[Music] thank you [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign ER welcome to your first budget work session and I'm going to turn it straight over to David Cook to get us started good morning everybody listen I'm excited to be here I hope you guys are as excited as me let me look around hold on is everybody exciting sir so this morning we get the oh I have the pleasure of presenting the recommended budget for fiscal year 24. but I was reminiscing on a couple of the prior years and I've had more fun this year on this budget than in Prior years and I hope you see that as we go through here but I want to attribute a lot of that to uh Mark McDaniel and the Fort Worth lab for making a little more fun this year so I want to start out by recognizing Mark in the lab and the work that was done to help put this budget together so I'll do that on the front end maybe a little on the back end too um but let's get started and talk about the recommended budget here's the agenda for this morning I'll make some comments we'll go through some budget themes and so forth but today really is the beginning of a conversation that'll take place over the next five to six weeks because the budget is a process about discussion and questions and debating and policy choices and how we want to allocate the scarce resources and uh so as I mentioned this is just the beginning we have budget work sessions planned we've got community meetings planned so that we take this on the road and we get more feedback from our residents and all that is about putting the best product together by the end of September for the fiscal year which starts on October 1. you've heard me say before that the city Corporation and I do see it as a business has a number of business lines right and we're going to talk and the budget is the time of year that we get to talk about all of them we operate three general aviation airports we operate a convention center and a Will Rogers complex we have a regional Water and Sewer utility we have a storm water utility we're in the parking business and then when you think about all the services that we provide with police and fire in libraries and Parks and Recreation and tpw so there's just many many lines of businesses and we're gonna the time of the year where we get to talk about all those is during the budget but during today's presentation I'm not going to hit every one of those lines of businesses I'm going to hit a number of the major funds funds that we're making some significant recommendations in those funds but again we are prepared and want to walk through with you as we talk about the budget in the next five to six weeks all the different funds all the different operations all the different businesses that we're in this year we've also had the opportunity to work with each council member and the mayor in talking about budget and vision priorities and you've seen this slide we've shared a number of times at our last meeting Mark McDaniel shared with you the feedback from all the council members and so when you look at economic Economic Development Community investment you'll hear a lot about that you'll hear certainly a lot about Community or Public Safety and infrastructure responsible growth and fiscal responsibility and we've put it under this so safe so clean so green theme that my goal is to say that at least 15 times in today's presentation because that's the over under so safe so clean so green that was two so when we talk about the mayor and council's goals this is what I think you'll see in the budget that's presented more for Public Safety more for economic development more for neighborhoods and Community investment more for maintaining and investing in infrastructure a reduction in the tax rate and taking into account the change that this Council made back just this past June increasing the homestead exemption for Citizens or homeowners 65 and older and disabled moving that number to a sixty thousand dollars a year exemption and so the budget takes that into account and reduces the tax rate and we're going to talk about enhancing and preserving Green Space we also look at the budget as not as a one-time event that occurs in August but it's a process that takes place throughout the year and we're constantly getting feedback just as you are throughout the year whether you go to the grocery store or have a community meeting people are giving you feedback about how the city spends money or the tax rate throughout the year and we're just recognizing that we get feedback throughout the year from our boards and commissions we get them at if we're having Bond meetings neighborhood meetings and so on so let's get started and you know hit on the numbers the total operating budget for the city of Fort Worth is 2.6 billion dollars we show it in a number of different funds and just right off the top we have the general fund and we'll spend most of our day-to-day giving a overview of the general fund budget our Enterprise funds which uh are we think of them as business enterprises that would include the water fund Solid Waste funds storm water fund and others special Revenue funds the top two are going to be Crime Control prevention district and the culture and tourism fund and then we have these other funds that we'll talk about during the budget Works workshops that we'll have going forward but if you look at the overall operating budget all funds they're going up about 11 and a half percent currently from about 2.3 billion to 2.6 billion I'm going to jump right to the general fund and we're going to walk through some of the other funds and we'll spend some time on the the uh assessed value and the property tax rate this just shows you the revenues for the general fund increasing from the current year adopted budget of 915 million to a little over one billion dollars where we're going to talk about the property tax rate but the other significant increase is the sales tax that has been strong surprisingly strong through covid and post covid when you look at this next slide well we're articulating here is the property tax revenue and the sales tax revenue make up 82.82 of every dollar 82 cents of every dollar so our focus and the revenue side is looking at what's going on with property tax and sales tax all the other revenues put together whether they're user fees or fines and forfeitures or other sources of revenue make up the remaining 18 of the general fund let's talk about the assessed values and the recommended property tax rate we've used this slide each year to talk about what's happening to the overall tax base and again we are now in four different counties so this is not just Tarrant County it's Tarrant County Wise County Denton County and Parker County the Blue Line represents the value of all properties in the city of Fort Worth in all those four counties that number the blue line is growing at a rate of over 17 percent the orange line is the net taxable value so this is after all the exemptions that are taking so these are the properties that are taxable that will be paying property taxes to all the entities that have a property tax rate that number in the city of Fort Worth is going up by 15.6 percent what that tells you there's more exemptions being taken out of the tax base because that Line's growing at a slower rate and then the green line reflects the property tax revenue that is being recommended to support the city's operations both operating budget and the debt budget that line is growing by about 10 percent and what that reflects is the property tax rate reduction that is being recommended in the budget let's show that a different way the current year we're in the net taxable value is just about a hundred billion dollars we're gonna capture an existing values an increase of 12.4 billion that's existing values that's not new construction that is what's already in existence in the city of Fort Worth so existing values are growing by 12.4 percent new construction which didn't exist in the current year budget is growing by a little over 3.2 percent that's how we get the total increase in the tax base of 15.65 percent that 3.2 that's a good number that's new construction that's what we want to see each year because that shows new private investment new taxable investment in the city of Fort Worth foreign that enables us to recommend a tax rate reduction of four cents I don't plan in the today's presentation to go into great depths of all the calculations of no new revenue and voter approve rates we'll do that on Thursday in the work session but what I will tell you about this recommended tax rate reduction this is the largest property tax rate reduction in real terms and in percentage in at least the last 34 years I only had data that went back to 1990. this is the largest property tax rate reduction in real terms and percentage-wise in that 34-year period so as taxable values go up we recommend the tax rate coming down that still results in property tax revenue increasing and again we're going to show you in just a second where this property tax revenue goes goes not all of it goes to the general fund to support operations foreign tax rate and how we break it out so if we start on the far left we show you that the current tax rate is 71 and a quarter cents we dedicate 14 and three quarter cents to debt that's to support infrastructure financing operations and maintenance the O M side of the tax rate is 56 and a half cents we further divide that up the capital part of seven cents is essentially what we talk about is the cash that we put into the capital program to maintain infrastructure and then the operation takes 49 and a half cents of the property tax rate this is the current property tax rate the recommended tax rate drops the overall property tax rate to 67 and a quarter we are recommending that the amount committed to debt stays the same at 14 and three-quarter cents and the amount that's dedicated to the cash part of capital remain at seven cents which means the reduction is taken entirely off the o m side and that's going to 45 and a half cents shown a different way this is keeping the pay as you go at the same level at seven cents debt at 14 and three quarters and the reduction off the O M side going again from 71 and a quarter to 67 and a quarter this is then how the money flows the on M which is going to be general fund right will grow by the 40 million the pay as you go will grow by 12 million and the debt side will grow by 17.4 million let me put this number in your head too one penny is worth about 10.94 million dollars you can roll you can round that off to 11. so one penny is worth 11 million dollars foreign switching to expenditures and then we'll go through what's in the different departments this just shows you the increase year over year for the different departments in the general fund again increasing overall by a little over 10 percent the largest departments police and fire make up over 50 percent of the general fund five departments make up 75 percent of the general fund budget and all the rest of the apartments make up the remaining 25 percent now let's talk about what's in the budget this is the this is the part that's exciting to talk about and I think we'll match up to our so safe so green so clean got them in the wrong order that time still counts though just to correct the records so safe so clean so green right before all right and the council priorities let's talk about Public Safety in the recommended budget there's more officers well let me do it overall overall there's an increase of 106 positions for police uh we're just highlighting some of the items in the budget it includes more Patrol officers more 9-1-1 call takers more for Christ and I'm including ccpd in this slide too since we want to cover police in both the general fund and ccpd fund more for Crisis Intervention I think there's 13 additional officers for Crisis Intervention more for the Hope team school resource officers the crime lab and the real-time crime Center the other item that we've scheduled for Thursday along with talking about the property tax rate is to talk about police both police Staffing with existing vacancies as well as how do we staff up with the 106 that are in the recommended budget fire you had this presentation at your last meeting from the ad hoc fire Staffing committee the 76 positions are in the recommended budget as are some of the other items you see here in parks and recreation we have a focus on improving our maintenance levels for parks and green spaces so there's more funding in the budget for mowing frequencies litter pickup there's the aquatics master plan and there's also the new Northwest Community Center that opens in the upcoming year as well as increasing hours at five community centers and I think you got that presentation as part of the how we're going to deal with violent crime in different areas of the city this is part of that strategy we also have a new library opening in the upcoming fiscal year and that is out by Chapel Creek and that's reflected in the recommended budget in tpw in addition to the uh funding in the current year about pavement markings and street lights and street lights and all those things there's an additional concrete crew in the recommended budget that should deal with backlogs we also have some artificial intelligence strategies as a way to assess pavement conditions and other asset conditions in the tpw portfolio portfolio we also figured out that we need to run our own CDL program so we're able to recruit and retain uh workers that have CDL permits and I think other cities and jurisdictions are wrestling with this so we're often now in in the CDL training business and then we're going to continue our focus on striping street lights and we also are funding some of the Ada accessibility improvements around the new city hall Neighborhood Services a large increase for Neighborhood Services the primary one being funding to add an additional neighborhood to the neighborhood Improvement program we currently spend about 4 million a year we do one neighborhood that neighborhood gets really excited we have found that it's very popular one because we listen to the neighborhood on what they want that money to go to and so we are recommending adding another 4 million to the neighborhood services budget to do two neighborhoods each year as we move forward we also included money to enhance the priority repair program for homeowners you know that's about keeping people in their homes and being able to make sure that they're benefiting from owning a home here in Fort Worth and then we also have money in the neighborhood services department to do more in the area of services for the homeless this is all part of it I think our overall strategy you saw the Hope team increases in police and fire you will see more resources and code for cleanups and but we also want to make sure that there are services for the homeless as we're implementing the different strategies Economic Development the first bullet is an increase of 3 million for the economic development incentive fund this is based on if you'll remember the decision about the Tiff 4 on the south side and that Tiff 4 got extended but it reduced the amount of the values that were remaining in the Tiff and we committed the money that we were moving back to the general fund to the economic development incentive fund so this is a product of that policy decision of the of Tiff 4 and it increases again what's available in the economic development incentive fund we're also adding uh staff to uh to The Economic Development Department and we'll also this is where we reflect 380 agreements so you'll see also an increase in their budget due to agreements that have been approved by this Council which includes the Crescent Hotel that's pretty exciting that'll open next month I believe I think it opens in September and part of our commitment again was an incentive related to the parking structure that is part of that development and those costs will be reflected in the upcoming budget and now code there's more positions for homeless Camp cleanup we're implementing the boarding home ordinance as well as short-term rentals we're adding positions for health health inspections mainly restaurant inspections and there's more positions for our animal shelters and again the focus there I think is on handling the volume of animals moving through those shelters as well as improving the pet adoptions fostering and so forth that's the highlights of the general fund I think it focused on those areas that the council said where the vision of priorities there certainly are positions in there for Community safety 106 for police 76 for fire then there's the positions in code we've got the economic development incentive fund increasing as well as more investment toward neighborhoods and I would say by keeping our property tax rate the same for the pay as you go capital and the debt that we are appropriately financing funding the infrastructure and I would say on top of all that we're going to reduce the property tax rate by 4 cents and I'll say it again that's the largest property tax rate decrease both in real terms and percentage in the last at least 34 years before we jump into other funds I also wanted to mention that the budget implements an organizational change and that's the creation of an environmental services department so there'll be some resources from the general fund that will move into this department there'll be some resources or all the resources from Solid Waste and from the Environmental Services fund and so it is to do a number of things to raise the emphasis on Environmental Services here in the city of Fort Worth both externally and internally and so uh I think in some of your budget documents you'll see the creation of this new Environmental Services Department and again it'll include portions of or portions of the general fund but mostly reflect solid waste and the environmental fund now I'm going to jump into some of our other funds starting with Enterprise funds these show water Solid Waste storm water Municipal airports and Municipal parking I'm going to hit on the first three water solid waste and the storm water utility um and again we can cover the municipal airports and we can cover parking at one of our upcoming work sessions this is how they show year over year or 24 recommended budget compared to the 23 adopted budget thank you we'll start with the water and sewer utility the recommended budget includes rate increases both on the water side and the sewer side the water side would be a three and a half percent rate increase the sewer side would be a 2.9 percent increase this will be the first increase in water and sewer rates in four years what's driving some of the rate increases are is capital and inflationary costs that the water fund is experiencing again we will talk about the rate increases in a future work session there is a pretty detailed rate setting process that the water fund goes through each year that involves retail as well as wholesale customers that we can walk the council through um some of these increases also come from come to us from our water supplier which is the Tarrant Regional Water District we also are have a partnership with the Trinity River Authority that handles some of our Wastewater we're one of their largest customers at a Wastewater Plant that they're expanding I believe that's in Denton County and those costs are passed onto us as well that's the water fund the solid waste fund in this business we contracted out with Waste Management and we operate a landfill there's no proposed or recommended increase in the residential rates we are recommending increases in charges at the landfill both for what are called grantive privilege haulers and non-grant of privilege haulers and we are proposing new fees for overfilled carts or bags placed outside of carts and we'll talk more about that as we you know that's a product if you remember we implemented that new technology with garbage trucks those there's so there's cameras on all the garbage trucks and so part of this is we're using now real data as we get to talk about overfilled carts or bags outside of cars but more on that in a upcoming work session the storm water utility the budget includes a recommended increase of 15 percent the last rate increase for storm water was in I believe 2019 and that increase was six and a half percent the six and a half percent increase back in 2019 was dedicated entirely to Capital this Rec uh recommended rate increase half of it is recommended to continue more Capital Improvements to deal with flooding and half of it will go to improving our maintenance on the storm water infrastructure so when you think of culverts or pipes that transmit stormwater that's what we're talking about in increasing the maintenance moving on to special Revenue funds here are our main special Revenue funds Crime Control prevention District being the largest culture and tourism Environmental Protection and then we have Municipal Golf the alliance maintenance facility and others we'll cover the top three this is again how they look 24 recommended budgets compared to the 23 recommended budget first one being ccpd and since this is the ccpd board of directors you I believe already know what is included in the recommended budget this again includes Crisis Intervention school resource officers hope Team Staffing increase as well as our programs in the community we'll have other meetings specifically for ccpd and talking about what's in the recommended budget and culture and tourism is our next largest special Revenue fund you see a very healthy increase there in the revenue side that's a reflection of recovering from the covid what we'll call that those years when this is the fund that really took a beating uh during 20 and 21 and a lot of that is recovered it also reflects the increased investment that we're putting toward the Will Rogers complex as well as the what will be the new sheep and Swine Barn we put in this slide just to show the different revenues and how they've really increased from the current fiscal year to the next I think everybody knows we've started the phase one improvements to the convention center there'll be more conversations about the phase two and the upcoming fiscal year the Environmental Protection fund this is a fun we had a lot of conversation about in the last year's budget where we increased the environmental fee and we told people they would see more litter pickup and more street sweepers we've tried to deliver on the Seymour street sweepers and make sure that the litter gets picked up uh in the city this is part of the funding that will be transferred to the new Environmental Services Department the reason it shows a reduction is we used in the first year the current year of some of those strategies we use some of the fund balance to advance fund some of the like the street sweepers in the uh in our so clean strategy we have a number of internal service funds in a moment I'm just going to really talk about recruiting and retention and that will touch on the group health and life fund these costs that you see in internal Services funds like information technology or the fleet and some of the risk those costs are shown in the operating budgets of the different funds so I.T support for police will show up as a cost in the police department I.T support for the water fund will show up in operating costs in the water fund and the same would be true for Fleet Services this is what their increases look like year over year and again these cost increases or the total amounts are then reflected back in each of the Department's budgets this is just recapping the operating budget before we jump into capital and again the overall operating budgets in total go up about 11.5 percent it's been a quick moment on positions so new positions in the budget by Department you'll see police 106 fire 76. a total of almost 300 new positions in the budget for the recommended 2024. the reflecting operating budgets or the operating budgets will reflect a recommended four percent that's average increase in pay for fiscal year 2024 we're also including money in the budget just like we have in the past I think it's now two fiscal years it is a challenge to compete in today's labor market and so we are looking at positions at a faster rate to make sure we're being competitive and so sometimes we need to adjust specific positions sometimes we need to adjust ranges of positions and we're always looking at ways to deal with the hard to fill positions foreign the budget also reflects an increased cost to the city as well as the employee for insurance premiums there's still a one of our plans is still a zero cost plan for employees one of the other things we've seen after covid is some of our health care claims returning to the pace of claims that existed prior to covet you'll see there on the bottom that we're also recommending a new six-week maternity leave program that's in addition to the existing paid parental leave that was put into place I think it was two fiscal years ago and again that's all about recruiting and retaining the best Workforce which is one of our key strategies and how to do our best at providing great services and looking to the Future capital foreign I won't spend a lot of time on Capital because we'll have more time in the work sessions but again just uh a quick primer we generally use cash like revenues whether that's pay as you go or gas well leases or gas revenues and that's to maintain infrastructure so we like to use the cash to maintain infrastructure and we use bonds or debt for new infrastructure does that make sense and so we talk about in our Capital side how we allocate that part of the property tax rate how we also dedicate water rates or storm water rates part of that will be dedicated to cash maintenance of infrastructure as well as debt and in debt we look at impact fees Park dedication fees as well as Transportation impact or Transportation impact fees would be in there as well you've seen this slide and it shows a number of different things one it shows the tax rate over time and 10 years ago the tax rate was 80 half 85 and a half cents the recommended rate brings it down to 67 a quarter that's over 18 cents uh reduction in the property tax rate over that period of time we've also been careful in how we allocate the property tax rate what part of the tax rate is allocated to the pay as you go what part of the tax rate is dedicated to that and then our goal a number of years ago was to try to work those numbers to over 30. to which we've achieved that so now we need a new goal for the tax rate for the property taxation we checked that one off but I'd still argue we probably need more cash for the maintenance of infrastructure and we'll talk about that in upcoming fiscal years so if you look at the tax rate for 2024 again it's keeping the debt at 14 and three quarters pay as you go at seven and then the operating moves to 45 and a half cents in a couple years you'll see another box that'll say 2026 Bond referendum right so we're already working on the next Bond program that we plan to have happen in 2026. again I think when we talk about Capital you've heard me say this before a city that's growing at twenty thousand people a year in four to five years adds a hundred thousand people think of the infrastructure that is needed for a hundred thousand people and we've got to do that every five years and then after we produce that infrastructure we have to maintain it that's why we put a special emphasis on the tax rate really allocation that goes to maintaining infrastructure as well as financing new infrastructure so the capital budgets that I'll show you real quick they'll include wrap up projects from 2018 they're the 2022 program we don't have project specifics and what I'll show you now but we'll come back and show you project specifics about 2022 what's left over from 2018 I mentioned that we're planning for 2026 and then we're always looking at ways to increase the maintenance of our infrastructure the other thing about moving to two neighborhoods in the neighborhood Improvement program is those neighborhoods use that money generally for infrastructure that might otherwise be paid out of some other sources so we also get a benefit on the infrastructure side in maintaining infrastructure in sometimes in the neighborhood Improvement programs and with the Fort Worth lab what we're looking at moving into the future is improving our connections with Comprehensive planning and tying that back to the capital Improvement plan and again many of those Enterprises that I mentioned at the beginning whether it's an airport whether it's a regional water utility or storm water utility all these different operations have a capital plan if you just look at water in the general and the public events and storm water over five years that's 3.2 billion in capital that's not operating that's capital so you look at the water fund that will over the next five years spend 1.5 billion dollars and there's some big projects in there there's the Mary's the Mary's Creek what do you call it Water Reclamation I can't say sewer treatment plant anymore Water Reclamation facility right there's Aviation improvements there's the storm water capital projects that would show but 3.2 billion dollars on the capital side shifting to the Pay As You Go part of just the general most of that money we put in tpw as I think you would expect the second largest amount of pays you go then goes to neighborhoods Property Management which maintains all our other facilities information technology and Parks and Recreation Transit and Community Partnerships this just shows how we've handled the pay as you go in the upcoming recommended budget we LED transportation and public works this is primarily driven by inflationary costs for materials and so forth for roads and road maintenance we let them capture a pretty good part of the pay-as-you-go increase Neighborhood Services increases and that's primarily the neighborhood Improvement program adding another neighborhood and you see the other increases in there so again when we talk about operating in capital uh there's a lot of resources to talk about in the upcoming budget work sessions before talking about the calendar though I just wanted to again go back to the council's Strategic Vision priorities about Community safety about Economic Development and Community investment infrastructure responsible growth and fiscal responsibility and then how we're going to try to communicate that in the public about being so safe so clean so green that's not so safe so clean so green and then right there more police officers more fire additional code another neighborhood for the neighborhood Improvement program we're opening a new library a new community center increased funding for economic development a focus on Green Space and maintaining that a lot better um that makes me excited about this year's recommended budget next steps there is a formal process uh that we have to do at the same time that we take uh this message into the community we have work sessions already scheduled on Thursday Thursday we will cover the tax rate in more detail and we will cover police we have work sessions scheduled for the 24th and 25th of August the 7th of April 7th and 8th of September we could always schedule more we have budget meetings in each Council District I think I was scheduled to show in a second we'll have a public hearing on the budget on September 12th a public hearing on the tax revenue and adopting the tax rate operating budget and the CIP on September 19th if it all works out here the schedule for the community that's a lot of meetings we want to make sure that we're able to communicate effectively to all of you to all our residents in the community we'll also have all this information online we'll have this information available to you whether you want it in a hard copy or electronically it'll all of you and with that I'll end on so safe so clean so green and again I do want to take the opportunity to thank not just the Fort Worth lab and Martin but this is an effort by all departments so all the department heads all the Departments budgets teams and management team it's a big thank you for all the folks that get involved in this process to get us at this point each year and now we're at your disposal to and not necessarily here but to dive into all the issues you want to talk about in the upcoming budget with that mayor I'm finished thank you David how many times did you get to say it was it six or seven I didn't get the 15. what was the wager is what I want to know so I I lost on the under who had the under um so I'll open up to questions from Council if you want to get started anybody I can get started go for it Carlos okay well David I have a lot but some can wait till later um I'll start off with uh yeah kind of a sizable one uh water and tpw do a 50 50 uh fund matching to replace cast iron pipes right and as uh recent weather events have indicated they've still got a lot of them in the city right especially inner city areas and uh so they burst you know we hit these weather events whether it be damn hot or you know very cold whichever the case is um I know that in the past tpw's funding has not been able to keep up with the available funding that the water department has so what is our Outlook in this budget for that are we running kind of the same situation where tpw is going to run out of funds for that program before water does and and does that put us at a disadvantage in trying to get that infrastructure replaced thank you for the question and if you don't mind this is the time we want questions and we will take all the questions that council members have and if I'm not able to answer it here we will get detailed answers and we'll share with everybody But to answer your question uh tpw made a request for an additional 20 million dollars in this year's budget to try to match water water has the funds and they have a schedule to replaced as you know cast iron pipe of what happened a couple years ago so we are look we we did not include that 20 million in this budget to do that we are still looking though at strategies to match up tpw increase tpw funding in line with water because it makes sense to do that at the same time they're digging up a street so we're still looking at other strategies perhaps to deal with that and but they did make a special request that's not included in this recommended budget all right and and so that I make sure that I'm understanding this correctly it does this funding would come from PECO is that right well we're looking at the reason I'm saying we're looking at other strategies is you'll remember as we ended last year we had additional money that over and above that we needed for the fund balance right increase and so we're looking at can we replicate that in the upcoming close out of this fiscal year as one of the strategies or do we have or would we come back at another time and say let's increase the pay-as-you-go tax rate by a certain amount to accommodate that okay and and I can get more information later on this but as far as the new proposed fees for you know overfilled uh trash cards bags additional bags being placed outside of those cards the way I interpreted what you presented was it's a new fee but there's nothing in our current fee structure that say would would add an additional charge to it instead of adding another Standalone fee I would expect that with this new technology being implemented there we have cameras on the trucks and they can see hey you really didn't have your card out at 7am when we wrote by right keep everyone honest that there would be some inherent savings there that way you don't have to have the waste management folks hop off a truck stop their you know their route drive and take care of these things so yeah I'm not trying to be sensitive to you know just merely assessing a fee but maybe looking at it from the standpoint of what cost savings could there inherently be in that with a new technology deployment and a little bit of walk to a minimum we'll be able to walk through examples because I'm not sure if they're if there are new fees or not it's uh okay so all right thank you Charlie I'm just gonna go on the table all right well first of all David thank you for all this information I can just the binder itself is impressive so do you and your staff uh hats off to you there um I know in a lot of the meetings that we have coming up I'll be going over a lot more detail but a couple things that really stick out to me that I like hopefully get more information on as the um the 21 Patrol officers um I know that's going to come up from more than just me I'm sure I I agree I think we're definitely moving the right direction with this budget I think it looks good from what I'm seeing so far I think there's a lot of opportunity and a good friend wants that opportunity just means there's something that has yet to happen I think with the growth that you mentioned you know 20 000 new people uh per year I like this that where it says more more police but I don't think more quite means enough in this particular case so I'm looking forward to working with you in your staff and seeing what we might be able to work out there especially with North Fort Worth and the um the the need for that uh the other thing on kind of what uh council member four has just mentioned about the uh the new technology with uh the overfilled carts I think that can be great as long as we're also holding our commercial customers accountable too for all their overflow and all their how bad that looks because it's been complete we get up north a lot the um 3.3 million increase per code for Camp cleanup it's greatly appreciated up north uh I mean I know it's an issue city-wide but it's a big issue up North so thank you for that but I guess one of the big questions I do have is I didn't see it mentioned anywhere in here was regarding funds being set aside or or marked for uh the upcoming uh MedStar transition looking at that you know fire dispatch Etc I didn't see anything there so is that just plain for later or what do we what are we thinking there uh thank you for that question uh we do have money in the non-departmental so if you look in the general fund in non-departmental there is money there as there was in this year's budget right so we had money in this year's budget related to um MedStar we have money in next year's budget we are not trying to predict how that money is being used because we've got the study underway but anything the other thing I wanted to point out anything in non-departmental to be spent requires Council action right so Council will get to decide how that money comes out of non-departmental to be spent but there is money in non-departmental Michael is that a no okay Jared no Macy no Jeanette mine is just a request I'd like to have another Edition an additional budget meeting scheduled in District 11 just the way it's laid out I'd like to see something on the South Side as well as the east side I can get with staff to get that scheduled and Gina my question pertains to Code Compliance and the new Environmental Quality department and how you staff the north animal campus and the South Chuck and Brenda silcox adoption center I just want to know about the data that's used to figure out how many employees are aware I think the data should reflect on the number of whatever they count you know if you're counting stray dogs if we have more stray dogs and at Brenda and Chuck I expect to see more people there than North and so I need to know that data to make sure that the needs are being met because as you know two years ago I had a man who died after being brutally attacked on his porch by a loose dog good question we'll bring more data regarding animal services at both shelters thank you David thank you mayor Marissa Council it's a great presentation so far I've looked through a lot of the budget skimming it I like a lot of what I see I have as I was going through the packet I have one question for today but I think it'll be covered on Thursday and I was just looking uh page three is supposed to be the truth and Taxation statement but it's kind of missing some detail so if we could get that before Thursday that would be great sure and I and I think you have an informal report that was attached that provides I think some of the specific tax rate that we're required to do in the truth and Taxation but we'll be prepared to go in great detail on Thursday Chris Chris um the question I do have I have it for Thursday but I do want to ask you mentioned the informal report David uh will we be discussing that today uh are we going to be discussing that on Thursday because I see it on the agenda today yeah we're required to um I think produce it for today I would rather us be able to dive into the detail on Thursday okay will we be able to do that Leanne add that to the agenda for Thursday okay this informal report thank you Elizabeth hey David um I appreciate the presentation um I uh as a shock To None have lots of questions so I hope you're comfortable uh first I want to go through some just admin related topics it would be helpful for me um and probably the rest of council if in that schedule that you've given us if we can get a list of which topics are going to be discussed in that meeting because just from a management standpoint I don't know what's coming up next or when to ask questions let me let me do this too and I meant to say it we also want to cover what is of interest to you so we'll be talking to each of the council members I know that we want to talk about the water funds storm water fund because there's rate increases in there but we also want to hear from the council members about what are the issues you want to talk about too and we'll build those into the agenda great okay thank you um next I would like to know our sales tax Trend and how that plays into the budget where we've been over time and if we could get a comparison of sales to property tax ratio over time so we can see how we're growing as a city and it would also be helpful if we could get a comparator to other major cities in in Texas as we plan out into the future uh okay the next question is from a policy perspective we're taking that four percent down is there a reason why we chose only to do um that four percent reduction in the general fund Maryland I'm sorry I'm I know four percent reduction the is there a reason why oh four cents yeah yeah sorry the four senses is there a reason why it's only there and we didn't spread it out because I believe last year the reduction went to different sections as well whereas this one we're only doing those four cents in the O M no if you look at the prior year the reduction came all on o m and we increased pay as you go so what's the reasoning for that to take it out of O M that generally the reason is is we're protecting the tax rate that supports infrastructure and the maintenance of infrastructure because we need to invest more money in that area okay great that's generally but we we would be happy to talk about that too because um that is a policy decision that can be amended and changed okay great um next I have a lot of questions about the new department that we're creating this is the first time I'm hearing about it and it's probably got a significant impact to the budget so I would like to put that on your list of things to to bring back to us I'd also like to put on that list um specifically a presentation on fire and what we're adding how we're doing it timing of funding for those new positions and those new recruit classes so that we have a better understanding of how we're onboarding those 76 firefighters and when also for PD as well if we could get that so we get an idea of recruitment to um to Staffing levels okay we talk about adding money to homelessness what does that mean it was kind of Broad in public or in our in the presentation so I'd like some more specifics on what what we're doing in neighborhood services to address to address those um we talked about the environmental office we seem to be investing a lot in this budget to beefing up the lab and as a former planner I love the idea of a city sitting down and very deliberately making sure that we are enacting those goals and reaching you know our milestones and and what we as a community or as a council um strive towards but this seems like a huge jump we're doing 13 new people the budget's increasing by 15 percent and so I'd like to know why we're doing that and what outcomes we can expect to see because um when we increase a budget outward to those departments that our residents interface with every day it's easy to justify that because we're providing a better level of service when it's internal I think we need to it behooves us to take a a harder look at that make sure that we aren't becoming too top-heavy as a um as a city too bureaucratic um and then the last is the process and I think I've been left to be the bad guy on this one um but this budget is policy and I think we go back to that every year and we talk about how what we put in the budget is a reflection of our values as a city as council members if we choose to fund fire or not fund fire fund PD or not fund PD or any other department that's a reflection of our priorities as a community and so I think as a courtesy when we start talking about what's in this budget we don't want to hear about it on the news we don't want the media to have the preview before we have the preview because there are some things in here that I have a lot of questions about and I think as a respect to this body it shouldn't be that way we should be able to have that conversation and and and know what's going before our partners in this and so that is a part of the process and we talk about the process every year and I think this council's made it really clear that we are that we want to be more called in that we did it last year we did it the year before we're saying it again this year and so I do appreciate your effort to meet with each one of us to talk about our goals to make sure that we're putting that in the budget but still the process seems lacking if we're hearing about it after Media Partners I'd like to tag on to that if I could in another life I served as public information manager for the city of San Antonio and never before did my counsel hear stuff after the media this is the embargoed document that was given to the media before this Council David that is quite frustrating for me I also find it disrespectful and have had to calm myself down that is not right I would appreciate whatever information goes out to whomever goes out media your friends your family this body deserves to have that first we're the ones who are elected it must be respected and I take High offense to it I have nothing else to say anybody else no um a few things at a high level maybe recommendations I know that each of you have already expressed some of the things you want to see in future budget workshops I might ask the fourth lab and CMO office to take an attempt at today sending out a schedule what that will look like and we can react to that and say this is what's missing but I think you can all share with me it's kind of hard to plan and make sure we know let's just send it out today take a stab at it then get to CMO and fourth lab really quickly if there's something missing on that briefing list at a high level I made a list of communications and we can send this to David's office as well that I hear a lot about from from citizens either concerns or just lack of information they see from the city number one lately is probably around tpw they don't know how much investment we've made in the last fiscal year as well as what's happening in this fiscal year as proposed right now um as David expressed a hundred thousand people every 20 every five years is a lot to keep up with so tpw would be one animal control continues to be something all of our social media boxes get filled with homelessness affordable housing police and fire I think a lot of those are already mentioned if you have others that you know that you get most concerned with from your residence please give that to David's office as well um on the major questions and categories I think um most of you already mentioned all of them mine are more at a high level specific to growth I'm curious and we can have a policy discussion about this maybe Midway through workshops but if you're growing at a clip of a hundred thousand people per five years are we on Pace where we need to be that's an overarching question I think all of us need to be asking and by no means are you going to attack that in one fiscal year but do we feel like we're moving the right direction David's presentation was really helpful to me over the last 10 years especially on the Pago side why that 30 goal was so important and David I might encourage you to go back and you've done this before in previous budgets to remind this Council why that was a goal you set in place in the in the beginning but even with over 30 percent dedicated now on Capital Improvements it's still difficult to keep up with and I usually say it like this it's A Tale of Two Cities north of 820 you're developing inside the loop you're redeveloping so what does that look like for residents and their quality of life which is a concern um and then lastly I just want to make sure we are dedicating the resources to how we communicate these things to our constituents and we can have a presentation related to that whether it's coming from Renee's office or each of our dedicated budgets and how you're communicating on behalf of your District everyone but he has a unique way of doing that that you think works for your District so let's make sure we lift that up as well because otherwise none of this matters because people don't know we're doing it and so when they're really ticked off they don't remember the Investments the city is making so any other questions for today no okay I guess we're adjourned that was the last thing okay meeting adjourned thank you [Music]