[Music] [Music] [Music] Mayfield council member at large Patrick Baker City attorney Julia city manager office and I think we know that the manager is here but I'd like to call on Ed Driggs um for a uh good evening everybody my name is Ed Driggs district 7 I wanted to let my colleagues on Council know that even though we're not having committee report out today in on it so we were talking about whether or not to proceed with that date on the 20th and the I think unanimous opinion it wasn't a vote but the unanimous opinion of the group was that uh we should should proceed in order to stop that unintended development so if you have any questions about it or don't feel that you would be ready on the 20th please talk to Allison or me and just be aware that that's coming that's I've lost one of our Law Enforcement Officers I've never seen a city pulled together like like Charlotte um and so what I just want to say is acknowledge the families today and tomorrow the next day and the next day and the next week and the next month and the next year and let's not forget um Chief and I talked this morning and just the outpour of support uh the resilience of the city um things and that's from a 2020 to 2022 time his property taxes in the last five years where you have Raleigh who's raised him three times Durham three times Winston Salem four times and Durham three times and I know we're not those cities but I think it's important to set the stage for how we've managed uh the city with the strong rating we are are we able to think about providing more given the constraints we have around the revenues you guys have been great each January we have our annual strategy meeting and it's the you set the stage it's Playbook it's the things are important to you and you've been consistent but as we're starting down the pathway on those two areas you'll start with their employees that's the foundation for our success and it's important when we start to think about our employees it's it's almost like we have almost three work streams we have Public Safety we have operations we have Administration administrative so when we think about Public Safety some of the things that we had to do were around Recruitment and Retention the pay plan structure changes and any new other challenges around increasing minimum pay career path opportunities and new incentives and the for the administrative staff it had a lot to do with uh feedback we received was flexible work options and career opportunities so we're going to continue to support career growth in the city uh last year's budget we talked about a specialist give a shout out to Angela Charles we have so many folks that are participating from water so we can learn a lot from the water system and we also have almost 20 apprenti ships Citywide so compensation increases um what we're doing for this budget and again I I want to start off by talking about what we've done during the pandemic what we're doing now what we're trying to do in the future ourly employees you may recall an FY 23 we at a 8% increase and in FY 24 a TW a 6% increase 6% or above so I don't want you to just lock into the 5% what we're doing is something similar to last year and it helps us with compression our salaried employees what we have is a 4% Merit pool much like uh the current year by November for those 40 Hour Week employees so compensation is important but also there's a access to information so what do we learn from our employees they want financial support so we have a coordinator for help them with understanding how to navigate for what are the different uh incentives or programs that are love to live in the city so we need to make sure that there are opportunities for our employees to live in the city and we've had theing a home anywhere in a corridor and we're setting s aside funds for not only city employees but County Employees as well as uh CMS and that's part of the NES commission recommendations we're also launching a new initiative in partnership with CMS where we we want to create a pipeline of students 80 um upon graduation we're leveraging our arpa funds we you've approved 4.1 million um previously we have $5 million that remaining and arpa funds that around Workforce Development so we're looking forward to that Workforce Development strategic plan that will be finished this year this calendar year let's remember we talked about U we have salary employees the folks that are hourly and let's talk a little bit about Public Safety but we're also doing more than just uh compensation we're investing in reducing the workload of air police officers to Safe uh Charlotte uh and we have um really gotten that call response of close to 80 compensation increase for our firefighters but we're also adding 72 positions uh 57 firefighters because as we're building these stations that are coming online as we're addressing the growth we need to um staff up fire also we talked about inspections uh last year we're adding 12 and inspectors and three civilians I also um fire we have $107 million of arts and culture quarters of opportunity minority women and small business strategic energy action plan in safe Charlotte so start with affordable housing the last three Bond Cycles um we've had more funds in the last three Bond Cycles than we had in the previous nine Bond Cycles so if you start to think about this 100 increase the fond in funding in arts and culture ecosystem workplace giving had gone in which we have debt on and that we pay debt on these facilities and we couldn't let the lights go out so we started off with um a request that if the city put in 4 million could the private sector also put in 4 million over a period of time the private sector I guess took our opening bid and raised it by to and came in with 6 million um ASC and infusion fund organiz ganizations with limited exceptions um there are a few organizations that are outside of the city that would be funded by the county um and what we would do is add $9 million to these organizations U much like it has been three of existing Focus areas so the concept is how might we deliver on the most Equitable sustainable infrastructure and clean energy investment in Charlotte's history while building black wealth has made it very clear that is how they're going to help us with an innovation team with three St staff and technical assistance we're also implementing our mwsb programs and policies they you may recall that uh recently when the city put $2 million in to launch Charlotte small business growth fund um that actually helped pull in another $38 million so that $40 million over a 4year period are going to help 2,000 businesses with 70% of those businesses being estimated to be businesses of color the Charlotte business in inclusion what we're doing is focusing on mwsb subcontractors see how we can get them to be primes and in business development we continue to support amp up and next Charlotte that is graduating companies and we're seeing some wonderful things happen in our ecosystem uh wouldn't be a budget presentation without talking a bit about CA it's a fabric of our organization sometimes you look into the budget and try to find a line that says CF I I don't think that's the way we look at it anymore it's much like the corridors of opportuni is what we do and we're starting to get accolades ranked uh in the top 20% by the American Council for energy efficient economy and we have an A minus and you know I sometimes you don't want a a minus um but for disclosure Insight action for a superior Citywide sustainability efforts when the national average is a b so I'll take that that a minus any day of the week um we're also implementing the existing plan while adding a new Focus to Safe Charlotte much of the work is being done uh in the referral process emphasis on age 17 and Below property and violent crime at risis youth firsttime offenders and repeat offenders and so this budget sets aside $3.5 million for the work that will come out of the committee and it should be consistent with what are the recommendations of the committee but we're also having opportunities today in our corridors of opportunity with their mayor's Youth Employment Program where we're having 150 mayup individuals in the corridors this year a three-time increase from the summer of 2023 as well as new Partnerships with teach for America in a in our corridors as we start to talk about alternatives to violence as well as our Hospital based um violence Intervention Program which we call Boost we're finding that for every $1 that the city invests it's worth $3 that comes from um leveraging the federal government the private sector and I would have to say kudos to representative Elma Adams for bringing home significant dollars as it relates to our alternatives to violence and also for the recent uh award from Atrium to the Boost program that is the hospital-based initiative we talk about safety and you can't talk about safety without having a conversation about what's happening in uptown we've always looked at this as a three-legged stool where we or or three pillars uh the quality of life the public realm and E Economic Development while there are programs that are happening in uptown and I um kudos to uh Chief Jennings as they've been able to reduce violent crime through certain programs I think it's important to have this five million doll investment as we start to think about the built environment also and quality of life that we have in uptown and so I'm I'm going to do my best Teresa Smith and read from right to left which she always confuses me when she does that um but this is where we have been with mobility and if you start off uh going right to left June 2022 we had our strategic Mobility plan and I think the the room more or less it where is this thing going and then a year later we had um the Strategic Mobility plan the blueprint it really started to talk about areas and then most recently April 2024 we had a Strategic investment areas where we started to talk about those 16 bundles and it almost became I guess a framework for how we talk about other growth issues that we have in the city so it took us a while but we're feeling we're in a good place so if we start to talk about the February budget Workshop we had a steady state of 210 million in each Bond cycle we did that uh years ago because we wanted some certainty in what we could afford and what we could afford may be very different than what we wanted but it did allow us to have this fiscally constraint opportunity as we move forward and in the annual strategy meeting we came back and said well that capacity had grown from 210 to 228 but also there were some pulls on that capacity because of inflation and as I've you know talked about earlier when we start to talk about this blueprint and what we're doing in Mobility we have these uh 16 um focus areas or we call them Strategic investment areas and we also have the corridors of opportunity so while this is just a bunch of bubbles that you have right now I think here's the key with it uh we need to be um make sure that we're focused on um Investments that can maximize what we invest make sure it's scalable make sure it's measurable make sure it's adaptable you guys fell in love with some of the folks who visited US during the annual strategy meeting well we have a couple of them under contract and our concept is simply this we're going to put $2 million aside to look at Innovation Pilots throughout the city and that is microtransit mobility hubs vehicle to infrastructure Communications Transportation demand strategies how can we take technology and do something different and maybe more importantly how can we get projects shovel ready so the community can say okay we're not going to put something on the shelf and wait for 6 to 8 years so again um and as council member um barari would say what the punchline okay so if we look at this we could stay where we are at that 210 million 228 but hopefully you feel you have an appetite for some of the things I've shown you up to this point so uh we have a couple of options and I still believe when we start to think about a Transportation initiative that's bold and it's for this region I do believe the sales tax is the best way to go um when you start to think about the sales tax 30% of the people that actually pay the sales tax do not live in meinberg County so there there are different ways that the sales tax can benefit all of us but we have to come together as a region to be able to do that today I'm suggesting a one time infusion that's not sales tax related so my proposal is to take that $210 million plan Bond and have it moved up to $400 million and we do that a couple of ways one is I call it pulling forward capacity remember we have $228 million of capacity in each bond for the next 10 20 30 years so pull some of the capacity forward add some Revenue into it and let's see what we can do uh for this upcoming bond to show the community that we're ready to do more so what's in this upcoming bond that 400 million so the quars opportuni as I mentioned earlier we at 10 million planned I'm recommending we add 15 million to that that would be the highest on record for corridors and a bond um I mentioned that housing 50 is what's planned I'm recommending that it doubles to 100 again the highest on record and then for the transportation we had 115 million planned I'm recommend that we move it up to 238 million which is 123 million more than planned and that 238 million would be the highest on record for any transportation Bond let's do a deep dive into what's going on so if we go and compare that uh 210 to to where we're going at this 400 million um B bicycles was at 8 million we're continuing that at 8 million congestion mitigation was at 10 million we're continuing it at that uh but what we're doing is as we start to think about Vision zero we had 4 million planned I'm recommending 20 million so that's where this 210 is growing to the 400 we we think that Vision zero is a great investment and this would be five times more than what was planned same concept with sidewalks sidewalks we only had $20 million planned I'm suggesting that we move that back up to 50 million which matches the highest that's on record that's 2.5 times what was planned in the new program I'm setting aside $55 million recommending for the Strategic investment areas those 16 areas we had talked about you know it may cost you anywhere from 20 to 25 million for for any area but if you put that on top of sidewalks and on on top of congestion mitigation and what we have set aside for the corridors I really believe that we can move some projects forward faster and we're going to change the way that we deliver projects looking at Future Bond cycles for the 20 26 Bond cycle I'm recommending 243.166 is closer to the 210 but not 210 a little bit more 220 million in in perpetuity so how do we implement the vision I think it's important to talk about and we did this at The Retreat that I believe there's great value for our residents because the cost of service and that is when you take the city and county Services combined their taxes the water sewer storm water vehicle fees Solid Waste Services and Recycling Charlotte is about $1,500 less than the next large city on that list so there's value for the services that we provide and again we've already talked about our property tax history and where we are so what I'm recommending is a 1.5 Cent property tax increase okay nine10 of that will be in the nine10 of that of the penny nine t0 of the penny will be in the general fund and virtually all of that is for Public Safety we've gone back and looked at Public Safety increases over the last 20 years this would be the largest and this is helping fund that and then there is A3 C uh increase that we're moving right into the CIP and pulling some funds forward uh or some capacity forward and then A3 Cent for arts and culture for a total of 1.5 so what does that mean that's roughly uh $448 a month for the typical homeowner or roughly about $54 a year also there's $7 million left in arpa interest that is not programmed in this budget whatsoever my recommendation is as the council decides on how to use this remaining of $7 million of arpa interest that it seems to be for onetime issues and not ongoing and uh serving out region I said that I would book in this presentation with the Enterprise funds and how unique we are as a city and so there you know some things that and you know these things we start to think about Aviation and we have it's worth 5% of the state's GDP it's the 7th busiest airport uh in the world and we had 53 plus million passengers in 2023 it's not a small thing water and storm water it's it's important to note that we serve more than 1 million customers per day in multiple jurisdictions it serves four counties and four cities it's not just the city of Charlotte so thank you Angela there and then I don't know if Brent's even in the room but um the Charlotte uh Area Transit I just give kudos to up print Kagel stepping in you there 12 million people that are served annually um reliability is up a year ago you know 10% of the the trips were missed we're less than 1% the trips um in terms of vacancies vacancies have been cut in half um recruitment's up um Communications better moral better and to have Enterprise funds like these that are operated by the city that are exceptional I think that's kudos to the entire team uh the fees as we look at um the fee increases solid Way's fee is going to go up uh basically 78 c a month the Water fee uh roughly $430 a month and storm water 47 cents a month so while this is an infusion in the 2024 Bond I think it's putting us on the right trajectory this 1.5 Cent increase and this comes the time now mayor and councel where I turn this over to you it's uh your budget We Stand ready to uh answer any questions that you have over the next weeks and um I also want to thank uh Team Charlotte um all of the assistant city managers all the department heads especially our budget director Ryan Bergman and our CFO Teresa Smith um it's almost a year round uh Endeavor to put a budget together and we believe we've captured the essence of some of the issues that you've brought to your attention over the last year so mayor with that said it's your budget and I appreciate the time that you're giv me tonight thank you very much Mr Jones um in this is our process for now um You will get a copy of the deck um from the budget office and so you don't have to worry about kind of keeping what all the deck and the slides were but I think what's most important here is that I believe that you've given us a ton of information and so much of the work that we're doing you're getting the budget books now but I believe that we really need to take some time to read absorb review inquire and the inquiry is very very important because these are the things that if we are going to continue to do this work and start thinking about what we want to do and accomplish we will have meetings um and you can see that we'll have the public hearing on the 13th but there will be meetings for the council at any point in time for review of the budget and we'll be working with our com your exe Comm what are they what are they call the group of people that schedule our lives for us this constituent relations will get together with budget and we'll have um these meetings assigned they are open and um public meetings but there is an opportunity as you begin to think about what's in the budget and what you want to do I find that it's really really great helpful if you have a change that you want to have that you get the staff to work with you on how to you know what you want to do making sure that it's um consistent with what you want to achieve so that's what I think is um our next step so we've got some time um our budget public hearing hearing from the public before we make our own decisions and then we'll have budget adjustments and between that so we'll have time for the smaller for the meetings with the budget team and the manager as well so with that Mr Jones I want to say thank you to and amplify your comments to have all of your the folks that work in our community or for our community here today to hear what the recommendations are the opportunity to actually always kind of remind people that the people that are in this room are also often our constituents and so so it's great to have you come in I think you're great ambassadors for what we do and we talk to people about I especially want to say thank you to the group that works on this Ryan your team and Teresa your team terrific and so with that um we will take this document we're going to walk through it you're going to have an opportunity to make calls and and comments with the team that's put this together and with that we are adjourned on the budget presentation meeting so thank you very much everyone and look forward to May 13th is our next opportunity Mr Jones thank [Music] you [Music] e e