in case you didn't know what meeting you're in you're in a special called city council Retreat welcome hope everyone had a nice lunch you've got an agenda in front of you and I'm supposed to do the welcome and priority accomplishments and so I don't think y'all need to hear me give a speech so I'm just going to roll right into priority accomplishments the only thing I will say is um many of you have participated in these in the past they are meant to be very interactive much different than what we traditionally do during a work session where you got a presentation of information we want you to give feedback along the way which is why in the recent accomplishments category um rather than have staff tell you how they are what they've done is put together in categories that we've all agreed upon and where our strategic vision is for the city of Fort Worth and attempt to try to this is harder to do but put together a highlevel um list of accomplishments in each of those categories um I know how much we all love when people read us a PowerPoint so I'm not going to do that instead all of you've had this information now for a few days in each of the categories I think we're probably still okay in and we have time to talk about adjustments to that throughout the day um but as you reviewed each of these accomplishments starting with economic development and Community investment what I'd like to start with is just asking you to react to What was listed here are there things that you feel strongly were missing that reflect the entire city maybe not just your District um or if you disagreed with the things that staff may have highlighted here in that category in particular so you can move to slide three if you don't mind thank you um you see listed everything from A&M downtown tiffs working through our Community Arts Center which is still a work in progress how to support film entrepreneurship which we've had a lot of successes there as well and then moving down into our neighborhood specific options which I think our staff should be commended for some of that work as well um react to that for me if you don't mind and give me your feedback on things that you disagree with or that you wish we're pushing harder on or that maybe is missing alog together from these two slides before we move to community safety Macy pleas first um I do and I said this in our homelessness housing Workshop which really was more about housing than homelessness and I think we can do a better job addressing homelessness in for worth particularly the poverty issue that's that happens on the front end for a lot of our families and what we can do as a council what can we what can we do as a council to help them and as a city do better there thank you council member Hill anyone else react to that Council be to to expand on that um we did in that housing uh meeting discuss ways to um clear barriers to additional housing for permanent support of Housing and affordable housing um and I think we should continue to do so and what that looks like in um and from our development services and and fee structures well said anybody else Council M bons I'd like to see us partner more aggressively with social service agencies so that we can identify ify triggers that get us there and that gives us a more proactive approach to it because right now it continues to be react you know reaction as to what we do but if we were to partner more aggressively with MHMR uh anybody who does State work federal work I think we could be ahead of the game more than we are now coordination yeah Carlos maybe a little too early because we just started out with us but we're doing a public safety assessments you know in the West 7th uh you know District entertainment District as well as the Stockyards uh just taking the first few steps not complete but you know it's a that's a good point hold on to that and we we get to five and just slide five about Community safety that probably pertains there anybody else on economic development I think because of the things that may Elizabeth Mission we actually don't talk about homelessness work in either of these two slides and we probably should and working with staff to sort of lift up what we think are um our biggest wins and even internally where we've fallen short um and sounds like better coordination and more proactive approach on homelessness which every City's grappling with this across the country but as you well know so much of the money funnels down from federal government and it's an allotment that we receive and we celebrate when they give us more money um but it takes a lot of partnership with philanthropy and with um City staff and tchc so if if um Neighborhood Services and terara and others could work on just a bullet point here to memorialize what we think on the homelessness front that'd be helpful any else on these two slides before I move on anybody think one of these or two of these is not worth noting or feels like maybe it's missed the mark all good there okay um move to slide five which is about Community safety um there's some big big lifts that I think City staff and each of these departments should be commended for and important certainly um a lot of you on the ad hoc committee around emergency services so starting with I'm going to go through these more slowly since there's only four on the page first is um for the fire department that was a pretty Monumental task to go through the Staffing analysis and actually Implement those changes from budgetary standpoint last budget cycle um I'll speak for myself first to say I think that um it's been well received in the public I think that right sizing the department um was the correct decision and also is helping us sort of navigate what our um Ambulatory Service model needs to be across Fort Worth and tant County as well so cudos to staff for working through that um on the the police department Staffing um I will say that this is probably the predominant topic among large cities in the country right now when I meet with Mayors and they're all mightily struggling with Recruitment and Retention Chief noes does a great job representing the city of Fort Worth and he doesn't um do so through Rose color glasses but he is honest about we still have the ability to recruit and retain officers in the city of Fort Worth and that's in large part to this body being supportive of the department and making sure they're staff where they need to be um I would add here that we need to keep pressing um and making sure they have the support to be fully staffed by 2026 which is ultimately the goal all of you have said you want more officers in your districts you hear when you don't have enough mpos um or Patrol officers Etc so that continues there as well um and then this last piece I think we could spend an entire Retreat just on um a our successes and resources put towards a more patient Centric model um for emergency medical response I think this may seem vague to the general public though so what do we mean by that and when I think of that bullet point I think it should really continue to include everything from CIT enhancements Our Hope team um the way we are holistically taking care of the wellness of our officers as well so they can also take care of community and those Investments you'll kind of be learning a bit more about that in the next month or so as well um and then also what we're doing with the ad hoc committee and what the future of of Emergency Services yeah West 7th as well yes good point Charlie yeah I think it's important as we talk about Community safety we could put a police officer on every corner and no fault to the police department they're doing everything they can but when their hands are tied with you know for example arresting somebody who should be arrested um but they know they're going to turn right back around in a court and go right out the back door for whatever reason um whether it's jails are full are very permissive court system whever the case is I think strengthening the relationship with the courts and them understanding what's actually happening in our neighborhoods and why it's important that we allow our police officers to enforce the laws already on the books um and then having a stronger relationship with our court systems as well to so well they understand the same concerns so thank you Charlie Macy I don't know if uh I guess co- compliance would fit into this category um but I think addressing um the loose animals I know Animal Control is having a tough time they're probably under staffed as well but know we've had several dog bites I know Charlie's had that that terrible one that happened a couple months ago and there's loose dogs all over Riverside and the Lancaster and just make sure we have the support for them because we don't want to have another child Ming like Dallas had in 2019 um and I think we're on the edge of that I drive down east Lancaster quite a bit and there's loose dogs everywhere we don't need to have that and whatever resources we need to do to make sure that our public is safe I think it's important Allan so thank you mayor I want to expand a little bit on some of the things that Charlie said and with regard to our community safety I really want us to take a closer look at school zones and school Crossings and the the dangerous situations that we have there there was one yesterday evening that in Charlie's District that was very uh uh emotional for many of us it impacted a lot of neighbors and and we don't really have a great handle on that I think and so and I think this is a Citywide issue uh not just Charlie's District not just my district so I'd really like to see us take more of a focus on that and I also want to say I think we did as a council some incredible work with police and fire this past budget cycle I don't want us to rest on our Laurels and say okay we're done uh I think in both both cases there's some significant improvements that we can still do in the future uh uh councilman Williams and I had talked about the need for more traffic enforcement in particular as we move forward into the next budget cycle so I just want to to capitalize on the great things and let's continue to do more uh to make it even better make our city even safer makes sense any other remarks on this slide Community safety yeah good point code is not up here and the work and reinforcements that code has from an accomplishment standpoint that's a huge piece of community safety I think needs to be noted here as well ahead Elizabeth I'm glad you said that because I think what's not missing too is the um legal department and the work that they've done working with code and PD to really um go after the nuisance abatements and those harder um code issues that are really impacting our [Music] neighborhoods question maybe for for David or any staff member that helped compile this presentation do you feel like you got enough feedback from departments individually um to get this list together would it be helpful to ask them to react to this as well because I think these accomplishments documents are only as good as the input is from the Departments are actually providing the work out in the field and I just don't know I'm just curious how that was compiled and anybody wants to speak to that they can Christian got the nod got the nod good afternoon mayor and Council um I I do think it would be helpful to have more departmental input um it helps to hear what you're saying and even gives us a window into fiscal year 25 priorities potentially but as we look backward to celebrate accomplishments um we can share this with departments and let them react as well and importantly you know making sure our department heads know this because they have to sit in plenty of meetings with us but um throughout the organization an understanding of how each department does intersect with each of these priorities for this for the City Community safety seems to be the easiest to me if you're tpw I mean everything you do is for Community safety so what are your accomplishments in that department that really um are worth noting on this list which I think would be very important um Parks and Recreation could do the exact same thing and because I think all of us would benefit from having a document you could tout out in the community about where we accomplishments are and then in addition to that each of you have District specific things that you know you've worked on and been priorities for you or things that you've pushed the city staff to to work on alongside you as well yeah that makes sense any other things that are big items we want to push on today or I can keep going through the slide deck yes Gina mayor my remark starts with a question question for the new council members has everybody new met Benjamin Sam Pratt okay he's he's the street fighter when it comes to Nuance abatements he's the one who shuts them down he's very effective it requires coordination between code and cops and so my question to Leanne would be is Benjamin's part of the world adequately staffed because people on the east side love him we've been able to get a few things shut down and if you don't know Benjamin you need to meet him yeah one of the things that we're looking at uh requesting in the next budget year is an increase to that section um Benjamin has been very effective with the resources he has we're looking at some other options perhaps um teaming up with the the law school we've been in discussions with them for a good year now to try to to figure out some way to um basically to have a either a clinic or some sort of an externship that's specific to this so we are on the path to that but certainly even with that it's going to require additional people on on our staff to help with those students and and such so you will see that as a request from us for this year we were able to see a lot of progress after I had Benjamin speak at a District 5 leadership meeting and those meetings are for my neighborhood officers and he was able to educate them on what it takes to get a case that he can see it through and so if you haven't met Benjamin I encourage you to give him a call the more people who call him the more we help lean get some more money thank you okay if nothing else on community safety let's move to slide six um which is focused on fiscal responsibility um you see those budget items in included there which I think are all worth noting as accomplishments for sure working through um implementation of 18222 bond and the last one is maintaining the city's um Bond rating which is very important for a multitude of reasons um are there things on here that are missing and importantly are there things that you think that maybe were a miss that we didn't do enough on for fiscal responsibility and making sure the the city is fiscally sound some of you have mentioned for instance um more money in pgo something you wanted to see um for capital projects any disagreement on that I mean David's done an excellent job during his tenure of a city manager of making sure that's a priority um and allocating as much as you can every budget but I think there's some members on this Council would like to see more at least I've heard that feedback anything else here no um you know one thing I would just mention on fiscal responsibility that sort of fits in this category and this is where Allen's going to save the day right Allen as Tad our Tad board member but um just a continued effort by this body in the city to make sure we walk alongside taxpayers and understanding our property tax system which can be mind- numbing um but there is just a level of distrust and concern around property taxes in the state of Texas and some of that's not our fault at all and we really are a well-run city but I think I would encourage us all to not not grow weary of those conversations but just acknowledge that they hate them as much as we do paying our own property tax bills in the city and and because we do have great representation um of being factious but Allen has been has been willing to step up in that role as a tad board member which we are immensely grateful for but as he can tell you it's hard to explain to people and and rebuild trust across Taran County and here in the city of for worth Alan go ahead so thank you mayor and I want to say with regard to Tad and with regard to the city of Fort Worth uh we've had a lot of discussions already uh David and Mark have reached out to uh jodon Bob at the new Chief appr appraiser and are working to schedule a meeting to to initiate those discussions there uh Tad is required to do two open meetings at a different location than their offices over on the east side of town uh both of those will be here at Fort Worth City Hall uh so we can give a bigger bigger uh voice you know expand that message further uh we're also working towards bringing Joe Don here to do a workshop and presentation to council and the community about Tad and a more uh more open and direct role so everyone hopefully uh can get a bit better understanding of how the process works and our engagement in it from the city's perspective and from Tad's perspective as we move into our budget cycle in tax cycle next year yeah thank you Alan I appreciate that um one thing I know that's that we need to keep having the conversation on is we reduced the tax rate we made a priority for over 65 and disabled um a few council members understandably want us to do more even on the tax rate it doesn't really fit here because it's not an accomplishment for those of you that wanted more but I think just keep that in mind you'll have plenty of time to talk about that especially in the priority based budgeting conversation and um when David kind of talks about the fiscal health of the city so know that that's coming as as well um anything else no okay keep rolling responsible growth um the three things noted here um are are probably most specific to um internal pieces of the city of Fort Worth so obviously the Fort Worth lab um and Christian's appointment and Mark's kind of right sizing the budget office which we're very appreciative of um continued planning Communications around the new city hall I think we have lots of communication needed with that but we'll work through that with City staff over the next several months as we all move in and then recruitment retention of top talent this is this is a struggle for every business and every industry as Gina can attest right now but how the city takes care of our employees is going to be increasingly more important and making sure we're growing our own Talent inside the building they feel like they have the ability to move up in the organization and also being one of the most desirable places to work um in our region needs to be a priority for us as well um on the responsible growth category the next one's infrastructure by the way so just so you know that one's not missing from the presentation yeah this is more internal growth like how the city is really coping with being the fastest growing city in the country anything you think um we're bad at that you want us to talk about later in the day is okay too to mention here it's not an accomplishment but maybe something we really struggle with as an organization Gina I'm sorry to do this mayor but I just noticed you use the term budget office I'm not going to fight with David about this fancy name called the Fort Worth lab but the public does not know that that is the budget office sure yeah and so thank you for saying that and David I'm not fighting you're my friend I adore you but that's I hate it but that's not my fight noted yeah okay I'm gonna move in the last one and go ahead I'm sorry yeah Carlos you have something go ahead yeah um I would be remiss if we didn't mention payroll okay that is definitely a growth opportunity for us as well um I know I pushed for and I know councilman Williams has pushed for um a a base level of pay for our employees but I think a lot of that retention and recruitment um is because we're not on par with a lot of um other organizations and so I think that's an area for growth as well thank you Carlos I'm not sure where this would go but do we want to mention in terms or in the context of development responsible development sustainable development uh the uh uh you know the good nature initiative yeah good point where do we put that yeah I think um good natured was mentioned here in our did I miss it very briefly um what is it oh it's in fiscal responsibilities kind of buried oh okay yeah all right well as long as it's captured it's good I miss that with green space here maybe May mean also mention it by name yeah yes okay and I think what we when we get to item six on the agenda with Hillary when we talk about strategic priorities and goals I think that will be the place to really lift up some of the things we want to continue to push on um as well okay I'm going move into infrastructure this could derail because we could all talk about needs infrastructure they tried to highlight the things that um are worth lifting up as accomplishments um anybody disagree with these or feel like we're glossing over something this is always a topic probably number one for most constituents is infrastructure lack of Redevelopment new infrastructure depending on where your district is Elizabeth so one I want to say I think we did a a good job over the last couple of budget cycles of really prioritizing infrastructure in our budget and providing a better level of service for our residents so um I don't really have a critique on this one I just really appreciate staff listening to that it's hard we have Lawrence here she'll tell me we have I don't know 5,000 Lane miles or whatever I know I'm undervaluing it right but we have an enormous amount of area that we have to keep track with um I do think that where we struggle is being Forward Thinking and I'm glad to see that you've got the 2050 comprehensive plan on there um but the challenge is going to be is not just how do we put that how do we Implement that and um I think the reason that we're in the place that we're in is because we haven't kept pace with or even tried to get out inead of some of our um big developments and I think you see that uh really noticeably in West 7th in the storm water issues thank you Jared thanks mayor um yeah I would um sentiments I think we've done really good with infrastructure and you mentioned earlier with the pgo discussion um I think that's something in terms of an area of improvement um particularly um because sometimes what's in our Capital Improvement plan or what we're planning for the bond may not keep Pace with what's happening on the development and private sector side and so I think it's important that we have discussions about um how to um ensure we have resources available especially for our materials when major uh development is happening along corridors like Risinger which is the East West Corridor Shing that we are Nimble enough to be able to partner when private sector um um value is created that can partner with building those roads and we do a good job through like the CFA process Etc whenever developments come in but I think um there's opportunities to um continue to build on that and then the other thing is um neighborhood streets um I know um this particular cycle um we've gotten our office has gotten a number of um inquiries around neighbor and Street improvements particularly resurfacing and um and so I think there's also opportunities there in this budget cycle to um increase our Focus um on infrastructural improvements at the neighborhood level and not just on the major projects that we need to get done across the city thank you yeah Charlie I think one area where we could do better on the um infrastructure side is the messaging because while things like Street striping um actually Road repairs additional mowing all the things you can see that are like okay great that's where my tax dollars are going that's where I want them to go that's great but some of the really large expensive projects like replacing cast iron that people don't see so it's not nearly as sexy but it's super expensive I think the messaging on here's what happens if we don't do it and here's why we maybe can't lower taxes as much as we want to or here's where your taxpayer dollars are going and actually like break it down I think mayor protim did a great job earlier explaining that entire thing she read like it's going to keep your toys from getting clogged up I think if we can like have a better messaging on here's why we need to do it now and if we don't it's going to cost us this much and it's going to cost you or the neighborhood so I think messaging the big non-sexy projects in a better way so we can then get that out to our constituents and say hey here's here's why we're having to spend that much money well said car then Macy again with uh infrastructure I would suggest maybe on the second bullet I mean we we've done more than evaluate you know when it comes to storm water storm water you know through our fee increases has done some good things already that we're trying to address you know those uh challenges I might suggest maybe make it a little more um less passive right we've done more than evaluated is what I'm saying maybe some word changes there um that's it thank you caros Macy um I love sidewalks in infrastructure and I think our safe routes to school program is wonderful it's really done a great job but I think as we continue to grow there's a lot of areas that we the kids don't have a safe rout to school they're walking in bites and I think we can do a better job of evaluating where those gaps are and how we can make sure our kids are safe going to school and getting from these neighborhoods um as we continue to grow the traffic continues to rise yeah maybe tie that in with payo investors for the water department and know I don't know so I'm GNA stop on infrastructure is that good I'm going to give a little direction to staff then we'll move um into the next category for David which is fiscal Health feedback for um CMO office I think this won't get used if it doesn't if it's not comprehensive enough because none of youall will pay attention to it ever again after today fair to say okay so how do we not do that I think I would suggest going to departments and saying what would you put in these categories based on your individual ual Department that you think fit in these overall um strategic Vision priorities that are overarching around quality of life that makes sense so they may dump they may brain dump and have a lot to put in but I think it's worth you calling through the second may be more time intensive for each of you but think about the things just in the last year that you feel like are specific to your District that fit in these categories that I think should be noted here and maybe smaller projects but they were big deal for your community members um and something that took you really working together on um and then you don't have to do it today but if you have other things that you know were misses by the city that maybe you're frustrated about as the elected official that haven't happened either you're getting ignored or stonewalled or there's not enough money I think that Council needs to know that and there's probably going to be some time to vet some of that today don't get don't you'll have plenty of time to vent but um I just think this document to be any good to anybody else they're going to need to have that moving forward anybody else have any other feedback before I turn it over to David yes Jared um one thing I failed to mention on the economic development um is just the importance of investing in our small businesses um I think there's room to um create incentives for small businesses they don't necessarily sometimes they fall through the cracks with our current application process and they may need a lower dollar amount to really take their business to the next level but we don't really have any programs necessarily available other than cdfi which may be a grant or may be a loan um hopefully it's not alone but I think there's room to um look at how do we grow small businesses in the city um and then uh the second thing with that is our nbe performance um and looking at how do we um expand capacity and boast our Partnerships particularly with the fourth Hispanic chamber and the fourth Metropolitan Black Chamber to help us move the needle on those nbe goals yeah one thing that's not on here either back to economic development is the work with MainStreet America in North Side um um and with Texas Wesley and a rosale area those are two notable projects I think that are worth mentioning okay I'm going to keep us going then thank you Council for letting us kick things off there I'll turn over to David Cook who's goingon to talk about the fiscal health of the city not the physical health y'all the physical health Chris is not even here for my joke I mean he he was gonna give me the dart eyes and he wasn't here okay David all righty hey so what I'm going to do is take a few minutes some of this information you've seen before it's simply to get us to start thinking about the upcoming budget and then overall just be thinking about how do we determine the fiscal health of the city and what do we need to be doing in the short term what do be need what do we need to be thinking about long term you know we have a work session schedule for next Tuesday when we're going to talk about one the results of a citizen survey and how that Stacks up and some of that is going to get back into what do citizens think about the services we provide and what is top of Mind from a the citizen standpoint you're going to hear about infrastructure and Roads and things like that and what's important to Citizens and you're going to hear about infrastructure and Public Safety but that's next Tuesday is also going to show up and talk about how we did from the prior fiscal year that first goes to the audit committee but I think Reggie's got a lot of good news items in that as well and then we have this item of whether we want to consider a street maintenance fee as a way to pay for infrastructure and so all this is I think pretty timely as we again as we head into the upcoming budget year uh um these are the policies philosophies that we've been following for a number of years and so when you think about as we approach the budget as we think about the city's fiscal Health the first part there is we don't do it on an annual basis we think about it over a long-term perspective more on that as we go along we have had a goal over time of reducing the property tax rate and values have been strong that have been allow that have allowed us to do that over time we'll talk about that too and the emphasis on infrastructure investment and maintaining that infrastructure once it's built we also don't use reserves or one-time revenues to balance the budget right uh maintain or improve Financial ratings I'll touch on that just a little bit and then in true economics resources are finite and our role is to figure out what those choices and tradeoffs are and David before you keep going I think I'll just kind of level set before it it because we can't all glaze over this is dense they've done an excellent job trying to prioritize things um I was not here on Council many of you were not except for I think May pretend Bivens was here during the recession am I right Gina and we have to be prepared for the what if and I think this management team has done that for the city um we're very fortunate to be in the state of Texas um and in north Texas that has been in such a um beneficial time period to our economy we can't pretend that that always won't be the case and so as you're as you're listening to David's presentation just think about that throughout because it's just like in our own budgets and our households we have to be prepared for someone losing a job or a loved one getting ill and that's sort of the budget philosophy within this document and I just wanted David really does deserve a tremendous amount of credit for the philosophy that's throughout the organization and it wasn't always this way um the second thing I would say is think about those of us on this body we have to communicate these things to constituents that's oftentimes very hard to make them understand the trade-offs we're making how we're prioritizing things so take note throughout David's presentation of where do we need more help from Communications um on how to best articulate some of these big priorities for the city in a way that they actually understand um which is sometimes more difficult than others sorry to interrupt you David just wanted to lay those out thank you mayor that uh we're going to end on some looking at what has happened to other cities in history and so I I do think it's important that we have to keep our eye on the ball uh and as we're going to talk about at the end Prosperity is not guaranteed right we're we're riding a very good ride right now assessed values are going up we're in a popular area and but that's not guaranteed right so are we doing the things that will guarantee that or at least preserve it over a longer period of time more on that as we go so you've seen this before this is just grounding Us in what the budget looks like today the general funds A little over one billion dollar we just surpassed that with the current budget we're in we're going to talk a little bit in a minute about about property tax and sales tax those are the two largest revenue sources we're going to Telegraph a little bit what it looks like for the upcoming year and then we'll talk about some of the assumptions we're using as we think about expenditures as well so again here's just looking at the revenue property tax and sales tax make up over 80% of all the revenues in the general fund that's why we spent a lot of time thinking about property tax revenue and sales tax you've seen this before it's the current tax rate overall it's 67 and a quarter we break that down into omm and the debt um onm is 525 uh pay you go is currently 7 cents and then the debt Services 14 and 3/4 you've seen this chart before and it's just a show overtime and mayor when you think about it over a period of History the goal back in 2015 was to get to that we wanted the tax rate to be about 30% the debt and pay you go of of the total tax rate about 30% we're now at 32 so now it's time to think about do we need a new goal there and then the cash portion of the capital program we wanted that to be 30% of the total toal Capital program and I'll have you think about just that for a minute you don't want to pay for your capital projects entirely with a credit card that's debt it's okay to have some of your Capital program paid for by a credit card or debt but you don't want to be completely leveraged because if you do head into a recession you then don't have the ability to pay for your credit card does that make sense so we want a portion of our Capital plan to be cash funded that's the pays you go and I'm with you if you want to increase the amount of cash that we put into the capital program because that also becomes your flexibility in a downturn right that you're able to have more cash you can't take on the debt it's it's really not different than a household right if we hit hard times it's good to not have most of our revenues tied up in paying for debt and to have more of the revenues that are flexible in that vein so I think it's not up to us to decide from here how do we want to invest the tax rate should more of it be cash more of it go to Capital and all of that is what balances and gets us to the 67 in order tax rate so we make some assumptions as we look about uh the upcoming year and when we do projections for our debt financing and bond programs so we are estimating a pretty conservative 4% property tax revenue growth a 4% sales tax growth and then we've bounced around on these other revenues but the majority of our attention again is on property and sales tax tax you've seen this slide also this is going back over a longer period of time Fort Worth used to have a property tax rate that was near a dollar I want you to think about that near a dollar and the only way you can reduce a tax rate if you're not going to cut Services is you need to grow in order to reduce the tax rate does that make sense and so we have had if you want to just look at the last 10 years we've had some pretty incredible growth and assess values that has allowed us to reduce the tax rate we used to have the largest tax rate of any major city in Texas and I remember when I started here the council's direction was we don't want to be the city with the highest tax rate in the state now you still have to deliver Services you still have to deliver infrastructure but the goal was to reduce the tax rate so that we weren't the highest tax rate of any city in Texas so here's what that growth has looked like over the past few years going back to 2018 you got the tax rate on the far left column the new growth is that is the new develop the new develop that was produced each year and I'm going take a minute here remember now in the state of Texas we can capture all the new growth right you get to keep all that but the state law in Texas says of the existing growth you can only have three and a half right and you're supposed to then reduce the tax rate so you only capture the three and a half everybody remember that and so if you look at 2021 this is covid it was the year that there was really no increase in existing values of property in the city of Fort Worth and so that was less than 1% the state also says you can capture an increment so when we hear us talk about an INR you can capture the percentage when it wasn't 3 and a half% and and our last year's budget conversation when we talked about last year's tax rate and the tax rate that's on the table for the upcoming year we still have this increment that is available for us to capture as part of the conversation in the upcoming budget remind me how much that increment is David about three cents thank you so I'll take a minute if I can do this so we talk about no new Revenue a no new Revenue tax rate assumes that we will collect all the new growth and nothing else right we're going to collect zero of the existing growth the voter approved tax rate says you can take all the new growth 3 and a half% of the existing growth and the increment without triggering a voter uh requirement to approve a tax rate so we'll get back into that conversation no new Revenue rate is only capturing the new growth voter approv rate is New Growth 3 and a half% plus the increment these were in the newspaper last week about assess values and I'll tell you staff is excited to have council member block on the Teran Appraisal District too uh because I do think it is important to be able to explain when you read these articles that in the paper that values are declining right and then somebody gets a bill that's either the same or more right and so that explanation of what's happening with home values what's happening with uh commercial values or new development will be an issue as we go into the upcoming year and these are just from last week just remind this the council we will get the first numbers from the appraisal districts at the end of March so our first shot at what we believe the values will look like for the upcoming fiscal year we'll have at the end of March again this is just showing in the current fiscal year that the new construction was about 3.2% and all the other values went up 12 a little over 12 just a second on this chart um the green line is the net taxable value over time the orange shape is showing what ha what is happening to existing growth and then the blue is what new growth looks like so most of the growth in the tax base than we we've seen over the last number of years is what has happened to existing values not New Growth but existing values existing values are what have created most of that growth over that period of time and I think that earlier slide also supports that when we talk about assess values and exemptions again in this case the Orange is the net taxable value the blue blue values are the exemption amounts and we increase the 65 and older 65 and older disabled exemption in the current year trying to see if there's a slide where we get to talk about that it's coming all right one more uh look at the tax base two is the Divergence of residential and Commercial not good Trends and when you look at now and in this calculation multifam is included in the residential line okay so it's not in commercial it's in the residential line and what has happened when you look at new development the new development looks pretty balanced there's commercial in new development there's residential new development and it's balanced what is happening is the appreciation in existing values is growing at a faster rate for residential than it grows for commercial when you look at existing values so it's already on the ground residential values are growing at a much faster rate than commercial values there's a lot of theories out there on why that is true but that is what what creating the Divergence of residential from commercial not as much of new development and I think that's very important and Elizabeth has a question because each of you probably get this comment you hear the tax bases upside down um and to some extent that's actually not true because we can't control the way residential property tax values are assessed or the way they're able to be protest and each of you probably hear a lot about that and arguably on the commercial side there's a more sophisticated element to how commercial property owners protest their values and keep them held lower um which this is speculation across the state but you hear that a lot about how residential homeowners are um for whatever reason not as successful or don't take advantage of the protest process is probably the best way to put it there's a great process in place Tad does a great job of that now um or trying to so just know that's the case then Elizabeth and then I'll go to Alan um David my question is because we do hear that a lot about the the flip in the in the tax base and we obviously we get compared to other cities and so I guess I this is the first time that I realized that we included multi family in that residential component um do other cities put that right are we are we hurting ourselves by putting this number out and putting multif family in with the residential because when I think residential I think single family homes duplexes when not multif family is definitely a place where people live but don't we tax that as a commercial entity as well so Tad does include apartments above fourplexes I believe this is right as commercial property do we but but no from a city economic standpoint we view multifam at because we're providing mostly residential services to multif family okay so from a cost side you know we treat multif family like we would treat residential and so by Residential Services you're we're talking about like water police police fire yes okay yep if we took that and said we're going to do this analysis in the same way that Tad classifies as so commercial multif family going into commercial what it can we get what that number would look like I think there's a way to back that out because we we get it in different formats and I get why we're doing it and that makes total sense from a policy perspective I'm just curious to know what that would look like because I think that's a very good talking point for us when we get hit with that is well let's talk about how we use we classifi this as residential because of the services I would argue that our Commercial Services require police and fire and and water as well um but they do that would I think that would help us have a better more informed conversation with our constituents yeah thank you Alan so David this is a topic we've talked about a few times and and how to how to really get a handle on it seems to be quite challenging what I would like to know is uh aside from the actual that we have here is there another way to really metrize because I know we've had significant growth to our commercial base over these 25 years has it truly been outstripped by our residential or is is it strictly evaluation is there another way we can look at this where we can get a better idea of what the real mix should be more the volume mix is what you're wanting to see rather than the values okay yeah just to to to understand if uh if it truly is a a misevaluation from a tad perspective or if there's something else going on and I think you not that we haven't tasked the budget office or the Fort Worth lab with stuff but that is one of the evaluations to look at is let's take residential property over time let's take the commercial property over time and put it side by side in a real assessment of what's Happening year toe on values Gina David I I have a a question that Finds Me rather conflicted when I hear Tad considers multif family as commercial but we consider it as residential it brings to mind one of my developers who is running into this conflict and if the city looked at multif family as commercial as the original documents in this development do and you know who I'm talking about I do I am concerned because it looks like maybe we have a developer who is uh being treated unfairly but can you repeat for me again how cities view this and it may be maybe for worth is on The Cutting Edge you know considering uh multif family as as residential and not commercial but you know I would like to know how many cities across the state hold the Fort Worth view not looking at multif family as commercial because I understand that that is a trend and so can you elaborate on that or is that some research to come well I think we could do some research on that and I'm just speaking of the local governments that I've have worked in multifamilies always been considered residential and when we talk about recruiting businesses to come to the city of Fort Worth what we're trying to bring is commercial tax base that is providing jobs so when we think about Economic Development it's about businesses it's about jobs and I'll get more into that as we talk about fiscal health and so in the case of uh when we talk about Economic Development we don't need to recruit multif family right there's no reason to recruit multif family multifam is happening all over the place on its own you see what I mean and when we're talking about incentives we're really talking about how are we attracting higher paying jobs that put large amounts of assessed value on the ground and when we do that that actually helps us pay for the all the services that we provide everybody in the city of full worth and so I think there's a general understanding that commercial industrial actually pays for all the services that we get to provide to all the people that live in Fort Worth and you won't find you won't find me disagreeing with that but I didn't have the intellectual depth to know how to ask this next question of what I would like to see and this is not critical or anything but I would like to know what other cities populations say 750 and above View multif Family as we do in Fort Worth yeah and the idea is if we are creating a situation where developers who have these old contracts are being penalized because of the way we view then that's another conversation but i' I'd like to see population 750 and above to see you know who views it like we do and I know it's a trend growing but I just want to know so that I can help developers okay now jumping to our first shot at property tax for fiscal year 25 this is just talking about different injection scenarios and I want to hit some of the um footnotes too but if you look at there are four grow scenarios 3 five and8 nothing magic just giving you different ideas what the taxable assess value would look like if we calculated a no new Revenue rate off of that number based on some assumptions so this is just to give you some flavor as we talk about uh the upcoming budget in the next number of months now we have some footnotes here because there's been talk about do we want to increase the exemption again for 65 and older right that was the equivalent in the current year of about a half a cent on the tax rate if you remember there's also um uh the child care uh credit for facilities child care facilities and we've done the assessment and that's worth about 1 million at a 100% exemption right which is available for child care facilities with the recent passage of state law both of those city council would have to take action in the June time frame right so we don't have to decide anything today but if we want to increase the exemption let's say from we went from 40 to 60 if we wanted to go from 60 to 80 right we we'll bring back that number again the current Year's number was worth about a half cent on the tax rate and the child care facility credit is worth about $1 million that we would be uh allowing to occur in the upcoming year does that make sense yes okay both would have to be done uh in June this gives you just a graphic uh and giving you some of our averages over the past number of years and when you think about the last let's say seven years that's been a strong just over 7% annual growth right so we have been writing pretty good property tax revenue or assess value increases over that period of time sales tax again we're showing you what three projections could look like uh sales tax has been incredibly strong it actually if you look at 2020 that was the year of covid and it flattened that year if you were here during covid we expected like a 20% decline in sales tax during that year you know we put into place a hiring freeze and then we ended the year taking in a little more money on sales tax so again I think we were fortunate during covid that we didn't really decline in sales tax we didn't really decline in property tax revenue um but this year we're seeing a little slowdown in the property tax excuse me the sales tax we've made some projections the in the budget is two 250 million we're now looking at that range being somewhere between 235 and 252 depending on some of the assumptions that we we make but again strong growth over the last number of years here's what that looks like over time and again in a graphic way seven-year average of just under 8% again strong growth on sales tax this just shows you again what the on the expenditure side what the budgets look like again matching the revenues from an earlier slide we make some assumptions going into the upcoming fiscal year uh we're we're in the last year of our final meet and confer agreement we're um starting new meet and confer agreements that'll take place starting October 1st where in uh I think the second year of the collective bargaining agreement with fire the reason that says 3% is that agreement I believe was front loaded so it had a 5% increase overall it's an average of four we also include 4% pay for performance for other employees Group Health estimated increase of 5% 4% pay you go increase is tied to the tax base increase and and then we look at prior commitments and implementing the bond projects that will then bring operating costs in the year that we finish those usually when you match we match the expenditures based on those assumptions with the earlier assumptions you saw on revenues um usually the expenditures outpace the revenu so we're always into then figuring out uh how we manage the budget in the up coming year here are some considerations for the upcoming Budget on the revenue side uh we do believe the tax base is going to grow what that looks like yet uh it's yet to be seen if we want to consider increases in the exemption and increases or doing the exemption for child care centers again that has to be done by June um we're going to talk again next week about whether we want to consider a street maintenance fee again we implemented a storm water utility fee increase of 15% in the current year and then we always talk about the water and sewer fund each year and what rates need to be to manage that on the expenditure side here's where we threw in parks in Greens space mayor also homelessness environmental programs uh uh we're not just wrestling with the general fund but we'll have Will Rogers Convention Center expansion conversations the EMS ad hoc committee 911 consolidation meet and confer and again evaluation of the recent fire Staffing and overtime you've seen that investment in transportation infrastructure and maintenance the conversation about pay you go cast iron pipe replacement which has been a priority for the water department I know the priority of this Council too uh coming out of the winter ice storm of 2021 we knew we need to accelerate the replacement of cast iron pipe and so we can talk about where we are with that we'll also be bringing to you uh how are we going to handle some of the capital projects they're going to have cost overruns we'll do that this spring as well and then yes we want to be competitive in salaries and benefits and I just wanted to take a minute talk oh Carlos did you have a question before he keeps going this question David I think it's probably included in your mind in that bullet point but when we talk about cast iron pip replacement and all you know trying to accelerate that that pace does that also take into account uh the 50/50 proposition when it comes between tpw and the water department because we don't want to get that funding Gap too big yes and I want to um both departments try to complement each other so if we're going to do a road project we want to know if water is going to come in later and tear it up to do something with cast iron pipe because we want to replace the cast iron pipe and then do the road so there is a lot of coordination both whether it's initiated by water or initiated by tpw to coordinate those so we only tear up the road one time Jared go ahead yes thanks David um on that last slide can you just share um a little bit more on the study on Market competitiveness of salaries so we do that each year we take groups of um positions and do Market uh salaries and we include public and private sector Dan is here she can get into more detail about it but we are our goal is to be competitive in the marketplace and we collect again like I said data that is both public and private sector and see where we stand and if we need to adjust certain positions they're adjusted as part of the budget if we need to move ranges of a group of positions we do that too that makes sense thank you and just uh kind of touching back on the earlier conversation I think some of the challenges with the market study is especially for some of our um jobs the wages are so low that um folks that work in our city can't live in our city I and so the study may say that other jobs are also paying low as well but it wouldn't justify moving those wages to ensure that our residents can live in the city and or our employees can live in the city and so I just want to put that caveat on that market study that I think we're going to have to which is why I've requested in the past work session but I think we're going to have to um look at where does That Base need to be for city employees to live in the city of for and then do an adjustment to the bands across the entire um all of our job classifications any other questions keep going David you're good all right so this last part uh when we think about fiscal Health uh I'm going to try to stretch us to think about how we think about how healthy we are not just today but if there's somebody sitting around this table 20 years from now right or 40 years from now because I do think it's our responsibility to make sure we're doing the right decisions for the long-term health of the city and I I got a couple ways to do it so one is when we think about debt and Reggie is going to be coming to us this spring with our debt program for fiscal year 24 and 25 and we are going to go into debt right of whatever he brings us for the next 20 or 30 years right so when we think about water pipes water line I got 30 right okay it's for a long time when we talk about roads or Parks it's 20 years and we spend a lot of time going into projections of can we sell this debt and pay it off under the assumptions for the next 20 years right so we want to be conservative on the projections so that a future city council is sitting around is not trying to figure out how to pay that debt off that had already been incurred right so that's what we're trying to to do so we've got uh long-term projections Reggie's going to be coming to you to talk about what it looks like for the upcoming year and the next Bond program Reggie have you already said that number you announced I announced it it's about 800 million right so when we think about the next Bond program it's too late now Reggie right about 800 million when we think about the next Bond program which will be in 2026 now a lot goes into that but it's a commitment that we have the ability to repay it and when we meet with the rating a agencies they look at us and what I like about rating agencies whether I take it back you don't always like meeting with rating agencies because sometimes you think they're too rigid on stuff sometimes you think they're not flexible but it is an independent objective assessment of our fiscal Health right and when you look at where we stand with the different rating agencies it's highlighted in yellow there so I like croll the best just kidding they give us the highest ratings but if you look at Fitch and S&P both doublea and Moody's has us at a double A3 right and when we we ask him each of those rating agencies what are our strengths and what are challenges and so I wanted to share a couple of those as we we talk about again the assessment from an independent objective third party so when you look at our strengths on this slide it's we're a growing economy that's good we've got strong reserves and I want to thank the city council for we need to grow the fund balance we've been able to do that over time uh on our challenges um there's a couple things out there that I want to hit this is Moody's scorecard and the economy in that top category if you look across we get a lower grade in Resident income right so the highest rating we can get from Moody's standpoint is a Single A in that category and unless we increase the income of the community per capita incomes over time it'll never get higher does that make sense yes if you look at our per capita assess value right our total assess value divided by the population we can only get a double A based on how we compare with other cities and so when we look at are we getting over time two of the measures that we use are are our per capita incomes increasing over time and is our assess value per capita increasing over time faster than inflation does that make sense that from a uh rating agency standpoint that's how they view our ability to repay debt are we getting more prosperous over time to be able to pay our debts where we really struggle with some of the rating agencies um is on the pension side and our fixed costs right so if you look at that fix fixed cost ratio of almost 20% so of 20 cents on every dollar in our budget is to pay for the pension or Debt Service does that make sense and the higher that percentage the rating agencies look at you as as you're getting burdened with more and more fixed costs over time and if something happens to your Revenue that really is a problem because you got to pay the pension you got to pay the debt service that's first dollars out and it reduces your flexibility with the rest of the money that we have yes on the uh so on that 20 cents between those two how do those two break out uh debt service is not really a problem if you look at our debt it's more of the pension liability over time okay you say there like a 7030 split there 8020 or uh I'll I'll get the the exact numbers for you and we'll bring that when we do the the debt plan uh that'll be coming this spring okay thanks so this is why we focus on economic development and attracting assess value and attracting high paying jobs because it'll move both of those lines this is per capita property value growth adjusted to $2,000 the good news is these lines are going up right that's the direction we wanted to go that's not guaranteed and you've seen over time that it's been flat or even has gone down a time or two and here's per capita income growth the blue line is in real terms and the orange line is adjusted for inflation and that line line hadn't moved much can can you do me a favor and go back slide one slide before okay so um I guess what happened in 2010 because the that was the real estate recession of 0809 I think impacting cess values okay and so but and and we don't do we ever anticipate that line growing closer together like it did pre no Mark Mark was a resounding no for those of y'all that couldn't hear him behind me okay it has a lot to do with the exemptions that you're offering okay great um thank you and so we again back to Economic Development that's why I believe economic development is so important attracting the higher paying jobs bringing in the assess value because it allows both those lines to increase and from a rating agency standpoint in their eyes it improves our ability to repay our debts and cover our fixed costs now I'm gonna end with this these are the top 20 cities in 1960 I picked 1960 that was a year I was born but to give a what happens to cities over a period of time take a look at those 20 10 of them are gone are not in the top 20 anymore that includes Detroit Baltimore Cleveland Washington DC St Louis Milwaukee Boston New Orleans Pittsburgh and buffalo and the question is what happened to those cities over that period of time Detroit at one time was one of the richest cities was the fourth largest had 1.6 million people now has less than somewhere around 600,000 a million people left just think about this is the top 20 now Fort Worth shows his number 13 uh but you in parentheses are where they were in 1960 there's a projection I recently saw I did show the mayor with which takes the 22 US Census and grows it by the rates recent rates of those cities and for a 24 estimate has Fort Worth at number 11 right and it and San Jose's falling because it's actually declining in population but if you look at these differences from that time to today if you look at per capita incomes they declined over time so as people left the per capita incomes of those cities actually declined over time some of the assessed values declined over time right as people leave there's it's hard to push up values of property when people are leaving and so I think our interest is to keep what I say keep an eye on the ball and that's are we creating the environment that people want to move here that are bringing the jobs and the assessed value that pay for the services the infrastructure over a long period of time so this is just from a book um and prosperity is not guaranteed and it's all of our responsibility to make sure we do what's necessary over time to so that somebody I'd say a council sitting around this table 20 years from now gets to say the same thing that we're saying today with that I'll stop thank you David questions comments from Council no you're sufficiently asleep are you awake Macy please I feel like someone has to comment on this um this Slide the property tax Bas slide I think is the most telling and that's kind of I think should be the basis of our conversation the majority of it today the residential I mean the line is those are the users and I think that's the the deficit is the infrastructure that we have um I think that's what everybody complained about right we have all these new rooftops and not enough roads to service Emergency Services getting there and we don't have the commercial base to pay for those roads so I think that's really important that we keep the eye on the ball on that um but this kind of sums up where we are right now as far as um priorities um at least that's my perspective anyone else Council okay thank you David very much next is Hillary is going to lead us through Council vision and values hello everyone we are here again um so many of you uh went through this process last year really trying to establish what the Strategic priorities of Fort Worth would be and I've got some new faces at the table and I had the chance to speak with you all ahead of this um to get your personal perspectives but I think it's important as we move through today in refining what our strategic priorities are and and um establishing our values and Envision statements is to kind of take a moment to look at what we've talked about already so clearly you now have a more specific Financial picture in your mind of where we stand as a city you've also looked at where we have accomplished what we thought we would or what we thought we should over the last year um and and found areas where we think we need to spend more effort and so that's really what this process is going to be about is we we kind of put the nuts and bolts together last year what the Strategic priority should be we started feeling through how we could measure those how we could attach them to internal processes but now is where we really need to layer it into all of our thinking all of our systems so that we can appropriately measure over time to see if where we say we're headed is where we're headed and if we can afford to get where we want to go and all of the things we've talked about so um here we go okay so so the first thing I want to start with is just kind of this concept that last year we focused on the the middle section the map part which was we established our priorities and then staff came and worked with you independently um to put together some goals and we'll look at those again and in my pre-interviews with you most of you said that you still thought that that was relevant that you thought that your um District priorities would fit within any of those categories but we want to look at them one more time um before we give staff their orders to to kind of carry out and March with what you've said but today I also think we need to start layer ing in the overarching thoughts sentiments beliefs of this body and so in my pre-interviews with you I asked you about you know what kind of vision statements you you thought should be the overarching desire of Fort Worth where do we want to head what is our aspiration um as a city but then also are there those non-negotiables those values that should be embedded in every single thing all the things we've talked about today but also in everything that the staff brings forward to you uh related to any type of action that you're expected to take any kind of decision that you're expected to make um but also and embedding them in the Strategic priorities so that we assure that you know that value is is a given you don't have to question you don't have to add it in it is part of the the formula that gets to your desk in the first place so we're going to start there with the vision and values and and this is you know please give me your input I have put together a consolidated aort report of what you said to me ahead of this but I think now is where we need to hone in on what those really highlevel thoughts are that we share as a body that we expect the organization to carry out in in our um our work so just in in review a vision it's why we do what we do it's our Collective aspiration um it's sort of The Guiding Light it's the where we're headed or what we're trying to become and it's intended to be the motivation or inspiration for whatever it is that we're doing or trying to push forward um values are the how how we make our decisions how we care for people um what our organizational culture should be and and back to that non-negotiables thought what are those things that we should never violate and we should always incorporate so in speaking with you independently these were some of the vision words that came out of those conversations and where I'm not expecting us to put a vision statement together today what I do want us to to work through is what if of these are the highest level or the highest order that you would want included should a vision statement sort of be crafted after this session for you all to consider um but those those Vision thoughts were that we are Visionary um that we are stewards guiding our city into the next phase that we're a city of opportunity um that Equity is important across districts across the the the large land mass that is Fort Worth that we make deliberate decisions that are fiscally resp responsible uh we focus on continuous Improvement never being satisfied with where we are we have a strong identity um that is special unique and I think Elizabeth's word was magic uh was that yeah uh that there's a magic here there's something special about Fort Worth uh that that people can feel or or that we should we should capture that we're focused on people um we desire a high quality of life we want all of our decisions to be livable decisions not things that are meant to to inhibit livability um we value strong neighborhoods um we want people to have access to amenities that um connectedness is important Community engagement is important and Partnerships are important and so I guess from from from my perspective and and from the group's perspective which of those rise to the top of your list what do you think is the most important for the long-term Success Vision uh movement of Fort Worth yes Jared said yes all right the mic or not not say a lot of it is tied back to that quality of life because none of it matters if um there's a low quality of life right so well you get the prize today because we had an overarching sentiment last year when we built our program our strategic priorities that were quality of that said quality of life we didn't Define it specifically and so I I think you're right on target with what is it that delivers on that promise is the question what else is on this list that we find to be most important yes along a vision okay Gina or it could not be on this list and there may be something you've thought of since strong neighborhoods for me Macy um I think the fiscally responsible comment none of this can happen if we're not fiscally responsible Elizabeth for me it's deliberate decisions that whatever decision we make we do so um with a clear sense of purpose and future anyone else Allan so not on this list but I think important and we talked about it a lot last year is a safe City anyone else Janette it's Community engagement for me engagement okay okay okay so so from here we want to talk about values so so Vision where are we headed and clearly it is still where it's quality of life and and trying to Define that in a more meaningful way and I think we can use some of of these highlevel um Concepts that you all have offered uh to create something that that is more of a definition more of a vision statement related to quality of life which is what all of the Strategic priorities support so next let's move to our non-negotiables or values and so these were I've I've grouped like sentiments together um but these are the things that came out of our pre- interviews as well um and so I I'll just go through so the the first block is sort of the Visionary Innovative Forward Thinking or bold decisionmaking um concept then we move into Equity Equitable access and opportunity um then we move to the fiscal responsibility pragmatic and stewardship and then Safety and Security livable uh people focus compassionate respect empathy friendly collaboration partnership community engagement communication and then honesty transparency accessible trust Integrity accountability predictability deliberate and decisive and so if you were to say I'm gonna pick I don't know five of these and put them on my list of we will always consider these factors every single time we ask staff to do something every single decision we make should incorporate these in some way or this should be the foundation of those what words rise to that level I would say uh transparency and fiscal responsibility Elizabeth said stewardship what did you say Janette communication uh I'm going to say equal access and I want to also add that to the other slide when Elizabeth talked about deliberate indecisions make sure we really Hound in on equability okay whatever you I make up words okay I'm she know what I meant you missed our joke earlier you weren't here did I miss yeah the presentation on physical health and I said not physical health and you weren't even here for it so disappointing Hillary can we Aster next to all of these I mean we can have all these values in a great list but if we don't do it with Excellence it's not worth doing and I think that's something that we need to have in parentheses or Aster that no matter which ones we choose it has to be executed with exence okay are you ultimately gonna make us RI a mission statement or no not today okay I just was making sure I was anticipating the the forc trust fall that was going to happen if we not going to do that I feel better it will come back at some point but I wasn't not going to pull a fire alarm okay no no no no just trying to hone in on what is what's the most important to to you all no no that's very helpful yeah okay and I think I long this say to agree with Macy and and Charlie already noted it the Integrity piece you know how do you do something with Excellence with Integrity every decision that you make um people focus is on here but that should just be a given when you're in city government every decision you make is for the residents that live here um but these are these are grouped well together you know how do you depoliticize the term equity in a way that makes sense to people you know this is just about making sure that every resident in the city of Fort Worth has the services that they need to be successful and it's just that simple so I you know I'm I'm not um going to be eloquent enough today to explain that to people but it's about putting our resources where they're needed most and we've done a great job with that we have a wonderful rubric in our neighborhood Improvement program just one area in particular if your data focused that's where the money will go right if you're focused on um utilizing that and every Department's doing that so just thinking about that throughout our values discussion as well is important anybody else okay all right y'all have given me you've given me my nuts and bolts that I need Okay so let's review um back where we were last year um so now we've sort of got vision and values Concepts and um the the map if you will the priorities and goals that we worked on last year we're going to go through that but you know back to this some of you this is a New Concept because you weren't here last year but the Strategic visioning Loop is the is basically that council is taking input from citizens and staff and envisioning what the future of Fort wor should be and then handing it to staff to actually create the action plan and so part of that is a budget part of that is a CIP PL part of that is all of these policy decisions that you all will make and that's where Council affirmation comes in um once once those decisions are made once they're affirmed then staff now knows to carry forward and then part of today uh was staff coming back to you and saying this is what you said were your priorities last year this is what we've accomplished related to those and we we will refine that process moving forward um so that you can tell them yes it met the Mark or no it didn't and staff can adjust and we can start this whole cycle again so again we're at this sort of higher level envisioning where we're going not necessarily nuts and Bol but we do want to have a discussion about where those where the the um District specific priorities fit in to the to the overarching process where's the um the loop piece where Gina blows it up along the way makes staff re-evaluate everything come back to the loop we We'll add We'll add it's what council envisions is right there Council envisions she gets a little offshoot there uhhuh yeah right I forgot sweet little old lady go back to that quote yeah so so this is where we landed last year was we had this overarching desire which is that sort of vision piece that we're going to flesh out um moving forward uh with these three buckets or or columns if you will that supported that concept and it was Economic Development and Community investment Community safety infrastructure responsible growth and growth and financial responsibility and so as you saw in the report earlier we sort of broke those out because they're pretty broad areas and so today what we want to consider is whether um we can break those out a little bit further so that they can be better tracked and monitored and we can start applying key performance indicators and all of the data driven approaches that um that the lab will be working through and then we're also going to move into priori based budgeting and we'll have that discussion after this one but let's just start where we where we finished last year which was this and U oh this is really small my AP IES but um just kind of where we were then we did a quick SWAT analysis and I asked the new members this year to give me their perspectives but basically we we kind of captured that that the strengths that that the group saw um last year and then added to this year was AC being accessible to the public um good amenities bright Minds development process improvements that had been made fiscal Health which we just talked about uh generational interests Landmark institutions public private Partnerships strong City Identity uh sense of community um the council works well together in a civil way um that the city is responsive um and that The Branding efforts are consistent and are are paying dividends uh weaknesses we moved into budgetary limitations meaning that there's always limits you got to make choices uh the development process being slower or maybe less um effective or efficient than it could be following others rather than charting our own course lack of communication engagement lack of trust need more public sector support neighborhood disparities part partisanship prioritization by Council reluctance to modernize unwillingness to hear opinions of others um awareness of issues or policies and Staffing challenges so then let's opportunities is really where the the meat of of this is because it's it sort of informs where we're headed or or or how how far we wish to go so the the ideas were um we make bold decisions or can make bold decisions um we are in a growth pattern and that is a positive um Economic Development ment has been positive uh you've got strong educational institutions um Innovation Panther Island uh setting clear priorities which is part of this that we're working through uh unique character of Fort Worth utilization of City facilities we could use utilize them better or more um youth engagement which came up again this year in a couple of my interviews infill development job growth development input and addressing housing barriers so those were all viewed as um kind of the areas we might be able to to move the needle or make some progress on um and then obviously threats things like cyber security um unmanaged growth failure to set clear expectations uh losing your identity outside influence disparity something terrible happening um just kind of a point in time let's think about where we are where we feel like we are right now uh before we start looking at current issues so these were the things that actually came up in my interviews with you this year as we start looking toward toward whether our strategic priorities still remain the same if we break them out um and if they are defined um the same so the current issues were fiscal responsibility growth and development maintaining or improving Services Public Safety recruiting and retention infrastructure aging facilities homelessness animal shelters lighting Green Space and Parks seniors youth engagement attainable housing neighborhood revitalization mixed use zoning issues youth gun violence Business Development small business investment environmental justice Mobility um connectedness and thoroughfare planning and so some of these have already come up in today's conversation and we I just want to that for you to hear what everyone else is saying if anyone feels like they want to jump in and talk about any of these issues in specific um or if just the snapshot works I'm good either way does anybody need clarification definition no I I think I'm missed it but the infrastructure piece I mayor protim told me you guys did talk about uh P go already yes yeah be we have the same color on be good so I just want to just kind of reemphasize that yeah was that the right word thank you and so none of these none of these looked out of sorts for anything that I've heard so far today um and they all seem to be uh common or or uh uh current issues that that should or could be addressed within what we're doing um did any of these rise to the level of number one on anybody's list um attainable housing affordable housing okay um Citywide and not concentrated in neighborhoods of poverty is a big Focus for me in the next coming up year years actually depends on how long I'm here and Michael how long you plan on being here anyone else want to prioritize any of these on the list I'll go because I scream it from the rooftops Public Safety is still because again we could completely eliminate property taxes a community center on every block uh we could do all the right things the greenest grass the nicest Parks but if it's not safe it doesn't matter and that's not just from a violence perspective that's also from a traffic perspective uh that's from um more permissive environments now and the as we grow there's more opportunity for you know uh crimes against property and the somebody's car broken into because they left their door unlocked now they feel less safe so when we say Public Safety it's not always just a you know a lot of lot of folks think oh my uh they just think gun violence for example and it's more than just that just feeling safe in your neighborhood and that's one thing I hear all the time you know up Northern District 4 is no we're going to move somewhere else it's just not as safe and it's like well Locker doors that'd be fine however that doesn't mean someone's still not going to walk by so from the smallest to the biggest to gun violence um to uh you know actual murder um it's the broad Gambit so if that's not number one and that's not Contin ually addressed then it can easily get away from us like we've seen other big cities and then none of it will matter we can't bring people back and say oh look we're safer now or look taxes are lower or everything else so I that's always my number one issue anyone else keep going Hillary um I'll add maybe one more um and it may fall under aging facilities but not necessarily um and as we deal with the EMS um kind of work out of the ad hoc committee facilities may need to be Revisited based on the outcome of that work um and then with aging facilities um although it's not in my district it's in council member begs but um community centers is always something that's important I know Southwest Community Center um hasn't been improved in a while and so things like that I think we should consider also when we talk about aging facilities um our libraries and our community centers they they're important to the neighborhoods thank you Jared anyone else nope thank you Hillary oh Janette sorry sorry um I'm not saying mental health up there I think that should be something else okay that should be included okay okay so all of this to really get us to this next point which is let's look at our strategic um priorities again and the definitions of those and then let's consider whether or not breaking them out in a different way makes sense uh and then we need to talk about how we make sure that what our priorities are are represented as well as how we um insert District level priorities in the process so again this is where we were the overarching quality of life Vision um with the three buckets and this is how they were defined um I I went through these in our pre- inters and didn't receive any real you know specific feedback about changing them um most everyone said that they felt that any of their priorities or needs or or um District um objectives would fit Within These parameters so Economic Development covered everything from neighborhoods to job development affordable housing um uh a Community cultural assets does that still look reasonable okay yes Community safety um response times so earlier today we talked about code enforcement and animal um control and those sorts of things maybe fitting within there there's not a specific call out but um I I would assume that that is probably where that belongs okay any gaps there just based on earlier discussion for the last bullet point I I don't know how to adequately describe it but around schools and school safety and crosswalks in particular uh I'll build on that um councilman block if you don't mind I know one thing we have run into is um parking requirements vary based on school model for instance public Charters may not not necessarily have bus transportation drop off and pickup um and in the development services process I think it's important that we evaluate that so that we can ensure that the traffic flows um in front of the school um and the parking capacity and circulation also improves safety I'm particularly concerned with that as it relates to like parents and students walking to school and they're not being enough stacking capacity on the side and just looking at um better ways to help um our charter schools and all of our schools frankly during the development services process to consider um the um the impacts of their transportation plans on site Hill I think from our conversation earlier I'm not where sure where we want to put it but any bullet point regarding um homelessness efforts programming funding maybe under Community safety I guess I don't know I think it was under so we it was under Economic Development it says ensure affordable housing and address homelessness but it it's seems that that may not be the most I'm openminded I mean just as long as it's something we grapple with continually okay I agree if we could separate them because I think they're two separate issues okay can be addressed separately okay yeah good point not yeah okay and then we have um infrastructure responsible growth and fiscal responsibility that had to be a firefighter's phone go off it was uh-huh uhhuh so um this one we had connectivity of communities maintaining infrastructure and assets um preservation of parks open space um the reduce and instead of uh prevent the suggestion was that that should be mitigate negative impacts of flooding um provide opportunities for robust public engagement proactively plann for growth and enhance stakeholder relationships so this was um kind of that mixed bag of of uh you know F governance kind of related things as well as financial and infrastructure question for you Hillary in each of these categories and all of the goals that's they're all great with me I think what they're missing is any sort of metric we're trying to measure them by and I'm just wondering where does that document live and how do we all know what when we say enhanced connectivity of communities what do we actually mean by that you you've just you've nailed it so so after after last year's work and we kind of came to this common language this common thinking um the that is that's the next layer that's the next step is how do we figure out what the key performance indicators are how do we figure out as we start assigning priority-based uh budgeting all of those kinds of metrics and things need to be built in and I know that's what the lab is working on and so it's actually their suggestion for the next page that I will get to about breaking them out a little bit more specifically so so that they can hone in on those data points and track them more more um uh intently than what they were able to provide in the the report that was given today so really it's trying to get much further down that line um and and see what those key indicators are to see if you're moving the needle um and so some of that is going to be related to how the public feels about it but some of them may be dollar specific or program specific um you know how much participation or or the percentages of change and that kind of stuff that they'll be working on over the next year after we kind of settle in on this thank you g did you have something no okay anybody yeah Macy please um I think we need a line about leveraging relationships with the county other entities that we work with like trwd we mean I think we have such great relationships we make sure that we're continuing to leverage those relationships to get things done works okay okay okay all right so now let me show you where um staff is hoping we can head to some degree and that is to break those pieces and parts out so that we can be more thorough in the uh goals established underne underneath each of them as you saw it's kind of like we tried to get to about seven but some of them were metor than that and so this is the suggestion and then there's another version of it I'll show you here in a second just to see what your thoughts are um but it was that we still have this over our and quality of life but that we treat Economic Development separately Community investment Community safety infrastructure responsible growth and financial responsibility as separate pieces um to be tracked and measured and for goals to be assigned um does anybody have any particular feeling about treating it differently for staff to be able to track I jumped ahead to your next slide and I think you nailed it okay so okay so here's the next slide Tada and I didn't nail it was staff this this was staff's suggestion but um quality of life being the overarching that's where we're headed financial responsibility being the underpinning like everything that is done that's the foundation is we have to do it with financial responsibility um in order to affect uh change Andor progress in economic development Community investment Community safety infrastructure and responsible growth um we also talked about that as being a value um and I think it's important that we reiterate that as well but if if we feel that this is um a reasonable course of action I also think that financial responsibility being its own allows you to look at that at the budget as part of that as the priority based budgeting as you know fee discussions like whatever all of those things are I think makes it a little bit broader and maybe gives more flexibility thank Hillary Elizabeth um I'm interested in having a conversation around what our definition of financial responsibility is because I think for some people that's just a blanket lowering the tax rate right for me that mean financial responsibility means something very different and so um I would like a clear definition on what that means for us as we're moving forward if if we're if this is the underpinning of all of our um decisions anyone else keep going okay all right so so what happens next is if this is um acceptable we'll break it out in this this manner we'll work through um trying to further Define the vision of of um Quality of Life uh we will work on defining financial responsibility we'll work on itemizing goals or not goals I'm sorry values uh for it to come back to you all to officially adopt but also what will happen is staff is going to come work with you individually and independently to make sure that um your District level priorities can be represented within this document in some way and that we can work through the process of getting those in some way more more integrated into the budgeting uh uh process um how do we Elevate those things that are really important in your District in a way that is manageable um but is also effective for you and your constituents so um that that would be the next piece of this is to develop those action plans that support the goals um and then also creating those key metrics those success markers how do we know if we've moved the needle how do we know what we're tracking or what we're headed toward in those major categories and that's something that the lab has already started their work on um but they will be creating in a more robust way for you all to consider in the future um and all leading to Priority based budgeting which is which is what um we're going to cover next in this session so um I think that is we already did those um so really uh uh moving forward what what we would expect is um last year we we created the document we talked to you all we never officially adopted it and so as part of that affirmation on that Loop that I showed you um we need for that to to come before this body so that it can be officially adopted that's a transparency piece as well um but that gives staff the indication that this is what they're to move forward with um and then we will work staff is working on a way to incorporate those District specific priorities in in what whatever the right format is so that they can be considered um uh in the budget process and in other systems that exist already in the city um and then of course they'll have their action items that would fit within those goals and under those priorities um all leading to budget development priority based budgeting um and ultimately to the other side of the loop which is the reporting so we need to make sure we know what you want we know what your expectations are and that we're reporting back to you if we met it or we didn't meet it um and that we're appropriately resourcing um the areas that you find prior priorities for the organization so um y'all have given me what I need this will come back to you um in a more formalized format and it'll come back to you through your lab most likely um and unless there is any anything else I will get out of your way and we can start on priority based budgeting I think is next is that right okay Jared um just a comment on that last slide um I just want to say that I appreciate that we're initiating the conversation around District specific priorities um because sometimes in the budgeting process there are real needs in each one of our districts that I have personally found difficult to navigate the budget process as it has been um in order to deliver things that I know are really important um and it's just I appreciate it so thank you for that like one of the most important parts of this is is how do we make this part of every living breathing thing in the organization so you know staff should be referencing these priorities to you all um as you go through the year but it's also do our processes reflect what these priorities state that you all have adopted and so that is part of the moving forward from this to is really trying to to to get it meshed within all of the systems of this the city rather than having it sit kind of on its own um it needs to become part of the organizational culture in operation other questions thank you Hillary thank you okay our next item is priority based budgeting and I think Martin McDaniel is going to kick things off for us yes thank you mayor uh good to be with you this afternoon um I'm going to be crisp so I can get hand this off to Chris and then also Christian so I'll introduce Chris um and then Christian wants to talk about exactly what um was just brought up is how can we talk to you all and get your input about your individual budget priorities before uh we're well into the budget process so we have a plan for that we'd like your feedback on that plan or we need to do something differently but before that uh we want to talk to you about priority based budgeting so we've been at this uh now going into our second year and we want to uh lay it out for you as far as how it works and it's really about getting away from that traditional line item budget um to focus more on priorities and and actionable priorities so we've um hired a group called resource X represented by Chris Fabian um Chris's company um works with I think something over with over some 60 60 different clients across the US and Canada um and to his credit his company has just recently been bought out by Tyler Technologies which is one of the largest Erp firms in the US um so he's very successful at doing this and he'll talk to you about his experiences in other large cities and smaller uh so really excited about what he's going to talk to you about and then finally uh I just want to mention um Christian is going to talk to you about how we can get uh in front of you in short segments about uh each department and their priorities early on and then how we're going to plan to visit with you early on as well so with that Chris thank you all right thank you everybody for having me here uh my name is Chris Fabian I'm plugging in a third computer to is not enough for me but I took some notes during the early presentation that I want to relate to all right um it is it is my honor to be in front of you Council and mayor and your team who we've been working with this is your second round in priority based budgeting um thank you Mark and thank you David for setting the stage and thank you to sgr as well um my agenda here in the next half an hour is pretty simple I want to introduce you to what priority based budgeting is all about and what the city is embarking on uh I've heard all throughout um today's uh Retreat uh about the future the long range plan into the future that you're trying to create um and of course our goal in priority based budgeting is to ensure that you have the resources aligned to fulfill this great future that everybody is is talking about so we'll have a little bit of priority based budgeting 101 uh I'll talk conceptually about um why priority based budgeting is different from other budgeting processes and I'll also show you some of what the city of Fort Worth has accomplished to date and where we're going in the future of priority based budgeting at the end when I turn it back over to Christine chrisan I'm sorry uh so close um we will talk about uh where the Fort Worth lab and the budget office is taking this for the rest of this year as we do kick things off I wanted to um bring up a a movement that is taking place in local government and the movement is called rethinking budget buting uh in the city of Fort Worth is is is effectively um representing the the poster child point of view if you will for what rethinking budgeting can be um rethinking budgeting is an initiative that is led by the government Finance Officers Association that's gfoa that's where your budget and finance uh professionals get their continuing education um and the mcma which is the international city and county management association uh why they are leading the charge on something called rethinking budgeting is because the types of challenges that that you all have been talking about today during your retreat require something different from our budget uh I don't know if you know this there's a little budget trivia um but the line item approach to budgeting the traditional approach to budgeting that we all practice celebrated its 100th birthday uh around 2020 line out and budgeting has lasted the test of time it's been the way we budget uh so you know I like to think sometimes hundred years ago there was somebody like me talking about this great new innovation called line item budgeting uh and you you have to wonder like what came before that um but line item budgeting has has established for us consistency um it allows us to track spending it's it's a an accountant dream um but when it comes to fulfilling key priorities like safer Community like you've talked about like economic Vitality um line item budgeting is perhaps in need of evolution uh and that's what where we have come in I practiced in local government myself and I was working and serving for my elected officials uh when they had these key questions that we'll get into that we had to approach the budget uh in a different in a different way um so what what is it that I'm talking about so here's I'm going to draw you a picture of this concept first and then we'll get into it but um line item budgeting if you're all familiar with line items looks like um describing how much we need for personnel how much we need for supplies and services uh and during the earlier part of your discussion um I not not once that I hear any of you talking about in order to fulfill our objectives I really think that we should be talking about our office supplies not once did I hear any of you talk about how um you need to address the post line item in your budget you talked instead about programs you talked about safety audits you talked about uh School Crossings emergency response resource planning in HR across the board so you talk programmatically about what you want to do that's the how to achieve your results and yet we budget at the line item level um and so that that needs to be improved so in priority based budgeting all we do is we uh reenter the dialogue on what you're already talking about what are the programs that you want to provide in order to fulfill the priorities that we're trying to achieve so we don't escape the line items it's just that we're adding more Nuance uh we're coming to understand the line items in your budget in a new light the programs that they fund and the outcomes the results the priorities that you're striving to accomplish um and quite simply if I ended the presentation today that's the most important part is that in your shift you are connecting line items to programs and connecting programs to priv prorities and that gives you new insight into what you are investing in where you want to invest in the budget process overall and that quite simply is the first of three value propositions that I'm going to frame my presentation around uh for today um which is reframing the budget around your priorities quite simply that's that's exactly what we're going to do so when I worked in in local government um and you have this kind of uh picture yourself I know um probably hard to read in the back but this is a a line item budget uh if you if you feel yourself getting annoyed as you look at this chart right now that's the intended uh outcome so you're looking at these line items and this is exactly what a line item budget looks like and when I was in local government U my elected official you're laughing that's not you're like you've gone hysterical losing your minds about the Li on and budget but when I was in local our elected officials would look at this and say we just had this Retreat we're talking about priorities remember that we're talking about uh Community safety and economic vitality and the question was where do I go in the budget to find that where do I go uh what page can I find out are we getting safer and more prosperous are we investing in economic Vitality community in development infrastructure everything you just described where do we go in the budget to find out what we're putting into these key outcome areas and so um our Endeavor was to Simply connect the dots so um what this begins to look like conceptually this is one of our organizations they too have Key Community priorities just like you've described from a safe Community economic Vitality they have their own specific definitions uh and if you look at anyone in particular here shared Prosperity uh just like you they have specific definitions for how that is achieved what we want at the end of the day we talked about um transparency overall in our fiscal responsibility approach we want to be able to see the budget from a results first perspective and so that's that's what we have uh created is a simple process to do that um for this community for any of those outcomes and just like you will be able to do what you're working on right now we can ask how much are we investing from our operating budget uh into these key outcome areas that we're trying to achieve um so and then what you want to do from there this is the same budget this exact same budget as your line item budget it's just seen from a different point of view it's seen from the priorities that you are trying to accomplish not necessarily from the line items uh perspective overall if we wanted to dive into any of these particular priority areas we could and what happens when you do what do you find programs programs that you're investing in so priorities are are achieved by virtue of the choices you make to fund programs and so that's our peeling of the onion and of course we can see within any given program what the cost is and what the workforce requirements might be uh that's the the key linkage and if we wanted to go all the way down specifically to the line item level we can do that too so we we won't be losing line item information it's just that we're building the story back up line items to programs programs to priorities to see the budget from A New Perspective overall and that can help to guide uh where you're putting your resources go ahead okay can I ask a question just for clarification so is this something we're going to be are suggesting we start or is this just a visual I can't talk I'm tired visual you know what I mean visual of of what you're trying to explain thank [Laughter] you have Chris speak for me I'm sure he'd love to careful I'll say you're on your way let let me address it you're in the midst of this you have three departments police HR and tpw who laid the groundwork uh at towards mid to late last year and now we have um a few more departments who are underway so we're we're building this perspective for you which is what we are trying to lay some expectations for what you'll be able to see a little bit later on this year as you engage in the budget process is that helpful so I guess my question is whoever codes it that's determine that determines which category it's in so we as a council decide what coding is going to be available for the lab and then someone in the lab will code it for us is that the process um let me try I I'm probably too much in the weeds already but you're good uh so we're taking um right now with the Departments who are working with us actually I can show it on a little bit of a road map slide here um they create the list of things they do we call it program inventory um sets an inventory of programs that they offer and support uh they are allocating or associating their line item budget with those programs so we can find out what it cost them to deliver any of the programs in their budget um and then those programs get aligned with Council priorities set by you uh to come to understand how do these programs actually help deliver the priorities that you just heard about from sgr and that's why that work is so vital was coming to understand that and furthermore as we get into performance measures that'll reemphasize it will help us test do programs actually have that cause and effect relationship with priorities that we think they do uh so we be able to test your hypothesis you bet just building on that question real quick um what's the timeline for this being implemented Citywide I know it takes time to do it um in batches but what does that look like um good question we're taking it in phases uh as we go and focusing primarily within general fund uh departments overall um I think between Mark and Christian and uh David we can get back to on their overall vision for city-wide roll out but we're um definitely putting emphasis on the general fund that makes sense to me okay sounds great all right um so first and foremost this was the the absolutely simple breakthrough was in order to show the to answer those key questions how much are we investing in our priorities we wanted to take a line item budget and make better use of it um we couldn't just go line items to priorities we go line items to programs which you all get to choose uh and then programs to priorities overall um and now we have a a pathway um I do want to show you uh some of your work in the in the first phase um taking programs putting cost to them aligning them with priorities overall um you council member you were just asking what progress you I was showing your conceptual slide and helping to demonstrate it but this is what you have done you took your line items we're able to see programs here I'm demonstrating within uh police department host of the programs that they offer tpw included here and HR were the first Brave boldest uh departments to go through this work um and then we aligned and measured those programs towards your key priorities Economic Development uh infrastructure Community safety fiscal responsibility in addition to other key reasons why you provide programs like degree of mandate cost recovery change in demand population served so you had you have a head start and then we're building on that for this year as we um prepare to actually start to share some of this data with you all right so um the second component second value proposition I want to get into so if you think about what I just showed it's all well and good to see your current budget aligned with programs now associated with priorities but what happens in this year's budget process as you're getting ready for it um what you're hoping to see are proposals decision packages like you normally uh get a chance to look at those associated with the programs you provide um tied back to those priorities overall uh when I heard um the mayor talking about tpw in some of the earlier remarks the mayor said um tpw everything you do is community safety and and a lot of what tpw does absolutely impacts Community safety just like it might impact infrastructure just like it might impact economic vitality and we've heard the adage that if every we can certainly associate so many programs you offer with the priorities that you're hoping to achieve but if everything's associated with a priority where did we get to you've heard the adage if everything's a priority then nothing's a priority uh so we're trying to find out how can we differentiate um how can we really take a look at all the um David mentioned resources are finite uh so tradeoffs might be necessary how do we do that when you're in the budget Blitz I saw some of these meetings last year every decision package that moves forward has a great case to make but how when you're in your seats do you say that one proposal is actually more impactful uh than another and that's where priority based budgeting is going to be important in the budget process itself so um just a a snapshot you know other communities Mark mentioned um we're working with 60 communities now in 300 In Our Lifetime uh this is Flagstaff Arizona they have Key Community priorities just like yours and when it comes time for the budget we want to see every program that they are offering every proposal tied to a program I'm simply I'm drawing your attention a very busy slide to that little bar try with the green on the top you want to be able to see proposals differentiated uh one versus another overall that's going to help you make difficult decisions in the midst of uh an era where you have tremendous prosperity still have finite resources to approve only so many budget proposals and that's where the prioritization is going to come into play uh overall um just as as the city of Flagstaff enters their uh budget requests they can see what is requested um by Rank and priority the rank and priority come from those programs that have the greatest degree of influence on the priorities you're trying to accomplish and over time you're starting to see that very little is even coming from departments who are requesting uh lower priority or less aligned budget requests for decision packages in other words everything that they're requesting has some degree of priority but we still need a way to start to differentiate and that's where the utility of priority based budgeting comes into play in the budget process itself uh so this is where we will head I want to B mention that for you all um again with the first three phase one departments who went through this a little bit last year so you took your programs uh they linked programs to priorities all of the priorities you're striving to achieve and then decision packages were linked to every program what that meant we had 128 programs identified from police tpw and HR um 105 million of uh decision packages were reviewed and scored across 1,200 different metrics for impact and relevance as we could start to see only from HR police and TP W this is not Citywide we could start to to see the alignment of those decision packages that's the number of decision packages submitted from these departments uh prioritized amongst one another um and begin to to see that differentiation you could start to see the differentiation on decision packages linked to community safety versus those that had the highest impact on economic development and Community investment uh ultimately decision pack with the highest impact on Workforce Development some of those from HR obviously um so with the more departments who are starting to participate the greater the differentiation that we'll start to see across all of your priorities overall um so this is this is a great start phase one was exciting to get underway get some key Concepts um phase two by the time we get back to the budget process this year starting to see from all of the Departments who are participating I think this will be a lot more interesting to see programs decision packages now entered into the mix linked back to the priorities that you're just talking about with sgr um last but not least so if you think about uh the the two that I've covered um you it's it's one thing to see the budget from a perspective of your priorities that's great uh it's another to be right there in the thick of it when decision packages are being presented and you can differentiate and scrutinize across the highest degree of impact um but ultimately when David was just going through your your fiscal Health presentation uh as you can see there's not infinite money there is only a finite amount of resources and so priority based budgeting lends itself well to also offering you an an uh an interesting lever in the budget process and that is looking for areas for resource reallocation um I'll show you this is uh one of our communities um from the city of Pittsburgh they have been reallocating resources to the tune of around 10% of their budget uh overall over the course of last few years towards infrastructure safety uh Economic Development and sustainability they do that by finding program opportunities for sourcing program efficiencies service level changes uh and and revenue enhancement overall and how they do it is they use the same priority based budgeting business intelligence to say and this is this is um kind of fun what programs lend themselves well to a sourcing discussion what programs lend themselves well to an efficiency discussion what programs lends well to a service level change discussion overall are they programs that are growing in demand what about programs that are status quo what about programs that are actually declining in demand but have a high degree of impact on your priorities we're trying to set the stage for you all to say if we frame your program offerings in a certain way you can engage in a discussion about which programs need resources and where you can reallocate resources overall uh it's both on the revenue side uh your city manager mentioned that um it's not just expense reallocation but looking at Revenue Solutions as well um but to be sure where do we have Partnerships and sourcing and program efficiency opportunities on the expense side too I want to bring this to life a little bit I mentioned Pittsburgh um it's helpful you know I think everybody can conceive of a resource reallocation idea uh but how does this tie into the program data that you're putting together so um here's a line item postage in Pittsburgh I bet we could find out uh from the Fort Worth lab uh the budget office how much postage is being um appropriated throughout the city of Fort Worth and and with the best of our knowledge we can say from a line item we can understand which departments are driving a postage budget that's what Pittsburgh is showing here so you have the water department half a million of the million dollar postage budget you have parks with 100,000 you have Finance those are the main drivers from a departmental perspective and if you had a hunch that you might be able to save some money on postage you might say well I know the Departments that are driving it uh I bet we could save money on Postage and maybe we could try to cut it by 10 % and if you went directly to these departments part of the reason I'm belaboring my story right now is hopefully giving you the time to imagine what programs Drive the postage budget in the water department that's what you kind of want to know you want to know if I cut postage I think we can get away with it but what would I actually be impacting and the point is without programs in the mix we have less visibility uh on where that postage budget is being allocated um I bet you some of you have already been thinking about this and you would have identified that in the water department we mail utility bills that's what drives our our postage budget and that's what's going on in in Pittsburgh here um we send out notices we collect uh samples for water quality and we send them back to the lab those are programs that require the use of postage to mail and deliver things and when we have that level of insight that's when we can get into strategy for resource reallocation in Pittsburgh's case looking for paperless options where um to be sure they had to invest in new technology to go paperless onetime expense uh in order to save on an ongoing basis their ongoing postage budget you add up all these little Solutions that's how Pittsburgh comes up with 41 million or close to 10% of their operating budget to reallocate um Coming full circle back to you all we want to be able to start to find out across everything you do what do you offer that offers leverage for your programs what do you do that's not mandated what do you do that uh the demand is going down what do you offer where it doesn't serve the majority of the population uh doesn't align with priorities um or program revenues don't cover the costs of providing those programs we want to seek out those opportunities too and push for um new ways to consider your resource reallocation so that will be exciting in this approach too um just as you've gone through the very first for into phase one departments with human resources police and tpw we we saw insourcing opportunities meaning you're a bigger city in a region with smaller entities around this is blurred out because this a first first round of data it's not Showtime ready but just to give you a teaser of the kind of opportunities ahead um perhaps the city of Fort Worth might be an insourcing partner where others are struggling in your region to cover the cost of a program they could save money money by having your organization provide a program pay you entrepreneurially the revenues that you generate compared to the small incremental cost to absorb those programs might bring new resources into the organization we definitely see this when we work with cities of your caliber that are very large the Kansas Cities the denvers uh the Seattles um who have these types of opportunities as well similarly on on the partnership lens where do you have programs where they are a high priority they really rank highly but there might be opportunities where other entities are providing them where can we look for program Partnerships we've seen this work internally as well with larger cities so it's not just Partnerships with external agencies but where do you have redundancy or overlap within City departments to look for Partnerships and centralization uh so that's the perhaps the third lens um overall in priority based budgeting we covered reframing your budget around your priorities just so you can see your investment we covered uh the second which is scrutinizing when decision packages are in front of you how can we differentiate those and the third is um with all of this data on the programs you provide how can we frame discussions for resource reallocation and new Revenue uh generation so you have more resources than maybe what you're counting on in the fiscal Health projection uh so with that um that is the conclusion of my presentation and where we're headed uh I did want to pass over to Christian um and certainly entertain any questions or Reflections from Council thank you Chris yeah Charlie so just a quick question how easy would it be I don't want to say to manipulate the data but to manipulate the data for example some some programs could easily fall into different categories like say Street striping for example it's amazing we all want it um but if we want to say okay we're concerned about Public Safety well are we going to put it over in infrastructure or we're going to go ahead and move it over to Public Safety just so we can say Hey look it's meeting this criteria so yeah great question so in the scoring process I try to stay out of the weeds a little bit but now I like it because that's what you want to know is like how do you understand how these programs impact your key priority areas so programs are evaluated against not one but all of the priority areas that you might be able to accomplish um what that does for us is we don't have to arbitrarily pick one priority and say hey we do Street striping or sweeping uh that belongs in infr structure and you might say well that also keeps us safe and you might say Well it also might have an impact to the extent that we are um uh adequately planning our traffic flow downtown it has an impact on economic Vitality so we want to understand the impact that any program has on all of the priorities and programs that have the greatest degree of impact on all of the reasons why you provide it your priorities are by our definition your highest priority programs overall as differentiated from programs that have less to do with the evaluation criteria so they're not mandated they don't recover their cost they have less to do with Community safety infrastructure and so on that's how we get the ranking you're diving in anyone else questions yeah Carlos um I'm still trying to wrap my head around you know what you said and a lot of it's partly in the details like uh you know CM Hill referred to maybe it's in the coding but where you have departments that share budget responsibilities on a single priority okay uh how do you distinguish between those budget allocations you know towards a single priority and redundancies can you give can you go further in your question I'm gonna get there well I'm saying I guess is the coding sophisticated enough to distinguish between redundancies and shared responsibilities of a priority a budget priority um so let me let me uh Venture try to get closer to what you're diving into and say um what if uh we have a homeless we talked about homelessness today right and in many of our organizations you might have um direct uh mental health support and resources that might be coming from more of a um social or health type of approach you might have encampment cleanups that is coming more from um a public health but also an economic Vitality perspective overall um you might have a public safety element to it as well so you have multiple departments who are taking a role I think hopefully I'm hitting the mark and and that's not redundant they just have different aspects of contribution towards a similar priority issue um like adequately dealing with homelessness overall where we would get excited about Ian I shouldn't have us used the word redundant but we I the the centralization decentralization discussion becomes especially exciting in a larger organization because you you've grown so much over time um so where we start to see things are maybe there's public information responses that are taking place from every single department and maybe we just haven't had a chance to take a look at um all the programs that each organization each department is providing and say we're all doing something similar here is there a more uh um combined forces approach that would actually allow us to provide this a little bit more efficiently my department can stop inves in new resources free up some people to reallocate towards other high priority needs and we can come up with a centralized approach that's the kind of thing that we're looking for okay I think I can follow that and then also I guess that presumes that you would also take into account um say public private Partnerships we rely on Partners to help us out you say in the areas of homelessness yeah where you can quantify those contributions I mean again this this proposed system does is able to process all that right yeah so one of the categories and I'll I'll wind my way back and Christian I'll get back to your side here right after thank you uh um almost there okay so um we have other categories besides priority impact that are revealing and one of them is um the city of San Jose was the first about 10 years ago to do this degree of Reliance on you as a service provider and what that question was really about was are we the only possible provider of this program or are there others be it public private nonprofit who are out there now and we just haven't had a chance to really come to understand what they're doing uh overall from a Reliance perspective now now council member let me layer in some other of the data points which make this more nuanced what if you're you find out that you are the Sole Provider there's no possible partners of a program that is a high priority very much aligned with your priorities overall you might say that's great we're the only only possible people who can do it and it really links to our priorities overall that feels good that's the right use of resources but what about the opposite what if you're the only possible provider of a program that doesn't have alignment with your priorities you might say who cares uh that's um the kind of discussion that we want to get into is we might be the only possible provider of a program that has lost its relevance over time and we got into it for all the right reasons but we want to come back and apply some data to say does it align with our priorities are we required to do it what are the reasons does it pay for itself um so high degree of Reliance low impact on priorities are the users willing to pay for it with special um revenues or fees so it's a very distinct bucketed conversation for a for a unique kind of program that meets those criteria that's what we want to try to isolate good example thank you anyone else questions Christian do you want to add anything while you're up there sure I just um as Mark mentioned we've been sort of strategizing in the lab about ways to increase our engagement with you throughout the budget process and earlier so we've heard you you know loud and clear on wanting more context seeing more detail aside from just supplemental requests or decision packages so that you have that deeper understanding as you're engaging in your districts and then making decisions in the budget process um we think that priority based budgeting is going to be sort of the important tool to begin that journey and really make that happen and so on the back of Chris's presentation on priority based budgeting I just wanted to share a couple of preliminary ideas that we have for this you know F school year 25 budget development process for sharing more earlier and more consistently and so happy to engage with you and hear your feedback on any of these ideas um so the first thing I wanted to sort of double down on and mention Hillary mention it in Mark 2 will'll be setting up time to meet with each of you on your fiscal year 25 budget priorities that can can be overarching generic specific District specific we want to hear all of that we'll get very familiar with your priorities um identify patterns and sort of how those fit into the big picture I think everybody's on board with that idea um and then we'd like to add into the budget calendar some smaller shorter sessions work sessions to preview um a couple departments at a time um or maybe by priority starting in as early as April April May June um not all day budget work sessions but short Snippets that are fast-paced um and so we'd like to show you how the proposed budget is progressing um part of this through the lens of PBB will be those program inventories that the participating departments have undergone so we'd like you to have an understanding of the functions of each department the core programs and what they cost and maybe also the discretionary programs and what they cost because those that are maybe more discretionary than core give us the insight into resource allocation and where we can measure you know competency by reduction um and not or or reallocation and not just adding programs and not knowing you know where they fit in um do you got how do what's your reaction to maybe some of those shorter earlier work sessions uh in that vein is that good idea thumbs up idea thumbs up Janette go ahead okay chistian I think it would be maybe easier on you guys if we were invited to those dep departmental budget meetings with the city manager's office and just to sit in and hear what's going on um not necessarily us maybe staff and they can fill us in but that's another option okay thank you I I would I would say the smaller Snippets are very helpful you're welcome to invite your District directors you do not have time to sit through all those I've sat through them they are real long and all of you are busy but your staff could be invited absolutely to give feedback or to you but I think the way you're proposing it is a really wise way to to do it so that they can digest some of their priorities and give you some feedback before you get too far down the budget process great good yeah we're hoping that um we'll we'll play with it and maybe a reaction to this whether we should do it by department or by strategic priority I'd like to do it by strategic priority and that way you can see you know maybe you have a session on community investment that's the Strategic priority and then there's subtopics like homelessness and then under homelessness you can see police is police is homelessness Neighborhood Services code and so you have this more holistic view of everything that's feeding up into that you know strategic priority subtopic rather than going Department by department and having to struggle to make those linkages with dollars program performance okay any other ideas that you would like us to consider as we're sort of rolling out the budget calendar or um interjection points that you want to see you can let me know we can talk about it more sorry just one more um I think it'd be a good idea to hold you know the com Community input is at the end of the budget process so would it be possible to um maybe create an online budget survey like we did for the parks wreck and open space survey and have that before um you meet with the Departments and get the input from the community ahead of time instead of at the end and then that way maybe they bring up something that we haven't heard about or we may forget to mention yes I like that idea I'm looking at ametha she's nodding her head that we can do that um part of the reason that we've streamlined some of the functions we have streamlined in the lab um like the 2050 comprehensive plan you know that engagement is kicking off and I think there's a lot of opportunity to um synthesize all those engagements that we're already doing and so maybe some surveying um and sort of multifaceted engagement with existing meetings will be helpful um Council M Williams did you have a comment yes building on that um that was a really great point I know we have meetings also at the end and some of the feedback I typically Al here is that um the community engagements at the end of the process so the budgets baked and any input they do give is kind of anay is there a way to frontload some meetings um in the spring so that then we can kind of Round the Corner in the in the budget timing around August to still do community meetings but we can offer multiple opportunities for residents to give engagement on the front end and the back end to make sure that the product of the budget was delivered in a way that acceptable to the residents as you're responding to that let me throw this out there um we all struggle with the same people showing up to every meeting and I think if we looked back at the last few budget Cycles those Community meetings you have maybe 0.005% of the total population of 4th actually attending we just need to accept that reality um that our typical format doesn't really work in Comm engage I'm sure you could point to every city struggles with this true so what technology could we employ to reach people probably via Tex the same way you see campaigns pulling people to say are these your priorities is where the city's kind of headed let's just brainstorm around that I don't want us to create more Community meetings for staff to attend that the same people are attending or not attending but Community engagement is very important and each of you probably have some creative ways to do that or some ideas so maybe we brainstorm on that with you and come back around so we're not pinning you down to a certain process thank you I appreciate those comments I have some ideas myself in my new position about more robust public engagement and in a more diverse way so we'll add that to our agendas when we come and meet with you one-on-one and sort of hear you know maybe what works for you and then I would encourage council members doesn't have to be today in an open form if there were things in the last budget cycle you experienced even before that or you were frustrated or decision package you thought should have been included or think just vet that now so that they know um moving into this next um phase of priority based budgeting I think that'll just help everybody be more successful so I'll mention something I mean earlier whenever we saw those colors you know the pessimistic optimistic base like I said I was breaking down Marine style for me is great so that's I think being realistic about it and not just throwing just a number out there but that would be super helpful that's great yeah and certainly if we're engaging earlier you're going to see a lot of that like preliminary scenario building because we won't quite know you know till later in the summer so y I'm glad that was helpful Gina I think we all know our districts uh historically I've always had very good numbers when it comes to public meetings but in light of redistricting I really don't know what to expect I do know that the city of Fort Worth has a wonderful YouTube channel and for whatever reason people watch it and so having something available for the citizenry would be helpful in terms of explaining you know the budget but uh I would still like to make sure there are inperson you know options for people absolutely I really like the priority based budgeting like the concept and David continue to commend you on the uh creative ways you bring budgeting you know to this body uh is finance still fun I haven't heard that okay so great any other questions or comments Council no Chris thank you very much we're sad to work with you thank you why aren't you on a beach if your company sold there's there's a lot of good reasons but um one of them is I I love this work uh I come from the public sector and uh this is what I'm all about so thank you for having me thank you very much Chris appreciate it Council will'll close things out with defining expectations with Hillary is this like a counseling session what are we goingon to do here it's like a DTR for Council that's right okay all right so we've we've been through quite a bit today and I just wanted to take a moment to make sure that we're all on the same page as we walk away from today um first things first is I will shape up all of the discussion that we had today and provide it back to you all so that you can officially adopt um your priorities strategic priorities as you can see with the priority based budgeting that becomes so important on how things are tracked and measured um and so you heard from staff what they plan to do coming back to you to try and address some of your District specific priorities through the budgeting process um but also this should be an ongoing conversation so um I I hope that we have all the pieces and the parts that we need this isn't the end of the conversation it will come back it needs to be affirmed by you all so that staff can can charge out and they can develop a budget with this new kind of framework in mind um and one that meets your overarching priorities but then also your District specific so are there any specific items that we discussed today or that we glossed over today that you have concerns about or want ensure or part of our next steps moving forward concerns comments questions no then we're good we're in good shape we're good to go thank you very much Hillary Council thank you all for doing that today I hope this this setup was helpful not to ask you to come back up here on another day um utilizing a work session time period if you have more um feedback for Hillary you know how to get a hold of her and I guess with that I'm looking on the table we're good me adjourned she