don't own the property you have rights to run people off if you need to and here's how you can do it so if that makes any sense at all Jared thanks mayor I have two one um an IR on maybe from legal on what the city's um what's in the city's tool belts as it relates to squatting we've had some challenges with that in our district and so I think it'll be beneficial for the residents to know what's in the city's tool belt and what we're doing about that that um secondly um I think it's a good time to bring back maybe the conversation about Str strs um one just in terms of a general update of our per the performance of our ordinance and second um just um about the fines and the level of fines and how that's been going and third um Staffing levels for code comp compliance and how that's um either impacting or benefiting the um enforcement of the strr policy all right I've got are you done okay um this is we're going to call this the no fun in the house list um the first one I want I would like a probably a a presentation on our smoke shop regulations and um and how we compare to other cities more importantly I would also like staff when they do that to look at um what if anything did other cities do ahead of um I imagine a lot of these smoke shops will potentially turn into dispensaries if the Texas legislature ever decides to um legalize um marijuana in the state and so I'd like us to get out ahead of that so I want to know what our regulations are what other cities have done um as they saw that looming in the legislature so that if and when that does come to the city of Fort Worth we're better prepared for what that looks like and then how we can improve smoke shops just throughout the city they seem to be Pro proliferating all right second bars so as we sit in this meeting I got an email from a resident about a bar that's hosting a frat fight night between different frats at TCU um Charlie you cannot go it's not a it's not a marine brawl It's actually an organized I know and so this is not the first time this has happened it's happened in West 7th as well and it's concerning um so I'd like legal to give us an IR on um what state and local regulations um we are in relation to whether it's licensed or unlicensed um promoted fights and what we can do as a city to um help prevent those in in um in bars and then also when it relates to bars um we had the IR on U on our different ordinances and how it relates to sound but I really think we need to take a step further and um look at what buffers look like and how we can better protect our neighborhoods from um adjacent zoning properties popping up um nuisance Bar locations Janette yeah um so this would be an informal report U I've noticed that we get a lot of complaints in District 11 for semi- trucks and trailers parking and residential communities um what does citation look like I hear it's just easier to pay the fee than take to a parking yard um and do we need to increase the fee or look into other measures to try to reduce this issue anyone else have any featured in items yes caros I'm checking my notes here and I may have requested this back in January but I'm not sure um I want to know what policy the city of Fort Worth may have have regarding designated uh delivery paths for drones uh I think the city of Plano has done some work in that regard so I'm just bringing that up again don't know if I've mentioned it before either way I'd like to get some information thank you anyone else no if not I think meeting is adjourned we'll move into the budget Workshop Let me Give five minutes minutes that's good