[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Wondering diamond island. [Music] down. N down. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] Hey Golden. [Music] [Music] [Music] happen. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Are you feeling? Wonderful. [Music] Are you feeling Hello. Wonderful. [Music] [Music] Hey, how are you? Hey hey hey. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Hey hey hey. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. N. [Music] [Music] [Music] For those of you who are attending um the council budget adjustment meeting for our upcoming budget year. Um, I want to start off by having our h having introductions. Not that any of you need to be introduced, but thank you for being here and present and but we're going to have the staff introductions starting with our CFO, Terresa Smith, CFO. Marie Harris, strategy and budget. Lana Mayfield, council member at large. Ed Driggs, District 7. Malcolm Graham, District 2. Marcus Jones, city manager. By LS, mayor. James Mitcher at large. Anthony Fox, interim city attorney. Ariel Smith, lead city clerk. All right. We do have two other colleagues. I know we we'll have them come out or come back as soon as they come back in to be recognized. Um this meeting is the time that we work on one of the most important things that this organization has and that as a city council which is to review and discuss the proposed budget. The city manager presented his budget and proposed that the and it is balanced and incorporates resources to many of our strategic priorities. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss any potential adjustments that should be made to the budget. So, we um had the budget hearing. We've heard a number of folks and thank you for those of you who have come to attend and express what your concerns are. Um that feedback was valuable. Everyone has had this budget, I think, since I said May 5th, right? And we've had some time to read through it individually as well as the opportunity to ask for clarification questions of the manager. Today is the time that we discuss it. the budget proposed together and formulate any changes that we may want to take for the process today. I'm proposing that everybody have an opportunity to express their perspective and have it take the time to um speak to the things that you find most important or most um advantageous for us. And then at the end of those comments, I would hope that if you have any suggestions for amendments or adjustments to the proposed budget that we begin to do that as well. Um, keep in mind that the proposed budget is balanced. So staff will have to do some work as they as you if we propose additional reductions or any um adjustments that are not one-time revenue expenses. As a reminder, the manager has identified 5.3 million in ARPA revenue replacement that is currently not allocated and available to fund one-time expenses. Also, please note that we definitely do not have the need to allocate the full amount of this at any time, which would be preserved for capacity for us to address any future policy decisions that may emerge in the future. So, with that, let's see. I'm going to turn this over again. Once after all the council members have been recognized and had the opportunity to speak, we will determine what will move forward and further consideration for any of the potential adjustments. Um, our policy has been that if there are five or more votes for any proposed change, that change will move forward for the staff to do more analysis of the cost, the considerations, and the consequences of that proposed change. And that item will be included for consideration at the straw votes meeting on Thursday, May the 29th. So, I believe that that is that I think there's something that has changed and I'm sorry, Mr. Mitchell, help me out on the date for that. Thank you, mayor. I think there are several colleagues that are scheduled to be absent on the 29th and so I I would rather us choose a date that most of us could be here. So, I think the next opportunity would be June 2nd at our committee report out, but I think there are several colleagues who say that the 29th they have a conflict, they will not be present to vote. Okay. So, uh, my understanding is that we're let us at come back to this at the end of the meeting. We'll get everything done and then that's something that we can work out with, um, scheduling. So, give the manager a moment to look at his schedule and see how that works for the organization as well. Yes. Yes. Clarifying question. Mayor Marie is going to get us started. Um, I want just want to verify. Do we want to let Marie get started or do you want me to go over what is in front of everyone? I'm sorry. There's a proposal, a budget proposal that's in front of everyone. Manager, did you want to kick it off and then you'll pass it so that I can share where we at? Thank you. Okay. I don't think that I have that. Do you Does everyone else have it right here? This is the blue dot. This is it. All right. The agency for neighborhoods. Oh, now I see the red. I am sorry. It was blue and now it's red. Okay, we'll follow if there's unless there's some discussion or not. Miss Mayfield has suggested that we do this. Mr. Jones, is that workable? Sure. All right. So, there we go. Whatever it takes to get us through this. Okay. So, uh, thank you, Mayor and members of council. What I will do, Council Member Mayfield, is after me, I'll kick it to Marie to kick back to you. Is that okay? So, um, uh, thank you for, uh, giving us an opportunity to provide support as you go through the straw votes. One thing I would like to highlight is what the mayor said earlier. Um, this council has done a very good job with managing the ARPA funds, the CARES funds, I think $300 million that came uh during the pandemic. And uh most of those funds, twothirds of it actually went back into the community as opposed to the um city's coffers. I hindsight maybe we should have clawed back a little bit of that, but that's okay. Um that 5.3 million is revenue replacement. So that's available with no time clock on it. So if that's something that you want to allocate over years, you can do it. if it's something that you want to jump in today. Um, and as the mayor mentioned uh earlier, there's no need to spend at all, but it is something that's available that's pretty different than I think any other budget we've had up to this point. You know, normally there may be a half a million here that's unallocated or things of that um um nature. So, so having said that, there have been conversations that are going on. Um, Marie opened herself up for any questions that council members may have and she has had some. There is an item that's in front of you that a council member may feel has placed in front of you that deals with financial partners that uh I think may be a a good starting point as Marie explains the process that occurred to have financial partners in the budget as well as what's in front of you now. But that makes sense. Mayor, I think if it makes sense to the Are there any questions from council members? That would be more important to know. All right. So, hearing Okay. Hearing no additional questions, we're going to recognize Marie. Thank you. Thank you. And as the manager said, I'll just briefly touch on the process. Um Cherry and her team, she worked with a lot of um the neighborhood organizations and really got the word out. So we had 50 people apply around $8 million worth and then so we and this was the first year. So if y'all recall you adopted a financial partners policy in October. So this was the first year under that new policy. So, we actually had teams of experts pulled from different um departments across the city to rank these and that's where you get the rankings that are before you and the manager proposed a budget based on those rankings and a few other criteria. Um then when we um and I've got feedback from several of you and then we'll go into detail on Miss Mayfield's um rankings, but one of Miss Mayfield's rankings was um her feeling that staff should have been a little bit more pure to the policy. In the policy it says we will not fund you had to to be eligible you had to submit less than 30%. So what the original proposal was for those organizations we just cut the funding um down to 30% but to her point they did not meet the upfront criteria and the applications were opened in the fall and closed in January. Oh sorry in the end of December. That's I was looking at Cherry to make sure I wasn't misspeaking what happened this year. So, and then but at front end on the application it said, you know, we will not fund more than 30% and that was stated on the front. And any other questions on the general process? If not, we'll go over Miss Mayfield's sheet. Yes, ma'am. Dr. Watlington. Oh, sorry. Um, just so I'm clear, I heard you say, and I'm sure you're about to show us what Council Member Mayfield said in terms of being more pure. Can you help me understand what your original position was um given the policy was there? And it sounds like there was some adjustment to be more in line with the policy. Can you just kind of explain what the rationale was? Sure. Thank you. So the first what we said just because of limited funding, we said if you're existing partner and you scored high, we'd fund you at a flat amount of we didn't fund an increase for you. So if you got 100 and you asked for 135 and you scored high, we proposed 100. And then if you're a new partner, we didn't fund any new partners this year or propose, sorry, propose more than a hundred. And then you were saying about the so and if you asked for more than 30% of your budget, we said we can't give you 30 that much, but we said okay up to this much. So we reduced it arbitrarily instead of saying you did not meet you're not eligible because you did not meet the criteria. Gotcha. Okay. All right. Any other Further questions, Mr. Mitchell? I I hear to Miss Mayfield, Meredith, if you don't mind, come back to M. Miss Mayfield. All right, Miss Mayfield. Thank you, Madame May. Thank you, Marie and Manager Jones. So, for full clarification. One, I apologize that this is the first time that a lot of you are seeing this. There was um a little bit of miscommunication and I didn't clearly share with Marie that I wanted to try to get this out last week so that we could have had a chance to look at it over the weekend. I thought I had but I didn't. So I take full responsibility of that. Last Thursday, Maria and I sat together for two and a half two and a half hours. So for me, one, what is the definition of financial partner? two, we staff identified that some of those that applied as a financial partner actually were better suited in a different budget line item. So we see that there are some recommendations through workforce development through housing through their budget where that's really where they where some of our applicants belong. The commitment that I made and that I suggested last year and coming into this year is one I would not because I'm guilty of it where I'll throw in a new partner that I would not try to add anyone in. We had an application process as was mentioned. We received 50 51 applications. The total was around 8 8.8 million in total. I had asked okay manager what is our starting point with financial partners? I was under the impression that it was 1.5 million. In actuality, we do not have a budget line item that says financial partners. That is a financial partners is something that we have done for many years, but those funds come from general funds when we had our those dollars and other things. So, if you look at the second sheet that's up on the board and that you all have in front of you, you will see that there is an additional column that says proposed based on criteria. It's the second column and then the third column was the proposed budget that staff submitted to us. So, when Maria and I got together, I looked at the two basic criteria. One, how did you score? So, first of all, let's look at the scoring. So what we did is we went back under each category, great neighborhoods, safe communities, well-managed government. We went through each category, total the number of applications outside of the ones that were already pulled aside because we identified additional funding source for them and just did old school. We get we did the average. We did the total number of their scoring divided it by the total number of applications. If you look to the far right, you'll see what that average score was. That was the first piece. The second piece is we all remember in our financial partner books, we had a number of items that when you scroll down and looked at their total budget, they were in the red because they were over they were 30% or higher of their budget. Some even requested honestly 100% of their budget. Those were the two basic criteria. So once we went together and I looked at the proposed based on criteria what we identified looking at the minimum scoring and if you look at the second to last line the application scoring you will see what the scores for each of the organizations were. So at the for great neighborhoods the minimum scoring was 47.77. We had some unfortunately that scored 46 or lower. Now what you see in the red was the fact that they missed one or both of the criteria either they were over 30% and or they didn't score. So even though you look on here and the scoring may be a little higher like we have just do it movement they scored 49 but unfortunately your actual total proposal was over 30%. So to try to keep this clear and to keep it as equitable and transparent as possible. Those were the two main criteria as we went through. I know all of us received a email earlier today for an organization that does really great work and that's PowerUp USA. Here's the challenge. Their initial proposal request was for 125,000. That 125,000 was over 30%. That is why they're listed in the red if we were to fund at 92 because they actually there were two different numbers in their application. So there was a little bit confusion in there cuz on the front page the request was for 125 in the actual application it had 92,000. So you had two different numbers in there. That was one of the challenges with that particular but that is what the red is outlining. The red is saying these are the organizations that did not meet either or both of the initial criteria. By us going back with Marie and I and actually averaging the scores, you will also notice that a number of additional partners were added in that weren't in initially. So if you look at the very bottom, the very bottom gives us a total of a,256468 whereas the staff proposal had 812. So that is an additional $444,430 when we just go strictly by proposed based on criteria. My suggestion and proposal is out of the 5.3 because I don't want us spending all of the 5.3 and I shared with the manager for me if we're going to spend any other 5.3. We learned last Monday that we have city staff that have had to utilize services and the amazing work that the HR department is doing under Sheila's leadership. I would say we put a million a million5 over a three-year period there to help with that. But if we were to agree and support this recommendation, that additional $444,430 would give us additional partners just based on the two criteria being one, you scored well and we reduce the scores and or you did not surpass the 30%. Then we also must step back and acknowledge that last year we had a number of concerns where some of our partners reached out where they did not receive their funding in a timely manner. We also have to acknowledge that some of those partners were brand new partners. We had to get contracts in place, had to do other things, but I'm still going to say for council, we take responsibility for helping to speed that process through. But at the end of the day to get us consistent as we move forward be very clear what the expectations in that application is because this is not guaranteed funding and we had to make some very hard decisions with almost 9 million in requests and having a million or less to actually fund here. So my hope is that the recommendations that I am presenting to you all that you understand why we have proposed based on criteria you also see what the previous proposal was and you see that we actually have a number of partners that scored well that were under the 30% and we have an opportunity to actually expand it and that expansion will be less than 445,000 and I would entertain any questions Miss Watlington. Um, so, okay, thank you for doing this. Much appreciated. I just want to make sure I understand. So, I'm going ask you a few quick questions. Yes, ma'am. Um, I think I hear what you said over here in in column A. If you if you read, you missed one of the criteria in one or both. In column E, yes. This this the application score. Yes, the application score. What does this color signify? The color doesn't the the color is so and Marie correct me if I'm wrong. The color really doesn't signify anything. Okay. When we were going through it together, some of them we highlighted just to make sure that they were over the average score that's all the way to the right. But you see like you don't see it all the way under safe communities. So, well, actually you do. If you look at it, the colors are the ones that were at the minimum scoring or greater. So like you see the first one was at 55.20, but your average score was 47. So you saw So anything above the mean anything above 47.77. That is what you should see highlighted. On one well-managed government, we only had two organizations. The average between the two was the 42.99. So that's why that's highlighted and so forth and so on. Okay. Thank you. That answers that question. And then just to follow up on the application score, what you've done here is take the application score uh found that calculate the average their Yeah. Their actual score. Yeah. And then you took everything above that and that's what's highlighted here. Yes. What was the what was the score beforehand? Like Okay. So the application score was their application score initially under the average score of which Marie you still have the original in the sheet don't you? Yes, ma'am. The the scores did not change any, but originally we said anybody that had at least 50 points, right? So, initially not by category. And my question was one, how do we get to 50 versus us actually going through each category, giving that total and creating a true average based on the scoring of the applications we received in each category. So, the 50 was an arbitrary minimum initially and you identified number. Yes. Okay, got it. Thank you. Um and then this 444 would presumably come from the general fund. That 444 would come out of the potential 5.3 million that has been identified which is in the general is it um ARPA ARPA dollars that we still have available. We still have 5.3 million. So if we were if council were to support this recommendation, right? Okay. And then the over here in the last column notes where some are marked already general fund. What does that mean? So I I may be better speak to that. So that was just showing you the current proposed budget. So the current proposed budget, these were the ones that were coming out of the 812 812,000 that were hitting the non-EP departmental general fund. Okay. So I thought I was understanding that the original 1.5 was coming out of the general fund initially anyway. No. So if you look at sorry and we can go into more detail too but if you look at the budget book on page 16 I believe the financial partners the 8.12 these match to those like Miss Mayfield said if you look at this first sheet you can see like some of them are general funds some went to ARPA workforce dollars um tree Charlotte went to the tree canopy care program so if it's blank yeah if it's blank then it wasn't in the proposed budget. Okay, got it. All right, I think that answers all of Oh, last question along those aims because I know that you were mentioning before that there were some that were on this list but got moved somewhere else that that we identified a different funding support system for it. So as an example under well-managed government in the original proposal by staff we had tree Charlotte in tree Charlotte in there but we really realized that that can go under our tree canopy program. So moving that to the correct budget then that gave us the opportunity for better alignment and it removed them out of financial partners which is what we're looking at today. Gotcha. Okay. So that's helpful. It's also a little concerning though. I say a little concerning because I thought we were optimizing the budget ahead of time. I'm sorry, Miss Dr. Watlington, if I may. So she So we did that was already in the proposed budget like tree Charlotte. What Miss Mayfield did then is say, okay, of the ones that stayed in the general fund, let's reook at that 812,000. But the one she's mentioning that got realigned to Treesart that was already in the manager's proposed budget. So that sorry that I know everybody joining us can't see but this um handout has the manager's proposed with it says what was optimized and then Miss Mayfield took all the general fund ones and all the other ones that were left the ones that were in the proposed budget on her sheet say general fund and then the ones that don't and then relooked at all those that were available for general fund funding. Okay. So then maybe there's an opportunity to educate the agencies then if their money is already accounted for within a department budget so that they shouldn't be applying to financial partners because otherwise we got extra dollars sitting around that are unprogrammed. No. So um I'll try not to make it more complicated. Marie knows that I struggle with this too. Okay. Um and maybe just the way we have to present this going forward. Um two things happened in this budget for instance tree Charlotte which have been a financial partner and I go back to what I think everybody's saying um Dr. Wallington is that if there is a pot of money that can take care of these different organizations, stop considering them in the financial partners. So Miss Mayfield locked into that and said, "So why are we even talking about Tree Charlotte?" Because now it has a funding source and we shouldn't have to talk about Tree Charlotte ever again. Lisk, if I have this right, was funded out of housing and neighborhood services this current year and while they applied to be a financial partner, it made more sense to fund them again out of housing and neighborhood services. So therefore, you take those I think those were 450,000 combined. you take those out of um financial partners and put them in this dedicated source whether it's the department or the payment and loo and then start the process fresh. I think I understand that. What I'm saying is the fact that there was capacity in the department budget to absorb it makes me question. No, what what happened is the um department budget said, "Hey, we don't want to fund this anymore. We want to send it over to financial partners." And I said, "No, what we're going to do is see if there's capacity within the budget." So, in other words, instead of freeing up $200,000 for housing and neighborhood services by pushing Lisk out, I pushed them back in. I understand what I'm and I'll just say it one more time. The fact that that exercise only happened because of this exercise feels like a missed opportunity to optimize the budget. But you've answered my questions. I appreciate it. Thank you, Dr. New Orleans colleagues. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, I need to get in line. Okay, I got you. Uh, so first of all, I really appreciate your effort to try and bring a little structure into this process. We were so far out of bounds. There needed to be a procedure. I appreciate that. Um I'm curious to know uh what is what is the basis? It used to be we talked about like a certain period of time during which these grants were given or that they were given in order to help organizations reach a self-sufficiency. Do we still have any standard like that? Are are there companies here that have been receiving the grants from financial partners for years and years? Sure. I I'll take the first stamp uh Marie. So, uh, great movement in the committee that came up with the number of criteria. Um, the committee didn't suggest that anybody would be out, but start a fiveyear clock with these. So um as far as staff's concerned they followed the the broad committee structure but nothing said that because we have some uh these partners have been there 30 plus years but no there was nothing that would indicate to kick them out because they were more than five or anything like that. So we're not considering that not this cycle. So, I raised that in part because if we're contemplating using one-time ARPA money, then we need to think about whether that's really one time, right? Or are we supporting sustaining uh grants that we've made in the past and which we will be expected to make again in the future. So, uh, Council Madriggs, um, one suggestion, I'm not saying that this is what I'm suggesting, but even if you wanted to say if there were $444,000 that you did in FY26 and if you wanted to set aside $444,000 FY27 to a different group of folks or the same group, that's kind of what you have in front of you with the ARPA funds. How would you like to structure them based on different um concerns? But in our current balanced budget, we have 800 and something thousand. Is that right? So any excess over 800,000 requires an offset. Yes. Either an offset on the revenue side that could be can go forward or you could use a one time from the ARPA pot. Uh right, understood. But what I'm saying, as it stands right now, the budget works, correct? The the run rate budget works this way. Correct. And we would have to get some help from a one-time fund in order to exceed the 800,000 because otherwise the budget doesn't work. That's exactly right. Um, and I agree. I think uh I wouldn't want to make multi-year commitments or even implied multi-year commitments from the ARPU funds. So if we want to kind of buy ourselves another year of relationships with the grant recipients, uh, but it would have to be very clear that we have no commitment to do this again or or for that matter to defend whatever the level is we arrive at this time because our capacity for this our run rate on continuing capacity for this as the budget is offered is 800,000 and something. So just want to be clear uh among us and and with any grant recipient that we are doing this in excess of our current capacity only to meet the criteria that Miss Mayfield suggested and and otherwise uh I'm fine with it. I just it's a question of uh messaging. Thank you. And Mr. I would like to add I think there's also a different understanding for some of us because I was under the impression that when we started this conversation last year that we were going to be letting our partners know moving forward here's that 5-year window. But we have we get to the next budget cycle and somewhere it seems that well council will never actually put our hands up to say that. And I am hoping that we get to the place where we make that very clear cuz I also agree there needs to be a window whether that window cuz I think years ago when I first proposed it I looked at Philadelphia and Philadelphia had a seven-year window cuz we know especially for small organizations 5 to seven years is that buildup time for them to help get to self-sufficiency. So I think council actually has to say here is the window whether it's five years, seven years, whatever it is so that we can be very clear when we go out to community to let them know that this isn't a given because one of our biggest challenges which a lot of us know is there's an expectation of certain funding. Well, now as we're trying to streamline the process when we're looking at budget shortfalls, we're looking at not doing a tax increase, we're having other challenges, we need to make sure that this is very clear for our partners. But they also need to know that there's an expectation because unfortunately we've had a number of organizations within the last 6 months that have had to close their doors because that additional funding didn't come in after our initial funding. So in a two-year window, organizations that may have been doing really great work are no longer around. So how do we ensure so I think it is a conversation where unfortunately we going to actually need to raise our hand one way or another and clearly identify what is this window so that we can make sure that our potential partners current and future understand. And I I think this was in the budget committee meeting to have this the the opportunity. I thought we had recommended it out, but but I I do believe that you did say yes to the 5-year window. However, you have an option to revisit this. I think that's the way it came out of the committee. Yes. Yeah. I'm not going to do it. And I'm not saying I'm not saying it that way. Yeah, I am saying it that way. We Right. That's I am saying it that way because we're either going to be consistent or we're not because every time we have the ability to arbitrarily say, "Yeah, that was a good idea, but let's do this." Only reason I this recommendation that I'm presenting to all of you and asking for you to support has this additional 444 in there is because we do have a little wiggle room and the 5.3 and that gives us a little buffer and it gives us opportunity to support even more organizations. But the base criteria were those two main items and from those two can we streamline this so that wherever council is around here we've given them a strong foundation and if I may uh agreed uh all I'm saying is let's think now about where we're going to be a year from now and make sure that the ongoing commitments that are implied or whatever uh can be satisfied from sources other than going back to onetime money. All right. Okay, guys. Break it up. Thank you very much. All right. So, our next Mr. Mitchell. Oh, yes. You're up. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, thank you, staff. So, um, I guess if I keep this at a at a broad conversation, let me first start off by saying, uh, city manager, thank you for the budget. So, to me, this is not a budget conversation whatsoever. That's about $5.3 million we have available and and how do we um still look at some of our organization that really needs our help. Uh I would tell you in in in our committee meeting we had great conversation but one thing we did not have at that particular time was the federal impact on some of our nonprofits. And so now as we fast forward, here we are in May. Uh we have noticed some of the federal government has not um either restricted some of the fundings or actually deleted from some of our nonprofits. And so that's why I would like to kind of revisit uh some of our nonprofits and some of them have done tremendous work for our community and they rely solely on federal funding as well as our local funding. So, uh, mayor, I don't know, um, if a motion is in, uh, is in place or you like to hear other comments first. Um, so which one is your pleasure? I think that we have some more hands in the hopper. I think that what we said is that every council member would have the opportunity to present what they want to and then we would go back around. Okay. And then take the votes and then be able to do that so that you've heard everything that the adjustments for everyone. Okay. So before that, so um but that's a great point that we have about the change in the federal um they're pretty much just pulling the money out. Even if you had it, it's no longer there. So I understand. So I think that's what your comment would be. Miss Mayfield has submitted her opportunities for financial partners as well. So do you want this from the beginning and go? It would be probably faster if we moved around in the queue um in the format that we have. So for clarification, are we done with colleagues asking specific questions about this recommendation? No, we're not. We're just about to start I think. So I'm going to if we're going to do this, we're going to do it just in a around the dis and we'll start with Miss Brown. Thank you, Madame Mayor. Thank you. Thank you so much, Madam Mayor. I know I came in late, pardon my tardy, but I did let uh staff know in advance that I would be late. It's a very important meeting, so I'm glad that I was able to wrap up another meeting in Steel Creek and get here for this meeting. We just pulled in so many different directions. So, I apologize for my tardy. So, thank you. At this moment, I saw Council Members Mayfield um email. I wouldn't be able to support it because it doesn't support the organizations that I support through the people's budget. So, with that being said, um I need to know, um let's see. First, I started with I need glasses. Save our for the struggle, Inc. Um Save Our Children's Movement, Inc. I see roof above is not being funded. And maybe some things were repeated before I came in, but I just need to say my stance. I'm fully committed 100% to supporting the people's budget. I understand that we have been giving funding to organizations over and over and over and over again. For me and my commitment and my stance has always been and will always be with the people of the community. And when I say that, I mean, I meet people where they at. I like to support different issues and concerns and the scales are unbalanced right now. So, I just have to go with my platform and what I support. if it's not coming through the people's budget, um I won't be supporting it. I I they do the work. Uh as I stated, you know, as a district rep with almost over 200,000 people in my district now with the fastest growing district with the bus the busiest district in the city um of of Charlotte, North Carolina, District 3, I would have to lean on the experts of the people that rally together that come and support. And so with that being said, I don't have time to go through everything. I'm not trying to be long-winded. My stance is with the people's budget with what they submitted. I see some organizations on here that I support. ATV, I was just told that they're going to be getting some additional funding. Roof above, they do amazing work for the strength for for the struggle, Inc. save our children movement and any other organizations that's through the people budget that I haven't had the opportunity to look at because we're so busy and we're stretched in so many different directions is what I'm supporting. That's it and that's all. Don't ask me anything else. That's what I'm supporting the people's budget. Thank you. Okay. All right. Did you want to go to Miss Mayfield? Do we want to question? Yes. Okay. Do we want to Okay. So, mayor, I'm sorry. I I think what's happening is everybody's answering questions related to Council Mayfield. Then we'll start the Yeah. Okay. Okay. All right. So, we'll now go. Mr. Driggs, do you have anything further to So, Mayor, I believe that the only questions came from Dr. Wellington and Council Member Driggs, unless council member Graham. So for my part as far as outlining the average score and the two criteria then unless there's any questions then I'm turning over and Mr. D. Anything else that you'd like to in you've made in your remarks. All right, Mr. Graham. Oh, I'm sorry. So this is specifically to council members Mayfield or in general? Yes, that's what we were going specific to the proposal by Miss Mayfield. Right. Okay. So you said specific, you didn't tell me what the question was, but to your point again, I'm not supporting it because it doesn't align with what I support for my platform, for my foundation when I first started. I haven't wavered from that. So I cannot support it even though they went over 30%. We're just going to just say they're not going to be funded or we're not going to allow we're not going to allocate funds to them because they didn't follow process. Let's not do that. Let's not let's not set that example. If that's what I heard, if that's what I heard because they went over the 30% because they didn't follow the processes in the application, I'm not willing to support that mayor and I see everybody's face getting disgruntled or whatever. It it is what it is. At the end of the day, I'm going to stand up for the people. If not me, then who? They got to have somebody they got to have a voice. I'm that voice. I don't want to be the voice of everybody else. I want to be the voice of reason. I do. But I also want to be the voice that stands out to support the people that need me the most. And that's those folks sitting over there in front of me. I'm not swaying from that. If we can't come to some common ground, then I'll just have to stick out stick out like a sore thumb. Absolutely. Understand. All right. All right. And Mr. Graham, we're going to start with you on this item. I I I really don't have any unreadiness yet. Uh, however, there are a couple organizations that I would like to add to the list uh for consideration whether the council consider it as a whole or or as a part of some type of committee discussion. I'm not sure if it's too late for that, but um uh the the organizations in question would be for the struggle uh just do it movement um block love Charlotte uh in addition to the organizations that council member Mayfield um has um outlined um for additional consideration. Um um so I'm I'm also willing, council member Brown, there are others that you think we need to include. That's a part of the people's budget. I I just pulled it up, so I'm looking at it yet again. Uh that we need to include uh knowing that um we got a limited num number of dollars. Uh and I think council member Dre is correct that, you know, we we can't continue to uh to borrow against the opera dollars because it is one-time funding. And um I I'm just going to defer to the council chairman. And I think that's council member Ashmeir and and Mitchell to kind of um lead lead me to the promise line with this one. Thank you. All right. Are you ready? Yes, ma'am. I am ready for sure. Um I I do and thank you, Madam Mayor. I do also agree with the notion that, you know, we can't continue to borrow against the ARPA dollars. Um the ARPA dollars was a was effectively a one-time opportunity that we can't establish a budget around. So I am in agreement that we don't want to establish a behavior of continued support or um even dip into the ARPA dollars for um continued support for either external agencies that do a fantastic job for the city or even internal a internal departments within the city. So I think we need to be good stewards of those dollars. I also believe that um this is this might be an opportunity to not spend all those ARPA dollars. We were in a position where because we we spent those dollars at a discretionary clip um we were able to garner additional interest funds that allowed us to u invest and support other things. I think we need to be prudent with the ARPA dollars um on a go forward basis. So I I certainly don't believe we need to go all the way down to zero for the ARPA dollars. Having said that, there are a few organizations that I'd like to shout out um that at this point don't have proposed funding. Um and Roof Above of course is one of them. They do phenomenal work uh for us and they undergurt um that effort that we have for our unhoused residents. Um and and they reside in uh their operations reside in district one although they they their tentacles are wide throughout the queen city. Uh, the Hearts for the Invisible is an organization that is really and truly doing the yman's work as it relates to street outreach and all of the efforts that that we're trying to do and that the county is trying to do. Um, Jessica does a phenomenal job. I can just speak firsthandedly from all the efforts of District 1. Whenever I call her or reach out to her for meetings, she's right there. She is trying to bring the services. She's trying to bridge the gap and she has a very small staff and that is one area that I think we could with a with not a whole lot of money uh with some investment can help her out significantly on the efforts for uh the unhoused within Charlotte Meckllinburgg. So I just want to lift up whatever we can do for Hearts for the Invisible for uh the Charlotte Museum of History as well. you know, they've been in front of us time and time and time again of of any museum entity within the city of Charlotte. We have some wonderful ones, but this one alone does so much outreach to the African-American Latino Asian multicultural community and supports their efforts um in terms of events and uh things that they want to do to bring the community together. a really important um gatherer for the city of Charlotte and specifically for the east side of Charlotte. They do a tremendous amount of work. Um I also really appreciate the work that the Carolina metros the the Carolina metros red does from a youth engagement perspective. We we don't need less of of youth engagement. We need more of it and the work that they do is critically important. Um, I would say thank you for the support for Tree Charlotte. As we continue to talk about development invest and investment even in looking at our corridors of opportunity, we hear from the corridors that they are are our heat islands that they need support not only from an AC perspective, but from cover from the heat that's only continuing every summer's continuing to get hotter and hotter and hotter. So I I I I underscore the support for Tree Charlotte and um I was I was able to attend uh the crowns the crowns award and Prospera is on here as uh as a small business that we are supporting and they do wonderful work. They want an award and so I'm happy to see that we're supporting them. Of course, there's aspects of the of the people's budget uh that I agree uh to a certain extent with what Miss Brown said. There's aspect of the people's budget that we could probably find ways throughout this um over $3 billion budget to support. I think we need to be creative around how we do that. um but in a sustainable manner because again from an ARPA perspective I I I would hate to make promises on ARPA dollars this year with a go forward understanding that those ARPA dollars are no more. Um so I think we need to just you know uncover some rocks here and and figure out where we can find some funding and support for those entities. Thank you Madame Mayor. All right, Miss Amira. Thank you, Madame Mayor. Some of the requests that I see here, I do support um I do support Council Member Brown's request for additional funding for the people's budget. I um I know there has been an ask for air conditioning especially we have learned through CAP how we have uh 300% increase in urban heat islands. So uh I know that's certainly something that's in our housing and safety committee um that's being looked at. So, I think we need to look at that and really adopt a policy that would apply citywide. Uh, so I look forward to continuing to work on that with Chairwoman Watlington and Vice Chair Mayfield. Um, I agree with uh some of the organizations that Council Member Anderson brought up um especially Carolina Metros and Roof Above. uh roof above it's our boots on the ground uh providing critical services uh for um our unhoused community. Well, I do have additional request uh number one uh I've heard from some of our city employees that our paid par paid parental leave does not include coverage for miscarriages and still birth. Uh I would like to add that. Uh hopefully it's we never have to use that but unfortunately that's not the reality. Um so it'll be rare but we would like I do not have the number. Um we're going to try to stick to the financial partners partners and then we'll come back around for because I was going to go all of it all at once that Okay. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Well, I'll come back. We want to resolve one thing and have a have Okay. So, well, I'll stick to financial partners. Uh, I if I can add Yeah, perfect. So, roof above. Um, well, when it comes to Carolina Metro Rats, there is already an organizations that was recommended as part of our manager's budget. Uh, that was actually not Foundation. Is isn't that is it Mar not whole was but what are you saying? I'm sorry. So they are we were told it's the same organization. So if you can clarify is the Metro and not hall Foundation is that the same organization? Um within their application uh they were not the same organization. They were the collaboration of Carolina Metro Reds and another organization together. Okay. Two different organizations. Okay. So, well, okay. Take out because I thought they were the same organizations. Um, second, I guess I need to learn what the difference is between the two organizations because uh we can save that for later. But let me come back to financial partners. Uh I would like us to add um C um sorry Okay. Okay. Yeah, I I'll come back because I'm trying to Yeah, I understand. All right, Mr. Mitchell, I'm sorry. May on the financial partners. Um I'm going to follow some of my colleagues and please support the Carolina Metro Reds. They are two different organizations in district uh in district three. Uh I'm going to join my colleague in district two. I think for the struggle has done tremendous work uh in the corridor and uh the male's place in district 5. Um Reggie uh need to continue to uh support Mrs. Singington. So th those would be my three mayor. All right. Thank you, Miss Molina. Um thank you, Madame Mayor. Um so first off, I think um it it goes without saying that this is this is some tough work. I mean, you almost wish we had the funds to fund all of these amazing organizations throughout our community um that are doing great work. Um we have some organiza we have um some organizations that are mentioned already that are already doing some I'm sorry. Go ahead, Miss Marina. Um, we have some organizations that are doing some, you know, great work and so, um, not to add or subtract to anything that's there. I think we've all seen a lot of the emails that have come in. Um, and I know that there's been some particular asks um that are already on the board that I could not agree with more. I think um you know um especially in East Charlotte, I have to lift up the fact that you know those 28 precincts that I represent um have been underserved, many of them for a very very long time. And so um I what I'll I guess concur with my colleague is the Mail's Place. They do great work in District 5. Um, and without that particular organization, um, a lot of our community members wouldn't get served. Um, also I I have to mention Carolina Youth Coalition because last year was the first year that we partnered with that organization. Um, and that is something that is absolutely amazing for our youth. Um, I can't speak to enough about the need for resources for our teens and twins. Um, as we see an uptick in crime across our city, um, every resource that we can deploy for our young people that can get them interested in college and goals and opportunities is uh, something that I know that we need to look at. Um, so I I absolutely ask um that my colleagues join me in providing assistance to Carolina Youth Coalition for another year because last year was the first year that we partnered with them. Um, I think honorable mention um is also uh Charlotte Museum of History. That's a substantial ask and I know that that's a big one, but um finding a way to bring them on as a partner. I know last year we were able to provide some assistance and I got a call uh from Miss White about um a partnership for an exhibit and etc. Um so you know I' I'd like to continue ongoing partnership and look for avenues to see how we can keep that East Charlotte um staple intact. Um, honorable mention. I got to say I'm glad that we are, you know, partnering with Safe Alliance with what we have coming to the Albamaral Road Corridor. I think that particular partnership is of particular mention to lift up and emphasize. Um also, um again, Dream Key Partners, they do outstanding work throughout our comm community. Um partnering with us to provide housing resources and other opportunities for our community, crisis assistance ministry. Um I think that touches many humans in need across our community, no matter where they live. Um just so many that we've been able to help. And like I said, I wish that there was significant funding, sufficient funding to, you know, lift up every last one of these, but those are the ones that I'll add for now. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Miss Johnson. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just have a couple of questions. Um, Council Member um Mitchell asked if we could send this back to the committee to revisit. Is that right? Is that what we're going to be doing if if as long as we approve that? I think it's already in committee if my understanding is correct. Isn't that correct, Miss Ashmir? So the policy the policies in the committee but what Mr. Mitchell requested was that the organizations some of this request could come back to the committee so that we can make recommendations. Okay. So then this is just kind of precursory um us discussing if I think it's trying to make sure that Miss Mayfield has presented um a position for this and I think we're trying to figure out is that what the council would choose to do but then we're also picking up as we're going through that these are the um financial partners that each council member wants to support. Okay. So, I agree with Council Member Mitchell that the committee could take a look if there's a way that we could support some of these more of these organizations. I don't recall. I was trying to get the 2025 budget um approvals printed, but it seems like there are a lot of organizations that just aren't getting funded this year, and I don't know uh what what happened or what's different, but there just seems to be um a deficit. I I would ask if we could take a look at page 246 and 247 in the budget. So, I'm going to be consistent and ask about the hospitality funds. Um 246 and 247. 246 and 247. So, I wanted to ask about the tourism the hospitality and tourism dollars and ask was there any of these do if we could go over the the balances? Mr. Manager, I want to make sure I understand them correctly. So, the convention center tax fund is the is the balance 93,521600? So, council member Johnson, could I have the CFO address your questions around the Yes. Yeah. Great. Okay. So yes N 93521600 is the total revenue and then you'll see that balanced with total expenditures of 93521600. So, all of the funds are allotted for in this coming year. Yes, there there is a portion there at the bottom you see reserve for future years. This will go into fund balance to help with future projects, future debt service, uh future commitments that you've made. So 27 million 39, excuse me, $27,39,985 is reserved for future years. Right. Correct. Okay. And if that's the convention center fund. So the convention center debt service fund there's what what's the balance there? So for convention center debt service you have 15 510 425 as revenues and then you have the same amount for expenditures and that is specifically for debt service interest and related uh bank charges. Okay. Okay. And then the tourism fund. [Applause] All right. The tourism fund is 57,748 for both revenues and expenditures and reserve for future years is 2 million779215. Right. Correct. So my my concern is is consistent with what it's been for I guess the last five years. We have a pot of money that we're not using for that we have the opportunity to use. And there was one expense in the budget that wasn't funded and I think it was for Charlotte Boom. The Boom organization is $90,000. I think we could attribute that directly with hospitality and tourism. So those are the kind of consequences that we have when we have a a fund that's excluded from our operating dollars. So I just want to bring that to your attention. There's $90,000 that Charlotte Boom was a great organization in District 4 and throughout the city. That's an opportunity for us to improve and for us to be more inclusive and equitable in our funding. Um I will say that I support the people's budget um which includes organizations like roof above for the struggle um heal Charlotte freedom fighting min uh missionaries or I hope I didn't get it wrong Kenny I'm sorry but as a second chance city you know we definitely should be funding the reorgan uh the re-entry organizations I also want to lift up crisis ministries I saw that they uh received significant funding. I think that we that's significant and we should definitely support that. They're on the front line. They're doing great work. Um Dream Key, I also have a question about So Dream Key, it looks like all of their how much were they awarded from the city? So in the proposed budget if you it's on the page 17 I believe. So it would be 1.3 and then and then but there is a note that these services now that um there's several organizations that do this type of work. The plan for 2027 would be to put this out for RFP but they're in a current proposed to get 1.3 million. So, isn't all of that from a federal grant? The 1.3 million. So, from the city, they requested 390, right? 390,000. And how much of that were they awarded from from us from financial partners? None for 26 for partners. So, I think that that we should know that as as a council, that's all federal funding. They weren't awarded as one of our financial partners. Correct. um we know the status of the federal government, how volatile that is and vulnerable that is and I think we just need to keep that in mind. So that's that's the concern for me, Mr. Manager. Organizations that and I know we want accountability and outcomes, but organization that our community depends on um such as Dream Key didn't receive any wasn't awarded, you know, financial partners. So, I hope that we can send this back to the budget committee and take a look at that. I also support uh Carolina Reds as a baseball mom and grandma grandmother, right? So, definitely uh no, I'm not grandma. Nina as a so uh um Carolina read as well and um and I just look forward to it going back to the committee and us taking a look at it. Thank you. I think our last um speaker now is prepared. Miss Azmeerra. Yes. Uh thank you madame mayor for so if we go Marie if you can go back to the line item um for me where you had roof above. So I also agree with uh council member Mitchell about the meals place. They do great work. Uh especially with our youth. Um Dream Key Partners, I agree with Council Member Johnson. Um also, I'd like to add Carolina's Asian-American. Uh they do they are filling in the gap in terms of workforce development for immigrant and refugee community. and they have a special program that supports uh vulnerable community which is Montineyard community. That program has led to very successful uh pairing with the employment after the workforce development program has been completed. I know we have that in our application package. Um so I'd like to add them. And also the save our children moment. Um, I know Rodney and his team does great work with engaging our youth. Uh, and summertime is coming. We need that funding more than ever. Um, so that's all I have. Thank you. All right. Thank you, M. Yes, Mr. Jones. Just uh just for a little bit of clarification. Um if the council members want us to list all of the different organizations in the people's uh budget, we can we can do that if that's what you also would like us to do. The other thing um and I'll just pitch in for Sean right now a little bit about uh dream keys. Everybody's correct. Mr. Manager, would you clarify what you just said about the people's budget, please, sir? Sure. Like we could actually list if you want us to do um Soul Nation, Heal Charlotte, Crisis Assistance Ministries if we want to just do the list of all of the what we call like financial partners in the people's budget or we can leave it just as supporting the people's budget. Yeah, supporting the people's budget is fine for me. I mean, yeah, we have a supporting the people's budget. and and and then with um dream key um just a little bit about the the philosophy. So, if you go over to page 17 of the budget book, uh even with the federal grants last year, um there were a number of um CD CDBG funds that we thought it would be better to put it through a competitive process, an RFP. And so instead of doing dream key this that way this year, we wanted to do a one-year lead main mainly to get this conversation with the council. If this is something that should be more competitive process with an RFP or just goes directly to them and that's why we didn't pull all the money, it was to test the temperature the council. Okay. Okay. So um can you I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Miss Johnson. what we talked about before we got before you had a chance to get into the space that we are going to go around twice so that everybody has the opportunity to and so we'll start with you and go around the dis. Can you scroll down to see what was captured for me? Okay. Yeah, I couldn't see that third line. Okay. Freedom Fighting Menionaries, Roof Above, and some of those organizations are in the People's Budget. Dream Key Partners, Carolina Reds, Power Up, Charlotte, um the Mails, Please. um and save our children movement. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Molina, anything? Um thank you, Madame Mayor. Actually, um you know, it's funny. I I don't have any history with Save Our Children's movement, but I I want to say and I want to highlight again as we think through our budget and opportunities to be great partners across our community, every opportunity where we can provide resources for our young people is something that would benefit us from a safety perspective, um from a working parent perspective overall. Um it's one of the reasons why I lifted up some of the ones that I did. So, um I actually um I just want to put that out there. Um and the Save Our Children Movement Incorporated, I I would like to know um is that an existing partner? Is that something that we've done over time? Can somebody answer that? Miss Mayfield is going to be able to give everybody on the council some idea of what's available under the plan that she worked on with Marie. So, is that what this is? Yes. So, we'll get we'll get her she'll cap this off and then we'll know a little bit more about it. Okay. Okay. Thank you. All right, Mr. Mitchell. Uh, thank you, Mayor. The only two I would like to add is uh um Save Our Children Movement and Carolina Youth Coalition. In this day and time, we got to make sure we can provide opportunities for our youth. So, I would like to add those two. Okay. Madame Mayor. Yes. Can we go around and come back around? Miss whatever you your order is, I will follow. Miss Ameira, just for financial partners. Mhm. Right now, you putting them on so we can wrap that up. Mitchell. Okay. Um, so we already already added the financial partners. The only ones that I agree uh there is council member Molina talked about youth coalition that's actually on the east side. uh does great work. Uh so I would also like to add that. Okay, that's all I have. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tim. Okay, thank you, Madame Mayor. Um I would also like to u lift up the Save Our Children movement. And I also want to underscore the work that the Carolina Asian-American Chamber uh of Commerce does in the community. I think it's really good work. The the other comment that I would make about um the Charlotte Museum of History and and I've already supported that earlier. I just want to make sure that I say, you know, we can support these um institutions without giving them their exact ask. Their ask is their ask. Um however, we can garner some support. So, I do agree that the um that the ask for the Charlotte Museum of History is a bit large relative to some of the other ask. However, you know, if we're able to support them in some manner, I think that would be helpful. Thank you, Madam Mayor. All right. Um Mr. Jones, do you have anything? Mr. Graham? Uh I don't. I think all the organizations I'm most interested in seeing fund that has already been listed. I just point out the obvious is that there are a lot of great requests and limited funds. Uh and that's going to be that's going to be the devil's in the detail. And so I'm not sure who's going to scrub this and kind of make it realistic. But right now I think we're we're way out of guidelines. Probably going to have to raise taxes. We can do it one of both one of two ways. All right. Thank you for that observation, Mr. Grant. Mr. Driggs, he said taxes. Okay. Um All right. Correct. There isn't uh I don't have any uh any nominations here. I think we're already kind of straying back to what Miss Mayfield led us away from. Uh and the problem is when you have a large multiple of applications, we're going to get into this hopeless process of trying to trade off how important is this deserving organization versus that one. So I I hope we can still look upon Miss Mayfield's framework as a starting point, bringing some objectivity into it. It's like this is not a judgment about your organization. We're making tough decisions because our resources are limited. So I would just observe that. The other thing I would like to see is um the uh in in the handouts we got, we don't have the historical amounts and I'd like to know what the past history was of grants to these organizations. And in particular, I want to see which organizations had a history of receiving grants that are now being cut off because that's a that's a different situation from new applicants and uh could be very harmful to them. So, I I think we can put an overlay of individual pluses and minuses on the starting point that Miss Mayfield has established, but please let's not go back to looking at all six million. Thank you. All right, Miss Mayfield, I think several of us were probably not um engaged in what you had suggested, but before you go into it in a deeper way, I was going to ask Miss Brown for her final comments. Yeah, I wasn't here when she engaged, but I read an email as I stated before, mayor, and not, you know, I just I need to support what I support. So, I'll look at it again. I'm a fair person. I think everybody can say that I'm a fair person on this council and I like to see teamwork and move together, but I also stand for what I stand for and that's for the people's budget. With that being said, a lot of these organizations that we're supporting and we're talking about, they're taking hits because of DEI. No one would say it, but I'll say it. They're already falling short. So now is a time for us as a council to step up and support the people that we can support in our community. The people that show up for us every day. It's an election year. When we go to the polls, I'm sure many of us want to be reelected and they're going to be the ones that's going to rally around having us reelected. At this point, I'm reasonable. Council member Mayfield has more knowledge. She's a senior tenure rep. She's been on the council longer than me. That doesn't change my fight. That doesn't change my desire to fight for the people who I'm fighting for, the people that I care for. So whether you've been here 10 years or you've been here 10 minutes, you fight for what you fight for, and that's who I am. When I'm talking about going down the budget, I know we don't have the money. It'd be nice if we had $100 million to give everybody exactly what they asked for. But for me and my position with the people's budget and the people that we're fighting for, I love Freedom Fighting Missionaries. Mr. Kenny Robinson does amazing work. He's proved who he is in the community. He didn't sign up for a financial partner. He's trying to come in through budgeting through another way. When we get through that topic, I'll be more than happy to speak on that. Greg Jackson with Heel Charlotte, he didn't sign up to be a financial partner. I think there's something going on right there. So, while I love and support Mr. Jackson and his work, he's not on the table right now because he's not qualified for the funding right now. doesn't disqualify his level of work or what he's doing, but I'm not going to even entertain that because he's not a subject of matter at this moment. And God knows I love Greg and fight for them to the end. We're fighting for organizations that are in existence that are standing that come to these meetings that show up, some of which we funded last year. So, while I'm I said I don't support what council member Mayfield said, I can also go back and retract that if we come to a reasonable common ground on supporting those that went outside the 30% because in your mind, if you're filling out an application and you want to be funded and there's a desire to elevate your work and help the youth in the community, save our children's movement. Um, I support council member Molina when she said in district five how she support her her children's organization. I support her in that as well. But save our children movement is in the heart of West Boulevard and Remount Road. If I don't fight for them, I'm going to fight like I I've never fought before because it's where I come from. It's my foundation. They are doing great work that's not even recognized. The cameras don't go out there for the work that they're doing. The media don't go out there for that work. But if somebody gets shot, if there's gunshots and there's a lot of gang violence and children are laying out on the street, they'll go out there for that. But they don't show up for the after school care programs. They don't show up for Save Our Children movement made transportation needs and went from West Boulevard to Sugar Creek every afternoon partnering with Hill Charlotte over at the hotel before Hill Charlotte program terminated over there. So these organizations are doing great work. So Save Our Children's Moon, I just want to speak up for that organization because they've been around for a very very long time because mainstream media, they might not be popular to them, they definitely should be popular to us. Thank you very much. All right, Miss Mayfield, help us um wrap this up. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Madame Mayor. So, for all my colleagues, if you look at the second sheet, where this started of which some of the organizations that you mentioned are on the second sheet. So, this sheet is from Maria and I sitting together for two and a half hours last week. If you look at the second sheet, you see that there is a column that says proposed based on criteria. We had two basic criteria. We first had to come up with the scoring. Now the initial scoring next to the proposed funding by staff that was a scoring of around out of 60 a scoring of over 60% they identified 50. We went back in me and Marie and broke down each category in great neighborhoods how many applications we received added up each one of their scores divided it by the total number. That is how we got the basic average. So if you look to the far right, the average score just for great neighborhoods was 47.77. Everything that is in red that is highlighted was either they were out of the scoring or they were over 30% of the budget. Some of the items again that are mentioned are already in here. Boom. Charlotte initially did not make it. Once we rescored, they scored high and their budget was under 30%. Because we as a council said to our partners that your budget should not be over 30%. Some of the items that I mentioned, I love the Mills Place. I am the one who initially put the initial onetime funding in place for the Mills Place. The challenge is your scoring was low even when we went in and reread the numbers. So also some of the organizations we identified an additional partners funding source whether that funding source was through the budget of housing and neighborhood services through the budget of workforce. So just looking at the two basic criteria the recommendation that is in front of you all that I presented reallocated it also changed the total number. We also funded a lot more organizations than what was in the initial proposal from staff by changing as well as scoring. Well, now if we want to say as a council and we want to vote on the fact that we are not going to score applications because it is no fair to have an organization that submitted all of their paperwork that reached out to get direction to help with their application and score a 47 or higher or score a 58. And then you have an organization that scored a 34 or scored a 40, but we're saying because we like the organization, we should put you back into the budget. That's a challenge. So if we're going to say as a council that we're going to just remove scoring all together and come up with some other criteria, then that's a very different conversation. But for this conversation when we said we received 51 applications. to one the initial agreement from a number of council. We didn't vote on it to say six plus. A number of council members agreed that one, we're only going to look at the applications we received and we weren't going to add new ones in. Get you ready so you can apply in November. But if you didn't apply, that was the first piece. The second piece, how do we come up with a scoring? because we had over $8 million almost $9 million in requests and we didn't have $9 million to allocate scoring and then the over 30%. Again, some that are put up on this board are actually in the proposed budget that I have in front of you, just strictly based on the criteria, taking out personal preference, taking out any other information except what you presented on your application to hopefully get to the place that we're not at right now, which is we're just adding in organizations without there being criteria or overlooking the criteria. Some of the recommendations from the people's budget are in here. Some of them actually applied. For the ones who didn't apply, yes, the manager identified 5.3 million. The goal was not to spend the 5.3 million, I would hope, by just adding additional partners in. My biggest challenge that I am hearing around the table is that although we had a scoring system, we are saying whether it was staff scoring initially at 50% or even rerunning the numbers where we actually brought the scores down, some of these organizations did not score well. So we are going to say even though you did not score well, we want to fund you. And what is the message that that is sending to all of the partners that did apply and were able to prove not only the work that they're doing, but the impact. We know the federal government has had an impact on all of these organizations, but we also know that we are talking about not doing a tax increase even though the county is. We also don't look at our budget to say how much is the c county funding some of these partners because a lot of these partners really fall under county services but the city has stepped in for many years to help offset and to assist. So if we're not going to have a real conversation around a budget increase and we're not going and if we're saying collectively that we don't want to utilize scoring. So, we're going to have to come up with some other way to identify how your application and the work that you're doing because it's not about, as my colleague just said, trying to find winners and losers. We had a basic criteria and from that basic criteria, this was the bare minimum that we needed for us to at least try to have a real conversation knowing that the ask are this amount and we have this amount. to work with. So, I want us to keep that in mind. And I also would like for staff as you've added additional items, pull out the items that are already identified in here because my colleague Carolina Youth Coalition is in here. I see in my proposal. Unfortunately, it was not any other. Now, boom. Charlotte is in here in my proposal because not only did they score well, they were under the 30% threshold and they did what they were supposed to do based on the criteria we had for this budget cycle. Now, moving forward, we have the whole arts and science and we have a whole committee and a board and we've created that. But that's not what this was when they applied. So, not only did they score well, they also met both of the criteria. At the end of the day, it's six plus votes. But I cannot support the addition of anything outside of the 51 50 51 initial applications and anyone that did not score well between the two basic criteria because we got to have consistency. Now, here's the great thing. It takes six votes. So if you all decide as a collective, I'm just asking then we got to have an immediate conversation of how we move forward. Because to create a scoring and then say, well, we're going to set that scoring aside because this is what we're going to do. Creates a challenge moving forward. So, we got to have a foundation of how we move forward in this process. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So, the I would like to ask the staff if they could um compare the city and the county um decisions on the financial partners. I think that might be another value add to the conversation before we make a final decision. Miss Yes, Miss Brown. Madam Mayor, so I just want to say this. I respect what my colleague just said. I disagree with it respectfully. No disrespect intended. I didn't vote for that criteria policy. I want that on the record. If for the record, I was one of the ones that did not vote for the criteria cuz I thought it was unfair and it was biased. So I want for the record again, I didn't vote on the criteria. It won because we need six votes. Just remember that one of those six votes was not mine. Okay. Thank you so much. Um, so Mr. Jones, where do we wrap this one up? Well, Mayor, I think, um, we've gone through financial partners a couple of times, and I think you would go back to the beginning if there was anything in the budget that, um, the council members would like to uh, add to the straw vote process. Okay. Can I Can can I um say in your notebooks or the materials that you have, each of each council member should have a way to document and as we go around through this to develop the remaining changes that the council person would like to see happen. All right, Miss Mayor, I just had a question for um for um council member and the initial budget to us. I had asked, "Hey, what are you going to what staff? What are you going to look at to help us narrow this down and have a conversation around 51?" At that time, I thought it was 51 applications. 51 applications and over 8 million. Are you going to bring a recommendation back to us? Evidently, the conversation went back to budget committee. Unfortunately, I was out sick, couldn't get online. So, I missed that conversation. So then I followed up with Marie to ask what is the criteria we're looking at and staff advised that it was what was identified was a 50% threshold. So to help narrow it down if the goal what you were able to receive was up to 65 in the scoring staff identified 50. I then sat with Marie and asked and said how about we look at this? Let's look at each category. Total up the number of applications. Those scores divide divide it by the total number of applications. Let's get the average. So if you notice in the application score, just looking at Alliance for Center for Education, they scored a 55.20 on their application. By just adding up the few applications we had in that category, that gave us an average of 47.77. We had applications, their score was 46.5. The only reason just do it movement even though they scored well did not move forward is because also their financial request was over the 30%. So those were the only two criteria. We changed the scoring and because we changed the scoring in the second column which is the recommendation I have, we actually had excuse me more partners that qualified but we had quite a few partners where their application was in the 30s in the 20s. They were below even the 50% and we reduced the 50% 47 47 42 45. So, we reduced the scoring to try to be more accessible just doing the average. So, once we did that average, it brought it down. But unfortunately, you also had over 30% of your budget that you were requesting. And because we had so many requests, we had to figure out a way. And this again, this is just my proposal. We all had have the ability to have met with budget staff. This was just the recommendation that I submitted for consideration for council just saying how do we create a process based off of what we said last year so that we don't keep every year changing the rules. We said last year we were going to do it a little differently. This was one of the recommendations that came out of it. the scoring as well as we let everyone know no more than 30. I'm I'm with you and I I completely understand your approach and so if if I'm if I could read it back to you really what you're saying is for each with each category and you use great neighborhoods as one example when you take that average score you're basically setting um the middle of of a Gaussian curve right of of like right dead in the middle of performance right and so then if we were to do that then I understand that that makes sense. And then by default any any entity that would score above the middle of that Gaussian curve is already above they're they're already performing well. The question is though, especially for these larger categories like workforce and business development and safe communities, but there are quite a few um entries in there as opposed to like well-managed government for these large these safe communities and workforce development. What we'd have to then see for workforce development is the average is 45.51. Mhm. What we have to understand is like what is the standard deviation below that that is sort of statistically significant. So if the average is 45.51 is 43.16 statistically significant. So no because the way we did it is we did each category individually in order for there to be parody in it. because some categories we received a lot more applications than others. But keep in mind some categories you have fewer applications because we identify additional uh better funding source for them. So that's why those applications were removed from financial partners because they actually landed in one of our departments. I get you. What what I'm trying to say is it might be hard for someone who's sort of removed from that process to say, "Hey, this is a basis point or a couple basis points difference. How is that relevant or significant?" And so I think we got to like draw the line in the sand somehow. Love your approach. I think that's a good approach, but just further explaining where that line in in the sand is in particular below the average because if you're above the average, then you're you're performing or overperforming relative to our criteria. So, um I just think we probably need some more language around that, but thank you for that approach and I appreciate that. At the end of the day, that's what this process is with add and deletes. We were I I'm not even gonna say we. I was hoping that we wouldn't do what we've done today, which we have done every year for a decade, that we will actually one again not add someone who didn't even apply and two have that base criteria because again, if council decides we don't want to have a scoring mechanism, that's a very different conversation that we must vote on because some of them did not score And if we're still going to say, "Well, we still want to fund you because we see or we think you do good work." Unfortunately, we also have some organizations out there that are not. We're not going to have go into that deep conversation right now, but we have some partner organizations where our other partners in the community cannot get them to answer the phone when people are calling. And these are major organizations that are reaching out. I have one particular organization where the executive director has sent a notification to all of their staff that you are not to send any of our people over to this particular facility. So there's a combination of conversations happening on the ground, but for what we were charged to do, this was just my recommendation and my suggestion on a way to move forward. At the end of the day, wherever we get six, that's how we move. I'm just saying I cannot because I had already stated that I would not previously. I cannot support adding anyone new that did not apply. And if you did not meet the base criteria, I cannot in good conscience support it. I'm going need us to do whatever we need to do to help you or to support you for November for you to write a stronger application, but if you didn't meet those two bare minimum requirements, I cannot support it. All right. Thank you. Um, Miss Watlington, I think I just got two quick things. Um, I thought that Anderson was going a different place in and maybe this question was already I I can't I don't think we can hear you. my test. I said I thought that uh Mayor Pro Tim was going I a little a little bit of a different place. Um and it may be because the question was already asked but as as we are looking at these I just want to make sure that I'm clear as I understand each organization self- selected which category they connected to and so you end up with a lot more applicants in one category versus the other. Um in some cases you may see that the score was higher for organization but because they were in a different category they fell below whatever that average is. Um is there a did we have a mechanism to ensure that we confirmed whatever category? I'm sorry you guys Watlington has the floor and she's asking a question. Did we, if I may, no ma'am. And that we didn't confirm any necessarily beyond if they had um a current nonprofit or were working towards their nonprofit certification. The other um we took at face value. Okay. The reason I bring that up is just because as we think about this process going forward, um if there is a set amount of funds or slots by category, then maybe people will be a little bit more um they'll maybe think twice about which category they end up in because if I'm looking at this and I scored higher than somebody else in another category, but I just happen to be in the wrong slot, um I might feel a way about that. But I definitely think that there's some work to be done on the process, but think that the work that you all have already done has been an improvement to it. So, thank you for that. Um, and then my second question is a process check. Um, given where we are, is is the idea that we're voting today on these particular items? No, that was not the plan for today. Um, we have to have, you know, votes to move forward, but we were really trying to just get what do you want to see as being different in the manager's recommended budget. That's pretty much what this meeting was about. And that's what the next stage of what we'd like to do is to um begin I think we started over here first, but on the second round maybe came around. So everybody's had an opportunity I think to express Miss Brown. Yes. My mic wasn't on and in in closing and very quick and I'm I'm done. I won't say anything else. I think the people watching know my stance on what I want to do and how I support. There's no gray area for me. But I would like to say that processes, which I didn't support, and uh scoring systems, they're biased and they can be subjective. It just depends on where they're coming from. We don't want to get into putting all those emphasis on and saying strong words like basic qualifications to qualify for this because it depends on who you're asking if it's basic or not. And that's a fair statement that I just made. I want to also say that if we go into a scoring system and we talk about schools and children, the kids that score low, will we not give them an opportunity just because they score low? We got to be careful about what we say when we talk about scoring low. Again, could be biased and looked at as being subjective. So, I don't I don't want to be a part of that conversation either. Okay. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you very much. All right, Miss Johnson. say that again. I know I will. Thank you. I just want to clarify um Charlotte Boom for me. Um I wasn't necessarily advocating that they be included in the budget. What I was saying is I think there's a more appropriate funding for them. They asked for $90,000. Um I think they should be funded, but I think that should come from the arts and tourism fund. And then that would free up $90,000 for one of the other organizations that applied. So we would kind of get two for one. Also, if we're going by a scoring sheet, I wanted to know if the rubric were public. Is that published anywhere? Yes, ma'am. It's in the financial partners packet that's public. Um, it's public. It's published online and we can send the link out. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I would just want I want the public to be able to see how that was scored so organizations that didn't score um would know where they were able to improve. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Any other additional comments? Mayor. No, I think we're done. Yeah, we're done on the financial part. Well, hang on. I'm gonna let the city manager make a comment. So, mayor for Tim um this is straw votes. So, while it won't be final votes today, five votes move any of these items forward to the next time that there's a conversation. So, uh city manager just Yeah. Yes. adjustments. Adjustments, I'm sorry. Yes. To move forward. Yes. So, so city manager, just a a question for you. Uh point of point of clarification for the ones and I don't see my my uh row up here. I think it's more the the top here. Yep. So for for my row here, you know, I I lifted up uh uh Charlotte Museum of History and I think that entire ask of 400K was placed in in there. Uh should should I city manager make some modification of that ask or or should we just go you know all or none? What what's the approach here? Sure. So uh let me do two things. One what I think I heard you say earlier there are actually two requests from the Charlotte uh Museum of History. One came through financial partners. There's another one that's an exhibit that is a big time exhibit that's coming. So I think that should be a part of it. But Marie, help me out. I think what happens is in this process if you move something forward, it just means there's more analysis that's done to it that comes back to you so that you can make a decision. I just sorry I just wanted to make sure we're clear on that. So if we're somehow that moves forward for additional analysis, it doesn't mean that necessarily the entire amount will be approved. Thank you. And thank you for that. And what we did for the existing partners in the proposed budget was proposing the same a flat amount moving forward. So, and if you're a new partner, you could get up up to 100. Thank you for that clarification. really quickly just to add to the mayor pro Tim. Um, and to make sure that we're clear, there are two particular asks from Charlotte Museum of History and one is here, but there's one kind of outside and I we can talk offline, but there is an exhibit. Um, so this would be the time to bring anything up. Yeah. So, um they're actually bringing an exhibit from um the Smithsonian and from what I understand based on Miss White's explanation is that they've already partnered um with the county for a portion of it. Um and there is federal funding as well. Um so I think there's two different lanes for asks and I think one is more of a funding structure um application I guess for operational budget funding and then there's this one and I'd like to isolate because again I don't know if that's what's reflected in the $400,000 ask is both reflected in the $400,000 ask or not. Um so no ma'am so that would be a separate one that y'all could vote on. Okay. So, um, and and again, I don't have I'm I recall the other ask being somewhere in the ballpark of about 300K, I believe. 350. 350. Okay. Yeah, I remember that. So, that would actually total 750K total for the total ask. So, of course, that wouldn't be something that we could do, but uh those are two different lanes. And I did um advise the person that I spoke to that they're two separate asks. Um but again I I agree with the mayor pro Tim. I think um you know maybe it's not all it's we could talk about what that means. I would like to see the Charlotte Museum and that east side staple uh move forward as a partner. I guess the question is how and if you know um they move forward as a partner with us. That's all I have. Thank you madame mayor. Thank you very much and challenge that you put before us to determine how we can do things very well but also do them in a way that we can allow this to be supported by within the budget that we have. So, what I want to do is just recap again that if there are five or four votes for any proposed change that that change will move forward for the staff to do more analysis of the cost, the considerations and consequences of the proposed change and the item will be included for consideration in the straw votes that will take place on Thursday, May 29th. I mean, sorry, we're changing the date. What is our new date, Mr. June? June. June 2nd. So June 2nd, sorry made that note. And so what we what I'd like to do now is that since you've had an opportunity to look what's in the budget and I hope had an opportunity to do this. So now we want to have your feedback. Are there any changes that you would like to see happen in this budget that we have not spoken about from outside of financial partners? We're going to move financial partners. We're finished with that discussion. But in anything in the budget Yes. that you would like to see? Um I think there's um a grid that I don't know if everyone else has this grid. The grid has allows each person to um what page be able to vote. This is just the grid. It's on the first part of the runoff show for me on two. So, after we get the list, then we'll come back and be able to look and see how the votes go. All right. Is everybody prepared for this? All right. So, I think we started out over here the first time. Nope. No, the last time. Yeah. All right. So, let's go. Miss Brown, do you have Brown's not ready, but I do want some changes. I'm sorry. I'm multi doing a million things over here. So, I Yeah, I'll come back. Please. Okay. I I need to answer this email. All right. Miss Watlington. No changes to the manager's recommendation other than this financial partners that we've just done. Miss Mayfield. Thank you, Madame Mayor. So, the manager is I believe working to get some information back from HR one. I wanted to get some information for full counsel on the grading of our staff. So when we look at specifically our staff liaison and what they're grading and or pay as part of the recommendation from the people's budget was up to 26. I believe the manager had identified that we are not necessarily financially in a position to do 26 now but we are currently at 23 24. So the proposal is to get to 24. So we're trying to move, but also one of that's one piece. The second piece was I was checking with the manager if however this move forward if there's anything out of the 5.3 left. I was asking what would it look like if we were to allocate 1.5 million over a three-year period to further the conversation that's happening in human resources since we just learned last Monday that we have city of Charlotte staff that have had to utilize the resources for a various needs and to look at those departments. Since we are we do have that information to see what those pay were cuz I was under the impression that when we were getting to 23 minimum that was the base for all employees but evidently that might not be the case. So it will be helpful to know those departments where we are under minimum 23 if we're trying to get to 24. And then additionally, we all received communication from Mike Phineas with the fire department questions regarding our proposed insurance and the cost for the out-ofpocket cost. There was also a question that I asked the manager. I was looking at the 5.3 million completely different than trying to spend it. outside of the 444,000 that I identified. I was trying to see if there was a way that we could potentially have a grant to offset those medical costs, those out-of- pocket costs because some of our first responders, whether they're police or fire, if they have children and or for their own health needs, those out-of- pocket costs h can exceed over 4,000. So, we know we make a choice. we either try to get a low monthly payment with a higher deductible or vice versa. Well, I was trying to find out and I'm hoping to get information back in collaboration with HR to find out is there a way that we could have a grant that can help offset we'll have criteria around it but to offset those out-of- pocket costs because that is causing a financial burden. So those were, excuse me, in the primary budget, the main items where I would like additional information, the pay grade, because grades have make a difference for our staff to make sure that our employees are comparable for us being now the 14th, no longer the 15th, the 14th largest city, the fifth fastest growing. We want our people to be able to afford to live in our city. So, those are the main ones that I would like for us to get information back on. So, thank you, Miss Mayfield. That was exactly what we were trying to get at, and that was really done well. So, thank you. So, now we'll go to Mr. Driggs. Thank you, Mayor. So, uh, no tax increase. Yes. Vote me in. We're done. Um, but still, there are a couple of things to think about here. uh a big picture and I've mentioned a couple of times I do have a concern this budget is very lean and that's a good thing but if you look at things like FTEES and so on we're stretching we're stretching it and that's what we're having to do in order to avoid a tax increase so I just have a concern about the future I think we is we issued $400 million of bond debt which was 200 million more uh almost 180 million more than we had previously established lished as our capacity. So, we're running up the balance on our credit card and all of that has to come back from somewhere. Uh, tomorrow will come and therefore I appreciate this budget because it is balanced. Uh, it keeps the city running and I'm confident in the integrity of the budget process. Uh, I I just have a a kind of a a future structural concern about what we may have to do in the future in order to sustain everything we're doing. Um, I wanted to mention in particular what caught my eye was on page, excuse me, 14, uh, the municipal debt service fund is down by 27,830,000. Uh, is that related to our our our debt issuance or why does that number down that much? All right. She's page 14. Theres will get it. Uh, so let's see. You're looking at the um change for fiscal year 24. Go ahead. Yeah, the change in fiscal year 2024 was minus 27 million. I'm just wondering what the status is of our municipal service fund. I mean it is it is balanced for the model that we have been providing to you. Um there have been some upfront cash things like the purchase of the red line um which we knew we were doing with cash and then we were going to be funding that back into fund balance. Uh but it is structurally balanced. So we have in effect a receivable against the commitment to repay the redline money that would then part of which would go back to this. Yes. And it that has actually happened during fiscal year 25. Right. Um so you'll see that impacted in the fiscal year 25. All right. Again I'm just concerned about our debt capacity. Um and I I wanted to clarify too. Uh Miss Johnson, you talked about an arts and tourism fund. We have an arts and culture line item in our budget and we have a hospitality and tourism and she's not here. Okay. Uh so uh I just want to clarify we did uh in the budget we've got $11 million for arts and culture which is a general fund item and then we have the the hospitality and tourism accounts and th those should be looked upon as almost like an enterprise fund in themselves because the money that goes into those comes from specifically authorized sources from the general assembly. uh taxes that are levied and the burden of those taxes falls on the people in the hospitality and tourism industry. So uh although we oversee that particular entity or that particular process and although it isn't an uh an enterprise fund, we should look upon it kind of like the airport or something where it's an internal economy. there are stakeholders and certainly we should not discuss any change in how that works without a prior conversation with the stakeholders. Uh and I think since they may be watching I just wanted to be sure and Mr. Graham you may want to amplify on that but uh um so uh basically uh I don't have changes as such proposed to the budget. I appreciate the construction. I will also note that if you go into the enterprise fund budgets, which we really don't have to study because they kind of pay for themselves, but there's a lot of good stuff in there. The capital planning and water, obviously, aviation is a huge deal for us, and it's a good opportunity to express our appreciation to American Airlines for our partnership with them in how the airport is managed. and that extends to negotiations with them on the lease and many aspects of the operation of the airport are actually a partnership with American. So, uh worth pointing that out. Uh we have great debt ratings and uh I think one of our challenges will be to make sure that we continue to but I regard that as a reflection on the uh budget process as a whole and the integrity of our management. So pleased about that. uh don't want to recommend any particular changes and um hope we can get this done. Okay, Mr. Graham. Uh thank you, Madam Mayor. I I have no changes to the budget at all other than to compliment uh the manager and his staff for really putting together what I think is a really really good operating budget. Um obviously the values of community can be found in this budget and certainly the conversation we had earlier in reference to our financial partners demonstrates uh that we value um the nonprofit u u grassroot organizations um that uh we do business with but more importantly we also value the this the um the funding for aviation. And I think that um Ed just talked about that in Charlotte Douglas International Airport, the enterprise found um funding, the what we're doing with public safety, cats, the quarters of opportunity, housing, um a wide variety of things. The the establishment of the office of youth opportunities, I think it's a great opportunity to really engage our uh our youth. Um, the fact that we're paying folks that come to work for the city $24 an hour, which is about $50,000 a year, I think is a really good point to take. And I just hope that, you know, I know we talked about the the odds fund again. I just hope that as a council we practice financial discipline. Uh, as we go through the next couple of years, it's really going to make sure that we really are laser focused, narrowly tailored, and disciplined regarding how we utilize our funds. Thank you. All right, Mayor Pro Tim. Thank you, Madame Mayor. And um I really don't have any substantive suggestions for the change of the budget. I I'd like to thank the city manager for presenting a balanced budget. It's a integral part of um of our position as a well-managed government. And um I greatly appreciate that. And these conversations like we had today are meaningful and we have to they're hard, but that's a that's the benefit of sitting in the seats that we're in to to have these conversations around tradeoffs. I will say that um my conversations with uh CMPD and Charlotte Fire um have been um very insightful and I if there are ways in which we can support um Charlotte Fire who's always number one whenever there is a 911 call they are first on the scene 24/7 365 within a 4minute uh response time. They are having challenges as uh Miss Mayfield mentioned with their health care. Um they're having challenges with the pay grades. I I went out to visit the academy and spoke to them and if there's a way in which we can support them as it relates to those immediate challenges in this budget um or in other ways in this budget, but then addressing it in turn as we move forward in the next budget. I think that would um come with great appreciation from Charlotte Fire as well as CMPD who do tremendous work in our city. Uh the other piece I just want to mention is you know we have this benefit and and we had a meeting I had a meeting with some of my some of our intergovernmental colleagues and we were talking about the challenges at a federal level and the trickle down effect of those dollars and pass through dollars and I mentioned that we're fortunate enough uh for the city that you know we we don't we don't largely depend on those trickle down dollars from a federal level. Of course, in certain areas they help um with matching funds and with some other initiatives, but the fact that we have a wellbalanced a balanced budget and a well-managed government um that is not necessarily uh dependent on one particular source uh but through well-managed enterprise funds as well um as our municipal funds. I I I just want to lift that up because that's wonderful management. So, uh thank you, Madame Mayor, for the time. All right, Miss Asher. Thank you, Madame Mayor. Uh, Mr. Manager, great job on the budget. Year after year, you continue to surpass expectations. Um, um, no property tax increase, but also recognizing the hard work of our employees that goes a long way. And I think you have done that budget after budget. Um, and obviously I would be remissed if I did not recognize the budget staff. Um, Murray and your entire team. Uh, great job. I know you had some very difficult decisions to make, right? Because every department comes to you and asks you for um, additional resources and you make those tough decisions. Uh, I just want to thank you because I understand those are conversations that can be difficult to have. uh while we want to make sure that we do not pass additional tax burden to our residents. Uh thank you Marie for great work. Uh I think council member Mayfield raised some very good points on the financial partners process. Uh as the chair of the committee let me tell you we haven't perfected this policy but I promise you we will continue to work on it and hopefully we'll get the majority behind the policy. Um because I can tell you at least from the comments I've heard today in the room, not very many agree with the scoring system. Uh so we will work on that. Uh that's that's still on our committee. Well, I do have a couple of requests. I see Sheila here in the room as well as Christina who have they do amazing job with all the benefits questions. Thank you. Uh well number one item have I have that I did talk about the paid parental leave. We want to make sure it covers miscarriages and still birth. Uh I heard from various employees where they experienced a still birth and they were not able to use the paid parental leave. So I do not know what the number would be but I'm sure it would be hopefully it's rare. Uh second item I would like us to include is um I do not have numbers. I would like us to understand how much would it cost if we were to increase the minimum wage to $25 per hour. And um I do agree with the request made by Councilwoman Mayfield about healthc care benefit cost. Uh we did hear from a couple of public public speakers especially firefighters. So if we can review that benefit and see how we can optimize it. All right, Mr. Mitchell. Oh, no. I have one last item. Yes, I have I thought you were done. No. Um so as you all know I'm a uh trees are near and dear to my heart and so are the people. Um we have level two arboritum designation and I think that's something we should be very proud of because not a lot of other cities have that. Um and we have over 100 species of trees um in the city of Charlotte. uh there is additional request for 37,500 uh that would provide us the necessary resources um to continue this level two designation and that was the number that I had requested that I received and uh and that's all I have. Thank you madame mayor. Now Mr. Mitchell thank you madame mayor. By time you get round to us, city manager, all the accolades have been said. Uh so I'm going to be very brief and say uh job well done. Um you know, it's always a challenge for us public servants when there's no property tax increase, but there's still a lot of needs. And so I do think uh you was right to present a no tax budget because now we here in our county is presenting a tax budget. And I think we always sensitive not have our citizens taxed twice. So nothing but uh nothing on the budget. Great job. I do have two things though. Um I would like uh maybe some more work to be brought back to us. And so first council uh we approved back here $650 million for a renovation to our Bank of America stadium. um nobody will ever sit in our seats again and prove and approve such a high um giving um to a very important entity in our community. We still have a commitment to our small business and we agreed part of our 650 million that we would adhere to 26% aspiration goal. Um, city manager, I would like for you if you can bring back uh some type of RFP that we need to put on the street and hire a firm to make sure this city council over a 5year period of time can hit that 26%. Uh, we all know about the narratives going on nationally and and statewide, but it's up to us who sit in these seats to send a strong message to our small business. We're going to do our best to take care of you in Charlotte. And so I would like to it's a five-year commitment. So we got to understand that we going to need an entity to help us do outreach and compliance. Make sure we can get those companies throughout the state to participate in compliance. Make sure they can get paid while they're on the project. And so sir, I you know I have a ballpark figure what RFP goes nowadays. I would like to have Monica, you and Monica to engage and bring us something back of having a RFP out for the city of Charlotte 26 participation on the Bank of America stadium. Okay. Thank you. Okay, Miss Molina. Oh, you have one more. I I have one more. Okay, so uh that was an excellent first start. I want you to know that. Thanks, Mayor. Uh the second council Mayfield and Mayor Pro Tim and I attended a ribbon cutting for the institute who have moved their headquarters here to Charlotte. The institute is talking about providing capital to startup businesses as well as provide space for some of our corridors or opportunities. Sir, if we can find a way to support the initiative, I I think it would be good once again to our small business community. But Councilman Mayfield and Mayor Proin was there as well. So if you all want to add anything, uh when you go into the lobby, they already paying respect to some of the pioneers. Carol Lily, Ray Kennedy, Ron Leaper, and so they are doing it right. And I think we need to kind of embrace them somehow some way to support them. I shut up, mayor. But I think you're on a good track. Okay. But we do have Miss Molina next. I'll be brief. Thank you, Madame Mayor. Um I again like my colleague said, you know, once it's gone around the table, you probably like, "Okay, I heard enough." No, but um as always, Mr. Manager and your team, thank you all for what you do. Um, this this is a unique challenge because again I I I know we got the presentation, you present it to us balanced and then we're offering these adjustments and saying go figure out if you can do it or not, right? Um, and not to belittle any of the submissions that we've offered, but you know Councilwoman um, Mayfield has a good point about the process that we agreed on as well. So, I think, you know, we do have to have some kind of pow-wow to say, you know, what we see as far as adherence is concerned. I mean, I, you know, it's it's just a lot to balance. So, um, I I would like to bring up one particular thing. There was um one email that we all received anonymously and I'd like to gain a little bit more understanding on our salaried employees as opposed to our hourly employees. Um and the devian in what they're actually receiving as a raise as opposed to our hourly employees. Um, the one thing that I enjoy, um, aside from the service portion of this role is the partnership with the Team Charlotte members that are really close to us. And a lot of those members are um they're they're they're salaried, right? And you know, irregardless of what their salary is, we have, you know, inflation, they have families, you know, they make plans in particular just like anyone else. And and I I think if if we talk about fairness, especially what the one email that we received addressed as far as, you know, there not being a particular raise for those members of our organization um in the same percentages as we do for some of our hourly employees. I' I'd like to take a a particular look at that and and make sure we're being fair. I think it's important to keep great talent. Mhm. Um and you know I I know that even in my own life I I definitely have a line in the sand where I I live me and you have had this conversation. I maintain my life such that I can walk away from anything that don't serve me right. And and if you want to keep good talent, you have to make sure that that talent feels as though they're appreciated, as though they're being paid fairly, as though they're being treated fairly. And I think we have to mo we've done a great job in many respects. Um we lead by example with our SEAP goals. We lead by example with our pay uh for our hourly employees. I'm proud to say that our organization pays, you know, a decent wage, a minimum decent wage of 24. It can be better. It can always be better, but 24 is a great start for our hourly employees, but you know, to to make sure that we extend that across the board is something that I'd like to raise up. And that's all I have. Thank you, Madame Mayor. Johnson. Thank you, Madame Mayor. Great job, uh, Mr. Jones. Uh, I just have a couple more questions. Um, for Teresa or and Marie, if that's possible. We've talked about the hospitality and tourism funds. I wanted to clarify if you could look at page 251. So I got the numbers for the convention center tax fund and also the tourism operating fund. 251 is the hall of fame tax fund. Is that also included as one of the tourism funds? It is. So there there are the three convention center tourism and the hall of fame. Okay. So for the hall of fame the total is $24,68,700. Right. So the spending for or the the amount for future years is what? 11,725717. Okay. So if I added up those three future year totals, it's about 40 40 or 41 million. That sound about right? That sounds about right. Okay. So, I would just add, you know, it's great that there's not a tax increase, but rather than saying, you know, there could be a tax increase, I think we should take a look at all of our funding before we burden the residents of Charlotte with any more taxes. Um, there's $41 million um future, that's a lot of for future dollars. the totals you all have heard. There should be no, in my opinion, there should be no fund that is excluded from operations and from um from the general operations. I know it's not something we've done before, but you know, we are in a crisis. We're in a crisis with housing. We know the volatile federal situation. So I would just I I just keep putting that before us that we should be able to consider at least a percentage 1%.5% to go towards operation. So um I would just say that again. Um I also would lift up Charlotte Fire. We have heard from Charlotte Fire about their health care. We've heard from Charlotte Fire for the last few years and also CMPD. if we could do I don't know what that would require that there's no wait when citizens call 911. We really have to do something about that. Um there that's still a problem. We've talked about it I think my first year Mr. Jones. So we have to do something differently when it comes to 911. And that's all I have. Thank you. I'm sorry. Yes. So just just a clarification about the item that says reserved for future years. Okay. So as a reminder um again each of these funds so we said there are the three hospitality funds. They are very specific revenue sources guided by the statute that says how we can spend those. For each of these three we maintain separate models and those models include things like debt that you've already issued. So in one particular year, we may see that we're putting some money into fund balance. So for the convention center, that's the $27 million number that is going into fund balance. But that fund balance is what's helping to support existing debt service, future debt service. Um and all of that ties back to your hospitality revenue uh capital policy that you have which says that you will maintain 100% of the next year's debt service along with some additional reserves. So things like something called a recession mitigation reserve and things like that. So even though this does show as money that is not committed in this particular year, it is committed through the modeling that we have for each of these three funds and that modeling is uh required by the state or that's our policy. That is that is best practice uh to to maintain those models. Right. So that's it's best practice. However, when you're in a crisis, I just believe all hands on deck and to have a fund that's exclusive to tourism to $650 million to the Panther Stadium to those kind of expenses when when we have so many unhoused, we have individuals who can't afford to live in this city. So, I just think we need to really take a look at our our spending model. Thank you. I think that list may remember thank you so much. I was engaged in work. So, thank you for going around the diet. I want to say to Mr. Jones, thank you for your hard work and your staff. You guys are amazing. I can't even imagine what it takes to put a $4.5 billion budget together um and have it balanced. I also want to um address I know Mr. Kenny Robinson of Freedom Fighting Missionaries did not apply for a financial partner but he was asking for uh funding and he has um he understood that the process that he went through the first time he complied and did everything he was supposed to do. Did his organization reach out to you separate and ask you for uh an additional $1 million for housing? Um, did is did you hear that or is this your first time me bringing it up? Is it the first time? I I know that uh um Mr. Robinson and I have a a meeting scheduled. I'm not sure if anything made its way to Sean. Well, it's made it way to me. Okay. So, I just want to, you know, bring it up and he's he's doing a a proposal and so I I I would like to support it. um is for a support housing program for the McKenna Vento students that are homeless and don't have anywhere to live in CMS. So it's a offset of having housing for children that are unsheltered and don't have anywhere to stay. So that's coming through and that's the only thing I have besides what I stated earlier today. Thank you for all your hard work and the things that you do. I do uh echo um council member Molina's point when she said uh for the staff that is on salary they work hard as well and um I'm would love to see them get an increase but my first preference would be for the city employees to be increased to 25 per hour or 26 per hour that they're asking for due the people's budget and I don't have anything else Mr. Manager, thank you so much. Mayor Pro Tim, I yield back to you. Thank you so very much. Um, so I think everybody has had a chance to offer any suggested changes or or wanted to have anything researched. Um, I think I'd really like to have a better understanding of our conclusion of the work that Miss Mayfield has done. Is that something that we will move forward on and continue to look at or is that something that the council would see differently? That would be helpful. I think Miss Phil. Yeah. So, normally when we get to this point, we go through each item. Mine is up there to see whether or not we can get five. Right. If we don't get five, then it gets removed. We keep it moving. So, are you recommending that we do that now or once we get the responses back? I think that it would be helpful to have the responses back, but I wanted to make sure that we weren't leaving what you had done to a separate p place on the books. I guess I and man miss manager Jones, you can help me clarify. I feel like it call it goes in this category of add and delete since I did add items and in my particular proposal it did add an additional 444,430 even though it was split up between multiple but I would take whatever direction that you all recommend. I am fine with us doing our standard process of going through each line. Do we have five? If we don't have five, then that gets removed and we keep keep it moving. But I will take whatever recommendation you all Okay. put forth. So, are we ready to do that vote? Is the council ready to do this vote? Yeah. All right. Mr. Driggs. Yes. I just want to be clear what the vote is because uh we had this large number. Miss Mayfield has proposed, I believe constructively, a different framework, and that's where the 444,000 comes from. So, are we voting uh are we accepting that a reduction down to a million2 when we vote on 444,000 or what exactly are we doing? I I wanted to make sure that we had what Miss Mayfield and the council had the entire She's up there. I'm sure she's not up there. Um the statement is up there for funding the financial partners based upon the proposed criteria. Mr. Jones have your mic please. Yes. But it says additional funding. Additional to what? To a million2 which is a number that's in her proposal. That's not a number that exists anywhere else. I understand that but we have still have to go through this. May I clarify mayor? So and there will be a question for the manager Ed. But what I'm the way I'm looking at it, if we just look at this as add and deletes time, then even though my proposal has multiple organizations, the proposal is an additional 444,000 from the staff's proposal of 812, which gets us to a new total amount. So I think that's what needs to be put in there is that the new budget amount that I'm proposing is a million256468 but it encompasses multiple groups but I think it's also kind of a s a separate conversation of do we have five to support additional to support this proposal. If we don't, then we go we remove mine and just go each line item like we previously done. You've done a great job of explaining. That's what I was thinking. Is this a one time to make to make this um additional funding as Miss Mayfield just is the pro is the work that's being dis that was discussed would that be appropriate to make it one check for five votes or what? Okay. Does everybody everybody understand? I'm ready to go with Okay, I have three people that want to take. So, Mr. Let's go with the manager first and then we'll come back. So, thank thank you, mayor, members of council. Um, because many of these items are very similar. Um, I don't think it's any additional work on the staff if you sent all of these to the next step and it could help. But if there's something that's so egregious that you don't want to have examined, I'm just trying to be helpful. Yeah, that's great. Okay. So, I think good. Sure. A question of if there is anything Okay. So, I think that what Mr. Jones has said, is there anything on this that you would like to have um a conversation or vote on today? But other than that, he would just have the staff. I think five people would have to move all of these forward. All right. So, mayor, may I ask another clarifying question? So, if we if the manager is saying that five need we need five of us to say whether or not we want all of this to go forward. The question I have for our budget team is I mentioned earlier if you were going to remove some of the items from the add and delete if they were already captured in the proposed based on criteria cuz I think it was only like two maybe three that was in there twice so that we can get a total because that's the other thing that we need to know is what does this total ask because It feels like that 5.3 that we think we have is already gone and it's a lot of duplication, right? And so I was trying to clear the duplication. If it's multiple people supporting, just put all their names together so that we can get a better number. And if I'm hearing you correctly, manager and mayor, what we would be voting on right now is once staff clears this up so that there's not duplication. We just put all the people names that support whatever that is that what we will be supporting five or more of us is to move everything that's up on the screen right now for and get response back. Right. Yes. Okay. Does everybody miss just one other one other addition and and it's it's so I think this would be a great opportunity because we endeavor to have a process to make sure we get that word out now right so to say plainly that if this is something that we're going to maintain going forward you know for future councils because we're in an election year we don't know what the future council will be or what they would decide but right now at this moment there is a process by which we make this decision through an application, right? And meeting that criteria and and based on what the mayor pro Tim said who obviously has some mathematical advanced understanding when she's talking standard deviation and things of that nature, but there really is a deviance in the percentages and who actually qualified based on the criterion. Um and so getting real clear about that, making sure that we have that information kind of standardized so that all of our community members who endeavor to partner, you know, partner with us have a clear understanding of what the expectations are because I think we lost some people too in the process, right? They they didn't realize we had the application process. there may have been, you know, and we could assume a whole lot of different things, but just to make sure that we kind of are saying like that's something that we want to do and when that deadline is so that people know that, you know, there will be an opportunity to apply for let's say the next budget in November, right? I mean, right. I think that what we've been trying to do is get that kind of um a I guess what you would call policy in place that would go to the committee to do that because we don't have it, you know, we're we're working right now with what is our budget and if we can do all of these things then we would take that um how do we codify that into the committee? Okay. Okay. Would that work? Yeah, I think you know just we're preparing for the next time. It's we're already we're already in that that's what I'm saying basically is to say you know now that we're there's different reasons some ways to do it differently and to be consistent. I think that's it. So right now I'm asking if it is um appropriate to have a vote on these items as a poll and that we would come back and the staff would work through them and bring them back for the meeting that we will be having on the second. So move second. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion on it? Um, Miss Johnson. So, I just want to go back to uh Council Member Mitchell's recommendation. Were you Weren't you asking to send it back to the agenda? I mean the committee. Yeah. Okay. Yes. The financial part are only those. Did I misunderstand? I thought No, I think you're right. It's just the financial partners, not not all of the line items. Financial partners, right? Let me make sure I understand. I'm sorry. Okay, let's The manager wants Miss Johnson ask the question again. The financial partners will not be voted on in this budget. So that I thought that was referred to the committee. So the financial partners discuss I'm sorry. So the financial partners discussion will occur after June 9th. No. No, the changes to codify what we were doing would be, you know, we talked about where we would have applications and all of that and Miss Molina was saying that and so what that's what will go into committee for discussion, but that would be after this has taken place. Is that correct? No. So in June, I'm sorry. No, no, go ahead. Yeah, if I may. Go ahead. June second is the next BGIR committee, right? And so my motion was to have this at the BGIR committee at our 2 1:30 meeting and then at the 6:00 meeting with our council then it's a recommendation for the financial partners only for the financial partners on voting on June. I I think in the evening this would be in the afternoon. I thought that what Miss Molina was saying is that there are some things up here that we've talked about that we want to make sure that that's in the process and I thought that's what the committee would do but the council would vote on these things that are on the screen. So, and and and I agree, mayor. I think the only challenge, the original schedule was we will vote on the 29th 29th and I know there's three to four council members that would be absent, right? So, I was saying let's vote then on June 2nd at 6:00 when we should have a full council in place. But I was I'm I'm asking the question of whether or not the so for example up here we have review pay parental leave to coverage then would that come through the B budget comm just the financial partners not the other line items because we are only working on the financial partners policy not the other line items right I okay I I didn't totally sorry I believe this is consistent with what y'all did last year and it's just a recommendation so maybe we staff what we were typically get the whole council to consider that night we would preview with the BGIR right that's what they did last time okay so we have a practice and so we'll go ahead with that is everybody understand this is going to go into the budget committee. Do we need a do we need just the financial partners? Just the financial partners, not the other items, but we still need a vote to say that this is what you want the staff to review and bring back information in doing it. So, I think we have a motion. We have a motion and a second to do that. Mitchell to refer to the the committee committee. We need to take action on that. Second. All right. We have a motion and a second. Um, are you prepared to vote? If you're prepared to vote, please raise your hand. And those who are out everything forward that's in front of us. Yes. All right. Okay. Is there anyone in opposition to that? Okay. Anybody? Anyone against it? Any opposition? Council member Mitchell, that motion was to refer it to the committee per council member Mitchell's recommendation. A motion and second. Now that if that has passed, then I take action on the remainder of the That's right. Right. What date we supposed to be having? June 2nd. June second. So we're So we're going to talk about this again. But that's what we did last time for it to come back to full counsel on the evening of the second. Right. So in committee, we're going to talk about all of this. Yes, ma'am. Just for it to come back to full counsel. Yes, ma'am. We are going to make a recommendation to to expedite things like we did last time during the last budget cycle. Yes. Okay. They're going to work with the staff and then the staff will have an opportunity to present and then that would hopefully help us make this process a little bit smoother. Okay. All right. God bless you. I think that's the end of our meeting now. Do I need to close have a close? We have other items. I think you wanted to have a motion on the rest of the agenda items. Oh, yes. Okay. Now, we're at the other items that are there that have been recom or requested by council members. Um, are there is there anyone that would like to um make a motion for a review of all of those or any one? I'll make a motion to review all of it. And Mr. Manager, if you could provide your expert opinion and recommendations on June 2nd. Second. All right, we have a motion and a second. Any discussion on this hearing? None. All I'm sorry, M. Mr. Manager, is that going to give you enough time to get these answers back? Yes. Thank you. Okay. All right. So, with the um understanding that he has enough time, all in favor, please raise your hands. Anyone opposed? Anyone opposed? Okay. So that carries off of the things that we've approved on our budget this time. So now, Mr. Fox, let's see what's our next item of today. M Mary, mayor and members of council, this was the budget meeting. It was a special not specially notice meeting. You're now getting ready to go into you can adjourn this meeting. You're then going into a specially noticed zoning meeting that's going to be in the council chambers starting at 4:00 and then you'll open that and to proceed with your the action that is on the that is an item to be addressed at the 4:00 meeting at four instead of five. [Music] Do they have my food downstairs? because I need no lunch. I think there needs to be a motion to adjourn this meeting. Second. All in favor? [Music] Yes. [Music]