questions um we will go ahead and start with the Pledge of Allegiance councilman Martinez will you please lead us may we have roll call please calling roll for Wednesday March 5th Reno city council vice mayor Taylor here council member D absent this time Martinez here Ebert absent this time Rees here Anderson here shivi here Madame vice mayor you do have a quorum for the Reno city council thank you we will move into item A3 public comment thank you our first item today is opening public comment members of the public may hear observe and provide public comment virtually by registering through the following link which can be found on reno.gov meetings https colon l i n KS period re n o period goov SLC u n c i l 03-05 it should be noted for those in the audience that comments are to be addressed to the mayor and Council as a whole comments heard under this item will be limited to 3 minutes per person and may pertain to matters both on and off the council's agenda Council may not take action upon any matter not agendized on today's agenda when you're called on for public comment please state your name for the record and begin speaking the timer will begin when you say your name and you will be afforded 3 minutes for those participating in Chambers in accordance with Council rules 6.3.1 one while in this room please be respectful disrupted behavior from audience members like clapping yelling wh whistling Etc which impede the meeting May result in a warning issue by the presiding officer if this Behavior continues you may be removed from chambers if you're an attendee in the zoom meeting and would like to make public comment please raise your hand at this time and just for the record Madame vice mayor um council member Ebert is present online and it is 10:02 our first public commenter today is Terry Brooks followed by Steven White good morning it's me Terry Brooks again and today I'd like to share with you my thoughts on employment and technology and what seniors have to go through seniors who have held the same job for a long long time have dealt with advanced technology gradually through time if youve worked in the fields of farming mining or building in the fields of such jobs technology has gradually been improving and as such technology advances you are gradually learning how to use such technology as it is improving that is if you are still working at the same or similar job but you might have a problem with a new field of a new job when you leave your present job with one kind of Technology you may not be familiar with a new job technology I remember going from swinging a pick and shovel to driving a forklift it took me a while to learn how to adapt to such a shift I remember going from a forklift to a steel punch press that was another change that led to a bit of stress then I went from a punch press to a door routing machine not to mention a few other changes in between then I went through other Technologies and had to learn to use a computer adapting to such changes in technology made me feel like a troubleshooter but when but with help from co-workers I finally made it through and there were a whole lot of things that I finally learned how to do I found that when it comes to technology in that road there is turn after turn and you'll find in whatever job you have there will always be more to learn technology is a NeverEnding cycle that will always keep on growing so we all will always be faced with more that we need to be knowing I would like to thank you all for listening to me today and I look forward to coming back if I use technology to get here that day thank you thank you Terry Steven C white followed by deian Radcliffe good morning council members good morning mayor out there if you're in the cloud somewhere um wanted to talk to you today about another federal court R by the ninth circuit that you should be aware of uh it's called St God ofish Nava Society in Green Piece versus City and County of San Francisco 1991 in this particular case these two organizations wanted to sell merchandise that we would normally consider to be commercial uh coffee cups t-shirts baseball caps uh Stu toy whales that had messages a fix to these items now the city and county said it was uh commercial merchandise and therefore they had to go into uh get a sales tax license and and all that sort of thing and a bu business license to sell it so they take the matter into the federal courts the group uh these two organizations claim first men protection the nin circuit came back with what's considered to be the particularized message standard wherein when a group or an individual is selling merchandise that is inextricably intertwined with and Inseparable from the conveyance of a particular that's singular particular political philosophical ideological religious message in that context it gains the full protection of the First Amendment this is why all your nonprofit groups are exempt from licensing when they sell their merchandise it's the reason why politicians are exempt from licensing when they sell their hats and t-shirts and this very merchandise now the reason why this is important is because stages across the country including Reno and Sparks applied that particularized message standard to artists for many decades and the reason why I brought the lawsuit against the City of Reno and against the city of Sparks was to separate artists from that ruing now I knew going into that ruing into those two cases that we were going to win that case because the United States Supreme Court had held that the abstract paintings of Jackson po are unquestionably entitled to the full protection of the first amendment when we won the case against city of Marino the honorable Judge hegen came back and said see as how the Supreme Court is held that the abstract pain action poic are unquestionably protected by the first amendment I see no work of art that would fail to meet that test so there again you see and the City of New York argued the same point of law and the City of Sparks argued the same point of law all the way to the United States Supreme Court wasting all that taxpayer money and five years of litigation and we knew all along because of the Pains of Jackson po we're going to win that case now that's important to understand that you know the the reason why artists are fully protected under the first amendment is because their artwork is purely expressive it has no other purpose than to be expressive the Supreme Court has held that a work of art is specifically created by an artist to convey some message one last Point look at all the beautiful artwork you have in these cars out in your lobby look at all these talented artists you got here in Nevada can you imagine if you got the word out to all those young people that if they want to do artw workk fine art they can sell it on public property whenever they want to without a license from anybody you imagine the opportunities that would open up for so many people for homeless people for senior citizens and for your young people and college students be incredible and you'd also be bringing Beauty to your community and helping a lot of people out in these times are only going to get more stressful people thank God for you all and thank you for the service you guys give to your get on you deian Radcliffe I'm just waiting for my PowerPoint hello members of the city council thank you so much for your service and thanks for being here I'm sure your day will be very Dynamic um so my name is Dean Radcliffe and I am a ver ey resident I am here to just share my lived experience with aquilis and Gold Branch fire um that of course happened in August of 2024 I listened to the um joint fire meeting and there was a huge focus on the Davis fire and this really wasn't discussed so I wanted to come and share my lived experience I'm I just need to go forward pretty please it's only like seven slides okay so many oh beautiful okay so this was August 11th 2024 I happened to see some smoke I snapped a little picture it was 629 had no idea what was happening other than we just saw smoke so just to be aware is it perfect okay so next came power off pretty darn quickly um and you know you lock up the house because because you've got smoke coming in right it's pretty stinky and hot um evacuation was super soon after didn't have a time frame didn't realized I was going to keep track of this um Reno Police um walked and drove my neighborhood and said it was time to evacuate never lived through anything like this at all that's quite an Endeavor I'm going to tell you if you haven't thought what you want to take if you have animals if you have children wow wow and more wow so it was um 657 Acres total in size we can can see that 80% of that acreage is the City of Reno 20% is in Washo County of course it started over in I80 with that vehicle fire and again 20% of the acreage total burned was Washo County 80% was City of Reno and as you see on that map there that's really all that area that is slated for development and so thank you to all fire Personnel this is Magic um anyway thank you to all fire Personnel because obviously only one home um was L super sad for that family um I cannot imagine that but thank you thank you thank you to fire Personnel cuz they did an amazing job an amazing job so this is um just a little search in the bran 120 projects myself and many many many neighbors came to a multitude of meetings there was six other meetings too hosted with developer City Reno staff we met ad naum and fire safety was always talked about at one of the meetings in fact was City staff and residents Chief Cochran was present at that meeting and we talked about fire um my next slide really sort of says that how was fire safety addressed what changes to the tented Maps were made in these several period of years and a multitude of meetings and then answerers none there were no no changes the residents talked about how the fire was always going to come from the side that it did it was going to do that but no fire safety issues were addressed and tat changes were done I watched The Joint fire safety meeting um and I just took a couple of quotes councilwoman Taylor has talked about this about planning and preparing for things that we see as hazards obviously right in this area um and then uh mayor shivy talked about investing in infrastructure or paining on the back end and then mayor shivy also said it was not a matter of if but when and again that already happened in 2024 thankfully nothing has really been built over in that section um so thank you very much for your time it's appreciated Madame vice mayor with that we have no additional public comment okay we'll close public comment and move on to item A4 approval of the agenda manager Bryant do we have any updates we do not thank you move to approve second all those in favor I all those opposed motion carries um we need to open the RDA meeting Madam Clerk I will call rooll for the Redevelopment agency board for Wednesday March 5th vice mayor Taylor here dur absent at this time Martinez here eert here Rees here Anderson here shiv here Madame vice mayor you do have a quorum of the Redevelopment agency board thank you do we have any public comment comment we do not have any public comment and don't have anyone uh have not received any correspondence fantastic may we have approv do we have any changes to the agenda madam manager we do not looking for approval of the agenda so moved second we have a motion in a second all those in favor I I all those opposed motion carries great we will move on to our finance items which is item B1 welcome so just for the record we are opening item B1 on the Reno city council agenda as well as the as B1 on the re Redevelopment agency agenda and do we have any public comment on these items we do not have any public comment on either of these items okay thank you good morning Madame vice mayor and council members uh Vicki bamban Director of Finance for the record and I am here today to present to you your first budget workshop for the fiscal year 26 budget and I'm just going to wait until the presentation comes up to continue El while he's loading that I can go ahead and start if you want I go ahead and start our first slide is generally the uh alignment with the Strategic plan on that slide um it's aligns with all of the council priorities because in short the budget is the tool that turns strategic goals into reality so by directing the funding toward achieving the desired outcomes you are using the budget as the tool to do that so it aligns with all of these strategic goals and that's why we review that when we bring forward the budget every year we want to review strategic goals and start with that every year so that we can get make sure that we align what resources we have based on the needs of the council uh that's this one if we move on to the next one this is the agenda for today so I just wanted to talk a little bit about that we're going to include a review of the current general fund Uh current year and then the Baseline budget for next year uh this is the starting point for the budget for next year fiscal year 26 and then we're going to talk about special Revenue funds Enterprise funds and then internal service funds and I've tried to break this up in a way that the workshops have different pieces of information and pull it all together so today you'll notice that we're not going to be talking about uh Capital Improvement projects so so much those will be more focused on the May 5th meeting but they are included as an attachment to the staff report that you got for you to review and if you have questions today feel free to ask those and we can have staff come up and answer some of those questions on the more operational side but more of the focus for Capital will be next um the next meeting because this is kind of the first build and the look at how everything looks and then we'll move into kind of deeper stuff at the next one um I have I'll turn it over to Lindsay after I follow with this piece and she's going to talk start off the fee schedule overview and then we're going to introduce Public Works Parks and Rec and development services and they're going to go over some of their fees that are a little um more complicated not that have some more changes that are more than just CPI to kind of explain those so we'll go into that and then I'll come back up and wrap up with what the next steps are and a timeline so you'll notice that um I'm trying to follow a pattern that we kind of did last year because it worked really well there's a little red triangle on the bottom of the slide if you see it there and so I've built this in a way that after each of these sections listed here you'll see a red triangle and it it's about five to six slides and it gives a good stopping point and a good gra Breaking Point normally between these talking points and it really flowed well last year I thought it worked well so that's what we're going to shoot with again today and um hopefully it works just as well so um are there questions on how this is going to flow and what we're looking at for that okay I think we're good so far okay good so here we are this is the last year at this same Workshop Council discussed their priorities and this word cloud was developed from that meeting so this is that meeting so I often get questions on what are what do we need from you we need all of your discussion and feedback anything you want to talk about at this meeting so that as we continue to build this budget we know what the priorities are with the limited resources that we have and that will give the guidance as we build things to work with the city manager and her team to figure out what we can potentially do in the space that we have and so this is this Workshop um last year the top four Council priorities that were priorities across the board for all members included Public Safety Code Enforcement Parks parks and wreck and infrastructure so those were the top four but this was kind of an idea of all of the things that were brought up last year and we're going to be taking a lot of notes from everything you say and we'll be bringing those back as we continue to talk and build this budget so um on April 9th I'll be back with the third quarter augmentation Lindsay will be doing that but I'll be doing another Financial update and then uh we'll have lots of other meetings in between we'll still have Council briefings and then the next official Workshop will be on May 5th but we will have a lot of talk talking in between that as well and so that's this is really how we build what your priorities are as we move forward I don't think my clicker is working okay did it work oh there it went okay was delayed there for a second so we're going to talk the current year because we can't build next year until we know where we're going to end in the current year so looking at uh the current year this was the adopted budget as Council adopted it last year plus the $8 million in the one-time funds because those were funds that were identified from the prior year savings that were used to cover the cost increases of the uh collective bargaining agreements that came forward after budget adoption so really this is the adopted budget plus that 8 million it's really critical here that we realize that we are using prior year funds to fund the current year budget so that's a gap that we're going to have to to manage as we move forward even in tough times we're already in a situation of using onetime funds for current year operations um and that will create a problem as we move forward as you'll see without um more Revenue growth or less expenses because those are the only two ways to really bridge that Gap so you can do a combination of that but really those are our only options to bridge that Gap and so um that's really the reason I wanted to bring up this slide and then also to kind of talk about again Consolidated taxes which are mostly sales taxes and then property tax those are our big biggest Revenue sources without growth in those areas really the other areas don't grow that much anywhere from 1 to 2% 3% growth between all of the other areas that you see on that pie chart for revenues so only really big growth that we really see is is in that those other two areas and right now those uh one area is doing well property tax but one is not and so we'll see that as we move forward and then salary and benefits here I want to highlight that it's 76% of the total budget as far as expenditures and when we move forward you'll see some changes in that based on the resources that we have in the increasing and the compounding costs going on there so that will be increasing as you'll see as we move forward so current year in current year revenues we have uh property taxes are coming in about one one and a half% above budget um that's been typical over the last few years and the average increases around 8% a year growth for property tax SE tax has really been very flat over the last three years we haven't seen much growth since the really big boom that we saw with the co and that extra money that we got during that time we haven't seen a lot of growth since then so we're in year three of very limited growth on sex sex is currently running about 5% below budget because we did anticipate for it to grow like it normally would have franchise fees are um franchise fees are below budget um they are actually trending year-over-year a little bit less last year was less than the prior year and they're really based on consumption and usage very similar to sex they're going to react immediately to things in the economy so as people need more money to spend on groceries they may dial back in other areas such as you know electricity and other areas that they can dial back those um costs so we're really starting to see that as we build the budget forward we're anticipating that's probably going to continue based on what we're seeing with the economy it's our best estimate at this point licenses and permits that includes your business licenses we are seeing a little decline there as well again this is Economy based because a lot of those licenses and permits are based on gross receipts so if gross receipts are down for businesses then the payments in are you know down as well normal growth is around 3% a year in that space so again not large growth that we see in those areas um charge for services a little higher here because um we have uh the fire Strike Team reimbursements that come in and so we don't budget for those as they come in we augment the budget and then obviously the expenditures that relate to those so overall we're looking at but and we're looking at a budget deficit of around $9 million in revenues for the current year and so what that is really the biggest places where that is is between Consolidated tax and franchise fees really those two are really creating this budget deficit around the the $9 million for the revenues how are we going to um not working next slide please thank you um how are we going to bridge that Gap so in general fund expenses this was identified very early on because we built this budget that were currently in same time last year so you build it much in advance of when the year actually starts and so a lot of the things that we anticipated happening with changes in interest rates and the economy is going to bounce back and a lot of the things that the talk of coming out of that um really flat time period following covid thought that changing the interest rates as we came out of the um inflation would reduce inflation we would change interest rates at the federal level and and things are going to start to come back to a normal Pace well what we've actually seen is that inflation has been very um it's been very strong and it's gone on longer than what they thought it's taken a lot longer to get down um to a level we're still not down to the 2% level where the feds would like it and so they've held off on interest rate changes interest rate changes were anticipated to start last year around May and June and that's what we anticipated when we did the budget thinking that it's going to boost the economy a little bit boost housing and it has impact across the whole economy what actually happened though is interest rates didn't start to be adjusted until September and so um they did a few adjustments in September and now we' started this year they're saying well they're not they're not eager to do anymore right now so we're in kind of a holding pattern so flat is really what we're looking at for growth and that's not what was anticipated this time last year when we were building the budget just to kind of give you an idea of that so early on as this budget year actually started um in August and September we realized that you know what this budget we're not going to have the revenue growth that we thought we were going to have and so working with the city manager um and her team we talked about what can we do to draw back on expenditures um the city manager asked departments you know to find Savings of 2% in the current year and then also Slow Rolling and holding some positions as they become vacant and really what that's done is create expenditure Savings in the current year we are not really seeing Savings in salary and wages and that's because when people leave we still owe them um payouts and Severance their vacation time and such so when those payouts hit that's really offsetting that salary savings we would have but we would still have benefit savings so the real savings we're seeing in the current year about $4 million is from the benefit side of vac positions that's in retirement cost um Medicare and then also health insurance from that vacant position so the savings that we have is really from benefits and then on services and supplies um having departments really you know tighten their belts and and work in that space another four million there so between that we anticipating a savings of about uh $8.5 million in as far as compared to budget in expens expenditures so when you look at um this rolled up so you look at where we think we're going to end the year we're going to be 9 million shorten revenues that deficit but we're going to have Savings in the expenditure side of it so that difference is really this net that you see at the bottom around 400,000 that's going to be plus or minus a half million either way I believe this year we're going to e we're going to come out very even because it was recognized so early in the year that economy's changed and things have changed since we built this budget so this year is not really an issue um as as we're working through this year but when we build for next year we build it based on current Staffing and that's really what the Baseline we have build it on current Staffing and current services that the city is providing and that is going to be impacted based on where we know the revenues are trending right now as we move forward so when we move into next year's budget oh sorry I think I had to stop there I didn't stop myself so I wanted to stop there and see if there are questions on the current year council members council member ree thank you madam vice mayor um Miss vanan first of all thank you for the presentation so far um and for the presentations that we've received on the ongoing issues uh I think for my part because there isn't a lot of public here um I want to make sure that I'm clear on a couple of things the first is is that your office uh works very diligently with our respective offices is to keep us apprised of the financial situation as it unfolds is that fair yes that is correct and so we have budget meetings and updates and briefings on the status of our budget how many times a week would you say those I mean or or maybe a month we've we've been doing monthly updates since December because we recognized early on that this is not a typical year and so we're seeing some things that are not normal for us and we're trying to figure and they're not just not normal for us it's the whole region where Sparks waso County the school district we're all seeing challenges in the revenue space so this is not um this is not something that um is mismanagement of any way it is just a change in the revenues beyond what is considered normal and so we have to adjust to that and let me maybe drill down on that point I I appreciate your thoughts I suppose I look at our partners Sparks Washo County the school district us all sort of saying the same things um I look down south and see a number of municipalities again saying the same thing and so when I hear people in the community or they send emails to me that say hey we think you've like mismanaged the city and I have to explain to them here's how we got to where we are then they're pretty quick to say okay now we get it so for my part I I am worried that um the as much as the financial um explanation that you can give is explained by these graphs and pictures and the numbers what I hope that people understand too is that we take very seriously the charge to be good stewards of the resources of our community and that we aren't in a different boat than any of the other entities that are in the state and region because of Nevada's property tax system which depreciates property over time and does not reset um we are constantly chasing an increasing cost with wages salaries benefits always go up they don't go down and a declining Revenue stream so in order to for that model to flip the other way you have to have some measure of growth right and so that's what I took from your first series of slides and and I suppose I hope that I have not missed it but given what you said here and and your explanation of fiscal year 25 um it's uh better than I thought it was going to be for fiscal 25 so that means you're doing the hard work and then I'm of course interested in the bigger Cliff which is next year thank you thank you so much other council members I do not do we have anybody ohandy I'm sorry go ahead yeah I and just real quick too before we start like I don't know how you want me to let you know that I want to comment should I raise the hand digitally or should I just chime in if you raise it digitally I should be able to see it so right now I see council member Anderson's hand up okay thank you um so um m Baron thank you so much for the presentation I know this has been um a lot of work so thank you for that um I do have a couple questions um one of your last statements was that our expenses haven't really gone up did I hear that correctly our expenditures are under budget because of the cost-saving measures that we've undertaken for this current year knowing the situation okay so I'm a little confused as to how we can say that but then also say that we have this deficit so what what is the trigger for this deficit so as we build the budget thank you for the question because that is a little confusing sometimes as we build the budget we build next year's budget based on current Staffing levels so we assume that every position is going to be filled when we build the budget and we base it on current service levels as well so currently as we exist today we're going to build next year's budget and we're going to include any increases in colas step increases Pur increases any of those increases that we know that impact salary and benefits that we are obligated to we build that in and then we build in the services and supplies um in general they remain very flat we don't increase those um for the most part unless it's an additional funding request so that's what I we consider the Baseline budget at that point we roll it up and then we bring it forward to you as Council to see where are we at at that point and at that point if we have more in revenues you can look to add or if it if it's not keeping pace which is what we're going to see this year then there are choices that have to be made so maybe um positions that we're currently holding vacant to create some of the savings Gap in this year may have to continue into next year and those are the discussions we really need to have today does that answer your question yes and I'm not sure if I I have any time remaining you have 30 seconds okay so my other question is I guess it's kind of a statement and a question um I hear frequently that City of Reno has not brought their number of police and fire up to pre 2008 numbers and it's my understanding that we have many more Homes apartments um businesses buildings of of any kind businesses and property values are up way above what they were in 2007 so I know that our tax Str structure depreciates but how can we get an analysis of how we were able to afford that number of police and fire prior to 2008 and see what expenses we have now that we didn't have then um because I'm just curious to see you know how with less money we were able to have more First Responders basically so that's it thank you sure and I'd like to respond to that because that does come up quite often and we do know that yes that is correct we we do have less now than we had then in the police officer space we have done that analysis one of the things that we will talk about as we go on further is the compounding effect of Revenue loss and so we talk about the compounding effect of expenditures as we continue forward but that compounding effect of Revenue loss is the other side of this equation and we have the two things going on at the same time as we move forward um back during the recession when um the number of officers and and other positions as well um during that time when those were reduced um it took nine years from that point to get back to the same amount of property tax that we had at that point where everyone wants to say oh yes this is how much money we had and we had these many officers it once the recession hit and that income declined it declined in such a way it took nine years to get back to the same level nine years in both spaces and they were different because the first one to to cut off is um sales tax which is Consolidated tax that one comes off immediately so once that one starts to to climb back at that point two years in takes a two-year lag before property tax you'll see the hit so then property tax hits starting to climb back for SE tax but property tax hits in two years so nine years from the point the start for um sales tax and Consolidated tax to come back and then two years later another nine years before property tax comes back and so as we talk through some of these slides later I urge you to think about uh the compounding effect of all of that loss so once we even get back to where we were we haven't even grown we're just getting back to where we were and now we're N9 10 years later and everything costs much more 10 years later so we're not going to be able to afford even with the same dollars what we had 10 years earlier does that kind of help to explain some of that I hope thank you uh council member Anderson yes thank you um one of the things that I wanted to just explore a little further here is the franchise fees one of the um first memories I have from learning about our finances with the city was at the Fab um the first time that I attended and learning about franchise fees and I you said something in that meeting that I was hoping you could explore a little bit here and it was the this is the first period that you've been with the city of Reena where you have seen declining franchise fees and why that is alarming to me is that is behavior change that is ization of utility Behavior change that is going to be very difficult to undo as it relates to predictive ability to budget so can you talk a little bit about that and what our strategy is there yes and thank you for that too because it's normally it does Trend up 2 to 3% a year franchise fees because it will it will follow your um population so if population's going up 2 to 3% you have new people moving to the area new houses so it tends to really follow that and we're now seeing that last year it actually declined year-over-year and we're seeing a very similar um decline this well not it's very flat this year but it did decline decline year-over-year last year and so I think that is indicative of people dialing back in that space the other piece of it is the climate so if we have really cold Winters then we do see more because there's more usage during that time and the last couple of years have been very mild as well and so there's a lot of fluctuation between the weather and usage so it fluctuates um in a space where I haven't really seen that before normally sales tax fluctuates but normally franchise feeds seems pretty steady um but we are seeing that uh differentiate there and I think part of that is people's budgets their own budgets at home are being pinched and so they're finding ways to change their usage as well I know I have done it personally so I know that thank you um I guess I have a quick question to and I asked this in my briefing and I know we all take our briefings very seriously and do a lot of preparation and a lot of work for them so um this might be repetitive but um I think you and your team are phenomenal and part of what you have to do is you have to predict the future with with information that you have and um during my time here you've been extraordinarily exceptionally great in being being able to do that and I'm wondering um you said something very telling to me have we ever really seen this sort of um Trend before um and and the news that I got the way I understood it it was very extraordinary of what's going on with our Eon economy so being able to predict this hasn't been something that is a lack on your part or your team or anything it's just if you could just talk a little bit about how extraordinary this is sure and I have some slides later that really kind of explain our thought process as we built the budget but it you know in general um we haven't seen this before because really what happens when we see periods of high inflation the feds raise the interest rates we go into recession it pulls things back um it it changes the Dynamics of the economy by the things that the feds do and so what we end up seeing is we see a recession normally and we were kind of headed that route after the High inflation we were heading toward that recessionary type period and what the feds did was pull a lot of levers on interest rates and do a lot of things well this is the first time they've ever in the history gotten what they've called a soft landing and so from the soft Landing that really just means that we're not falling off the cliff going into a recession but what does that really mean long term does that mean we are flat for a couple years five years is it going to decline even a a little bit more before it starts growing we don't have a history on that so we're all kind of navigating that together we may be not in a recession which is great but not having Revenue growth is still a problem so we're not falling off a cliff but now we're having to manage within a space that we're unsure of how long it's going to last if that no that's that helps a lot so and I think we're seeing that um as council member ree said all over these local governments so it's not just just the City of Reno it's happening everywhere was something that we've never experienced before absolutely and we don't have data on it we don't have data um Madame Mary I see your hand raised all right thank you so much um thank you Vicky I really appreciate it I I think you are just absolutely topnotch I always have and appreciate everything that um that you bring to the table let me ask you a couple things because I don't remember and this is not anything um you know that I I think that you have you know done a responsibility for um in any way and not to mention I think we don't talk enough about the tax structure that the the only state in the country um that has this formulation is Nevada right so we never talk about that and how challenging it is and the tax caps and it seems like every government in Nevada whether it's the state or counties uh Rob Peter to pay Paul basically half the time because you're trying to move within this very very rigid box I do want to say because it it it shows where most of our finances go is on the Staffing side correct I think you said 76 yes that is correct yes okay so with that being said and I can't remember um ever doing one but I wonder the possib ility of an outside audit of looking at you know where they can sort of be independent because I will say that departments get very territorial about um you know Staffing and and things that they put their budgets towards and I get that I think that's their job to be Territorial and protect you know exactly what they're trying to accomplish I would like to know if we've ever looked at bringing an outside audit firm because if we do eventually down the road have to make um cuts you know what does that look like because I will tell you this I feel like in the last four or five years we have um tried to ramp up Staffing and the other thing that's really challenging that we haven't talked about we never got back to the levels that I believe that they cut in 2007 when when I look through uh these financials um and then the other thing I think Miss Anderson brought this up is you know Staffing levels with fire and police and here's what I would say it's always been super critical and important to make sure that your Public Safety is topnotch because uh I think that's one area where we want to continue to build back um but it's hard when people retire or um you know there's just other factors that go into that mainly retirement we see that so it becomes sort of like this wheel but so just getting back to a question looking at possibly an outside audit of where we can get really really lean um and then the other thing I would say is that for me I have um and and I think I I couldn't I can't remember speaking for everyone else but I know it's been important to the council to make sure that you know Public Safety is always um at however we can possibly grow it or keep it at capacity it's got to be a priority yes I a lot of your information there you spoton with levels I just talked about that as far as getting back to levels in police and and what the challenges are there and why that occurred a lot of the other things you talked about seem to be to be more operational and so I think um manager Bryant I don't know if you wanted to comment on maybe some of the the operational pieces of it because financially I don't have an answer for that at this point um yes I think some of the questions will be answered as you get through the presentation a bit more council member I guess I'm just saying is we go down this road and things be get get a little Rocky I know you know everyone's talking about it saying the landscape I just want everyone to be aware that this council is going to have to sharpen their pencils and if we go down that road it would be good to have an outside independent audit of what that looks like if we're having to make you know adjustments in the largest areas of where we're spending so I I would that's just something that I would um suggest council member Ebert do you have your hand raised yes I do thank you um I did have another question and that was regarding the the franchise fees um council member Anderson brought this up can you please um explain what where those franchise fees come from what what franchises are they should we get a 5% of the gross receipts of electric gas and then um Telephone we also receive um cable TV franchise fees and we actually incur the sewer franchise fees we charge we run the sewer system but then we charge a 5% franchise fee on that as well to be consistent with all of the others so from all of those spaces and it's based on um usage on the actual grocery receipts okay so is it fair to say that these are not luxury items right like this is these are Necessities that people need to maintain a home corre like sewer um electricity um I presume Waste Management things of that nature um these are not like taking trips to you know taking vacations um is it fair to say that these are people cutting back on just basic living expenses yes and in that space we do see people cutting back on Telephone even though we receive a franchise fee on cell phones it's a little different so when people um turn off their landlines we have seen that decline year-over-year for many years as people get rid of landline telephones and they rely just on cell phones we've also seen a a decrease significantly in cable TV franchise fees because people are switching to streaming services and we do not get franchise fees on streaming services so that in that space has declined year over year for many years too okay so that that is particularly concerning to me because that tells me that people have reached their limit if they're willing to cut back on basic necessities or finding cheaper alternatives to things that we consider just regular household expenses um that's very concerning to me uh for the overall economy um I don't think that raising any kind of franchise fees could be tolerated um well by um constituents just based off of the trend that I'm seeing um so um do you have any thoughts on that on how we could um increase revenue streams without increasing franchise fees well we're limited on on what we can charge for franchise feeds we're limited to that 5% because that is a statutory limit um so we are you know at the mercy of the usage on that again just like we are at sales tax so there are things that are just variables that we cannot control one of the things we can do is is really be um mindful when we build these budgets to build it to our best ability and what we think without trying to stretch it thank you okay we're going to go to council member Ree and then we're going to let you move on with your presentation miss van Bean is there a moment in the presentation where we'll be specifically talking about our Public Safety um budget and and numbers in that area because I don't want to get ahead of the budget but of course the mayor has hit the nail on the head uh our most critical function as a city is our Public Safety function and so every budget that I've been here for and that's now seven we have prioritized making sure we had um increase in Staffing in those areas we've certainly done that both on the police and fire side and of course against that backdrop is retirements so every time you hire four new police officers and four or six Tire you're still chasing something but is there a place in the presentation coming up where we're going to have this spot to talk then I'll defer to that time so I'm going to move on to the next slide here so talking about 26 so that was 25 so as we're building for 26 again this is the Baseline budget so we take all the Staffing levels as they currently are we assume that every position is going to be filled as it is because that's that's the starting point for the budget we build it based on all the colas cbas any of adjustments that we know are coming perss is really critical in this year because there was a large increase there so we build all of that in and then for operating costs we reach out to departments departments provide um their input on their supplies and such for the last few years we have told them you have to work in the space that you have so they don't put in for budgets for their operating supplies that exceeds what they got the prior year they would have to put in an additional funding request um and you do have your additional funding requests for an attachment to the staff report those are all the things that departments would like to have or would they would need to have for their Department if they're going to change services or to do their services better that they currently do or even in some cases you know we ask them to put in what would you need to run your department the best that you can do to cover the services as we're currently committed and so they they put those in every year and there's always lots more uh wants or needs than we can actually afford but we go ahead and gather that so that you have that as Council to see what are the needs that are out there and how are we going to bridge those as best we can as we move along um we want to make sure that departments have that opportunity to let us know what it really takes to do everything exactly as they should be doing it in a perfect world and we know that's not necessarily the resources we have to match that so those additional funding requests are attached we're not really going to talk about those a lot today they're for you for you to look at um and go through and then if you see things on there you can ask questions of the departments operationally on those and then give guidance on it but I don't have a separate presentation on those at that this point today um we would bring those back um at the next meeting if that's something that we're going to go into um Revenue this Naomi before you go on just a really quick question is that okay actually we're gonna go through the presentation you missed the first part of it and then she has stopping points it was about the answer she just gave I just wanted to understand can you hold it and wait until we get to the point where we're going to stop please thank you well I would like to ask my question because I'm sure I'm going to forget if you would mine it's very quick I just clarification a when you said uh we assume all the positions are filled would we come up with a a freeze or something later but but today you haven't Incorporated that is that correct that is correct as the build out for next year all right thank you and then we build the revenue piece of it so we build all the expenses as we know they currently exist and then we build the revenue piece based on what we know of the economy and we match those up and this is the Baseline the first look at the budget as we bring forward here overview to let you know these this is where we're at knowing everything we know and these are all the things that departments need or would like to have to do these things better um SE tax that we built out for the current year uh is flat and so for next year what we're seeing is growth about 2% and that's really coming through the state that's what they think their projection is for next year we're seeing exactly 0% right now based on the limited information that we have on seax right now the state did switch their Software System so the last full month of Consolidated tax I have is is October we got half of November approximately and then we got another month that looks like about a month of payment not sure if it's half of November and half of December or all of December but there's limited information as to what time period it's for we are still receiving money but without the corresponding um communication on what time period it's for it's hard for us to gauge really where it's Landing based on we've kind of put our heads together between other jurisdictions and we figured out looking at what they've gotten and what we've gotten and kind of comparing across the board it looks like it's still trending very flat even if it's part of this and part of that and doing some different scenarios um what they're telling us now is they will do a true up in March if they do a true up and bring everything current in March we will have through January because it runs two months the delay on it is two months behind so if March is correct and we get that true up um at the end of this month we will have some better information but right now that I think the best information we have is 0% growth for the current year um property tax is doing really well again it's trending up 1 and a half% above budget and I projected it at about 7.7% it's trending around 8% that one varies a little bit based on new development in the area we won't have the final numbers for property tax until March 25th so um that number I suspect will be a little bit higher but we don't know because the new development piece of that is really the unknown piece until they issue their final numbers but for purposes of this build I've gone with 7.7% total budget when you look at building out all the funds um we've breached that billion doll Mark the last few years we've been around $ 950 $980 million well this year we've reached the million the billion dollar Mark so $1 billion budget between all the funds this does include when we look at this these big overview slides it includes the total resources available and total resources available means all the expenditures that have been budgeted and the ending fund balance so you will see some differences between this slide and some of the later slides that we talk about because this slide does include your ending fund balances this is everything that exists on the books general fund is the largest 362 million um that fund is the hardest one for us to balance and that's why we spend so much time on it one because it's the largest and it is the harder one for us to balance and prioritize um all the different needs between the various departments the other funds have dedicated funds to them and so those funds are for specific purposes and so easier to balance because it's specific purposes and not um you know competing against various different needs because they are already individualized for those needs in the Enterprise fund you'll see that line that we have the two Enterprises we have the building fund and then the sewer Fund in that space so those two funds comprise the Enterprise funds there and then also included on here is RDA as part of our total budget when you look at full-time positions they're currently uh little over 1500 full-time positions within the city these are across all funds and then if you look at just the general fund about 1,200 positions in the general fund 69% of those are considered technically Public Safety and that just means Public Safety departments so it includes the whole department of police fire and dispatch to run those departments and um if you kind of look at those numbers you start to think well that's two out of every three positions are really in those departments we have 1,200 in the general fund and 848 of those are technically Public Safety departments that's two out of every three positions um really they don't exist in a vacuum because all of these other departments in some way or shape or form really contribute to assist with that as well um but I think that the main takeaway I have from this slide is just that there's really not a lot of space when you start to look to make Cuts or pull back or Draw back as we start to see flattening revenues there's just not there's not a lot of space to go for things so that's that was kind of my point for this slide was just to to give you an idea of where all of those um resources are when you look at positions on a donut I like to show it in in a separate way too so that sometimes people visually can see it better than they can see it in a chart and again the little gold bar pulled out that's just showing you Public Safety which is the three bars the blue the red and the the gray together that's 848 positions but again General government like Finance um City manager's office HR it all of these support all of these departments to so no one exists in a vacuum so I'm not trying to single anyone out here I'm just trying to explain that some departments although large other departments still work in conjunction with these departments and across boundaries we wanted to include this I have never personally done this slide as we've gone through these um workshops before but I thought it was really important to to put this up to let you know where we are as a government so re City of Reno is the lowest on here at 5.3 employees per thousand residents because sometimes people think well we have too many people we have too many people and we need to cut back well we're doing the best we can with what we have have and I think this chart really shows the impact of that that we've leveraged technology we've changed some of the services around we've really worked in spaces that we can with the resources that we have to provide the best that we can for the community and even doing that we still only have the 5.3 um employees per resident per thousand residents and so um sometimes it's talked about in that space and I think this really kind of shows that we're doing um the maximum we can with the resources we have additional funding requests I talked about this a little bit these are all the additional things so outside of what is in the current budget build these are the things that departments think would make their um departments better run better maybe even be a different service or an extra service but this really the ideal if we could have things that we needed to do everything perfectly these are the things we would need um it can also include special projects if there are special projects too so you'll see RDA on here $5.4 million included in this additional funding request are some things uh to look at for uh plan updates um new positions to work in that space because that is a space that's growing RDA and so any of those type of requests that want to expand Services would be in this space as well so you're looking at three $32 million approximately of additional funding requests that departments have put in these would be either additions that would be nice to have to fulfill exactly what we're supposed to be doing or they might be new services like in this space in RDA when you look at it by um Department you'll see that list here so this just kind of breaks it out so you see where most of the requests are coming coming from so you'll see a lot of a big space the on the right hand side for the RDA number in that request space and then parks and wreck um police maintenance and operations there's a lot of deferred maintenance out there so they put in those items so that we know they're on the radar if we don't know they exist we can't really address them we may not have funds now but we still need to do our due diligence to make sure that we're aware of everything that's out there and that's what really what this means so this this is another stopping point um council member ree thank you Madame vice mayor U miss vanan a couple things about this batch of slides uh can we first um let's start with the last one I suppose um the revenue requests uh I think you've characterized these as uh the magic ask if we had no limitations on our budget so my guess is is all of these are probably not going very far in a down budget um but let me ask very specific Al about uh maintenance and operations uh we talk a lot about Public Safety being police fire dispatch uh I also include our maintenance operations people and Public Safety because the work that they do is truly in that space it can be snow removal it can be you know fixing a br burst water man it can be a lot of things um these folks I think uh work very hard uh why such a large number there what are we doing that we've ignored them is that what's happened it's been a collective years of under support I don't think so I think they have a lot of equipment needs in there as well because they would ask for additional snow plows and things so you're going to see some large dollar amounts in some of those spaces for equipment needs um and and such so that's part of that um let let me ask about the RDA ask and so the earlier slide said there's going to be like $41 million in the budget for it uh it's got some ass uh new space for us and I know we'll be talking specifically about it um is there uh and maybe this is something for our legal council but um you described it as um specific and identify all funds meaning funds in that bucket can only be spun on certain things right they cannot be used to cover budget shortfalls in the general fund um what what is the benefit of redevelop agency if the rest of the city and not that this is happening but if it collapsed right if you're sitting on a bunch of money in the Redevelopment agency but the city is not healthy this is an odd thing for me and so I want to understand the limitations of what those funds could be used to cover uh perhaps it's also related to my concerns that maybe there are um police services that happen very specifically within our Redevelopment agency geographically uh that could be um shifted there is there any is there wiggle room is what I'm saying you uh thank you council member ree Ashley attorney assistant city manager for the record if I understand the question um you are asking about eligibility of RDA funds to be able to use to help fill spaces as well as what some of these asks are well it's it's more like the RDA covers a geographic area and within that geographic area we certainly have in some ways more police services I think for example and so where we do things like in the building fund we pay for certain employe e because they're adjacent and related to the services in that fund I'm just wondering what the RDA can do if anything beyond the asss that are identified in the budget so to clarify there's a a few things we use the term RDA interchangeably as the increment that's coming off but the RDA in its Essence is an agency it is a standalone entity separate from the Reno city council however you wear a separate hat when you're showing up in that space within the RDA there are two areas that can contribute tax increment financing the Tiff um this is the difference of the money that comes in from property tax um the areas are defined by Statute within the legislative process so just creating that distinction um now within that the increment that's thrown off in those areas has a very specific utilization based off of the NRS it has to be utilized for redevelopment uh very very specific ties cannot be used for maintenance cannot be used for the other staff in entity issues um really the monies has to be used for redevelopment or agency staff and so in your particular scenario while there may be a higher call for service there may be additional resources from First Responders those are not eligible expenses for the RDA funds what if like a lift station for a sewer was in the RDA and we couldn't develop said piece of property without improvements to it is that adjacent enough the distinction would be is the station are we not able to accommodate the Redevelopment because the lift station has had deferred maintenance and so it is a maintenance issue RDA is not eligible is a development not possible because there's an infrastructure opportunity that the city could put in yes RDA could be used uh we oftentimes use the example of sewer lines that need to be moved something that the city has an obligation but for us taking care of that infrastructure change that land cannot be developed so that would be something that the RDA could step in and use that to help um however it's important that I State on the record that we cannot supplant general fund by using rd8 month makes sense thank you so much I'll have a second round perhaps council member Anderson yes just quick question for you Vicki um on the slide that you showed and I know we're still getting information from the state about property taxes and SE tax um I'm just asking if we are seeing flat growth in seax why would the state encourage 2% I'm just wondering from a budgeting perspective why would we budget why wouldn't we budget flat well we're good question we're seeing 0% for the current year and they're anticipating 2% for next year normal growth as we get into some other slides is around 4% a year because really what you're going to see is inflation the impact of inflation so as things cost more then people have to pay more and we get more sales tax so as inflation increases and then as population increases so generally 4% is your general average growth and that's 2% inflation and 2% growth in population but we're not seeing that so really um based on what they're thinking is I you know we're going to start to ease back to the start start going back to normal because we're in that flat phase whether flat is going to continue longer that's the space that's really tricky so it's beneficial as I'm understanding that it would be B beneficial to budget at 2% because the state gives us the ability to do that with their projections and then we can make adjustments along the way in 26 when as you did in December you bring it back to us and say it's looking as if we're going to be closer to flat and then we can make adjustments on the Fly absolutely I think 2% is you know it's still very conservative but it gives us some wiggle room okay thanks council member Martinez thanks so much man of Vice May and thanks director vanan for the presentation so far I think I want to go and explore slide 13 if we could for a little bit I think a lot of the examples that you gave are within the state and may be experiencing similar situations that we are in the City of Reno but curious what sort of infrastructure and uh the way that Carson City is set up to be able to you know uh have that ratio as opposed to the City of Reno or Washo County if you have any insight on that and if there's anything we can glean from that and learn and improve what we're doing here I do not um I don't know if manager Bryant has some additional information on that I do not I'm not familiar with their structure so I'm I don't know yeah so as Vicki stated this is a relatively new data point for us um we saw someone else do it and wanted to explore a for ourselves just to see whether our staffing ratios were on average high or low as you can see they're relatively low um one of the thoughts might be is that Carson City is the state capital and so um they have more revenues maybe I we're not sure why or how they are able to hold on to these Staffing ratios but we do know that they're also having some of the same uh challenges that everyone in the waso county is experiencing and so um we'll see what this looks like next year okay yeah I appreciate that info just wanted to see if we could explore that a little bit more and see if there any ways that we can improve the situation that we're living through and any things that we can learned from there the other question that I had and it's sort of to expand on what council member ree had mentioned I know in the past year this fiscal year we have augmented some positions and looked at reallocating where they are being paid out of and if seeing if there are any other positions not just that are being asked for in the department asks but current positions that we have filled that could be moved into different fund sources um I'm seeing if that has been explored already yes we have gone through a full um process of that this year and uh manager Bryant has really LED that with her team as far as looking at every single position in every department and justifying what work they're doing and which funds it's related to and all of that has been reflected in this build as we build it Forward okay thank you Vicki I wanted to just make a clarifying point that just because CX is definitely trending down just because we have not received it doesn't mean that it's waiting someplace and we're going to get a big check someplace in March that's that was one of the questions that we got at the legislature where people thought oh not being paid isn't the same as revenues going down the revenues are definitely going down in the sex from what we can see yes revenues are trending flat from what we can tell we are short a half of a month they only gave us half of one month so that is part of the trup and how much some of the other areas they need to adjust a little bit because they're not telling us how what range they're giving us money for so so when and also when you say property tax is trending up a little bit and C tax is property down it's not they're not equaling out to the point where we can have CX to claim it what it's doing and still make up for it on property tax yes that's correct and then the other thing I wanted to look at is on slide 11 I think this will become more important as we move through move through the presentation I mean this is saying we have approximately 1,500 employees 1,200 of those employees are coming out of the general fund 850 of those are Public Safety so when we say that we are prioritizing Public Safety this Council has for years been trying to prioritize Public Safety but it's coming out of a fund that isn't generating the money needed to to keep it growing so that's what I see when I look at this um council member Eber I see your hand and then council member derer sorry technical difficulties um yeah so I had a question it was kind of in line with um what manager Bryant had to say about those comparisons um with different regions is it possible to have like meetings with them to collab to find out like how others are handling these budget issues maybe we can all kind of benefit from um you know sharing our knowledge and and what's happening is that something that's possible thank you for the question yes we are doing that on lots of different levels from the finance level I know that um I am collaborating with Sparks and waso County very often and even the school district very often we reach out we talk to each other we're having monthly meetings with Sparks that I'm involved in I know the manager's office has meetings that are set up regularly now working with all of these agencies too and it's not just this time period we've kind of we kind of always do this but we're doing it even more now because we're all trying to find solutions to these issues great so um I have another question about um franchise fees and I'm sorry if this is not the right time but I just don't want to forget is it possible to renegotiate franchise fees on cell phones and look for ways to um have franchise fees on streaming services um I think that the answer to the question as it currently is no because it's statutorily set at the 5% Max so that's that franchise fee that we're charging on the the gross uh receipts it's at the 5% Max so um we don't have a space without a change you know is 5% Max on cell phones cell phones are a little different because uh cell phones I believe are $5 per cell phone which is a little different than what we get for um the franchise fee for a landline yeah that's that's the piece that I'm asking about I don't know if it would generate more Revenue to renegotiate that um is that possible it's certainly a space that you know I can we can put on our list to look at um okay if if I may um your honor um yeah we can't renegotiate that they're not franchises that's dictated um and then just from a legal standpoint for the record John Chipman uh like the video streaming services I don't know if this Council recalls we did have a lawsuit and and we did not get get the ability to do that so I I just think in general all of those buckets are we've maxed out the revenue I think the Netflix law suit happened before Miss Ebert's time on Council thank you thank you for the information um there was one other Avenue I wanted to inquire about I know that council member e I'm gonna move to council member dur and then come back to you for your second round great thank you council member dur sure thank you I assume you can hear me fine is that true true true hello can you hear me we can hear you okay great um I wanted to follow up on a line of questioning started by Mr Ree and that was about these Enterprise or Redevelopment zones and if Miss um attorney could come back I was kind of confused by the answer um and I want to give a few examples could we in the uh Redevelopment area um do a new park or enhance a park even if we don't maintain a park um in those areas could we I I was to led to understand that if we wanted to bring some of those funds to a new fire station for example the one on GSR is in a tent the one on Fourth Street to my knowledge is in a tent can we use those funds uh for those purposes Ashley attorney assistant city manager for the record uh council member Durer part of the annual process that we will be bringing forward to this body is a capital Improvement project list from which Council will be able to identify what Capital Improvements you would like to see utilized with that RDA funds uh there are certain specifications but to your first point of a park again it cannot be maintenance however if there are Capital Improvements that need to be made that would be an allowable source as it relates to your fire station question we would need to review more of the specifics of the 1990 plan uh we do need to be utilizing most of those funds they're intended to mitigate blight is the intention behind it um along with that Redevelopment effort well often like a park um when it's not doesn't have a lot of good facilities um or it has degraded over time and needs new equipment not uh maintenance on Old equipment but new equipment I'm thinking Stewart park for example I believe is in the rda2 and um we need uh new whole new playet uh slides and so on we've heard from the residents very dissatisfied I mean is that that's would seem to really support growth and economic development to not have a dilapidated Park to your point about blight is that an example that would be appropriate yes I would say that's an acceptable and appropriate use of Capital Improvements U Less from the economic development but more from the blight mitigation yes okay and then also what about our fire station as far as the replace for the tent yeah a new fire station it's it's by GSR it's in the Redevelopment rda2 council member do this is Jackie I want to go ahead and um interject here is that one that requires a particular legal analysis that we have not completed yet but further we're going to be bringing back an RDA training for all of council I think it's going to come at the second meeting next week and next week so a lot of your questions regarding specific uses for RDA will be answered then okay great and then I thought um we heard from our CFO that um we're we're going to come back with these asks I'm just wondering about the budget process I know we're getting our introduction today when I originally talked to staff it sounded like this was the day we're supposed to give all of our input um but I I'm not sure is there another presentation to come that would would delve more into the asks because the asks are not impossible we would have to drop doing something else I understand the the switch but priorities may have changed sure thank you Vicky van and Director of Finance yes uh the additional funding requests are attached that came from the Departments and then if you have additional ask as Council um we will add those to our notes today and as we work through the budget process again we don't have final numbers we will have final numbers toward the end of March as we get those numbers we will work with the City manager's office and then based on comments here today and then as we continue to move through the process we will make adjustments based on Spaces where we can in those additional asks one more question I Council council member Anderson has her hand up okay she's good you're about a minute over so go ahead I apologize um I don't have this clock here but um my question was to the revenue point you made a comment earlier about the two % and my understanding is if we keep a flat budget the budget still increases because of the costs uh potentially of increases to the cost of staff so medical insurance going up for example um any other type of uh cost that are associated with staff even if we don't add a staff is that correct does that come out of the 2% is that why it is 2% I just like some clarity 2% for Revenue growth it is independent of the growth of expenditures so we predict each one independently because they don't grow at the same rate okay so for example to keep have you done any analysis on just keeping the staff we had have what that is expected to cost yes that's what we will see coming forward next forward today or presentation yes council member it's coming forward in the next few slides okay thank you council member yeah thank you um I it was a question on Redevelopment and I don't know what what the parameters are for what you're going to bring forward but would it be possible to discuss um blight such as like the um hara's building if that could be a project we could work on we're going to talk Redevelopment on the next um presentation it's just included in here because there are additional ask in that space but they do have plans that they are working on for that so I would ask that if we could talk Redevelopment at that time that would be really okay A little better this is one more about Redevelopment but kind of different um do have we done any analysis on whether we would make more Revenue off of selling any um projects that were done by RDA that have not been put back on the tax roles you council member eert we'll get to Redevelopment after we get through Vicki's presentation okay thank you don't answer that no okay moving on thank you Vicki okay so this next section is just going to focus on General funds for next year a lot of this I've already highlighted um as far as what percentages we've used to kind of guide this I think the real Takeaway on this one for you council is to realize since those two big pieces that you see are really the only pieces that grow in a normal pattern normally um the other fees only go up between 1 2 and 3% a year so we don't get much growth from the rest of that pie so if these two Revenue sources are having issues then that's where that's creating the problem one good thing that's going on is property tax is still having that compounding growth so that's really what's keeping us still growing but at a reduced rate is that property tax is still growing all of the other fees on here are either flat or 2% growth and so um even with property tax growing as the small portion it is the 28% it can't hold everything else up and that that's the space we're in right now when you look at this is really kind of showed shows you how that's that's working so these are the actuals from fiscal year 22 and projecting out for the current year and then for next year and so you'll really see property tax that's that steady growth every single year about 8% you see that stair stepping every single year seax that's the one where you're going to see it's volatile flat and just really hasn't grown since 22 just staying right there um licenses and permits again very flat that franchise fees in year fiscal year 23 you'll see a little bump there that's when Envy energy increased their rates on electric and gas so we saw an increase initially and then this was the the decline I was talking about in 24 we actually got less than 24 and now it's flat so um although that was a great bump that year and that helped us that actually bridg the Gap in the year when SE tax actually declined 1% this was what bridged the Gap was that change in the rates from INB energy because that was not anticipated at the time the budget was built so we didn't feel any impact at the city but there was an impact it was just offset um charge for services is going to fluctuate you'll see in fiscal year 25 in the current year it looks like it's spiking a little bit that's because of the uh Strike Team reimbursements for fire those are not budgeted we only do those as as needed and then the costs go out and it's just a reimbursement basis it looks like it spikes but it's just because of that for the most part charge for services are very flat in other areas um other sources looks like it has a little Spike there as well in fiscal year 24 that's when arpa money was approved by this Council around $5 million to um supplement the loss and revenues to the general fund so you'll see that Spike there as well so again really the only space in all of these revenues that we have that's trending and growing on year every year is property tax SE C tax if we want to dive into it a little bit deeper here um I'll be kind of brief on these slides because we've talked about it so much but again you'll see those really big years of growth adopted budget is in that gold year and then the actuals are are the estimates in the out years in the blue bar and so you'll see in fiscal year 21 and 22 we had 19% growth in TCH % growth in those years year-over-year and those were that was really that stimulus funds from covid money normal growth is around 4% that's what you see in fiscal year 20 prior to all of that it's around 4% since then that's that whole soft Landing coming out of this what it looked like we actually declined in 23 negative 1% and then in 24 this is the point where we were building the budget for the current year that we're in we had 3% growth so that's where people thought okay feds are doing things it's working we're going to start to to head back and we're going to go back to that same level the four or 5% growth um but what's actually happened is we've really flattened out now so now we have 0% growth we grew three and now we flattened again and so it may stagger again we don't have data on really how it's going to go so I think our best approach is to be very conservative and compare to other agencies as far as what they're seeing on their side as well how do we get here we've talked about this um 4% growth is your normal growth Coy year growth um stimulus money those are 21 and 22 this is percentage growth same information but just giving you an idea of how compounding growth works so if so in 23 we had negative growth in 24 we had 3% growth and then going forward we have very minimal growth projected out here we're in year three of this 5year period out in this area and if we had normal growth we would have grown $4 million in 23 another 4 million in 24 and it compounds and continues to grow on top of each other over a 5-year period you end up with about $20 million of ongoing money if it continues to grow and that's that stair step that you saw with property tax not occurring here if you pull out just the five years that I was talking about that were're in in year three I've kind of highlighted that area to really to focus on these are the actual dollar impacts um the other one was kind of high level idea behind it but these are the actual dollar amounts that occur based on these percentages as we go forward so at the end of the fiveyear period we have ongoing revenue of $7 million versus $20 million so it's a $13 million gap there and this isn't something we make up quickly over time it's not like tomorrow or next year or the next you know after that we're just going to make this up we're not going to see a big jump and then be able to build on that once this is gone we have to continue to build back and this relates back to a question that um I believe council member Anderson brought up about the um time frame of the impact of uh when we were in a recession before and coming back and where we were at it's took us nine years when we went into a recession to climb out of it and get back to where we were it will take a long time to make up for compounding Revenue growth loss property tax this one is really good you can see the the percentages on the bottom on this one the seven and a half um 8% growth generally as we move forward uh we have 9% growth estimated for this year because we're actually trending 1 and a half% above budget where we were and that equates to about 9% growth for this year this one you will not see um big growth leaps in it so we can't ever anticipate that we're going to have some big change in here that's going to happen and bring in a bunch of Revenue because of the tax caps in the structure of the depreciation so the tax caps of the 3% on residential and the 8% on Commercial um really limit the growth in this space 8% to 9% is really maxed out in this space because we're Limited at the 3% cap so you wonder well how how do we get to the 8% it's that new growth so new growth is coming onto the books and making up that so we're still averaging about 8 to 9% or on here 7 to 9% we're still averaging that even with tax caps on residential at three but that's the new growth piece and so I'll stop there this was this was a shorter section just revenues and I'll answer any questions here council members I don't see any hands raised but I'll look around council member Anderson before we get away from New Growth I was just hoping we could talk about that a little bit more and um it's a misperception I think in our community that um growth is all bad sometimes um I want to talk about how it's necessary in our budget with the way that the property taxes are structured in the state of Nevada can we just talk a little bit more granularly about how the new development and growth is what is keeping our our heads above water on property tax it is because you know once a property comes on the books it can be depreciated because depreciation is part of the calculation for property tax here in Nevada so there's several things that are limiting us on this Revenue Source it's the property tax caps first and then second it's the depreciation and then third it's not resetting on sale so all it's a combination of all of those things are really limiting growth in this space so you have a new house that comes on the books um they pay based on that new house value you have a house that's sold at the same price say you have a new house at 500,000 and you have a house that's maybe 75 years old it sells at 500,000 the same price you're going to pay very different tax bills one's going to pay a tax bill more around $5,000 a year the other one's going to pay a tax bill that's around a th000 which one the new or the old so the older home will pay because it's fully depreciated because depreciation is one and a 1 and a half% up to 50 years so the older home that more likely is more expensive has a higher value is paying significantly less property tax than newer entry level homes yes because of the depreciation factor and it doesn't reset on sale so even if you sell that house and it sells for the same prices a similar home you know value the tax doesn't change on it because it doesn't reset on sale and it still is fully depreciated at that point or 75% because it's the max is the 75% limit on the depreciation thank you council member ree thank you so much and miss Anderson I think your comments were very perceptive it's something that I've struggled with for a long time it sort of explains why someone like um I saw one of the public commenters sent us a letter today Miss I think Beth Dory or Kevin Dory I'm not sure who it is writing when that person writes to us but they own like I don't know 20 properties in Reno and so it's uh clear that their interest in this is sort of personal to them because they don't want to pay their fair share of taxes right and so it's something that I think the legislature has to take up and and certainly we've asked I think there's some bills percolating through the legislature they would rather blame you know drunken spending and all this kind of nonsense than to really think introspectively about themselves and so that's kind of what happens in those circumstances council member dur yeah thank you um and I wanted to speak to this issue of depreciation as well um for for many many years we have understood that depreciation is the biggest hit um to our property tax um situation we could be doing much better if upon sale uh the values reset and um people were play paying more in line with what their property is worth this this uh separation between new homes and old homes is is really not sustainable we're the only state that factors a depreciation it goes back to the 1800s it needs to be fixed we have asked and asked the legislature to address it they've come close a few times but we haven't been able to overcome that and I think as a council it's one of our greatest uh focuses or should be is encouraging and supporting our legislature to address this issue um it it dwarfs new home you know new home we might grow 5% but on the existing inventory we're losing big time so um I I just think it's a critical piece and anything we can do I uh as council member ree said my understanding is there's at least one maybe more Bill circulating and hopefully they'll they'll figure out how to cross the line this time um also at the same time um we have to be careful because there's a a lot of cynicism when we come to approve deny new developments people have over the years said to me well you approved that because of the income and I've told them I have never looked at that I look at each project on its merits and I'll vote Yes if uh if the merits are there and no if they're not but I've never factored in how is it all about us getting more money and I think we just need to be careful when we talk about that issue so that we retain um the citizens confidence in that area all right thank you thank you I think we can move on thank you Vicki so the next section we're going to talk about the expenses for the general fund so as we've roll this up again the Baseline budget everything we know in salary and benefits with the colas and the other increases that we know we are obligated to pay we build that in based on full Staffing level current levels and then the services and supplies as submitted by the Departments um asking them to remain within a flat budget which we have for many years um impacts that we don't know as we roll This up there there's still a few outstanding there's some collective bargaining agreements that have contract reopener and that's due to the purse piece so if purse goes up they have a contract reopener for that um we don't know the impact of that some of the groups have given written notice that they are not going to open some have given notice verbally that they are not going to but we can't it's still kind of an unknown unless we have something in writing so we're putting it on here I we have not built anything in for an incre increase or changes to their current contract so this bill doesn't include anything for that and they only agreed to a one-year contract um last year so they are actively in negotiations this year and so any impact of that would be in addition to anything that you see today and then flsa over time that's still being worked on at this point we think it's around it's less than a million dollars um we've had a person out from New World which is the financial system to work on that to um get that um resolved but it's going to be a CBA by CBA agreement as they figure out what each group what the impact is to each group so we don't really in general I think it's less than a million dollars as far as this big picture um it's not a big Dollar in my mind as I'm building this out the bigger issue is going to be if because that really is not included here um for what you see and we do when we build this build it as we Norm would with capital and this would be Capital maintenance for buildings parks and then for the fire apparatus program as we normally would and include contingency and so all of these things are included in this $341 Million number as we move forward um what's what's creating this and how did we get here as far as the increased costs that we're seeing and really what we're seeing from the 25 estimated budget going to the 26 budget we're seeing increase of $22 million and really that increase is between the colas the special pays class and comp was a really big increase that hit um as far as um increasing some of the ranges so instead of having five steps six steps so some of that has significant impacts as we move forward there were some compaction issues that um we've built into here because it was part of the agreements that we should be at a certain point so that has been built in the only things that we un known were the ones I just mentioned um purs continues to increase and we had very very large increases in that for this year we had well for 26 so they'll start July 1 so they're going from 33.5% to 36.75 per for regular members um so that's an increase of 3.25% and then fire and police went from 50 to 58.7 five so almost 9% increase for police and fire in that first piece of it and so those are the impacts that we're going to see every other year as we continue to move forward um from pers something similar um I thought the increases last time were very high but they're still very high so um I I think this might be a new Norm but hopefully we can wrap our arms around it and they can figure some of this out as we move forward but really the $22 million cost increase from the current year to the build next year 10 million of it is in salaries and 12 million is in benefits and of that 12 million a lot of that has to do with purs and the impact of that oh and I did want to mention the the yellow bars are just showing you the average um annual growth rate of the revenues in the general fund so you can see we were kind of we were keeping Pace up until 23 very close above it in those years when we got a lot of money from sex but then even in 23 when revenues declined for SE tax but franchise fees went up we were still growing pretty well um but as we start to move forward from 24 on that Revenue growth piece of it is only around 5% one year 2% this year you know it's very small compared to anywhere from 5 to 9% that we're going to see in the growth in salary and benefits and when salary and benefits increase that much that's such a big piece of our Pie when we look at the whole thing for expenses that going to create the challenge to meet when revenues aren't increasing at the same rate if you look at expenditures by Department you'll see a lot of blue on this slide because the blue represents the Salan benefits so you'll really see that we're a service organization even across the board this is not um specific to any one Department every department is very service oriented and um has Staffing to provide those services um it which is on here as uh do it you'll see that theirs is about equal because they carry all the carrying cost of the software agreements and all of the software related items so probably half of their budget is people and then the probably a little more than half is um the software cost and all of the it cost that it takes to maintain the organization as a whole and then in maintenance and operations they will have a lot um in their supply and costs as well for maintenance type things but in across all the other spaces it's a it's blue it's people when you roll them up together and you may have been noticing this um revenues that we talked about are 37 million based on how we're projecting them and expenditures are 341 million so we have a budget deficit of approximately $24 million this does not include um those three items specifically um and most importantly the if does not include that so we're looking at a $24 million gap between what we have and how we would normally build the budget what we're talking to you today about is some of the ideas that we have in order to address this funding Gap and we're looking for feedback um in this space and in other spaces if you can think of areas one of the things that the city manager told departments early on is that they needed to reduce uh service and supply budgets by 5% and to anticipate having to do that because we knew challenges were coming so departments have submitted to us um their U analysis and their reduction so that equates to about $3 million eliminating contingency is one of the things that manager Bryant has brought up as well that's a million dollars can be eliminated shortterm as well so $4 million right there related to operating expenses that we can fill part of this Gap the remainder part really looking at one-time funds and this is one of the things we talked about when when the collective bargaining agreements came forward and we knew we were going to have to use one-time money to kind of fund some of that for this year was if things don't get a lot better and we can't bridge that Gap where would we go we we look at Capital funds probably first and see spaces where we could um dial back some of that and that we've had those conversations and now we are actually in that space um use of one-time Capital funds um in some areas like the second floor remodel um that is proposed on here to be pulled back as well as closing out some other work like the parking lot at Moana pool it's done and there was some excess money there so between those that's about $3 million and then we have some sale of property that has already gone through we have those funds on hand and then Council approved the special assessment District excess funds Matt Taylor from my office brought that forward and those funds one time in use but they would be available to use toward this scap other things that we did was were um going through the actual Capital plans so annually we typically fund annual maintenance to Parks maintenance and to Building Maintenance and to the fire apparatus program we continue to put money toward that annually normally um that amount is 3.4 million what we've done is gone through and worked with the Departments to see how much do you have in those funds that are specific for that that are you going to use this year and how much do you have remaining and So based on that analysis um all three of those programs would have enough funds to continue to operate and do the things that they need to do for next year because they haven't spent prior year portions of Prior year allocations that have continued to roll forward um and so this is not a long-term fix because we can't technically not have maintenance at some point but for next year this would be an option of not putting any additional money toward the towards those programs because they do still have some to use for next year that I that we believe is sufficient and it's not just me doing that we've worked with the Departments to talk to them about it is this sufficient and does this work for you and yes same thing with Fleet replacement again this came up uh when the bargaining units um contracts came forward said you know we may not have funds next year because we know we have a gap we may not have funds for replacing Vehicles so what we can do is we we've built in to replace uh we can build in to replace uh to do the maintenance and all of the repairs on the vehicles and items that we currently have but we wouldn't be buying any new vehicles for next year so reduce reducing the fleet replacement funds by 4 million is proposed here it would allow uh 400,000 still to be budgeted and that would just be in the case of an accident car gets wrecked an accident they need to replace it or engine or something else it would just be very minimal funds in case there's something catastrophic but overall it would not be replacing any vehicles in that space and again we worked with the Departments to figure out does this work for a year will it work um we've really had a very robust plan because that was part of your um direction as Council to start building up in some of these areas so um during the recession these were areas that were cut and we really worked to build them back into a space where they have um the sufficient needs and they're really replacing as they should be and we're in that space now so to take a break from for a year is a space I think that um is an option and then workers comp we've been trying to build that up um and we' just been adding a million dollars each year and this is really due to the Heart and Lung claims that we know eventually will uh need to be paid by the city and so we have actuar results on workers comp that we get as part of the AC for as part of our um Financial process to do that and so this is a space like opep we have obligations to meet and we try to increase that funding to meet those obligations in the future are we meeting them currently yes we're pgo and we're meeting them but we would like to continue to build it because we know in the future we will have even more obligations there and then um use of fund balance so 2.8 million in fund balance um is proposed here it's about 1% in the current year but what you have to recognize as we continue to build the budget if we're not increasing the fund balance and those costs continue to go up it's not the same percentage as we move out so if we take out this percentage now and we move forward this would reduce the fund balance to about 12 a half% as for next year based on what we have still even after doing all of these things um we have a $3.7 $3.7 million remaining Gap so that remaining Gap is open obviously for discussion as are any of these other items here but this is really all the space that we've come to for onetime fund um reducing programs still working within a space where departments can still do what's needed on a daily basis and it it's not long it's these aren't long-term Solutions but they are short-term solutions for us in the interim until we really see what the economy is going to do um the remaining Gap some of the thoughts for that are looking at programs again looking at um maybe memberships some of the members on this body have mentioned maybe we don't pay some memberships maybe we cut um some donation funds cut some other things maybe there's some other spaces every dollar counts so if there's some things that can come into the space to fill that Gap that's part of it and then freezing positions is another option in there too because that's currently how we're technically not frozen but we're holding some positions in the current year to get some savings building this budget if that's filling part of this Gap this we would have to identify positions to freeze so that we can build the budget and make a note that they're Frozen um they wouldn't go away but they would be technically unfunded um unless things change and obviously we come back with augmentations throughout the year but that's really the space um where we are so once you do that so if if we find uh if these items on here are acceptable in the top part and then figure out the remaining Gap as we work through this process and get the final Revenue numbers that's $24 million that meets the gap for next year as we move forward um this is what it would look like so same slide I just showed you in the budget build um but we would be using one-time funds and I know this is a little strange but the $8 million is different one-time funds than the current year so we put little the little breakout for you on that that's from the fund balance that's from property Sal sales and from some other closed capital projects that equates to about $8 million in revenues that's one time that we could use this coming year and then reductions on the other side you'll notice that salary and benefits is now 80% of the budget it's gone from 76 to 80% and that's because we've had to pull out kind of the one-time maintenance type money a contingency additional workers comp and that's that little red piece you see over there so there's $16 million of reductions and that includes the items that I just talked about departments decreasing service and supplies by 5% um workers comp capital and then that ongoing maintenance and then again the discussion item the the 3.7 so really what happens to the pie chart is salary and benefits continues to get bigger as uh we you know focus on maintaining the Staffing levels and then um implementing these reductions so I have a stop Point here for conversation and discussion council member eert thank you um so I have a lot of questions um I'll try and get through as many as I can I don't know if we'll have two rounds on this okay thank you um so one of the things I had a question about is um eliminating annual Capital funds what what would fall under that category it would be building maintenance Parks m maintenance and these are their Capital funds that they have to do really Capital type repair items and then um the fire apparatus program okay are these things that we could potentially look for Grant funds to help us cover I'm sure there are some Grant funds in the space for capital projects and I think staff is actively doing that currently I mean we're currently looking for Grants and working with the departments on looking for Grants all the time okay so we might be able to find outside funding sources to kind of help bridge that Gap a little bit well for for next year even without the outside sources I think that these funds are are still I wouldn't say healthy but they have enough funds to do the things that they need for next year because normally we give them an annual allocation that ends up in their capital account if they don't use all the funds it rolls over to the next year so they still have some unspent funds in there that they're not going to use this year and they maybe are going to draw out some those projects and complete them over you know a longer period of time and so that's really the process that I've worked with the Departments personally with uh figuring this out with them um on Building Maintenance Fleet Maintenance I mean Building Maintenance Parks maintenance and then also um the fire apparatus so they they all have sufficient funds that they're not I don't feel that they're going to feel the pinch and they agree for next year but it's not a long-term solution yeah it's kind of a onetime shot but because you can't defer maintenance forever yeah of course okay so that that was one of them another one I wanted to ask about and maybe this isn't the right place but what what's happening with OPB OPB we have not contributed to for a couple years except for the employee match portion that we are required to for those employees that put into it as part of the match because some of the cbas um require new people coming into the system they have to put in for I believe five years I think it's 5% and we match to that so that match piece yes we're just not doing additional funding to oped okay are we going to run into any problems with that uh we're on pgo right now it's built into the into what we have if we could get to a point where we could switch over and pay from the opep trust that would be wonderful it's growing at a at a very good rate I believe we made around $4 million on just interest alone last year so it's up to almost $32 million right need it to be in my opinion around the 60% Mark we want it 60% funded where we could switch it over and we wouldn't be doing pgo and contributing to it um and depending on we would need to start contributing to it again in a significant manner to make that happen okay and can you tell me like council member e I'm going to move to council member Rees and we'll be we'll be flexible here this is the biggest thing that we do so I think council members are okay with a little bit more time thank you Madame vice mayor um I want to focus of course on the slide that says how do we address the fiscal year 26 funding Gap um first of all uh thank you for um laying out a path right I sort of start with the first thing that you started with when we began which is a budget is a reflection of our priorities right how we as policy makers prioritize the things that we view as important from a political and policymaker standpoint are reflected in our budget and therefore should be how we approach the budget process so thank you for that framing issue at the beginning and now I look at this I'm not sure that um I have a specific and identifiable concern about any of these line items meaning I can't say well I really like the workers comp fund to be funded um and maybe over here I I think what I'm looking for is more the city manager's office and your office having leadership to say look we have done the work on our side from a staff persp perspective here is our recommendation and then we have a remaining Gap and this is where it starts to get more challenging um because I think none of us are professionally in your departments so it's hard for us to substitute our judgment for the day-to-day minutia that you all go through uh what I will say is I continue to believe very strongly um in our Public Safety apparatus so that's all of our police fire dispatch maintenance and operation um I believe strongly in our parks and recre recreation department and so again my reflection of my value politically as I think about what is important to me I think is is reflected on this slide meaning I'm not seeing deep cuts to those areas um the $3.7 million remaining Gap I suppose two things are true for me and I think you said this in an earlier part of the presentation which was you know you come back to us quarterly with budget augmentations with new numbers from the state I suppose in my mind mind I think we plan for the worst and hope for the best uh meaning that as we get into fiscal year 26 uh hopefully we'll have the state's apparatus system working a little bit harder to tell us where the money is coming from and how and then ultimately we're in a little bit of unknown territory I I don't want us to get to a point where we're like oh we didn't know it was happening to us I want us to be proactive about it so I'll be looking forward to the recommendations that you have uh with regard to this um I don't see oped not being funded on this but I make an assumption that we are not funding it um next year above the required match um so those are my thoughts on this first round I think it's very helpful um still a large number but I suppose less large than I thought it might be city manager Bryant did you want to address that yeah I would like to reiterate and and thank you for kind of opening the door for us to express how we built this uh recommended budget and why we included certain reductions that we did the goal from the beginning has been to keep people employed um that has been the priority as you saw the numbers at how low the Staffing ratio is for the City of Reno relative to the population and any reduction in the number of employees will reduce the level of service um you also saw that we have a 69% FTE uh total general fund rate that is dispatched police and fire that leaves very little uh for any other services that are provided and many of which are necessary in order to support police dispatch and fire so just the overarching philosophy was how do we keep people status quo and and that's what's reflected here we're down to 3.7 million uh to identify uh some other opportunities for reductions there and and again that does not include the Ia contract or uh the approximately $1 million associated with the flsa overtime that we will be working on so um thank you for the opportunity to kind of reiterate how we got to where we got to thank you manager Brian and I guess I will say um on on slide 26 this is an effort of everybody Within These Walls and as an organization coming together and saying what can we do this really isn't one person one Department saying um we're going to take the burden of this we're going to work together as a city and for that I thinkk you city manager Bryant for your leadership with less than a year on a job thank you and Vicki um I have two one statement and a quick question um the budget that we are looking at does not include that $32.5 million and asks right correct okay so without any of the asks we're already and I didn't clarify during that time too some of those ask may be available in other funds like Street fund or RDA some other funds but in the general fund no but we haven't included in any of them because they are just asked at this point for consideration and I I fully believe like council member ree you are the experts I know you the the slide that I just mentioned shows that you all working very very hard to get us to a place of even and that's very much appre I mean I have ideas in the middle of the night and I call say hey can we do this sponsorship or what about this but I I fully believe you guys are doing everything that we need to do um I'm just going to make a a blanket statement we have a significant Revenue problem significant Revenue problem and at some point we are going to have to look at a decrease in salaries and benefits or or or something I mean if we don't look at the salaries and benefits piece we can't ever get to the or without the revenue we can't ever get to a place where we're growing it seems like in my mind so um thank you for your work that you have done in this space for this year but this is going to continue to grow it's not going away next year right right we do have a revenue it's a revenue problem because it just is not growing at a pace to sustain what we really need okay um thank you council member Anderson I just wanted to really express my full appreciation for the amount of work that the entire city staff has done to get us to this is it $3.7 million in question here um so I just wanted to say my sincerus thank you for that the second thing that I just wanted to get on record it's not a question is that I don't see an area on this budget that isn't in support or related to Public Safety and so um I just want to make make sure that as we move forward with whatever that $3.7 million how we get to that balanced budget I just want everyone in the city to to know that from my perspective everything that we do here relates to the safety of the public in some form or fashion and so I just want to make sure that we're not making strange you know sweeping Cuts in certain departments because they don't have a badge um we need to be really really focused on how they support all of of our department so I just wanted to make sure that we got that on record council member der yes thank you um again I want to also express my appreciation to how much hard work has gone into getting to this to this point um I had the benefit of U meeting with the staff and talk about you know what what kind of things they were proposing and I really think they they did a really phenomen job to to reduce that Delta we're short something like 24 25 million and here we are down to less than 4 million so um I just want to throw out some ideas um they're probably not worth millions I agree with some of the previous comments that we're going to have to look at how to reduce our salaries um that's the biggest thing in the budget so if that means freezing positions I I understand it I hate it um I too believe everyone here is is performing a critical function we've been really careful on who we've added what positions we've added what jobs they do um I also appreciated I had a good conversation with their staff that um understanding if we do have to freeze positions that we still keep the position in our roster but it's not funded so that a department director has the ability later to bring that position back they don't don't have to rejuso I I lost this park superintendent and now have to rej justify bringing them back no they already Justified it and rejuso Zen that it remains in their inventory and if money situation changes There's an opportunity to refund that um also on the positions I if I don't know if we as a body are going to go in and uh based on the manager's recommendation and say oh yes this should be frozen or that to be frozen but um what I do want to know is whatever it ends up I want to give the man Maj flexibility so it's not frozen for life if there's a new need that develops and she thinks that that has a higher priority I'd rather look at the dollars not the positions it may be two lower paid positions are equal to one Higher paid position and she has to balance that so I want to make sure we give her that flexibility um some of the things that Vicky just mentioned that uh we could potentially reduce I support reducing our Council funds but again it's not a very big part of our budget but even cutting it in half if that will help but I would recommend keeping some um for us to work with and and help um dire situations memberships 100% I've seen some of the lists I mean if we can't join you know some of the things we've traditionally joined in the past for a year or two then so be it um I also note that I I read and I'm not sure where this stands but that HUD was cut 86 % 86% that's where we get our funds for housing um many of them get passed through to the state and then get pass through to us so we're going to have to take a look at programs that are being cut at the federal level if we're dependent on those programs I think we we might have to say you know temporarily we can't continue as we had and housing has been one of our top priorities and I would hate to cut housing but I'm using it as an example 86% cut at this point um and then finally I just wanted to mention something like a new Revenue Source I've talked to many people and it seems that um for one we're doing parking enforcement I mean we're doing a parking study and it's in the works and it's not finished but I think we should accelerate it and finish it because to hear people talk no one gets a parking ticket no one and I think if we increased our enforcement that's a whole untapped Revenue Source uh I mean we mean it we have parking meters out we charge but we don't seem to be enforcing and I think if we just did minimal amounts of enforcment that could potentially bring in some dollars maybe not Millions but at least I think it's we're in a world of every bit helps um I want to just mention something I would not cut ccil member D can I just real check can I check real quick here a minute over to see if other council members have questions uh council member re sure I happy to come back thank you thank you so much Madame vice mayor and I think Miss der's comments are uh very spoton part of it is is that Miss do her you know LED an agency with a substantial budget so she has experience in this area and so I I find the uh words very instructive I I too believe that the manager should have a high degree of discretion when looking at and returning to us with options in real time same thing for you miss man as I said I think as you update us as the budget develops over a period of time uh perhaps there will be um greater cuts that have to be made perhaps there will be less cuts that have to be made made I am reluctant to uh sort of paradigmatically say that I think everything can be done on the backs of um salary and benefits and the reason why I say that is because it's not too long ago that we went out and did all the studies that analyze our positions positions relative to other Municipal entities inside and outside the state of Nevada so that kind of parody study that we've done to say hey people are at parody Or Not um their jobs are priced right for the market you know people don't generally go into government service for the glory of it or to make a ton of money they they're choosing government service over the private sector in many ways uh but I suppose one of the things about that is that um the benefits may be a little bit different or better the retirement is available at the end so I I am reluctant to just say that that is where I think this takes us I I absolutely believe that we can find um you know League of cities for example that could be something that could go or reducing the cost to uh memberships to like Edon uh is another one of the Legacy organizations our Council discretionary funds um I think that is a Fine Place to Start too um and like Miss derer said everything is subject to some historical saying it was there we're not going to make you justify it later if things go in the other direction or if we hit a boom year perhaps those things will come back very quickly I don't know um but again I I I'll sort of close this second round of comments with saying I don't think you want um elected leaders who are supposed to chart policy positions and courses sort of micromanaging or looking over your exact line byline choices um I think again if they align with the principles and values that we hold as policy makers um I trust that you will make those choices and we will get there together um so as many ideas as I can generate uh aren't going to close the 3.4 million dollar Gap um but we're uh sort of all of us saying very similar things we can do that work together um but also give some discretion to the city manager's office and your office thank you council member eert yes thank you uh just to Circle back to OPB really quick you had mentioned that um you would like that account to be at 60% what's the dollar amount that is 60% do you know okay so so we're not even halfway there but you said we got 4 million around four and it's going to vary based on the interest rates so interest rates are higher we're going to earn more money on it out there okay and obviously compounding effect if we contribute more it's going to compound and we'll get there faster and those are some of the things that we've talked about in previous years but in this year it's it's really not even an option okay that we can okay um contribute um the other recommendations um I saw for 3 million reduction to Department Services and 1 million to eliminate contingency um what would be the reduction in Services each department uh came up with their own in the department supplies is that the one the 3 million okay so each department had to cut 5% out of their budget so every Department was asked to do that they have all come together and found ways to make that work with what they currently have and so we have that information and we could Implement that that's something but are there services like actual services for the probably will be some impact and we are gathering that information now and we'll have more discussions on that as we move forward but this is you know kind of our starting point to see what feedback we have okay and council member Ebert just to add to that um we kind of started at Baseline with any travel and training that was not required for the individual's uh certifications um um I am a huge believer in training I think that it is vital for professional and personal growth but that was one of the first things that we eliminated several months ago and along with that you know generally you have to travel to get some training so a lot of the reductions in services and supplies budget that was what was cut uh we had renegotiating of some software contracts we've eliminated some software contracts as we identified not heavy users of certain ones so at the moment uh we haven't identified anything specific that will be Community identified however um as we move forward with closing the 3.7 Gap plus I and flsa uh we will bring back to you in the next month or so how we are going to close that Gap and there is virtually no way that it will not have a community impact okay even if we freeze positions for example in maintenance and operations um that might impact the frequency with which people can do plow for snow uh the frequency with which they can sweep streets or fill potholes so when we do come back we're going to identify each position that I am recommending that we freeze and the impact of each position and any other programs that we might need to reduce or eliminate okay thank you um I am out of time but I will have more questions if we can have another round sure um Mr Mart or councilman Martinez thanks so much Madam ice mayor um I think my only question or I have two questions you talked about software costs for it but I'm curious about Hardware costs are those bore by each department depending on their specific needs new computers yes if they're buying something new but they do have a replacement program that they fund through it so depending on the year say I have a computer Finance um it's estimated it will last 5 years it may last longer if it lasts longer then we don't need the funds as soon but we do have a replacement plan that is part of their budget and anticipated that we will have to replace some of those things if you have a new position that you want in your department as part of that cost we anticipate you know uniforms um Vehicles computer costs any of that stuff we attribute to the cost of the that new position so that it's not an unknown this position is going to cost x amount and it's going to impact all the these departments when we bring those forward great and I think in preparation for this meeting as has been mentioned we've had multiple meetings with you throughout I think since starting in December and during one of those meetings I think you had brought up you correct me if I'm wrong but since fiscal year 20 we've added about 295 new employees across all funds yes Over The Last 5 Years yes okay I just wanted to make sure I put that on record just cuz even with the FTE per capita that we're at now um it would have been obviously a lot lower if it hadn't been for the last 5 years of additions that we've uh approved and looked at the other uh thing I wanted to ask was the per split between employer and staff and seeing what that was you did mention the amounts that were increased uh whether it was police and fire or other staff members and what the cost is the actual cost to the city as a opposed to the employee if you can kind of mention those things too that one's that one's a little harder to answer um just because of the way it's um implemented so when a Pur increase occurs say it's 6% or in this case 8% a little more than 8% but just for ease of numbers um salaries are reduced for the employee by that 4% and the city um pays the other for so it the burden is shared equally 50% on those increases dollar-wise I don't know that it's exactly comes out to the exact same dollars because once you decrease someone's salary then what we pay in Pur decreases too but those are all um negotiated and implemented in their cbas and all of the cbas currently exist that any any increase is split and shared between the employee and the employer thank you so much I don't know for the point where we're saying what's important or what's not important cuz cuz everything is important but I'll just throw a couple things out I think you've heard Public Safety number one everybody on the in you know on this Council it's it's a number one priority um for me I think that we have really done great strides in our code enforcement and um our park rangers and um some of our security programs that are super important and the reason why I say that is because when I look at the report that we get weekly of um from from Reno direct those are the places that I see that people need the most services in or the I don't want to say complaints but concerns are coming in from our residents so those are things that are very um important to me um I think we're all going to definitely have to make some sacrifices I know I saw on there a sale of properties of $735,000 and I think councilman Martinez and I were hoping some of that money would go to the restore um program it doesn't look like that's going to happen um and I think um I would be interested in understanding about our boards and commissions thinking about the other boards and commissions that we sit out that aren NRS or that we have involvement in a lot of them seem to be after hours or might be requiring overtime and we always have staff assistant so I'm not sure if that is a a place where we might be able to look at what's NRS required what is absolutely necessary and if that's a space we can become more efficient in and to Echo some of my other council members um love that we have discretionary funds but I think we're going to have to get down to I think manager Bryant says it's time to get we have to buy tires for the car we don't get to go out and uh you know get new things for the car fuzzy dice we're we're keeping the tires going so um those are my comments council member der I think you're up next yeah all right thank you um I I had said some things where I thought we could cut or increase revenues I want to reiterate the parking um I think we need to take a really hard look at it and even if it's 20,000 or 50,000 that it would bring in a year I think it's worth doing um in terms of things I would like to see um less cuts to Public Safety is always top of mind and it's very critical that people in our community feel that their City safe and that we're not skipping on that um but hand inand with that um I've noticed just the political dialogue that's uh sweeping the country and the level of I Ed this word earlier cynicism that's affecting us and I see it even more um I'll give you an example my last NAB meeting I had 65 attendees two months before that I had a similar amount the public is hungry to influence our government and help us set priorities they may not be there today but um I know that they do show up and and it may not be across the board some of the nabs are just getting restarted for example but um in in communicating with uh manager Bryant recently at a different question she mentioned something about potentially cutting back on the nabs and I just want to say I don't support that at this time uh for a very specific reason uh I mentioned our last meeting we had to go overtime there's so many projects coming in and the public want to weigh in and we were able to extend our time to three and a half hours it's usually uh two and a half hours or or three at the most um I think it's incredibly important to maintain that dialogue especially since often the projects that come to the NAB um have to go immediately to Planning Commission and um that is how the public finds out what is coming up this is their first notification and those comments are very important to uh both our staff in in revising or evaluating I mean um projects but also to the Planning Commission it's their feedback so I want to make sure that we maintain that direct Avenue with our residents we give them more time at the nabs while we give them three minutes to speak we also often give them a second or third uh shot uh to fully Express themselves I think if we cut into that we'll be doing ourselves all a disservice it will um I think it will not result it will appear that we're closing our government and I don't think that's our intent so while we're balancing things I at least wanted to put in a pitch for that if we have any empty vac vacancies there I think we do need to fill them we haven't added to the space in over 10 years we've had the same three Liaisons doing all of the work we now have an extra Ward uh in terms of uh meetings and I think it's appropriate at one time we had some vacancies and we had one uh liaison one handling all five and they did with no cut and services so I know it can be done I would just uh recommend a hard look that maintain our accessibility to the public it's the only way to that we have helped to do any kind of policy work so thank you council member aert this is your I think last round all right um is there anything that we could do like with room rates to increase that I know they're kind of down right now but is that another uh Avenue that we could pursue for an increase in Revenue as far as room tax um that's in a couple more slides from now it's very flat and we can have some conversations on that but there's not a space in there it's very flat as well and we'll talk about that in a couple more slides okay so a couple more things I just want to get through quickly um the IT department I on their um on that slide with them on the chart um I just want to stress how important it is that I think we keep them funded as well I know that um we rely on our um all of our Electronic Services to be secure and I know as a government um agency that there's people that will specifically Target us so um I just want to say that we need to make sure that there're priority as well just so that the city can function properly um I don't want us to be victims of hacking or anything like that and I know that's kind of always a Poss possibility um the other thing I wanted to say or ask was can we get a comparison of like the average City of Reno salary versus the surrounding regions and I think it's very helpful to us just like that um number of City of Reno employees per thousand residents I think that'll be really helpful to us just in the eyes of the public to show where we stand to kind of help with that perception that there's you know we're spending too much on salaries because I know um you know that's part of what people are um upset about when they don't you know follow what's going on closely um the other thing I had was um you said if we use the fund balance we'll be down to 12.5% what what does that need to be I like it i' like to maintain about 15% and that's because that's around 2 months of operating expenses okay that's the money we need to pay the bills in between rece receiving revenues cuz some of our revenues only come in quarterly like property tax so in between that time we pay bills anywhere from 10 to 15% Works once we get below 10% it starts to become a little challenging yeah because there may be times where we have to hold invoices the full 30 days we can't pay them as soon as that we receive them so it takes more management once we start to reduce some of that okay um uh another question real quick is oh I'm looking through my notes hold uh oh is there any way we could do any kind of fees on marijuana to we get marijuana Revenue currently it's 3% of gross okay um we are looking at some Avenues to maybe do some auditing of of those fees um so we are exploring a space to where maybe we do some um audits to ensure that it the proper collection but um that's challenging space so we but we are looking at that okay do you council member ree has his hand up I think and then we're going to move on thank you my comments will be brief I just wanted to um sort of uh share my thoughts on Miss st's comments about the boards and commissions I I um agree with her in principle that the boards and commissions and all of them quite frankly are very important it's one of the ways in which we communicate most directly with folks but I do think that it's for me the choice between like you know laying off four police police officers or holding all of these various boards and commissions if that's the choice I'm required to take I'm going to keep our Public Safety officers employed and so for my part I think you know maybe what I need to understand if that is really the direction that City manager's office wants to go is what the cost of continuing those boards and commissions is uh whether or not uh there are some that could still exist in their exact form that they are today and others that could be um paused I think it's a for me it's not eliminate or cut anything um I also think that perhaps the nabs could be done quarterly and then maybe greater communication within the nabs or in the neighborhoods through the newsletter could be part of the issue that could be done to to fill the Gap in that period of time but again for my part I sort of need the financial piece to understand because some of our boards and commissions I think for example access advisory gets funds allocated to it I even think that uh you city council and senior citizens get funds allocated specifically to them so in pausing any of that I would I would think that that would include the funds that are directed at those specific sub boards and again I I think if Miss D is holding nabs that go three and four hours that means that our staff are there and working overtime right uh for three and four hours in the evening and and this is what starts to concern me and part of it is I have not had a NAB up until recently um and so I don't have the same experience with it but I do think there's worth our opport Unity cost to put a pause in it understand the finances of it it's not going to close the 3.4 but we're going to start having to make very small adjustments to make up for the larger number city manager Bryant did you want to add something uh yeah I do thank you very much for the opportunity I do have um some data each NAB costs roughly $111,000 a year um the majority of that is Staff time um as you know we are very low on our Liaisons right now and so it really is going to be a decision around priorities as to where do we want to spend the little resources that we have and how are we going to prioritize so so thank you for your feedback in that regard okay Vicki let's move on um council members we are going to take a lunch break because we have some people with a hard stop so please I think lunch is back there go in get lunch make sure we have a quorum thank you Vicki um Madame vice mayor are we going to I had one more followup so it's very brief if I could keep it to one minute sure sorry I didn't see your hand yes yeah thank you um I just wanted to be clear when I spoke about the nabs I am very open to taking a very hard look at all our boards and commissions including ones I serve on whether it's urban forestry I'm not on arts and culture but any of them um I totally support that what I was saying and I want to be clear when the projects come in this is is the moment they quickly go to Planning Commission if we only have the meetings quarterly um there there's not enough time I mean many many projects will go by right to Planning Commission without any input from the NAB unless we're going to also reduce the Planning Commission and I don't know if we can do that statutorily so this is just uh Naomi deer's perspective and um I am it it also has to do um council member ree with a reflection of the times we're in and how important it has been for our public to be able to access their elected officials in some kind of regularized manner and so there's sometimes there's things that go beyond and I'll just say um sadly our our Liaisons are much lower on a pace scale um than let's say a a firefighter or police officer Allin and in terms of all of the things that go along with that so it's just that's why I recommended that um our manager look at money as well as just uh comparing positions so I it's not a definite and maybe they could be reduced to if not quarterly I I mean by monthly if that works but we have to just take a hard look at it in relation to the timing of the Planning Commission and when that information needs to get there all right thank you council member dur I see Madam Mary your hand is raised and I don't believe you've even had um one round yeah just really quickly um I share Naomi's sediments about navs um I think it's really important to get that feedback and it really does build community I want to say that now with technology with AI and things like that we have to be sensitive to the staff time there are um programs out there that will um transcribe um meetings and things like that so we should look at some of those ways that we can sort of maybe hit those pain points with alleviating some staff and look at technology in that way um you know set up council members with uh some technology tools that can do that because you can really streamline now with AI assistance and AI technology like I said they can transcribe everything and you know the council member could bring it back um you know and then sort of download it there's a lot of ways to really streamline that and to look at ways how we can utilize our staff time better with more efficiencies so um something to look into I'll I'll start researching but I know other cities are using it um particularly you know when you are seeing those long staff times go over and I and I believe they fall into overtime as well um maybe someone can correct me on that you're correct yeah that's it's it it's very tricky I get it for sure but those are really ways that we can look at being efficient and I'll just mention throughout covid we used uh fully electronic meetings and I'm totally fine with that where a staff person doesn't even need to be involved we just plus record on the on the zoom meetings so just some ideas thank you special Revenue funds Vicki okay I have one last thing I want to say here on this slide before we move forward just to remind you I know we're working on fiscal year 26 but we always look out working for the future and what this looks like and so um Lindsay works with the program and Spencer works with our projection program for salary and benefits and they built in the models modeling out what we know for some of the contracts that still have a um colas and things in the future and so we've modeled some of that out and based on that what we're looking at for fiscal year 27 given you know generally flat flat revenues we're going to be around in the same space for 27 with no additions for the general fund so we're looking at right around that 2425 billion Gap again for next year because any of the small growth that we'll have um in some of the areas isn't enough for the growth that we're having in salary and benefits and property tax isn't enough to start breaching and closing this Gap so that gap's still going to continue at about the same level as we move forward without changes to revenue sources or changes in other ways so I just want to make it clear that we are looking to the Future um and we will be advising on that as well as we start to really build this out so special Revenue funds I'm going to highlight these really high level at this point um again this is the overall look at all of our special Revenue funds that we have $73 million in total including the ending fund balance on this slide for purposes of this one because these are total amounts in the funds the largest ones in here are the street fund uh well the largest one is the street fund has dedicated Revenue sources from property tax and from gas tax um the other one so I'm going to outline that one separately and the other one is room tax and we're going to talk about that one a little more in detail as well as us Council have a portion of that that you allocate each year the other ones are all dedicated so special Revenue funds just really means that it's restricted by law or a policy for a particular purpose that means the revenue coming into these is restricted on what it can be used for and that's why these are tracked separately and so um these are easier for us to balance because obviously these are dedicated funding sources for these specific purposes and um we don't spend as much time talking about them but I will highlight that really the larger ones in the street fund um it again it is a special Revenue fund about 71% of the revenues coming into here are from property tax and that is dedicated to the street fund from property tax we have fuel tax in there of about 19% as well and those two make up the main sources of revenues coming into the street fund the biggest programs you're going to have in Street funds you'll see overall on the right hand side are in capital projects and those are the neighborhood street funds where they're uh working those neighborhood uh projects to renew those streets in those areas so those are capital projects that vary from year to year depending on um the schedule that Public Works has lined out and that's what we build in here you also have traffic and Engineering you have pavement maintenance and the snow removal is from this fund fund um we also have as we move forward you'll see some things uh on here called indirect cost and so indirect cost we charge these funds for the services that are governmental um oversight in general that these funds use so for example finance department we still manage the funds and track These funds and report on them budget wise and spend time on it so we allocate a portion of our cost to the street fund to cover that so we're charging the street fund for those Services the same thing happens with it um Human Resources city manager any of these things that kind of touch these areas we do an indirect cost study every year it's based on actual um amount so it's based on last year's um Acer the annual financial report the 24 that was just approved and then the cost study is based on that so really it runs like two years behind because we base it on actuals but it's for next year so it's kind of two years behind but you will see that in all of these funds because we're going to charge we're paid out of the general fund but then we charge These funds for that portion that's related to them we look at the street fund history this shows a history back to 2017 you'll see it looks kind of smooth as you go through the actuals um because it Smooths out mostly because of the capital outlay those capital projects are very large anywhere from10 to $20 million a year depending on the year and the streets that they're doing and renewing and so we budget for that project in the year that it comes before you for approval but that project may actually take several years to complete so you'll see that smoothing effect and then it looks like you know we're going to spend a lot in this year well most like we're estimating to spend it but most likely a lot of that will be carried forward and overlap year to year as we move forward now room tax I want to skip to the next slide on this one and this is a stopping point because these are only two that I was going to talk about here in special Revenue funds room tax um council member Ebert brought this up earlier talking about well is there capacity in here to do some things well room tax really has not increased since I've been with the city five well I know it hasn't increased in 5 years and it hasn't increased since I've been with the City eight years um the reasons for that is room taxes are based on a percentage of the room rate and so it's 1% of the room rate what's happened is we've lost some of the rooms in downtown some of the hotels have closed so we don't have as many rooms for um the charges and then the other piece of it the the rooms themselves have gone up in price so although we've lost rooms the prices have gone up so it Still Remains very flat so we just haven't had a lot of growth in that space what we do see in this space and this sh this slide shows that is that um we do see fluctuations based on month so depending on the month and based on tourism it has a very steady Trend year-over-year um except for the covid years you'll see the 20120 that's that big dip and then 2021 as things were coming back and then after that it just stays and even month to month it Trends very evenly you'll see some spikes in there and those spikes are during the years of the bowling when the bowling tournaments come in town you will see a spike that occurs in those years um but outside of that it just Trends very steady so what does that mean it really means that it's anywhere from 3 million to 3.2 million every single year about the same amount doesn't grow we continue to budget it right at that amount because that's where it it has stayed this is shared revenue between Council and Parks is the way it's set up it's 5050 so it's those revenues are split between um the council portion and the parks and right portion for parks and wreck it's for Parks maintenance and Parks items and then on the council portion this is the portion where you'll see um the Leer theater debt payment that Council has approved you'll also see um special events staff support where Council wanted to um support special events um special event donations that's on your list here uh Arts commission these are all spaces that are within the council's budget so if you look at this chart it's it's broken down by Council priority first of all where does it meet your priority and then second it's broken down by who's paying for it and really the only space in here that's the parks piece of it is that Park maintenance on that very first little blue box and then a portion is coming from Council as well we've built this out based on what council has approved in the past there's not really any new funds here so we've just kind of built it based on what you've wanted to see in the past and put on here the only things that are really required on here are the split you have to do the split so you only get half of it and then uh the other half goes to Parks maintenance and then the other thing um leer theater we have to make that debt payment and then risk premiums and indirect costs those for are for again for those costs of managing this fund and doing those things but outside of that if there are spaces in here that you want to talk about or look at doing differently that is a space um that is available to you so I'm going to stop here even though the Stop's on the next slide but I thought it flowed better Madame mer your hand is raised did you have a question or yeah just I just want to put something out there because we've never had a conversation on it but it should be something that actually I think that we might want to explore and we have a few properties that are very very challenging like the ballroom The Event Center the bowling Stadium um I think it's something that we should put on for discussion when it comes to looking at what those properties are valued at and if there is any appe Ty for maybe you know looking at a sale of those properties um and then also I don't remember what the what uh the clear path was for the Le theater um and getting someone you know to come into that space so not saying to sell the Lear theater because I think you know that was the goal is to keep um historically something in place that is really a gem but I am saying the other properties should be looked at um I think in a broader picture and that can be under you know Redevelopment agency maybe have the RAB board even dig into something like that but those properties have been very challenging for a long time and um you know when we're talking about budgets at this magnitude I think you know when we talk about things that are problematic this might be one where we should dive into it a little bit more so thanks so much council member dur uh yes thank you I want to um support what the mayor just said that um you know I thought we just had the presentation I believe it was on the ballroom uh with and maybe it is time to you know lean on those public private Partnerships um and see if uh the casinos or Consortium of casinos would like to um take that over I mean we just went over over the details I don't want to go over it here again but um I also had a question uh were you saying Vicki that the parks was fixed like that's for sure for Parks or were you saying we should look at that too I was unclear no this this as it's dedicated um it is half this money that comes in of that $3 million it's split half between parks and half Council and that's the way the resolution is set up and that's that's what has G forward um right I didn't know though I mean we adopted a resolution not this Council not the previous Council but a council before earlier council is that amendable to to amendments I would have to defer to legal on that one I mean that's a resolution right Jonathan I think it's actually part of an ordinance too because I think it was an ordinance and then it's been amended with resolutions it's been amended a few times okay but you're just saying we could take a fresh look at how that money is distributed I think for purposes of this and given the budget deficit that we're in we really need to look at things um other things on this list because really the parks maintenance that's on this list is supporting the general fund that money is going directly from this fund room tax to support the general fund Park maintenance but the other is not the other funds that are on here are going somewhere else and those are opportunities to do something with them I I do want to say that special events and the special events donations those also are going to the general fund to support the special events programs in there so those three boxes those first three boxes that you see there are all already going to the general fund so if you wanted to do something different that's going to increase the deficit other boxes potential okay and just a word about the Lear theater I understand there's a bill pending I think this came up at Council last time to potentially bring in 12 million for the Leer um that's one of the things I think that we're holding on but regardless if it's 12 million or 10 million or 2 million or 1 million or zero um whatever it is we'll just have to wait and see it will require some kind of match so we'll have to play that by ear and see if we can get grants to offset that but um just to let you know just to reiterate that's out there um so I wouldn't want to do anything too premature until we understand the the um scenarios that are being considered there but I am up for re taking a close look at this fund and reallocating how much did you say it is altogether the second half the other 50% it's approximately 3.2 or 1. a million dollars between all of the other things as I'm looking at it here about 1 million okay thank you other council members questions I just have one question um and it might be for the mayor actually madam mayor um I know that se tax is down right now um largely because we don't have Bowlers oh she's not here does anybody know when the bowlers are coming back next year next year okay that's good and I do correction it's it's about half a million because already about four five six about 900,000 of what you see here of the council's portion of that 1 and A5 million is already going to the general fund so you're looking about half a million and other things that are listed on here that potentially could be reallocated let me ask to finish my question do you mind if I ask a question please so with what you just said it goes to the council it goes to the general fund so 1.5 million of stuff goes to the general fund but if we said we don't want to do special event support or if we don't want to do special event donations that would come out of the general fund right so we would have to eliminate the program we don't get to just elim take the money yes okay thank you council member dur yeah well just to finish your thought too um do we so we need to cut something um but we could like re uh reappropriate money that we're putting for art grants for one year for example is that what you're saying like you have 253,000 to Arts commission yes you could I mean you could choose to do something else with that one or reduce it some you could make some other changes because Arts commission right now um that is one that you've continued to fund annually every year so we built it in here if you wanted to reduce that funding um um like council member uh ree was talking about maybe some of the commissions and some of the other things where you reduce some funding to them in the interim that potentially could be a space yeah I mean I don't love it but I understand the need for it and I think a one-year hold or even just a reduction just not the full amount but a reduction could could be you know could be very helpful so thank you Council M Martinez thanks so much just a quick question for the downtown Street lighting Sternberg replacement is that something that's been continuously and approved and spent and is that like the same amount every single year just seems I don't know how much Lights cost but it seems like a lot for uh replacement of street lights yes this amount has been spent every year since I've been here even a little bit more depending on how many they're doing I can't equate it to maybe um someone knows how many lights that is but it's part of a replacement program and so it's obviously not doing everything all at once it's just a continued upgrade and and replacement program if you want to speak to it k ksky director of Public Works um oftentimes we get um knockdowns so they mostly replacements for that we have had some turnover because of um some uh deterioration and that sort of thing but typically we use that amount those Stern bers are very expensive okay thank you before you go on I'm just I I appreciate the creativity of looking at things like this but we are still looking at maybe a half a million dollars when we're needing 24 million and like you said every every dollar our help so thank you for for bringing us everything Enterprise funds ready to move on I had my hand raised council member thank you um I know we kind of passed it but I didn't get to ask um is it possible to look into using volun groups like save to um do parking enforcement so that it's not a cost to us I know that there's some legal guidelines and things like that but can we pursue a way to find that enforcement and revenue without increasing our um costs for employee benefits and salaries Ashley attorney assistant city manager for the record uh we currently utilize save to issue handicap parking tickets um on private property as that is the only allowable space they're allowed to do enforcement per state law okay so we can do that we would just need to engage the state legislature to change the chapter under law enforcement in order to allow them to have the authority to do that okay um okay and I wanted to also talk about the nabs really quick um I I know that we're trying to cut funds but $11,000 a year for all the nabs is kind of like a drop in the bucket and um I know that they're really important for me um for my community because we are one of the areas that's having a significant amount of development um I just can't stress enough how important it is for me to have that monthly meeting um to engage with the community and inform them and also have them give feedback to developers I've seen changes between the NAB and Council meetings and I think that's wonderful makes it better for everyone um so I don't know if we pursue things like that maybe it can be an optional per council member you want to have it quarterly you want to have it monthly um kind of give it to us for our own discretion um if I could add some conversation around that and answer some of your points there um to clarify the cost of nabs annually is $68,000 total um that does not include the staff time that's associated with all of the salaries indirect cost those are hard costs uh so that is room rental cost these are direct overtime costs uh that does not include the near $20,000 that we were previously paying in overtime for planning staff to attend um so we've already made that cut in order to try to say but that would have pushed us over the $80,000 limit U again that may not seem like a significant amount we do appreciate public engagement we think that's incredibly important and we always encourage everyone to be able to give their thoughts to council through this body uh Planning Commission Meetings online public comment forums um where we look at to put in perspective I think we've used Park maintenance workers as an option um that is more than one Parks maintenance worker makes um including their stacked benefits sometimes so we are always open to whatever the council would like to do but wanted to clarify some of those points okay would it be possible for council members to get training so they can do it I know there's a lot of equipment and stuff but maybe that could be a way to help with costs too because we're not going to get overtime is that something that we could pursue at our own discretion if the attorneys are comfortable with you managing the open meeting law process um as well as the the bulk of the time is not only the the three or four or five hours that are associated with the actual meeting um there's generally on average each NAB takes a liaison approximately 31 to 32 hours per month to manage and plan plan each NAB so time six um and again that doesn't include all of the other staff time that goes into it so uh we're happy to teach you and if the attorneys are comfortable with you taking over the open meeting law that would reduce some of the staff time associated with it uh the bulk of it is the planning and management from recordkeeping anding that we've got okay so it's not the time spent at the NAB the overtime spent there it's some of it that's one portion of the larger but we're happy to take on additional help if Council think that's the appropriate path okay thank you okay Miss Vann I think we were in between the next set of slide options right we are at a stop here so the next one would be Enterprise funds yeah Enterprise funds we'll take that up okay so Enterprise funds we have two with the city we have the building fund and we have the sewer fund the sewer fund we're not going to talk about that one today uh the sewer fund John flansburg is going to to come forward on March 26 with an item specific to the Sewer fund and discuss the sewer rate study that was done that's updated every two years um and so that was recently done he's been working very hard in his staff as well on that and so there's some decision points around that and so we're going to wait for a further direction from that meeting to continue to build that budget but we built it you know substantially at this point based on what we know and after further Direction at that point point will follow on with following meetings um with that direction from the March 26th meeting we will be talking about building fund today so as we move into building fund just at a high level for building fund it is an Enterprise fund and by an Enterprise fund what it means when we talk about that it means we treat it kind of like a business the intent is that the cost of doing the service are recovered by the users of the service so people using it should be paying for it just like like if it was a business and that's really what qualifies it as an Enterprise Fund in the building fund 98% of the revenues from the coming into that fund are for charges for services that includes building permits plan check fees um Plumbing electrical inspections fire inspections all of those things that the building department does as far as um building fund type activities on the expenditure side about 60% is on the building permits and then again you'll see that indirect cost item on here as well because we're going to charge that fund for the expenditures of the general government that oversee a lot of the same functions that they use we have retiree Insurance um oped pension uh depreciation is on here because we do have to budget for that as an expense it's not a cash expense but it's an accounting expense um so this in general is the building fund um the building fund did undergo um a alignment of those positions and we've talked about that uh previously and so you'll see on the next slide you'll see that decrease in the Salan benefits from the current year estimated to next year's projected um and that's due to that realignment of those positions and ensuring that the people doing the work are actually doing building work versus sewer work versus the other kinds of work and that was done across the board Citywide to realign the positions correctly and so I have another stopping point here because this is just the end of the building fund um portion of this in case there are specific questions on this one I think we're good to proceed I don't see any questions okay perfect we will move on into internal service funds so these operate very similar we call them proprietary funds which we call the sewer and the building funds proprietary as well meaning someone try someone does a service and someone pays a fee for it and so these are a little separate in that these services are provided by a department and then the other departments in the city pay into it to receive the service so in this case it's Fleet so they service all of the vehicles that we have and the replacement of those Vehicles there's the risk fund so that includes city attorney's office Plus Insurance costs for um insuring buildings and other such items then we have self-funded medical we're self-funded for medical um and then workers so when you look at these funds all of and just think about all these departments that we have people in and using these Services they pay in to fund these uh we collect what we need in order to fund these and so this is just giving you a breakdown of each of those um I'm going to start with workers comp and risk first really because workers comp it's mostly claims we collect what we need to pay those claims for workers comp and the expenditures and then in the risk fund it's kind of split between claims and then the insurance premium so insurance premiums are the bigger piece of it and then claims are a small piece of it there so again and there's some salary and benefits that are dedicated to some of these funds because we do have a risk manager and a risk program um now and so that a few years ago we didn't actually have that it was kind of done by certain departments but as we've expanded um Council has those are areas where Council thought that we should have real more oversight as far as workers comp in Risk um self-funded medical is doing really well we have not have had an across the board rate increase in premiums to the employees um across the board since 2017 so and that at that time was 5% across the board we haven't it's managed really well even though costs we know have gone up in the medical space as far as claims it's still managed very well um as far as those funds we are finally at a point where we're looking at because of the costs of uh health care and the cost of claims we are at a point where we're looking at having to look at some increases there and so we are anticipating that we'll probably need an increase in January of 26 so it would be implemented half year in the the budget bill that we're actually looking at here but we are working with HR on that we're working with our broker in the insurance to really see those projections and with the health benefits committee to see what that looks like as it rolls out but it wouldn't be until after the um after it goes out for that next review on the next year so the open enrollment period in the fall and so it would be effective January if that's if that goes into effect and we're looking at based on what we have for projections about 10% um so overall I think that's a really good program um haven't seen an increase in 9 years I mean that's pretty phenomenal given the costs of medical that have gone up all these years um going back to the fleet fund I I held this one for last because this one is included in some of the um allocation reductions that were mentioned earlier so you'll notice on here salary and benefits are about 42% of the costs in the fleet fund that's to maintain the vehicles do the regular maintenance repairs and other things fuel accounts for over a quarter of their budget um and then parts and repairs parts um that they use and then some some of the things they might have to Outsource for repairs too depending on what it is um they do have some occasional need to do that the capital space is kind of highlighted there because normally they would have a capital replacement program for replacing vehicles and this is where I mentioned previously there's 400,000 budgeted just for an accident occurs a you know engine blows up whatever um that would be the only replacement that that's budgeted here so that fund has been reduced the other funds on this Slide the other three are funded at the same levels um as we've previously funded no increases in funding so I'm going to stop there and this is the end of my part of the presentation and then it will transition into the fee schedule um another very large document so I'm trying to break it up into manageable pieces as we do these workshops so are there questions here questions council member Eber I do have a question I I don't can you explain to me why um our self-funded plans have been doing fine since 2017 there's no increases there so how how do we justify the increase in Premium cost then the cost of medical insurance has continually gone up every year um but since we're self it it's just going to depend on the claims that come in we pay the claims as they come in and so you know you may have some one individual that doesn't use anything one year but then you may have someone else who has a lot of medical issues and uses more so it does fluctuate based on usage okay and so it's remained very healthy over the years the fact that we haven't had to increase it and it's maintain is is phenomenal in my opinion um because I mean that's nine years of no increases on health insurance I don't know another organization that has done that um okay yeah I just didn't understand how how that could happen but we also need to increase premiums at the same time but you know we haven't you know had an increase but now we're going to increase right because the costs have gone up for medical okay all right um I don't think I have anything else right now other council members I don't see any thank you so much for your presentation I'm going to introduce Lindsay she's going to be up next for the Fe schedule good afternoon council members Lindsay Hatfield budget manager for the record um I'm going to discuss some of the changes to the fee schedule this year what we're proposing for for updates here so as part of the budget process every year we do this in conjunction with budget adoption so we go through the fee schedule with the Departments we have them look at the fee schedule line by line evaluate whether these fees match with the effort that's going out for them are they covering the costs of you know materials and staff time if that is what council's determined for those particular fees there are some departments that um their cost recovery model is not 100% so for parks for example we're not necessarily looking for them to recover dollar for dooll what we spend on Parks um so that the those services and and Facilities can still be available for the public so there are subsidized a bit um but all of that is analyzed in detail most fees on the schedule are increased by CPI every year we have a little table over on the side there that kind of shows you the history of that CPI increase that we've done um not all fees are adjusted by that amount because some are are dictated by NRS um or maybe they're they're established as a pass through fees so for example in um police for background fees we're kind of passing through that FBI fee so we're not really setting that we're just charging what we're having to pay um and so we go through that whole process with the Departments and then um Finance reviews that and compiles it um into a summary for Council we have attached to your agenda item today there is the full proposed fee schedule is included there in that proposed schedule we have two columns added in there we have a dollar difference and then a percent difference so you can see from the current year adopted fee to what is being proposed what is that change um any fees that were adjusted let go to this side um any fees that were adjusted higher than CPI or that are new we have highlighted very clearly bright yellow in there so that it really calls your attention to it um and you can see see what's being updated and what what the Departments are proposing there we also asked them at that time to try to consolidate we have a really big fee schedule it can be cumbersome sometimes for the public and staff to to navigate so we ask every year that the Departments look at that is there anything that can be Consolidated um and and simplified that's really the goal is to try to simplify it make it easy for the public to understand um I don't think I mentioned but uh CPI for this year is 2 and a half% so that is the the amount that we added to to the bulk of the fees there's a slight change this year in methodology for rounding so wanted to call that out for the council so you understand um what you may be seeing in that percent difference column so all of the the Departments they may have varying goals there for for how they want that fee to end up maybe they want to round it to the nearest Dollar maybe it's the nearest quarter um Parks is typically done the nearest quarter because they do a lot of cash handling so it makes sense um some departments are to the penny depending on on what the actual fee is so in the past when we've applied that CPI increase Poli departments have always rounded down um so if they had a fee that was $3.7 they would round it down to 350 if their if their goal was to to hit the 50 Cent Mark for all of their fees um this year departments did look at that and they decided to just most of them um to round to the nearest so whether that was up or down whatever was the nearest so if they calculated that fee and it came out to to $3.97 they may have rounded up to $4 so when you're looking through that proposed document that we have attached if you see percent increases that are not highlighted those are all CPI that were just rounded up to the nearest dollar or quarter or whatever the case may be there are some new fees being proposed and some greater than CPI increases to adjust those um fees to the service levels being provided um I'm going to call those out for you other than a few departments specifically so we do have um Public Works Parks and Recreation and development services those three departments had some significant changes either to their calculations the way something is calculated um or some big structural changes so we thought it best that they come up and and discuss those um as the subject matter experts so I won't I won't talk about those three departments their new fees or greater than CPI increases but we'll have them come up and speak to those directly some of the notable changes this year um for the building fire schedule they have 10 fees on that schedule that it looks like they're they're increasing above CPI that is to align with the building schedule so they just want to get those fees to match over there so we don't kind of have two similar fees in different spaces where we're charging different amounts that can be very confusing um so that's just to align align those fees with um with what's on the building schedule in the enforcement schedule um our electric vehicle charging so historically we've only had the level two chargers for electric vehicles and so we were charging a per hour we've now installed some level three and it is a much bigger pull when when you're using these fast charging stations rather than than the the slower so they kind they want to move that fee from a per hour charge to a per kilowatt hour charge so it doesn't matter what level you're using you're paying for the energy consumption in the same way that we're paying for it so that's just kind of an alignment between what we're having to pay so that we we aren't taking on a bigger burden of that cost just for having these charging stations available maintenance and operations went through a complete analysis of their signal maintenance program and they are requesting to align those fees better with the staff and material costs of maintaining those signals um they did have one that went down and then two that went up um just to try to make sure that we're recovering the cost for for providing that service municipal court has two fees that are increasing higher than CPI um the cealing of record fee when this was um initially implemented and and the costs that we're charging for this each record they people had to pay individually to have each record sealed now they can um have multiple records sealed at the same time and so a lot more work for staff they kind of want to do an adjustment there to better reflect the work that's going into that process um and then similar for the supervision fee um that the scope that they're providing for that has really increased a lot over the over the years and they also um have not increased any of their fees in around 15 years so these are the only two that they're proposing otherwise the those are just staying the same the final change on here that was kind of above CPI um is in utility services for their pre-treatment Wastewater discharge permits it's only for the hazard class 3 through FES um and they looked at the cost um what sparks is charging for that and they believe that what they've proposed here is better in line with with what our regional Regional partners are doing there so some of the new fees that that are proposed in this schedule um I know Council had a lot of discussion at the last meeting over the inspection late fee um for fire so that will be in the next draft that you get um we have we have noted that feedback and then the the next three for fire these are all special event related so they have an overtime rate um for for those inspections and then a permit fee and then a permit application fee these these would be new for police they are proposing um a $40 charge for the no loyer ing sign that businesses can request this is just to recover the cost of providing that sign and then for special events there is not a cost included with this it is noted in the schedule as actual cost so they are proposing to add it into the fee schedule so that when City staff does the furniture setup and strike um for events that happen in the plaza that we could actually charge for that staff time afterwards and then that's all I have and I'll if you have any questions we can talk about that and then I'll have the other departments come up and give their detail on their slides council member ree thank you madam vice mayor uh thank you for the presentation it was excellent uh let me ask because it is not something I had previously looked at or talked about in the briefings related to the sealing of Records fee tell me what you're trying to do there or or what is the proposal um The Proposal is to increase that fee I believe it's currently double check in my so it's currently $100 and they're proposing to change that to 150 um there when people request these cealing of Records now it's not just a single record initially that $100 charge would be per record now they can request you know five and it's all in that one fee um so they're having to do a lot more work to to process those in so previously they would have had to pay five individual $100 fees for different ceilings now you're just saying you want them to pay for all five with $150 that is my understanding yes they they now can do multiple um and that is already in place so they're still paying the $100 whether they ask for one or five I see so um I I am just a little hesitant because I think we are at this point in our trajectory uh largely around helping people to overcome their historical P by sealing records when people are sealing records they're usually doing it for a good reason meaning maybe they had something in their past that they're not very proud of it happened they've now rebuilt their life and they're trying to go out and get a job uh and to seal the records is a step in that direction which then helps them to go do the things that you know we hope they might do so I'm just a little worried about that um so I have to think about it a little bit more thank you for flagging it though absolutely council member Ebert yeah thank you um just to make sure I'm understanding correctly ly we do not currently charge for the signs for the new loitering signs um that is my understanding I can take that while Chief Nance comes to the podium uh we don't currently have a no loitering sign when Council passed the law a few weeks ago that authorized it now there is a whole process that Chief Nance can go into that explains why we would need to charge for the signning great thanks yeah we need to add this into the chief n for the record we need to add this into the fee schedule so we can continue to charge for the signs we are just now at the place where we're getting ready to start releasing those signs okay and so that gives us the ability to add this into the fee schedule wasn't prior great yeah I was I couldn't remember if we were doing them for free but we should absolutely charge for the signs themselves and do does City of Reno staff uh install the signs no the business owner is responsible for charging the signs and the $40 is the cost cost of making the signs okay so if they wanted like five signs for their property they're going to pay $40 per sign correct yes okay and then they just have to put it up on their own yes okay do we have any requirements for putting them up correctly like would there be a fine or something if if somebody put one up where they weren't supposed to or didn't pay for the fee and got one from somebody else is there would there be any kind of enforcement at all on that or fee if somebody's caught doing that the placement of the signs would be covered under code we can help um advise people where to place signs if they have any questions or concerns about it if they have a sign but they're not signed up for the program because they acquired one from some random place we wouldn't be able to do enforcement there okay so they would just have the sign and that's it yes okay thank you thanks I think we're moving on no more questions okay um in that case uh public works good afternoon uh C Wilson assistant director public works for the record I'm here to talk to you about the national pollutants discharge elimination systems fee so the purpose of this fee is to cover site inspections for costs for the federally mandated Municipal separated storm sewer systems permit that's mouthful it's more commonly known as the ms4 permit it's important to note that this fee is not new uh this fee currently exists in the development services department we're moving the fee from the development services department to public works because it's Public Works staff that does the inspection required inspection work so this is the current fee schedule as it exists today on the right hand side there you can see those are base fees and they vary based on Project duration um and other site conditions and then this fee is then uh M calculated by the Disturbed Acres we have found that this variable schedule of the base fees is challenging for staff to calculate as well as very difficult for the permittee to understand in addition when fees are issued the timelines for the the varying timelines makes it difficult to track expiring permits during construction so what are we looking to change so we're looking to to simplify and make it one fee $200 per uh per acre per year um and then this calculation is easier to understand and it's more efficient for the public works uh to administer and what most importantly it's easier for us to track expiring permits uh during construction and lastly this will become more in alignment with the neighboring agencies the fee more in alignment I answer any questions you might have questions council member Ebert yeah um so with the enforcement of this will there be people on City of Reno staff proactively checking these sites or will it be you know contingent on somebody reporting them to Reno direct no uh thank you for the question so it it is it is City of Reno staff uh we're required to do at at minimum a monthly inspection um but we will respond if if more often if if needed out to out to the site okay so will be every 100 yeah okay okay thank you any other questions I don't see any other questions U Madam clerk can we just take a quick vote I did have one more thing real quick okay go ahead is there any like late fees assessed on these two like if we issue a citation and they don't pay it within a certain time frame there are fines that are associated with the ms4 permit but uh we work with our our contract Community you know and certainly when it comes to the expiration of permit we have timelines that we say the permits going expire please come in and renew renew okay okay so no no fees for not complying outside of just those the ones for the ms4 permit yes okay thank you okay Madam clerk can we just take a quick vote if I need to step out to have somebody run the meeting yes if we could just take uh if I can get a motion to appoint an interim um presiding officer when vice mayor Taylor steps out as mayor shibi is not online can I motion to appoint council member ree all those in favor I I all those opposed motion carries thank you that's right I'm optimistic all right um mayor and Council Nathan Olia Parks and Recreation director for the record U just want to give you a quick explanation of some of our fee changes and ads um in general our our changes have been to help consolidate many many lines in uh our part of the fee schedule um generally that's around some of our reservable spaces um in the past many of our reservable spaces were lined out individually even though they were very similar to other reservable spaces so so just going through um from the top of the slide uh our field prep and touchup there's an increase there um important to note that this is um primarily for our tournament reservations this isn't affecting Youth Sports uh or anything we have with rysa uh this is for um tournaments that use our Fields charge quite a bit of money for teams to participate and so we're just bumping those up uh $5 and then we have uh created a scale for the touchup side where if we need to come in and do multiple touch-ups and that goes into overtime uh we're better accounting for some of those costs um and then the other part is our staffing uh costs for if if it's required for them to pay for staff during an off hours if for instance if they're in a facility uh late at night or on the weekend when it's not open uh they would pay a staffing cost if the facility is open they would not pay that cost so that's going up $5 to just sort of keep up with with those things and generally that's over time if it's occurring um we're we're scheduling a small increase for the reconnect membership um a dollar to $2 per membership um that would be effective January 1st to kind of stay in line with what people would expect to see in the uh Fitness industry um so that's that'll be coming in January even though it will be uh possibility for the July uh approval uh but we wanted to get that in ahead of time and there you see the range increases for you know a good example at the bottom there the gym rentals on that third bullet most of our gyms are very similar in size um yet we had different prices or a separate uh listing uh uh line on the the fee schedule so we just Consolidated that and created a range um another part of these changes is to create uh Peak and off peak usage so uh during the weeks are not our busy times but if um we can we can book that we want to and we want to make it more attractive to book during those times a we're already open and uh B there's more availability and doesn't conflict with our evening and weekend rentals um then there's some adjustments you can see on the package rate consistency our wedding package was different from McKinley to um uh California building so we tried to line those up as well some new fees we've added um we didn't have a entire facility fee for Moana Springs so we've had some people who want to rent the whole building rather than just a pool so rather than um create a what's a consolidation of allart items um and making their fees seem really tough to follow we just created a general um Moana Springs Aquatics and fitness center feed so it's a large range um but that gives us flexibility to rent to Partners and things like that with school district and those types of spaces um our outdoor space again consolidating um for measurements so we're using less than an acre as a as a measurement rather than saying this particular space costs this much if it's less than an acre it costs this much if it's one to two acres it costs this much if it's two to five acres it'll cost this much so there's a range for each of those items but it just keeps it simple and flexible so instead of someone asking what does it cost at cyan Park to do this space they can oh if I need an acre at cyan Park I know it costs the same as this other park across town uh one of the things we also added was to stay Flex and try to meet uh member kind of desires we're seeing folks uh frustrated by the quarterly membership pass that we implemented for the rec connect and uh at Moana Springs if you remember from last year um so we're creating a a monthly membership pass that has no commitment um it's a little bit higher rate just to help try to encourage people to go towards that annual commitment but um we're adding that and getting rid of the quarterly rate which caused frustration administratively and with the customer when they would time out unexpectedly so we move that to a month pass the next one down is a commemorative um purchase option and expansion uh we've had a memorial tree um process for quite some time we've had some great ideas from the public who want to memorialize their loved ones in other ways including uh skate park Improvement um that was what was important and that's how their their child used the park so they wanted to add something to the skate park to memorialize him and to add to the community so uh we created a a large range that would generally be Cost Plus a little bit of the effort that goes into it um but there's a space in there so and then the last piece is again try kind trying to be um aware of when we have a large inventory of firewood and we're selling it um if we want to get rid of it quickly it allow us to have a special rate so yeah this is a big deal this is a big deal so we've created this firewood uh arrange for firewood rather than just having a hard $80 if we have a a high inventory if it gets real windy and a lot of trees goes down we chop that up and make it available to the public to purchase for firewoods so that any questions let's check in uh colleagues does anyone have questions for Mr OT Miss Eber so um in regard to the uh thank you for the presentation by the way um in regards to the um quarterly membership versus monthly was there a cost increase for that as well or is it just the kind of cadence of you know there's not a there's not a specific cost increase um it's a new it's a new fee for the monthly okay um it's pretty reflective of what the quarterly fee is a few dollars more per month but um it's it's really close to what uh the quarterly or the monthly would extrapolate into the quarterly okay okay thank you oh I did have one other question do we have any like um statistics or any information on like how how much reimbursement we get for any of our programs if people get assistance through um other kind of medical um plans at their end do we have any information on that we do I can give you some some estimates and I can also put together some information for counseling to F out afterwards but okay um the sliding scale which we talked about a lot last year um has been taken advantage of and increased our enrollment and membership and our Revenue has increased because of it um we've we've threw an offset of Revenue I want to make sure this is not we're not giving away money we're just reducing the cost to those who need help uh $269,000 has been access or or saved from those folks who are in the poverty areas and and need a hand up to access our facilities while on the other end of the specrum folks who are having no problem paying the $60 our membership's higher than it's ever been on the senior side which I know is very important um we have 1100 people now taking advantage of our um healthc care Access program great which was prior to us really making this a focus we had 300 seniors using using a membership so and we're making more money because of the implementation of this program so those programs for seniors that are helping them pay for this do we get actual Revenue coming in for that so their their healthc care plan through Medicare reimburses us anywhere from $2 to $4 per visit and usually that's capped somewhere between 8 to 12 visits okay um prior to that we were getting nothing and people were feeling they couldn't access it so it's really been a win-win great all right thank you any other Council colleagues for my part Mr rot I'll just tell you that I've had four people in the last two weeks tell me what a fantastic job you're doing in Parks and Recreation so different people from different walks of life had no reason to call me other than to say they really appreciate the work that you're doing uh the leadership they're thrilled of course with the Moana Springs aquatic center that's easy um but a couple of them were you know talking about dog parks and trying to figure out how to uh integrate various uses in various areas so whatever you're doing the Special Sauce keep doing it thanks a lot appreciate you I have one more thing I did have one more thing oh one more thing come Mr don't go too far yeah Chris we'll get you up here next um I wanted to know like I know we have relief Reno is there something we could set up to um just help our parks and wreck like I find that people businesses can donate to that can help us do some extra things maybe help us with um field flat field maintenance like that would it be possible to um have something like that and kind of push that out there yes uh we're we're working towards that uh Council last year funded uh fund development manager which Landon Miller has filled that role and we've got some real ambitious projects we're going to put forward you know in the meantime while the money trees are growing yeah um that we can engage the community engage um Legacy giving things like that uh great Partners at the Community Foundation so um I'm hoping you'll get some information in the next few months on that we're going to be presenting to wck and park commission about what he's working on one of those ideas is is to to develop an endowment for our playground replacement which we know is a challenge and we're never going to get ahead of it unless we try something different so um that's just one one thing we're looking at great all right thank you welcome thank you so much Mr rot Mr pingre your turn in the barrel good afternoon everyone Chris pingry director of development services um we are here today to talk about a few changes that uh we are proposing within the development services department um two different buckets here we've got the building Enterprise fund and permitting fees and then we'll discuss some of our planning engineering fees to kick this off over the last handful of years since I've been here our fee schedule that we Post online for our prospective Builders and developers has been it's an 11-page document very convoluted very tough for our folks to even understand what those fees are associated to a project as their bringing them in the door so over the last few months our staff has gone back and reevaluated the fee schedule we had currently and we have just Consolidated um the 11-page document into about a four-page document so the first we're going to talk about here is these are more related to um all new and remodel construction um throughout the throughout the City of Reno and what we've done we took this one chart was a three and 1 half page document and we've Consolidated those value valuations that you'll see in the left column of that chart instead of0 to $100 100 to0 we have combined those numbers so from Z to 2000 and so on throughout the chart basically we we went back and did the math on all of those to make sure that we weren't misinterpreting um what those dollar values mean somewhere in between so really this is just a simplification of of what we had currently to make it easier for our internal staff as well as our constituents that are coming in the door looking for estimates on projects moving forward uh the this slide is representing more of our supplemental fees and so these These are more like your water heaters your your individual permits um things that aren't General aren't valuation based um not a lot of major changes it's just really a restructure of the document um to simplify and recategorize um the existing fees that we have that are currently approved now um and with this as many of our the other colleagues have spoke about today is just fees that were um historically left on that document that really had no business being in the building permit fees they went to the appropriate departments and appropriate fee schedules that they are associated with uh planning fees planning engineering fees um highlighting again um after going through the building Enterprise fund uh uh position verifications we we had identified some things that were General funded versus building Enterprise fund and so now now that that process has been um cleaned up we went ahead and tackled some of the uh items we have on our current planning fee schedule um the first bullet item here is the annexation fee um historically we charged $118 for an annexation um application and processed it really mirrors the conditional use permit process which we charge at $3,300 for everything from the staff report to the nabs to the planning commissions to the entire process um $118 didn't even really process the application so we um we've just historically that's just where it lived and we have never brought that forward so we're bringing that forward this year to try and just make it um make it fair and make it uh comparable to the conditional use permit um another a new item we've added this year is um separate fees for noticing um historically noticing has been um included in an application um for a land use um application in process and we have uh basically come down to a three- tiered system of the noticing uh fee that we want to charge it's 250 500 and 750 depending on the NRS required noticing requirements that we have to do for those specific projects this gives us the ability to go back out and you know if if to be recoup some of that money that goes out for noticing that the City of Reno and our planning staff is responsible for doing um again a clean up of fees not related to planning and engineering ing there was a handful of these nothing significant um just fees just fee fees moved to the appropriate Department um the one we'll talk most about here is the increased land use appeal fees I've been in front of this body a handful of times to discuss and bring up um appeal fees that we have for land use cases um we are proposing taking this currently it is $13 fee for a land use appeal um we are proposing a $500 uh fee for land use appeal and we uh after going through the data we didn't just come up with the $500 of just a throwing something at the wall but what we've done is we've gone back and we've compared every jurisdiction within the region um and what they currently charge for appeal fees and I'll just kind of run through some of the list of of of City of Fernley $750 lion County 750 Douglas County 956 a random number um but with our neighboring jurisdictions um we are still uh we are still the we are still cheaper and we it's still a more affordable rate considering the amount of time that goes into an appeal um $500 will probably never recoup the actual dollar amount that we have out there in in relation to staff time that it takes to to present an appeal um but we do feel that $500 is a fair and Equitable number especially comparing that to the other jurisdictions um you know we've got you know down south a lot of folks they charge a higher rate on the front end and that kind of offsets some of those appeals um we don't feel that that's an adequate path forward either here of having to come back and Bill people after uh an appeal if an appellant came in and dropped off an application or an appeal to the clerk's office um trying to collect that money we're not great bill collectors so we'd like to kind of just keep that on the front end and not on the back end um that's pretty much it for U for our presentation so I'm sure we'll have a couple questions but I'm here to answer thank you oh sorry you're back council member Anderson um in for a future review do you think that there's a way that we could compile an average or even a cost for staff time for carrying out an appeal like how much it costs to gather everybody here during the evening for land use appeals and just be able to to show because i' I've heard some Rumblings in the community about this potential increase and I think it would be very very helpful for us to show how much an appeal actually costs the city in staff time compared to what we're charging I think that that would be a really good Delta to to share with the community if it's possible I can't be surgal I've got some numbers for you here today of just you know this is just our internal staff like we haven't gone back down to take everybody in the room I mean we haven't gotten that far into the deep dive of of what it actually costs but the average appeal across the board over the last 7 to 10 is $2,500 to $5,000 just in planning engineering staff and the noticing requirements that goes in so we've had some at 2500 we've had some that were upwards of 20,000 depending on the substantial project and the the length of those meetings and and there's a lot of variables that goes that go into it um but on average 2500 to 5,000 is basically what it's costing the planning department alone and we'll come back with the rest with more information as as far as the other groups that are associated with a with an appeal um I we've got attorneys we've got everybody in the room that that that that have to be be there to to participate so and obviously it is an NRS requirement to have all of those folks there so we will come back with um with a little bit deeper dive in the future that would be great and then also do we know what percentage of our land use decisions get appealed so that's a we do not have a a percentage that I could quote um you know historically we've got um going back a few years um I think it was 2021 we had 14 appeals last year we only had four land use appeals this year we're on a pretty record BCE to I think we're going to hit seven or eight by next meeting um so depending on um it really depends on the project and as we get into tighter you know infill is always the big one um we want to push for infill and every infill project has um has two sides of the story of of who wants it and who doesn't and so the more infill in the tougher the Land Development Parcels are I think the more appeals that we're going to have council member Ebert yeah I just want to give a comment on that particular thing about the um filing of appeals I know that in uh my a I've had some constituents reach out to me about filing appeals and I've you know directed them to staff um to you know get in instruction on how to do that and then I've had people call me back and tell me they can't afford the fee and these are you know residential neighborhoods where um a zoning has been changed and now um an industrial commercial use is going in literally in somebody's backyard they're allowed to operate 247 um so I don't think we should raise the fee on that particular thing I know there's a lot of other things that we can increase but I think that we are in public service and I think that we should make things like that attainable to everyone that lives in the community and I understand that there's a large cost associated with it but you know as as the council member who who uh every school in her Ward is a title one school I'm extremely sensitive to uh the financial aspect of um these different fees and I don't want it to become um you know you can only appeal if you're wealthy you can only appeal if you have attorneys it should be anybody can file an appeal and I think that um there'll really be a perception about um you know how like how we treat different classes of people and where development goes in so I really do not support increasing that I want to keep it as um affordable as possible to the community thank you council member ree thank you very much Madam vice mayor Mr pingry thank you so much a couple of things one is sort of a comment to city managers office and then through her to you is that part of the reason why we haven't had a ton of questions on each of the individual Department items that are related to fee increases or schedule changes is because over the last three years your teams have really worked to clean up those things I know that last year Matt was really largely responsible for a really huge Deep dive into our some of our fees so it feels like we've fixed a lot of what we had and now we're down to really small knits and things here and there your presentation kind of reminded me of that because you know I I looked at lots of them as just really sort of as you said changing the math making sure it short up um for you Mr pingry I want to ask first um have we done the Outreach that always goes with making fee increases right what I don't like to see happen as we go out and do something and four months later someone comes and says you never told us and you should have had us in the room and and that sort of things so tell me where we are with that piece of this puzzle really this is our proposed Fe es right and to where we get direction from this body to move that forward everything with the exception of the appeal fee it's pretty minimal in in nature um all of our Consultants that we've we've we've even briefly had the conversation with as far as the annexation cost we haven't done an annexation in years and I don't see us doing another annexation in years but I could be surprised that could come forward but basically coming back after this body and getting the feedback that we receive we would go back out I mean and and present this to our ERS Association group and those folks on the fee schedule just to make sure that we didn't miss anything before it is implemented yeah that that's just what my ask is is that whatever we do that we're being very open and transparent about it so that everybody is aware of what's Happening um you know the most important thing we do each year as a body is our budget and yet we've had very few public you know folks you know commentators normally we'll have a room full of people who have all measure of interest and in the things but when it comes to budget people sort of check out so it really then relies upon us to make sure that we're representing our community the best of our ability uh as to all the other fees that you propos everything seems fine to me so I don't have any really concerns there thank you so much councilwoman dur thank you um I wanted to comment on two things one is this appeal fee proposal last year we had had a very um in-depth conversation and you presented some similar information Mr pingry about the cost to staff um at that time we agreed to double the fee from $50 to $100 it's 100% increase and at that time we discussed leaving it like it was for about 5 years uh the reason was is to your point we've had between four and 14 appeals per year and it seems to be buying a lot of trouble uh with our public for um not a great bang for the buck I mean if we have five Appeals um we're not bringing in a tremendous amount of money what i is important to me is that we retain access to our government appeals come in when somebody is building something proposing to build something near somebody else they're just living their life they're not proposing to build something someone else is and they're reacting to that and they're trying to make sure that their um neighborhood is kept whole and I'll give you a recent example right now we have pending before us uh uh something that doesn't even go to plan commission which is a Jiffy Mart over by the uh railes on Mayberry and we've received 200 letters now it doesn't it's not going to get a public hearing unless they appeal I mean and and the staff may come up with a permit that is perfectly acceptable or they may not um my point is is that they feel strongly it's just an an example um no appeal has been filed and I don't I'm not expecting one but I'm giving it to you as an example that when something threatens a a perception that something's threatening a community in this case uh what I've heard mostly is children pedestrian children accidents with traffic um the the public needs an opportunity to speak out um and so I feel strongly that to provide access um it's just like if we started charging for voting or we started charging high costs to defend yourself in court um I don't know that those are equal but my main point is just that I think we need to retain access at low price to be able to appeal to your government on something that you feel is unjust um and so I'll leave it there for now but I I would not support increasing it after we just doubled it um last year but I am going to recommend a new fee that you might want to consider um I recommended this over five years ago and I I don't know maybe it's been implemented but I'm not aware so you give out something called RightWay permits and that's when people want to store stuff on the city's RightWay and um if you got a bigger Construction Company they're going to know they need to get a rightaway permit and they're going to be willing to pay whatever it costs and I don't know what it costs today you might be able to help me but what I have found is a lot of people put stuff in the right way it might be mulch gravel dirt um any number of things in a temporary basis and the only way it comes to our attention is through an enforcement case somebody called on someone else put Mulch and this happens all the time my neighborhood I've never called on anyone but the point of it is is if we had a permit where you could have temporary use of the RightWay let's say for $25 for a twoe period first of all we'd take the people out of an enforcement case and we would generate more revenue for the city because people are doing this all the time so I'd love you to just evaluate it and see if if that's something that um might be useful to the city get some additional Revenue put people in the good graces instead of violation I see Miss K's come up so maybe it's under your purview instead yes this krie kosy director of Public Works we do have an encroachment permit for the rideway um that does follow under um public works' fee schedule and that uh that does cover those items that you were just describing um as you you have you and I have both been aware that sometimes people slip in and they utilize a rideway without getting a permit um so we we are trying we are very diligent to as our inspectors are out and about they try to keep a close eye on that but we do have a fee for that yes right but do you know what that is off hand Miss kusy um yes I do the encroachment fee is 100 and no excuse me $62 right so what I'm suggesting off in that's for a longer period of time and what I'm suggesting is and I I suggested this a long time ago was to have have a shorter term one where you're just going to have gravel let's say for a week or two in the RightWay and charge something like 25 bucks it's it would be sort of like that water heater I think it was $57 or something but anyway my suggestion is to have a lower fee for a shorter time many more people I think would apply um so it's just something for consideration if you don't think it's worth it fine but if you think it could possibly be worth it please take a look at it thank you okay all right thanks and sorry I thought that was under Mr pingry under R but okay anyway Mr pingry I'm not supportive again this year but I did support a doubling last year of the appeal fee I'd like to see it stay the same thank you thank you council member dur um I guess I see a different side of this and I have since I first got here I was very supportive of raising this fee and I understand the access to government the access to appeals um but for me it's about recouping the cost of doing business and the whole reason I was in favor of it was the cost of an appeal um which is Extreme it it's intensive for the city so I am in support of this and I also don't think that the City of Reno is unique compared to other jurisdictions where they are charging more than we are so I think we are still in a good place with our public and I hope they would understand in a $23 million deficit or we need to start Rec recoup in our costs and um that that's just where I am at other questions or comments yes councilwoman Anderson just one so just building on what councilwoman dor um was discussing it causes me pause to know that a temporary RightWay fee is the same as an appeal that triggers thousands of dollars in overtime that just does that not Boggle anybody else's Minds I really do think that $100 for an appeal we're listening to an appeal in a week or two on a unanimous decision at the planning Council or at the Planning Commission it's going to trigger thousands of dollars in overtime so it is really recouping a cost of doing business and I think it's definitely fair to raise that fee I understand I definitely understand councilwoman Ebert especially in your ward um I just it just the cost of doing business in times like these where we're looking for $25 million to cut um I think that this is definitely a fair way to recuperate that those costs council member Ebert yeah just to reiterate on these fees um I understand cost of doing business but we're not really a business we're a municipality and we offer services to people and I think everybody should have equal access to the services we provide and I I understand wanting to recoup the cost of people's employees time spent on it but that is the reason that they're here right that's their job description so um I'm very protective of increasing fees to a point where people cannot afford it they're being priced out of due process that should be available to everyone um I cannot support that you know we're discussing um SE tax how it's flat people are reducing what they pay for electricity for other U utility services and then to increase this cost so significantly I think will make it unattainable for people in my ward to have the same um due process as others and considering my ward has um some of the most um Development coming in and I would say the most um changes in zoning spot changing to industrial commercial within residential neighborhoods I think we need to be most sensitive to that population they're the most affected by this they can least afford it and we are public servants here it is our job to do due process for people that want to file an appeal um I think we need to be really mindful of that there's other things there's fees for permits things like that that's fine these are that's the cost of doing business but for somebody to have due process that lives here that has something going in next to them that it's not their project they didn't get a chance to say yes or no um I think um is just wrong so I I can't support that can I comment on that for just a minute over the last three years we have worked really really hard at building the best planning team in Northern Nevada I can say that hands down I can stand I can sit here and defend that all day long the process that we have in place gives everyone an Avenue to address this um public comment anyone can can submit public comment our planning staff before it goes to a NAB or a Planning Commission or would be seen by this body that is normally months of work that that planner is doing their job on a daily basis to make sure that those issues complaints things are mitigated during that process and we have never had a better staff um that takes all of those things into consideration I mean sometimes to a fault we go down these rabbit holes of how are we going to remediate this or this or this they are amazing and usually when that when it's fully baked enough to get to an AB or a Planning Commission 99% of those issues have been brought up and all of those all of the neighbors anybody who has an issue with that has that opportunity to bring It Forward during the process and I just want to make sure that everybody's you know kind of hearing that yeah Mr pingr can I ask a question this isn't just for residents right I mean a lot of developers appeal too I think that in the the instance of the 70 unanimous I I mean or it's not just residents it's for everybody so it's for developers it's for the applicant it's it's across the board Fair increase right okay Council abber yeah I just want to clarify this is um in no way a commentary on your staff I know they do a great job this is really just about accessibility and I understand that it's the same fee for businesses but individuals usually don't have the same financial resources and again we're not a business we're not like selling commodities or anything we're a municipality um so I mean if we want to have a sliding scale or whatever fine but I also don't see appeals coming in here somebody's just like oh I just wanted to file an appeal you know the last appeal we had for the lake lakeside apartments or Lake Ridge Apartments um the appellant and the applicant have been meeting and making changes to the plans now that's an opportunity that local residents might not have had if they couldn't afford the fee for the appeal that's the kind of situation I want to avoid we should absolutely be doing this so that people can come together and make tweaks were needed so that we could do the best job for the community I and I don't disregard any of your comments I just want to reiterate the process right the process of Planning Commission the process of the Naps the process that is put in place to voice those opinions and to work with the staff and work with the developers along the way that is in place currently today sometimes we miss the window and we don't get involved and once it's a little too late and we come forward and the last chance is the appeal process so I I I do not disregard any your comments I completely understand so we're going to move on to council member dur and then we're going to move on with the uh presentation to next steps council member dur sure um I just wanted to clarify something too I think it's a false equivalency to say uh providing um easy access and due process is some slap on our staff I think they do a great job um I think Miss Ebert just used an excellent example where it's not staff's purview for example to work through the fine detail but in this case uh on the case of Lakeside for example um they're having a very successful collaboration that to her point would not have happened without an appeal process so most of the work most of the work is happening outside of council and outside of this room outside of Staff it it's happening between the applicant and the residents and we're going to end up with a better project so I think you know let's hear it for better projects let's hear it for um easy public access to our systems and to we just heard from our Parks and Recreation folks and they're saying we're not asking for our services to be underwritten I mean to be fully uh fully remunerated like the cost to operate the Moana pool is going to cost us something like 300,000 well actually more now $300,000 that the city's going to pay we're not we're not getting full recovery of these costs we're trying to provide a service again you can get you can pay full Freight and join a private club whatever and pay what it costs but here at the city we're providing recreational opportunities to everyone um and I just I I think it's the right way to go and look I've supported the other fee increases even parks and rack um and even this one but last time what we said is if we did an increase it would go to CPI and I wasn't expecting this kind of large increase so it's just you know I respect you and your department Chris and it's just it's a different I guess uh philosophy or approach about the role of government and the response these aren't people advocating for a project these are people protecting their own property values their own Investments that they've made or they may be Runners as well so uh probably enough said but I appreciate the opportunity to share my viewpoint thank you councilman Martinez thanks so much M Vice May and thanks Mr pingry for the information I think for me I'm sensitive obviously to making sure that we uh collect as much public input as we can through our process and I think from our conversations and just seeing the land use process play out these last couple of years it does seem like there's been a concerted effort to try to increase those opportunities for folks whether it is having the list of where folks can sign up for to receive the developments that are coming in their Ward uh or into the City of Reno in the next few months or allowing for public comment during our public processes it does seem like at the beginning at the front of the process we do have those opportunities for individuals to be able to uh provide their input I think the challenge comes with balancing the need to recover some of the costs that you're saying and even in council member Do's example even with this increase you're saying that we're not going to recover the costs based on the staff there's still a deficit even with this increase if it does get approved and so last year I was a little bit more hesitant in uh approving uh increase to this land use appeal um but I do think that there needs to be more of an increase this year in making sure that we still allow folks the possibility uh to do that and being able to maybe provide more education to our community at the beginning and being more active voice to include all of those comments from the get-go and making sure that not just yous stuff but also developers that are coming in with these applications understand those needs from our community and being firm about what our community is asking to present so I just wanted to put that on the record um and say that okay I think we're moving into next steps next steps I mean really this as we present Vicki's goingon to go ahead and carry on thanks Vicki Vicky van and Director of Finance for the record so this is the last part of this just to kind of tell you what what's coming forward in the future so the gold area boxes here are actual Council items where we'll be back in for back in front of you at Council discussing various topics um but in between we didn't list on here are the additional monthly briefings with Council so we're still going to do those the next briefings uh with Council will be the week of March 31st for the financial briefings and I will have some final numbers for property tax and hopefully numbers for seax as well and we'll continue this process of building it out but really this is our Baseline this is the building Point um next meeting on March 26 really important the sewer fund discussion because that is going to drive the sewer budget and where we move that and then April 9th will be the financial update which will be a more formal update again here in a brief uh format just to kind of let you know any changes from what we've discussed today as we move forward um and then um make May 5th is another full Council Workshop where we will actually get into a lot of the capital projects that one's going to be focused more on that and more of the recommendations from the city manager as far as based on the conversations here today and the conversations that we have at the next financial update as well so all of those items are considerations and then that recommendation will come on May 5th when I come back at that Workshop along with capital so questions um Vicki I just wanted to make sure that you explain the recommendation we are absolutely not adopting a budget right now we're can you just tell us exactly what you're asking us to do today no we're just asking for your priorities that cloud that I we prepared last year that was based on the recommendations um the priorities that you said um Council these are our priorities and so we try to gauge the things that were requested and asked for based on that and then the city manager actually makes the recommendations based on the input from this body and that's what I bring forward on May 5th some of the things you saw today or some of the ideas are out there and we've got input from you and I'll work with manager Bryan on what she sees you know going forward and how to fill some of that Gap and what those ideas are and we will continue to have conversations in that space even maybe on April 9th to have some conversations on that at the update um to have some feedback at that point as well and so on the May 5th will be that the recommendations of from the manager's office on what what she's recommending for the budget the budget itself won't go to a public hearing until May 21st so May 21st is the actual day where you adopt the budget and uh the fee schedule so if there are changes in between May F May 5th and May 21st we Implement those and we move forward and it's just a a working document and we continue on okay council members um my see council member Ebert for some parting comments or questions yeah just want to reiterate that we need to be accessible to everyone in our community just I can't stress that enough um again this is not a business we're municipality we're we're in the business of serving the community and if we make it unattainable to people then we're failing in that and I I understand the comments about they're caught charging more in other areas but you know I remember that EXP ression if everybody else jump jumped off the cliff would you do it too just because other people are doing it doesn't make it right or fair to the people that live in the community um I cannot support um increases um you know it just I think back to all the appeals we've had and I can't even recall a business appealing in other business it's always been people that live in the neighborhood people in the community just average citizen and you know if we price them out then we're just telling people that you actually don't have a voice in your community because you can't afford it and if we have things going on in in lower inome neighbor neighborhoods that's going to be disproportionately affecting them in that that regard as well so just in the interest of of doing our job as public servants and being accessible to everyone in the community um for the process of making projects better because of collaboration and because of people having to come together and make accommodations through the appeals process um and I understand the planning department does a great job but there are times when people just don't find out about things or they didn't know about the Planning Commission meeting or or what have you and that's their opportunity to have a voice in that or maybe they just can't go I don't know what people's work schedule is we have 24-hour businesses in this town and I have people that work at the casinos that have you know odd shift times so we need to have this available for people to have a say in what happens in their community so thank you other council member comments Madame vice mayor I'm prepared to make a motion okay I move to direct staff to move forward with the development of the fiscal year 26 budget and fee schedule based on feedback from Council second we have a motion of second any further discussion all those in favor I all those opposed motion carries unanimously thank you very much and I believe we have uh we're moving into RDA yes so again Vicky van bu and Director of Finance for the record we're moving into RDA do I need another city clerk are we good to go keep going okay okay so Redevelopment um I'm going to give you basically the accounting side of it I'm sure a lot of your questions are regarding um projects and things as we move into this space this is really my piece of this is actually very small just to kind of tell you where we are what it looks like in this space we haven't had a lot of money until recent years um to even work with so that's some of the good news at this meeting um but my piece of this as far as this is really more at the accounting and um I'll defer to Brian and to Ashley on the operational stuff for that but Redevelopment has two areas um they're listed on here Redevelopment one is in that hold on just a second I'm sorry do we have the slides for these on our on Prime on Prime GV you should yes okay don't see it it's you can continue sorry okay thank you so re development area one is mostly it's in the downtown core so that's the yellow area on this map and Redevelopment 2 is spread out um around to seven different areas including an area out near Boomtown so if you start with Redevelopment agent see one this is just a zoom in of that area to show you it is really dedicated right downtown to the core of the city here Redevelopment Agency 1 was established in 1983 and it expires in 20 43 it's the downtown area includes the parking garage on Sierra Street um the garage is maintained by cers and any garage re the garage revenues are pledged to debt so any excess Revenue that we receive has to be transferred to the debt fund to fund that debt a fixed amount of Motor Vehicle privilege tax was given to rda1 when it was established it's a very small amount you'll see it as we come up and that just continues at the same amount every year miscellaneous expenses that you you see in this um fund are from repairs and maintenance on the garage and there is a debt fund associated with this there are bonds that were issued for various projects over the years those Bonds mature in a couple of years so we're almost out of debt in this one so Redevelopment Agency 1 just to give you a brief overview of what it looks like there hasn't been any extra there haven't been extra funds for the general fund from property tax up until the jections for next year so after the recession it was hit really hard and so we really struggled to make the debt payments in Redevelopment one um there was a time where we were looking at restructuring and doing some other things we actually I believe kicked off here but I believe it was in fiscal year 22 came to council and we asked to take a a loan a promissary note was done for redevelopment agency two over to one and that was $1.2 million just to bridge this Gap until we knew we would get to a point where the the property tax increment was coming in and could pay for that debt so that's what we did and so on here um what we're projecting is the uh property tax in in excess of what's needed to pay the debt so the debt fund will be the next one but here you can see we're starting to see some revenues come in here we're starting to shift the salary and benefits so that um the staff that we currently have dedicated to redevelop velopment can work in both project areas as this one becomes more online and available for projects and then this is the debt fund for redevelopment one so you can see on here um it's really we have to maintain a certain balance in here and it's around $2.1 million that's due to the the debt requirements uh so we have to have a reserve in there that is maintaining um going forward but then the excess can now go over to the general fund and actually fund project check so first time that that's really occurring and then um the other item on here you'll see the loan payoff to RDA 2 so at the end of this current fiscal year so I'll be back with the fourth quarter augmentation I'll be asking this body to approve us to pay off that loan so we're able to pay the loan back to rda2 and now the only outstanding debt are just the bonds in here and um those will pay off in two years so we're going to start to see a lot of progress in this space as we move forward and this just kind of gives you a look we just had the this updated um we had a contractor to go out and really do an update on this they had updated a few years ago and so we updated this in the fall based on the new projects that have come to the area so there are a lot of things like the Ballpark Apartments and things that have come online and then they also look out and work with um Brian McCardle to figure out when they think other projects are going to come online and they build out the model of what the tax increment looks like going forward this is in Redevelopment agency one and so you can see that the uh there's a line on there that shows the debt payments and so that debt pays off in 27 tax increment above that is available and then after 27 it goes away until 36 in 36 what that comes back as that's the baseball agreement so the baseball agreement is $1 million a year it's currently being paid out of rda2 rda2 expires in 35 so when that one expires it comes back over to this one and continues out until it ends in 43 so lot of good space here for working projects in that area for um that team so Redevelopment two again this is just a map to reorient you to this is a different area um different uh tax increment coming in because it's based on the projects that are in these areas and when you look at it it was established in 2005 and it expires in 2035 um it was established after interest changed in that when this one was established if you establish after a certain date and I don't remember the exact date it's limited to 30 years when Redevelopment 2 I mean Redevelopment one was done it was 30 years and then it was extended for two additional extensions of 15 years so it's going to run 60 years that's not available to this one as NS currently is written it would have to be changed um seven different areas including cabillas here um the full the property tax St full Co fully cover the baseball agreement and at one time that was an issue in this one and so the general fund the real the city general fund was covering some of that at some point but these have really come online one of the things I do want to caution is this was an area that was hit hard during the recession so in the event we do go back to a recession these would be areas that we would see impacted probably pretty quickly because that is something that happened last time there's a small little Bond outstanding for Cabellas and that matures in 2035 so property tax on this one you can see a lot of increment coming into this one estimated around $12 million uh for next year um their salary Ben associated with the positions and the positions um include some of there's 6.25 because there's some percentage of people charged over there so 6.25 positions working in the space split between these two agencies now and the baseball agreement is the million dollars it remains that million until the end of this you look at the debt fund it's that very small little Cabella's um Bond that's in there and it's actually for the the m museum inside of cabellos with the animals you look at rda2 tax increment going forward again a lot of increment this is the space let me go back one slide to a couple slides this is the space where we're doing the um work at the site work for the tear down of the old police station because that does qualify as blight and getting that area cleaned up for security and blight it does qualify that is fully budgeted in here in fiscal year 25 the current year so that's the $10 million that you see here so that project will continue um and is fully funded through here and this is again what it looks like on those projections based on the known projects that we are aware of coming forward um The Debt Service and then this Debt Service would pick up on the other one once this one ends and so um so there's probably questions but they're probably questions on operational but I'll hang out for a minute uh coun I'm sorry I have to go to the other screen council members do we have questions on this I have a quick question Vicki on the 10.5 Capital Improvement project I missed what you said I know it's for the fire station but is that for the Demolition and the architect Dem and the site work in a portion of the architectural to figure out um how much it would cost and such conru actually I'm sorry it is just for the Demolition and for the site work because it's just for that blight work for the um architecture work we used a portion of a bond so that was a portion the $2 million for the the fire station design was part of the original bond that was the pool in the public safety center so 2 million of that is for that this is dedicated just to the site work and then demolition to get that site ready okay thank you Madam Vice choman dur mayor um yeah question it was similar topic could you go back a couple slides it was the one where you talked about the fire station demolition I thought it's upcoming on a council agenda and I thought it was just a little over $3 million not you said something about $10 million here 105 you expl 10 million I'm going ask um krie kosy to come up and kind of explain the cost outline on that K kosy director Public Works uh yes the the a budget original budget amount was $10 million um we have not spent that amount um and and the the contract that is coming to council for the demolition will bring the total that we are anticipating spending is around $7 million I forgot I I guess I don't understand so this item is 10,500 but I thought you said when she was explaining what this was she said that's for the demolition but on the upcoming Council it says 3.5 million I think something like that for the demolition correct correct that will be on top of this yes because um uh uh Director Van be just reminded me we had the abatement that also occurred so that came out of out of this uh RDA funds as well okay but is the budget is it just a budget number or is this an actual cost number estimated cost for what we're going to do this year related to the fire station I mean you're demoing the police station right um council member I can I think address the question Ashley turny assistant city manager for the record the original uh allocation from this body based off of Staff estimated costs for site prep grading demolition asbest abatement was estimated to be at that $1,500,000 which is what this body allocated during last fiscal Year's budgeting process at this time with the contract that will be coming forward expenditures are anticipated to be right about that $7 million Mark there will still need to be some additional site work that will be done from a grading standpoint before the property can be prepared for any sort of future development so we still anticipate that 10 million and some change to be the total cost for site work demolition prep as bestus abatement all things related to getting that property site ready the contract coming up is just one part of that I guess that's correct yes there are multiple contracts associated with the site prep work and so this is just one piece of that okay thanks I guess I have another question too and this is a global question probably we're starting to see money in these spaces of RDA 1 and rda2 and I think we need to be really clear on what we can use this money for and I think I heard Ash uh assistant city manager attorney talk a little bit about it can't be used for maintenance it's the same for both rdas right you don't have different rules and so yes um the same space and and Brian and his team you know they're they're going to come forward with the projects and this is really kind of the ramp up to that so I'm much and I guess that's my bigger question I I hear in some of our other Council meetings about these projects that are going to be coming forward can you give us like a sneak peek of what that might look like and um thank you so Brian McCardell vitalization manager for the record um so in that 1990 Redevelopment document um and it's kind of reflected in rda's 2's founding document it gives the agency a set of tools and guidelines and goals where the money can be spent and that's increasing experiences improving the attractiveness of the area removing blight um pursuing Economic Development opportunities working with private entities to develop land uh remove light do pre-site development so what it doesn't include is sort of Maintenance and services it's really just it is a tax fund tax allocation fund to drive Economic Development and boost the economic base in the area and so anything that hits those guidelines uh could be eligible under RDA and so we will be bringing a list of projects improvements to our plazas improvements to the river path um potentially uh streetscape improvements things like that based on our art plan our placemaking plan our River plan um and those will be funded with RDA and so we'll bring back a capital Improvement plan uh that lists most of those and how those funds will be spent so the balances that are in there now are that's where the these um where the money is going to come from to fund those capital projects and then when we look at the projects that are coming in for Tiff that's money in the future money in the future they will create their own tax increment that they then use to help support their own projects so just to be clear we're not asking developers or projects or people that come in and apply for this money now this is money that we are going to use on our capital or our re development areas spased for Capital Improvement projects that is correct we currently don't have any obligations other than the ballpark debt to expend those money on any past projects or any sort of private developments all new private developments will come in and ask for tax increment assistance and then we will negotiate the deal and they will get the support they need to finish the projects okay from future tax dollars clears up some of the confusion at some point but congratulations you get to be the the bearer of great news in this presentation hope so this day not to be the most popular city of Ringo employee council member Anderson that's all he's going to be the most popular employee we have other council members I'm sorry I'm looking at the gov site the website council member Ebert do you have questions yeah I do I I apologize I had to step in the back for a second so um I have a question about the the lot we're selling the record Street facility and you know we're paying for the demo there is any of that being paid out of RDA funds yeah Brian MC again for the record thank you for the question so that is a city of Reena owned property uhuh however um doing the predevelopment removing the blight that is an expense as is eligible under Redevelopment funds and so the Redevelopment agency has offered to pay for the demolition of that site to be reimbursed through the city's funds upon close of escrow um so the Redevelopment agency is using its funds to support the demolition but the Redevelopment agency will recoup those funds when the property closes and the funds are transferred okay so it'll be paid for out of RDA and then if the sale closes contingent on federal funds then the RDA will be paid back correct okay um and I wanted to know what kind of requirements there are for like what's considered blight so blight is very subjective I would say anytime you have a nuisance activity or anything that is currently underutilized that could have a higher and best use um and that could include parking lots um former buildings single story buildings that are underutilized uh that could be um possibly causing a nuisance but could have a higher potential activity and higher in best use okay so not necessarily actually blight just that it could be used better yes okay um and again I'm sorry I was in the other room for a minute um was downtown like area like the haris building that's something I keep bringing up the fire station we really need to have a couple fire stations built really um are those projects um eligible for redevelopment funds and are they being reviewed at all currently so um City facilities for municipal use are not eligible under RDA um but Recreation facilities would be so if we wanted to build a new pool downtown we could definitely support it through Redevelopment funds however expansions to City Hall fire stations those are municipal uses those don't boost the income tax based those don't um increase the economic base in downtown but what about something like the Harrow building if we could figure something out there to do something with that facility would we be able to use RDA funds so that is a privately owned site um they've been trying to work with us but for unfortunately with our eligibility they cannot negotiate or discuss with us while it's in foreclosure or they don't have sight control um Harris got out of bankruptcy last Friday uh and so we're starting those conversations it'll likely be that they ask for some sort of assistance um similar assistance to what other developers are asking for and we'll have to go through the analysis and the butt for test to figure out um what their true needs are to get that project fully completed um but they it would be eligible um we cannot through the city or the Redevelopment agency go in and dictate any removal because it's still privately owned um that is I guess what I'm getting at is like if the city were to purchase it or something like that like if it were to become part of you know something that the city owns um so that we could do some type of Redevelopment there the way that the city would like um it wouldn't be impossible uh it would just be expensive yeah yeah of course okay thank you yep other council members council member D yeah thank you uh Brian can you stay for a moment um my question is this I got a little bit confused with your answer to the last questioner on one hand you said well we can't do it that's city- owned property and then you said we can't do it that's privately owned property so what property is eligible for use of these funds um I would say I think if if I'm understanding your question any the Redevelopment agency has the ability to purchase and dispose of property if it's in the Strategic goals of of Redevelopment so any property downtown if the Redevelopment agency sees value in it could make an offer and purchase a piece of property a property building anything we need own it through the Redevelopment agency in order to work on it is that what you're saying uh the Redevelopment agency would be the function in which we purchase the buildings uh and then the Redevelopment agency would help dictate its future either through a future public private partnership or to develop it itself uh we own and operate the parking Gallery downtown that is something the RDA purchased the land built the structure uh manages the parking Gallery the revenues and the tenants in the space that is a situation where the re the RDA does go in and own and operate and yet you said that private developers are are preparing um asks or requests from the Redevelopment agency I mean we've already heard from the GSR so are you saying the GSR the portion of it would have to become Redevelopment property that's just where I'm just getting confused I know you're going to have a special discussion on this but right now I just want to leave with some clarity um in that participation program which is essentially How We Do public private Partnerships with private development there is a program in there called tax increment financing assistance so developers would come in and ask for assistance in financing their project in that scenario we would use that program to go in find that but for the assistance of the RDA this project would never get built uh we would never see the uh the impact the development the job creation and the Future Property Tax generated if this project isn't financed and so they ask for assistance through the Redevelopment agency uh we go through prove that it is in fact this project would never occur and we find a way to help Finance those projects with Redevelopment funds so there's not a clear if it's city-owned you can or can't do it or if it's private you can or can't do it it it it's not that clear you can do it in certain circumstances is that it yeah if it supports Economic Development and it supports uh primarily development yes if um I'm what what I'm trying to say this is answering your last questions on one hand you said we can't help Paras because it's private and previously you said we can't work on city hall because it's publicly owned so that's where I was getting conf sounds like there's going to be lots of room for questions in our training upcoming okay that's when I'm I'm offering to wait but I also just thought there was a simple yes no answer so guess not council member D if I could I'm going to try to be brief and give a little bit of clarity um when Mr Ricardo was mentioning about how the the city can't assist the way in which the Redevelopment agency would assist is by way of a tiff application so we can assist by way of someone submitting their application us reviewing the deal points bringing forward to council for adoption what they make off of property tax and those deal return points to them um the delineation is if a if a property is not producing property tax because the city owns it or because it is a nonprofit they would be ineligible because they don't create increment in which to return back to the project okay thank you does name and title for the record please Ashley attorney assistant city manager council member abber do you have another question I did let me put my hand up but any we talked about a lot of it um one second hold on unless we train [Music] um oh yeah um are there any projects now that are Redevelopment that Steve Reno has completed that you know we could review and see if we wanted to to dispose of them Brian McCardle uh for the record um the only the Redevelopment agency does own some property and assets we own the asphalt parcel next to believe Plaza and the idea would be in the future to possibly get that redeveloped okay um and the Redevelopment agency also owns the parking Gallery uh it generates revenue from the parking Gallery through parking revenues as well as um the tenants that are in that building mhm and in theory you could sell that to a private oper Ator uh in the future at a market rate those funds would go back into the Redevelopment agency not into the City and so those funds could get redeployed or purchase another project downtown okay um I do have one more question so if a project if something gets moved across town like let's say a stadium or something like that um and the area is currently paying fees and it gets moved into an RDA area would we lose the taxes that were generated before the project was moved I'm not entirely sure the question I mean you can't move a project but I think what you're asking is um you the city general fund will always get the tax revenue created from the base before the property is improved that's how we freeze that tax base M um and so every new dollar created every development projects creates new property tax that gets put into the Redevelopment agency but the taxes generated before the project moves there would um as they are now would continue to go to the city the county um General funds so but let's say it was a project outside of an RDA area we're currently getting taxes separately for that and then that changes location into the RDA we would be losing out on the tax from the other area right it would be shifting into the RDA Yeah Ashley attorney assistant city manager for the record uh property taxes assessed based off of the parcel and so the parcel regardless of the project will always exist in the area that it exists so in your example let's say you have an arena in dman ranch and so whatever parcel that arena is on will continue to be assessed into the general fund regardless if the arena is there or someone builds a second Arena somewhere else um the property value is always going to stay with that parcel so projects are a more difficult way I I would caution you not to look at a project and look at the parcel that's associated with okay thank you okay if I could if Madam vice mayor if I could just I think I see the the question that Council M Eber is asking it's like if you're this is isn't sales tax what we're talking about is or what I think what you're alluding to are things like Star bonds and star bonds so if you have the example of a Target that's located outside the area and then it moves into the area and it generates sales tax outside of the area and that goes to schools and everybody when it moves into the area that goes to the payment of the bonds and that so I think that's maybe what you were referring to and and to um ACM attorney and um and Brian's comments is that property tax operates differently um it's not um it's not based on sales tax so you're not going to have the same kind of like the the cannibalization of the sales tax or the cannibalization of the property tax because ultimately whatever is generated in terms of that tax will either go to the agency or to the city so it it doesn't it it doesn't go elsewhere if that makes sense so when you say it goes to the agency or it goes to the city if it goes to the agency then we can't use that for it has to be used for agency types of blight um you know remediation efforts Redevelopment efforts okay so that's kind of what I was getting at is that you know it moves from like being able to use in the general fund to just the RDA correct yeah yeah the the yes yes okay so if a project were to move into an RDA area the city would then potentially no longer longer be able to use a revenue generated outside of the RDA area because it would be then transferred to the RDA it's again it's it's the difference between maybe a sales tax and a property tax I mean to the to the extent that we're talking about a physical asset like a building you're not moving a building from point A to point B you're you're maybe buil moving a business that's yeah right but the business is generally paying like sales tax the property tax elent is not tied to that business it's tied to the infrastructure that goes into the place that it's built okay so that's the so I just want to make sure you're clear in your mind the difference between like a sales tax or a sales tax generating business that moves that's not this that's more of a star Bond type of issue versus a property tax you know business that moves from one building to another um you don't pay property tax based upon your commercial activity you base it's paid upon based upon what was in the ground both in terms of the improvements and the in the land yeah okay so we're about 3 minutes over here is there is is there are there any other questions I apologize no you're okay I just wondering if you can take this offline maybe and get some get some answers and we can move into a motion that is on the screen I'll make a motion okay I moveed to direct staff to move forward with the development of the FY 26 budget based on feedback from the board second okay we have a motion a second any further discussion all those in favor I I all those opposed motion carries unanimously okay Madam clerk I think we are on Council comments for the RDA board yes ma'am so sorry my computer's still loading we are going to move on to C1 Redevelopment agency comments council members comments comments okay yeah I do have comments okay yeah I just think it would be prudent to allow council members to get um information from our legal staff you absolutely can and you can also attend all the breedings briefings that are offered to all of us that we attend too you can absolutely meet with Council I and I I didn't realize my uh attendance card was reported to you but I do counc Eber would you like to make a comment is that your comment I am actually making a comment thank you um I think that it would benefit all of us to get the clarity on these questions right now as we're discussing Redevelopment as it's relevant to the topic and I don't understand the digging in heels to not hear relevant legal advice from our city attorneys so those are my comments thank you thank you for your comments council members do you have other questions or comments okay we will close motion to adjourn oh sorry we still have closing public comment for the RDA which is item D1 um we did receive one comment which has been distributed to council and uploaded to the meeting portal um one letter of opposition so with that I'm looking for a motion to adjourn RDA I'll make a motion to adjourn the RDA meeting second okay we have a motion second any further discussion all those in favor I I all those opposed okay we'll move in back to regular city council meeting and do we have any closing public comment Madam clerk we did receive one letter of Correspondence again that has been distributed to the Reno city council oh I apologize yes one letter of Correspondence has been distributed to the Reno city council is in a part of the record and with that we have no additional comment registered we're looking for a motion to adjourn move to adjourn make a second all those in favor I I okay thank you very much e e