[Speaker 7] (0:00 - 0:04)
Testing, one, two, three.

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... ... I think, I think we have to finish this today.

So I don't know how long it'll take, but I think that's an order that we get this done today. So without that, let's start. Mayor, do you wanna?

[Speaker 1] (4:43 - 6:34)
Sure, I don't have much more to introduce. I believe in this packet, if not in the council packet, you will see the final numbers that I'm proposing for the ARPA budget, which shouldn't be too surprising after Tuesday's meeting. It is up on there, there it is.

This is, I think the only thing I changed from the last one, from the one we talked about on Tuesday, is that I doubled the amount of money for body cams, blood cams, and teasers. That was, it's a little bit more than the police chief's highest number, but again, those are pretty well qualified under ARPA. And the goal is to improve the equipment, not just to replace in kind.

So it's important that that was adequately funded, I believe. There's also, you'll notice a surplus. There's unallocated funds.

I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing, but about $380,000. There may be other uses. In fact, as we were playing around with public works vehicle budgets, those will, if there is a cut in public works vehicle budgets, as I proposed, that deficit, if we tried to buy every single vehicle that's listed in their schedule in the year at that cost, it will start running pretty significant deficits.

And there are some, at least one vehicle that I'm fairly certain we could use ARPA funds for. So that's to provide a little bit of flexibility going forward in the future. And also, I think we've met most of every other line item.

I don't think it really completes another increase. So that's the only change I have for Tuesday.

[Speaker 13] (6:34 - 6:43)
Okay, thank you. Let's open it up for questions and go from there. Anyone have anything?

[Speaker 3] (6:45 - 7:24)
Fred? Yeah, I do have a couple of questions. First, so our, by ordinance, or maybe it's not ordinance, maybe it's just our policy, we have a certain percent that's, we're in the end of reserve, right?

What, 30? 32% or something. 32, yeah, general fund expenditures.

32%, okay. So with the budget going up from last year, did we add more into the reserve to account for that percentage? No, we were still over 32%.

We still are over 30. Okay, good, that was the first question.

[Speaker 1] (7:24 - 7:40)
I'm sorry to interrupt. Ordinance would require us to take care of the reserve first. So if our expenditures are projected to drive that number below 32%, then we don't have an option with the surplus.

It must go to the reserves until the reserves are at 32%.

[Speaker 3] (7:40 - 7:45)
So it's, okay, so the ordinance is 32%. What are we at right now, then?

[Speaker 5] (7:46 - 7:57)
You know, I don't have that right off the tip of my tongue, but my memory is that it was still around 40% or something. It was well over.

[Speaker 3] (7:57 - 7:59)
So have we not spent that down yet?

[Speaker 5] (8:01 - 8:05)
We never did spend anything out of the reserves, no.

[Speaker 1] (8:05 - 8:38)
Oh, I thought we did. We talked about it. Yeah, we've had a lot of conversations about it, but of course, if we're gonna start spending surplus revenues and things other than putting them in the reserve, it's going to shrink because the general fund is going to keep growing in terms of expenses and wages, and certainly health insurance are gonna keep driving it up.

I think we can conservatively expect a growth in the general fund of about 1.5% each year. So I doubt ASHA could do it right now, but we could project the point at which the reserves fall below 13%, but it will happen.

[Speaker 5] (8:38 - 8:56)
Yeah, and I do think, I didn't run that calculation again this year, but I know last year I looked at that, and my memory is that we were about four or five years out from that time, so eventually we would need to add money, but not in the next couple of years.

[Speaker 3] (8:56 - 9:04)
But if our policy is 32%, we're closer to 40%, would that last longer than just five or six years?

[Speaker 5] (9:04 - 9:11)
Well, because the expenses keep growing, just naturally that percentage shrinks all by itself. Every time, you know.

[Speaker 3] (9:12 - 9:33)
Right. But if we're only growing by 1.5%, the difference between last year's budget of $31,400,000 and even 2026, $33,700,000, I mean, that's not a massive shift, is it?

[Speaker 5] (9:33 - 9:55)
I think, I don't have it all memorized, and I haven't looked at it for a bit, but that's just my memory, that we had a few years, and that it, you know, was, that it, that about four or five years out was when I thought we would, for sure, probably need to put more money in. And I can certainly run those calculations and provide an update on that.

[Speaker 3] (9:56 - 10:02)
Okay, is that, is that something you could get for this meeting?

[Speaker 5] (10:03 - 10:07)
If everyone's okay with me stepping out and going and working on that.

[Speaker 3] (10:08 - 10:09)
How long do you think it would take?

[Speaker 5] (10:09 - 10:10)
I don't know.

[Speaker 2] (10:12 - 10:15)
Well, let's go through these, and then maybe there's something else that perhaps, okay.

[Speaker 3] (10:19 - 10:24)
Any other questions? Not, not right now. They do have some others, but.

[Speaker 2] (10:25 - 11:30)
Oh, okay. So I have another question, or a question. Multiple questions, but this is my first one, okay.

Have we built in to the budget this year, I know we have a 2% from salary and wages, but, and I don't know what inflation's gonna be, but from everything everyone says, it's gonna be higher than it's been in a long time. Have we built anything into the overall, and perhaps that surplus we're talking about is, in other words, I know we put 2% of wages, but just anything across the board, everything's going up, okay. Whether it be new contracts, whether it be, computer paper, whatever, you know, it's all gonna be going up somewhere, I don't know, but I'm, from what I read and know, it's 6% maybe, maybe higher.

So we haven't taken our budget and just said, not looking at it in detail, and I know you did, but just after the game is done, and saying we better add 3% to this. And we have not done that, I don't think, have we?

[Speaker 1] (11:31 - 11:59)
Yes, we have. So when you look at the, I don't think we have a title for this, General Fund Budgets and Projections, I always call it the big sheet, it's that, I don't see it up front with anybody, right, it's right in front of me right here, that sheet there, not to your left, the big one, so that incorporates a growth of about 1.5%, and that number is, or is it the average of the last? In future years?

Yeah.

[Speaker 5] (12:00 - 12:07)
Yeah, the General Fund has grown on average by 1.5% over the last 20 years.

[Speaker 2] (12:08 - 12:47)
But that, it's grown, I understand that, but it doesn't mean, it may have grown for different purposes, okay, not necessarily inflation. Okay, right? That's correct.

Okay, so that's what I'm saying. After we did everything, if we had five new employees and whatever, all those are additional costs to the general, and then after we got that bottom line figure, have we added a percent for inflation? I think inflation's been so flat for so long, we haven't had to even worry about that, but I'm thinking this year, maybe it will, and so if we haven't, we haven't, but I think we should be, at least see where that's gonna go.

[Speaker 1] (12:47 - 13:15)
I think that's a, it's a good number to potentially project against, but inflation is usually on fixed goods of some kind, and that's not a huge part of our general fund. The expenses that swing the wildest are salaries, which we know how that will grow for the most part, health insurance, which we really don't, but it's a very reasonable guess that it's gonna continue to grow considerably, and then fuel, which is all of them have.

[Speaker 2] (13:16 - 13:17)
Energy is a fixed, is gonna be available.

[Speaker 1] (13:17 - 13:27)
I mean, inflation on things like the staplers and all the supplies, we just don't, I don't know that that has a significant impact.

[Speaker 2] (13:27 - 14:07)
That's not, just for the sake of mentioning something, but in general speaking, I think it's fair to say in general, there's gonna be inflation in this year, or next year, 2022, and I don't know what it is, but so I think we should be aware of that, and so if we haven't planned for it, maybe we have some, we have reserves, and I get that, so okay. And there is, and I've asked this question again, but I'm never comfortable until I ask it three or four times. There is no COVID money into the 2022 budget, is that?

Not in the general fund, no. Okay.

[Speaker 10] (14:07 - 14:08)
Right, right?

[Speaker 5] (14:08 - 14:14)
That is correct. There is no COVID money in any of those four budgets.

[Speaker 2] (14:14 - 14:22)
Right, okay. Around the agenda. All right.

And we have that money, whatever the figure you told me, 8.5 million, it's an interest-bearing account.

[Speaker 5] (14:22 - 14:28)
It's in a separate fund, and we have invested additional monies because of the money that we received lately.

[Speaker 2] (14:28 - 15:01)
Okay, all right, thank you. So I'm gonna come to the $500,000 for outside, may not be the right term, but outside art, okay. Exterior art.

I, to my mind, that is an awful lot of money for outside art. And so could you at least tell us what that $500,000 is gonna represent in terms of projects?

[Speaker 1] (15:03 - 17:40)
Yeah, there are a few projects that I specifically have in mind. The first, of course, is rebuilding the arch, which we've already got the bases in there. That was part of the Tower Avenue project.

I've always felt strongly about finishing it. And that is maybe the cheapest project? Probably not.

It depends on the private support we would get for it. There's been a couple of opportunities for private support there. But at its most, what did we think, $100,000, $150,000?

That was where we started back in 2012. So if you look deep enough, you'll see that one, there's kind of a in-kind source of funding. We have those entrance signs to the city.

There was still money sitting around from that. And that could conceivably cover that. So that's where I started.

Then there is a possibility of the Grand Elevator Mural project. If we pay for the whole thing, and we won't, but start to finish, high watermark on that was $650,000, low end $350,000. But there would be private support for that as well, but that's some pretty wild swings.

And then finally, this one is, for the last two years or so, we've been working with a leadership group and the Legion on an expansion of the Veterans Memorial. And they had talked about a statue of some kind. And they had some pretty good ideas.

And the Legion had floated the idea of a Women's Workers Memorial, celebrating the women that helped build the ships for the war. And we talked to a sculptor. It would, of course, go out to bid.

But to get a sense of the price, talked to the sculptor that did the sculptures at the Duluth Airport, like Jim Overstar and whatnot. He thought the project would come in around $50,000. So then on top of that, those are the big projects that if money were no object, and we had no private support whatsoever what we'd fund, but then beefed up the account a bit because we would recognize that there would be other smaller projects that we'd wanna work on, fixtures, things like that, the fun look of bench or possibly murals.

I hadn't specifically envisioned murals because they're pretty affordable anyways and they're usually sponsored. But the idea is we would create an arts council, as most communities do, that have public art funds. And that's how it would be allocated.

At some point, it would be grants for projects. The point being, I don't think we should be deciding on every project. You should probably have artists involved at some point.

[Speaker 2] (17:41 - 18:24)
Right, I certainly wouldn't argue with that. My question is 500,000. I think there are better ways to spend money on that 500,000.

So how are we gonna handle a particular item we're talking about today that we may wanna change? So I think each individual item should probably draw a vote. Okay, so if I were to say X project, it's a dollar, I'd like to make a proposal that we cut it in the budget to 10 cents, then I think we should vote on that individual.

Yeah, there's no objection to that.

[Speaker 3] (18:26 - 18:28)
I think that makes the most sense.

[Speaker 13] (18:28 - 18:36)
Okay, Tom, you okay with that? For the revolving top there? Well, whatever, you know.

[Speaker 4] (18:36 - 18:38)
Or the four items on the agenda.

[Speaker 2] (18:38 - 18:44)
No, let's take the arts, the 500 grand. Can we say?

[Speaker 4] (18:45 - 18:46)
You wanna pull it out and vote on it?

[Speaker 2] (18:47 - 19:07)
Right, individually. Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, all right.

So we could do that now or we could do it at the end, but whatever is our pleasure. So hearing no pleasure, what was the, I don't mean to disparage this, but the green elevator paint, what was that, 600?

[Speaker 1] (19:10 - 19:22)
We saw an estimate that ran as high as that, but I mean, that was every single penny. I think when we first talked about it, for $500,000, it's hard to predict.

[Speaker 2] (19:22 - 19:29)
Right, and the other projects eliminating that would equal.

[Speaker 1] (19:30 - 19:34)
I think you build the arts in the Memorial for $200,000.

[Speaker 2] (19:37 - 19:39)
Okay, and was there anything else in there?

[Speaker 1] (19:39 - 19:43)
That's all I had, I mean, if I were writing that budget.

[Speaker 13] (19:43 - 19:44)
Right, right, okay.

[Speaker 1] (19:44 - 19:53)
That's what I would propose, it's just then, if we wanted to give out other grants for much smaller projects, I would need $50,000, $100,000 for grant projects.

[Speaker 2] (19:54 - 20:03)
I'm going to make a motion that we cut the arts project from 500 to 250.

[Speaker 3] (20:07 - 20:09)
I'll second that.

[Speaker 2] (20:11 - 20:11)
Discussion?

[Speaker 1] (20:14 - 20:49)
That's its own fund, and so in just cutting it, if you don't assign it anywhere else, it would create a surplus in the revolving grants fund. And I'm not arguing that one way or another, you could do that, but it would then be unallocated, but for grants. So, I mean, since this is new, the council could approach that one of two ways, either at some point allocate that to one of the existing funds, public art, festivals, rec grants, or small business, or if there were random grants that fit nothing in those categories, the county would have the power to issue them.

[Speaker 4] (20:49 - 21:13)
Absolutely, I share that. I'm just clarifying a little bit. Mayor, you mentioned some of these ideas of yours, but should these ideas go to some committee or commission to go through this process or not, but just have that discussion, because maybe there's some better idea we don't know about, you know?

[Speaker 1] (21:14 - 21:18)
Yeah, absolutely. I expressed those projects that the chairman gave you permission to dream, so I dreamed.

[Speaker 14] (21:18 - 21:18)
Sure.

[Speaker 1] (21:18 - 21:51)
I mean, everything I described would require council approval of some kind. So, for example, if you wanna do a major construction project like the arch, we have to have that up to bid, we have to approve contractors, which is, of course, improving the ultimate cost, something like that, finance committee or something, rain elevator project, that's, I don't know where we would do that. Maybe a development agreement with CHS to fund something like that, which would be planned commission and council.

So, yes, there are...

[Speaker 4] (21:51 - 22:10)
Those ideas are already with the council. Those ideas are already assigned to the firm. Like, if there was something better than the arch or the rain elevator allocation funds, then that commissioner committee can narrow down those ideas.

Or maybe hire a consultant.

[Speaker 1] (22:11 - 22:20)
Yeah, you can, I mean, you can assign the whole fund to a committee if you want, but since that's a new fund, it doesn't have a committee assigned to it.

[Speaker 4] (22:20 - 22:20)
Sure, I know.

[Speaker 1] (22:20 - 22:46)
So, yeah, I mean, right now, it was just proposing the idea that it would go to some kind of public art. What that would be and how it would be awarded is for the council to decide later. Now, of course, so I'm clear, I could, if you passed it, I could propose tomorrow, once it's passed, to allocate it to this or that, but, of course, council has to approve that if you're like, nope, we won't process, which I would assume you would say.

[Speaker 4] (22:46 - 23:18)
As councilors, we have to spend every dollar wisely that is presented in front of us. Is there some quantifiable return on investment with art that you can define that for every dollar invested on particular other projects or cities? Is there something that can be measured to determine, like, if we put 500, we're gonna get this, or if we put 250, we're gonna get this.

Is there some quantifiable value that we can?

[Speaker 1] (23:19 - 23:55)
Yeah, there is. I don't have it in front of me. I think before you really start spending it, you wanna look at that, but that's pretty well-established at this point, that public art has return investment in both economic development and crime reduction, and that's been pretty well-studied.

I told you that's not why I proposed it. Yes, communities do better when they invest in art in public spaces, but it just, to me, it just makes a nicer place to live. That's why I proposed it.

But I think it would not be very difficult. At the end of this meeting, I could probably pull up some academic articles.

[Speaker 2] (23:56 - 24:05)
Right, and I'm sure most investments, whatever they did, have some return. I'm not arguing that. I'm not playing off your words, but sure.

[Speaker 6] (24:06 - 24:06)
Hello.

[Speaker 2] (24:07 - 24:09)
Hello, would you identify yourself, please?

[Speaker 9] (24:11 - 24:17)
Sorry, this is Councillor Kraske. I just wanted to weigh in on the public art discussion that you're having, if you'll allow me to share.

[Speaker 12] (24:17 - 24:17)
Absolutely.

[Speaker 9] (24:18 - 25:25)
Okay, so I just wanna talk specifically about the Green Elevator Project. Just a little insight onto it. It's an artist that is an internationally known artist, and ideally, this mural, in my eyes, would change the ultimate perception of Superior, period, and I know that it looks like a large amount of money, and what we're funding it for, but I can't express enough how big of an opportunity this is for us, and I did have to do some legwork on the fact of meeting with this artist and their assistant, and seeing their vision, and I mean, it would just bring such an amazing concept to our town, nothing like anyone's ever seen, and the goal of this artist is to have one mural per state, and I just think that this opportunity is a huge opportunity, and I really hate to miss out on it, and that's just my passion points on it, specifically, and I know that it's a large amount of money, but I can't express enough again how really important this is.

It's really all you have to say, so thanks.

[Speaker 2] (25:25 - 25:34)
Sure, thank you. I understand your passion and your virtuals, so thank you. Any other discussion?

[Speaker 3] (25:35 - 26:06)
Yeah, so that's the revolving grant fund. How, and the revolving grant fund, that's a new fund this year, correct? Yes.

And so it looks like it's funded from three different sources. There's a $100,000 transfer from the general fund to the revolving. There's a $421,000 transfer from the surplus, and then, is it $200,000 from the CIP?

Is that how? The three sources, I'm sorry.

[Speaker 8] (26:06 - 26:08)
I don't know, it was something.

[Speaker 5] (26:09 - 26:38)
Yeah, and that transfer from the CIP, it says slash small business grant, because historically, from the CIP, we've transferred money to the economic development fund, and that fund does $200,000 a year in small business grants, so the CIP document has a $200,000 reduction to the transfer to the economic development fund each year, and instead transfers it into this fund, and that theory was just to get all grants in one budget.

[Speaker 3] (26:38 - 26:57)
Right, which I like that. I like that a lot. I don't know if I'm fully tracking you on the, because if you look at the CIP, it says allocated to the revolving grant fund, it's negative $200,000?

[Speaker 5] (26:58 - 27:18)
Right, so in the revenue section, I have the revenue shown as positive amounts, and then that's a, it's just a, because the money first came into the CIP, and now I'm taking it out of the CIP. Does that make sense? So it's reducing the ultimate, for the low revenue.

[Speaker 3] (27:19 - 27:27)
Yeah, it would make more sense to me if it was down below, but it's, you're basically saying it's the same thing, under expenses, it would?

[Speaker 5] (27:27 - 27:29)
I think you could think of it the same way.

[Speaker 3] (27:29 - 27:29)
Okay, yeah.

[Speaker 5] (27:29 - 27:33)
It's just, yeah, how I have to record it for financial statements.

[Speaker 3] (27:34 - 27:57)
Sure, yep, and then so, okay, if that makes, yeah, that makes sense. So if there is that reduction of $200,000, that, in the, specifically for the apartments, that doesn't necessarily have to stay in the revolving grant fund. That could go back into the general fund.

[Speaker 1] (27:59 - 28:21)
It could go anywhere, but if it went into the general fund, that wouldn't necessarily be replicating the funds. I mean, whatever came from the general fund had been previously, I think most of that revenue was what was annually going to the recreation grants, possibly to reroute some festival money to there too.

[Speaker 5] (28:22 - 28:25)
Yeah, we took all of the, that's exactly correct.

[Speaker 1] (28:25 - 28:47)
So, I mean, we routed it through the general fund, but if you put it in there, that doesn't necessarily mean it's there next year. So if you put it in and spent it in the general fund, that might, for something that was an ongoing expense, a salary or something like that, that would cause deficits in the future. Putting it in the CIP is just putting it in the CIP.

Okay, right.

[Speaker 3] (28:47 - 29:16)
I just wanted to make sure that, if we find any savings in that revolving grant fund, I just wanna make sure that it doesn't have to stay in the revolving grant fund, because I mean, we're, that's one component of it, but in that revolving grant fund, we also, there's also, I would assume, I know there's a scheduled transfer this year from the general fund to the revolving fund. Is that also scheduled in future years?

[Speaker 1] (29:18 - 30:33)
Depending where it originally comes from, but not necessarily. To a certain extent, I wanted to get these expenses out of the general fund to free up some room so that it's a standalone budget, and next year when we go to fund the revolving grant fund program, that whole budget, we have to decide where that revenue's coming from. That's why the spread is kind of the last one.

I won't be yanking money out of the general fund next year. It's just, it's in there now. It was just, this was just a one-time transfer.

Yeah, and it was why it was important that it be a revolving fund, because I want all of those committees to be on notice that we hope, just like with grants we issue, we hope to fund it at these levels in future years, but it won't necessarily be at this amount. So in the past, for example, rec grants, I'm not singling for, or small business grants, these are pretty important to the council, but they've been the same amount year over year. One looked at as part of the same kind of last priority as all grants, all clung together.

So I would still expect to fund them, but in future years, I would expect, like, as we have reserves, that's where it's gonna go. A lot of what you're looking at is really just cleaning up for the year we shipped it the first time.

[Speaker 3] (30:34 - 31:26)
So, because I think the, any cuts that we make today to send to the council, I think they should be offset with how, why we're making that cut. I don't wanna make a $250,000 cut or a $10 cut to any of these line items without having a reason for it. Unless we wanna just have a little extra contingency or whatever, but I think if we're gonna take $250,000 and just keep using that number because that's the one that's on the table now, I think we need to figure out where we're gonna put them and why we're gonna put it where we're putting it.

[Speaker 4] (31:27 - 31:36)
Sure. That was good. My question is, Councilor Sweeney is cutting this way.

Did you have a place or a vision where this would go in place of it?

[Speaker 2] (31:38 - 32:59)
Well, whether it be a vision or an idea, let me go back. I don't think we should be hung up on most, I'm not gonna say all, but all of the things we can cut something without having it go somewhere else, okay? If it's in any, there's a few funds we probably can't touch, but other than that, so if we were to saw this budget, this is my proposal, $250,000 cut, even if we didn't have a purpose for it, okay?

That doesn't mean that, in my opinion, that $250,000 isn't a great economic value to the city. And so to have it automatically go somewhere else, I understand that theory, but I just feel that for that $500,000 down to $250,000, $500,000 is too much for the arts for one year. And so I do have places for it to go, okay?

There's no, I've thought about that too, but I think the vote, if we were, my proposal was to cut $250,000 from the arts fund, if you would, external arts. And that's where it's at. I didn't say we had to put it somewhere else, okay.

[Speaker 4] (33:02 - 33:49)
Mayor, we did our priority-based budgeting that I believe was a part on there. Where did that land with all the councilors and just to kind of get a vibe of priority? I mean, I feel like I have to be also thinking for the entire council too.

Like, what are the priorities and what is the vision of that? I know we're only three folks at finance right now, but eventually we'll get on the council floor and anything can still change there. Oh, absolutely, and they have perfect, great to do it.

My thought anyways, at this point, is it's gonna end at council and we'll have a discussion there. What did folks vote on in terms of the priority? On the card.

[Speaker 1] (33:50 - 34:32)
I'm opening it now, I'll try to do it from memory. Okay, it was popular. If I remember correctly, it was around 10th priority, six councilors supporting it in some way.

Now it's new, so in the CIP, that didn't get it waiting, which created a weighted system. And so if you're asking me in a committee, I'll tell you it's probably, I think it was 10th overall. It did well, especially for a new project, but I'll pull that up in a minute here and let you know exactly if you're still curious.

[Speaker 4] (34:33 - 34:52)
If you can pull that up quickly, otherwise just one has to hopefully consider the whole council's vision on this too. That doesn't necessarily define the dollar amount though, either, but just to try to look at this as the most fair possible way.

[Speaker 2] (34:52 - 34:59)
Or doing something today for the guidance for the rest of the members of the city council. They can certainly change it, yeah.

[Speaker 1] (35:25 - 36:31)
For what it's worth, I kept all my documents on desktop because I belong down in there, but in my very aging back book. Okay, CIP, public art fund, one, two, three, four, five, six councilors supporting it. It was councilor Dabrowski's number one priority in the CIP, which I only point out because at our last committee meeting, I mentioned pretty well that stressful as this was, managed to fund every councilor's number one priority in CIP and general fund.

Double check that, make sure I'm not wrong on that. But 54 points for a total of 54 points of no weight, which makes it one, two, three, four, five, six, tied for 10th ranking right above Barker's Island Marina in points. Barker's Island Marina currently within.

[Speaker 2] (36:33 - 36:33)
Thanks.

[Speaker 1] (36:33 - 36:37)
I mean, if you wanted the raw points, I don't know if that'd help as well.

[Speaker 2] (36:37 - 37:27)
We're not talking about, we're still agreeing that that external art is a priority. I'm arguing my proposal is the funding. Okay, we're still gonna have 250,000.

It's been cut by half. So, and we didn't have dollar figures at that. I may well have voted for that in general speaking.

Okay, I don't think we had a figure of 500,000 behind that when we voted. Okay, so there are two different things. We're agreeing, I think I'm agreeing is, I probably don't know the difference between Dog Ann and Mark as far as arts, but I understand the purpose of it and perhaps the need for it.

So, any other discussion?

[Speaker 6] (37:28 - 37:29)
Mr. Chairman.

[Speaker 2] (37:29 - 37:30)
Yes.

[Speaker 6] (37:31 - 38:32)
I just wanna make sure that I'm on the same page. As I understood it, the point of referral to finance committee was to gain understanding about the construction of the budget, and just kind of understand how the funding of the stated goals of the body sort of fleshed out. And less that the committee would elevate goals that didn't naturally rise to the top through a good and fair process.

And I can appreciate the committee's role, but I think more broadly that the point is not that it passes through this committee with one or two votes, but that it can pass the council. And I'm sorry, I cut out, but I was not able to hear the reason for the 50% reduction.

[Speaker 2] (38:34 - 38:35)
Can you hear me now?

[Speaker 6] (38:37 - 38:37)
Yes.

[Speaker 2] (38:38 - 38:42)
Okay. Well, this is Jack, in case you don't recognize my voice.

[Speaker 6] (38:42 - 38:44)
What I indicated- I do, I can see Jack.

[Speaker 2] (38:44 - 39:58)
Okay, thank you. My purpose in that was a first year project. I think there's been a use of the money and I am not against external art, but I just felt $250,000, 500,000, cutting it to 250, first year project, first year category, to give them 250,000, I think that's more than adequate.

I think we must do some more work. If the largest percentage of the money is going to go to the elevator painting, I think we'd have to do some more, quite a bit of homework, not that we won't, but I'm just, I think there's better use of the money in other places than 500,000 cutting to 250. So, and one of our purposes is, the finance committee has to look at this.

The overall council has a final say, okay? But we chose to come here rather than have this committee of the whole meeting. So this is what we're doing.

We're taking this and looking at it. So just in the final, this is only a recommendation like any other finance committee meeting, it goes to the city council for final approval. And so that's what we're working on today.

[Speaker 6] (40:00 - 40:04)
Thank you. And I'm sorry, I'll keep listening for a reason I didn't hear it again.

[Speaker 2] (40:05 - 40:05)
Sure.

[Speaker 6] (40:06 - 40:06)
Thanks.

[Speaker 2] (40:07 - 40:13)
Okay. So any other questions, ideas, solutions, suggestions?

[Speaker 4] (40:14 - 40:19)
So a yes vote is 250, and a no vote is keeping it as it is.

[Speaker 2] (40:19 - 40:20)
I'm sorry?

[Speaker 4] (40:20 - 40:23)
A yes vote would be moving it to 250.

[Speaker 2] (40:23 - 40:24)
Yes, that is correct.

[Speaker 4] (40:24 - 40:26)
And a no vote would be keeping it the same.

[Speaker 2] (40:27 - 40:36)
To leave it as it is. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. No, no.

[Speaker 9] (40:36 - 40:37)
Hello, Chair.

[Speaker 13] (40:37 - 40:37)
It's a no. Okay.

[Speaker 9] (40:38 - 40:47)
Hi, Tom Czerwoski again. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Oh, I'm sorry if I'm not able to talk.

[Speaker 2] (40:47 - 40:51)
We just, I'm sorry we didn't hear you. We just voted on it to change it to 250.

[Speaker 9] (40:52 - 40:54)
Oh, yeah. Okay, that's fine.

[Speaker 2] (40:54 - 40:59)
Thank you. I'm sorry. Okay, the next item.

Anyone else want to take a turn here?

[Speaker 3] (40:59 - 45:45)
Yeah, can we just stay on the grants program? Sure, absolutely. For a little bit.

With that, I struggle. And I mean, it's not, I know that was the first one that was thrown on the chopping block, but I think we need to do some more work on that. When we're looking at a budget like we do, a brand new expense, a brand new line item to the tune of a million dollars, or close to it, I think is, it should give everyone some pause.

When we're looking at a super tight budget like this, at the same time we're starting this, million dollar fund for a lot of different things, I think we need to, I mean, these funds, these grants are, they're great, they feel good, things we can invest back into the community. But that should only be available when we have a big, comfortable budget. But when we're looking at it, we've got to cut $7 million, seven and a half over the next five years.

Having a brand new million dollar project, I think we need to scale that whole thing back a little bit. And that was just the first one on the chopping block, but the, and I say that knowing that the festival committee, the Parks and Rec grants, the small business grants, that those have been wildly successful. But at the same time, we've got to take care of ourself internally first before we start doing some of these fun projects.

And like with that, to fund that brand new project, we're taking some from the CIP, we're taking the $200,000 from the CIP, we're taking $110,000 from the general fund, we're taking $53,000 contingency from the CIP from last year, and we're taking $125,000 from the unspent funds for that. So I guess, how can we say we're gonna create this one grant program when at the same time, it's putting a crunch on both our general fund and our CIP at the same time? So I mean, how can we do that without taking care of our things first, ourself first?

So I mean, if we're looking at a tough budget where we had to make $7.5 million worth of cuts, I know that's only $250,000, but I mean, the reality is, we could take the remaining CIP contingency, we could take the unspent for fund 414, put that back into the CIP to give, possibly put some of the funding back in the CIP. We take out that transfer from the general fund to alleviate the zero contingency in the general fund. And I think we can still fund some of these things to Councilor Swinney's point.

If the arts went from $500,000 to $250,000, that's still a lot of money for a brand new thing that we're gonna move forward with. So I think there's more room. That one was a big one to start the conversation with, but if we're gonna look at things, and maybe we're going about this backwards and instead of talking about the cuts first, maybe we need to talk about what we want to see added into the general fund and added back into the CIP.

Because otherwise it looks like we're just picking on the arts. But maybe we should look at the conversation and start talking about the things that we feel are missing, whether that's a more substantial raise, a cost of living raise than just the 2%, more closely aligned to COLA, to consumer price increase, to social security increase, whatever. Whether we want to talk about reinvesting into our employees, maybe it makes sense to talk about that first before we start talking about the cuts.

[Speaker 2] (45:49 - 47:21)
Well, what's everyone's pleasure? I think we will get there either way, okay? I hope we will.

And so if you could put up where we're going and then maybe at the end we'll see. But yeah, we can. Well, I'm not, again, the big budget, the 250,000.

I'm not saying that I have a place for that, but I have ideas for it. Where I would like some money to go if that's, if people so see that, okay? But I just think for a first time, 500 grand off the top, I just, I believe that's too much money, that's all.

Let's get this organized for the arts, external arts. But that's my whole purpose. This is embryonic stages and to give it, start running a marathon right away.

This is a little too fast for me. Okay, can I, I have another item. And it has to do with the salary, salary, wage plan, cost of living.

So, Kim, I'm glad you're here because I have questions for you. In 2000, you fill in the date. We had a wage plan.

Correct?

[Speaker 5] (47:21 - 47:24)
That's correct. It was approved in 2015.

[Speaker 2] (47:25 - 47:40)
Okay. And at that time, we took every, I'm gonna say every category, every job description and evaluated it and looked at it and changed it. Didn't we not?

[Speaker 5] (47:41 - 47:46)
I don't know if we necessarily changed every category. They were all reviewed.

[Speaker 2] (47:46 - 47:51)
No, but I said, looked at and changed. They didn't have to be changed and they didn't change it. But we looked at them all.

[Speaker 5] (47:51 - 47:53)
For non-represented employees.

[Speaker 2] (47:53 - 48:03)
Right, right, okay. And so we then, at that time, I think, brought them up to where they, what the firm suggested we do, right?

[Speaker 5] (48:04 - 48:04)
Correct. Okay.

[Speaker 2] (48:05 - 48:12)
And so as of that day, 2015, 2016, we felt we were with the market.

[Speaker 14] (48:13 - 48:14)
Yes.

[Speaker 2] (48:14 - 49:16)
Okay, great. Okay, so do we have anything going on from 2016 to today to bring people back? I'm not suggesting we're where we should be now, but we completed our mission in 2016, in 2015, 2016, right?

Okay, okay. That's what I thought. Okay, and so then let's talk about cost of living.

Marist has a 2% number in there. And I don't know if that's right or wrong. I know all of the, we've talked before, and I'm not, Jeff started in there, I'm just saying we had to come up with a figure, okay?

So 2% was the figure we came up with, okay? I don't know how accurate it is, but that's the figure we used. And so last year we gave it 2%, I think, didn't we?

But then we changed it to 2.2? Two?

[Speaker 1] (49:17 - 49:23)
Down one, I proposed 1.5, and Council moved it up 1.6. Okay, yeah, because that's right.

[Speaker 2] (49:24 - 55:08)
Because I was, you know, I said, let's make it the cocaine. So, and I've done some further research on cost of living, and how they arrive at it, and we don't have to go into it, but just for a quick, they arrive at the coal level, and they take July, August, and September, those three months, and this year, okay, for next year. And they take them, and if July was 1.5, and 1.5, and 1.5, then they come up with four point, or whatever it is. And so, and that's how they do it, okay? They don't take the whole year, they just take those three months. That decision is made in October sometime.

And that's what the cost of living for, Social Security, and the other one. That's how they arrive at that. And then they take, after you get that, I think they said I'm the only one here that knows this public, because I'm the only one that's under that rule.

And then we pay automatically Part A, which is a hospitalization, called hospitalization. And if that went up, they, if it goes up 5%, then they take that amount off of your raise, and that's what you get for Social Security. That's COLA, okay?

And COLA goes after the index, and it's an index of a basket of items. And it's done in major cities, and it's done by, I think, working people. Okay, the only people that are working.

And then there's another one they do, comes out, they come out very close, okay? So, I don't know what it's going to be for this year, because it's not determined yet. So, and I don't know if this is too early, or we can't do it.

Maybe the 2% is where we have to be. But my point is, we have to develop a system of some kind, okay, or a criteria on how we give raises for all our employees. While I vote against an extra holiday, okay, I believe that we should pay, if our wages are where they should be.

We should have another wage study also, because it's five years, six years since we've done that. Okay, I think we should have another study, and I think we should then look at that, and impact that for the holidays. The following years have that, so we don't have to, I mean, I could have, Jim came up with 2%, I could have come up with, we could all come up with different numbers, okay?

But that's just the number we came up with. Whether it's accurate or not, nobody knows, and it may well be, okay? But it's not based on anything, okay?

So, our employees can say, at least they can double check our numbers, and say, this is what we came up with for 2021, 22, whatever it is, this is what it is. I think that's the only way, and to develop the system is what, I think we have to do that. So, what I'm saying is, I would like, 2%, we can talk about that.

I don't know right now that figure is any more valid than 1.5 or 2.5, okay? And so, if we have to live in that, with that figure, fine, but I wanna make sure, that we have this discussion today, and we have a draft vote on it, to set aside, whether it be human resources or somebody, it's human resources, but we may have to give somebody some money to develop a wage study again, and to develop a system for wage increases, okay? After we look at the, to bring this up to date, five years, it's time to have another wage study.

There's no question about that, in my mind. And so, when Jim and I were talking, he said, you know, it may have changed drastically, because the whole thing has changed in five years, it really changed, okay? So, I just wanna make sure, and I would bring this to a vote, that we make sure that we have money set aside for a wage study, basically bringing salaries and wages up to where they should be with the market, and number in letter B, is to develop a pricing column that's based upon fact, and some outside source, okay?

Now, that may be painful for us. If it goes up 4% one year, or five, well, I'm going with Brent. I think we have to take care of our internal needs before we look to the outside sometimes.

This is our, you know, our employees are probably one of our most critical, important assets. So, and we get, if you get too far, but we never catch up, it's like deferred maintenance. You never catch up on that, you just never do.

And so, that's where I'm coming from. So, I don't know if we need this in a vote or not, but I just wanna make sure that we keep this on the back burner, front burner, from the back to the front, and it gets done in the next year. If we have to set aside money, maybe there's money we can find somewhere, you know, I don't know that.

But, Jim, go ahead.

[Speaker 1] (55:08 - 57:51)
A couple things. Well, oh gee, Peter, you can always find mine somewhere. I mean, there's at least a little rhyme and reason to the 2%.

Before the Carlson, Dettman, Wade study, of course everybody remembers we had the AFSCME units that were bargaining units within the city. So, almost every employee's salary were determined through negotiation. And part of those negotiations, as they still are with police and fire, is drawing comparables to like employees.

Now, that's not one for one. You know, firefighters can compare themselves to firefighters. The AFSCME units had much more diverse employees to cover.

So, that was kind of one part. And then, in budgeting, you know, you balance it off each other, and the existing contracts help. You know, when we go into negotiations with one of the two bargaining units, you know, one thing Joe was saying was like, everybody else got 2%.

So, you should really be negotiating for 2%. I don't know if it's, it's not really that simple, but it kind of creates a range you want to create fairness across the city. I did remember between the last meeting, when we were discussing this in the closing days and hours of the budget last year, or actually as we were preparing the budget, Candy did look up kind of what other cities were getting for wage increases.

And that was, I mean, we were going into COVID. It was a tough year, but there's plenty of drift, but it still lives in that, you know, nothing to, what was the highest we saw? 4%, 3 1⁄2, something like that.

But there were no like 6% in it. So, it's not, if it's arbitrary, it's also kind of where everybody else lives. So, but all that said, I do agree with you that we should have something more than just, well, it's what we've always done, or it's the random number that we're a 2% city, and that's a good number, and 1% is bad.

I mean, we can do better than that. And, but that's a policy question that the city should develop. And, you know, like when you and I talked, Chairman, that that would be a subject for the Human Resources Committee, and we can move towards that.

I agree with you, if you wanna go the wage study route, that's one option. And I think, I go back and forth, even in the last few days, about how valuable that would be, when we should do that, whether we could even do better than that, and just come up with a universal city policy. And so, I don't have a real opinion on it yet, but if you wanted to set money aside, one thing that's actually kind of occurring to me right now, you have to put it in the general fund, that's where we'd spend it from, it'd be a contracted service, likely on a human resource budget.

Do you remember what Carlson-Bedman cost?

[Speaker 5] (57:52 - 57:56)
Yeah, off the top of my head, I believe it was around 40,000 somewhere in that area.

[Speaker 1] (57:56 - 58:07)
Actually, 1% of wages are about 90,000. If you were talking a COLA increase, well, what did you say that was projected for 22?

[Speaker 2] (58:09 - 58:11)
2%, don't you have 2% projection?

[Speaker 1] (58:11 - 58:13)
That's what the COLA projection is?

[Speaker 2] (58:13 - 58:21)
No, no, no, I don't know what that is, because the COLA projection will not be available till I assume the 15th of October.

[Speaker 1] (58:21 - 59:14)
If you, I don't know that I'm recommending this, but one, with the huge caveat that this budget will not set the rates next year, I know everybody understands that, but I like to repeat it, you're not setting the wages either in this meeting or at the council, you're only creating a projected budget. So if the council passes 2% on Tuesday, and then human resources, you know, the next month passes 8%, we're paying 8%. It's, and whatever consequences that has for the budget, human resources and the council sets that policy, I don't think the budget is just, well, running we have set aside, but of course you're on the human resource committee, Mr. Chairman, I would expect the council to stay within its budget that it created, but just as one potential option, if you went down to one and a half percent, that pays for your wage study, if you really want that done in 22.

[Speaker 2] (59:15 - 1:00:16)
Well, I definitely want it done in 22. Okay. Because I think it's critical that we do it.

It's time to bring that up where we, and I don't know where we are, but I think it's critical that we bring that into 22. But when you, I'm just gonna talk about the 2%. Everybody either say that, not picking the firemen, but, well, we went 22, why did you go 2%?

Well, because Eau Claire went 2%. Why did Eau Claire go up? Well, because Milwaukee did.

Well, give me some facts. Well, we don't want that, we're just following along. And the wage study that some of them have done, they were comparing cities that were way out of our class in terms of population, in terms of geographic area, in terms of, and I realize it's state, we were trying to stick within the state, and I get that and understand that, but I think we've got, whether we want to admit it or not, we've got some other comparables that are not necessarily within the state of Wisconsin, but they're our competitors for wages, for people.

[Speaker 1] (1:00:17 - 1:01:19)
Yeah, and at the risk of making this conversation go too long, because, again, I think we should have it as a policy conversation, but this is a budget conversation, not a wage policy conversation. But I get really intrigued by the discussion. I mean, it's a really interesting discussion to me because I start to get uncomfortable.

I think there should be an average cost. Rather, on the whole, a like employee throughout Wisconsin should be about the same, because if it's not, it starts to be unfair to the taxpayers. If a finance director costs us X amount of money, but it's $20,000 less in Wausau, that's unfair to our taxpayers.

They're paying more for the same job. I mean, it's not exactly the same job, but it's a concept called taxpayer equity, and it used to be the law in Wisconsin is generally considered a right of taxpayers, that they shouldn't have to pay more for the same services elsewhere in Wisconsin. And it's a point I look forward to elaborating on in that discussion.

[Speaker 4] (1:01:20 - 1:01:40)
Councilor Sweeney, in a perfect world, do you see us creating a policy or a system, per se, that we'll use indefinitely, or maybe make minor adjustments to, or maybe create a standard of having a wage study every three years to then determine an algorithm of sorts?

[Speaker 2] (1:01:41 - 1:05:00)
Well, I think we ought to have a wage, whether it be every two years, okay? We can't have a wage study 25 years ago, and then try to jump for it, all of a sudden somebody comes up with an idea, we gotta have another wage study, we should set it, whether it be three or four or five, something, somewhere in there. That's, I think we absolutely ought to have that.

But then, whether we have cost of living, we have to have something to base it. Now, we can get a base from when Social Security comes out with that in this month, but that doesn't mean we have to follow it to the letter of the law, but we have, we're grounded in something, something five years from today, somebody looks at that, how did you come up with, oh, we got 2%, we just thought that was, you know. And so, because Eau Claire did it, and Eau Claire did it, because Walsall did it, and Walsall did it, or whatever, whatever.

And so, I agree with Jim, I like what you said, that we're better than that. I think we can do better. And so, and we have to pay our employees.

And I'm not for spending money just randomly, but I think that with our employees, they're an asset, and it's tough to find people. Right now, it's really tough. And so, I think we have to pay them.

And that's the whole genesis of my little talk here, that we've got to do better, and I think we can do better, but we've got to have a way of studying, we've got to commit to something that every employee can say, at the end of the year, all the employees say, what do you think the raise will be this year? Well, I don't know, maybe. But they can go check it, if they want to.

Put it in writing, that's our policy. Here's how we're going to pay it. If it goes to 4%, then we got to figure out a way to cut something else, okay?

And I think there's room to cut other things, you know. So, and I agree with taking, we shouldn't give a little bit of money to a lot of things. We should define what our major project is in whatever category, okay?

For example, the two things I'm thinking about now is homelessness and sexual traffic, okay? Those are important things, so we can't let that, so we can't give somebody $5,000 and say, go fix that for us, that isn't going to happen, okay? So we got to look at that, if that's our big, then we got to work at that till we can at least come to some conclusion, okay?

But we all would feel good at the end of the day, say, yeah, we put a buck in everybody's, everybody wanted it, we give them a buck and they're all happy. Well, maybe they're all happy, but, so I've got some areas that just only my ideas where we should put money, but that's where, so anyway, getting back to the salary, I guess I don't have a problem with 2% as long as we can commit to doing those two things, salary study, salary wage study, excuse me, and develop a system for paying our employees that's predetermined, okay? And we can start with the COLA and we can redefine it, rewrite it, change it, but that's at least the basis of where we are.

I don't know if there's another city that, there's got to be other cities that do it like, I don't know that to be honest with you, but hopefully there is, I don't think they're all just.

[Speaker 1] (1:05:00 - 1:05:09)
I mean, the lead conference, and I imagine at some point there's a finance director's conference too, and human resource that I think we can talk to other cities.

[Speaker 10] (1:05:09 - 1:05:10)
Sure, I mean, I think.

[Speaker 1] (1:05:10 - 1:05:14)
There ought to be a statewide way of doing it. Well, there are, I agree with you. I doubt there is.

[Speaker 14] (1:05:14 - 1:05:15)
Do you?

[Speaker 1] (1:05:15 - 1:05:40)
I mean, cities don't talk to each other that much. I mean, it's part of why, I know the council widely supported increased staff training, but when I put this in here, I told every department that I want department heads out talking to their professional colleagues, especially this far north. It just feels like it doesn't happen enough.

I mean, Fox River, they're all talking, really hanging out every day, but we don't see them a lot.

[Speaker 4] (1:05:41 - 1:05:50)
So Councilor Sweeney, are you proposing or making any budget adjustments or is this more of a discussion to put on the agenda for human resources?

[Speaker 2] (1:05:50 - 1:06:03)
Well, a budget adjustment would be to the general budget. We have to put a dollar figure in for those two studies. I don't know.

You said 40 to 45,000?

[Speaker 5] (1:06:03 - 1:06:05)
That was just a, yeah, it was around that.

[Speaker 2] (1:06:06 - 1:06:26)
Correct. So with inflation. My memory is a little more than that, but you're probably right.

But if it's 40 and so if you take 50, 60,000 and put it in a general budget, sure. I don't know. I think that would be adequate.

Anyone else have an idea on the terms of the?

[Speaker 3] (1:06:27 - 1:06:41)
Yeah, I don't disagree with anything you're saying, except for right now, we don't have a wage that is effective one. It's been a few years. Right now, we don't have a formula or a plan.

[Speaker 2] (1:06:42 - 1:06:42)
We do not.

[Speaker 3] (1:06:43 - 1:08:11)
I think the one thing that, whatever that formula looks like, whatever way you want to calculate it, we could talk about 10 different ways to calculate it. I think the one thing that they'll all probably come back at is 2% is low. I don't think the 2% is gonna hit the market.

I don't think it hits the market now and I don't think it's gonna after a wage study or a formula or anything. So one of the things I'd like to see is us reinvest back into our employees with something a little bit closer. When social security is looking at a 6%, we're looking at a 2.

Maybe we don't go off with social security increase, but there's a reason social security is taking a 6% increase because everything is going up. The cost of living, the cost of everything has gone up. I'm not suggesting we jump up to a 6%.

I think that would be reckless without having a wage study done. But I think the one thing that we probably can, maybe not, but I'll agree on, is that the 2% is probably right, that when we go through the wage study, when we get something, some kind of formula set, that now we're gonna have to play catch up next year, going from 2% to 6%. I think we need to bridge that gap a little sooner than waiting until next year for the wage study.

[Speaker 2] (1:08:12 - 1:09:57)
Okay, but I think we got two things on the table. I'm talking about a wage study to bring department X, Y, and A up to, and department N, O, and P are where they ought to be. That's one thing.

The COLA, or the cost of living, if you would, that we can change. I don't know what our date is, but 2%, I'm saying 2%, I don't know if that's the right figure or not. I don't think it's five or six.

I think the overall for the year will be that, but they only take three months. Okay, they only take July, August, and September. So if it's 1% a month, that's 3%, okay?

So I don't know what it is. I probably could look up and figure out what the first two months are, July and August, okay? And I don't know what they are.

I'd love to figure that out, but I wouldn't wanna go to, I wouldn't wanna budget for 4% right now because I think that's too extreme. I really do. I think maybe we live in a 2% world and then take a look at it, and what I say is everybody here could double check, triple check me, which I would do when people say things to me, see if I'm accurate there.

I'm not trying to give you disinformation, but I believe that to be accurate, but I just think that we have to have, my bottom line is we gotta make it a system here to pay people and have a wage study every three or four years, whatever it is. And I think once we got onto that wage, it wouldn't be that hard. I mean, I'm looking at that, what he did.

I don't think that'd be that hard to do internally. Do you agree with me?

[Speaker 5] (1:09:58 - 1:10:06)
Well, it just depends on how extensive. I mean, when you do an extensive one reviewing all of the job descriptions, that's one, just doing the wage comparison.

[Speaker 2] (1:10:06 - 1:10:19)
Now we're at, I think we got a good basis for where we are, right? So I think we could do an internal one every two years, three years, and then go outside again for every five years or whatever the number we agree on, so.

[Speaker 3] (1:10:21 - 1:10:30)
Ashley, do you have a number on, I know you emailed it to me at one point, what like a 1% increase would be, what the 2%?

[Speaker 5] (1:10:31 - 1:10:32)
It's around 90,000.

[Speaker 3] (1:10:32 - 1:10:33)
90,000.

[Speaker 5] (1:10:33 - 1:10:34)
Per 1% increase in salary.

[Speaker 4] (1:10:36 - 1:10:58)
I guess I just feel that we need to collect the facts before I make a decision when we're changing one arbitrary number for another. And there are some folks that suffered last year and never did any increases. So what's the average of so many years?

Where are we at? So I agree with you, it's just through the study to determine where we need to be.

[Speaker 1] (1:10:59 - 1:11:26)
Otherwise, we're just changing one another. There's also a logistical danger in adding expenses to the general fund that are ongoing, like salary increases, because those are compounding unless we're gonna say we will never increase salaries to get compounding increases. So to increase by any amount at all in 2022 immediately creates deficits and every future year, those deficits are compounded.

No, it creates a deficit this year if we don't buy the money for it.

[Speaker 2] (1:11:26 - 1:11:32)
You make a good point. I mean, why we're taking one number for another when either of them may be accurate.

[Speaker 3] (1:11:34 - 1:11:55)
I think my point is that, to trade the one random number for another is, I think whatever way we end up, the 2% is gonna be low. And I think we need to get ahead of this now instead of kicking this can down the road and now we've got to make even a bigger week.

[Speaker 1] (1:11:56 - 1:12:14)
Except it wouldn't save us any money to do it earlier. We would spend this money regardless. It's not any easier to spend some now than rather have a big, if the cost is 200,000 extra a year next year, it doesn't matter if we spend 100,000 this year, we're still spending the 200 next year.

[Speaker 2] (1:12:14 - 1:12:18)
Right, okay. We're gonna be where we have to be.

[Speaker 1] (1:12:18 - 1:12:36)
It would just be more money. Right. Okay.

I don't know if we need that. Go ahead. I'm confused.

Are you hoping to see money set aside in the general fund for a contract to do a wage study in 2022?

[Speaker 2] (1:12:37 - 1:12:37)
Yes, I am.

[Speaker 1] (1:12:38 - 1:13:16)
I would suggest you not bring the motion that way. We'll see. If you set aside money for a specific contract, the bids tend to come in at that amount.

And I don't know how much you want to set aside. We may have, like I said, you can only, if you came in under 2%, you're gonna find money there. It's a CIP contingency of 20,000.

It's a one-time expense. You can really take it from anything you want, but there's already a contingency of CIP of 20,000. We're happy they're there.

Whatever amount you put in and wherever you take it from, I would add it. The motion I would suggest is to increase the human resources contracted services budget with no other description.

[Speaker 13] (1:13:17 - 1:13:18)
That's fine.

[Speaker 1] (1:13:18 - 1:13:21)
Council still has to put those out to bid and decide how to spend that.

[Speaker 13] (1:13:21 - 1:13:22)
Sure, that's fine.

[Speaker 1] (1:13:22 - 1:13:44)
We will not allow Kami to spend it on whatever she wants. Is that, is there any money in that fund now? No.

We usually don't put money down to the agent a lot of contracts. The last expense was, I think, the RW contract. So, and again, we can go over what's budgeted.

We shouldn't, but we did do that.

[Speaker 2] (1:13:45 - 1:13:57)
Well, right, we can. Is there any other contractual dollars amount in the mayor's budget, in Joe Smith's budget?

[Speaker 10] (1:13:59 - 1:14:01)
Sorry about that. Yes.

[Speaker 1] (1:14:01 - 1:14:43)
I don't, we probably have some in the mayor's office. I don't like finding it on the spot. Okay, I'm not here to kill me, but planning and parks, they got the most contracted services money, so it probably works, but it's five different budgets.

It's gonna be more than $20,000, but depending, it's a good start. I mean, I don't know where else you'd wanna take it from if you got 40, everybody'd be feeling comfortable with it, but we can move it around. Who knows?

I mean, they're usually very responsible with their budget. They tend to run ahead of budget anyways.

[Speaker 2] (1:14:44 - 1:15:03)
Yeah, that's fine. I just want it on the record that we're gonna do that this year. So put money for it.

Okay, then I will, it's upon the guidance, I will make a motion that we increase or develop an outside contract budget for human resources.

[Speaker 1] (1:15:04 - 1:15:06)
One second. Sorry, how much? How much?

[Speaker 2] (1:15:07 - 1:15:23)
Well, not to, I won't say not to exceed. Let's see. The reason I'm hesitating, are we, I thought I heard you say you prefer not to have an amount in there.

[Speaker 1] (1:15:23 - 1:15:24)
No, no, I didn't want it named.

[Speaker 2] (1:15:25 - 1:15:35)
I didn't want you to say for the purposes for various contract services, okay? Which is plural.

[Speaker 1] (1:15:35 - 1:15:37)
We have a line item for contract services.

[Speaker 2] (1:15:38 - 1:15:39)
For $40,000.

[Speaker 1] (1:15:39 - 1:15:55)
I'll second that. So we need a source of the revenue. I mean, you could recommend a cut from somewhere in the CIP or contingency is 20,000.

20,000.

[Speaker 4] (1:15:55 - 1:16:04)
So we only need to cut 20,000 then. Right. What was it?

It was the, that'd be revolving. That could be a source of the revenue.

[Speaker 1] (1:16:04 - 1:16:08)
You could put it in there, yes. Happened now.

[Speaker 13] (1:16:08 - 1:16:09)
Yeah.

[Speaker 1] (1:16:10 - 1:16:23)
So 20,000 for the CIP contingency, 20,000 for the revolving grant fund. Makes 40,000 into HR contracted services. You know, attracting that finance.

[Speaker 3] (1:16:24 - 1:16:49)
I would, I would rather not have it come from CIP. I mean, that's not a, it's not a valid CIP project. And I know we, I know we've really poured the lines on, you know, what can we use for CIP and what's not, but a contract for that I think should not come from CIP.

[Speaker 1] (1:16:50 - 1:17:06)
I mean, it's not, it's a contingency. It's not money. It's just the revenue that went into the CIP versus, I mean, vast majority of the revenue is terminal tax or splits anyways.

That, we've had $100,000 back and forth in that either way. So, I mean, it's not gonna increase the CIP. General fund or whatever.

[Speaker 5] (1:17:07 - 1:17:11)
Right, right. I might transfer from the CIP to the general fund will increase.

[Speaker 3] (1:17:12 - 1:17:18)
Or you could just decrease the $110,000 transfer that's going to the revolving fund right now.

[Speaker 1] (1:17:18 - 1:17:24)
I mean, yeah, that's just financially moving it around. We're just accounting for the money. That would seem different.

[Speaker 5] (1:17:25 - 1:17:41)
Right, so that, and that, right now, the committee has voted to essentially zero out the contingency in the CIP. So if I take it all from the revolving grant fund, that would leave the $20,000 in the CIP. So they are slightly different.

[Speaker 1] (1:17:47 - 1:17:52)
So whatever the preference of the committee is. Yeah, I'd suggested half from the CIP, half from the revolving grant fund.

[Speaker 2] (1:17:56 - 1:18:12)
To me, it's not as big a problem as where it's coming from. It's where it's going. Okay.

We settled with that? With that voted on? Yeah, no, I mean, I was telling you, yeah, right.

All those in favor, seat in the five, you're saying aye?

[Speaker 1] (1:18:12 - 1:18:42)
Just to clarify, so what is the actual motion? $20,000 from CIP, $20,000 from revolving grant fund, reductions to both of those, and then an increase in the HR contracted services budget by $40,000. So it's, and then actually we'll sort out the transfers there, but it'll be more complex than that when it's formed, but that would be the answer.

So what about the simplest way possible?

[Speaker 3] (1:18:42 - 1:19:01)
Yeah, you know, I mean, the simplest way possible is just to decrease the transfer from the general fund to the revolving fund by 50,000, or 40,000 to fund that. That may well be how, well, it won't be by 40,000, it'll be by 20,000, but that's probably how it'll go.

[Speaker 1] (1:19:02 - 1:19:05)
Well, no, I'm saying by 40,000, I mean, that would be the simplest.

[Speaker 3] (1:19:06 - 1:19:19)
Right, that just wasn't the motion. But I mean, I- Whatever works. Okay, so I'll make a motion to amend the motion to take the 40,000 from the transfer to the revolving fund.

[Speaker 7] (1:19:20 - 1:19:22)
Say that again, I'm sorry.

[Speaker 3] (1:19:24 - 1:19:45)
To take that $40,000, decrease from the transfer from the general fund to the revolving loan fund. What else do I need to go with that? And then decrease the revolving loan fund by $40,000.

And then you still have to put it in the HR- I understand the motion.

[Speaker 7] (1:19:46 - 1:19:48)
Okay, so put it in the HR contracted services.

[Speaker 4] (1:19:49 - 1:19:51)
Yeah, that's the next part of it.

[Speaker 6] (1:19:51 - 1:20:01)
And then what would that decrease in the revolving grant? What allocation does that then decrease in? From non-profit grants?

[Speaker 1] (1:20:02 - 1:20:35)
No, by cutting the public art fund, the committee created an unallocated balance in the revolving grant fund of 250,000. Councilor Fentasy's proposed reducing that to 210,000 and increasing the- and adding it to human resource contracted services. The original motion was 20,000 for revolving grants and 20,000 for the CIP.

Which, I mean, I supported the original motion because we already have unallocated expenses in the CIP. And the grants fund was already cut.

[Speaker 6] (1:20:36 - 1:20:50)
Okay, my concern would just be, I would just ask the committee to consider another source if the cut of 250,000 does not survive the final decision by the council.

[Speaker 12] (1:20:53 - 1:20:54)
Say that again, please.

[Speaker 6] (1:20:56 - 1:21:11)
I guess I would just ask the committee to consider $250,000 going back to public art when we reach the floor. So if there's another source to take it from, I would consider that.

[Speaker 3] (1:21:12 - 1:21:15)
Those motions are all made independently of each other.

[Speaker 4] (1:21:15 - 1:21:19)
Right. Right. So they are doing the same thing on council floors.

Yeah, right.

[Speaker 2] (1:21:21 - 1:21:24)
Okay, so thank you. Any other discussion?

[Speaker 4] (1:21:26 - 1:21:33)
Was there a second to Councilor Betz's motion? I did, I thought I did. No, we have a first and second.

[Speaker 3] (1:21:33 - 1:21:36)
Oh, I'm sorry, you have a new motion. Just not a new motion, just an amendment.

[Speaker 4] (1:21:36 - 1:21:41)
Amendment to the original to changing the funding sources.

[Speaker 3] (1:21:41 - 1:21:44)
Yeah, to take it from the general fund and transfer it.

[Speaker 2] (1:21:47 - 1:21:50)
You wanna read that again, Jean, just to make sure.

[Speaker 7] (1:21:50 - 1:21:51)
I'm sorry, I'm lost.

[Speaker 1] (1:21:51 - 1:22:11)
Right, okay. Councilor Sviggum, he's... He's amending changing the funding source.

To change how you funded the contract. Yourself and Councilor Elma originally proposed to take it half from the CIP, half from the grants. Councilor Fennessy has moved to instead take it all from the grants and dump the CIP from the...

[Speaker 2] (1:22:11 - 1:22:13)
Did I get a second? No. Okay.

[Speaker 1] (1:22:13 - 1:22:14)
You got a second?

[Speaker 2] (1:22:15 - 1:22:22)
No. Okay, neither am I. Okay.

Then you can vote on it.

[Speaker 10] (1:22:22 - 1:22:23)
Now we have the original one.

[Speaker 2] (1:22:23 - 1:22:29)
Now we will, I'm just gonna wait until Jean catches up here. You know, there's sheep there, so. Just stop me any time, you know.

Can we record this?

[Speaker 7] (1:22:30 - 1:22:34)
Yes, it is being recorded too. Yeah, right, I know. Okay.

[Speaker 2] (1:22:34 - 1:22:46)
So. I involve amendments to the amendment for people to take them as amendments. Yeah, they do.

Okay, all those in favor of the initial motion, signify by saying aye.

[Speaker 14] (1:22:46 - 1:22:46)
Aye.

[Speaker 2] (1:22:47 - 1:22:54)
Okay, thank you. Anyone else have, I have a couple items left. If anybody else has anything else to...

[Speaker 3] (1:22:57 - 1:23:44)
Yeah, I think we do. Sure. So, certainly going to the grants and just grants in general.

So, over the last couple of years here, you've made an effort to kind of consolidate the grant process, and instead of having it from like one department of grants over here, and then all these different funds consolidating it into more of a centralized place for, you know, for consistency, which I appreciate. And I like the, so right now though, we still have, is it just two different budgets or not budgets, but individual budgets for grants? Is it the revolving grant fund and then the community services grants?

[Speaker 8] (1:23:46 - 1:23:57)
Community, are you looking at it, the line item general fund? Is there one on that? How much is that?

This one's 50, 53. I just wanted to present you. Yeah, because this should be outdated.

[Speaker 1] (1:24:01 - 1:24:28)
Oh, most of this, it's a bad title for this line item because it, I mean, health and human services grants, most of these are not grants. Most of these are contractual obligations or, you know, superiors and sister city, those are grants. I wouldn't describe any of these as grants.

That's just the title of it. So, that's outdated. I mean, that should actually get a different title.

It's more, I mean, miscellaneous. It's just that I don't like that term in budgets, but that's what it is.

[Speaker 3] (1:24:29 - 1:25:37)
Because I guess where that was leading in my, the next point is, yeah, I mean, these, yeah, I mean, these, I think they're more, I would kind of disagree. I think they're, maybe grants, yeah, maybe you're right. But I think these, in this community services grants, should go through a similar process that all of the other grants go through, where every year they have to come to us and say, you know, we need superior days.

We need $4,000. We can't put on superior days without $4,000. That's what we need.

Sister city, we need $5,000. And I think that should go through the same vetting process. All of those, you know, should.

The Commission on Disability, Commission on Colored, and then the Northwest Community Service Agency. Those kind of all are what we're trying to get away from, and is just blindly just having a budget at a moment and putting it in there every year.

[Speaker 4] (1:25:37 - 1:25:45)
Wasn't that laid out that way? Because they're actually the same ordained items?

[Speaker 1] (1:25:45 - 1:27:32)
So they're a little different. I mean, sister city and superior days are organizations that the city is an official member of. And so for example, the mayor is the chair of superior days.

It's the biggest expense for council travel. Those are kind of, those are very similar, but they are organizations of which the city is a part. It has officer positions in them.

The other two commissions, they are unique, but they operate in kind of a world. They're not white city departments, but they very much are the city. The council has created them and then filled their membership.

I mean, and of course those budgets are very small. They use it for like tailing or representing the city to help them, you know, do their job being representative. That's most of where that money goes to.

So those are different still. And then the Northwest, that's just a contract. So it just, I mean, that could just as easily be moved to the planning and contracting services.

So I think it just sat there. So, I mean, I don't disagree. We didn't look too closely at it.

The commissions, I think, ought to stay in the general fund budget because the work that they do is very much on behalf of the city. That's not a grant and they're not independent organizations. I also don't think Superior Days or Sister City are independent, but I view them as being subject to the council approval via the general fund budget process.

So you just approving the work of those, or at least the funding for those organizations, same as funding mayor's office, planning department, anything else. I mean, that's just the way I view them anyways, but it is something of a catch-all budget.

[Speaker 3] (1:27:32 - 1:29:26)
Because the Superior Days, it's been canceled this year, rescheduled to the next year. So there should be money in that fund from last year. If we had these line items inside the community grant program, it would go through that same vetting process and it wouldn't be just an automated, we'll do another $5,000.

Did we do anything with Sister City last year? It's been, well, no, until we came or when the balance comes up, basically. So what, so, but if we just, we didn't do anything with it last year, what do we need the money for this year?

And I guess the same thing for Superior Days, if it looks different this year than it did last year, we probably don't need that money. The Northwest Regional Community Service Agency, we called it, I know that looks significantly different. Last year in the services they provided, if we had them going through the grant process and the others too, it would be vetted.

And I'm not suggesting lowering those amounts, I'm suggesting the possibility of bringing these, that $53,000 into the other fund to make it the same process for everyone. It's kind of strange to phase something out of a pandemic, though, I think under normal circumstances. But I think that's exactly why it needs to go through the annual vetting process, because something strange like the pandemic could have an organization spending nothing, but they're just on autopilot getting even $5,000 every year.

Well, except the Northwest has a contract, so that can't- It doesn't have a dollar amount in it.

[Speaker 1] (1:29:26 - 1:29:33)
What's that? It doesn't have a dollar amount in the contract. The, well, I've never read the contract, but that would be strange.

[Speaker 3] (1:29:33 - 1:29:42)
It doesn't have a dollar amount. It doesn't, it just says that we're responsible for contributing to the overall organization.

[Speaker 1] (1:29:44 - 1:30:07)
Well, I haven't looked at the contract recently, but that's for maintenance of the contract, and that's been its spent amount overall. But the other two, Superior Days has revenue that it did not receive over the last year, and it has expenses that it didn't incur. So that's why it's still in there, because it lost all of its revenue except for that, but it kept some of its most significant expenses, including staff.

[Speaker 3] (1:30:07 - 1:30:42)
And then that would get fleshed out during the vetting process. Yeah, this is a vetting process. No, this is budgeting.

This is, we're not vetting Superior Days right now. We're not vetting Sister City. We're not vetting these the way that we vet the other grants that we go through.

No, at least for Superior Days, I very much did look at the budget in preparing how much this needed. And that's fine. My point is, this is not the time or place to vet these organizations.

The time and place to vet these organizations is through the grant process that everybody else, or that we've shifted everybody else to.

[Speaker 1] (1:30:49 - 1:30:50)
I mean, these, I disagree.

[Speaker 6] (1:30:51 - 1:30:55)
Finance vets all of the grants. So this is exactly where that vetting would take place.

[Speaker 1] (1:30:55 - 1:31:00)
Yeah, I mean, yeah, these are not outside organizations that we've granted to. So these have always been minimum expenses.

[Speaker 4] (1:31:03 - 1:31:04)
So what's your pleasure?

[Speaker 3] (1:31:06 - 1:31:20)
I would propose moving 53,400 from the community services grants and increase the revolving grant by 53,400.

[Speaker 2] (1:31:24 - 1:31:49)
So of the 53, 45, or whatever that number is, is cap agency, right? Northwest Community Action, I'm sorry. And Northwest Community Action money is a contract that goes to the senior citizens.

Is that what that money is for? Is that money just in general so they can spend it where they see fit? I don't know.

[Speaker 3] (1:31:49 - 1:33:02)
I've never read the contract either. The contract has, it just says that the city owns the building and we have to contribute towards the operational cost. It doesn't say we have to contribute 43,000.

And that's my point, David. In a pandemic year, the true cost of what an organization needs, whether that's Superior Day Sister City, Northwest, you know, whatever, it can change and fluctuate. There could be different grant opportunities for Northwest Community.

But by doing it this way, it just puts these organizations on autopilot. And over the last couple of years, that's what we've backed off of, is just blindly giving money without them showing that, yes, we need these funds. And Jack, to your point, you said it before, that for grants and for the city giving money, the city should be the last resort for that.

The city shouldn't be the first resort of funding in an organization, especially not just on autopilot every year.

[Speaker 2] (1:33:03 - 1:33:58)
No, I would, especially with Northwest Community Action, I, in order for full disclosure, I was on that board for a while. Millie, smart lady, good operator. But nonetheless, we're getting $45,000.

We ought to know what it's for and don't just deny them, absolutely. Whatever is the best way to do that is what I am in favor of. If it's changing adequates for somebody else looking at the line items with greater detail, then whatever is the best way to do that, we should, that one, I'll separate that from the other two.

But there's no question about that. We shouldn't just carte blanche, give them 45 grand. And some people say, well, where are you gonna get the money to pay your salary?

Just back to that. Well, this is the place we're gonna get some of the, it's not a lot of money, but maybe, I don't know what she uses that money for. To be perfectly honest, they probably shouldn't.

[Speaker 6] (1:33:58 - 1:35:05)
Mr. Chairman, I would just offer that, as you know, a longtime board member of Northwest Community Service Agency, Millie provides detailed accounts of those funds. Jason Sirk just recently submitted them. And regarding a pandemic here, Northwest Community Action has the highest level of service as it serves five northern Wisconsin counties of vulnerable people.

So if we're talking about a partner of over 20 years, Flip and Lee, or if we're talking about Madison, Bayfield County, Ashland County, Douglas County, and all of the people that are involved with Superior Days, I think they ought to be a part of the conversation before the committee takes action on that. And if I'm correct, in looking at the schedule of presenters, Millie Roundsville is scheduled to do so. So if the finance committee has detailed questions, she is an absolute expert.

And I'm sure she'd be thrilled to answer any questions or concerns this committee might have.

[Speaker 2] (1:35:06 - 1:35:12)
Yeah, I'm not suggesting that Millie didn't provide us with that information. I'm saying that I didn't look at it. Okay, I've never looked at that.

[Speaker 6] (1:35:12 - 1:35:18)
Well, right, I understand that. I'm just saying the information hasn't already recently been provided to all councilors.

[Speaker 2] (1:35:18 - 1:35:27)
I'm sure she does. And I have nothing, utmost respect for Millie. I'm not a long-term member of the board, but I was on the board, okay.

[Speaker 6] (1:35:28 - 1:35:31)
So- Forgive me. I'm just saying the answers are already available.

[Speaker 2] (1:35:31 - 1:35:48)
Right, no. And I think she would deserve some of these, we should have them. We should never come, it's how we're gonna do it, okay.

If it's gonna do in the general budget, it'll just pass on through, okay. If we put it in something specific, then somebody will look at it, give it a set of eyes.

[Speaker 3] (1:35:48 - 1:37:07)
Right, and to be clear, that this motion isn't, that the foundation of this motion isn't to say, let's defund superiors, let's defund sister city, let's just get rid of all the funding because they're worthless organizations. That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying this, these organizations should be viewed the same way that we give all this money to SAHA, to like, look at the Douglas Coney Historical Society.

They were on autopilot for how many years? And it was taken out of the budget and they had to come to finance to say this is why we need the money. And it was the finance that determined, you wanna, we've been giving you $10,000.

We don't think you need 10,000. We probably need 7,500. Now, when they come this year, finance or the committee that reviews those might look at that and say, you wanna, last year we gave you 7,500.

Look at your bank account and your budget for next year. We think you should have 10,000 dollars. As the needs of these organizations and as the needs of, and the things that they're able to accomplish with those funds change.

The funding should change with that. Both up and down. So that we can ensure we get the most return on our investment as possible.

[Speaker 4] (1:37:08 - 1:37:37)
It's an interesting proposal, Councilor Patterson. But I think we're here at the 11th hour and we've been given each organization an opportunity to discuss this usually. Maybe it's changed in the past.

They've come to finance and had some discussion about it. And to make this change right now seems just not as prepared as I normally would like to be. But I mean, it's an interesting proposal as a vision.

[Speaker 3] (1:37:37 - 1:37:39)
But again, we're not taking away any funding from them.

[Speaker 4] (1:37:39 - 1:37:40)
Correct.

[Speaker 3] (1:37:40 - 1:37:59)
We're just, we're not saying we're not gonna fund you. We're just saying let's do it through the process that we do it with everybody else. And that's why I think it makes sense to not decrease that number at all, but to shift it into a different category with everything else.

[Speaker 1] (1:37:59 - 1:38:14)
That's not true. It definitely defunds all of those organizations. It requires them to go through another process by which they would be funded, which has not been the process in the past.

These have all been funded up front. Again, I'm not saying we can't do that in the future, but a week before we adopt a budget, it would be pretty unorthodox.

[Speaker 3] (1:38:15 - 1:38:50)
It wouldn't be pretty unorthodox because it happened to Douglas Coney Historic Society. They didn't find out until April of the following year that their funding was cut. These organizations need to get on the reality that their funding, it's not an autopilot because as our budget changes, that also has to dictate what we're able to give to outside organizations.

If we're tightening up our budget, we need to be more, have a better focus on how we spend these monies to outside agencies.

[Speaker 1] (1:38:50 - 1:39:17)
And of course, of course, Douglas Coney Historic Society is notified early. The budget was passed in September. It was proposed in September of that year.

So it was in there, but we have similar agreements across the city, including the museums, which is an open-ended. So if we're not considering all of these, again, when we've gone through this consolidation process, it's been a months long process. I think it needs more conversation than what we need.

[Speaker 2] (1:39:20 - 1:39:39)
I agree with the premise that we ought to have more eyes on this. How we do it is, and whether it has to be done, we could certainly pass this budget with these dollars, but we still got, we could have this organization come to us, come to whatever committee we decide to within October, November, December.

[Speaker 3] (1:39:40 - 1:39:46)
Now, if we pass this budget, we're now feeding $5,000 for a sister city. They don't have to come to us. Oh, no, that's not true.

[Speaker 2] (1:39:46 - 1:39:51)
The council can pull them forward and- We can pull that- Decline the money at any time.

[Speaker 1] (1:39:51 - 1:39:56)
If they're, I mean, if they're agreements, or they can have agreements created and you don't have to release that money.

[Speaker 3] (1:39:56 - 1:40:09)
And I think, but that funding doesn't go through council. If we do nothing, we leave these, every one of these line item, they're gonna get funded. The allocation to them doesn't go through council at all.

[Speaker 1] (1:40:10 - 1:40:26)
Well, that's right, but that's how it's always happened. We're gonna change the process. That shouldn't fall a little bit more debate than this, but the, but again, they can be brought forward.

We've done that with other organizations before and then review their agreements. I mean, that's perfect. That can be backed up at any time.

[Speaker 2] (1:40:26 - 1:40:50)
Correct me if I'm wrong. If we bring this up, if we pass this and bring it up to the city council in November and say one of those three organizations, council member X and Y, bring it up, second it to hold the funds or cut the funds in half, that takes precedent. Yeah, go ahead.

Okay.

[Speaker 3] (1:40:50 - 1:41:07)
But at that time, then you open up the entire budget. We have to, if we're gonna- I don't think so. Holding the funds would not be a change to the budget, but if we're gonna move them from one fund to another, that would, we would have to open the entire budget up, wouldn't we?

No. Okay, I'd be fair to say.

[Speaker 2] (1:41:07 - 1:41:52)
I agree though, in the future, I agree. We need more discussion, but that probably is the way that, let's have another set of eyes on it. That's all.

That's, and I, on the other hand, I agree. We have to have a dollar limit. Probably we can't be looking at $1,250, you know.

We can, we have to assume that, I don't like this term, but we have to assume we have some petty cash here. You know, we're not gonna check, have 15 people checking petty cash every day, you know. So what is petty cash?

I don't know what that amount is, but I think we gotta agree on a threshold that, yeah, we'll give you X amount, whatever X is. We'll give that money to you, and hopefully you're gonna be, unless we do some horse drawers or something, we're gonna give them the money with good faith.

[Speaker 3] (1:41:53 - 1:42:06)
And I think we probably would. I mean, all of these, all these organizations, I'm, we probably would give them all the same amount. I think we just need to do it, the digital process and so on.

[Speaker 2] (1:42:08 - 1:42:24)
So we probably have two, well, one proposal, at least as I understand it, you would like to move those three with further discussion, at least start a discussion to move that to that other level of funding, right? The other group?

[Speaker 3] (1:42:25 - 1:42:37)
Because it, right, because it's the revolving grant fund that, where they have to fill out the application. Is that correct? Like for when Douglas Coney Historical Society didn't get funded here, they were told to fill out the application.

[Speaker 1] (1:42:39 - 1:43:05)
Yeah, the application process is separate. This creates a new funding process. Nothing that outright says, because for example, the Small Business Grant Program is a separate application, and it's technically no application at all for public art, but failing that, the process by the policy for grant applications would probably default to the existing one.

So that's still very new. It's not tied to the new grant process. I assume it will be after we pass this.

This just aligns to the fund.

[Speaker 3] (1:43:06 - 1:43:30)
Right, no, and I'm not trying to have a policy discussion. I'm just trying to figure out where this money should go to, if that's the idea is to have to go through the process, where, what fund would that, would it be like, what fund would Douglas Coney Historical Society, when they were given the application, what application was that for?

[Speaker 1] (1:43:31 - 1:44:07)
It didn't have funding allocated. There was not a dedicated fund for it. So they would, finance would essentially say where they're going to take it from.

If you're asking if they had done that, they do that today. Finance has to come up with a source of funding. There are some dedicated pots right now, like recreation grants, and they have their process, but if you're, CASDA, for example, came and applied for a grant, they filled out the application, and then we had to, finance and the administration had to recommend a source of funds.

So there's not a dedicated, that's the point of creating some quality grant fund program, to have a dedicated source of funds. So that council didn't have to go find new money.

[Speaker 3] (1:44:08 - 1:44:12)
Okay, so that would be the proper place to put that.

[Speaker 1] (1:44:13 - 1:44:20)
Depending on which of those organizations, I wouldn't move all that money over. I mean, especially where we have agreement. Those are all the general funds.

[Speaker 6] (1:44:22 - 1:44:49)
Mr. Chairman, I was just going to make that distinction. The obvious difference is that we don't have an agreement with Douglas Coney Historical Society. And there was no application, because they never actually requested the money.

It was just a motion at the end of the budget, similar to this conversation. So where there was no agreement, there was an application. And over the last year, as we refined that process, throughout the year in finance, not 70 hours before the budget should be adopted.

[Speaker 4] (1:44:50 - 1:45:10)
I still think some of those items on there are still like internal city items. And I would think that finance would determine how that would be spent, rather than city organization applies for city grant. It seems like we're asking ourselves.

It seems kind of odd.

[Speaker 1] (1:45:10 - 1:45:32)
That's, I mean, that's ultimately why I don't want to be in the debate today. It's that's, so all three of those are very, there's three distinct categories in there to me. And they're all handled relative, they're all handled differently.

The only things that were added were the superiorities and sister city, but those always used to be funded for their multiple factors.

[Speaker 2] (1:45:33 - 1:45:44)
I think for the purposes of today's budget, I think I would leave that money alone. But I think in the process, we ought to look at that and change. I agree with that.

[Speaker 3] (1:45:45 - 1:45:45)
Okay.

[Speaker 2] (1:45:45 - 1:45:45)
Yeah.

[Speaker 3] (1:45:45 - 1:45:53)
The policy discussion that should happen later. I just thought now would be the time to slide that over.

[Speaker 13] (1:45:53 - 1:45:54)
Thank you.

[Speaker 3] (1:45:54 - 1:45:56)
Okay. So I assume my motion is no second.

[Speaker 2] (1:45:56 - 1:45:57)
Correct.

[Speaker 3] (1:45:57 - 1:45:57)
Yep.

[Speaker 2] (1:45:59 - 1:46:09)
Okay. The next item that I have, at least, is we're proposing, I think, $150,000 for fiber optics. Is that fair?

[Speaker 1] (1:46:09 - 1:46:11)
That's in, no, that was removed from the CA.

[Speaker 2] (1:46:12 - 1:46:12)
I'm sorry?

[Speaker 1] (1:46:12 - 1:46:13)
That was removed from the CA.

[Speaker 2] (1:46:13 - 1:46:24)
Oh, wait, okay. So there's no, okay. So where are we then with that project for 2022?

[Speaker 1] (1:46:25 - 1:46:45)
We've started, you requested counselor and independent review of the entry point plan. And so we're, there's some organizations that do that, that Nick Raverty was working on reaching out to them. So we're hoping to get a possible free opinion from the University of Wisconsin, but.

[Speaker 13] (1:46:46 - 1:46:46)
Hey, good thinking.

[Speaker 1] (1:46:46 - 1:47:14)
Yeah, if we have to, we'll put it out for a bit. But we don't think that part would be very expensive. After that, then we're going, we started discussions on developing an RFP.

Jane's working on a draft for project management. And so that, I don't think I can really describe what that scope is going to be. We looked at those small and large scopes, but the funding for that would come from my proposed ARPA budget.

[Speaker 2] (1:47:15 - 1:47:37)
Did I read somewhere where the state of Wisconsin has set up a, I wouldn't call it a division, but something to help with cities and villages and birds. Is that accurate? Oh, yes.

Okay. So are they reliable? I mean, not that they're not reliable, that's proper, poor choice of words.

Are they, can we call them and get information from them? Are they?

[Speaker 11] (1:47:38 - 1:47:39)
No, I think that's what we're talking about.

[Speaker 2] (1:47:39 - 1:47:41)
Oh, I thought you said university. I'm sorry.

[Speaker 11] (1:47:42 - 1:48:09)
If I may, I can. I mean, I reached out to the contact that University of Wisconsin system set up for broadband using ARPA funds for broadband projects. That's who we're working with.

They're pretty backlogged and they were going to take a look at our plan and let us know if they could offer the type of outside review that you were looking for. So I'm hoping to hear back from them this next week.

[Speaker 2] (1:48:09 - 1:48:22)
Okay. I was differentiating between the University of Wisconsin and the state of Wisconsin. So, okay.

So I thought the state of Wisconsin, I didn't know about the university. So, but maybe that's what I misread. Maybe it wasn't the university.

[Speaker 1] (1:48:22 - 1:48:26)
I mean, I think there is something at the state too, but- That's fine.

[Speaker 13] (1:48:26 - 1:48:27)
Okay. Okay, great.

[Speaker 1] (1:48:28 - 1:48:37)
And so that's going to be the very first step. So we don't need to add any funds in for that. I think that's an important first step.

[Speaker 3] (1:48:37 - 1:48:55)
So, you get a detailed analysis on how much is actually at Wisconsin and detailed analysis on the reality of the 60% take rate and so on. Do we need money for that?

[Speaker 1] (1:48:56 - 1:49:23)
No. Well, we already have the detailed analysis entry point provided that. And so the, and there, there of course, we have no reason to believe those numbers aren't accurate.

What the university of Wisconsin will do with what you asked for a counselor to confirm that, say, yes, they use sound logic and principles and data to come to these conclusions. I mean, we're talking about a tens of millions of dollar infrastructure project. The only thing I know is that it's not exactly 31 million.

[Speaker 10] (1:49:24 - 1:49:24)
No.

[Speaker 1] (1:49:24 - 1:49:33)
We're going to be right on our street projects three years from now, but the, but whether their logic and planning was sound, we will have that information yet.

[Speaker 2] (1:49:33 - 1:49:38)
Exactly. And if the, if the numbers are sound, the 60% is sound, if whatever the whole thing.

[Speaker 4] (1:49:38 - 1:49:43)
And that's without any, or without the 60% sound. Okay. 60, yes.

[Speaker 2] (1:49:44 - 1:50:20)
Whatever. Okay. Thank you.

I guess I didn't recall that. Jim, can you take us through the fire department money or in terms of equipment or transportation with trucks and fire trucks and fire and where we're going with the proposal, I believe to hire a deputy or whatever, deputy chief, I guess is what the term is. Take us through, at least me.

I'm maybe you, both of you know that, but I'm not perfectly clear on that.

[Speaker 1] (1:50:20 - 1:54:05)
So those are two, two completely separate things in the, in the funding. The, there's a lot of money that moved around and so I'm reluctant to explain exactly what paid for the assistant chief, but at least part of that money, one thing that's undeniably tied to that position is a reduction in overtime in the general fund. So if we hire that position, it triggers a reduction in overtime that we plan for around $30,000.

If we do not hire it, we will incur the extra overtime of $30,000. That's how we project it. I mean, of course, that's a guess from, well, it's a, it's a projection from the fire chief, I don't think it's a guess.

The, so that's, that's a direct correlation, but we added a bunch of money back in part of, you know, capturing the TED-8 money, increased general fund revenue, and added some CIP money to minimize the transfer over to the, or to allow more transfer over to the general fund by incorporating money for the outbuilding. So there were, there were a few sources that piled on to make that possible. Plus my initial proposal contained money in future years to help fund that.

So in terms of like the proposal that I brought to you on Tuesday, we were already halfway there from my original proposal, and so we built that in. Now, the fire department equipment and vehicle funding, that was reduced as part of a lot of the overall cuts to make it balanced because that was, that was more or less overfunded. It was, so the fire chief had created a amortization plan that went out something like 30 years, and that was, it was a good plan.

I think it predicted all the vehicles he was gonna buy, except that I took a firm line that we don't plan more than five years for equipment and vehicles. It's, it becomes too unpredictable beyond that, prices and types of vehicles. I mean, by that point they could be entirely electric, and so the cost could vary.

So I held that plan to five years last year, and it had a lot of extra money, largely because engine two sat in there and had a total cash price. But since then, a couple of things happened. One, saw it was very, it was relatively easy to lease engine one.

And as you pointed out, we did it fairly affordably. We also, and I forgot on Tuesday, brought in extra revenue from some of the energy partners to help pay that lease down. So when you factor all that into the lease, if we bring it down to the 205,000 year that I proposed, if we bought, that brings in 2026, the plan to buy an engine two.

If we bought it cash, that would create a deficit in that fund of about half a million dollars. However, if we begin leasing it under similar terms that we did engine one, it actually creates a surplus in that fund. So the fund is still very healthy, even with the cut, and that's assuming that no energy partners contributed to engine two.

It also assumes that we pay the full price of some of these vehicles. So some are, I think, a little bit overpriced, but they're the max they could possibly cost, I suppose. So I didn't mess with the fire chief's numbers, what he projected.

I used his numbers and his schedule to purchase, and made it balanced. The only thing that I changed is, I don't plan on us spending cash outright in 2026. Now, if the council starts going that way, you know, we'll have to find some more money for that.

But I don't think it was, especially where we have other needs, I didn't think it was responsible to have that overfunded.

[Speaker 2] (1:54:06 - 1:54:26)
No, I agree. We all gotta look at lease purchase. Everything we buy, I mean, there's no question about that.

So I'm not in disagreement with that, but that, with the equipment then, if you would, vehicle, that is not tied into the fire, assistant fire chief. Those are two separate.

[Speaker 1] (1:54:28 - 1:54:34)
Yeah, one doesn't necessarily pay for the other, except that all the money, you know, reduction of pay for everything. I mean.

[Speaker 2] (1:54:35 - 1:54:43)
So we came to the conclusion that we need an assistant fire chief. Somebody did, right? Fire chief, I assume.

[Speaker 1] (1:54:43 - 1:54:53)
Well, I am at least proposing that we should fund the possibility of an assistant fire chief. Nobody has come to the conclusion that we need one. Okay, oh.

Beyond, of course, you know, fire chief.

[Speaker 2] (1:54:53 - 1:54:55)
Fire lawyer, no, no, that's fine. We should do that.

[Speaker 1] (1:54:56 - 1:55:33)
Except it was one of the highest rated priorities of the council that largely drove that decision. I have been nervous about adding new staff positions. I mean, for as long as I've been here, I've been nervous about that.

Adding staff positions is difficult in the general fund because general fund's already growing. When you add major expenses like that, you don't really get to take them out. But I think the only thing worse than raising taxes is cutting positions.

And so once you do it, you do it forever. So obviously it makes me very cautious. So I was probably the last one brought along to it, but I have been brought there.

[Speaker 2] (1:55:35 - 1:55:38)
You've been brought to the concept, right?

[Speaker 1] (1:55:38 - 1:55:40)
At least enough to fund it.

[Speaker 2] (1:55:40 - 1:55:48)
Okay, all right. But then there is some procedure that we're gonna go through, right? To determine- Oh, yeah.

[Speaker 1] (1:55:48 - 1:56:26)
Okay. Of course, again, funding it, just like salaries. Funding it doesn't make it happen.

The procedure would be the fire chief will propose a job description. I think he's got one more or less ready. That'll lead to community resource committee has to adopt that.

And then they have to give permission to fill it. So it's really two votes. And at least one of which I think the job description has to go to council.

They might all have to go to council. So there's process. I imagine that will go slow.

And I should say, I've only proposed money in from July 1st. So you've got a minute.

[Speaker 2] (1:56:26 - 1:56:51)
Yeah, okay. I'm sure the job description will be flawless, okay? I don't disagree with that.

My point is that are there other cities our size that have an assistant fire chief? It's set up with, and I don't know this, is it three battalion, okay? And six captains, is that what you're talking about?

[Speaker 4] (1:56:52 - 1:56:55)
Fire chief, maybe, or someone from the fire department is on here.

[Speaker 2] (1:56:56 - 1:57:07)
Okay, well, my point is the fire chief is, he's in the middle. The assistant is gonna be a middle man. He's gonna be caught between the fire chief and the three battalion.

Is that correct?

[Speaker 1] (1:57:07 - 1:57:50)
He's an assistant, but yeah, yeah. He works very, he or she would work very closely with the fire chief. And there'd be a lot more work than just taking some of the work the fire chief's doing now.

You know, we can expect increased services from the fire department, especially when I weigh in on this debate, I'm gonna be looking for things like fire prevention and public outreach, probably expansions in service around fire and building inspection. So there'll be things that the fire department is not currently doing. And they will begin doing by creating this position.

And I don't know, I haven't done the city survey. I don't know what the size of the city I want you at it, but I will point out the city of Superior's had this position before.

[Speaker 2] (1:57:52 - 1:58:40)
This is, and I agree this is a policy question, but somewhere I read that of all their calls, and I think I'm accurate when I say this, 75% are now non-fire from the Superior Police Department. That's a lot, that's three quarters, pretty quick. 75, three quarters.

So if the person's gonna spend a lot of time preventing fires, I think we've done a heck of a job preventing fires so far. But a job description, I'm always concerned about writing a job description for a problem that doesn't exist or a job that may not exist. But if we're gonna vet that, that's fine.

That's, I don't have any problem with that, okay. Okay, well that's.

[Speaker 3] (1:58:40 - 1:59:36)
Can I just, one clarification. So we're funding that full transfer to the fire department, that included an estimated 2% union raise? Yes, that's in the budget.

And that, is that negotiation finalized at the end of it? That was done at once. Okay, all, right.

And then the fire chief is enough funding to start July 1st. So it's enough funding for six months, right? Yes.

Okay, so with, I wanna make sure that I understand that July 1st date, it's more, we're saying July 1st just because that's what we budgeted for. If there's a turnover and we, so we don't have two firefighters for a period of month and we save that money in the first couple months, we can move that up, right? Because at the end of the year, it'll still be the same amount of money.

[Speaker 1] (1:59:36 - 1:59:49)
You can, but you said that July 1st date, I'm arguing for time and money. So I'm, I'll say very clearly, I don't believe this should be higher before July 1st. I think it needs at least that much process to create senior administrative position.

[Speaker 3] (1:59:50 - 2:00:16)
Okay, so it's more, I mean, it's both time and money. If we can get it, the time and everything straightened out before, we can get the money before. It's not like we, like today, we're saying July 1st, so we're gonna post it on June 1st, so we're gonna, I mean, that's not like a hard, fast date, like we cannot hire someone before July 1st.

I mean, we certainly have to do a due diligence.

[Speaker 1] (2:00:17 - 2:00:50)
Yeah, something would have to change like you described if, yeah, we delay filling firefighter positions and it become vacant, you know, we can start doing the math on that to see how that, you know, the budget impacts. So yes, it is technically possible, but in funding it, my biggest concern was process. You know, we hadn't had significant discussions and nine months felt like the minimum to me.

There are very few positions that we've gone, that we've done less than that. I mean, less than a year is, would be fast. No, that's fair.

[Speaker 3] (2:00:50 - 2:00:52)
I just wanted to, I just wanna make sure.

[Speaker 2] (2:00:54 - 2:02:07)
Here's my problem with that. Fire chief comes, he wants an assistant fire chief, okay, whatever the title is, and I understand that. And he should and has a right to do that.

But what about other five departments? Maybe they want another assistant, maybe they need another position in their department X. Shouldn't they have the right to come and say, we say we're gonna hire one position, we're gonna spend whatever the amount of money, I suppose it's 125,000, something for a year, 150, I don't know whatever the amount is.

And to give every department an equal chance to say, and to provide, and to come to somebody, the mayor and whoever comes in and say, this is what I need, okay? So then before we're being, through to every department saying, make your best case for a new position, okay? Or if it's two positions, we're gonna hire two people, whatever the amount is, I don't know fire chief, assistant fire chief is gonna make.

So that's where I'm always coming from, because the fire chief, I give him credit for coming forth, but shouldn't other departments get the equal time and rights to present their need? I think we did. Did we?

Okay.

[Speaker 1] (2:02:08 - 2:02:33)
Yeah, I think that was the point. Yeah, as we started the priorities process, I did ask department heads to really think as though money were no object, what were your actual needs aside from the budget? And you've heard some stuff, some of it was pretty wild.

And there weren't a lot of positions brought forth. That's why you're not hearing it from every department, but there were some positions brought forward that never even got really considered.

[Speaker 2] (2:02:33 - 2:03:07)
Okay, well, that's fine. We'll do it next year. I'm glad we do.

Okay, thank you for doing that. Because then we're being, we're gonna spend money and then if the fire chief. Being fair.

Yeah, being fair, because all department heads aren't equally the same, but they're not the same, okay? They all have different qualities and different sense. So some may not wanna come forward, but if we give them a chance, that's all, you can't go any more than that.

So, okay. Okay. Is everybody, I assume we've looked through this list.

Is there any other questions or any?

[Speaker 4] (2:03:08 - 2:03:10)
You have a recap of what we changed?

[Speaker 5] (2:03:13 - 2:03:33)
So far, there's been a cut to the art fund by 250,000. And then there was also an increase to the human resource budget of 40,000 in contracted services. That made up revenue came from $20,000 transfer from the CIP and 20,000 transferred from the revolving grant fund.

[Speaker 2] (2:03:34 - 2:03:46)
Okay. And, which is my fault, I didn't see that. The money is taken out of the, excuse me, for the internet or whatever.

That wasn't in here anyway, so that's gone, right?

[Speaker 5] (2:03:46 - 2:03:48)
Correct, it's not in this list.

[Speaker 2] (2:03:49 - 2:03:57)
Okay. I'm a very slow thinker, so you have to put up with that. Thank you.

Anything else?

[Speaker 3] (2:03:59 - 2:04:08)
I guess, I mean, if we, we didn't find any other areas to increase.

[Speaker 2] (2:04:08 - 2:04:20)
Well, there were some, but I think it needs discussion again. And I think that the building of license and fees, we ought to take a look at that and raise that. I don't know the last time we raised that.

[Speaker 3] (2:04:21 - 2:04:48)
Oh, no, I mean, that would be more of a- Discussion. Yeah, for the actual, both budgets, there was nothing that was increased except for the $40,000, right? For the contracts.

So then circling back to the arts, we decreased it $250,000. I guess that begs the question, what did we gain by decreasing that?

[Speaker 10] (2:04:48 - 2:04:52)
Well, the simple question is $250,000. Yeah.

[Speaker 2] (2:04:55 - 2:05:30)
Okay, $250,000 available for something else, okay? Now, like I said before, I don't think we have to tie A and B together. Yeah, we used A as the $250,000 reduction, and B, we didn't have to spend that money again.

But we may somewhere along the line, but for right now, I just think the 500,000 for the arts, one year was too much money. That's where I was coming from as we voted for that. But there's $250,000 now, if you would, that's not spent.

Okay, I don't know where, you know, I don't know.

[Speaker 1] (2:05:30 - 2:06:22)
Where it's gonna be spent. Well, it sits in the revolving grant, so there's two options. If the budget passes what it's sitting there, it's $130,000 now.

So it's unallocated, which means if a random grant that doesn't fit any of these pools comes through, you can use it from there, no problem. Sorry, I'm thinking about the ECHO grants process. I'd have to look at that to see for sure.

I assume they all need council approval. I'm pretty sure that's in the process. But the, alternatively, this is not the general fund, so it's not quite as arduous a process.

So if you decided someone wanted to fund, I don't know what kind of isolated project could come, but if there was a project or something you wanted to move it to, I mean, it's a vote of council.

[Speaker 2] (2:06:22 - 2:06:36)
Well, I'm all, just kidding. I'm always liking to leave a little money. If somebody were to come to us with a project and said, wait, you fund 50%, I'll fund 50%.

I like those stuff, okay? Leveraging money. So, and I have no idea what, if anybody's got a comment.

[Speaker 3] (2:06:36 - 2:06:41)
Or should that be the way the entire revolving grant program is?

[Speaker 1] (2:06:43 - 2:07:19)
I did consider that. The reason I did is because some of them already have a process like Festival of Rights grant. And so at some point, we have to allocate some money to those granting bodies.

For public art, I envisioned, like I said, I want to do some projects, but there ought to be an arts council that awards it. And the, so the same with small business grant fund, that's the planning commission. And of course, council approves all of these, I think.

So it would be taking from those bodies and not seeing how much they could award, then it would be something of free for all. So that's why I broke it into the existing organizations.

[Speaker 4] (2:07:20 - 2:07:24)
Festival of Rights committee has changed their...

[Speaker 1] (2:07:24 - 2:07:46)
Yeah, I mean, you could, if there's money in surplus, and there were a couple of rounds where we did at least money in surplus in that one, I think, but we just ended up allocating it all. So you could help us create on other granting council. You could create the, I can't think of one, otherwise I probably would have created it.

But yeah, you could create another granting body, that's the science grants fund, and allocate the money to that.

[Speaker 4] (2:07:46 - 2:07:58)
I think the bigger thing that we should take away today is let's get some of these ideas on the agenda to talk about them and work through the policy. That's, let's get them on the agenda people. That's all I can say.

[Speaker 2] (2:07:59 - 2:08:14)
I have one further question. The non-profit funding, okay, for non-profit, which I agree with, okay. What is the process?

Are they going to have the exact same process as the for-profit? Is it going through the same committee or is it going to be a separate?

[Speaker 1] (2:08:15 - 2:09:07)
So that's a collection of existing grants formed into one fund that we didn't have before. The only process we have for those right now is the finance committee. So I think just in the last year, Historical Society, Billings Park, Civic Centers and Agreements, CASDA was a grant.

I think that the film festival wanted a grant and there are non-profits that they could apply to that. So I think there's not a lot of process for that. It's just we have lived through that process before.

So it probably needs more process than it's had. But if somebody applies tomorrow or as soon as we pass this, I will direct, we will hand them the grant application and we will deliver that application to the finance committee and say, here's your fund. And then that's the revolving?

[Speaker 3] (2:09:09 - 2:09:58)
It's a non-profit grant fund within the revolving grants. For non-profit, right. And so that's where, like Doug was calling Historical Society, that's where they'd be willing to get their fees from.

Okay, good. I just want to make sure that Doug was calling Historical Society in particular, where we're not funding them this year. I want to make sure that there is a true avenue for them to request funding.

Okay, that makes sense to me. But then with that, so we took the arbitrary number of $500,000 and dropped it down to $250,000 for arts. There's a contingency left that they could apply for grants out of that contingency for a project still, right?

[Speaker 1] (2:09:58 - 2:10:16)
Yeah, I mean, it's a grant fund that's unallocated. So to me, it's a little redundant within non-profits, but it's not the worst thing in the world to have it sitting there unallocated, because if there's something you didn't think of that doesn't fit into any of these, what if a non-profit company really does come?

[Speaker 10] (2:10:16 - 2:10:17)
There will be, Jim.

[Speaker 1] (2:10:17 - 2:10:46)
Yeah, so it's not... The other thing I hadn't thought of, what if, let's say the rent grants, 70,000, that's about what we've given them in past years. I mean, it's actually been 55, but then we moved some hotel tax over the saw.

So it's pretty close to what they've done. Say they really want to give it all away and they want more, a small business grant runs out, they want more, at least if there is a pot of fund, they could send a resolution to council to take that money and put it back in the pump.

[Speaker 4] (2:10:47 - 2:10:49)
It's called opportunity grants.

[Speaker 1] (2:10:50 - 2:11:11)
Yeah. I mean, it's an expansion on an idea that's been around the city for a long time. And it's bothered me for a long time, but sometimes there's money sitting around just with no allocation, so that when something comes up and you really want to fund it, there's money there, at the very least now it's budgeted.

[Speaker 2] (2:11:14 - 2:11:22)
So that makes me remember, what's that funding with the number on it? Is that going to be a zero balance now where we took some money out?

[Speaker 5] (2:11:22 - 2:11:27)
We took cash out of it. That remaining amount was dropped into this fund.

[Speaker 2] (2:11:27 - 2:11:34)
Yeah, that's what I thought. Okay, thank you. Okay, any other questions?

[Speaker 4] (2:11:35 - 2:11:39)
I guess I'd make a motion to move this to council, right? Is that the goal here?

[Speaker 2] (2:11:40 - 2:11:43)
That is the, now are you moving all?

[Speaker 4] (2:11:43 - 2:11:44)
With the edits, yeah.

[Speaker 2] (2:11:44 - 2:11:46)
All four together?

[Speaker 4] (2:11:46 - 2:11:47)
Yeah, with our edits.

[Speaker 3] (2:11:48 - 2:11:52)
Second? Wait, wait, which board? The general?

[Speaker 1] (2:11:52 - 2:11:59)
I mean, the agenda, the general fund, CA, the surplus allocation, and our grants.

[Speaker 3] (2:11:59 - 2:12:10)
Okay, I just want to make sure that it wasn't the ARPA. No, it's not on the agenda. Right, that was just for informational purposes.

Okay. Yeah, I'll second that.

[Speaker 2] (2:12:10 - 2:12:36)
Okay, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Thank you.

Once again, thanks. Department of Finance, thank you very much. A lot of work, I know.

But somebody once said it's making policies like your, I'm going to add an answer of, it's like making sausage, isn't it? If you watch it, it's not plain, but then when it gets done, it comes to mind.

[Speaker 7] (2:12:36 - 2:12:43)
I'm not trying to make this meeting longer, but did you say you wanted to put some things down on a next agenda?

[Speaker 2] (2:12:44 - 2:12:45)
Well, I don't know about right now.

[Speaker 7] (2:12:45 - 2:12:47)
Okay, okay, I just wanted to make sure.

[Speaker 10] (2:12:49 - 2:13:02)
Jean, I'm impressed, Jean. So you want to stay a little longer? Yes, yes, I do.

And thank you for Mr. Fennessey for suggesting we meet at three o'clock, because I was oblivious to that. I was meeting at four o'clock.

[Speaker 14] (2:13:02 - 2:13:04)
And then it would be, what, seven o'clock now?

[Speaker 8] (2:13:10 - 2:13:11)
Five o'clock.

[Speaker 10] (2:13:14 - 2:13:21)
Hey, what are we doing at five o'clock? Friday night at five o'clock? Five o'clock?

Where will you be at 530 at five o'clock?

[Speaker 7] (2:13:21 - 2:13:23)
There was a couple, okay, thank you.

[Speaker 10] (2:13:23 - 2:13:25)
Although, I didn't get the right address.

[Speaker 4] (2:13:25 - 2:13:29)
I don't know, I haven't been told yet. Okay. But I bet you didn't search it.

[Speaker 8] (2:13:29 - 2:13:30)
I didn't get it right either.

[Speaker 2] (2:13:32 - 2:13:35)
You're gonna be picking me up later, right? Absolutely, absolutely.

[Speaker 10] (2:13:35 - 2:13:39)
I do want to call you, maybe you could, you got five minutes? No, sure.

[Speaker 7] (2:13:39 - 2:13:40)
It's on Joe Tripp.

[Speaker 14] (2:13:40 - 2:13:41)
Okay, okay.

[Speaker 2] (2:13:42 - 2:13:53)
Oh, that's good. He's fired. But, we've been talking.

I know, I know, I know. We're both on five, in line for next Tuesday.

[Speaker 8] (2:13:53 - 2:13:54)
Drew was on there.

[Speaker 2] (2:13:54 - 2:13:55)
Yep, I got you.

[Speaker 13] (2:13:55 - 2:13:58)
That's what you told me. Yeah, I'll have to double check with Nathan on that one. I did not.

[Speaker 8] (2:13:59 - 2:14:19)
Yeah, we talked about the 22nd, 23rd, something like that. Yeah, but we were looking, right. You're gonna patch it, I don't know that you're done.

I don't know that, we committed to doing a full excavation. I don't know, I thought Nathan had some ideas as far as making it better, rather than going through that whole process.

[Speaker 7] (2:14:19 - 2:14:20)
And it didn't have a last name.

[Speaker 10] (2:14:20 - 2:14:28)
Well, the others are all looking for it. There's 10 potholes, but we couldn't fill five, and we still got five potholes. So we gotta do a little better.

[Speaker 8] (2:14:29 - 2:14:32)
We might remodel the house, instead of rebuild the house.

[Speaker 10] (2:14:32 - 2:14:34)
All right, move the house, get Bonnie to move, huh?

[Speaker 8] (2:14:34 - 2:14:35)
Exactly.

[Speaker 10] (2:14:35 - 2:14:40)
Okay, and so Harvey is the same, that's on Vogel. She threw me off, because there was one on there.

[Speaker 8] (2:14:41 - 2:14:51)
That's a next year project, that's a mill and overlay, the whole thing. Yeah, okay. So, if he goes off of Barden, and makes that whole big loop there, that'll all be brand new asphalt.

[Speaker 7] (2:14:52 - 2:14:59)
I don't think she was really on it, at, no. Okay, so I did put a slash, and put Scott in there, and I added the whole circle.

[Speaker 8] (2:14:59 - 2:15:00)
Yeah, I couldn't tell you what all the names are.

[Speaker 10] (2:15:00 - 2:15:04)
Okay, but you start on Vogel, and you end up on Vogel.

[Speaker 8] (2:15:04 - 2:15:14)
Right, you make that whole, but then you come off of Barden, and there's a block, and then there's a big loop, so the whole thing will be brand new. Not Vogel L. Not Vogel L.

Okay.

[Speaker 7] (2:15:15 - 2:15:21)
No, they don't, I don't want to do that. The people there. Well, good, then we agree on Scott.

[Speaker 12] (2:15:22 - 2:15:33)
Well, no, I talked to him, and he, I'm not promoting one little letter, but he said, just three guys there, they said, well, we want it the way it is. That's fine. That makes it easy.

Yeah, I'd say it does.

[Speaker 8] (2:15:33 - 2:15:58)
One thing we do that helps a lot, I think, is when we grade and we add material, we use our crushed asphalt product that we make at the shop. You've probably seen those quotes come through where it's $3 a pound, that's pretty cheap, but that's got an asphalt in it, so that will stop the dust quite a bit, and that's real nice. Shots of water.

With the documents and minutes, that's so we don't have to do more. We text with them, and they no longer need it.

[Speaker 10] (2:15:58 - 2:16:04)
I'm amazed at the amount of help that I've been given. They only need it if we approve it. I didn't realize it.

Incredible, wow. Or it has consul action. Right.

They know the process.

[Speaker 12] (2:16:05 - 2:16:09)
Yep, they all do, absolutely. Citizens know the process, so it tells you that.

[Speaker 8] (2:16:10 - 2:16:12)
And like what Pegan used to say, it's the best deal in town.

[Speaker 10] (2:16:13 - 2:16:19)
So if it needs consul action, It's the best deal in the state? Yep, exactly. We just attach it where you hand it to me, and I file it in my drawer.

[Speaker 14] (2:16:21 - 2:16:24)
Absolutely. Excellent, I'm gonna accommodate you.

[Speaker 7] (2:16:24 - 2:16:26)
Yeah, I'll just keep it with mine.

[Speaker 2] (2:16:26 - 2:16:35)
Well, I just didn't want it to go away if you needed to list it. Believe me, any time that you want to get, I realize that you're quite, but those are hard.

[Speaker 7] (2:16:35 - 2:17:32)
That last one, I think I'm just gonna have to have it actually help you with. Yeah, just stop in, and we'll go through it again. Okay, thank you so much.

Yeah, and some of the guys, like Jim talks fast. It's a little harder for me to catch everything compared to Jack, you know, Jack I get, but it's like, holy crap, I don't get it. So, well, I don't think that's gonna be too difficult to do, so I think Monday morning, I'm just gonna go ahead.

I didn't take a lunch today, because I wasn't quite sure how much work would be sitting there. So I think Monday, I'm just gonna get this done first thing in the morning. There's not gonna be a lot, unless you want lengthy discussion stuff in there.

But he did mention, Jack did mention twice now about...

[Speaker 5] (2:17:32 - 2:17:40)
I think it'd be worth mentioning that he wants that wage study, and that he wants a process set up for determining the inflation adjustment.

[Speaker 7] (2:17:40 - 2:17:48)
And twice now, he's mentioned about looking into billing permits slash licensing increases.

[Speaker 5] (2:17:48 - 2:17:49)
It'd be worth mentioning that.

[Speaker 7] (2:17:49 - 2:17:54)
So, yeah. I have a list of things to do anyway. Okay.

I have.