good morning everyone it's 9:00 and we're going to start a little bit uh I know there some items are we'll need a Corum but we're going to start with the pledge Chief will you lead us please sir if I'm not mistaken there's no action items so we can uh actually just begin because it's all for presentation purpose hey yeah morning morning this is a special meeting of the city council Monday July 8 it is 9 a.m. I will remind everyone when we get but in the mayor also present in the conference room we have alternate mayor protm Riva I mean alternate mayor Pro mol I know representative Canales and I don't see anyone else oh mayor proam Kennedy oh and we do have a quorum now and representative AO Representatives Riva and Fiero have requested to be excused and we do have one item not for action for presentation and discussion FY 2024 2025 budget as presented by the interm city manager the first item will be the city manager overview and that would be followed by presentations for goal once and one and three good morning everyone and um we do have a quorum now and um we're uh this is um a work session that uh we will um it's not posted for action it's really posted to give us the information uh to see what's going on with all the department department and how the budget is uh shaping up I've um I've had the opportunity to meet with Mr cortinez uh Colonel Weston a lot of the Departments and um we're almost there that's all I can say colonel but uh no they uh they've really worked hard and uh I do want to thank Mr cortinez because she's really has risen to the challenge of this budget and I do want to thank you for it because uh any questions I've asked you've come back with u real answers and I thank you for that I know that uh this uh this year has been a great year for for the city and and the things that we've done as a city has been incredible um you can take the call Chief it's okay it's probably more important but uh no it's um I'm I'm impressed with the economic development I'm impressed with uh every Department in the city and how we've grown um and I know the airport is still one of the state of-the-art airports and uh Public Safety um and we'll talk about a little bit more I know um Chief G good morning ma'am it uh the last quarter uh it we've actually continued the get better and we'll continue to get better so uh every department has been very impressive under the leadership of uh Colonel Weston Colonel Weston um thank you for for stepping in as as inum of um this wonderful City uh you've made a huge huge difference and I really believe the way every staff member conducts themselves they they feel very confident they feel that uh their word counts and means something and uh when they walk in now they walk in with a smile and they walk in um very confident in the job they're doing and I attribute that to your leadership and your type of leadership that uh you've been able to do that so so uh this will be my last budget with you and um and and again I do want to thank you for for doing that all the deputy city managers have done an incredible job but one of the things you've done that's really very impressive is you've allowed them to do their job and you all do a great job and you do your job because you have the knowledge and you're put there because of your knowledge and you've had the opportunity to do that um you know you you we hear things on the outside and it's uh called people that weren't able to accomplished what they wanted to accomplish but we were people that um couldn't do what yall have done so they they got to go out there and and not say the good things but there's not a lot of bad there really a lot of great things we've done we have a great Council we have a council that has a vision for success and I think we'll see that in in this budget so um I'm uh I'm pretty excited to to sit here and um and listen because this is a work session not an action session so we want to listen to you all and listen to what you have to to do even though I've seen the presentation uh probably more than once and um we'll continue to look at it because it is a living document at this point and um again every Department had uh every city employee all 7,000 of you all you've made this city a great City and then the last um year and a half you've been able to do your job and you've done it well so I thank you for Colonel thank you mayor good morning uh mayor members of the Council of Mayor I really appreciate that I appreciate the uh the comments regarding our staff I think that this year in particular this last year just based on where we have been with the economy and a lot of the pressures uh we've asked the staff every year to do a lot and they become very creative in terms of aligning uh resources to getting the job done and getting the job done really effectively so the credit really goes to all the folks that are in this room who lead departments uh and work tirelessly every day to deliver exceptional services to our community so greatly appreciate uh your recognition of our of our staff um and mayor as you mentioned this uh this budget seems like we were just here uh even though it was a year ago and we're back um I think the important part of this is that this is a launching Point into a lot of discussion everything's preliminary right right now until we have the certified values that come in on the 25th of of July so there's still time for us to be able to not only get the input from the city council in terms of talking about the different priorities and talking about the recommendations that we're making today but there's still an opportunity for us to have an effect on the budget before that gets finalized uh at the end of the month um we've got this scheduled over the next few days and so I guess my message really to the city council is that we'll go through these presentations at your pace um feel free if there's a need for us to stop if there's a need for us to have discussion about any of the uh the topics that we're addressing we'll do that there's plenty of time to get to get this done I think when we've looked at this historically we typically get this done in in about a day and a half or two days but we have the time allotted to go longer if it's necessary from the council so that's really the the message uh we'll start with my overview um Robert cortinez Nicole Cody will have a piece of that as well and then we'll we'll begin going into the goal team presentations today that'll be a little bit more of a deep dive into um issues revolving around the Departments and their ability to be able to to meet the mission requirements of the city so we go to the first slide please okay so I'll I'll just discuss the the approach we took and how we develop the budget this year and then I'll hand it off to Nicole Cody who and Robert cortinis will take us through the rest not only talking about the budget highlights but then getting into the overall revenue and expenditures and then we'll we'll conclude the overview presentation just with a reminder on the budget calendar um a big part of what I'm going to talk about is I'm going to start off by addressing what the challenges we're going into this budget a lot of lot of different in terms of how we had to approach this budget from last year I'm going to give you the recommended property tax rate right up front so you'll understand right up front what we're recommending and then how we balance the budget to get there another part that I want to talk about that isn't necessarily going to be uh we're not going to solve with this budget year but it's worth us talking about this because these issues won't go away and those are the what are the long-term budget challenges for the city those things that we really have to pay attention to not just going into this year but doing the longterm planning so that we can be much more fiscally and financially sustainable going forward and addressing some of the key needs of the city and then as we've been saying not since not just since the last budget but also in our strategic planning session you can't look at a budget year in isolation so whatever we're recommending and whatever the council eventually adopts this year you have to look at how that affects next year and Beyond so you have to take a multi-year look to the budget while you're working up on on the on the next budget and that's what we'll do and we'll show you what that really means going in the next year should our recommendation be uh be approved later on in this month um the approach we've taken on this budget quite frankly is really very similar to the approach we took when we sat down and started working through this last year we're running into the some of the same challenges El pasoans are still feeling the effects of uncertainty in the economy High inflation just about everything that anybody does when you're going to go out to get gas pay utility bills looking at uh housing costs higher valuations higher interest rates it has an effect on everybody and so that we really took that to heart again this year and making this budget recommendation and so our recommended action is to lower the property tax rate by 4 cents from last year that equates to about a $20 million reduction from last year's budget we're able to accomplish that using previous year's savings you know we were very fortunate you you know Council made the decision last year to put in the pay for futures fund to to mitigate some of the impacts of the collectively bargained agreement and so the 5 million that we were going to we we were going to put into that last year we didn't have to do that that now we're sliding that to this year that'll help offset some of the some of the pressures and cost I think another real big uh big thing for us to be able to get to this recommendation is we're not going to issue debt for the second straight year now this will be the last year we'll be able to do that we have about $200 million of cash on hand to pay for uh Bond projects and so we've got the capacity with cash on hand to do it without having to take on debt with bad with favorable interest rates uh next year it'll be a different matter so we'll have to kind of take that into consideration and Robert coreus will show you that on a later slide what that model looks like going forward in the future and our recommendation what it doesn't do is it doesn't take away from any of the public safety requirements and priorities of the city still maintains in that or maintains investment in that streets in our Workforce so what's different from last year well certainly we're dealing with a lot less re uh new Revenue if you look so we uh our sales tax revenue is only increasing by 3 million this year and by the way my compliments to uh our CFO and Nicole Cody and their staff they projected this and they were almost spoton with their projection we had significant sales tax growth last year with which to work with they they forewarned us last budget year that wasn't going to be the case this year and and they came in right on the mark unfortunately it's a big difference from 4.5 million to 3 million our franchise fee revenue is also decreasing by a little over a million compared to almost a $10.5 million increase last year and then I've just listed some of the fixed costs that do impact the budget these aren't all of them they're the most impactful the city's contribution for health care costs we're projecting that to increase by $4.2 million this year and for the sixth straight year we plan on absorbing that and this budget recommendation has us as a city absorbing that and not passing that on under the employees the November upcoming November election will just be a little over $2 million you remember when the uh when the appraisal service folks came to brief at Council and talked about their their their costs that's increasing by a million dollars this year and then a much needed uh uh service in opening up Morehead not only from an animal services capacity perspective but also just the things we've been able to do um as a as a shelter there but there's a cost to that and so between that and increased Staffing for Animal Services we have just a little over a $2 million cost increase and then our it contracts have increased by 1.1 million so our recommended property tax rate of 77.8 again that's a 4 Cent reduction from the current tax rate that equals about a 13c reduction in the last three 3 years which is the lowest tax rate since 2016 and our preliminary Debt Service tax rate of of just a little over 23.5 cents is the lowest since 2013 very significant um and then our recommendation of a 4 Cent reduction really sits right in the middle of kind of the preliminary rates of the voter approval rate of 78.9 cents and then what we're estimating the no new Revenue rate to be at 76.9 so we're about right now we're about $5 million off of the no new Revenue rate and we'll have a much better understanding obviously of what that what that is uh on July 25th when we receive the certified tax values so how do we how do we achieve the the 4C reduction a lot of this really goes credit goes to the council I think that your decision last year to eliminate tur 2 and 10A really gave us operational flexibility with additional monies um that could go into payo funding that's really helped us your decisions to create the pay for futures fund and that's that sliding scale over the next four to five years really helped us with that as well and then just predicting and understanding what we what we knew was happening with the sales tax slowdown being able to forecast that and plan effectively helped us significantly ly we have seen good property valuation growth uh estimating that to be about 10% I already talked about not issuing any debt uh and then some of the savings that we've received from refinancing I I discussed the $5 million from the pay for futures fund we do plan on uh continuing with our pay raises for our civilian Workforce we're going to do a little bit differently than last year to get to this recommendation we'll do half of it in September a 50c increase in September and then a 50c increase in March the net effect will still be a $280 annual increase for our employees we'll continue with that and then we're taking additional attrition this year now I know there's probably going to be some talk about that I'll save that for when we get to those slides later in the presentation but I'm recommending we take additional attrition let me make this comment now and I'm going to say it again because I don't think it can be said too many times even though we're taking additional attrition this is not this is not a hiring freeze I encourage all of our departments to continue to hire and and fill the vacancies that you need to fill within your departments a lot of work's gone into this and we'll talk about that more specifically when we get to the slide and then what I am having to do with this recommendation is pull back a little bit of the payo funding by about $3 million for vehicles and Facilities but what you're going to see when we get to the slide upcoming is that there's still a significant increase in payo funding from where we were just a couple of years ago the budget Focus um really is utilizing a multi-year Outlook it's focused on city council and Community priorities again it's it's investing aggressively in public safeties We are continuing to fund both the police officer and firefighter as we had discussed earlier um really working hard to retain our existing police officers and firefighters through competitive compensation and our 2019 Public Safety Bond projects are still on track we're maintaining our current levels of investment and improving Street infrastructure Street infrastructure is a longer term concern for me we'll talk about that in a little bit but we still have got the infusion of pgo funding into into streets uh and our bond projects here as well from the community progress Bond are still ongoing in still on track and then we are continuing our commitment with this budget to Quality of Life you'll see the opening of the Children's Museum and the Mexican-American Cultural Center Plan before the end of the summer and then with the opening of the main library 100% of our libraries will be open this next budget year and then we talked about the importance of retention and recruitment of our Workforce and just the importance and the and the city council's priority and decision to really make sure we continue to invest in our Workforce and and uh so those those annual increases help with that and not uh passing healthc care increases to our employees will help as well and so you can see just what the percent increase has been on doing those annual raises and you can see for gspm and ex employees just what the effect has been since 2021 to where we are now and so we're making good progress us I had already talked about uh healthc care we're projecting about a $4.2 million general fund increase again this is the sixth consecutive year that we will not uh pass that health care cost increase on to our civilian employees we're continuing funding our health savings account which is ranges from about $500 to $1,000 annually for the consumer-driven healthc care plan participants and those that participate in our shape it up Wellness program also can see some of the benefits that they participate so this is when I addressed the the the annual pgo funding again a really really very helpful for your decision last year regarding tur 2 and 10A and you saw in the FY 2024 adopted a budget or adopted budget last year just what a big difference that made in terms of what we could put into some of these key areas uh in terms of funding and where we are now taking uh away pulling back about 3 million it's still a very significant increase to where we were just two years ago so I feel very comfortable with that some of our longer term budget challenges I'm not going to belabor the points on this particular slide but it's worth mentioning I'm sure it's going to come up in our conversation but um streets continues to be I believe to be one of our biggest Financial challenges going forward into the future um 50% of our streaks by the payment condition index rank in the fair to very poor condition and all of you know that when we're addressing streets what's really important is you really got to put the the emphasis when streets are in fair condition because you have to hit those resurfacing metrics before a street degrades too much and becomes a reconstruction candidate because when that happens it's about a 10-fold increase in the cost and so a sustainable plan for how we're going to address streets is something that we're going to have to come to grips with and figure out uh going forward in the future um I have staff looking extensively at this now and and we'll be prepared to talk about that going forward facilities 2third of the of our existing City facilities over 250 are more than 30 years old and everybody knows that the older your facilities are the more problems you have in terms of Maintenance wear and tear and so that's something that we're going to have to continue to really put emphasis on going forward in the future and then vehicles and equipment 23% or 460 of our light duty vehicles have surpassed their useful life and then you see Parks we have a number of parks with d-rated equipment uh reaching the end of their useful life now there is light at the end of the tunnel so the good news is more pigo funding and having more predictability year-over-year with pigo funding I think really helps because if you're a department head and you know you might not have all all the money you need year over year but if you know you're going to have money that you can count on year-over-year it makes it a lot more effective in terms of your longer term planning and prioritizing and triaging really knowing kind of how you can sequence making some of the decisions that you need to make in terms of replacing vehicles and also putting money into uh some of the priorities for for streets facilities Etc one of the things that the CFO and I talked about extensively is figuring out a way where we have a much more sustainable plan to handle City Grant matches not only the discretionary grants but also the mo grants right now we're using we're doing that with one-time money we've got the uh we've got this covered this budget year and into next year um with some of the real estate proceedings or proceeds rather but one of the things we're going to have to do is figure out a way where we're not having to bank on finding one-time money and finding a revenue source that puts money into grants year-over-year we've been very successful with grants I think that's great for the city it certainly eases the burden on the general fund in a lot of different areas but we have match requirements for many of these and it's something that we have to deal with and then we also don't have an annual funding stream as we see critical it capital replacement um uh and those costs continuing to to face us year-over-year it's important to uh for us to always look at this again I've said this a couple of times already looking at the budget in terms of longer term planning um I just talked about stability and predictability for our department heads but looking at these things over many years and coming up with Solutions well ahead of time for how we're going to deal with challenges going forward in the future and it's a balancing act because we rely very heavily on property tax and sales tax as the principal revenue streams for the city to carry out the priorities and needs of the city but we always have cost drivers that are increasing uh to maintain competitive pay we see what's happening with healthc care and CBA costs continue to uh to to go up as well all that said we have a number of City priorities some of which um require a much longer term vision and strategy but at the end of the day the public expects us to Del deliver exceptional services so we have to figure it out and so that's the uh that's my overview um I don't know if there's any questions now or I can turn it over to uh Nicole Cody to continue the the overview presentation well thank you very much sir for the Pres presentation and um I know that we've had this discussion and I'm just going to make sure I say it up front that U I'm still looking for no new Revenue moving forward and I know that until we get the the actual Revenue I mean the tax back in January 25 it's you know you all have done a great job but I'm still looking forward to somehow being able to do a no new Revenue moving forward so thank you again I thank you guys have worked on it really really hard from where we started to where we're at today it's uh it's a great job so thank you for that yes mayor and and again I think there's still we will continue to to look at opportunities to get there and and again we have a little bit of time before we get to the I thank you adoption thank you who's up next sir Nicole Cody sir thank you if I can please note that representative salido joined us at 9:04 a.m. and representative Hernandez join Jo the meeting at 9:13 a.m. thank you good morning mayor and Council Nicole Cody May managing director so we'll just jump right into it uh slide 18 we preliminary general fund budget so on slide 19 you can see that Public Safety at investment for our general fund budget at 57.7% it is followed by quality of life at 79.9 or 133% and infrastructure which includes both our streets and maintenance and our Capital Improvement department at 11.8 on slide 21 we include personal services which is at 71.5% and this is really to be able to illustrate that our city is running by people it's made up of salaries and benefits that help to deliver the services of that our city expects it is followed then by um contractual services and materials and supplies and then our Revenue so when we look at our Revenue by category property taxes of course is going to be the majority at 2 182.5 or 47% of all revenues from property taxes and then it's followed by sales tax at the 23 23.5 or $140.9 million so really property tax and sales tax uh represents about 70% of all of the revenue generated for the general fund uh budget as you can see on this slide it shows the general fund budget by department and this is the breakdown or comparison between their adopted bu buet and your prelimin our preliminary budget that we're presenting today so with our preliminary budget at $ 599. 6 million it provides a $ 26.3 million variance or increase when compared to 2024 when we look at our all funds budget this means that it's not only the general fund But it includes all of the six major non-general fund categories are included as part of this 26 preliminary budget at $1.3 billion this increase is only at $16.9 million and it's mainly due to a couple of departments that you can see here one is economic uh Environmental Services sorry Environmental Services as there's a reduction of $ 34.9 million and we'll get into more detail in later slides uh by Vision block by departments but uh it's important to note that this was due to one-time Capital that was established as part of 2024 next we've got our time in budget survey responses and so we're really excited that this year we were able to exceed last year's number of responses uh by close to what 500 or so so we're at 7,130 responses with our priorities reflecting in public safety quality of life Economic Development and what's interesting is this year you can really see that we see other categories that are also rising to the top which includes infrastructure and Community Health and so where in the past we would see one or two uh priorities that really dominated there's more priorities that are really starting to rise to the top and it's is looking at it CommunityWide so in SL on slide 25 once we ask what is your priority we also if once you select a category based on our goals then we ask what is your focus within that category and so here you can see for Public Safety what is your focus and so really what Rose to the top was police services and then uh distant second was 911 for quality of life what Rose to the top was Parks and Recreation at 764 responses with museums and cultural Affairs and Then followed by libraries under Economic Development when we asked what is your focus new job opportunities really rot Rose to the top at 534 responses followed by business retention and attraction and so every year every year we look at being able to improve the survey and so this year is no different we received um information not only from the representatives on how to improve our processes but also from the our respondents and so as part of that we included our community engagement and focus groups in person uh this year they were offered through during the month of June and here's a list of those and where they were located in the dates and times that they were held and then we're going to get into those responses so for the Westside focus group that was held at the Westside Library uh you can see these are the major areas so we're including all of the responses that were provided by those who attended but they did focus and then what we do is we ask at the end after we have a a really in-depth conversation with them about their priorities for their City what they see um that needs to be uh funded it's looking also at what resources we need to provide to these priorities we ask them what are their top ones as a consensus we give everybody an opportunity to speak about them uh really share their opinions with us and tell their stories and then um we ask what are your priorities and so from this group The priorities that we received that were consensus of the overall group were really a focus on infrastructure really are streets looking at streets as part of economic development in addition was Public Safety and the importance and continued importance Public Safety has to allow people to feel safe in their neighborhoods as well as the new Revenue sources uh they really were focused on new business attraction and retention for the Northeast group uh they they they voted everything was a priority so everything listed here uh was really important to them right representative this was critical to them so um their quality of life really looking at more involvement they did um commend the improved programming that we had at Parks and Recreation it's noticeable they said thank you so it's important to pass pass that on as well um we had economic development of course understanding Central Appraisal District's role there was quite a bit of conversation about that as well as the importance of Public Safety and what we can do to involve the public in helping in public safety as well so for our Central group uh they were really engaged they had some great stories and they really was the focus of their neighborhoods they want to be able to enjoy their neighborhoods and so what is what does that mean for services they're looking at streets people speing speeding down their street they're looking at the neighborhood traffic management plan they were looking at um signage in their areas to help inform the drivers on how to to be better drivers as well as um Park amenities of course and it everything really related to their neighborhoods right what they cared what's going on on their block um including code enforcemen and so for Mission Valley uh was a really great group and it ended up being our largest uh participants number of participants were for Mission Valley uh Mission Valley really focused on looking at Economic Development opportunities so they looked at what are those major tourism attractions that we can look at how do we see tourism as an economic development driver in addition there was a lot of focus on the beautification of alam they spoke about uh Walkin Rodriguez and his efforts and what he's done by ensuring that there's engagement on Alam reimagining Alam so to speak and then there was also a lot of conversation on Code Enforcement looking at the neighborhoods looking at what's happening in their block and then the final final focus group that we had was uh located on the east side and um they all had participated in the responses and so what we did differently this year as well is normally we would reach out to those that had submitted the survey and ask would you like to participate as as part of a focus group but then we also made sure that we went uh with Laura's help we made sure that that was advertised that there was plenty of media coverage as well um to Ure that anyone and everyone who was interested in providing their feedback was able to and so as part of the east side group they covered as you can see a lot of uh different areas but what was unique about theirs is really looking at a partnership with school districts how can they how can we as a city partner with school districts to be able to have an effect on change how we can help uh be able to assist they can assist us with median maintenance cleanups how can we start being able to engage them to really improve um services and so that was that was different than most of the other groups and I thought we we needed to highlight that but for them their big priorities of course were going to be Public Safety infrastructure and then those Partnerships and then I'll turn it over to Mr cortinez good morning Robert cortinez so I'm going to cover the revenue section and then I'll turn it back over to Nicole who will get into the expenditures and identify the major variances by department so looking at overall general fund Revenue by category here again as colon West mentioned earlier in the presentation looking at property taxes overall out of the $26.3 million increase in the general fund 17.7 million of that is being generated through additional property tax revenue again as a result of the project 10% increase in taxable values again the early estimate until we receive certified values and then also with the no debt issuance planned for fy2 again providing additional property tax revenue for the general fund um you see the sales tax revenue increase of 3.4 million and we have a couple of slides on that to go a little bit more into detail obviously that's an important source of revenue for the general fund and then you see the other categories there you'll see rents and other one of the increases there that we'll talk a little bit about as well some additional Revenue through facility rental but also through the state's disabled veteran reimbursement program something that this past year was the first year we've done we were able to recover some additional funds from that program and so we have that built into the budget for next year as well looking at property tax valuations this is again a very very important slide as we look to not only the future but also looking at the past because obviously we're going through a very very significant increase in property values right now we've seen uh home commercial businesses increased pretty dramatically in the property values and so looking historically if you go back to 2004 as the city was growing really during that Brack expansion time period we saw about a 5-year time period where property values were increasing by almost double digits in every year however we know that that doesn't last forever and so we saw that decrease obviously with the Great Recession start to really impact the city in 2010 all the way up through really 2018 and then at that point in time we really started to see not significant growth but we really started to see some pretty strong growth for the city of Al Paso averaging at about 4% obviously Co had a little bit of an impact and then we see stared in FY 2023 really the Boom in overall property valuations and so we included in this slide as Colonel Weston talked about and really the the philosophy and the thing that's important when we're developing and talking about budgets is not only focusing on the current upcoming budget but also looking ahead to the Future because the decisions that are made in this budget season will have an impact on future years as well and so as we look to the outer years once we get past the FY 2025 budget which we're discussing right now we're projecting to see a little bit of a decrease down in overall property valuations but still continue to see pretty moderate growth around the 5% average the slide shows you the property tax for the last several years and shows you the breakdown by operating maintenance and The Debt Service so the black portion of the bars here are the operating the maintenance or the general fund portion and then the blue section is The Debt Service portion and so you can see that both of those coming down by about 2 cents each on The Debt Service and on the operating maintenance side again an overall decrease of just over 4 cents overall projected for next year and so as we look to not only the FY 2025 budget but again as we look ahead to FY 26 so really that two-year Outlook something that the council talked about during the strategic planning session of wanting to ensure that we take that really multi-year Outlook approach you'll see in FY 2025 projected increase again about $18 million of additional property tax revenue and again really being driven by that 10% increase in projected taxable valuation growth and again very very important is there's no planned debt for next year which means that additional property tax revenue goes to the general fund as opposed to the increase that we would need to support the debt service and so again as you look out two years from now well to next year but really two budget Years you'll see that that increase in overall additional property tax revenue comes back down to the historical average of about 12 million in FY 2026 so another important aspect that we talk about when we're looking at the overall budget is what we provide what the city provides and tax relief for our community and so we have not only the homestead tax exemption which provides a $5,000 savings to Homestead Properties for residential but the city also has our over 65 and our disabled exemption that we provide for over $50,000 homesteads so over 50,000 homesteads have either the over 65 or the disabled exemption which provides $42,500 of savings off the property value for their uh Homestead additionally through the state it's a state exemption not a city exemption is the disabled veterans so this is the military veterans exemption for not only disabled military veterans but also for surviving spouses and so we have seen an increase in this particular category of those individuals applying for and taking advantage of that uh savings uh it impacts the city to about in the last couple of years about an additional $2 million every year so we're up to about $15 million of tax for our military disabled veterans and the surviving spouses that being said one of the things that I I spoke to just a minute ago was that we did apply for through the state the reimbursement program for the impact of the 100% disabled veterans and so uh Nicole Cody and her team submitted that application we were able to recover about 1.9 million back from the State through that program for the impact of the 100% disabled veterans and so one of the things that we've already been talking about with Ian and the legislative affairs team is looking at really making a push during this upcoming legislative session for the state to apply more dollars towards that program and currently the state only applies about 9.5 million total for the state and so the city alone submitted an application for $6.6 million and so obviously um the state had a prate the amount that we were able to recover and so one of the things that we're going to push for during the upcoming legislative sessions for the state to allocate more funds to that program obviously again really investing in our disable veteran Community populations looking at our our debt service and so as we've mentioned a few times now for FY 2025 we have again no debt planned for upcoming fiscal year 2025 however as we've shown multiple times as we look again to the next several years we currently have just over $600 million of bonds that have already been approved to be issued in so this shows you the breakdown by the three General obligation bonds that we have and then the remaining amounts and you can see the planned issuance in FY 26 27 28 and then the outer years 2029 through 2033 again making up that overall 600 million also as was mentioned earlier this slide really um highlights the importance of everything that we've done the council's approved and pushed forward to really manage our debt and so whether it's actually the refinancings the defences which you all just recently approved but it's also the other obligation so Tak it down the trz2 was a very important one not only to generate that additional Revenue but that's an ongoing obligation that we were able to take off the city's books and again provide a little bit of additional relief from The Debt Service portion into the general fund or the operating maintenance portion and so we have shown this slide multiple times uh the debt modeling it obviously changes every year as we get certified values it changes based on our debt insurances and the interest rates we were able to receive but to be able to bring our FY 2025 debt rate down to 23.6 again really really uh important as we develop the budget for 2025 but also so that we're not overly impacting The Debt Service portion in the outer years as we do issue that remaining $6.7 million of debt this slide gives you a breakdown of the different tax increment Finance zones that the city has and so we have one remain remaining Transportation reinvestment Zone that's trz number three we also have various tzs tax increment reinvestment zones this shows you going back to 2020 and then projected all the way out through 2029 the projected property valuations within each of these different zones you'll see beginning in FY 2024 significant decrease over $700 million of taxable value that now instead of being tied up in TZ number two is now coming back to the general fund um some of the other large once uh Tiz number n we've seen pretty substantial growth with the number of houses that have been built in the far east side and that particular Tiz was committed to help fund the additional eight Sports Fields as part of the East Side sports complex looking a little bit at the impact on sales tax revenue one of the biggest challenges with not only sales tax but also our franchise fees is just the timing of the information that we receive we talked a lot about about this but it's very very important because the budget office is really determining and trying to do forecast for not only how we're going to finish this current fiscal year but then also uh forecasting out the FY 2025 budget and so the most recent sales tax data that we have is for the month of April we will receive the May sales tax allocation amount this coming Wednesday and so again that's again a delay in information and so we've already seen a little bit of a Slowdown uh we were obviously very aware of what was happening last year we incorporated that into our current budget and then again incorporating that into the budget projection for next year as well and so as we look to the adopted budget for sales tax over the last few years you'll see the significant increase from FY 23 to FY 2024 and so while we have seen that unprecedented growth in sales tax the actual collections for the FY 2024 budget so the budget that was adopted last year we did right siize really pretty significantly the overall budget and really forecast it out where we were projected to finish and then really looking ahead to that slowdown that we had already started to see and then you'll see on the far right hand column there what we're projecting for up by 2025 just over a $3.1 million increase and again projecting just over about a 2% increase in overall sales tax revenue for next year this slide really highlights really what we've been seeing again the most recent sales tax allocation that the city has is for the month of April as I mentioned we will get the of May this Wednesday but you'll see in the last six months we've seen very very minimal growth or even in two of those months in March and in December we actually saw decreases compared to the same time in the prior year and so our year-to date through the first seven months of this fiscal year we've only seen less than 1% increase in overall sales tax revenue growth and again very very important because that's our second largest revenue source for the general fund and so it's very important that we continue to monitor that and that we're actually developing budgets that are in line with the actual forecast this slide really just provides some historical context in what we've seen sales tax revenue is pretty stable um you'll see that blue line there it's historically you'll see that really sharp UPC um uptick that we saw coming out of covid significant influx of federal funds into the economy a lot of various assistance to help you come out of Co and be able to provide some relief but then if you look at the orange bar in the bottom there you'll see that's the six-month moving average really to highlight and show that we have started to see that slow down over the last few months in the sales tax revenue collections again another sales tax growth just showing the the historic but then also projected out for what we're expecting to see through FY 20129 um again we're projecting to see continued Positive Growth however not as significant as what we had seen during that three-year time period coming directly out of Co a few feed changes Nicole Cody did send out a lot of the information last week related to the actual budget the fee schedule that we have we provided you all the red line changes we do have a few changes in police related to the abandonado uh program that we operate um and we'll get into more of these discussions during the actual go team presentations but we do also have an increase in plan inspections really related to incrementally increasing the amount that we're recovering through their actual cost not going all the way up to the full 100% cost recovery but doing that incrementally over the next several years we have the Mexican-American Cultural Center expected to open relatively soon so incorporating the fees related to that facility we have a few changes related to the foreign trade zone um one of the important ones with we do have built into the budget for next year the environmental services and so you'll hear that during the goals 278 presentation so there is a $2 increase recommended for the residential garbage collection rate again this is the residential collection for garbage a $2 monthly increase and that's really to help adjust for all of the increases that we've seen not only in the operating side related to labor increases materials and supplies but also to help incorporate the funding that the Environmental Services Department utilizes for their Capital program as well to improve and build out their new facilities and with that I will now turn it back over to Nicole Cody who will go through the expenditures and the variances for each statistic goal thank you Robert so on slide 49 we have the FI 2025 preliminary budget we're going to go over by Vision block goal and then you'll see the variances by department on slide 50 this is the overall look of our budget so this is all funds and you'll see in the First Column we have our general fund budget at $ 599. 6 million and then the six non-general fund major categories under Enterprise uh funds this is where you'll find of course airport Environmental Services International Bridges Sun Metro and then total all funds budget is at $1.3 billion on slide 51 we have a breakdown by Vision block and so this will be this how we're going to present the vision blocks today and it'll also be the detailed information that you'll see in the next few slides is by Vision block and then broken up by goal and Department so when we look at the $26.3 million variance you're going to ask what's included in this variance and so this is including our police and fire increases that also includes the impact of the increase in health care as well as our civilian compensation increases and then as um Colonel Weston had mentioned Animal Service increase is due to Staffing as well as the additional Staffing for the new Morehead facility we have uh elction in this November and that's $2.2 million and then the appraisal services this is for the Central Appraisal District so uh we pay 25 approximately 25% of their overall budget it is going up $1 million this year and then we have approximately 1 million in it contracts and then the $800,000 that's listed there this is for the operation and maintenance of quality of life 2012 quality of life uh projects that are going to be opening this year so that also includes the increase that we have for operations for the Children's Museum as well as a s flat Fields we'll get into more detail in in later slides and then lastly we have an increase in water and then also as Colonel Weston mentioned we have that reduction of $3 million in PCO funding this just shows um the same detail information in a table format and these are major variances for expenditures so when we look at vibrant Regional economy we see a reduction of course in Economic Development uh due to a transfer of the lobbyist funding going to strategic and legislative affairs as well as planning and inspections our compensation increases and so really you're going to see compensation increase uh throughout the budget presentations and is one of the major variances for all of the Departments uh due to the investment that Council has made in compensation for our employees a non-general fund uh vibrant Regional economy just the highlights uh you'll see a large increase in Economic Development and this is for a one-time use from the Ted auxiliary and impact funds as well as um in airport we've got an increase for parking lot Management Services for safe and beautiful neighborhoods you can see the major increases that we discussed for both fire and police uh at $4.8 million uh there is a reduction in streets and this is the reduction in Pago funding that we had mentioned streets and maintenance does have both the vehicle replacement and the facility Renovations budgeted as part of the Street Maintenance budget for non-general fund safe and beautiful neighborhoods I would like to touch on fire oh sure the fire budget uh you can see that there's a variance of $3 million this was really due to a one-time Grant they had budgeted for in FY um in FY 2024 that was for the safer Grant and so then we don't need to continue to budget for that since it's already been established in next years um here is the $ 34.9 million that I mentioned reduction in Environmental Services as well as uh the reduction of $3 million this is of course that P funding in streets and maintenance and then going into public safety so we really look at the overall investment that Council has made in public safety since 2015 so with 126.5 million it really started of course in 2016 when when Council made an effort in ensuring that we would continue to address police Staffing so with the 300 officer the net 30 or the increase of 300 officers that started back in 2016 you can see the significant investment that we have made in public safety here's the budget highlights overall for this year's coming budget for FY 2025 and this includes of course the impact of our collective bargaining agreements and as well as the continued investment on the police CET salary so as part of the 2024 budget Council had approved to increase the cadet salary so that we would continue to remain Pace with the police officer salary so as the collective bargaining the police officer salary continues to increase as part of the CBA we're going to ensure that the cadet salary stays with a 10% um incremental difference and so this should assist with the recruitment of our police officers as well as we have three policey budgeted and one fire academy for FY 2025 we continue to have 9.4 Mill for Capital replacement along with our continued investment in both CIT and the body warant camera program here you can see um this is the crisis intervention team this just shows that since 2018 we have continued to grow the investment uh with Council support for CIT and this Remains the program that's available as part of the 2025 budget we want to highlight the Upper East Side Regional Command Center they'll have more information as part of the vision block presentation but we do have uh 71 uniform officers that are being transfered from pble Hills Regional command and we are adding nine positions for uniform and five civilian for the Upper East Side Regional Command Center in addition to one position for municipal court for the customer relations representative so here you can see the collective bargaining agreements these are the details and the dates that the Agreements are in place uh so we do have both colas and step increases and then something that we've added uh as part of the police collective bargaining agreement there's certain things that come into place each fiscal year and coming for FY 2025 is a sick leave buyback program that will be effective this September police long-term Staffing plan is uh you here you can see so really um there were multiple impacts and chief pasas had indicated this at the last a go team presentation just what they've been facing as far as Recruitment and here you can see the net gain or loss that we've experienced and really the net loss and what we're projecting for this fiscal year as well as next um we do want to highlight that well we saw a peak hopefully it's a peak of uh trition and retirements that were able to level back down and and stay stabilize at around 65 officers so this graph really illustrates um I believe the investment that if it was not made in 2016 by city council to ensure that we start uh really tackling the Staffing for our Police Department that it would have we would have been in Dire Straits uh granted there's been a negative uh or net loss over the past four years but if we hadn't made those efforts uh we would have been in in in a really difficult position so as part of that is the El Paso Department's effort El Paso Police Department's effort in Recruitment and they have uh really worked tirelessly to be able to overcome the the challenges they've been facing included in this are the new programs that were mentioned by uh Chief Silva at the last uh gold team update as well which includes um not having to wait for an official Academy start date a lot of individuals want to be able to start work they apply for it they want to be able to start right away in addition to that we have the basic Academy is going to go from 10 and 1 half months down to 8 and 1/2 months and um this should the remainder of the training will be of course completing completed as part of uh with their fto and concurrently I should say with their fto and so this will also give them an opportunity to graduate uh sooner and then I'll see that pay increase as well so here you can see for the fire department we have uh open last fall fire station 36 and then we'll projecting for next year fire station 38 this includes our Capital replacement along with the sixms projected for our 911 Communications here you can see the actual breakdown of the Staffing and so they're maintaining uh we are looking at increasing the Academy size to 50 for an anticipation of the fire station 38 a highlight on Animal Services with a $2.3 million investment includes 25 uh increase of Staffing of 25 and operating increases as well and so that's 15 positions for the Morehead facility as well as nine additional positions for customer service and animal care that have been added through this fiscal year and um budsman to really work towards our relationships with the community for streets and maintenance we continue to see us our in $750,000 for Ada on demand requests as well as we continue the 350,000 for neighborhood traffic management plans um as Richard presented at the last city council meeting and we have 1.5 million continued for our intersection safety with 3.6 million for vehicle replacement and heavy equipment replacement and 4.4 million for facility Renovations for our budget highlights for S Metro um Mr deiser has uh brought this to council the system optimization will have more information about it as part of their Vision block but in addition to that as part of the FY 2025 budget we do have our Capital replacement plan with an estimated number of uh 10 fixed route bus for a total of approximately $77 million and so as Mr C cortinez mentioned for Environmental Services we do have included as part of the budget is the the residential collection rate uh increase as well as a landfill tipping increase that will be used for Planned expenditures and construction projects we also see increases uh for maintenance in order to align with actual cost and then of course the compensation increase impact and they'll get provide more information as well during the revision block so for Aviation there's a continued effort to add direct and international flights and for international Bridges it's the implementation of the intelligent transportation system project at ISA Saragosa and the bridge of the medicas along with The Pedestrian improvements that are planned so for exceptional recreational cultural and educational opportunities uh the highlights here of course you're going to see an increase in libraries uh this is really because we're very excited uh Norma we're very excited for you that the libraries will all be open and so this reflects the Staffing they're going to need in order to be able to make that happen in addition we have Parks and Recreation and we've talked about that a little bit already uh of course it's going to be compensation but also the aquatics and Recreation salary adjustments that we seen a slight impact or exp for the expansion of the Winterfest for Cleveland Square as well as a an increase in water parks contribution for the general liability insurance and some water and then the omm impacts of 2012 on the non-general fund side um we have some small increases on library and museums and cultural Affairs and then zoo is really the majority of the increase uh this is going to enable them to have one-time Capital that they're using they're funding from their fund balance which will help with some minor Capital needs that they have as well as uh promotional contracts and other programming that they're going to expand as a result of the revenue they're going to generate through memberships so for quality of life budget highlights oops did I skip it I did for quality of life as I mentioned already it includes both the children's music Museum increases the flat Fields as well as they're excited to have the kodo dragon and leopard exhibit planned for 2025 next year at the zoo uh we continue our Sports Court maintenance and park amenities along with uh phase three of the automated irrigation project for high performing government for general fund budget for FY 2025 uh really it's going you're going to see across the board the impacts of the compensation increases for it as I already mentioned it includes the C the schedule e which is the maintenance contracts and then of course those will be listed as part of the budget resolution the reduction you'll seen in non-departmental was because that we had uh budgeted in 2024 lumpsum for the compensation adjustment that Council had voted in to move the compensation increases effective in September and so that's why you'll see that reduction there on the non-general fund side really the major increase is I don't know how I press three slides ahead is really the health insurance increase at $7.6 million so as we jump right into the FTE changes you'll see vibrant Regional economy overall this Vision block went up 5.5 um FTE uh with some slight increases in aviation Economic Development El did increase uh four Economic Development Liaisons but they had transfers out as well so it's a net impact of two and remember those liaison were funded by arpa safe and beautiful neighborhoods uh you'll see the the large reduction for fire that $19.8 million is really due to the deletion of vacant co9 operators so these positions have been vacant for probably over 18 months um they weren't operationally NE necessary anymore and so it was um important to be able to clean up that Staffing table as well you'll see the increase in police for 14 and that includes the positions that we discussed that are for the Upper East Side Regional command as well as the 25 positions added for animal services that includes that 15 for Morehead for I have a heavy hand apparently for for Library exceptional recreational cultural and educational opportunities so we've got you'll see there is an increase in Parks um for some for strategic initiative coordinators and but primary focus there is really the ground uh general service workers and the ground Keepers that's the additional crew for the FL Fields I what I think the department would pref in the opposite direction [Laughter] sir all right High performing government so for high performing government it's relatively flat uh you see some some slight increases for City attorney and Human Resources the city attorneys is two pargal and one public records coordinator and for human resources it's a classification and compensation manager along with qual quality assurance manager and H hris quality control control Assurance specialist there so as we jump into attrition so let me walk you through this this is very similar to how we we showed it last year but I think it was because it made it easier to follow so for our FY 2025 preliminary all funds uh Staffing this was as of the beginning of June and so we have of course as part of the preliminary budget 7,210 1 FTE or a total of $43.80 73 our vacant positions are estimated as as part of the preliminary budget of $ 54.4 million this then we take those last two columns and they're going to be your first two columns on this slide and from this we look based on the salary that was budgeted um as well as the number of Ft FTE that are vacant we look at the average salary for those vacancies and that's what you could see in that third column it has increased of course it's going to increase due to the compensation as well as uh to 39 39,46 and then in that fourth column you're going to see the unfunded attrition based on dollars and so we're at 33 million yes sir yeah I'd like to make a comment on this because I think it's important so this is uh considerably more attrition than we took last year um but we had a lot of conversations about this if you look at where we were at the beginning of last budget year to where we are now there's been a net increase of about 200 employees um from last year to this year uh if you look across what's happening in terms of hiring challenges we're still kind of getting through the postco issues that many other organizations are having I will be elated if we can double that this year I think a good goal would be to be a net 400 but what we decided on doing without taking too much risk is to look at funding 543 uh vacancies this isn't a this isn't taking attrition at a percentage across the board there's been a lot of discussion with department heads in terms of where their priorities are but I think what's also important is and again for our department heads as well as we've talked about this is that if we find during the year that all of a sudden a need comes up in a position that's unfunded we've got the ability to be able to to work around those one-offs with salary reserves and so my message again is that we're going to continue to aggressively hire but I think we have to be realistic on what our expectations are on being able to hire and being able to to go up at about 100% of where we last year I think is is a good goal and still have a buffer on on top of that and so rather than parking uh all the funding in the budget into positions that we're not going to be able to hire we had to take a we had to take some reasonable a reasonable look at what we can fund going forward and that's how we step through this process and thank you for that Colonel because I think it's important in understanding the real world of business it's tough to hire right now there's no ifs and buts about it and uh myself and everybody else that's in in you know out there has our we have our challenges and I know that um we've talked to numerous companies and we're all having our our challenges to hire and for you have had 200 net last year and still have almost 500 available for this year is a huge number that uh it's probably I would be surprised if you got near it because of again your net gain last year was only 200 so thank you for that thank you sir so on slide 84 you can see the comparison for the F past three years our in our FY 2025 preliminary of $33 million in attrition and I think it's important to highlight as Colonel Weston mentioned this is not a hiring freeze this is not slow us down we continue uh to re evaluate positions look at reclassifications and continue to hire our next slide shows our ongoing priorities and so what this highlights is as Colonel Weston mentioned we did make a reduction to what we call the payo funding and so um but it's been with council's approval and with council's support that we've been able to add these this funding over the past 5 years so with that we've got of course you Public Safety Capital replacement at the top and what it we're showing here is estimated based on this year's dollars and I have to say this year's dollars because prices go up inflation happens as we all know um this is the annual need that we would need this year uh in order to be fully funded for these priorities so the next four slides uh I'm going to go in uh go over fairly quickly because Colonel Weston has already touched on these items and it's really talking about our continued need for Street M streets Street Maintenance at 50% of the streets ranked in faired a very poor uh condition with our Park system again with playground Replacements needing uh 25 plus that are d-rated and reaching the end of their useful life including our shade structures as well as our irrigation systems that are in need and then a focus on our City's facility of course with a 250 plus building or structures with 2third of those existing facilities more than 30 years old and then finally our vehicle and equipment and again as Colonel Weston mentioned uh we have over 2,000 light duty vehicles with 23% of those vehicles have surpassed their useful life or over 400 and then the final item of course is our grant-funded programs and really looking at how we can moving forward will continue to be able to fund our no uh Grant matches as well as any other additional grants a good discretionary grants that are awarded so let me highlight one more time is our property tax rate at as uh covered both by Colonel Weston and Mr cortinez you can see what we're estimating as of June for our revised uh preliminary rate for the no new Revenue rate as well as the voter approval rate right now we are right in the middle at 77785 and again please remember that we will receive our certified values on July 25th and we'll bring those back to Council on August 1st uh for introduction as we continue forward of course we look at a multi-year financial Outlook and these are important assumptions that we've included as part of that Outlook and so while we continue to look at the impact of our collective bargaining agreements as we continue to look at compensation Investments our quality of life bonds our Public Safety bonds we also need to note what is not included in this scenario which includes that restoration of the three million for pgo funding our it capital replacement requirements as long as additional Grant match requirements for 2026 and so here you can see that projection uh we have our FY 2025 preliminary of course the budget is currently balanced but for 26 and 27 we see what those future impacts are going to have with our limited Revenue growth that we're currently projecting and you can see this in graph view as well for slide 20 for slide 95 and what that variance looks like so mayor and Council in summary that's that's the overview we are at a uh preliminarily at a at a 4C reduction in the property tax rate we do have time to be able to work through this over the next few weeks before we once we get the certified values and then come back uh and brief you on on anything to finalize this at the at the end of the month and you've seen a number of the different things I won't go over them again here on on what we have been able to do to get to this recommendation I think the one point I'll stress again it's really important that um we continue to take care of our Workforce continue to to do the annual compensation and try to mitigate the impacts of our Workforce just because of the the difficulties we have with uh with hiring no different than a lot of other organizations but the reten of our Workforce is going to be very important and with that that that concludes our our overview pending any of your questions if there are none we can move into the go team presentations I have a question for Miss Cody yes sir um I noticed that uh we're bringing on the Children's Museum which is I toured it it's incredible it's a beautiful product it's uh great for our community the only question I do have is that in the quality of life in 2012 it was allocated 19.2 million the private sector put up about $35 million to make it the reality and we're very thankful for for what they've done like I said it's state-of-the-art it's incredibly beautiful but uh there's about 25 to 30 million including the art piece that had to be subsidized just almost like every 2012 quality of life Bond item was so under um budgeted where is that additional money coming from so you're asking on the on the debt portion or yes ma'am it's about 2530 million from what it's going to cost the finally finished product including this you know the the streets and everything we're redoing around it so mayor Robert cortinez the city increased the contribution for the actual construction by an additional $20 million and that was through the cosos that were approved by city council so that's been already added to the budget yes sir okay thank you for that okay we have represent Canales followed by representative nandes thank you mayor was that those were 2018 or 2019 cosos I'd have to double check I believe it was 2019 but a part of that it was also the Community Foundation increased their donations that they were going to put up as a match as well and so the city increased from the original just under $20 million of the project doubled it to 40 million but then with the donations an additional 20 million from the Community Foundation to help fund the project and I know that it ended up going a little bit higher I believe up to about 7273 million so they did actually contribute a little bit more than they were committed to and then um I'll work backwards here I I'll be quick uh slide 95 the multi-year financial Outlook um I know this is this is a scary looking graph uh but I recall seeing this in uh the presentations going back several years where it looks like future years will have trouble with the balance budget um that's never realistically the case is that correct we we've we've found we found ways in the past at least uh I know it's been a challenge for for you all to to get there but we always have balance budget for the future This Is Not Unusual It's Not Unusual to to start and so to start with the deficit and we work our way through it I mean I think we've done that now for for several years I don't I think that you saw in 26 I remember the slide right just going back a couple of slides about an $8 million deficit to start no it's not that's not out of the ordinary yeah I just didn't want the public to see this slide I don't want to I don't want to diminish that the the the issues that we have to look at these things going going forward but um that number isn't uh I'm not overly concerned about next year's number okay yeah I didn't I didn't want the public to see it and think uh we're in trouble for the future this is something that we see year to year and we work our way backwards through ideally you'd like to see that go to to uh the green and not the red right I mean again I don't want to I don't want to diminish the work that our budget office and our CFO have to do to kind of figure that all out but that again to to your point I don't think it's anything that is alarming all right and then going way back uh and I don't want to get out ahead of the the go team presentations maybe I can ask the questions now and and chief pasas can answer me later uh when we were looking at the uh police slides going back to slide 60 on the The Crisis Intervention teams um I remember last year we uh added the third shift over the overnight um that's that's being retained this year I don't have an answer as to the sh that they're working I for sure they working two shifts but I don't know morning assistant chief Z Silva with the El Paso Police Department I don't know that we're covering a 24-hour clock just yet but we are doing about 16 hours a day okay thank you and then one more this one I think we we'll definitely have to wait but uh we spoke as well about the projected impact of the or sorry about the the sick leave buyback program which kicks in this year from in the PD uh collective bargaining agreement do we have an idea of the the projected impact of that yes sir it's close to a million and it's up to 80 hours per officer up to 80 hours and what would a 100% uptake represent I guess I'm asking how much sick C is out there that is eligible to be bought back and what would that 100% uptake look like it can be a question for later I know we'll get that we'll get that for you hey representative KS one point uh just from a housekeeping standpoint for department heads if if you're being asked a question please we have a Podium up here so just so the public can hear if everybody can step up to the microphone when you're asked thanks that's all for me for now thank you mayor thank you sir representative nandes followed by representative asav well first I want to welcome everyone and thank you all for your hard work the budget team I know you work tirelessly to get here um and thanks to it for setting thing everything up um I just kind of wanted to give a quick quick synopsis of of what I'm seeing and and what I'm hearing um review the schedule see um outline and so as we go into the go presentations I have a lot of questions and concerns about I don't see them as incremental increases there are some pretty significant increases and I'd like to justify that um additionally um we're saying that we're not going to be issuing any debt um and so that's two years since my term maybe three years since my term um including the pandemic year last year and this year so there's three years coupled with not issuing debt which as everybody's aware El pass is the the fourth largest employer in the city of El Paso and um our purchasing power and our purchasing contracts um are in the top five so we are a major economic Hub and distributor of funds so when we don't issue debt and I've mentioned this to you before Mr CZ and and Mr um Weston I'd like to clearly understand you what changes there will be what delays there will be if there's going to be a change in capital projects from the Inception of design to procurement to Construction in those three different phases um and then coupled with the fees increasing not issuing debt and then sales tax revenues slowing down in 2023 we saw 20 over $25 million of add additional revenues in sales tax revenues compared to this year that's 3 million last year you also dipped into the reserves for your pay for futures and other reserves coupled with this year and so represent canala as you mentioned like hey this is we got some like real challenges here and and I see I see a lot of challenges and a lot of red flags um however when you're recommending a 4C decrease and then we hear from the mayor hey we don't want a no new Revenue rate we got to hear from the other members of Council of what exactly do you want so we can make these meetings productive so that as we go into the goals then we have discussions about cutting essentially cutting we heard over 71% of our general fund goes to Personnel Services so when we cut what are we going to cut are we going to cut uh Personnel additionals um positions separate and aside from your vacancies that you have um i' I have a lot of experience I'm one of your OG members of council this is my 10th budget year and we listen to these presentations I also can draw parallels to under the city manager will send era and we heard from every single department head and if we're going to have to make $5 million of cuts then please please please members of council start to think about um where we're going to make those cuts and then what we're going to say to our city employees who are at risk today um and so with that uh I did want to also highlight um uh the the my concern about um what we're going to express to the community um I really like the chime in um Miss Cody it's it's really great um do you happen to have a a PDF or like a um a presentation that we can print and and share just for the chimein responses do you have like a we can we can add it to the backup for Council perfect perfect and then um what I've noticed um in other cities I was reviewing their budgets this weekend they have very robust analysis on on these chimein in those focus groups um to the point where like I could see clear data um within communities and then you had mentioned you did it by District um I think there is an opportunity that we can uh escalate that and the reason why I'm bringing it up now is because if we need to have a an evaluator do that outside of the city of El Paso I would be open to that um because this all of this data is really important for our future our researchers especially our researchers at the universities um but we'd love to hear from all members of council and what you would like to see so that we can try to make this week as productive as possible thank you all for your hard work and getting us here today mayor can I respond to a couple of those so some of that will be addressed during the gold team presentations related to the fees in particular on the Deb side again that'll be a good discussion to have with the evet so just to be clear by not issuing the debt we're not impacting the capital projects and so it really is a timing issue of getting these projects moving we have several uh Public Safety Bond projects on the upcoming agenda on the 16th related to the fire station some of the other police facilities but that would be a good discussion we can have on the payer Futures you all may recall during the second quarter update current projections right now is we're not going to have to utilize any of the paper Futures in the current year and so we'll preserve that whole $15 million that was allocated and so for next year would be the first year that we would actually dip into the reserves but it is an important point and we actually made in the presentation that that is onetime revenue and so part of that as a development of that paper Futures was that it's onetime Revenue but the plan is to use it over a 5-year time period And so that gives us time to gradually decrease the annual amount that we're utilizing on that paper Futures on the additional reductions I think one of the point and Colonel Weston can chime in here because I know he made the point already but he may want to reiterate it is that any additional reductions we would not recommend to make those regarding the workforce and so just to be clear is that we've already taken a pretty significant amount of attrition um again based on each department we don't do an across the board attrition amount for Reven Department we look at the vacancies that they have the city council took action unanimously on looking to try to get to that $15 an hour R weight wage rate which with this budget will get us to $14.11 by March yeah I I uh I would not make a recommendation to go any I mean I'm comfortable with the recommendation we've made I believe we have the buffer I believe it's I believe it's it's uh We've calculated it very well I believe and I think it's it's it's it's good risks to take without it being foolish but there's no way I would recommend going going taking more savings from attrition on this budget year to to find the path to a no new Revenue rate we' have to look at something else but I wouldn't I wouldn't recommend taking it from Personnel thank you and I think you you mentioned that um if the people are are out there and want to work let's hire them we have the opportunity and we have the openings and like I I said last year we uh our Ned game was only 200 and this year we still have over 500 uh available jobs that um people can hire so it's um if they're out there please let's hire them because um it's uh not the easiest thing we've been able to do since postco no doubt uh representative Ro thank you mayor I am all over the place so um I apologize in advance if I'm just kind of throwing thoughts out I I've written a lot of notes as the presentation was going through so I'll just kind of jump right into it um so one of the things that stood out to me is that there's a proposal to reduce the onm rate by 2 cents and so when we look at this um I'm kind of looking through some of these slides um particularly the general fund budget all funds budget and I'm seeing some key um I guess cuts to to get there so can you explain a little bit more on what happens um when we reduce it by 2 cents um in terms of our constituents like what what are our constituents losing by Department by department when it comes to service um and then you're also saying in some of the slides that you're still maintaining city services but then I I see like major Cuts Like over $4 million in straight Cent maintenance right and that's that's one of the most important things so I I I really just wanted to get uh a better breakdown of how you're achieving this but you're still maintaining Services I I would point you to slide number eight that really identifies how we achieved that 4C tax rate reduction without impacting Services obviously that's the important piece right and so it's a balancing act of one minimizing the impact on the property taxes but then at the same time not impacting city services and so one of the big drivers of how we're able to do that is the increase in the taxable property valuations and so that 10% projected increase in property valuations combined with not issuing debt means that there's additional property tax revenue that's coming to the general fund as opposed to increasing on The Debt Service commitments so that that's a very important factor uh the other one is the pay for futures fund and so originally the plan was we were going to utilize 5 million in the current year and then it was going to go down to 4 million in the following year Well since we're not going to have to dip into it in the current year we're maintaining it at that $5 million amount for next year also something that's a little bit different and this was mentioned again in the presentation is that in the current year we gave a $1 increase or minimum of 2 and half% pay increase effective in September of 2023 so employees got that increase all at once so in order to minimize the overall impact on the budget this year or this coming year we're recommending to split that so we'll do half in September the other half in March what that allows us to do is to per rate and have a little bit of savings there while still providing the increase uh to our civilians um the another key thing that we just had quite a bit of discussion about is the attrition so the vacancy savings so we did increase that by about $6 million and so that means that we're taking more savings essentially on vacant positions and it's a very fine balance that we have in order to not impact the Department's ability to hire but again we feel comfortable just based on the work that Nicole and her team have done that that would not be the case and then finally the last point which is what you just brought up about the decrease in streets and maintenance and so that's the $3 million decrease in the payo funding so the money that we had set aside in the current budget for facilities vehicle replacement um this budget that we're recommending for rep by 25 does decrease that by about 3 million next year but but I think there's an important point to to make in that because on the surface a $3 million reduction um is extensive but your decision last year to really bolster our ability to put money into Pago funding with the dissolution of tur 2 and 10A added about $12 million to payo funding and so even at the current funding level and pulling back 3 million is an increase of almost $10 million since two years ago so if you look on slide go to slide 14 please so you can see the variance and the money that was taken in payo funding but you allowed us to put all that money into pgo funding last year and so we looked at this we talked about what needs we would have in the upcoming budget year and we felt comfortable that we could take a we could take a we could pull back three million of that and still be able to provide um effective services and still be at a level that's higher than where we were just two years ago in our um key areas on utilizing payo funding and and then I'm sorry just one more point that I think is very very important that we don't miss out on making sure that we're clear on the recommended budget and the tax rate for FY 2025 and so on this slide you'll see that orange portion in the middle there the orange bar that's the tax rate that we're recommending 77.8 C so that's the 4.1 C overall tax rate reduction from the current year but it's important to make sure that we're all clear because you see the voter approval rate that's an estimate based on um utilizing historical data looking at projected property valuations we won't know what the no new revenue and that voter approval rate is until July 25th and so the city manager's recommended budget needs to be below that voter approval rate otherwise anything above would require us going to the voters in November for them to approve and so right off the bat you'll see that we're in the middle there but we would have no matter what had to reduce at least three cents in order to be below that VOE approval rate and and I guess what would be helpful is that $4.3 million that we're losing in streets if we could get an itemized list on what exactly that covers cuz as you're kind of going and saying the pigo is getting reduced in 3 million I I think visually it would be much easier to understand these are the exact cuts and this is why we're reducing it whether it's going to be pgo funding or not um I would get a better understanding of that and and another thing that worries me is if we're getting to the Citywide facility Renovations and we're reducing that by one .6 million um I'd like to see a a list of projects that have been renovated over the last few years um I know that there were a lot of different facilities that had some needs um from Air Conditioning to other things so what has been renovated in in the last years what's still needed and and I think one of the big um talking points that I had or takeaways actually when we went through strategic planning in February was we really needed to renovate a lot and focus on that because we haven't done that in in a few decades now and a lot of our buildings are are crumbling right and now we're seeing a reduction in facility renovation when I thought that was a big topic of discussion a few months ago so that that's a concern right there um another thing that I I wanted to touch on was um ESD was being reduced by $35 million right and you said it was a one-time project can you kind of elaborate on that absolutely so as part of the budget in 2024 they were they established their capital projects and and we've got Miss SM here as well and and um Mr iata to go into more detail and there's actually um an additional slide they included as well on their the fee increase but because the way we budget is one time for their capital projects they don't need to continue those on and in sub sequent years and so the budget's already been established and it was primarily for I believe Hondo Pass uh citizen collection site and do you want to go ahead and why you why don't you go up to the podium please while you're walking up there let me just make one comment representative oo and what you just said on facilities I mean we we really do take that to heart um but again I'll go back to what I said I know I'm pulling back 3 million in the recommendation based on the infusion of cash that we got with the uh the payo funding that still represents a 300 plus% increase to the budget for facility Renovations from where we were just the year the year before last so there's a lot of money that's still going into it that we hadn't had before that the Departments can use to to plan and execute yes Nicholas with Environmental Services the decrease the major decreas is uh for the sales 15 through 20 construction project we budgeted for last year but it won't be going into construction until this fiscal year but it was a Hond citizen collection and you're saying 15 to 20 construction projects well the Hondo Pass was originally budgeted in 2021 I believe so that that one already was so this main reduction is just for the cell project so for the landfill cells so Hondo Pass landfill cells that equals 35 million so it's just landfill cells is what they're saying the Honda pass was my mistake that was previously budgeted okay perfect thank you and then um the reduction in franchise fees I know we have three or four franchise fees and I was kind of seeing it was um aligning with Al Pasa water Al Paso Electric so can you break that down a little bit more on why we're I think it's $1.1 million that that's being reduced and where that leaves us budget wise so it's really Texas Gas and passo electric and so it's right sizing those and really Texas gas so there was an increase in the last couple of years as a result of winter storm yri so the Texas Gas had increased their Collections and so our franchise fees are based on a percentage of their sales and so the recommended budget is just to align with the actual Collections and so again one of the challenges we talked about sales tax but one of the challenges with franchise fees as well is these are paid quarterly and so the last amount we have is for January February and March we should be getting the uh second calendar quarter franchise fees here relatively soon but the same thing again is that lack of real-time information when we're developing not only the projections for the current year but forecasting now for the remaining 12 months for FY 2025 but it's it's all based on their sales and the rates and so one of the things also we've been doing is working closely with Ian to look at what the different utilities have as far as projected rate increases or any fuel Factory recovery charges that El Paso Electric may be doing or Texas Gas may be doing an insurance that we're incorporating those into the projection as well okay thank you and then the other question that I had was um I saw arterials discussed throughout and and one constituent concern that has come to my attention is there the Trowbridge project um from 54 down to Delta and as of right now what my understanding with that project is that we are um kind of just doing the the Ratford Loretto area um and we're not really doing the really important part which is rentals down to Montana where there's a lot of flooding on that so in terms of the budget I see that we need $4.5 million for arterial Street Maintenance and the actual budget that we have is $3 million so $1.5 million is a lot of money money um but it is not a huge discrepancy as other things like streets right $42 million and then actual $7 million so I just wanted to understand where um that project would land if we have this year so Richard bristl to Richard Bristol streets of Maintenance the trobridge project was originally a CIP project the contractor that was doing the project follow chapter 11 so we took over the project what we're going to do is pave it out right now we have 200 streets in line for Paving that are in our program right now this is among those that will be done in the present year however we're not going to be able to get in there until they're ready for us and there's still some work that has to be done and those little bul bouts are going to require some connections for water for irrigation as soon as that's in we can do the project we'll Mill it and pave it and then we'll leave it with a new uh pavement layer and we'll a new strapping plant and that'll include the the Montana renold area that's going to go from Montana moving Westward to I believe it is um help me out here if you could have I think it's persing persy okay okay we could talk about that more um later and I guess for now the the last thing that I have is in terms of our limited Revenue growth what what are we doing about this um I I think what repan was saying is yes this is uh very like if we do the same thing and nothing changes this is what's going to happen but usually you figure it out and these projections are good um to have an understanding of what needs to be done right and and I'm just thinking how can we increase Revenue what strategies are being put in place to make sure that that doesn't happen some of that's done through one of the things representive Hernandez brought up and that's going to be through fees through our cost recovery and so looking at whether it's plan inspections or park services um although it doesn't generate a ton of money there is opportunity there for us to continue looking at Cost recovery through our fees that the city collects um but really as Miss Cody presented that pie chart when you look at the overall Revenue sources for the general fund property taxes and sales taxes that's 70% and then you look at franchise fees which are set pretty stable you don't see a lot of fluctuation occasionally but typically pretty flat you add in franchise fees that's over 81% of the J revenue and so as we're looking to the future we need to continue to look at Cost recovery there's a couple of other Revenue opportunities that we've had some discussion in the past whether it's things such as collecting City sales tax on unfortunately it's residential but um electricity and gas that's a revenue source that the city's currently not taking advantage of that actually opted out of back in the early 80s and there's 200 there's a majority of Texas City's already collect that that's something City V Paso does not it's our estimate back in 2018 was about $3 million a year in Revenue the unfortunate part about that it's only the 1% so it doesn't include the half a percent for some Metro or the half a percent for the county but that 1% is only applied to residential and so obviously we're very concerned you want we want to make sure that we're not passing the costs on whether it be through property taxes or through another fee onto the residential homeowners and so there's a few other Revenue sources that we've looked into I think it's an excellent opportunity for us to continue to have those discussions we had some of that during the Judy planning session um but really it's about sales tax right now is it going to be the primary emphasis of looking at what we can do to show that we're not only minimizing that impact so we don't see future reductions but then also with the things that we're seeing recently with the notes live in the amphitheater and the impact that that's going to have on the community as well and so the investment in Economic Development which will be the first presentation is going to be an important component to really looking at the long-term success of the city and growing our Revenue sources I think there be some things I think there's going to be some some things and some strategies that we can bring back to you on how we address some of the more longer term challenging areas of the city as well like streets and come to the council with maybe some different courses of action for how that may be addressed and doing some side by-side comparisons and how that impacts taxpayers so we're we're already having these these discussions um but I think to your point I think that there's some things that we're going to have to really dive deep into that are going to have an effect not just over the next budget year but many budget years that follow thank you and thank you all for for that I think it U you can go talk to um 689 th000 constituents and their number one priorities their taxes and our priorities to try to balance our taxes but also make sure that we provide a safe community and Public Safety is our number one priority and then quality of life quality of place so um it's um it's really easy to say We'll fund everything we'll do everything and then not listen to the constituents and say you know you're taxing me out of my home please look at look at it so this is what we're doing this is what the budget's about to make sure that we can provide and make sure that we don't cut any any jobs that we continue to provide all the jobs necessary but also our number one priority is public safety and then quality of life and quality of place and that's what you see in in this budget and when I talk about no new Revenue I mean that we need to look at no new Revenue because it's important that we listen to the constituents and also give them what they're asking for and that's a a city they can be proud of and and that's what we're working for representative Kennedy mayor proam yeah I was just going to say that particularly when we talk about streets when we talk about quality of life I mean being being able to afford your house and drive down a street without holes in it you can't lose a Volkswagen in is part of quality of life and uh I know that I've been talking with the city manager about possibility of a long-term solution not just a solution this year on on streets but a long-term solution is streets here oh I don't want to say anything nice about them if they're here um but you know we tell these guys what we need to have done and then we give them what money we have and they can't accomplish all of their tasks but I want to thank the city manager for already starting to take a look and and streets and Robert for looking and Miss Cody for looking at ways to have a long-term solution for streets so that at to your point uh rep oo that we we don't worry about every year how are we going to do this but we have a plan in place that just keeps rolling forward so I want to thank you guys for already starting that and you know I'll even say something nice about streets you do as much as you can with what we give you it's truth it's truth and you stretch it a little further than you probably can but you find a way to make it work so you know it's funny you say that I was talking to to Mr bristell the other day and I said you know I believe that if I gave you enough money to fix every Street in the city by the time you got done you'd still need streets to be done and then he said well that's not all if you gave me all the money to do we wouldn't have the manpower to be able to do it so that's where you have to structure and be able to do it in a manner that uh makes a lot of sense so I agree thank you uh who's next Mr colon Wesson if there are no other questions we can go right into the gold team presentations please thank you yes our next Vision block is going to be vibrant Regional economy with uh Chief Mario diino starting the presentation Short Straw good morning mayor and Council Mario de austino Deputy city manager I'm going to cover the first Vision block which is a vibrant Regional economy covering goals one and three looking at our vision block and and how it aligns to strategic goals I want to recognize the Departments that that make up the team and so we have Mr Tony nada with Aviation we have Jose Garcia here with destination El Paso we have Economic Development with Karina balaga and planning inspections with Peter Atway Bridges there you are Paul here's the goals that it does cover goals one and three and specific items that they're shooting for our vibrant Regional economy we look at the overall all funds budget while it represents 13% of that budget only 7% of it comes from the general fund when you look at the sources of the funding as as we talked about with only 7% coming from the general fund the majority is coming from with the major variances we're going to look at the aviations due to compensation and Security Contracts destination El Paso is due to general liability insurance we have economic development is increasing due to compensation Tex the Ted fund and the impact of impact fund and 380 agreements those are specifically like to notes live and Ma that's been coming on board so it's that $ 11.7 million variance when you look at the general fund here's just another look at how it how it comes out by by goal what the variances look like here it is by by uh category and and showing the differences on each category which whether it's Personnel Services as we can tell most of it's through comp compensation and benefit increases and then contractual Services when we look at the non-general fund the two major two major categories is going to be economic development in the airport again as we talked about economic development is those those changes to the to the Ted fund and impact fees and the airport's going to be due to that Security Contracts and utilities looking at International Bridges it's the compensation increase and additional Staffing and transfer and planning inspection is the code inspectors the PMZ inspectors wow when we look at our staffing for underall funds you can see it's very minor changes a lot of it's just due to the the economic development uh those transferring over from arpa funds it's looking at an increase for Bridges of a toll supervisor the aviation's got the Drone uh uh program manager as well as planning inspections to transfer the payroll specialist from Economic Development and with that I will turn it over to unless you all want me standing again thank you Karina braas Gala um with economic and International Development but I'll be presenting for the entire goal one team and then I'll turn it over to Philip to cover his Department because he knows it best so we'll go through quickly the uh fy2 priorities planned accomplishments and then a quick update on the 2-year action plan Economic Development was our third priority uh in those chimein studies so you'll hear a lot about the way that that filters through our departments and my partners here at the table so that's airport destination El Paso Economic Development and international bridges are the kind of goal one uh cohort airport you'll see the key priorities up here for each of these I'll touch on them in a little bit of detail um although again all the department heads up here could probably talk for the entire day about everything they're working on so airports uh of course continuing to work with Airlines to do our expansion Services provide more flights new non-stop destinations and offer more international flights especially to Mexico destination El Paso is also looking at um enhancing their marketing strategies related to ecotourism cultural heritage to really stimulate visitations to El Paso they also are focusing on expanding entertainment offerings to the community and we'll talk about that in a little bit more detail on the venues that they serve economic development is going to continue to focus on that attraction of new investment focusing on our key Industries to bring in significant capital investment and higher paying jobs along with initiatives to improve competitiveness of existing businesses so really building up that support ecosystem for our entrepreneurship for our industry um to you know to help our local businesses weather changes to economic landscape but then also build our Revenue stores International Bridges is looking at uh you heard Nicole Cody mention it earlier really the design improvements on traffic Mobility pedestrian safety at their ports of Entry leveraging those US Department of Transportation grant funding dollars to focus on the deployment of its the intelligent Transportation Systems really get people through those bridges faster and have a lot of really interesting information for us to work with and inform our strategies moving forward planned accomplishments so this is Aviation so Core Business of air transportation looking at service expansion and investing in technology the aviation department will continue to expand air service by routinely connecting with Airlines presenting business cases for new and international routes additionally engaging support with the local business Community to help with those efforts so proving that there's for example market for routes to Detroit which we hear a lot about and some of the other um you know are our Texas Partners but also internationally investing in infrastructure upgrading those facilities including the remodel of the federal inspection station for international flights the extension of George Perry Boulevard to expand access to new Land Development and constructing the phase two of the advanced manufacturing district and that all supports the airport's goal of attracting those Aerospace defense and Advance manufacturing Industries to El Paso we have a large chunk of land out there that we control and it's huge important that we are ready for those businesses to come in and that we take advantage of that asset there will they will be also be installing solar panels and energy efficient lighting to offset energy costs and improve overall customer experience at their facilities the other item you'll see on here is driving Innovation and economic growth that the airport focuses on Innovative Technologies looking at digitalization electrification and drone detection to improve passenger experience and operational efficiency the developing land area will grow the non- aeronautical revenue for the airport and help boost the regional economy destinational Paso is our second Department in the goal one portfolio so they've continued to maintain strong hot Hotel occupancy and really focusing on the variety of ways that we bring visitors into Al Paso so increasing visitors helps maintain that hotel occupancy rate which of course brings Revenue to the city um and we continually exceed both the state and averages so a goal that they've held year-over-year keep that hotel occupancy at 68% or greater continue destinational P will promote uh education and awareness of the regional's cultural heritage again that focus on kind of our outdoor assets ecotourism um to help play kind of shape that role the identity and uh aure of us as a destination place so aside from all the entertainment options coming in really taking advantage of our natural assets travel Trends have increasingly headed towards sustainable enriching experiences the shift uh during Co to outdoor recreation opportunities has not gone away so those are powerful tools for positioning El Paso as a premier destination within the region and within the nation the promotion of El Paso's cultural heritage really elevates the city's appeal we Foster that connection between residents between visitors um focusing on kind of organizing workshops events and Community engagements for folks to attend a big goal for destinational Paso So to that they're trying to position Al Paso as a premier destination for ecotourism and cultural heritage in the southwest and they think they've made some big strides there's been a couple of Awards in the past few years um really reflecting their success in that area and then another thing we all have in common is really the data analytics we're all strong data driven departments and that does not uh that includes destinational Paso so using emerging Technologies to allow our destination team to identify who is visiting El Paso where they're coming from why they're visiting and what our real genuine economic impacts are so leveraging that data to provide uh campaign options to tailor messages for specific and optimized audiences so we can invest in targeted sectors to drive engagement and tourism um not just kind of broadly so destinational passo is really utilizing this data to develop those marketing campaigns again highlighting El Paso's history culture progress Ness and authenticity and then continuing to expand entertainment offerings at Abraham Chavez and Plaza theater um Plaza theater really I think can be argued to say that that was the Renaissance for downtown El Paso and the Chavez uh theater has been an institution since the early '70s uh the combined attendance and ticket sales at those two venues keeps them in the top 50 worldwide venues uh according to postar so destination Al Paso will continue to focus on bringing great quality acts downtown I think to support some of the larger entertainment um venues that we you know the recent an announcement with notes live venue um really supporting that in the downtown core and building out a robust entertainment industry for the city as a whole there's also the the fun stuff so there's also a Capital Improvements plan to include the HVAC central plant upgrades um improvements roof repairs all those things that never go away um and then the convention center master plan is also underway is that can I click I see what you're dealing with Nicole okay Economic Development um you all have heard from us a lot in the past few days but really attracting new Investments improving the competitiveness of existing businesses with that focus on key industries that is a strategy we've had for a while it is paying off and so we want to continue pushing in those areas um and then really activating our targeted Redevelopment so that we're not just looking at um outskirts of the city we're not just talking about uh you know large industry attractors while the meta deal was huge we also want to look at ways that we can bring in Redevelopment areas um keep that core of the city strong and that includes our capacity for our small businesses and a real emphasis on social and economic equity Workforce Development training uh is on the rise we've been doing a lot of investment both via grants but also from the city uh the pioner years 21 amendment that was there that came before Council a few months ago working with the our nonprofits our regional educational institutions to make sure that businesses have employees with skills required to grow so looking at our upskilling but also looking at that Pipeline and then of course building on the work done in the downtown Uptown and surrounding neighborhoods plan to increase that residential density last year Council set a goal of 10,000 hous housing units in the Uptown downtown Corridor and larger surrounding area um 4,000 of those are slated to be affordable a key part of that success is looking at an update of our infill our Tod policies and developing specific strategies and policies and incentive programs that are targeted at building our um Urban core and building those number of residential units you heard earlier about leveraging city-owned land so the sales at Cohen the expected development there the sale to meta la late last year um looking at the upcoming Council agenda the Northwest site so continuing to Market those out use those for new Investments new business strategies new development but also keeping an eye on the potential Revenue sources um current and future I think also skip to the next one there's a bunch more but I've got other slides um International Bridges so significant goal for fy22 is the full implementation of its the intelligent transportation system that really aims to provide traffic management and enable uses users to be better informed and make safer more coordinated and smarter decisions in real time International Bridges will be installing CCTV cameras Dynamic messaging signs that include the weight time collection that will include weight time collection devices so that weight time information can be provided in real time um year-over-year we see improvements in how we uh display that information provide that and getting more and more accurate with those counts so that you really have a sense of how quickly you're moving through the ports the other item on their docket is designing The Pedestrian improvements that it Lea zagosa so that was funded by the US do raise Grant uh for pedestrian safety improvements it's a $15 million project that includes intersection and crosswalk improvements a dedicated drop off and pickup area pedestrian paths shade canopies seating areas Landscaping street lights and cameras so not just improvements to kind of um the actual flow of traffic and goods but looking at how we enhance the user experience at our ports of Entry International Bridges will also be looking at the agreement for the PDN and Stanton bridges project development study that is funded through another dot Grant the reconnecting communities and neighborhood grants that's $2 million um the scope includes an analysis of needs future demand pedestrian safety traffic control along with con conceptual design and cost estimates so that we have our next steps slated for us and then the other item uh parking meters I I tend to forget about it but they would never be able to forget about it but parking meters are an international Bridges responsibility so looking at how we improve the customer services there upgrading the parking meter technology um gateways sensors for the conect connectivity and just again that overall user experience um and that includes things like the park 915 website enhancements and then of course the capital Improvement program update and phasing implementation that Bridges stays on top of year-over-year and I'll pass it over to philli to talk a little bit about pni good morning my friend good morning mayor council Philipa uh planning inspection reporting on go three that's not no B oh thank you again um this is planning and inspection reporting on go three so if as you can see on the slide up on the screen there are uh two sections one is streamline um process to provide solid foundation for development so in order for us to achieve that goal uh we are currently uh engage in doing incremental uh changes to our zoning code subdivision code codes and the um uh title 21 which is the uh smart code uh for quick fixes that will allow and encourage growth in those areas that we need them for example um we're looking at uh parking reductions in the downtown area uh C is currently leading that effort to do that we've been to city city plan commission uh they've giv their approval so we'll be coming to city council uh very soon um also to look at the housing options in the downtown area that city council has been uh very involved in for the last couple of years um in addition to that the current uh the comp plan is currently in the process of being updated uh to uh and it's this quick fixes will be alignment with that and also um the with the Strategic goals of the city other business friendly uh practices that we also engag in is the um historic guidelines that we've briefed city council uh we're probably going to do another round of briefings to you uh pretty soon uh to make it more user friendly and also create stability for the um historic district um we've also briefed you on adopting the uh landscape ordinance that we've made changes to and this is to encourage beautification of the um main corridors in the cities and also commercial properties um in addition to uh what we're doing to streamline processes and solid foundation for development um we I also want to highlight the office of the embossment which some other departments are trying to copy us for our success and it's been a huge success for us in resolving development and priting issues uh for the city so and in order for us to provide the best customer service the excellent customer service and uh also the delivery of services we have to have knowledgeable staff uh the key area here is to uh provide the staff with all the skill sets all the necessary tools for greater knowledge and grow to Pro uh to better serve our community so that's the second uh business friendly permitting and inspection process so um we are also engaged in ongoing development of staff to become Future Leaders of the organization uh one of the things that we I think we do very well in our department is um Empower staff to make appropriate decisions to improve processes and Service delivery uh from staff we able to understand what those issues are we can uh pivot and make changes to our processes to our service delivery or to our codes and also we have ongoing mentorship and development of for leadership suction planning for our staff um at this time I would like to um mayor can if you allow me I'd like to recognize Miss uh Vanessa Rangel who recently became the first female Chief uh building official with the city of AP Paso she's been with the department for for a while now and through our development program through our mentorship program she was able to pass and become the first female Chief Building official so that's a very uh good success story for what we call the P plan and inspection Academy that we developed about 5 years ago so other business friendly uh focus of the department is the combo inspections and I think I've spoken with um um Mr Weston several times for the last five five uh six years now that one of the area that we would like to improve on is our combo inspectors um our goal is to increase that number of combo inspectors uh dedicated to Major projects uh resolutions and conflicts and inspections uh issues in a timely faction so if you have combo inspection rather than send multiple uh inspectors to a job site you send one that will be able to resolve that issue and I think one of the uh concerns we have or the uh complaints is that um one one inspector came and told me one thing the other came and told me something else so we're trying to stop that and the way of to uh overcome that is have this combo inspector the challenge we have now is that you know the compensation is very low and also the qualification uh here in the city for us to have combo inspectors um so again um business friendly uh practices and servic uh Services Improvement again I think you know this is something that we've talked about um many many times at Council which is that Developers focus group uh we value our relationship with the community and we want to continue to build and strengthen our partnership with the development Community uh home builders uh neighborhood association realtor the gapper uh developers contractor Architects engineers and other stakeholders to improve processes with our relationship with them we able to get feedback from them and tell us exactly what's what's working and what's not working and we're able to again uh transition from what we're doing to doing something a lot better than what um we've been doing for the past this is you know the the relationship we have with them for example the um the home builders we have monthly meetings to them and we also have monthly ongoing meetings with the development communities which includes gerer Home Builders Association contractors uh Architects um all um um segment of the community uh involved in this meeting so that's a monthly meeting that we have the other areas that we are focusing on is to improve technology to expand and enhance uh our website provide options uh for apps so that people don't have to come to the One-Stop shop and wait in line uh so for accessibility and convenience and also we use data driven methods such as kpis also um the survey that we provide at the OneStop uh shop to get feedback from our customers as to what is working and what is not working and this will help us improve our Wait Times review times inspection times and also uh meet long-term goal uh strategic goals uh such as you know uh improving other areas of our services to the community that's the one slide that we have for plan and inspection and I want to say thank you for allowing us to have just one slide because what what we do is really complex thank you um any questions does anybody have any questions you do two more slides Philip wants to get out of here now sorry Philip you have to stay yeah I guess you didn't plan very well uh I'm staying I'll go very quickly so uh just back to the two-year action plan really wanted to take some time here to highlight Partnerships um I know it's again it's Ed focused but that's because that's what we all do it's vibrant Regional economy but that is really a way that we all collaborate together so really calling out this sort of partnership Focus um Economic Development the department has cultivated and worked closely with over 20 entrepreneur support organizations those esos and that is to ensure that every entrepreneur has accesses access to the resources and relationships that they need to start and grow a thriving business and so we've got those partner organizations um and that's part of that's key for our boss strategy the business One-Stop shop along with the liaison program so those are those position increases you saw earlier so that is four arpa funded positions serving as boots on the ground for our small business division we're looking to survey local businesses and provide proactive support and build long-term networks so not just waiting for there to be an issue but really going out and seeing what folks need um in real time and then get it out to our support organizations to be able to respond quickly um rather than waiting for a business to be in Dire Straits or be kind of past the point of um expansion we want to be able to get them right at the right time and provide them with the right resources and so some initiatives here and these touch on our uh supporting departments as well we do a lot of coordination with not just the folks at this table but across the org so those um continuing our coordination with the local utility providers to ensure the use of renewable energy resources closed system water recycl Technologies um that has to do with our hyperscale data centers but also as we look at more Advanced Technologies in the advanced manufacturing Aerospace and defense uh key Industries having the support of our grants and legislative affairs team who do the utility leasing really really critical to make sure that we have resources um to attract and retain businesses over time in those sectors that have the highest return for our Workforce in our community um Economic Development you all keep hearing about this but I promise you'll the new policies very very soon um so looking at creative incentive programs to support uh not just kind of the key Industries but really small and minority owned businesses um you saw a 380 agreement a couple months ago with an incentive bonus if you had tenant milestones in terms of having small minority businesses um as tenants in a Redevelopment project so looking at alignments like that across our policy updates um the previously mentioned ESO is really helping us with the business One-Stop shop we are excited that is a first ofit kind program so we've launched the online programming and have the formal Partnerships with those esos you are also looking at our Flagship location uh also arpa funded at the airport and then thank you to Chief dagostino for finding us building um we will also be downtown on South Stanton and that will be our larger business operation so using the funding from the um Appropriations this year from Veron Escobar's Community project funds to renovate and improve the 220 South Stanton location really be in the heart of downtown and then there's the notes live uh partnership that's been kind of beled at this point but again focusing on those key assets uh there are a handful of properties that are sort of jointly managed I'd say by real estate and economic development um four targeted types of Development Across the city so looking at the way that we've been able to get development Partners in really deliver on the co and Entertainment District master plan but also talking again about the northwest um the industrial plan for the far Northeast with meta as a tenant as an anchor out there um they did buy that property sorry and then our joint International Trade Missions at destination Al Paso takes on the bulk of the organizing and planning for those trips and they do a phenomenal job and then we are supported a lot by airport especially our foreign trade zone and international Bridges to really go after foreign direct investment and supply chain initiative so not just bringing in one big manufact but making sure that we can take advantage of reshoring and nearshoring initiatives and relocate entire Supply chains to our community um again building out those strong jobs and that strong industry alignment okay now we can have questions was that the end of the goal presentations yes yeah um G since you last speaker I ask you thank you for um your hard work and and the presentation was very enlightening um you mentioned uh a lot about Partnerships um exterior to the city I'm very I'm very proud of that and would like to see that more robust our purchasing economy and that Supply El Paso I mean I think that was I mean certainly lwh hanging fruit that we can tackle and as part of I think you're doing some rewriting of your policies um is is there potential for you to and the team to review that to see how we can partner in tandem with the purchasing department so that we can yes also not just internally but working with our utilities because as you're aware both the county DOD and um a pass electric are also in the top 10 top five so our purchasing economy almost $3 billion annually and a small fraction of that stays in the city of op Paso and so if we can put either some form of policy together some form of um perhaps our 380 agreements if they are going to be issuing out uh multi-million dollar contracts privately could we also incentivize them to use El Paso Supply um and I just don't know if that requires any type of funding or like a special fund or anything of that nature but i' be I'd be interested in having some dialogue related to that sure yeah there's only so many bullet points we can get on a slide but you're right um I of course forgot to highlight Supply El Paso huge achievements there um a lot of I think that's already been launched the procurement Academy is one of the final programs so you'll see that in kind of the last tranch of our arpa amendments coming forward at the end of July so the Hispanic chamber will be taking on the procurement Academy so again that's but that's teaching people how to get involved in the local the state and the federal um procurement space but I do see when we're talking about infrastructure investment you're asking more about alignment with procurement in that in that way right correct both I mean both on both both angles um and I mean I was I was really shocked to see to see all of those dollars leave our city and when we think about growing industry and specifically small businesses there's endless potential um and focusing on how we can help those small businesses by encouraging and incentivizing the the larger folks that do business with the city of um and just quickly uh I think this is just going to be a question that I'm asking um all department heads I haven't reviewed the Staffing charts I'll take a look at them in a minute are you adding or decreasing any staffing to your current portfolio I think it's got a net increase but um in terms of general fund funded positions uh it's a decrease from last year with the movement of some positions to the dedicated grants and legislative affairs section and then we have four arpa funded positions so that's part of that increase but I've got 23.5 that are General funded positions okay with with changes with arpa which are temporary correct so so they're hired this year which allows us to pay that uh obligate those funds and we can pay them out through the end of 2026 it's always been conceived of as a sort of 18 to 24mon program so we'll have funding for those for the duration of that um liaison program and um Colonel Weston I know you remember this in the past we used to have um shared employees with this with the county of El Paso um is there any appetite to to look at that again so that we can be more in tandem lock step with the county with as it relates to these 380 agreements 381 yeah I mean I think it's important I think the alignment uh to your point I think it's not it's it's probably also alignment from a policy perspective to be aligned for 380s and 381 on I think that if we're not aligned philosophically about Economic Development it creates another obstacle for businesses that come in especially those that rely on both city and county incentives that they have two different paths and two different philosophies that they have to go through so I think the more that we can do to create some alignment with the county would be would be really something very important thank you um Carrie I I do have questions for you mrbi um theic specifically on Schedule C I saw that you know there's almost 20% increases on your resoning application fees um there's also special permit changes and then there's this um yeah so it's like $1,100 to $1,400 for your resoning application the only problem I have with that is that when you start to add up all of those changes site your site development plan you're res I mean we're we're adding almost like $1,000 if you put that whole pack pack AG together which is almost a 20 17 to 18% increase can you explain why that increases is necessary and if the responses you're trying to limit um right size if you will limit the overall cost of the general fund and rely more on the fees well what's the percentage of fees um account for the planning department and do you have that breakdown in the finance department because if we're going to be increasing fees coupled with the current economy you want to make development a little bit more easier especially um development at homes when you're doing like small infill type of developments and so with those dramatic increases I I want to make sure that we are not deterring development um but in fact it should be uh we should be able to determine what percentage we are um using from fees in your department and what percentage we're using from your general fund and if we don't have that sense well then you can't give me your jusic if ification of why you're increasing and I don't like to make artificial or peace meal type of increases really would like to tie that back to the budget so that we can justify that I have reviewed other municipalities on average they're about 30% of the overall department and so I'm just curious how that how we compare to Texas across uh States across Texas cities across Texas excuse me good morning uh representative herandez thank you for your question so the feed that you actually see is just a fraction of the cost of services that we provide now so this is not 100% of the cost of services that we've been providing so the promise to leadership was that every two years we'll look at our fees and we'll adjust the fees based on cost of service that we uh will provide and we have also looked at all the other cities comparable cities uh within um Texas and New Mexico we are actually at the bottom of the fee structures for some of the fees so uh I think the fee that you may be concerned with is the uh site plan and uh the development plan those were actually less than 50% of our cost of service so we're just kind of bringing them out so this is something you see every year we and I think my promise to leadership is that we'll do it every two years we'll look at our fees and make sure that we adjust them to uh be able to provide uh if you look at what we do we we have a huge cost um we go out you know use City Vehicle you know the cost of fuel has gone up um also um you know the technology that we use on the field so we are really not recovering uh uh full cost of these services so that's and I and I get that so my question is what's the breakdown how much of your budget is dependent on fees for services charges for services versus your Reliance on general fund do we have that breakdown I'll let Philip explain exactly what they're looking at but essentially what they're doing is looking at the cost of issuing that permit and so it's not I think a one for one of what you may be referencing because when you look at the overall budget they're generating about $10 million in Revenue the expenses in the general fund for the plan Inspection Department is about 9.4 million so they're generate enough Revenue to cover the cost of in their operating budget but that does not include all of the additional HR it all the additional support services that goes along with it and then it also just comes down to again the cost of actually delivering that permit so it's not just a a one one of revenues to expenses but it's what it actually cost him in the time involved with actually issuing those permits yeah and I think there's go ahead go ahead no I just wanted to I also wanted to say this is really a general comment this is my perspective of fees across the board departments one of the things that I saw when I got in this position is that in some cases and I'm not the same for Eon for uh planning and inspections but in some of our departments we went years without without actually chewing up what our costs were and looking at increment Al adjusting fees and so we've created an imbalance and now what we're trying to do over time is do this in a responsible way because I I'm totally with you I think that you have to balance how do you get there but not to a point where it's going to create other Ripple Effects by increasing fees but we are not um we are not right sized across the city on fees and I think my message to our department heads is we can't allow our our eles with with cost drivers that are affecting our you know our true cost for departments to to miss out on being able to recover those costs so now we what we've been working at is how do we incrementally step those fees in a way that's not going to be very prohibitive um for the recipients on the other end but a lot of this quite frankly is catching up I mean there's been some cases where we've got some of our departments where we've had fees that haven't been increased they stayed they've stayed the same for over a decade and the reality is we can't operate that we can't operate that way and so we're we're looking at doing this and ramping this up but to your point how do we do it incrementally so that it doesn't have a an adverse effect since we I totally get that and I think um with I've seen the fees you know year over year some of them grow some of them don't and you're right some departments don't even increase but we also have to think strategically ially about these fees and specifically develop development is what my concern is right now because our tax rate is directly attributed to the overall appraisal values of properties and when the the values of properties are increasing exponentially as we've seen and it's due to the market and The Limited number of properties and Commercial properties and The Limited development that's happening coupled with that there is a direct adverse uh reaction to our economy and the Slowdown of development so we have a duty to make sure that development is easier and so that's my critical point and concern here with your resoning and other those are the initial steps for development your department you see all of those initial uh contractors residents who want to do some form of development so those fees should be um you know a little bit more methodical you're saying if you do a comparative analysis between El Paso and other cities you're on the bottom b i I get that but also the services and the cost Within your department are drastically different in other cities across Texas which is why I say when we're looking at fees and the charges for services there should be some form of hey every department is going to be subsidized I get that it should be x amount from general fund x amount for fees and then we should we should uh lead our fees in that in that direction with that with that framework and that methodology just not hey we're going to recoup 50% and therefore all of the fees we're going to have to increase all the fees and we're just going to do 50% no I um I just was trying to get a sense of how Reliant we are on those fees so I just wanted to bring that to your attention that it's a concern it's already already expensive to develop and then with almost a 20% increase on these fees concerns me a little bit um but if you guys are confident that you need those dollars and it's not going to deter development then I'm supportive of this but the but if we're going to see a Slowdown in issu in sub permits I'm also going to be critical of it so they're the experts I don't want to speak for them but one of the things that's also driving it's not just the cost of the permits but it's also just the cost of doing business now I mean development we know the cost of everything materials and supplies have gone up labor costs have gone up borrowing cost interest rates are higher than they have been historically so there's a lot of things I think impacting it really from the St point in particularly with this department is it's the balancing act right and so it's how much are you charging the developer and then how much are you subsidizing so we don't disagree I mean I think the parks recreation all of our departments we've got sort of that that balance right of the type a service the amount that we're subsidizing is going to vary dependent upon what that service is if it's a core service obviously the general funds are going to subsidize more heavily if it's a specialized type of service you typically want to pass that on to the user or the the customer at that point but I mean I don't think that the the fees or the permits in this case are really driving it as far as the development right now I think there's a lot of things in play that are having that unfortunately that kind of slowed down to what we're seeing with the the new growth and and I don't I don't want to be labor the issue I just just wanted to bring that as a a point of concern um I do just have one final uh question IA um thank you for being here the are is part of your portfolio in this discussion on this go water parks just I didn't know yeah okay um what are you changing because they're not part of the schedule see what are the fees are they changing at all and do you have a breakdown on the water park fees by membership good morning to hit the green button uh good morning mayor council Jose Garcia destination Al Paso uh I don't have the fees with me currently but for this fiscal year we are not planning to increase any fees we did for the current one that we're in I would just have to say I like the names of the membership like the a AOS and the family members there's a lot of multi-generational family households have have taken a lot of pride in that um and you know I just do want to um emphasize that I want to make sure those fees yes they're they're Market driven but they're we're being very cognizant of affordability um I think what's uh been um complemented in the past from residents is your low like there's a time in the day where your tickets are like half priced or whatever um so I welcome that to continue that um because I have heard especially from the residents that I serve south of the freeway um that they struggle to take their families there which makes the memberships a little bit more affordable however you can can't some families can't dish out $100 to $200 at a time because they're living paycheck to paycheck um so those daily rates and those uh uh those uh uh ticketed discounted tickets are are really important so um if you can bring back um maybe later uh or send an email what that breakdown is I would like to see I don't I don't like that we don't get to vote on the fees um I think these are City properties these are fees that should be in our schedule and I get that that's just not the style and I've lost that battle long ago um but we do need to be very clear to the public um it's part of these discussions what the fees are going to be because it's all part of our adoption of the budget but um if you can bring that back uh at a later time please J absolutely happy to thank you no no questions for airport and bridges thank you for for your questions and I just want to agree with Colonel Weston it's been really important between the 380s and the 381 as we work together the county I think uh our economic economic development department has the way but we do represent the same uh constituents but uh I know we've done a really really good job of uh leading way in Economic Development uh representative oo followed by representative cido thank you mayor I um I'm looking over these presentations and and I think one and even in prepping for today's meetings I I just feel that there's um more narrative that is is missing I understand that we need to have a highle view of of our budgets but for example this this binder is so literal that it leaves me with more questions than answers and and I think more um also from a transparency point of view it's it's difficult like I I look through this right and Staffing is Staffing and I understand that our our um departments need to be staffed but in general like I see outside contracts and some of these outside contracts are in the millions of dollars and if this council is going to come and um start making Cuts here and there um and we don't have all of that information in front of us that makes it really difficult right and I think also other things like Professional Services well what Professional Services are you doing in your department right and I and I'm not um saying that these things need to be cut and we don't need outside contracts we don't need Professional Services but I think more of that listing would be a lot easier for us to make decisions for this budget and um for example I I had to request um Department program requests right and that started bringing the budget more to life and that wasn't something that we didn't necessarily have so out of the the program requests I generated a lot of questions and the first question that I generated was around planning and inspections right $35,000 for mail and Postage and when I look at the the mail and postage I'm like okay are we not giving our departments mail and postage is it just planning an inspection that needs to ask for $35,000 and then get get it approved and so I I wanted to ask about that and if you have any comments about everything else that I just said I appreciate an answer sure representative this is Nicole Cody um so to start to take a step back so the department program requests were included in the email that was provided to all of city council Representatives just to make sure that you you all know you do have that in the backup it was included um to and Philip if you don't mind me jumping in on the postage the postage was because there was a shift in process so there was a change in process so we need to needed to ensure that planning inspections who had previously hadn't been piding it from their general fund budget did have make sure it was allocated as part of their general fund budget so it it's been transferred to their budget and is now included okay so that's why that happened there okay and then just in in general like um as I'm looking through these slides these are the planned accomplishments for the many different departments right and and I think we're we're talking budgets so I if we had these planned accomplishments and how much they would cost I think that would also be a lot easier right simple things like software to make the the parking better well how much is that going to cost to make that enhancement right and so bringing that to life would make it it a lot easier to um make decisions on this and for the public to also understand what this is going to cost because I think when we see a lot of the public saying and and this is true a lot of my constituents you know we're we're being burdened by by taxes and and they're absolutely right but I think if we were able to give them a better Narrative of where their taxes are going and saying okay um well we we're going to have to cut some of our Public Safety because of this for example right or we're going to have to cut your quality of life things or your streets aren't going to be done and and I think that's the the part that is missing or it's on on the flip site right we're enhancing parking you know that that parking app that needed better things um we're going to spend so and so money on this rather than just saying that I think that would be a lot um simpler for people to understand and then I also look at the the pie chart at the beginning and I'm assuming this is broken down by um the Strategic plan overall right um but then it's also a little weird to say okay um for high performance government we're spending $38 million and and so um for safe and beautiful neighborhoods we're we're spending $763 million and then the constituent that I'm going to get oh well you're spending $763 million but my street isn't fixed and so I I think that that's where um president presentation wise and just content wise um I'm having a lot of um trouble getting through this budget in terms of do I have all the tools necessary all the information necessary at hand to make the best decisions for my constituents and I think for me that answer is no right now so I just wanted to leave that there thank you and I think one of the things that's important you talked about all those numbers and Colonel correct me if I'm wrong we still have $600 million that we still need to allocate voter approved debt yes sir so no so it's important that we take that into consideration we look at the long-term performance of our community represent Salo thank you mayor and uh good morning everyone I think if we're getting closer to good afternoon um thank you for all the staff and all the hard work that went into putting these presentations together um my question is for Karina I know that during the pandemic we had funded um people funds it's like a state program to help businesses get a business loan with favorable R is that um going to be funded as well I guess so that was one of the um cares and then arpa funded programs that went out that initial uh set of money that went out to them I want to say it was2 or $3 million went immediately it was uh spent out that is one of the Amendments we're looking at taking forward to give them kind of a second uh source of funding so it'll be another 2 million that'll be on the council agenda for the end of this month um so we're looking at getting that out with people fund but of course people fund is one of our partners lift fund as well project vaa Pioneers 21 a lot of organizations that do microenterprise support um either those smaller loans technical assistance that sort of thing so really taking a close look at uh as the grant funds are expended how we fund that but there's nothing on this year's U budget we we anticipate having enough Grant funds to cover those programs for the next year sounds perfect and it's really great to hear you know it's one of the challenges small businesses have is getting that funding at at a favorable rate really gives them that upstart so it's really great to hear that that's what's happening um also wanted to um also Comm in Mr edway to promote a woman in that position thank you and um um as we're looking at these fees uh we want to kind of dive in a little bit more I know that your your there is a cost of doing business and that is why the fees are going up I just want to make sure that we are comparable to other cities so if you do have any any backup for that I would like to just take a look at it sure we can definitely bring um that to your attention we did um extensive study just to make sure that we are not above or um higher than any other cities within the city uh within the state so if you look at you know we'll show you that or we'll send it to your office or maybe send it to council as a whole so that I you can see exactly the the studies that went into uh the fee increases that is great thank you so much and that will give me great perspective but like anything cost is going up it's no secret everything else is going up so we just got to be make sure we're we're balanced thank you correct thank you ma'am with that we're done with this part any so I think before we start on the next item um we probably had a break for 1 hour lunch and then come back in an hour so do we have a motion to recess for an hour second to recess all in favor anyone opposed and we are on recess at 11:42 a.m. for 1 hour sir yeah we'll be back at4 to 1 yes thank you e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e hello okay go ahead ma'am okay so now we're going to move on um if I can have a motion to reconvene motion to reconvene second all those in favor all those oppos and we're back in session at the special city council meeting for budget hearing at 12:48 p.m. July 8th and we'll go into the second bullet which is the safe and beautiful neighborhoods by Miss Ellen Smite this will cover goal two Public Safety goal goal seven infrastructure and the last one will be goal eight health healthy Community thank you ma'am Miss Miss Mike hi good afternoon good afternoon ma'am I don't let me find the Box hold on the clicker I don't recognize this slide who's got the there we go okay I am going to be presenting um the safe and beautiful neighborhood Vision block which includes goals 27 and 8 and so before you are our um directors who will also be supporting this goal um so I'd like to introduce K Terry Kell with animal services well let me do this in order so goal two Public Safety will be Chief killings and chief Silva goal seven will be um Richard Bristol as well as IET Hernandez and Anthony deiser and then goal a will be led by uh Terry kipel along with Nikki bada Nicole farini and Dr okar so to get started as a refresh a refresher you'll see on this on your screen all of the the goals um oh I guess I have to do get coordinated here um for go to maintain the standing of nation's top safest cities and I'm not going to read through all of these because this is really a pretty lengthy presentation this Vision block is the largest Vision Block in the city as well as the largest number of employees and the largest Capital Improvements um for the support of these various departments um and then of course goal seven is our infrastructure goal which includes CID streets and maintenance and engineering and then goal eight um includes the animal services um community and human development um the animal services and I lost my train all right okay some Metro and some Metro is also in goal s so the safe and beautiful you can see here we are the largest budget um here with 57% of all of all funds which um also includes um well here I'm going to have to get on my on my groove here the it the safe and beautiful neighborhoods vision block is 57% of the entire um budget here is the source of funding and again these are a lot of numbers but you can see if you run through it we we're comparing um the general fund along with the special Revenue funds the Enterprise funds the internal Services fund which is the fleet Department um and then of course the all funds with the total in front of you of the 700 and I can't see that number either 700 my NE disc combobulated $763 million 614 okay the major variances um include fire which we've gone over again already the increase in the collective bargaining obligations as well as um another Academy the transfer of uniform St Staffing from the arpa to the general funding and in the municipal court again compensation and increase in Security Contracts and police is the increase in collective bargaining as well as threey the overtime Provisions civilian compensation prisoner transport forensic DNA testing Fleet leases and Major Crimes as you've heard already this morning everything's been going up in terms of services goal seven again um for all three departments increase in compensation uh the streets of Maintenance you heard already that there has been a slight decrease in the transfer for the payco funding and then of course the cetra the major contracts on decrease in capital Improvement so the major contracts for cetro is our compressed natural gas in goal eight all of them again increase um compensation and then Animal Services additional Staffing that was requested to open the Morehead facility um community and human development um it it was the movement of the housing opportunities for person with AIDS to the hop funding and then Environmental Services we discussed this earlier the decrease in the capital for the landfill construction of the cells and then Public Health the increase in compensation and change in the grant funding from the a for the HIV contract the expenses on the general fund here in front of you you can see how we compare FY 23 to 24 and 25 with the variance in front of you the largest increase in the public safety was the $15 million variance for 4.6% for the goal seven the variance actually went down and then for goal eight the variance is 6 159,000 this is the same information here but in a different categories in terms of personnel expenses contracts materials and supplies operating expenditures non-operating intergovernmental expenditures and other uses so again um just the variances um again in the collective bargaining agreements this is the same information we covered but just into different categories the increase on the prisoner transport in the DNA testing um and then of course the decrease in the transfer to the streets and maintenance department for the facilities and vehicle replacement the expenses on the non-general fund um you can see again we compare it year-over-year with the variances to the side most of these have gone down um the decreases um are due to the the allocation and the support of the various departments and then of course um the the decrease in the Texas anti- gang unit and the overtime pay um again the increase for at the animal services is for the new employees at the Morehead facility this is the same information once again in a different categories um but overall it's a 10% decrease in the non- general fund expenses and if you have any questions um please let us know because like I said all the Departments are here in terms of Staffing we've talked about Staffing extensively this morning um we continue to hire as act as aggressively as possible you can see in front of you um the fire the increase of firefighters and the Del deletion of the vacant covid-19 operators that was discussed earlier this morning and that was just to rightsize in the reality of what's been going on um and overall the rest of the Departments are basically looking at one to two um employee differential except for the animal services and the public health to deal with the um opening of the Morehead facility and then the in public health it was increase in administrative services and Grant funded positions so now I'm going to turn it over to Chief killing so that he can uh go over his part on the public safety good afternoon Chief good afternoon Jonathan killings El Paso Fire Chief so we'll go over real quick just an overview of the uh goal two priorities for fiscal year 2025 for police fire and municipal court for the fire department we're going to focus in on the Staffing we've talked about it this uh today already it's been highlighted uh we're looking at Staffing and recruitment for our 911 telecommunicators and our uniform firefighters and then focusing in on our employee staff as well enhancing our health and wellness programs to to make a tailor made um to get a tailor made approach to dealing with our First Responders and the things that are unique to them not only in their physical health but mental health as well um maintaining our vehicle replacement program and making sure that our vehicles um were able to keep up with uh with the changing TR Trends and making sure that we move our Fleet forward and and have it available and then focusing in on that paramedic training we've talked about you know the shortage of paramedics throughout the region and what we're doing to enhance that and making sure that the high highest level of service is available to our to our to our community within the police department they're going to be maintaining that safe um that standing as a safe City uh again focusing in on the the the changes that they've made to their recruitment processes and then being able to retain those officers that they do have for the long term and and attract new officers in in into their into their Department uh again wrapping up the equipment and Staffing for the Eastside Regional Command Center and maintaining the um Public Safety Bond projects and keeping those on on course uh over the next years uh Municipal Court uh an expansion of the text reminder program uh improving the website and then developing a juvenile division program diversion sorry program and that's some point in the budget we'll allocate for a new clicker out I'll take it I think it's dead did this one there we go it's the user error my bad um so for the P fire department uh our planned accomplishments for fiscal year 2025 again looking at theems we've got a Academy class graduating here soon uh for class 104 that's going to have 38 CAD so next fiscal year we're just looking at class 105 uh trying to get 50 Cadets out of that class a paramedic class uh that's in session right now it's projected to graduate um December of next year uh with 28 new paramedics uh for our department and then really focusing on our 911 telecommunicator recruitment we've done a lot of changes to that program to be able to streamline that process make it more of a friendly process so our so our recruits don't have to come in and do inperson things so often they're able to do it remote we're able to expand that program we we've piloted it and with that we we currently have 29 Personnel in the training program um with uh 16 getting ready to graduate here in the next coming months as our continued development of current positions we're going to continue to develop our leadership programs through our L courses their l280 and l380 but we've also taken uh an enhanced approach with our new FST Academy that's our first promotion for our firefighters up into a new level so we've created a whole new Academy for them to give them the tools to make them successful moving forward and then our Specialty Care teams we have uh Critical Care paramedics that are going to be coming on board as part of our um air ambulance program they're going to be running com in combination with that again elevating the level of care that we're providing to the community and then our multi- agency training that's just going to enhance and and and make the uh our our programs such as the office of emergency management and our daily uh operations out on the outskirts of town with our local uh fire fire departments out on the outskirts and then our trainings with local law enforcement not only for the city of El Paso but also at the state and federal levels and then our Public Safety Bond projects fire station 38 as has been discussed opening up next fall on the far East Side and then our remodels that are taking place across the entire city with stations 14 16 15s and 25s um all in the process right now currently being remodeled um and and really bringing our our stations up to the current levels um making them a modern facility that are ADA Compliant that our firefighters can be comfortable in and that they can run out of to make sure that uh they're available to give the best service to our community and then we were all at the groundbreaking ceremony uh a couple weeks back or last week for the new specialty team station taking place down here in central uh El Paso on the same site as our current central fire station uh just a great project that's bringing all our specialty teams Under One Roof and again making it so that we can Elevate that level of service that we have and provide to the community and the region of El Paso and now I'm going to turn it over to Chief Silva where I got to push there okay good afternoon executive assistant chief Z Silva with the AL Police Department how are you I'm representing Chief pus he's out of town in training today so you have me so first we're going to talk to you a little bit about where we are and our staffing levels we always go back to 2020 when we were doing really really well the city have been very gracious and trying to implement the 300 program getting us more officers every year we were doing really well um our staffing was high our attrition was low and then after Co hit we started to see sort of a a change over where our nurition level started to rise and then we didn't have about two classes during the co period for obvious safety reasons so at that point we started turning upside down and our attrition rate and our graduation rate sort of became about the same to the point that now it's standing on its head and we have more people leaving the department than we can actually get into the academy classes so we're looking at about a 6% attrition rate right now which is a little bit high for us and for us to actually start getting that growth is probably going to be after FY 2026 we will start to see things turn around currently as of June 20th we had about 1,094 officers actually in the department if you look all the way back to 2020 we're well over 1100 so we're working really hard on our recruitment efforts to try to turn this around and really get a better grip on not only hiring more applicants but also getting people to stay again I discussed with you about preco and how that was a big impact on the police department but police departments across the country have also had other negative experiences that have really impacted how we hire and those experiences resulted from Ferguson Floyd Brianna Taylor and Uvaldi and that impacted cities Across America not just El Paso but in addition to that we had the defund the police movement all those things together really impacted and devalued the profession of law enforcement so you have to include that when we talk about why we're having negative growth um it's been been extremely difficult to attract applicants into this field even to the point that other law enforcement agencies like FBI CIA DEA are also having the same negative experience the military also is having the same experience and they site things like the reduction of the age group that's really applicable to apply because they only hire to age 31 we don't have an age limit but we still see the impact of the eligibility of this the population that can coming to the police department they also cite things that you probably wouldn't consider like obesity which has been a number one um um disability sort to speak for people that are able to apply and actually pass the academy because we have similar standards so because of those things we're seeing that applicants are not eligible or able to pass through our hiring practice so those are some of the things that we see that are affecting our recruitment rates so what are we doing as a police department over those things one of the things that Nicole already talked about was reducing the academy so our Academy has historically been 10 and 1/2 months we've lowered that to 8 and 1/2 months um we're still keeping our training in place that's very very important but that training will be incorporated into that one-year field training officer program so they're still going to get the same training that they got in the 10 and 1 half months but we're going to just kind of trickle it over that one year that they spend in the field this is a great recruitment tool because a a a trainee will come in at about the $440,000 salary range when they graduate as a police officer they go up to about $54,000 now I get it that that may seem like a lot of money but there's no other City Department that does what a police officer does the kind of work that we do 7 days a week 24 hours a day holidays nice weekends we go in when others run out so it is really a valuable valuable asset that we do get this salary increase and for them to come out of the academy earlier is a benefit to the public because now we have more people answering 911 calls for service so that's been a great recruiting tool for the AL Paso Police Department also we started the early hire program which Nicole also mentioned depending on where you are when you get your conditional job offer you could have weeks before the academy starts or you could have a week before the academy starts the person that's the longest time period out has a period of time to change their mind lose interest Maybe get another job offer maybe another law enforcement agency Picks Them Up all these things could happen in their time period so what we're doing right now as soon as we give them a conditional job offer we hire them we bring them into the academy we show them different aspects of the police department some people think there's only a police officer job that's not true we have a lot of lateral positions like STI and traffic and motors and Family Violence units community policing there's so many things out there that most people don't know about so it gives them an opportunity to see what the department really has to offer keeps them energized and keeps them involved so that when the academy does start we did not lose that recruit so that's been a great program for us I've talked to you endlessly about the skillbridge program endlessly and there it is that is live on the department of defense's website we made it it's been a long journey I want to thank Jerry Jacob Sam sodia Lieutenant Johnson and Sergeant anos they've been my team they've helped me get this program off the ground we actually met with the military liazon this morning to let them know that this program is now up and running and off the ground and what they can do to help us get these um military applicants into our program so this is an absolute new Venture for the El Pasa police department and and we're excited to see this come to fruition one of the other things that we've done um obviously made a lot of beautiful incentivized um training videos and advertisement um videos we're using all of our platforms we're on every Facebook and Twitter and Instagram um we're really trying to reach the community that would be most interested in joining our department uh We've improved our hiring process we have year round open enrollment I've talked to you about the 915 where we're having classes every September every January every may people can plan for when they want to join because we're being very consistent we're using text messaging applications to respond to applicants um we're receiving background packets on the weekend we're making ourselves very accessible more openhouse days at the Academy so they can see what the training program is going to be like so we're really doing everything we can and then just last week we were offering interested applicants only interested applicants an opportunity to go on our ridealong program kind of one of our best kept secrets but it's sort of like a one-on-one mentoring program where an applicant can have a hands-on experience with an officer and kind of get to know the person behind the batch we think it's a great opportunity for them to actually see what we do get to know the people that are doing this kind of work so they can see that they can fit in and be like us so we're hoping that we get more people interested through that and then again um like I mentioned before we hired cultural span which is a advertising and marketing company and sometime in August they should be putting out our 15 and 30 second and marketing videos so for the retention side back in 2016 about 8 years ago now we started what we call the forward drop program it's been um an amazing I think one of the best retention tools that the police department has offered so what happens is when you are eligible to retire and you have to be 20 years of service and 45 years of age you can actually put into retire on duty and your retirement actually goes into a savings account why you continue to work so we anticipated that people would stay about 5 years in the program well that's been eight years now we still have people in the crew including myself it's an amazing program because you get to save um your pension and have it available obviously you pay taxes when you take it out but we still have people that are participating in the program they like the program and we still have 250 people that are elig eligible to retire right now those 250 people are are years of service 20 plus years of service those people have a lot of experience they have a lot of education and they're the ones that are moving into leadership position so this is an amazing retention program but there's other things that we're doing also you already know about the contract that you voted for us which has been amazing we got an increase in things like fto pay and shift differential we have our transfer program where an officer or supervisor can go in between programs so they can have new learning opportunities and new job um opportunities and then the association has also been helping us out they've been offering uh free health and wellness programs so that's been great free workout assistance dietary assistance and even Orthodontics for active offices and then the pension board also is working on providing opportunities for retirees to have more incentives so those are some of the things that we've been doing um for Recruitment and Retention as far as the academy classes we just graduated a week ago 18 Cadets that are now um fully fledged police officers we currently have two classes going right now one with 26 and one with 23 obviously the city gives us 35 Cadets that were authorized to have in our classes we haven't quite been able to get up to that number yet but we're hoping the 137th and the 138 we'll have 35 full recruits in our classes so that we can now push forward and getting um more officers out on the street so those classes will be starting very soon code enforcement another best kept secret it's been great having them join the ranks of the El Paso Police Department under the leadership of Steve Alvarado he's been doing a great job you know between the years of 2020 and 2023 code enforcement generally handle about 35 case 35,000 cases annually they're on track to handle 50,000 cases this year so that's been um an amazing uh Improvement for code enforcement again keeping Staffing levels High everybody else is struggling but they've been at over 90% maintaining their Staffing levels 75% compliance rate working with these cases um we still working on getting our uh pool inspection and going through the Code Enforcement Academy which will be done by the end of the year um they're still attending their community events but one of the other things that's really important is that they have been been helping the police department by taking over what they call net which is a nighttime enforcement team they've been going out to areas like dire zaragosa Airway Cincinnati the DMD um to bars handling noise ordinance calls that's really been a really big help so that the police department doesn't have to respond they've been going out using noise meters um they've got the education and the experience and it's been a big help as you can see over this last year because they started in June of 2023 they've handled over 3,000 cases with 666 notice of violation so they are a great benefit to the Apostle police department and another thing that they're working on right now as a process Improvement and a cost benefit to the city is they're working on taking over the 5-day tag program so when there's an abandoned vehicle that's been sitting on the street it's an isore it's in neighborhoods people hate it we don't like it either um generally you have to wait for a par officer which we know that there aren't that many community service officers working out there now we can have code enforcement go out there and tag these vehicles do the followup and then have our Towing and units go out there and tell those Vehicles so that'll alleviate a lot of responsibility from a police officer having to do that work so that's something that we're working on right now okay so everybody knows that I love this building because I've been a big part of it since it began over 3 years ago but the new upper East Side Regional command will be opening this summer we will be announcing a soft opening date very very soon we have uh assigned Personnel to the building we have we talked about how many people that we've hired to move in there and just as a reminder when we promote from within that's a trickle down effect that goes all the way down to the bottom line to the lowest level officer that's where the vacancy ends up being because we can't hire a sergeant from the outside we can't hire a commander from the outside we hire from within and then that ends up being a trickle down effect as we replace those people so we we have moved Personnel we have worked with 911 to do the redistricting and um we'll be ready to go in the next couple of weeks the bond office and the records division also have really beautiful space in the building and they will be opening at the end of the summer moving on to the rest of the public safety Bond we did have our first meeting to start working on the design phase of the central regional Command Center which will be at bonam elementary so we'll be working towards that and then we are waiting for headquarters in the academy to hold their first meeting and we'll be moving on those simultaneously and then the northeast regional command has already submitted their renovation list so that will also be up and coming and if you haven't seen the building it's amazing so for Municipal Court let's see they wanted me to mention that their increases are due to the security contract software maintenance and janitorial increases as I mentioned to you they've already ordered and I believe they received all their equipment so that they can open the the Far East Bond office they're just waiting to move Staffing out there at the end of the summer they've expanded their texting program to send reminders of hearings right now they only send out text messages to remind individuals when they have a warrant or when their payment plans will will expire this one kind of closes the circle so that they'll get their reminders in advance which hopefully will prevent them from having a warrant which will prevent them from even having to do a payment plan so we're hoping that that's going to be a great program the Juvenile Diversion program is actually a state mandate and the the opportunity is for us to stop juveniles from entering into the adult criminal justice system so it's a great program they want to avoid them having tickets issue they want to make sure that that they don't end up um going into the criminal justice system so they're going to be working on creating more referrals to help protect their records by offering them classes to help them be diverted from the juvenile program and then we're also going to be offering the opportunity for people to go online and actually select the dates that they want to go to the certain types of Court hearings so that's going to be open very very soon and then they're reconfiguring their City websites kind of clunky not easy to maneuver so we're working with it to make it a little bit more more easy to [Applause] navigate so looking at the 2-year action plan for fire um again focusing on the on on making sure that we have the equipment necessary to to respond to the area um we have to keep up due to increasing costs and also increasing build times for these apparatuses so in keeping up we're looking at fiscal year 2025 with the purchase of three Pumpers one Quin four rescues and five uh light duty pickup trucks and then again for fiscal year 2026 three Pumpers one Quint four rescues and five additional uh pickup trucks for the police department as I mentioned we have an extremely large Fleet almost 1,000 Vehicles we do have a lot of vehicles that are coming in right now that we're we're reassigning and decommissioning some of the older units 140 marked and 36 Grant funded vehicles in various stages of purchasing 20 more coming in in August and uh at least 34 Mark units that we're working with Sam to get back out in the fleet um axon has both of our tasers and our body cameras so we've already purchased um all of our body cameras and as I mentioned to you when I first talked to you about the body camera program I had a 5-year plan where we would buy the 750 uh body cameras and then every year we would buy more for the the new recruits that will come on board but because of our attrition rate and our low graduating classes we weren't we did not need to buy any new cameras so far but now we're getting to the point where we are going to have to go into the general fund and start looking at how we can buy new cameras probably within the next year or so we won't have enough cameras anymore as far as tasers we're going to have to actually replace the entire system the x26 and x26p models are at end of life so we will be purchasing 750 to new tasers um we only need about 75 new handheld radios and then I mentioned to you before that we've already purchase and have in stock 125 handheld personal device assistants which are our EET systems along with the accompanying printers and those will be distributed to patrol in August and that's it for police and fire I'm just um going to make a comment I was at the graduation um 10 days ago and talked to uh Chief pus about you know the size of the class and and um he kind of gave me some of the the reasoning why it's been a little bit of challenge but he was very optimistic about the number of applicants that we have received in the last uh couple months uh working forward to the new classes so I think that's very very important and and very reassuring that uh we'll be able to get the numbers cuz we funded the threey we funded the amount of uh precisions available for officers which unfortunately have not been able to get the applicants to be able to to move forward on but uh he was very confident based on on the current numbers that I will be able to do that so I think that's really important and then I do have a question for chief killings the number of um new units that we put in operation are those additional units or replacement units no those are going to be all uh replacement units additional units no replacement units Replacements so that um units that we're replacing what are we doing with the old units are we looking at putting them out on the market somewhere or what are we looking at doing with them no so what we do is um we have uh NFPA guidelines that we follow that that dictate how long we can use these apparatus for a certain amount of time before they have to be decommissioned so our Frontline apparatuses once we replace them they drop back and they become the reserve so if that if we need to do maintenance on that Frontline apparatus or um they have a breakdown or anything like that then the reserve apparatus is used to keep that unit in service so that we can continue to serve good I've seen those and I know that they have an r in front of them but the ones that are you replacing any or retiring any of the reserve units that uh we may be able to to get rid of so our Reserve apparatuses they'll usually go for about 15 years before we take them completely out of service and by the time that they're completely out of service they're in a state that is not uh they're not they're not in a really good state so um because of the the the state of our Fleet uh we've been keeping those reserve apparatuses inhouse and not not been selling them or or being able to do anything with them okay well because we we had had some inquiries and I think uh Chief de austino was aware there that the mayor Waters had made some inquiries about you know being able to send some to some of the colonias and some of the deeper areas and in waters and and that's the main reason why I'm asking something like that yes sir and as and as we continue to move forward with our replacement plan some of those apparatuses might be coming back into or coming out of service uh in in really good condition and we can look at doing doing the partnership with them that thank you for that sir if I could add one thing mayor uh it's been a few years since we've been able to partner up with with one of the smaller cities in Mexico and provide them an apparatus and it's just been the the times and and we talked about the delay in getting apparatus we talked about what Co did to the industry we talk about the the new times to build out a new truck what's it take now for aial truck about 2 years 3 years it's up to 40 months 40 months to get a truck in and so we are actually cannibalizing our our older vehicles to make sure we have we can keep our Reserve units up so that we're not caught with no trucks in spare so as soon as that balances out we'll be able to start looking at that and we do keep in mind so if there's any Partnerships we can do we'll move forward you know what number like I think 25 oop sorry about that about four or five years ago five six years ago we purchased about 300 units and we Finance them over a 25e period which is what Colonel Weston's been talking about that uh we don't do that any longer and we'll have be able to pay for them do you have any idea chief how many of those units are still in operation and are they anywhere near the the length of their life expectancy some of them are going to be replaced they are at end of life some of them are still um within the fleet so um Fleet does have um a time and mileage that they follow when cars have to be rotated out but it also takes us a couple years to get cars so we're not always able to rotate our Fleet as quickly as we'd like to thank Chief yes sir representative Canales thank you mayor um yeah a couple questions I'll start uh with Chief killings uh slide eight it showed some of the uh compensation for uniform fire employees is shifting from arpa to general fund what are those positions that were arpa funded so if we're talking about it the the shift from those covid positions that were in place during during the pandemic so we're bringing those positions that were we're using our uniform Personnel to to to help augment our our response for covid and and for the migrant crisises so some of those positions were created under arpa and now those are coming back into the the general fund okay and we're taking I mean that that accounts for some of the the variant as well right we're taking I don't know if it's adjusting the Staffing tables or taking attrition on some of those positions so those positions have been incrementally transferred over to the general fund over the past two years so they're filled positions we only moved over filled uh firefighters positions understood um and then Shifting the PD slide 11 um it listed PD Fleet leases um as one of the the variances what are the vehicles that p is leasing now as opposed to for example the ones that the mayor most of the vehicles are from internal affairs and we've reduced that number quite a bit okay so these are not the patrol units these are no the patrol units are not least okay just making sure uh and then slide 23 I'm just referencing the slides it's not totally necessary to pull them up um you you know we we talked about how uh the academy classes are not quite reaching the 35 funded uh Cadet positions is that mostly due to applicant quality and eligibility or what what are the reasons why we're not getting the 35 as I mentioned It's a combination so at every section of the stage of hiring we lose almost 50% so a th000 May apply and then only 500 pass the first test and then the 500 that pass the test only half will pass the PT and it goes on medical um and other aspects of the process so right now we're starting to see an uptick in the number of applicants so that should improve the number of applicants that we can actually hire okay thank you that's all thank you mayor thank you sir representative uh molinard thank you mayor um for chief Sila you talk about code enforcement so let's talk a little bit more about code enforcement you talk about the five-day tags abandoned vehicles out in public roadways public streets and So currently the way it is unless it's going to change here soon a citizen can call 311 but then they're going to be transferred to the non-emergency number they're going to ask for the information on the at least the street the vehicle make model license registration and so that operator will tell them hey we're going to give you 5 days more and then eventually it'll go to or be assigned to a par unit in whatever Regional command area that is and so now you're saying that's going to be changed changing for code enforcement to take action that's correct we're trying to move the power officer out of the program and send it to the um Code Enforcement Officers there's way more of them than there are car officers so in addition our tow truck drivers also can do 5day tax but there's only three of them there's about 40 Code Enforcement Officers so just the sheer number of officers available to go out and tag that car not in 5 days but as soon as 2 days we're hoping um and then the 5 days will start will'll be able to go back out there and get that c toed a lot quicker than what we're doing now okay I I bring up two different points number one you and I from probably say different old school if you will but any police officer was taught District responsibility that that police officer during his tour he or she would be able to go into neighborhoods and see vehicles that are being abandoned and take enforcement action without having a citizen to call and if they saw that they were able to do do the work number two is that now if you're going to be changing it for code enforcement uh I would prefer that that 5 day I mean still keep the 5-day waiting period because you know some people their cars break down they have to get a tow truck to come back later or someone fix the the problem whatever I get that there's a 5day window on that but many times so someone's still going to call and then you're still going to add 5 days on top of that and by the time code enforcement comes back that's already that that could be 10 days later and so what service are we really providing to the public I don't know if we could eliminate or even reduce the 5day once that person calls to make it 3 days or something well something to look at so the police officer out on patrol still has the opportunity and the obligation to write the 5day tag what we're trying to do is remove the par officer because it just takes too long to get out there so between the P officer going out there and um the officer on patrol seeing it in his neighborhood they can write the 5day tag the code en enforcement officers are actually going to be the ones responding to the 311 calls that's where we're moving the community service from that to try to speed up the process I think the 5-day grace period is reasonable and fair the way it stands right now because it gives us an opportunity to do an investigation on the vehicle try to find the owner try to do the community service part where we make contact and always try to get voluntary compliance first so we need that time period to try to do that because there might be extenda circumstances and then when we go back out there we're prepared to tell and the way the last thing I'll comment on that is to to me it's a three different things that could happen the patrol officer on patrol in his her District that' be one number two a par officer being out there going to a call for service for something else totally unrelated that happens to Z or observe a vehicle parked abandoned for quite some time and now the code enforcement so we're going to have a three-prong approach in getting these streets off or getting these vehicles off the the street so I appreciate that very much cuz that's we do get a lot of complaints from constituents hey this car has been abandoned in front of my house there's weeds there it's starting to smell it looks funny I don't like it okay uh code enforcement again signage most intersections I know in District 4 there's a lot of signs hey house for sale uh you know no down payment whatever people are businesses even though they're probably not the most reliable businesses are attacking intersections uh whether it be Hondo passing Gateway North Gateway North in colen Gateway North in Loop 375 North and South and other areas railroad momes Dire Street and so it just gets very ugly quick and it stay there and a lot of times they do Target Thursday Friday because they probably realize hey no one's going to come out and take these signs down and I appreciate the fact now that code enforcement hey it's not I don't think you need to have a service call for that but the fact that code enforcement's out there that if they drive by a intersection and see these signs out there they take the initiative to go out there and just pick up these signs because they're illegal signs also how is it the Cod enforcement is correctly deployed in other words what I'm trying to find out is you have 40 officers 35 officers so are these same five I'm just going to use the number five five officers assigned to the Northeast Regional command and they stay there for a couple of months and then may be deployed to another region or they're just on a day-to-day basis just deployed Citywide so I can't answer exactly how they're deployed other than for the nighttime enforcement team they are um sent in groups of twos and they work um evenings to graveyard shifts to to manage uh Thursday Fridays and Saturdays but as far as the regular day shift officers I don't know exactly how they're deployed but they're each given a list of the 311 calls that are com coming out and they are assigned um to investigate certain cases okay thank you and now moving on to the actual police department well I'm Excuse me I shouldn't say that way but anyway was Patrol um I hear it again and I've brought this issue up since November of 2021 that web RMS is not working okay and I understand completely that web RMS is a countywide um program application be used by the District Attorney's office and law enforcement in general here in the county of op Paso for the 34th Judicial District but you hear from the detectives from officers where they log in they wait they're trying to generate reports and they wait and they continue waiting they can go to the bathroom they can check their Facebook and they're still waiting it is downtime for these police officers that are not being efficient and because we're logged tied into a system that is not functional okay and I know we' I've talked about this like I said since November of 2021 coming up on three years um I know also yes Mel would like to respond to that she can provide you all right I web yes sure good afternoon Adel with it so we are working with the vendor for the system there are several items that have been identified we are in a partnership with our County Partners for law enforcement to ensure that we're utilizing the system we have come up with a couple of different solutions so we're working through through that currently they're not um they've not been vetted yet so as soon as we have an update we will share one with um everyone here all right Miss ghetto while you're there do you don't have a timeline on that buying chance we do actually I'm hoping into the new fiscal year we should have a resolution to this item all right thank you very much I appreciate that input um going back to Chief Sil so I know uh we have a system where treasure prisoner transport and it's only on certain days but we're also seeing that there's a large long time on the booking process where they're screened for mental health they have medical they have an evaluation there's a supervisor that gets involved which is fine I I don't mind all those things but it seems that there's just delay after delay and so you got units that are waiting and waiting sometimes even hours on in once again they're waiting at the booking process when they should be out there provide taking uh calls for service even doing self-initiated work have you been hearing any other things besides that ma'am not lately the No No the prisoner transport um Alli Universal they they're only off Sunday and Monday so they work Tuesday through Saturday um and there's almost no officer that has to go to booking when they're on duty um the officers drop off the prisoners at whatever location they choose and then the prisoners are transported and then G4S takes over the process from there we do have several assigned officers that is their job Duty for that shift to work out of the county jail to help expedite the booking process but we don't have officers lined up at booking uh unable to respond to calls for service that's the purpose of having the Alli Universal working okay cuz I'm hearing it otherwise but okay I'll I'll accept your answer thank you very much M thank you Mr Mayor if I can uh remind councel please do not use your personal cell phones during council meeting thank you um next we're going to move over to Richard Bristol he's the team leader for gold team 7 thank you no who you have a question for me the chief okay Chief because I saw you leave and I'm like no don't go um thank you chief for your presentation uh and you know what I have a lot of questions related to to the um your Staffing plan when in particular um there's a senior Grant planner and I'm just curious are you guys moving your the grant planner from PD to another department or you're just eliminating that cuz there's no one there I'm sorry I believe you're comparing the Staffing plans in the overall book yeah I believe it was a reclassification so they were reclassifying the civilian position um so they're just moving it from the Department so what they did was they deleted it and they created a new position that was better for the department at that time with a different title oh okay so which what is it get class reclassified as because there's there's just nobody there for senior Grant planner we'd have to look it up for you Representative no problem um I did want to ask about the sociable City assessment um action plan there were um a number of you know suggestions recommendations um and I I don't see the breakdown in some of your programs in the budget so I only see line items is there any proposals to um add funding for the recommended actions as part of the action plan that information I don't have that was um managed by Steve Alvarado um the director of code enforcement and he did come and give you a presentation about a month ago but I don't know that there's any funding that was set aside for that program yeah and there was you know discussion about Personnel night um managers uh things of that nature and and so this is kind of like one of my pet peeves and government we pay for these plans we put them on a shelf and then we don't do anything with them really would like to see highlight what these plans are highlight them pull specifically pull aside what the recommended um actions are cuz some of them have budgetary requests and I think like the low hanging fruit and it's not my district in the current area for Cincinnati is the the markers and the um the signage for a dedicated place for ride shares um that way we we can avoid pedestrians going getting picked up on the middle of a of a highway on Mesa um so so I would really you know appreciate if we can go back to this plan it is a a a critical um component of a lot of complaints that we receive it's like what are we doing uh so anyway I just wanted to make sure that uh there was discussion on that if I could add to that sure representative so when Steve came to council and presented I believe he asked for 100 days to come back so that's part of his plan to come back and what their recommendations are to go with that social City assessment they're looking at positions and and how what they thought they needed for that nighttime I believe it was called a nighttime mayor position but that nighttime manager on how that's done and so they are looking into that um funding I don't think we increased any of their positions so there hasn't been a funding identified specifically but they're still developing that plan and they're they're set to come back to council to report out thank you um okay I understand thank you thank you for that I just wanted to give shout a shout out for the Bridges program very phenomenal I'm really proud of that that we were able to achieve that um but of course the under 1100 very much concerns me in the overall health of our police officers um are what are are they required to do is everyone doing mandatory overtime and then what limits do you have for overtime for our police officers we do have mandatory overtime in place not it's on a rotating basis so that we make sure that the same person is not um required to come back back to the same overtime within a period of time so we actually have a sergeant that manages our mandatory overtime programs that we you know responsible for for City programs so we make sure that the our officers are not overworked but they are um limited to 25 hours a week for their personal overtime and that includes like their private and internal right 25 the internal overtime that they have to do that if they're on a call that just goes on and on a murder a long traffic accident we don't count that against them because that's Department overtime with any overtime that they incur on their own like work in a ketta or a hall or something like that that's counted against 25 hours 25 hours okay um and when you say the internal I'm referencing the entertainment centers and the mandatory OT you're doing there does that mandatory ot not count to 25 hours or it does we're not counting it in the 25 hours but we're ensuring that the officer is not called back within a specified period of time to continue to be forced to work that mandatory overtime so they get a lawn break in between we have a pool of officers we have a supervisor that manages the program to make sure that each officer only works a certain amount of u overtime assignments okay yeah know I we hear a lot about the immen we do too we're very concerned about mental health and making sure the officers have appropriate rest and that they're able to you know maintain a high level of standard thank you there was a mention on the pension and I saw the the slide and I didn't notate which slide about the um Cola uh for for our new and existing service um excuse me police and fire officers um is there any resolution to that we're still on hold no budgetary uh changes at this time it's C won I have met with the police fire pension a couple months ago we've had some discussions I understand they're not looking to do any changes until next year and so it's not immediate obviously there's pretty significant financial impact if we were to implement something like that I think the early estimate was about 6 million do of additional pinion contributions a year it's something that we still need to follow up on because obviously that was something that would be very very impactful on the city if we were to pick up that full increase and try to provide that Cola so at this time there's not a resolution but my understanding is they're not looking to implement this year they're looking towards next year to implement okay and so I I know we have a number ofies um lined up but you don't see like in the Staffing changes what the number because of the TR however what like what is the number of police officers that we're going to be Staffing for the facilities are going to be open up opening up online so are we adding new um I'm I'm assuming uniform and non-uniform employees to the Upper East Side and then I don't know what the open date for bottom would be but probably not this fiscal year probably I mean it took 3 years to do this project so I would anticipate that it would take at least that long to do central um we've only added about nine to the Staffing table for the Upper East Side because right now Pebble Hills manages the entire District we're just basically kind of dividing it in half so we're just reallocating current Staffing but on the police side we're just hiring four okay yeah no I'm just I'm just going to go ahead so to that question and so one of the questions we got during the briefing the week do always that as a a response is that somebody had asked what's going to be the breakdown of the Staffing at PB Hills and the new East Side Regional command so we can work on getting that information to show you all what the Staffing levels are going to look like with those two new commands or with those two commands I mean the I understand that there's a lot of budget constraints but I do want to reemphasize that you know it's a new facility you need to staff it appropriately we don't want both facilities to be burnt out um and of course um you know I don't I don't know that nine or or four um is sufficient but I don't understand the operations internally that was just for um upper management Staffing levels nine or four four four okay but then you so what I'm hearing is that we're not necessarily adding more we're adding m key management positions and then we're divvying up hibble hills and upper Eide right and then as we hire these new graduating classes we'll start to allocate those resources to the new region okay not all new recruits no no no when we talk about numbers when we when we bring out a new class then those are still in the fto program the field training officer program so we'll move a senior officer and that will replace the officer that we just hired they don't they don't all get to go right all the new recruits and that plan has been in place in terms of how the police department was going to structure and do this and this budget didn't impact any of the any of the Staffing levels in terms of what that plan would look like going for forward understood and then for the you mentioned keep it keep it close the cameras the body cameras um you're at a point where you're going to have to buy new for new new folks and then we do we have insurance right now where we replace them or do we have to pay for each camera the cameras are actually on a 5year program okay so we get one refresh during that 5year program and then after the 5 years then the cameras will still continue to work but that's when they want you to repurchase the new cameras that will be out at that time so we're going into almost the third year of the program so you'll have to when you say refresh we're going to get new camera a new camera for all of the how many 7 7 cameras and then um then we would have to purchase are we locked into that contract where we have to purchase no the contract expires after 5 years that's it it's a leas program I understand I understand okay okay um and if we break them we buy them I assume or it depends um they do repairs depending on if it's fixable um if it's not I think we've lost one camera out of all the 700 something so um they have been working with us in repairing cameras that break most of the things that really break on the camera are the holders that hold the camera to the uniform those are the thing that breaks the most not the camera itself okay and then the good thing is that there are state grants that we can apply for there's some and we do if we have a grant manager well we have been applying for all of the the grass that are available for the body cameras that hasn't stopped okay thank you thank you for that and then um do we have an estimate of how many new police officers we're going to have this fiscal year well hopefully 70 70 that does that include the utrition No No so so the net would just be 70 new 70 okay and your estimating 26 and 27 to be when you're going to see an increase correct so we're under 1100 I think I think over 20 years ago we were at over 1100 so we are at the levels we were over I want to say 25 years from the last time I looked at the numbers um I I just want to stress once again my my great concern with these low low numbers and I think now is the time that we start to look at either finding uh non-uniform related um tasks and giving employees um some of those tasks and this is a Trend that's happening across the state and the nation um things like responding to insurance claims instead of putting police officers to respond to insurance claims having dedicated teams where they're non-uniform and to take care of the lengthy transactional type of responses um in addition to that U our veterans and Patrol the VIP program our Volunteers in Patrol excuse me um I thought it was a great one year uh it dismantled after the pandemic I did mention in my 101 I would like to see uh if we can uh bring back that program and specifically for those police officers that want to retire if we can recruit them to the VIP program as well so that we can start to patrol around schools and neighborhoods and there was supposed to be one VIP in every District um and again those are the type of programs I'm thinking that we're going to have to start taking a closer look at given the low numbers um of the police department but I'm hoping the bridge program helps just to and I think we already have four interested applicants if I got one I would be happy so I'm really excited but um we all working on bringing the VIP program back we we're putting together um a small Academy class so that they can get the training that they need to go out and be certified to to drive the cars and then as far as you know taking over other responsibilities we we did create the police support specialist position and that has been um there's one in every Regional command um there's five at the DVRs unit which runs the body camera program and those we do get to hire retired Law Enforcement Officers or military personnel to take over some of what was normally a police related duty okay thank you I'm not encouraging that we replace police officers to be crystal clear I'm encouraging we have more police officer but in the time being just thinking outside the box on administrative related tasks put those to non-uniform officers thank you one represent M thank you representative nund repres M thank you mayor um Chief SE one more time so I get the not from the mayor as well but either way uh I see a lot of police officers now going back to the pr4 Baton have we done away with the expandable baton or are we transitioning over Chief P has had us transition over and how's that going well I haven't taken the class yet so I can't say but it is a very useful tool if you ever work with colle sticks or you know even when the Baton is expandable it's a very very useful tool all right thank you ma'am that's all thank you Chief and I know that uh again we've done um based on talking to Chiefs uh what's hopefully required for us to be able to increase the size of the acmy as we have had the funding for you know I know for the last 4 years we put it in the budget and had the funding unfortunately we've not had the size of the academy but I think based on his report to me it looks like uh we're we're moving in the right direction so thank you for all that work Chief mayor may I respond to representative Hernandez's question uh representative Hernandez the police department um inactivated the senior Grant planner and they added a grant planner then they deleted the grant planner and they've added a research analyst now and that's what's included in the preliminary budget will they have the same function of applying for Grants a research analyst yeah I I would just ask if there can be some coordination um there's a lot of Grants out there for infrastructure body cameras Replacements programs Stone wallet whatever I don't know who does it but and so Omar Martinez and his group actually talked about that looking at Grants at the state level that we had not been applying for previously MH and you've seen the success that we've had with Omar and his team of you know being aggressive going after grants so absolutely Public Safety is one of the areas that we've not tapped into particularly at the state level with potential grant opportunities thank you so we do have a grant planner that's currently on our staff so a lot of us including myself we we will write a lot of our own grants because we've applied for them in the past and then they overview and help us manage but we have not deleted all the grant planner positions thank you ma'am and U Mr cortinez and you saw in the council meeting last uh last week when we talked about those grants and that we we've received about $57 million worth of grants that if we had not received them they'd be part of the budget as we talked about today so that's really helped us to be able to hopefully achieve a no new Revenue based on the grants we've been able to receive so thank you and with that uh M smik okay moving on our next is gold team seven and Richard Bristol is going to be presenting good afternoon Richard Bristol streets and maintenance um goal te7 includes streets and maintenance mass transit and Community Capital Improvement Department excuse me so starting with priorities um with go s uh starting with streets and maintenance our very first actually let me get this thing to advance there we go um for us preparing to meet the new demands and requirements for our upgrade to the traffic management system is going to be one of our biggest projects over the next few years it's a multi-year project it's going to see the upgrade of 670 intersections right now our system that we use is about a 1990s version it's kind of an analog system when we upgrade we're going to be on an advanced traffic control system we're essentially going to the most updated uh state-of-the-art technology that's out there in addition to that um resurfacing for the uh Comm progress bonds and the pgo funding remains uh major priority for ourselves as is the uh the roll out of the uh priorities for Fleet Maintenance and all of our projects um for facility maintenance rather all of our projects for facility maintenance year this year are focusing around roofs hvx electrical systems and Plumbing Systems and we're addressing problems that have been in existence for years and we're making good use of that funding on the mass transit side um the implementation of Sun Metro Rising we will see that in this present fiscal year that some Metro got a $450,000 Grant and they're hiring Consultants to to do an overall study of their fix route system with the goal of simplifi simplifying and optimizing the transit system in addition to that they're going to Pilot a new uh microtransit program and what this will do is it's going to send in in remote hard get to neighborhoods in the city it's going to send Transit units to go pick people up at designated locations and bring them in to the closest major Corridor so they have a means to get from their neighborhood to a major Corridor to grab a bus so they can be working within the system um even from an area where they don't get the same level of service um electri electrification of the Paratransit operations is something that'll be ongoing over the next two years they're in the process of updating 45 uh they will swap out 45 units and bring in 45 electrical ones they're in the process of also doing uh fix route bus Replacements and this next year they'll see 10 of them and in addition to that their their new stations at Dyer and monel um one would be done Dyer be done at the end of the summer and monel hopefully be done by the end of the year so those will be additional stations coming online and they also have their uh street car charer program which started last year and it was aimed at increasing ridership uh to pre-co levels for the uh for the street car that will remain in effect in the current year moving over to Capital Improvement Department um execution of the uh the capital Improvement program from the various um Capital Improvement initiatives such as a public safety Bond commit progress bond is obviously going to be a major priority for C in CID they're managing over 200 projects they're handling the design and the construction a million things can go wrong on every design as well on any construction project it's a very complicated task they do a very effective and good job um they're be working on their uh reporting and their standard operating procedures in the present year for the uh purpose of uh working smarter for uh streamlining and simplifying um in addition um I don't know if you you've probably seen some of their Community engagement uh meetings when there's a project I think they have a very good process they're working to enhance that as well this year and they will be very involved in the uh comprehensive Plan update so moving to a planned accomplishment starting with streets and maintenance we're going to be starting our multi-year project for the upgrade of our system our signalization system what we're going to see in this year right here is we're going to update uh we're going to upgrade alamina first so that alamina Corridor is going to be our pilot to the larger project we will see that one implemented in the current year um in addition to that uh we've been doing our centralized computer irrigation for the last couple of years and it's really paid off this is another one of our working smarter initiatives and what this has really done for us is help us get around labor labor shortage especially um at all of our park locations we used to have to send a person a groundskeeper to go manually turn on station to get him going and then he would leave there they go to another station another Park set another one on and be going back and forth throughout the evening changing them around changing the uh the stations around manually we've been able to get away from that because over the last couple years we've done 180 parks on automated irrigation we got 24 programed next year when we get done with this year we're going to be less than 50 Parks requiring automated irrigation and what that's going to cause us to have to also do is put forward toward some projects where we're not going to be able to install automated irrigation we might have to rebuild the entire system so we're at the part of our process here where we're we've got a lot of low hanging fruit out of the way and now we're starting to deal with the larger problems and we're very happy to be at that point because we've saved a lot of Labor along the way um developing a park am many's long-term replacement plan goes along with the point that Colonel Weston made this morning when he was talking about having funding in our budget every year to the point where now we know it's going to be there we can develop a long-term plan and just work on that from year to year with that money that's got what we're going to do with all the park amenities and that's a program that we'll be starting this current year and then also um facility maintenance uh our program address long-term replacement needs you had asked earlier about what we've been doing with our facility maintenance money and I will provide a list through om and the projects we've done the present year but I what I will tell you is we're doing projects in those areas of uh haax roofs electrical and plumbing that have sat for years and not been dealt with so we're trying to knock those out um we've gone through about half the money we're going to be um awarding a uh a job order contract pretty soon here at Council and when we have that tool in place that's going to give us a lot more um opportunity to to move a lot faster on these projects because we're going to have multiple contractors for a longterm period so we'll be able to juggle four or five different contractors kicking projects to them as opposed to having to go through the the procurement process which is what we're having to do right now so that will speed that up a lot moving over to the park system um I get asked a lot what we do in the park system um and we're we're purely maintenance the programming is under Pablo and and the park department and they're the ones that determine how these assets are going to be used for whichever programs our job is to provide them Turf that is usable and maintain the the amenities and the lighting um Pablo's team handles the sports programs I put the uh they'll put the white lines down on the fields they'll work on the infields because a lot of that is quick strike things that have to happen on game day so what they're working on is more um to put on a league and to put on an event and what we work on are the long-term maintenance of the assets um we're using a lot more technology as we've kind of touched on earlier um the automated irrigation system is making a huge difference for us um as you can see our en amenities replacement plan when we were were able to start spending this money in the present year is when we really realized the opportunities that we had in front of us um so we were able to get a lot of work done with a lot of Replacements in the present year and uh again we're going to go ahead and put forward what we believe after a careful analysis are the most important issues that we think may may require long-term addressing and then another new thing that we're going to bring in this year um it's it's kind of it's a new program it's similar to what we've been doing in the department we have a team dedicated for playgrounds and we have a team dedicated for irrigation we're going to add two additional teams one's going to be for outdoor sports courts we're making an enormous investment in sports courts through the ARP money through reconstruction and through resurfacing we want to keep that ball bouncing we want to keep the maintenance on them a little more programmed and planned a little more systematic so we can uh keep them looking the way they are when I was growing up when I would use these course they always had cracks on them they rarely had a net in the rims and I just we're very proud to be able to provide better amenities than we think we grow up with um and that's another uh we'll continue to a key prior to be a key priority for our department in this next year on the sub Metro System planed accomplishments again um implementation of soet rising the uh the 45 pair of Transit units that will be coming in that will be electrified over this year and next uh the shelter improvements the uh ticket vending machine um improvements replacement actually is a new program that we got they they have some they're going through a process of out replacing similar outdated ticket vending machines with newer technology uh it'll accept credit card payments at the bus stops and the centers and also be a contactless payment system and then also um utilizing a veterans commission grant for free rise for veterans and their families they did renew that um with the Texas veterans Grant Texas veterans commission Grant this previous year so that veterans and family members can ride for free and then moving to plan comp for Capital Improvement um the the mission of capital Improvement department is deliver our Capital Improvement program there are various Capital Improvement programs that fall within it there's the public safety one there's the bonds um there are smaller issues that are out there from previous years all told it's over 200 projects that they're working on um that continues this year one of the things tied to the bonds that will happen that I want to explain for you is we're both working on projects from the bonds um under the the 50 most traveled arterials if you can recall when we put that program forward we were trying to leave the top 50 in good condition that required resurfacing in most cases in some cases it requires reconstruction so some of the money from the bonds are being utilized for partial reconstruction for some of these rideways so we will handle all the resurfacing but some of these streets that will require reconstruction some of these corridors are going to have elements of resurfacing and reconstruction on them for those we're going to have C handle them as one project holistically so they will be handling the Reconstruction projects and the ones that have the resurfacing elements in it as well and then within the last couple years we've moved our uh traffic signal installations to CID because we just couldn't keep up with it anymore with internal staff and we're going to see nine installations in the present year um continued delivery of previous year's Capital programs to uh complete the act of CIP um that's kind of what I'm referring to about the multi- uh multiple um cips that happen to be in existence out there um and then another one large project that will start on this year is commencing the design on the uh the larger roadway extension projects for both wrestler and for Airway so our our two-year action plan we've kind of rolled them together in our in our in our group here for the bond projects over the next two years clearly uh we're going to be governed by the bond projects uh ourselves and CID uh we're going to continue to roll them out um we will also have our uh rway extension projects as are coming on and we will upgrade our entire uh signal system and that signal system upgrade could also be considered a safety initiative because we are moving into a much more advanced uh type of program but part of what we're talking about with these safety initiatives are like expansion continued growth and expansion of vision Zero vision zero has turned out to be a fantastic program we've been able to do a couple of quick strikes projects over it on it over the last couple years I'm looking forward to doing this again next year and helping waen and his team roll this thing out more I think between streets and maintenance and uh C we've put together a decent project for vision zero we think that there's a lot of opportunities in that going forward and then for us the real thing is going to be working smarter um a lot of the types of positions that we utilize are hard to fill that puts us in a situation where we got to work smart to get things done so you'll see a lot of changing in our group from one year to the next as we make adjustments and and how we get work done and that's just ourselves trying to be creative to keep up with things we're we're proud of the fact that we we're still functioning well we're still getting the job done what we don't like is uh we're not moving at the same speed as we had in previous years that has to do with resources um but the work is getting done in this portfolio and it will continue to and another thing I want to bring on for working smarter part of working smarter is leadership and if you look at our groups at our three departments there's been a lot of leadership turnover over the last two years not so much at the director level but at the assistant director level and there's a lot of really sharp and talented young assistant directors in Sun Metro and c and streets of Maintenance sitting right here and this is our way of having them here to show you our next generation of leadership is ready to go and the level below them is also ready to go um so we have we have a very good uh portfolio here and uh we're ready for the next year with that we'll take your questions represento thank you for your presentation it was very thorough thank you mayor thank you for your presentation I have a few questions um the traffic management system is different from the traffic management plans that you wanted to do for $78,000 so I kind of wanted to understand a little bit more on that the traffic management system is our actual signalization system that's the the the network of 670 signals throughout our entire city and all of our corridors and what what we're doing we planned this a few years ago um many cities are just like like us they're using the same types of systems and they're in the process of upgrading the same type of things that we're doing right now so our our program our system right now is it's an older system and it's analog in a lot of ways okay um we are getting to a point where we can even get all the parts for some of the uh the control systems so because they're outdated and we're at the point where we're right for an upgrade and with this new system um it's going to have features and capabilities that we haven't had before like for traffic counting and and various things like that I'd like to be able to come to council we can provide a presentation on on what we can expect um but it will be completely uh I guess an example of what is going in would be uh wrestler and red no I'm sorry it would be uh wrestler and Mesa there's been an installation there of the new system that's going in there's also been one on yarro and North Loop um that will be a kind of look at the new type of system that we've got coming in but this is going to be probably four years in the makings and we're going to hit that first uh Al Corridor first this year and we'll much better understanding of what we can do with it once we have it up and running and what is the traffic management plan studies that was requested and approved the traffic management plan well there's traffic management plans for a lot of things so traffic management plan is specific to a location Street or or Corridor so I may not be crystal clear on your exact question yeah there was it says neighborhood traffic management plans studies um full-time employee requests too and then the general fund 78,000 do you have the line number for that department request I'm sorry um it's 119 I think 119 so it's R go you with Tre let I can that that was a specific request for C traffic studies for their ntp system um you know the neighborhood traffic management system the one that installs the speed cushions we were getting behind on the studies that are required for us to install the the speed cushions and do other traffic calming measures so that requested specifically to help do those studies to get an outside contractor to help us uh speed that along and get down that list faster okay so it's going to be faster in essence yes yes yes sir what happens is I'm sorry that I uh didn't have off the bat but we started doing that this past year again to get around the resource issue so we give a traffic on call a series of a dozen or so studies to do at one at one time and we get the result back so it's it's working out well and the there was also line item 116 um real estate pending for $499,000 what was that those were additional positions did those get they didn't get approv those didn't get approved in the budget though no they they didn't but I was just kind of I was kind of taking it back cuz I was like I don't think we have any real estate department here so what is this real estate and it's so ambiguous when you see there actually is a real estate division okay within the streets of maintenance department okay so this real estate division has been in a couple of departments it's been in CID it's been in the airport it was moved to us a couple years ago um we probably have about half a dozen employees in it um the city owns 45 Parcels um there's a lot of transactions that we do deal with during the year in addition to just paying the rents and collecting rents so this is the group that oversees that process and they are housed in the streets of maintenance department and was this to make it because it's short staffed and it was going to make it more efficient by doing something like this or like I guess I'm I'm I'm trying to understand if this was denied it sounds like this is a pretty important division of streets right and it's been passed along so I'm trying understand why this was so um the real estate positions that were being requested right now um we have leases with um where the tenant and then we have leases where we're the landlord and currently um the Departments are responsible for their in own invoicing or their own payments in the event of a lease and so some departments over time are better at keeping up with that paperwork than others and so we've been working with the comproller trying to bring it all together into one area similar to what we did with the grant program many years ago the grant program used to be dispersed in all the Departments and some departments were better at it than others and so um as time goes on we really like to bring all of those resources together um and so we weren't able to get that approved this year and so it will remain in the department levels to be doing their own invoicing and paying their own lease payments but that was one area and we call that the compliance program that we're complying with the terms of the leases both when landlord and tenant and so that's just going to have to wait okay thank you for the explanation and I guess um this is probably more Robert or um Nicole I was wondering where is the $7 million for streets derived from each year that we're we're putting that in is that just general fund or is it from a specific fund that we're getting it's the environmental service franchise okay but it comes to the general fund okay so environmental service franchise that gets charged on water right correct and it comes to the jant okay um I think that's all I have thank you okay so if there's no more questions on gold team seven we're going to move to Gold Team 8 there's one more okay um for um ntmp uh what is the proposed budget and what are we going to fund with that what we're going to buy is that here or in a different presentation it's in here um is it 250 3 350 and we're going to buy speed cushions and the signage that go with it and if we have any money left over we'll buy the feedback sign as well the feedback signs are about 7 Grand a pop so just the elements that we use okay yeah cuz we have our own street sign yeah so are we saving any money by doing it internally absolutely yeah and I just I'm I'm surprised it's still very expensive it is the sign so what is the average cost per it's the cushions that are the more expensive ones how are theion we'll probably buy about well usually when we do our cushion allocation it's usually about a $200,000 award um we increase the money last year because we were worried about the effect of you know the inflation and all we were able to get everything we needed and do all of our installations that were programmed the present year with that allocation so we think we have enough money with the 350 um that's why we didn't ask for more but like you pointed out if we needed to we still have our sign shop that we can tap into as well but most of the money is for the cushions themselves in this feedback signs okay um are we doing the entire 40 SU list yes with the 300 50 yes but the equipment that we bought last year is what we're installing for this year what we'll buy this next year will be for the next year so so we we already have our inventories for present year so this will be just the inventory for the the 30 or 40 that we end up programmed with next year we still have some Superfluous inventory from last year we didn't use all of it we carry it over we keep buying it and we carry it over over when we have a bid we like to buy it all up because we don't know what the next bid's going to look like um so we do have our inventory and then we also buy some on the maintenance side as well because they we have problems with them sometimes they break loose sometimes we have to replace the uh replace a unit um so we it's it's twofold we buy both for the maintenance side and for the original installation how many um Street striping Vehicles do you have we we have one thermoplastic striping truck and we have two trailered units so the thermoplastic striping truck is our primary tool that's the one we use on arterials and collectors these smaller units can do that they just can't do the double yellow so we have to go on one side and come back on the other so we try to use the larger unit whenever possible how many streets are you striping with one truck well we can do one one at a time um and only during peak season or yeah summer months well this morning we started on uh North Lomand and the wind put us out so we fell a little B behind today we're a little bit behind on our striping program um a lot of it is resource issue and just getting getting the work done um we do have uh the funded positions we do have the equipment and we do have materials um sometimes we fall short on filling all of our vacancies um and then our other Challenge on striping is there's only one local provider so we'd also utilize a third party wherever possible as well I know you showed the vacancy rate earlier but what is it for streets well I know in the street side we're sitting on 145 vacancies and on the park side we're sitting on 33 so total Department wise is one uh should be 178 and what is 188 188 I'm sorry so is that what's the percentage um 88 out of 605 so I I don't have the percentage they'll get to it um are you doing summer differentials summer differentials yeah summer uh incentives um for to to entice folks to fill those positions no ma'am we don't have any uh any of that type of program are we prepared to mitigate and remove all the weeds is that part of your division no ma'am or is that under a couple of years ago all of the live growth was moved to the Environmental Services Department with the exception of Parkland maintenance and they kept The Hardscape in streets with the intent of having us concentrate on concrete asphalt and the signalization system yeah know every year it goes back and forth you guys ping pong Parks maintenance and um as well as weed uh excavation so can we figure out a home for for those two departments I it's confusing um but uh since we talked about it earlier um just want to reemphasize all of our new streets that we just repaved and we did the medians they're full of weeds um and Nicholas I met your mom she's so proud of you she loves you so she's a wonderful lady um and I wanted to mention to her tell them about the weeds tell them about the weeds but I was trying to be nice um but it's like quite frankly it's like really frustrating that we've just invested all this money into medians and our weeds are higher than our nice vegetation and um uh you know at some point I mean I don't know what to do every year we talk about this uh so if we can put a plan for the weed removal making sure you have the contractors putting innovative solutions with the purchasing department to find small landscapers who don't know how to do work with the city expend time with them it's a way to improve your economy it's a way to keep our city clean and most importantly it gives them uh small businesses an opportunity to work with the city that which opens doors for others one of the challenges that we've had um going back to when we had this program is it's it's been hard to get people to take the job to work in the median Cru it's been a big challenge we did a uh so for lack of better a better term the mobilized the weed Patrol through a big job hiring last last summer when we started getting in peak season and I know that uh Ellen Smite did a lot of work working with HR to get that set up and I don't remember the exact numbers but there's a there's considerable turnover we're going to continue to look at that because I think we had to your point you know we start getting into monsoon season it makes it even worse and so we did do a summer differential for that with with uh with Ellen I think we had about 50% turnover within one day after hiring and bringing them on I mean it's it's tough work but we're going to continue to to look at bringing more folks on in the summer months where are we at with those LED lights the the the faulty ones the on okay so you talking about the street lights so again um 33,000 street lights in Al Paso um the problem that we're having is they're the ones that are LED and and about 19,000 are LED um the rest of are are still high pressure sodium so the LED film is failing and it's defaulting to its natural color which is purple and it's a manufactur problem so this is going on throughout the country what we've been doing and is they will they've sent us I believe 1,500 and we've already gone through and done the installations but they'll they'll we'll request them we'll give them our loc our our our request of lights they will send them to the mail to us in the mail and then we scheduled the installation and we've been doing the installs um we've been doing it on Saturdays it's over the next three years we're doing it when we can ma'am okay so um just a couple things um getting a lot of requests for Street striping it's becoming um it's really you can't see especially as we're experiencing a very active monso season I would encourage you to uptick that we've in the past discussed hiring um contractors to do that as well you also have a lot of pavement projects that go a long period of time without the final striping as well that that's the contractor right the contractor I'm happy to explain that ma'am um as I've said in know there's one contracted striping company in El Paso now this is the industry that we've got right now um and ourselves techto and the development Community are all using them so where we've had problems is getting our getting it scheduled um so we'll get a street done we'll get it paved out and we'll get the buttons up and we're substantially completed and sometimes we're having to wait a month sometimes longer for the availability of this contractor so that has been our challenge this is a so like a like a sole contractor that does this he's the only one in town ma'am and they're under contract with every public agency that has streets and we use them for maintenance as well um we have the most need for them out of everyone in the community because we have the largest inventory however Tech doot has more striping because they've got the highways they're they're they're wider and they all require striping so they've got them as well um so it's been a challenge getting them scheduled to our surfacing projects in a timely basis after they've been uh completed um but like I I mentioned earlier the work is getting done it's just taking a little bit longer because of the resource delays thank you for that response I I believe that we could challenge you a bit and do a procurement find Regional help we should not be wted a city our side should not be wted to one contractor purchase another striping thermoplast truck I think that's the way you said it earlier um and uh take advantage of the summer months that we have so we can get those done as fast as we can you can't see the street striping and the few times times that we have had the striping at least in my district that's we all get the cows like hey tell the street department great job and and it really makes a tremendous difference and improves the overall safety and Aesthetics of our of our streets um did you want to mention something yeah no we saw that quite a bit it was mentioned during the chime man during the town hall striping was mentioned I mean I I've made the comment because I mean i d the streets and see it too the striping is in need of some some updating I was going to actually reference the incen that you mentioned and so actually last year what we ended up doing any employee whose primary responsibility was work Outdoors we increased their pay by $2 an hour so there's about 400 individuals through all the Departments that we identified their primary Duty was because of the extreme heat last year so we actually just increased the pay by $2 an hour instead of doing the incentive oh okay so there's not just for the summer it's all 400 employees $2 extra an hour correct okay okay um and then yeah I'm just I'm just uh trying to understand your the street roll out we're supposed to see them every two years last year we approved for the next two year or two years ago we approved for the next two years we're at the end of that two-year schedule when are you bringing back the next iteration of the next two years for streets so on January 30th 2023 we got approved for the streets for the fiscal year 24 and 25 so we are almost done with the first year of that program so we've got the 25 as well we will be in front of you during the next fiscal year with our plan for 26 and 27 we're actually putting it together right now so I recall at the end of this year there was supposed to be a substantial amount of streets done um are you saying that for the the calendar year of 25 you're going to finish the list from 2023 we okay so CU there we have outstanding lists right now one of our challenges right now is contractors okay the they're not moving at this speed we want them to we we wish they would move at a faster speed but we are breaking in new contractors for the city so um we're not moving it to speed we would have with a more seasoned uh contractor who had not been in his first six months of his contract um but we did not move at the speed which we would have wanted to for the first part of this past year and uh we're feeling it we're going to have to bid another resurfacing project we're actually we'll be have it in front of you within the next couple of months mon in order to speed this up a little bit but our our our largest challenge has been working with new contractors so I just want to make sure that this isn't a budgetary as part of the no issuance of debt is that impacting the street rollout for the 2022 Community progress mon no and so these are pigo funding so these are already built into the budget these aren twofold it's pigo and the 22 Comm so it's it's 10 million 7 for residential you're correct three and half of that is and the community progress Bond correct for resurfacing okay and so but just to be clear I think what Richard said was that in January of 2023 the council approved for 2024 and FY 2025 so when they come back in the next few months it'll be to cover for FY 26 and 27 okay so the budget we're discussing today the FY 25 those projects have already been approved oh no yeah absolutely I um I remember voting on that i' I've been waiting to see the next two years uh after these two years are done but it's starting to like 3 years which is why I'm reminding hey these were supposed to be 2ear schedules we approved it in January 23 we're at the end of J uh at the end of this year we should be substantially done with that list we would like to be but I need to reiterate that we're working with contractors and no no I get that point we're waiting for the contractors it's not a budget with them they're doing a fine job but they're new it's not a budget request I that as part of your fiscal plan or this budget we're not going to issue debt does that include our streets cuz then we'll have to have a conversation with about that just to be clear not issuing the debt is in no way impacted any of the capital projects including streets including streets okay nice to so we have almost $200 million of bonds that we' sold that are going to go towards keeping the capital projects online we work very closely with the evet and engineering department to ensure monitoring the cash flow looking at whenever we're going to need issue debt and right now there's no need so I mean it goes back to what we've talked about all along going back to the previous where you did the reimbursements is that we only issued the debt when we need it okay and so that helps us plan for the future so again just to reiterate not issuing debt in no way impacts any capital projects okay and I just also want to bring to your attention um related to Parks maintenance Pablo you've done a wonderful job working with the community uh I do want to highlight the need to um quickly uh get in and do maintenance granted that the WEA is in our favor if there are budgetary needs um so that we can roll them around there's a there's a very deep Community within the sports industry specifically soccer baseball football and the minute that you change any of their routine um or even if you relocate them somewhere else in the city there's there's a significant it's not even just like oh it's inconvenient no we're talking about families who are unable to commute across the city to relocate fields and so which is why I mentioned like where's the home um because I'm I'm getting a lot of complaints and and it's not anyone's fault in the maintenance department I would just like to see a more robust turnaround so that we can get those done quicker and get those seed uh the seating and the scheduled um done in advance way way way in advance so that we can notify these families of any CH any changes um so those are recent lots and lots and lots of complaints lots of emails uh so I just wanted to bring that to your all's attention thank you thank you m m if I could speak just real quickly on the medians um there is a cross functional team in place a task force um working with planning and ESD streets and maintenance legal when the landscape ordinance was written back in 2010 20 2011 it was silent on medians there was it medians were not taken into consideration and so by default we've been planting the medians as if they were along along the of a street which is causing the over planting in in many circumstances and so um some of our medians quite frankly look like Jungles and so the team has gotten together and we're going to be coming before you in the later this fall with recommendations on adding language into the landscape ordinance that directly addresses the medians and the maintenance and we've actually have data we pulled on the water bill associated with some of these medians that it's pretty you know I topping as well so we we're going to be bringing that forward to later this year thank you don't take my landscape don't take my landscape next so next um so go go team eight is next and the lead on this is Terry ksil and um the Departments include Nicole F and community and heal human development Nicole if you'd like to join us up here at the front um as well as Environmental Services and the health department I don't see Dr okan is anyone from the health department here yeah come on up Mr Mayor and if I can remind Council please refrain from using your personal cellular devices during the meeting thank you all right all right good afternoon Terry Kell Animal Services director I'll be covering the priorities planned accomplishments uh for goal 8 here which is Animal Services Community human development environmental services and public health so starting with priorities 2025 priorities uh El Paso Animal Services uh be opening our new Adoption Center located at 5625 confetti drive this will be a new location will increase our adoption opportunities increase which will in turn increase our live outcomes uh we'll continue expand our Partnerships with an animal welfare Community to improve Animal Welfare within our region uh you have community and human development uh they're going to maintain a service under reduced Federal grant allocations as we work with that that's going to be their number one priority or one of their top priorities and also another top priority is to complete the 2025 climate action plan uh environmental service department is upgrade to the Hondo Pass Community collection site which will provide updated facility and better customer service and ease of use they're also going to be expanding the landfill sales uh to provide uh extra capacity as our community grows we'll need that extra capacity and with that uh requirement by TCEQ requires uh gas Wells and water wells to be developed with that project as well continue with the en environmental service department was brought up a little bit earlier uh we're looking at the $2 increase this will be on the monthly trash rate for weekly collection trash and recycling program there's the $400 increase per ton is is at the landfill for commercial vehicles and vehicles with trailers uh the pickup uh truck fee will remain at $16 and this is what the majority of residential customers use currently uh there will be a design for the Donan citizen collection site will start this month uh with expected start of construction and not till FY 26 on that project uh part of the price increases will also go to uh for that construction Donan um increase in uh Capital assets uh such as the uh vehicles and other equipment needed for those landfills and there's price increase by El Paso water utilities Building Services approximately uh 1.5 million annually uh this was uh brought up to Environmental Services uh in mid June on that increase continuing with public health uh customer service remain a top priority uh throughout the health department locations there'll be a focus on providing services to the areas with limited access services will include Dental Wick HIV testing and immunizations the department will relocate nine programs to a centralized location at the railroad building with expected completion at the end of 2024 simultaneously the department will be creating a footprint at the medical centers of the Americas uh this Clinic services will provide will be for STD TB and HIV another priority within the department will be focusing on oral health services moving on to the accomplishments El Paso Animal Services again uh getting that new Adoption Center uh that's a key Focus uh this will get us to those live outcomes uh ultimately getting us closer to that 90% live release which is a 30 by3 goal and we also continue our education efforts and importance of responsible pet ownership all these to reduce that youth and Asia rate and increase adoptions or live outcomes again planned accomplishments for community and human development again here we're getting given significant reduction in entitlement funding so the team will be striving to refine programs identify efficiencies to maintain the needed level of services in areas such as housing and homelessness as well as support of social service provider system in our community Capital Project funding under public facilities cdbg grants will continue under the adopted three-year Capital plan we're are currently in year two of this plan significant to note is a 177% decrease in home funds which represents our only direct funding resource to invest in affordable housing development that means that this community health our community and human development team will be exploring the end the leveraging of res resources and private investment tools to address the ever increasing affordable unit Gap in our community again the climate action plan primarily EPA funded will be completed in 2025 the implementation of this plan will have budget indications beginning in FY 26 Environmental Services plan to lishments again uh we want to complete the investment in the Hond pass Community uh collection site uh this will improve access ease of use and safety for the community uh construction of those six landfill cells this will create a capacity for the community for the next eight years we want to maintain the 99.9% uh firsttime pickup rate for trash and recycling program and lastly we will be updating the black belt Challenge and public education efforts to reduce the recycling contamination rate to 20% or less currently we're at the 24% planned accompl accomplishments for public health the department will focus on three uh accomplishments the first one will be strengthen the public health infrastructure and addressing the community health needs needs this will include high focus on recruitment retention and training of the workforce the second plan accomplishment to this is to implement strategies identified in the Department's strategic plan and third is to improve Clinical Services which includes updating oral health equipment and remodeling of the sterilization room also utilize the medical mobile units to provide service to areas of the community with limited access to care the department will be leveraging collaborations with other stakeholders in the delivery of health services and on the two-year action plan for program key uh maintenance plans uh this will be covering the climate renewable energy initiatives again once the climate action plan is completed implementation will commence grant funding will be pursued for implementation however it cannot be 100% Grant funded examples of initiatives over the next two years include the grants funded solar program for nonprofits which not only enhances overall Community climate action but carries the additional benefit of strengthening our local nonprofit networks of social service providers less money spent on electricity and more spent on serving the community lead for cities is a critical and globally recognized measurement tool uh benchmarking tool if you will that will allow us to position climate action for El Paso to be more competitive for future grant funding opportunities and finally investment grade energy assessment represents a comprehensive effort understand how to fund energy efficiently and ultimately Net Zero Energy initiatives for City facilities and I'm going to go ahead and pass it back over to Ellen SMI to go over the ongoing Investments so um before before they take questions on Gold Team 8 I'd just like to finish out with um one more slide so we just wanted to make sure that you understand um that we're very appreciative of the annual funding that we're receiving in all of the Departments um this is like I said the largest um Vision Block in some of the larger departments and our Capital needs are very intensive and so you can see on this sheet that the preliminary budget for 25 is including just over $29 million for the various departments that presented to you this afternoon but in reality when you look at their total needs if you go down the list of each one of these departments the needs are more closely aligned with $95 million and so I think um it came up earlier with triage is a really good word that we use with the resources that we receive we're able to put into priority status the ones that have been waiting for a number of years often if there's an emergency situation funds will be diverted to that particular crisis leaving some of the projects that we had programmed awaiting funding for the next year and so again while we're very thankful for the funding that we received we just want you to know that um we're still way behind the curve many of our buildings as we stated are very very old um the electrical the plumbing the air conditioning and just some of the basic needs in terms of painting and um restroom upgrades things like that um are behind schedule and so um I this is just for your awareness to keep in the back of your mind and with that we can take questions for Go Team 8 representa want to know little it will be a combination of both so I if you wanted to hello hello mine's not Tess mine's not did you all want the question repeated for the public or yeah I I could repeat it um just in terms of Morehead opening are any of the employees from the Fred Wilson location going to be moved to Morehead or is it 15 completely new people that are going to be hired there if you could speak a little bit more about the plans on and how that's going so it's going to be combination so we're going to be moving already we've already moved the pets that were here uh at the times to a location next to the Morehead part of that same complex so those employees will be also working once the uh new Adoption Center is built out those employees will move there and we're going to supplement it as well uh with the our budget request is asking for another additional people to put out there uh like Vette Tech staff some more clerical staff and things like that thank you represent Dro there's also an item on the July 15th work session item where they're going to do a presentation on the plan for the Morhead facility thank you next um I wanted to ask um when I sent I don't know if Miss Cody they're on they're on the website um on our backup but there's multiple uh budgetary requests council members have made are you like going to be showing that at the end of the meeting or do we talk about them through each department goal so we'll be providing the Council budget request along with the Department's estimates and responses at the meeting that we'll have on August 1st when we have uh the certified values we'll also be introducing the tax rate as well and it'll be an opportunity to discuss Council budget requests and also know where we're add on the property tax rate okay so I'll just mention the ones that I've done um since you say we'll talk about it at the end still relevant uh thank you Tracy for your presentation I wanted to ask about um what what budget you have for Animal Services related to lowcost lowcost Bay neuter free vaccines your educational campaign for anti- breeding uh I think those are like three common areas where we see multiple constituents coming forward thank you um and do you do you have a breakdown on like historically how much money we set aside for kennels and um spay and neuter programs the overall budget doesn't break down for the the public we again we just started that at the uh beginning of the of this fiscal year um working on that so that's just Incorporated with the uh the abilities of the current vet that we have so he's going to do spay neuters either way um so that's part of that regular ongoing budget that we have for that medical equipment uh which that's the stuff that does go up in in cost every year like everything else um but that's just part of that and what the Vets can do uh supplement so like right now we're at that 30 on Mondays to be able to do for the community oh I see I see what you're saying so it's more of a matter of having the Personnel Do It um but are we giving out any grants to any of these cuz I remember so do get some Grant uh so we do work with some uh uh grantees they give us a lot of those vaccinations that we give for the public a lot of those are provided through those grants okay um do we provide any grants for lowcost surgeries for different vet groups to provide that to the public no no okay because there used to be like a clinic like so we can we do utilize uh clinics but they're not Grant funded uh we utilize our our regular budget to uh get that taken care of for scheduling like for scheduling and mainly it's for the Foster program uh um surgery so they can complete that adoption mainly the the Foster to adopt ones so we utilize the outside clinics to get a lot of those taken care of um for for those Fosters so there's a mobile unit that does a low cost so there so we do have a contract with a local vet for that and he does Prov provide lower cost than uh most veterinarians uh in the community and he does go to a few locations uh throughout the year providing lower cost uh spay neuters and vaccinations as well yeah I wouldn't say that program is really successful a lot of people utilize that program um and if you don't get there early enough correct like yeah it's a first come first serve uh system that utilizes hundreds of people like a week that get to utilize that um and and that's the common theme that I keep hearing is like well there's all these unwanted pets and I'm like well then there's one mobile unit and we contract to for them to do that or we give certain amount of money for them and it's and it's almost like we need to Triple those efforts um so that we can really get a handle of The Unwanted pets throughout the city um and make making those services available in neighborhoods like the mobile uh unit does so they show up to like a PetSmart they show up to groomers um and then libraries they go to the Memorial Library and I I used to follow them around when my my dogs were um little when they were puppies um but I just I don't I don't see how I can communicate to my constituents who have concerns about vaccines and low spay and neuter like are we actually putting investing into that I see that there's an I think an 11% increase from year-over-year to your budget and then prior to that two years ago it was over 20% so we are making investments into your department with person personel however what about the programs the actual um services that are going to help address the overcrowding of our of our clinics and excuse me of our Animal Services shelter I don't see I don't have a breakdown of where the dollars go I could just see line items of different departments so I think because this department is getting so much um attention I really want to start to monitor how much we're setting aside for spay neuter like separate from what we're doing internally which your veterinarians um and then which programs we're helping contract out um for for the public now you mentioned um kennels um or excuse me Morehead and I did make a budget request for more kennels um I get concerned with you know the overcrowding in kennels with multiple pets and when you have too many pets in kennels for long periods of time like naturally their behavior changes and so uh I made I think a request for like 70 kennels and I know that there's a there's it's expensive um but we're not going to be able to get those pets adopted if they are under extreme and uh conditions I mean those those are it's not fun to be constrained for that long period of time um do you have a need for kennels we always need to have a need for kenel yes how how many uh that's difficult to say it changes daily so so obviously we have uh a set number of kennels right now um and the the thing that we have to focus mainly on is getting those bets out because if I if I asked you for a Thousand Candles in a couple months the Thousand Candles will be filled uh without those outs so that's those items that we really have to focus on are those outcomes those live outcomes getting uh more neuters getting the trying to get those new vets here so that we can get more of those done having those healthier pets so that they can get out quicker uh and and that that's the way we have to do it I looked at your Staffing models um I see that there's an elimination of your zoo vets um and all right I put it somewhere in my NES you're adding three news three new uh vets can what is why do you have we're not adding vets in your department so we had at uh one time we had four veterinarians uh right now we currently have one full-time veterinarian who works for us we do have some uh relief vets that do work with us on a contract basis as well um so we have that so continuing over we do have uh three full-time vet um openings but we did it may say four on there because we did split one of those into part- times just trying to entice it shows three and then elimination of zoo vets zoet shouldn't be online so what it was is in 2023 we had for the chief veterinarian the only job spec that existed when we adopted the budget in 23 at that point was the chief Zoo vetenarian but then you notice it was corrected in 24 and in 25 it was like a placeholder to make sure that we got the new job that's understandable I was just like we're not eliminating like our vets that's right no ma'am you'll see they're right next to each other and one goes away and then the others are added for 24 and 25 what what is your plan to bring on three additional veterinarians given the situation you had to hire just the one veterinarian we're constantly looking for vets um we've had a couple of leads that just uh fizzled on us at the last moment um but we're looking at trying to come up with uh some new updated literature some new pamphlets on talking about El Paso what El Paso has um and the incentive because we did develop also last this uh year a incentive program for the veterinarians based on surgical output uh to help incentivize the pay we have increased the pay over the past couple years of the veterinarians so we're just we need to update that and get out to more of those vets to uh get that information out to them and they would be doing the spay and neuters the Vets the vets that weire yes yeah the new ones okay yes they're that's one of the their primary functions and that's why we base heavily on the spay neuter or we provide that extra incentive on those surgeries yeah that's that's exactly what I was about to say um if if there's a way that we can get creative with these employment contracts with incentives I mean we we got to address these pay neuters throughout the city um and I think that's the simplest way that we can do it there is elimination in several departments but then you're adding 25 new positions so you're eliminating the research management analyst you're eliminating an office manager you're eliminating um an HR analyst and I'm just trying to make sure that we're not eliminating critical positions so that lot of those positions are being eliminated but then restructured into other positions that are uh better suit our needs thank you uh you're doing a great job um I appreciate all the heat that you're taking um and so I really want to make sure that we're giving all the resources to the animal services department because we've heard loud and clear from the community they have certainly stepped up in their advocacy um so that we can they can be the voice for the vo list so now is the time to ask if we if you need any anything additional I also made a request for climate um office uh or Department I really don't know what you all call it because it changes uh throughout our conversations um I I didn't look at that one miss furini your the portfolio and and your Department it doesn't really tell me much anyway um what are the plans for the next fiscal year as it relates to your climate office so we did submit um an additional program request um to help support the administration particularly of the uh Grant funds that we hope to bring in over the next year or two to implement the programs um that we expect to be included in the climate action plan when it's published in 2025 um but as you already know we've pursued a number of EPA Grant funds already um I believe that number is somewhere in the range of about $600 million um we'd have no idea yet um what of those funds we will receive but I just want to remind everyone that getting the grant is only the first part of the battle um implementing and then managing compliance on those grants is extremely important and something that Community Development is well suited for so our additional program request was to fund some of our existing staff that are uh currently funded through the Department of Housing and Urban Development so that we can leverage that staff to administer EPA grant funding as well as HUD grant funding that was that was really the plan uh for the next year and then looking at the publication of the climate action plan for FY 26 we should have a better idea um of what that those Grant funds should look like but we need the administration right now got it and then from the 5 million that was approved we U I some for aom correct um and then the remainder of course we can't use Bond proceeds for salaries or Personnel correct um so are you waiting for the climate action plan to be published and then and then we would utilize a remainder no so you're you're absolutely right and just as a reminder to everyone we had the $5 million from the community progress Bond 1 million of it was allocated to the planning process and we're utilizing that now um that leaves $4 million for what we call demonstration or pilot projects we're in the process of of identifying some of those now one of them could potentially be uh the results of the investment grade energy assessment that we're currently doing at the zoo we're hoping to be able to invest portions of that $4 million into City facilities to generate a um program that allows us to replicate across other City facilities and understand what Net Zero Energy really costs I think that was a big question that came out over the last two years so that $4 million will not wait um until the publication of the climate action plan rather those pilot projects will inform what that climate action plan is actually going to cost does that make sense no yeah no it it it does make sense um we we have a commitment to um install uh electric charging stations throughout the city through the federal grants I'm assuming it's in your portfolio because you're in the climate portfolio um do we know uh what how like what's going to be the process and and because we have to remember this is all kind of a new industry if you will M we're going to be the owners of these charging stations and I'm I don't understand the timeline at this point I don't know if it goes into the upcoming fiscal year um but one of one of the things I'm I'm thinking about is the overall governance structure of how we're going to be collecting rates for the electric charging stations and then how we're going to expend those dollars to replicate or to do more Investments and we like I think this is like a really press pressing issue that we need to have the foresight so that we can start putting those parameters together um is that something that your department is thinking about and and how we can put together a financial structure and then how you restrict those funds and then how you reinvest them and specifically superchargers which are not um readily available throughout the city um what are what are your thoughts on that so I have to defer to my colleagues in the Strategic Partnerships Department because while you might think the electric vehicles are in my portfolio they actually are not so um somebody's pointing at Ian he's here he just walked he just walked in what's the timeline um Ian on the deployment do you I don't know if we have I think we were supposed to get the last article I read May uh is when we were supposed to get the check and then of course there's going to be some planning on the locations but when when are we actually going to do the installation of those charging stations sure so iane strategic partnership well actually strategic and legislative affairs um we're in the process of negotiating a contract with Federal Highway Administration right now so the clock will start at the moment we have that contract in place we have 5 years to do construction from that point uh we're in the process of selecting sites right now who's going to charge the rates and then where are those fees going to go so right now there's a pilot uh tariff for EV charging uh a more permanent tariff would have to come to council okay you we have a pilot tariff that we created internally this is a tariff that came to council back in December of 22 do what is do what do you it's 20 no not off the top of my head but I can get that information so there's going to be a cost per kilow right yes and then when you install I think it's 70 is it 70 EV 7 so when we applied it with 74 uh that number could change depending on the cost are do we have any level threes yes currently in the plan we have eight eight which I think would like like triple the amount we have now distri Traders um I I think this is this is something that we need to all start to work in tandem with all the Departments including the CL climate Department what is going to be the framework of cost where are those dollars going to go I to make sure that we are not siphoning those dollars to the general Fone maybe we can have a conversation about sharing those proceeds but initially until the entire infrastructure of those EV stations are installed like I should we put together a a city white committee um should we uh have its own board of directors uh EV electric um charging stations Revenue um board so that we can determine where those funds go um and I don't know what other cities are doing so what I would say so the requirements of the grant require that any money we make off of these charging stations go back into an EV program yes thank you um it requires that it goes back into the EV program yes correct how long so at the end of the grant period 5 years the federal lean expires and that becomes an asset for us that we can either keep or we could transfer to another organization we could sell them uh that'll be a decision for Council to make no don't even give that option no this is like um 100 years ago City of Austin city of San Antonio they municipalization transfers from their electric company straight into their General funds would which is why they have San Antonio has almost over A3 billion budget and the City of Austin has over A5 billion budget and so this is a necessary asset we should have and which is why I think this framework that we create this governance framework we create exceeding the five years should be top of mind I know we're just kind of thinking about like just getting the locations and going into these contracts but I I think really we really need to think about absolutely putting that framework together now so that there's no questions or hesitations in next administrations on what the purpose and intent of these EV charging stations are yes uh the goal would be to put together a sustainability plan for our EV program overall so we can bring that to council at a later date put it in the climate action plan I mean we shouldn't have multiple um plans put it's all related to climate so I I I do believe it's called out in the in the preliminary climate action plan okay yes awesome thank you um I don't have any addition questions for you because I kind of touched on environmental service and others appreciate your responses thank you and I think that something's really important and you talked about it in your briefing with us that uh it's changing based on the cost of the equipment and based on that we're able to go from from twos to threes which also makes a huge difference between a fast charger and a almost a overnight charger so I think that based on the funding you had originally figured so many but now based on the funding which is still the same the cost has really has changed so much that we can look at the threes that gives us a rapid charge that could charge within a 20 minute time period so that's really been really important and like I said I know we talked about it in the briefing and it's something that'll change exactly what we're trying to do because the twos are you know for an hour you're going to charge maybe 1 or 2% which really doesn't change a lot those would be those are basically more for overnight 8 to 10 hours so what I'd like to add to that is the purpose of the grant is to really make these charging stations accept accessible by low income populations uh the more level three Chargers we can get out there I think the more beneficial it'll be uh one of our one of the limiting factors is Transformers you've heard it uh they're major uh supply chain backlogs on Transformers these level three Chargers require a significant upgrade in Transformers so we're working out those issues with Al Paso Electric right now and and also the the chares themselves are changing yeah which makes it a lot easier for the needs for electrical power based on what they're starting to change now so that's making a big difference thank you for that represent molar followed by represent Canales thank you very much mayor um let's talk trash Northeast citizen collection side do we have a tenative start date uh we don't have a start date but it will be at Council on July 16th for approval so typically maybe a month or two afterwards they'll start construction thank you very much sir appreciate it that's all thank you mayor um going all the way back to slide 38 this is uh Environmental Services uh it mentions that El Paso Waters Billing Services uh we saw a cost increase of about 1.5 million is that is their billing contracted out or do they do that internally it's a a new software that they're implementing through the AL Pasa water utilities that it's the cost increase for the software and also for the it it takes to um run the program through the water utilities are are we the only like external customer that is using their billing yes okay and what is the cost split of that increase like if they're implementing new software how is why why is that cost getting passed on to us we're 25% of the the split of that they're they're charging us for that and what is the What's the total cost that we pay I know it's a 1.5 million increase What's the total cost the total for FY 25 it's 3 million so we're covering upfront costs uh so it could get it implemented and then the rest that will be split 25% sorry Forest Clancy deputy director for environmental servicing there's no microphone up there'll Forest County deputy director for Environmental Services um so basically they they implemented a new system and uh we'll be paying uh moving forward 25% of the cost of part of their customer service Team part of the IT team and then they're amortizing the asset itself so we'll be paying about I think it's a little bit under $400,000 a year for the next 25 years for the it system so it's a combination of operating cost and capital cost for the billing system and we are their only customer okay and then so the 1.5 million is the 25% of the personnel Cost Plus the advertised cost so the 1.5 is the increase so we right now we're paying about 1.4 million for this current fiscal year and it's going up to they told us the new projected cost is 3 million for next fiscal year so the 1.5 is really just the increase we already paying over a million dollar for billing services okay and then that increase includes the amortization for the asset and then they did a cost study and then they allocated additional cost to us that's how it worked out expensive asset yes very expensive and so not only that I'll pass the water just soon this notice on June the 13th so we just found out about this increase within the last couple of weeks well after we had already prepared and develop Environmental Services budget so we're more than likely going have to go back and do an amendment when we do the proposed budget we'll come back and show you all what that is but okay is that increase effective right away yeah September one okay um and then moving to Animal Services not necessarily a question more of I I I want to put this out as a PSA I tell everybody if you know a veterinarian send them our way the that base pay I mean we're we're offering really competitive base pay the the listing now it's $166,200 with a quarterly incentive up to $5,000 that that's performance-based for surgical output correct correct it's $3,000 to $5,000 they can get per quarter yeah that's it's very competitive pay for a veterinarian I know it's tough work because shelter work is you know much uh maybe more intensive than than uh private practice work for a veterinarian but it's uh it's good work I'll assist you on your plug it's easier work okay easier work better better work for the veterinarians that come to work at the shelter than at the working with the clients and stuff at their uh thing so that's part of our our speak is and a good City job with the pension exactly we got better benefits and have them come on in all right and then um uh I've seen you there I've seen others there I've been out at Morehead quite a bit um you know it's in my in my district um it's looking great the we were I was out there for a few hours on uh Saturday you again there was a crew already of I believe 10 uh uh Department employees who were there doing the cleaning so essentially cleaning out every cage um and and eight of us volunteers we walked every single dog there to get them out of the kennels so the the crew could wash um and it's going great and I think they're ready to start having rescue Runners there and more volunteers and and hopefully ready to open soon um I I won't lock you down to a timeline do you have do you have an idea it'll be very soon and we're going to be coming to council again for a work session on Monday okay uh given a latest update on everything where we were at and what we've done okay excellent and um I just want to make it abundantly clear I'll ask you a question the the spay neuter issue it's not really a budget limitation here right those positions are funded it's all about staff capacity for veterinarians we need to get we need to hire vets correct okay yes we've got the tables we got the equipment we got everything ready just need the people to do them uh again we do have one full-time veterinarian with us and we do have a couple of uh contracted veterinarians that keep us afloat especially with the community cat program uh we've been getting cats in uh left and right um so they they help keep us afloat with those surgeries and it also allows the the veterinarian to take some time off uh for his birthday and things like that so that we can continue those surgeries every day all right and then uh I wanted to ask Miss farini this is probably for you uh I know it was it was mentioned in passing but it's a really significant reduction the the reduction to the home funds Federal Federal block grant funds correct um you know we're looking at a reduction Nationwide of it's 1.25 billion to just 500 million what is the impact on a on our ability to deliver affordability projects well it's a significant impact um home funds our are our only um Financial resource um that we utilize to address the affordable housing crisis um we don't have any local funds invested in affordable housing in that way um so a 17% decrease in what is approximately a little over a $2 million a year allocation is significant um it reduces the number of units that we're able to build but um as Terry mentioned in the presentation what we're looking to do is leverage uh our private sector Partnerships um really ask private development to come to the table with a little bit more um we've also been working with our economic development team uh here within the city um what I like to remind everybody is we're not the you know city of community and human development we're the city of El Paso and so there's a lot of resources that can be used organization wide um when we start to look at real estate assets really understanding what we own and and leveraging those that land um as potentially part of a capital stack that can be paired with home funds that can be paired with low-income housing tax credits is the pathway forward um but I think it is definitely a stop Gap and it's something that's going to be increasingly concerning um year-over-year as that affordable unit Gap increases and I think that with Nicole is saying this this is uh we have to look for for broad solutions to this I mean this can even be something we can even look at some other communities have even Incorporated it within their incentive programs to get commitment from developers that are doing multifam housing that will commit to a certain percentage of uh below market rate units these kinds of things and so think we got to really open open the doors to Nicole's point on on looking at how we attack this um and I know that we've done a a housing study not too many years back and and working on a refresh of that um eye opening in terms of where the need is within the community but it certainly has to be something that you know she's taken on front and center within community and human development but it's a but it's a broader I think issue for us to deal with it's something we've really worked into our strategic plan in the update that we did this year I think it's uh again I understand a difficult thing to address through a budget this year but I I remain concerned that we don't have local dollars going toward developing affordable housing in Al Paso again we rely on home I don't know that the federal government is is you know continuing to uh persist with its investment in in home across the country and so correct um I just think it's something that we need to monitor into into you know part of the future budget Focus you know we're looking years ahead now um that may be something that falls more on us into the into the next few years um and representative if I might add I just want to remind everyone that um and and thank you Carrie for bringing it up we did put together the regional housing plan in 2019 um clearly covid-19 um took that off track quite a bit at that time we were projecting a 15,000 unit Gap by 2025 um I think that Gap is going to be much larger given the increasing uh rents that we're seeing we're seeing a lot more folks displaced um but a couple of things I want to bring up in the regional housing plan we recommended establishing what's called a Housing Trust Fund that's something that requires an initial cash injection and then builds upon itself year-over-year this is something other cities have done um for some time and I think it's something that we clearly cannot look at this year but we can look at in in coming cycles and start to really stabilize our our financial resources for investment in housing the other thing that I don't want to let uh the opportunity go by is the connection between the number of available affordable units and an increase in the number of homeless that we are seeing in our community and so another thing that community and human development has asked for in this cycle is some local investment in addressing homelessness um a match for the federal funding we get under the emergency Solutions Grant um it's something that we can do as a stop Gap to try to make sure that uh the folks that are on the street have access to the affordable housing stock that there is currently as we continue to strive to build more stock but if we do not get in front of this issue we can very likely by 2026 to 2030 see ourselves in a position that cities like Austin and San Antonio are facing right now all right thank you that's all mayor thank you and now we'll go to our last prenter of the day which is Miss Dion Mack and then we'll break after that and then we'll finish tomorrow e e right good afternoon I have the pleasure of presenting our last presentation of the day go four I'm being joined by the department heads and managing director as well as um our team in Parkland management thank you for staying again you've seen a table of contents I'll will be covering the first overview section and Pablo will be covering uh the priorities and plan accomplishments as you know these are the Departments that are in uh go for libraries museums and cultural Affairs Parks and Recreation zoo and botanical gardens these are our goals include quality of life uh Bond as well as the department work we are 7% of the overall all funds and this is our uh sources by Department there are three sources general fund capital projects as well as special Revenue the major variances as Miss Cody covered in the initial part of our presentation are compensation as well as projects related to Quality of Life uh and we're very excited to be having a lot of those projects finally be completed this year and active for the community these are expenses by Department uh you'll see some uh variation in um the funding that are related to these and they're primarily around new programs or expanding existing programs that we have in addition to the compensation these are our expenses by cator these are expenses by department for non-general fund uh as you may recall the majority of the funding the variance we see here is Zoo which is split between personnel and then earn income for operations these are our expenses by non- general fund one of the things things I want to highlight here is because we've got the additional uh funds from uh memberships as well as uh other programs for the zoo we did not have to go to an increase of gate to be able to cover our costs and expenses you've seen in several years that we' brought forth anytime that we brought forth a new exhibit we've had to bring forth some change in our gate fee because we didn't have sufficient funds to be able to cover those bills and expenses with the increases that we're seeing we're able to hold both the membership fees um the same as well as the gate to really make sure that the over 300,000 people who visit you know are really able to afford the zoo the variations you see here for Staffing are primarily related to Quality of Life uh with the exception of the library here the library will be launching uh the opportunity use re-engagement center with the opening of the main library we're very excited about and the0 five position that you see is related to our enhanced library card program which is going exceptionally well we did over 700 cards in our first month uh and they were split between the county and the city and so the county has been built $28,000 which helps us to pay for the staff person who's committed to this program what what we need money museums and cultural Affairs um has some additional changes some of the changes that we had was our split between Parks and Recreation and um mcad and making sure those positions were in the various departments we also made a shift um from strategic initiatives that were formerly in the city manager's office that went over to Parks and Recreation theyve been doing a phenomenal job of helping us to fill some of the gaps for key positions that we have vacant for example the assistant director's position and coordinator's position some very proud of that team and what they've been able to do and with that okay Pablo cavayo Park Center creation for the record continuing with priorities fy2 and uh action plan starting with priorities deliver a quality of live Bond and capital projects including two of the Strategic projects lania Children's Museum and the Mexican American Cultural Center also to continue to open remaining facilities impacted by Renovations such as the main library recreation centers and Aquatic facilities for plan accomplishments for the capital Improvement Department we have L uh Children's Museum opening up on August 10th of 2024 the Mexican American cultural center opening this fall 14 plus quality of live projects completing construction by FY 25 just to name a few Rio Grande Trail the veterans recreation center and Coyote park also finalizing the Memorial Park restoration plan for plan accomplishments for the libraries of course the reopening of the of our main library with that the launching of the opportunity youth program pilot and also reinstating the Sunday Services remember with that all the branches from the libraries will now be open 100% so congratulations Norma for museums and cultural Affairs to open the Mexican American cultural center and uh Implement exhibitions performances workshops and classes Plus public art Master planning process guiding the next decade of Arts integration into Municipal facilities and Community spaces for the Parks and Recreation Department restore Services um and into pre pandemic levels uh reopen renovated locations with adequate Staffing to provide full progress uh program offerings also projects anticipated to be completed uh FY 24 or 25 just to name a few the East Side sports complex phase two the veterans recreation center and Leo cancelier Aquatic Facility also the expansion of Winterfest activities by activating Cleveland Square Park for the Sue as you can see on your right hand side there's some Renovations and upgrades including Galapagos codo leopard and sea lion activities exhibits excuse me also additional shaped structures and mys and parking lot enhancements two other highlights that we want to share with you all that are not on the uh slide is that uh on the past two and a half months since the soup began to sell their own memberships they have sold over 684 memberships uh getting more than $81,000 in Revenue also their 9weeks summer uh camp program was sold out just a few hours of the reopening of the register reopening uh with that uh 100% of positive feedback by the families and parents without program for the two-year action plan program key maintenance like Mr Bristol said we're working very hard with the streets and maintenance department uh to modernize and maintain City facilities and parks in such areas as hbac Roofing irrigation systems and other preventive maintenance um in our asset inventory with that I will pass it on to Miss Mack for the ongoing investments just a reminder here that we've made the investment in park amenities and still continue to have a need as you heard from Mr Bristol we're doing surveys to make sure we clearly understand what our amenities need to be making sure that when once we've made these Investments that we're taking advantage of the warranties to make those uh Investments last as long as possible but even with that we do have an additional need for Park amenities that I think you all see quite often as you're traveling throughout the community the team has done a wonderful job with the Investments that we've been able to put in through arpa and and of course with the amenities that we've been afforded through the last budget will continue to do so through the current budget and with that we'll be happy to take any questions there's no questions thank you I take all that back you can borrow her microphone here this one's fine thank you all right I um wanted to understand the expansion of winter fist the the program request the department program request has 80,500 approved to expand it and what it seems like that expansion is to go to Cleveland square but then in the budget and one of these slides I don't know the number cuz it didn't print but um we're increasing material and Supplies by $222,000 and that's because of winter fist so I was trying to understand it's not it it says it um on the bottom materials and supplies increased due to Winter Fest expansion so I'm trying to understand the 200,000 number and then the 880,000 number as well okay it all comes down to the amenities for the Cleveland Square portion uh the 880,000 goes into uh everything that we need to buy like lights uh amenities and things to the core the other 200,000 it's an increase for the installation and everything else that goes around not only at sahito but at Cleveland Square Park okay so it would be accurate to say no that this is actually a $282,000 request not a $80,000 request so no so I so originally there was it was a larger increase or a larger reques mhm but it was scaled back to $80,000 for the expansion of Winterfest for Cleveland square but if we're looking at it by category it's not just that one department so when you're looking at it by category it's all of the Departments with their increases for the general fund so what we're pulling right now is what else is included in that $200,000 increase it's not just Parks okay that makes a little bit more sense um but this is what I mean when I'm asking for more of a break down mhm um it avoids confusion like this right obviously Winterfest is a really great thing that we're doing each year and it's growing and it's bringing people downtown right but I I want to know the numbers clearly the other question I was looking through the request that the zoom made and um seeing the ranking that was done one of the in third place was zookeepers that are part-time and that one seems to not be a pro for $115,000 from the general fund and $8,700 from the non-general fund but then another one at the very end ranked number 13 was the zoo assistant director and that's $120,000 from the general fund and so I was under the assumption or impression that we already had a assistant director at the zoo did we lose that person we we did not have that position we have not had that position and so what we decided to do this year is what is most critical for us is the assistant curator and so that's a position that we added this year and we are actually advertising and then the next position that we'll be looking in terms of the leadership Position will be the assistant director so they have just a director and then they have their business management person veterinarian and then the um curator but the assistant director um how long have we not had that has never been structured to have one it's never been structured so this is the first time we're going to have an assistant director for the zoo okay that's weird um and then in terms of part-time zookeepers were were fine on that and that's why that wasn't approved the animal curator and the assistant director were more important than having the zookeepers one of the things we talked about with the zookeepers is really talking about retention and really having sort of a backup plan as people turn over but we have seen better retention in terms of vacancies at that in that department and so I think this is a plan that they have in the future but you see that was not number one I think largely for some of those reasons yeah I mean I I just see this and it's about the same amount of money and it's ranked higher than an assistant director but then the assistant director seem to be more important at the end I don't know it it doesn't make a lot of sense in that when I'm seeing that and then what was the intent behind behind having an HR business partner at the zoo which was rank number eight so um it didn't get approved I I see that none of the quality of life departments have an embedded HR person and so one of the conversations we had was if we were able to have a dedicated person at the zoo that perhaps we would share that person throughout the portfolio um with that conversation earlier we we made this list back in February we now have people from the HR department going out one day a week at least one day a week and be staying with the team so we're able to fill that Gap without actually adding additional person okay and then there was a request that was approved for $392,000 for um Parkland management special project team so what was the intent behind that um and that's not the zoo that's just Parkland management which line sir um 104 and make with Park maintenance uh that is a team that we're putting together to take care of um some of the amenities we put in and upgraded for example taking care of the number of courts that we've resurfaced and then are now beginning to reconstruct we'll take um special care to maintain the finish uh so we're putting together a team a ring team across the city to do that we're also putting together a team to assess and help replace amenities so that we don't let derated amenities linger uh and that would include for example doing back stops at diamonds um and looking at amenities um in the whole catalog as opposed to concentrating only on tables and benches okay and this is something we didn't have before not set as said no we would handle that on a by case basis by Corral now we're going to train someone to be able to handle it across the city it's a more proactive measure which seems to be it is it's a better use of resources um to keep us focused on the right task okay did do you have something sorry uh I she wanted her mic back no um you know and and I think one one thing since I've got to the city few months ago I I've really realized that a lot of our departments are are really siloed and we need to have better cross collaboration or not even better but just really established to understand what departments are doing to not be doing the same work or to collaborate and make it more efficient and streamline it and I think that um a few weeks ago we we went to the sanab neighborhood and it was was a really great I don't know I I told um Mr Wesson that that's a a great case study on how departments can come together to really collaborate and do something great and um I'm just thinking about that um in general and I wanted to throw that out and kind of offer an idea where I'm seeing um some great stuff happening with our museums right we're we're about to open two new museums and when I think about getting people to the museum I also think about our public transit and how can Sun Metro and museums work together to bring more people out um to make sure that we're getting people there that may not be able to access the museum because they may not have a car right and really collaborate together to come up with a pass a museum pass something that can bring in people to our libraries and really have that so I just kind of wanted to throw out there throw that out there if no one has a comment that's okay I would say actually that our portfolio probably um does a really good job at least in our mind of breaking down silos I think just because of the nature of our staff size uh we punch above our weight and so it's really incumbent on us if we want to have the impact that we know the community expects for us to work together and share resources you know I think the other los Ninos is a great example of uh an initiative that spans multiple departments uh Theos is another one uh as we continue to think about expanding our offerings um you know considerations like public transportation definitely come into play those were key drivers of the locations that were selected for both the mac and also lenu um and we work with sun with Sun Metro and also with the Communications office to try to message that out as much as possible the alternate ways to be able to access those Services as well as the fact that we have services that can be uh um brought into facilities themselves so the Museum of History is a great example uh the digital wall actually travels out to Neighborhood spaces Community spaces School spaces uh can be accessed on your phone or your iPad uh at any time and so I think um we're just really sort of getting started but it's good to hear that that's something that the council really wants to see more of yeah I'd like I'd like to also add to your point I mean I don't think it's an unfair comment I think a city of our size we always can find room to improve impr in terms of breaking down silos it was really that very to your point the very reason we started doing cross functional teams some years back where we identify problems and then try to start marrying up uh collaborations with departments to be able to tackle some of these problems but I think it's something that we should always keep top of mind because I think in a lot of ways we can continue to improve and find Opportunities to save resources so we're not duplicating efforts being more efficient with how we manage the the resources that we have yeah and and I think sharing those best practices is also really important right and I think that the sanav neighborhood um meeting that we had is a great one I it seems like you have some great stuff to share as well and really coming together as a team to kind of share those things is is really important to have that space right and and so it's good to hear that um the last thing I had was just overall going back to our outside contracts as we've been sitting here I've been doing a little bit of math and um I'm realizing that a lot of these outside contracts we we add up to tens of millions of dollars and if my um math is correct it's about 10% of the budget which is a huge amount of money and so I've also seen some of these contracts go up over the years um some of those examples include mass transit um um Animal Services um parks and recck the zoo high performance government um Communications just to name a few on where there's been some Stark increases from year to year right and I think that um I'm not saying this as somebody that is saying don't do outside contracts but at the same time I don't know what outside contracts there are here because they weren't provided it's just a lump sump of money it's like here's $14 million that we do just be sure that we're okay with that and I'm not okay with that and so um one question that I have around that is are any of these contracts being evaluated for Effectiveness whether using quantitative qualitative research methods to make sure that we are getting something good out of these contracts so when you mentioned and they're probably going to chime in as well right now is uh for especially for Quality life departments those contractual services are janitorial and Security Contracts and it's really that simple it's and animal services is has a little more complexity to it because they do have the part-time veterinarians are also included in contractual services but for the most part um that's where you're seeing those large increases that we're bringing to council as we award these contracts that we've seen these huge increases in labor cost the per hour rate uh for these contracts uh that's that's what you're seeing yeah but are is the effectiveness of them being measured I mean it's pretty straightforward as you're saying um custodial services but maybe the company that we're doing work with um there's a measure for how they're treating their employees there's a measure for the amount of money that they're they're getting paid or if there's any wage stuff issues that are being looked into right for example I'm not saying that that's happening but I think as straightforward as a contract may be it's also straightforward on coming up with criteria to evaluate to measure that there is effective work happening for the city of El Paso but if we're not evaluating any of these then we're just kind of doing it because it's doing it right and so that's my question is there any evaluation of any of these contracts so we evaluate as part of their because now is the vendor performance report so as part of them being a vendor with the city we're looking at their ability to provide the services that we contractually have asked them to provide and what is the quality of those services that they're providing as well and so even there's specific and and maybe it's not in security and janitorial contracts but we do have specific contracts especially on the contractual side where they're expected to meet not only Milestones but call answer rates there's other performance indicators that we're building into the contracts to ensure that we are um that they're providing good services to the city as well as to and it's every single contract that we have every single contract is required to do a vendor performance report from the department and we give that actually to the vendor vendor and the vendor can say if if they rank them low it gives we actually meet together um because the vendor has an opportunity to defend themselves in a sense as well and are any of these contracts um I guess done through bybs or anything like that um some but not if it's some contracts yes of course um it's one of the tools that we have on the procurement side uh but these in particular are Janitorial Security Contracts we do an RFP it's a best value um in order to ensure also the wages so Council has approved a resolution to ensure that specifically janitorial and Security Contracts are meeting the requirements both on the pay and the benefits that are provided by those so we do have to do a best value can you provide not obviously not right now but just in the near future um which ones are done through a bbard which ones are done through an RFP RFQ process so it's it's um it we would have to I'm trying to think on how to get that so let me get back to you and and we'll we'll be able to answer that question the best and then I guess also what is the cap on the byy boards that are utilizing these services that are approved by Council I'm assuming so it's part of your budget resolution and I want to say it's item 12 but I have to don't quote me on that I have to look at it as part of the budget resolution we have included each of the different Cooperative agreements that we're working with so bbard is just one one type right and so each of the Cooperative agreements that we have worked with and that have been vetted and brought to council individually are located as part of that budget resolution and it's approved on an annual basis based for Council and those co-ops you could probably approve um a $1 million contract because council's already approved it through the budget amendment correct right yes sir and so that contract wouldn't come before Council cuz it was already done through the co-op correct okay and that's that's exactly why I'm asking on on those um because I mean um there could be other contracts that go through that and just because they're already part of that Co-op like um a consultant right they're already part of it and if they want to charge us $2 million we have a $5 million cap it was already approved by a council then those $2 million could be used already and council's not going to see that again so I I I I guess I don't I don't understand so let's say we want to get a consultant on board right and they they have a $5 million Co-op that Council already approved that and the consultant says to the city we want to do $2 million that $2 million doesn't have to come before Council anymore to approve because we've already approved $5 million oh is that why it's I'm not yeah so I I think in in General I want to see what each Co-op has as a um ceiling in terms of where we're using that to get these outside contracts to have that understand speciically for outside contracts yeah for outside contracts what co-ops are we using cuz for me a co-op is okay let's just do office supplies Office Depot and El Paso products and pencil cup are all approved vendors that makes sense as a co-op but if we're doing co-ops for a lot of these contracts and they're in the millions of dollars that's where I have have an issue with it okay well absolutely we can provide that information and it's I just want to make sure that I understand the request you want to know of the $6.1 million that we have in contractual Services how what what is being paid from the cooperatives or what how we're using sorry let me rephrase that how we're using cooperatives to purchase goods and services in that category through outside Contract Services in contractual Services yeah yes okay now when when we go out and bid a contract and stuff it is for a specific service I would hope correct and then sir and if they weren't performing that service would not be done and you'd be able to tell yes sir same thing with the Cooperative agreements yes sir that's what I figured yes sir it is a competitively bid agreement that's why we use the cooperatives it's like a piggyback on somebody's contract and we have the same policy and procedures in house that we would for any vendor working with the city had like a maintenance contract off said no maintenance was being done You' figured out no one showed up we would we would figure out really quick EG would call me right away repated thank you for that thank you sir representative nundes we're okay for now yeah we're okay for now thank you oh in the schedule see the other thing I forgot to mention and then this is a different um a different goal the flood determination letter I just wanted to bring that up before I forget we're we're charging $25 to $100 and I'm concerned about that because this the flood um maps are coming out and we're going to get a lot of these requests $25 to $100 that's that's ridiculous I'm going to make a motion at the end of this budget season to reevaluate that cuz um people won't be able to afford that uh the first wanted to um ask about the memberships uh for zoos um I see a range from $60 to $200 um could are you are we having like new branding and new like types of of memberships and could you explain what the changes are there were no changes actually we just adopted the program they had we thought there were so many other changes going on I didn't want to mess with the prices or categories those range anyway from a single membership at 65 to the family plus plus I think five kids membership but they have different names of course real cute names but uh so that's the they pick whatever package they want from 65 to what 165 I think it is what is the um average annual memberships 95 I believe it's 105 it's the wolf membership it's for two adults and three kids I'm sorry let me rephrase my question um what are the total annual sales membership not sales but the total number of memberships historically sold if you have the information we've always been told it's about 6500 okay no 4,000 forgive me 4,000 is about 4,000 okay yeah because the membership could be a whole family obviously so that's why okay um no other questions about the zoo I just was curious about that um I saw the senior packages um this is see this big smile on my face I'm very very happy um is is this like for sure or do we do we need to adopt it first or is there going to be changes uh really appreciate that you're putting all including swimming in there okay now we package a and package and for purposes to explaining to the public um we I had made a budget request to um make one fee available for seniors to have for per month because a lot of the complaints we got and Dion remembers as we went and sat with a bunch of seniors at um the Gary the palaso center and the group of seniors uh all retired um they have a lot of professional backgrounds they said look we're paying different fees for different Services it's becoming unaffordable all we want is just to use the services at one Center and then call it a day and so that was part of that discussion Dion um is that they wanted that one package one fee and then silver sneakers uh to help pay for that will silver sneakers pay for the packages A or B no I don't think that will be available now because I understand it's only for the gym right yes it's only for W room okay so I know legal is reviewing uh the two departments silver silver sneakers Park and legal are reviewing the agreement yes ma' um to to close this all out would like to see if silver sneakers for future reiteration if they can just adopt the whole package a or package B perfect yeah I don't know how it works but my assumption is that they would be open to Aquatics as well um uh it's two different programs for them so we we spoke with them uh and they were like uh let's get this one first okay this is another different package okay perfect so for package a would be 35 per month $35 per month and that includes three Leisure classes so that could be like um just a a person teaching is like a no that includes a three-day Leisure Class it's only one Leisure Class the swimming and the weight room uh the other one includes a two-day Leisure Class because Leisure classes are Monday Wednesdays and Fridays or the other one it's Tuesdays and Thursdays so it's one Leisure Class the weight room and the recreational swim for the $31 yes ma'am I I thought I read to I I'll go back and reference it um because it was supposed to be three classes for package a and then two classes for package B no it says there it's a 3-day class which is one class during three days a week I get it and a two day class only Tuesdays and Thursdays no okay I understand so it's only one class thank you thank you um definitely going to make a difference I think immediately when this is passed we should start promoting that as a one package and um we'll see how it how it goes this year and and see if it works for the upcoming year yes I think it's going to be easier for the seniors to just do one payment instead of having to do different transactions awesome thank you thank you for listening thank you guys for listening this going to make a big difference uh I also noticed that the membership fees for archae the archaeological Museum um they're changing and then you have a mirr of fees for the Mac whose portfolio will that be under so the Mac will actually be under me it'll be part of the museums and cultural Affairs Department archaeology Museum we're just uh increasing the membership fees which have not been done in years uh we are definitely starting to see an uptick in attendance and interest in the archaeology Museum as we've expanded the types of programs that are off offered um and so that money just goes right back into helping to feed programs uh the schedule SE changes you see for the Mac are really just almost everything that needs to be added for uh the ability for the Mac to be able to operate and so we took fees based on uh what we offer at our other sites uh and in the cases of things that we don't have at our other sites we looked at sort of field standards and also the idea of cost recovery okay I saw that you're going to be renting out the entire facility for up to 6,000 to 10,000 what qualifies one to rent out an entire facility for the Mac uh what would qualify you is to come visit and write a check we will uh so actually this actually this happens at all of our facilities we have the ability to rent out the entire museum for an event um and it's really just specific to the type of event you know there's certain things we won't allow in our facilities for example um you know something that's partisan in nature like a campaign event for example um but you know a a networking mixer uh convention or or meetings we would definitely have that in um and then the organization is just required to do pull Insurance uh event insurance that frees the city from the liability and then write the check um so first I mean my assumption is that you're going to be doing some notices about the changes to the membership fees for the museum correct um and then I think there reasonable cuz I used to have memberships as well my son loves to go um I have to to up that um it's pretty it's pretty affordable um and the Mac fees I mean there's like three pages worth of them um and one one thing I remembered we have our initial discussions about the Mac was the room what I essentially would describe as like a podcast room um where I could sit down with a group like let's say I bring my grandma my mom and generations and we would have a conversation and then that could be archived and I forget what you called it uh so it's just you can have like Community um oral histories you can record an album yeah and so I I was trying to determine is there a fee for that or is that going to be open to the public to use yes and no and so there will be opportunities where we will have that open for the community so for example we could have like a community podcasting day and you can just sign up and you can come in for free and then there's also opportunities where someone could say I'm in town for this specific period I want to record this um and then we'd be able to assess a fee so that we can have uh the type of technicians on hand that we need to operate the equipment and for those that oral history the technology would it be preserved like the digi board or will will you have to bring your own technology uh so it actually we have the ability to uh upload it on Digi um and then you would also have the ability to access it from home from like an online portal okay okay all right um the there was also supposed to be movies on the exterior yes um are those going to be free for the public Yes actually so right now the plan is not necessarily to charge for any outdoor film screenings uh because you can basically see them from the park which we do not anticipate ever really gating uh unless we were going to do something like a Tequila Festival um which is not off the table but uh we probably would not be programming movies during Tequila Festival for example okay um oh no there's an actual Tequila Festival happening what is this open date again that is a very good question re and I was hoping you were not going to ask that uh we are getting very very close to the opening um but we have not had final walkthrough in the building yet um we have done a lot of work with the staff we have on hand we're continuing to hire uh there is a lot of unpacking that is currently happening at MCAT offices if you drop in on us it looks like um I always joke that it looks like a dorm on move in day um but there's a lot going on but we don't have access to the building just yet but we are anticipating that we should very soon uh these fees go into effect September 1st and so we're anticipating that we should be open early fall okay I knew you were thinking about that I knew you were thinking about that that's why I said it okay so I know this is not a fun conversation but the maintenance for Arts Flores and the ten and Airway our installations are really they're they're iconic but they're also a big yes a big Hazard um I get a response from year-over year about the installation on the freeway yes when are they going to start rotating the turbines so Airway and I 10 we have determined that the issue we're seeing is is mainly with the entire electrical system that has been implemented and so really it's just about I I think at this point the conversations are about the cost and more importantly about the liability that a vendor is willing to take on with getting those operational again and spinning over 250,000 cars per day uh so that's one issue uh Flores elto which is probably the most attractive magnet for car accidents in this community yes um so we actually currently have the artist coming in with his engineering team to do an assessment and then Richard and I have also spoken about some other assessments we'll be doing at that site uh to see what our alternatives are for trying to make it um a little more adverse uh to the accidents um or potentially even thinking about the reciting of that that asset um if that's just not a good place for it well originally where it was supposed to go was on the Carolina Bridge yes and then Union Pacific said no and then there was you know this big uproar over that and then we placed it at Airway because of the proximity to the commuters yes um but you put the concrete ballards too I mean you you protected it and so we have had several iterations of various systems in place to try to mitigate uh the damage to the piece um and each time we regroup I I will commend my colleagues from CID from streets and maintenance no one ever says we're not doing this anymore um but it is a continuing conversation I think as soon as we have determined next steps ma'am we will schedule a meeting with your office so so I remember a couple years ago you had like 15,000 in your maintenance fund what do you know what your fund is typically it's 28,000 that uh is granted in the annual budget and then by the public art ordinance we are also allowed to use funds that we aggregate uh from 2% to also go towards maintenance okay um your two incubator programs for film and art are you going are are we going to have that this upcoming budget uh so the Arts incubator program uh is continually successful year after year we just closed the application season for fy2 uh I should mention that contracts and awards are not put out for notification until after budget adoption uh but applicants have already already put in uh their proposed projects the film incubator program we put on Hiatus about 3 or 4 years ago and really the determination was made just uh because we were seeing about the same three or four applicants coming back over and over again uh that we really felt that the money would probably better spread out amongst more artists if it was put into other categories for film yes' and the reason why I'm bringing that up is because I got several questions um about applying for some of these Arts incub programs and one was one of them was for theater and I said well we have a film one and not theater well so what I should mention is that the artist incubator program does allow film projects to go through uh it just makes it much more accessible the bar was a lot higher for the film incubator program and again we were not seeing we felt like we were just dispersing money to the same two or three applicants over and over again it felt like an entitlement program whereas artist incubator um we have the ability to fund those applicants as well as more Grassroots applicants okay so it it doesn't preclude U film okay still sad because you know with Leonardo DiCaprio and others in our city we should have a film I'd be willing to bet our small film incubator program was probably not of much interest to Warner Brothers but it is really important to those Grassroots those grass what I will say is that it's certainly been a conversation starter about young people seeing that potential and wanting to get into film and so that that's those are the conversations that I've started hearing recently so there's excitement around it um we just would love to see more incubator incubated programs what what I would say ma'am is that um we have been having a series of open houses for our creative Community related to the services and amenities that are going to be available for them at the Mac um the next time we have one coming up I'd love to uh have you help us promote that to some of these constituents that are coming to you just so they understand the opportunities the department does have available the ways we can help them navigate those opportunities and then also uh the range of things they're going to have available to them at the Mac as well okay well one one of the other and Ben you can probably help me with this but one of the other bigger issues as it relates to the film industry also is Texas is not nearly as competitive as New Mexico is relative to incentives and so that's something that potentially could even be a legislative issue that's that's looked at um you know with this Motion Picture here in town as an example they really like El Paso they really like the ab ability to be able to come here but all this stuff does trickle down and when it comes to really being able to capture something maybe not at that level but but smaller it's it's very hard for us to compete and the rest of Texas isn't having to feel it because we're on the border competing very specifically with New Mexico and that might be a future conversation as well yeah and you're exactly right sir so you know for the same type of location scouting they can do for El Paso they can go 45 minutes over and have some very significant Statewide incentives um but we do know that we we have a burgeoning film Community here representative salo's also uh brought a lot of them to my attention as well uh and how we can support them okay um and then just uh for Parks real quick there's on your schedule C Wayne Thorton doesn't have anything so I was wondering if that was an error um it just says Wayne thoron Community Center but it doesn't say like what the fees will be yeah it's just a name change ma'am it was Grand grb senior center now it's a community center so it's the same fees but now for the way third it was like blank so I I was confused what is a realing mean on the schedule it just says reeling on a number of of areas realing r e a l i n g i just I don't I don't know if that meant like pending or uh we'll get back to you or if that was a specific which one we'll look into it representative I bet you it's just a typo really oh yeah it's all over at the schedule C um in loua Fe it says reing oh I see I see it it's a typo it is for planning and inspections we'll make sure we update that and get the new one out okay no other questions thank you thank you so representative Sao we have the variant for materials and supplies for the gold team four so under materials and supplies the other increases are 72,000 for recreational supplies of that 72,000 6ou 68,000 is for parks and wreck there's 7 50 for museums and cultural Affairs and $3,000 for Library under that account also increased is um $ 29,2020 is in uniform uh uni let me give you the exact name uniform and apparel supplies and of that uh 28,000 of that $29,000 is for parks and wreck I'm assuming for uniforms and shirts uh that are required for his team to wear and then $1,000 of that is for museums and cultural Affairs and then the last little bit of $20,000 is in office supplies and the office supplies that portion is broken out uh between museums and cultural Affairs parks and wreck and Library uh fairly evenly very efficient thank you and with that that concludes our presentation for today I know we're we're not going to adjourn we'll recess till tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. and then we'll do the last segment plus the executive session item so with that we have a motion to recess till tomorrow we have Motion in a second all those in favor I all those opposed and we will recess the July 8th special city council meeting until tomorrow Tuesday July 9th at 9:00 a.m. recess is at 4:12 p.m. thank you everyone