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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2017-07-19 BudgetMeridian City Council - Budget Workshop July 19, 2017. A Budget Workshop meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 8:00 p.m., Tuesday, July 19, 2017, by Mayor Tammy de Weerd. Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, Keith Bird, Genesis Milam, Ty Palmer, Luke Cavener, Joe Borton and Anne Little Roberts Item 1: Roll-call Attendance: Roll call. X_ Anne Little Roberts X _ _Joe Borton X__ Ty Palmer X_ Keith Bird __X__ Genesis Milam __X__ Lucas Cavener _X Mayor Tammy de Weerd Item 2: Adoption of the Agenda Item 3: City of Meridian FY2018 Budget Workshop De Weerd: -- I will turn this over to Todd. Lavoie: Thank you, Madam Mayor. And good morning to everybody. Again, appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to join us for the budget workshop day number three. Again, our goal today is to go over all the information we have provided you during the month of June, those two workshops, and discuss any items that we have presented to you since then and the end game -- goal today is to have a balanced budget for all of us to leave with and celebrate and be excited about. Next Tuesday is when we announce it to the citizens or the Council agenda items. So, again, today's ultimate goal is to have a balanced budget for the City of Meridian for fiscal year 2018. Today's agenda on my presentation, again, we are going to go over the supplemental documents. We have had some changes since our last visit about 30 days ago. We attempted to get the documents in your books before this meeting. I believe we have achieved that. So, everybody's books have been updated, so -- but we will go over with you what we have provided to you. We are going to go over again the budget considerations that we have put into the budget that's in front of you today. We will review where the budget currently stands as of today with the changes that we have included. I will stand for any questions regarding the data that I presented to you and, then, we will go into the budget discussions and what we will do is we will go through the Enterprise Fund first and, then, we will follow that up with the Community Development Department and last we will finish with the General Fund. And by that time we will finalize fiscal year 2018. Again, celebrate and have a good day hopefully on that one. So, with that I'm going to hand this over to Jenny. Jenny handed out a handful of documents in your books and she's going to review with you what has changed since June 19th and June 20th. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 2 of 147 Fields: Good morning. I’m back here. There is a few changes that occurred -- has occurred since our June workshop and the summary sheet that's in front of you that was passed out, we are going to go through those one by one. In the General Fund we adjusted revenue to the updated new annexation and construction values that we got from Ada county. In Other Government there -- there was a couple reductions in the dues. You heard the presentation from Valley Regional Transit. There was a reduction of 5,000 dollars and your reduction -- Cavener: Jenny? Fields: Yes. Cavener: Can you slow down just a little bit. I'm still struggling to catch up. Thank you. Sorry, Madam Mayor. Fields: In the Other Government department there is a couple adjustments -- mainly the dues. Regional -- Treasure Valley Regional Transit was a reduction of 5,000. Treasure Valley Partnership was a reduction of 1,963 dollars. And, then, our Parks Department there was just a slight increase in cell phone budget in our volunteer program (unintelligible) line item and that's 192 dollars. Our Fire Department had a big change due to Fire Station 6 amendments that was passed last night. So, we adjusted their base about 1.5 million dollars and that will be offset by the reimbursement from the rural district. That will get us to Community Development fund, which they have no changes, so there was no adjustment in your budget binder books for Community Development. Also added a few things in Enterprise Fund. There were three additional equity adjustments. So, those were added to your Public Works Department tab, water department tab and wastewater department tab. Enterprise Fund also had a few increases on pagers, radios and communications budget line item s and that's mainly due to the cradle point data plan that we missed. That will conclude all the changes. There was also a -- sorry. There was also a revision on the unfunded list that was provided in your supplemental document section. That changed because -- mainly due to revenue adjustments and there were some minor expenditure changes from what we recently covered, so we were able to move a few more items to the funded list. Do you guys have any questions? De Weerd: Any questions at this point? Okay. Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Oh, Mr. Cavener. Cavener: Maybe I missed -- what were the items that were moved from the unfunded to the funded list? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 3 of 147 Fields: Sure. So, replacements, if you look at your old unfunded list, there were several replacement items that were on there. Those got funded. And the next tier that got funded. So, that included background software, service risk manager, plus capital equipment, Kleiner Park shade structure got funded. De Weerd: Okay. Any questions at this point? Any other questions? Lavoie: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Again, as we go through the funds themselves we do encourage questions, dialogue, so if you have any items that you would like to discuss further on any of the supplemental documents , please, let us know and we will go to those departments and we will be happ y to discuss them with you. So, appreciate that, Jenny. So, what I'm going to do quickly is go over the budget considerations that you have set in front of you. With that first thing we did, the executive branch, again, the budget that you have presented in front of you does take into consideration a zero percent allowable tax calculation per your request. Right now the current levy rate is .038 based on the information that we have for Ada county, which is preliminary. We are projecting that the levy rate for the city will go down 4.53 percent, down to 0.36. Like we have done in the past, if you consider giving -- or taking the allowable tax calculation, these are the values that are available to the city from revenue projections. One percent will be about 280 grand and so forth. Again, I would like to note that all considerations -- all have a reduction in the levy rate as compared to today. So, regardless of what levy rate -- or what calculation we take, it will, based on our projections, reduce the levy rate from the current position as of today and those are displayed on your screen and I provided this presentation to you as well. We wanted to also provide you with the new growth revenue estimates that we have from the state and from Ada county. Hence the question -- or the comment that Jenny made that we had some revenue changes. This is the final number that we have from Ada county. New construction is going to sit at 1.7 million and new revenue -- new annexations a little over 176,000 and intergovernmental revenue is sitting about 1.3 million in new revenue. That's your state revenue sharing revenue from liquor licenses and so forth. And before we move on from this slide, we did, you know, develop the budget with a zero percent tax calculation per your request, but from the executive branch the Mayor and myself, we are still promoting and would like you to consider taking the full three percent to meet the needs of the city. But, again, we did develop the budget at zero, but our position still is for the city to consider taking the full three percent in its full revenue calculation. So, last year it was asked of us -- I think it was Mr. Palmer, actually, said how much would taxes change for a particular house and I didn't have that information for him. So, this year we are going to try to answer Mr. Palmer's question. You have seen this slide before. This is a slide that represents six homes that we track here at the city -- or six houses throughout the entire city from the south to the north to the west, we wanted that diversity in our data, but these are the six homes we have always tracked and we have been tracking for quite a while. This represents the value of these particular homes per Ada county. You can see some are sitting around 350, some are right around 130 and the majority in that 250 range. You can see from 2006 to 2017 they have gone Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 4 of 147 up. They went down during the great recession. They have gone up again. So, again, those properties are going up, which is good for the property owners. They get equity in their homes. But we just wanted to show you that these are the values that we are going to use as an example to try to meet the request of Mr. Palmer and, then, just information to show you what taxes would do if we had moved forward with the considerations. The shaded area is the average. For ease of this discussion and this illustration for the next few slides, we are going to use the average. So, the average in our six homes in this example is 267,000. Again, this is not a direct representation of the City of Meridian. We have 30 something thousand -- 30,000 something homes, but for this illustration this is the value that I would like you to kind of remember is 267,000 dollars is the average value of these six homes. So, the next question is what do these homes pay in City of Meridian taxes and these are the City of Meridian taxes. There are many other taxes that are assessed to a property. We don't take those into consideration. These are just the City of Meridian taxes. So, you can see our current value and our current calculation -- we have a few homes that are going to be paying 900 dollars annual for the services. We have a house that's going to pay 230 dollars it looks like. It's right around there. We have a handful right around that five to six hundred dollar range. Again, using that shaded area in the back, we would like you to kind of focus on that, instead of trying to manage six homes and there will just be a lot of data. We are just going to use the average. So, in this example we had an average home price of 267,000. That average home price -- if it happens to be your home price, convenient for you, you would pay 630 dollars annually or 52 dollars a month for the services for the City of Meridian and that's what we are projecting. Again, using this slide you can see last year in 2016 it was right around 580 or 90. 2015, 570. And 2014, 560. So, you can see the values have been going up, which is great, and the taxes have been going up accordingly to this as well. So, using this as our example for illustrative purposes, again, 267,000 dollar home or 638 dollars what this house would pay annually and, again, if you looked at year over year there would be a 41 dollar increase annually for this particular house in this example or this house should experience $3.44 a month in increased taxes for the upcoming year and primarily that's due to the increased value of the home that we saw in the previous slide. So, that 52 dollars, I would just like to use this opportunity to kind of show you what the value is of 52 dollars. Again, this is comparison of averages to averages. This does not represent every single citizen in the -- in Meridian. But on average what we have found on the internet, this is what it shows. So, that 52 dollars that -- is that the information directly from the slide before, if you had a house of 267,000 dollars, we expect you to pay about 52 a month for the services that you get here at the city. Comparative on average the internet is about 46 dollars. Electricity 106. City of Meridian water, sewer, trash, 80 dollars. So, again, we just wanted to show you to kind of humanize that value, what it is compared to other monthly expenses. Most of us work on a monthly expense mentality. So, this kind of shows you what you get from a comparison standpoint. So, again, not everybody spends 49 dollars on coffee a month, but, again, that's what I found on the internet. Some spend more. Some spend less. Same with the 52 dollars. If you have a house value of 150,000 you're not going Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 5 of 147 to pay 52 dollars a month, you're going to pay 20 dollars a month. So, it's all just averages. It's all just comparative using averages to our best ability. But we want to reiterate that 52 dollars -- what you're getting for that, you're getting, as we all heard, one of the safest cities in Idaho for 52 dollars a month. You're getting EMS services that will respond to you in a very timely manner. As Mr. Bird would say, you're getting first class parks for 52 dollars a month. You get an Information Technology services that supports IT -- or that supports the Police Department, that supports our water and sewer systems to communicate safety and clean water. That's what you're paying 52 dollars -- what this particular house is paying 52 dollars a month for. So, again, if you compare that to the other expenses or -- that an average citizen has, you know, in my opinion that's a pretty fair value for what you're getting. Again, I understand that some expenses are elective and some are mandated. I do respect that. Again, this is not a hundred percent direct example, but it's an example of averages to averages. I just kind of wanted to kind of try to humanize what some would pay. Again, some may pay more, some may pay less, but again what you're getting for 52 dollars or less or more, I think it's a pretty fair value in today's market. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: I definitely understand your point, I just wanted to also point out that if you combine the two on there that are the city, they are the highest services that you're getting from the city. What you're paying the city every month is what you're paying more than anybody. Lavoie: Sure. Palmer: Short of living expenses, houses, the -- probably mortgage or rent, but -- thanks. Lavoie: No problem. So, with that we are going to go into -- you know, I appreciate you guys listening to my three percent spiel every year, but the answer -- you know, to get to Mr. Palmer's question what will this house pay -- and as we saw on previous slides, the 267,000 dollar house should experience a 41 dollar increase in taxes year over year. So, that's going to occur at this zero percent calculation. They should experience that regardless. So, we have asked you to consider taking the three percent. In this example if you were to consider allowing us to take the three percent, we would ask that particular house to be $1.48 more a month. If you consider allowing us to take the one percent we would be asking this particular house to spend 49 cents a month more for us to get to 280,000 dollars into the city's revenue stream. Again, that's on average. If your house is less you may only pay 30 cents. If the house is more it may be a little bit more. But on average in this illustrated example -- for us to get the three percent here at the City of Meridian, we are asking you, Council, consider $1.48 on average for this example Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 6 of 147 for the citizens to continue the services that the citizens have experienced today. Again, I'm bringing this slide back to show you kind of -- Bruce and we have explained to you, we are growing, we know it, we see it, we live it. I don't need to, you know, reiterate this too much, but, again, we know what we are experiencing. Luckily we have had great results in our city -- city survey. Again, I don't need to, you know, reiterate this too much, you know this, you have seen the feedback, you have heard it. The Mayor has done a great job in communicating this information to us city staff members and to the citizens. Again, so we know what we have done in the past ten, 12, 15, 20 years. We know what we have done has been successful. The results have shown that. You have had many a publication announce that the city is one of the best of the best. You can see the citizens are very happy with the services that we are receiving. Again, for us to consider taking the three percent, we believe that's a strong -- we have strong evidence that shows -- continue to make sound decisions with the revenue streams and expenses that you have guided us with over the past. Let's keep that going, because we want to keep that -- keep moving the needle in the positive direction. Again, not to keep pounding -- you know, keep hitting it over the head, but, again, at the end of the day the executive branch is requesting the legislative branch to consider taking the three percent for the reasons as described. Compensation hasn't changed since we have last talked, so it's three percent in the plan. Medical benefits have not changed since we have last spoke. Still 9.69 percent from a medical benefit provider. As a reminder starting January 1, 2018, the Fire Department will leave the medical plan for the City of Meridian and join their own plan starting January 1. So, with that, that represents the considerations that have been input into your budget as of today. We will now touch -- again, we will now go to the budget proposal as presented to you. We handed out three sets of data which shows the budget in its entirety. General Fund, Enterprise Fund, and Community Development Department. Right now we are sitting at a little over 110 million dollars as submitted to you today. That’s up 19.68 percent year over year. Our total base budget is sitting at 60 -- a little over 60 million of 10.21 -- 10.2 percent for the entire year. I do want to remind you that last night's decision to move forward with Station 6 has been put into this data, so the base budget does reflect Station 6 and its 60 million dollars total for the whole city. Again, base budget revenue is an ongoing expense. That dollar amount is the amount that you have allocated to the executive branch to perform the services to meet the needs of our citizens or community and our employees. So, that expense needs to be met accordingly with the proper revenue. So, with that I’m going to go over into the three major funding groups that we report on, which is the General Fund Community Development Department and Enterprise Fund. The first fund up is going to be General Fund. As it sits today we are at a little over 49.3 million dollars. That's up 26.5 percent from last year with the base budget a little over 38 million. Again, just like the previous slide which represents the whole city, this is the General Fund and the General Fund does have Station No. 6 included into it from last night's decision. Community Development Department is next. We are sitting at a little over 3.9 million dollars. No major changes, as Jenny mentioned earlier, on this department. This one -- this is zero percent change from -- since we have Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 7 of 147 last spoke and the last department that we are going to represent is the Enterprise Fund, which is sitting at a little over 56.9 million dollars. Again, less than zero percent change from our previous presentation in June. So, with that, that's the presentation I have set forth -- Borton: Hey, Todd? Lavoie: Yes. Borton: Madam Mayor. Can you go back two slides? To the general -- or the -- what you were describing, the General Fund. Lavoie: Yes, sir. Borton: Now, when we are looking on the summary sheet -- Lavoie: Yes, sir. Borton: -- and in the main page where it says FY-18 base budget, it's got the 38 million. Lavoie: Yes, sir. Borton: And below it there is a -- in really tiny font it's the 2017 base budget and I think it's -- I thought it was less than -- smaller change than 13 percent. What's that number underneath the 37 million? I thought it was 36 or something close to -- yeah. Right under the -- oh. Okay. I thought it said 36. Lavoie: Okay. Borton: Getting old. Lavoie: Make it so small you can't read it. So, with that any questions regarding the data I have presented? If not, we will jump straight into the dialogue between -- for you guys I guess as the staff members. So, the first department we are going to bring up -- again, we are going to go Enterprise Fund first, Community Development Department second, and, then, General Fund third. Again, this is your opportunity, Council, to ask the staff members any questions regarding the Enterprise Fund. Again, at the end of the -- our end of game today is to balance every fund by the end of the day, so we can present next week to the citizens the final fiscal year 2018 budget. So, with that, Mayor, I will handed it over to you or to a Dale, if you have any opening comments for the Enterprise Fund. Borton: Madam Mayor, one more question. Not to answer now, but maybe to revisit at the end of this, concerning the -- the recommendation for utilizing the three percent allowable proceeds to maintain existing city service levels. If you Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 8 of 147 can address it again at the end of the day when we revisit that topic, things such as expanding or opening Fire Station No. 6 and the base personnel cost of that after year one when the city begins to absorb it and the increase -- the natural, necessary increase for law enforcement being two of the most -- largest and most fundamental components of the General Fund expenditures, how the city can absorb large changes rapidly without utilizing those available resources, just to maintain those service levels for those base core functions. So, from a necessary expense, regardless of whether it's a small change to the individual homeowner, but speak to what those costs are that we have to absorb one way or the other. One of the questions that we had asked at the last session was with regards to the -- the negative figure that's reflected in available funds for enhancements of the existing service level from the General Fund and replacements exceed the available revenues we are utilizing new growth revenue to pay for some of the existing service level needs of the city, which is not necessarily a great trend if it's year over year. So, in light of the great increase in those fundamental expenses, let's talk about that revenue source as a necessary evil in maintaining the service levels and address that. Lavoie: Thank you, Mr. Borton. We will definitely bring that up -- at the beginning of our General Fund discussions we will bring up the slide so you can show the revenue, like you said, short -- the budget gap that we are looking at for base items versus new growth. So, appreciate that. We will start that off with General Fund for you. Thank you. I will hand it over the Dale. Bolthouse: Madam Mayor, Council, good morning. Thank you for the opportunity here to take a couple minutes to kind of reflect on the budget that the Enterprise Fund is presented to you. I can tell you this myself and my team that has joined us here this morning, feel very good about what we presented to you over the last couple of months and we believe that it accomplishes the needs and the expectations of the city as it relates to the -- to the Enterprise Fund and the utilities that we manage on your behalf. So, some of those accomplishments and expectations that we believe are embedded in the budget is certainly maintaining the expectations and service levels for our utilities. We believe the budget being presented supports the growth commitments and initiatives that we have out in front of us as a city and that includes both the organic growth, so that each house, the permit that comes on, as well as we are now supporting some of the strategic initiatives, things like the south Meridian where as a Council you directed us to expand and jump out in front of and be prepared to support future growth in those areas. So, we think we have accomplished that in this budget. We have a large regulatory component, you hear it regularly in our conversations from wastewater and now increasing water requirements from our drinking water side. So we have introduced and we believe we have got the initiatives and the spending to support those efforts. One of the things that we have been focusing on here -- I guess in my tenure is -- is trying to move ourselves more to the boots on the ground kind of approach. So, we have gone through some reorganization where you look very carefully at our labor and how it's distributed and given this budget we do have Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 9 of 147 some requests for some incremental FTEs and I think you will find that those are all very well focused on the efforts of meeting the needs for the growth at the -- at the ground level of our organization. Nearly every one of our enhancements and things are supporting the strategic plan of the city, as well as the department tactical plan and so we feel like we have a very close and tight tie to that effort, as well as preserving the hundreds of millions of dollars of investment that the city has made in the infrastructure that we have. So, we believe we have incorporated the preservation of that particular major investment the city has made. Our base budget we believe is very modest in terms of increase from the 16 million to roughly 16.7 million dollars. We are facing inflationary pressures across the board. We have a lot of items in our budget, things like chemicals and things that we -- excuse me -- although we work hard to negotiate the best pricing, you know, we have seen pressure on those fronts and we have done as much as we possibly can to try to offset those kinds of pressures. Our enhancements. We have 20 projects that we have identified in the enhancements and -- and that is actually a smaller portfolio than what we have brought forward to you for a number of years. However, the dollar value is extremely high and we respect that. The majority -- about 95 percent of those initiatives as it relates to dollars, are either carryover or continual efforts. We have planned for them, have been planning for them for a number of years, and as you're familiar we are in the throws now of some very significant projects, probably the largest that the city's ever taken on. So, those are -- those are certainly critical influencers in what -- the budget we have presented for you. I now open it up and staff is available here to answer any questions as it relates to those topics. So, we will put it up for comments. De Weerd: Thank you, Dale. Any questions from Council? Lavoie: Well, Madam Mayor, if I could help facilitate this, if we wouldn't mind just following the natural order of the department, at the very top you will see -- we will go in order. So, if we could just focus on, you know, going -- just following I guess a list to help facilitate the order of things. So, if you -- if Council has any questions for the utility -- Utility Billing Department -- so, again, we have the Utility Billing Department. If you have any questions or concerns about the items presented for the fiscal year 2018 budget, we have staff members here to answer any questions for you on that particular item . If there are no questions, then, we will move on to the next department and just go down the line until we are finished with the Enterprise Fund. So, again, we will open it up to you guys for utility billing. If there is any questions for you at this time -- if there are no questions we will consider that budget balanced and accepted and we will move on to the next department. De Weerd: Okay. Any questions on that first? Okay. Lavoie: So, no questions on utility billing. So, we will move on to Public Works. Any questions for the Public Works submission to you, Council? We have the staff here to answer any questions for you at this moment. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 10 of 147 De Weerd: I -- any questions? Okay. Lavoie: No? All right. So, we will move onto the next department, which is the Water Department. Again, any questions on any of the items submitted to you for the Water Department? We have the staff here to answer the questions. Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: I do have a question about one of the replacements for the water department. I think the Ford Ranger truck. So, it looks like the -- yeah, the 2006 Ford Ranger. It looks like this vehicle uses about five to six thousand miles a year total. I recognize that it's old in terms of years, but where it doesn't seem like it's being utilized a significant amount (unintelligible) I'm hoping you can I guess give me a -- I have read the report about it's past its useful life. Seventy thousand miles to me isn't past its useful life, but I'm hoping you can share why this vehicle needs to be replaced right now. Bolthouse: Madam Mayor, Councilman Cavener, we go through each year and we have a -- a renting sheet that basically looks at multiple characteristics of each of our vehicles, the safe, the amount of maintenance costs, wear and tear, you know, usage for these vehicles. This is one of two vehicles that actually came up as -- marked as a critical based on the stipulations of how it was rated. To answer your question on the mileage, this is our main and only vehicle for reading meters and it is old. It's -- what is it, 11 years old now. The problem with this particular vehicle it's starting to fail, even though it hasn't got that many miles on it and it doesn't look like it's been used that much, it has a ton of idling time. So, the actual hours on the vehicle itself are probably close to double of the actual miles with the time of idling it has. Another situation that we ran into and have ran into in the past with these vehicles is this is only a two wheel drive vehicle. During the winter this year we had two to three months of almost unpassable road conditions where we had difficulty trying to get this vehicle through so we could get our reads captured. So, this replacement would also get us another four wheel drive, so we can make sure we continue to get these readings on schedule. Cavener: Madam Mayor? Do you know what the maintenance costs were this last couple of years? Bolthouse: Not offhand. I would have to get back to you. This past year we had a little over a thousand dollars in repairs. Cavener: Thank you. De Weerd: Any other questions? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 11 of 147 Cavener: So, Madam Mayor, I don't know what the process is. I appreciate the feedback from staff. I still don't necessarily think that we need to replace this vehicle this year, so, Madam Mayor, do you want us on each thing like this to make a motion? How would you want us to proceed? Lavoie: Could I -- I apologize. Yeah. Council, this is your opportunity to dialogue amongst yourselves. Again, this is our budget proposal to you. If you wish to make a motion or vote or however -- you know, if you just want to vote within the six -- or five of you tonight -- or today, you can do that. If you wish to bring up a particular item or any Council Member wishes to dialogue with their fellow Council Members to add or remove anything, this is your time. So, if you wish to mak e a motion or a consideration, this is your opportunity to do so. Cavener: I guess before I would make a motion, then, I'm curious if any other members of Council have any thoughts or feelings on this item. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: I think if it only costs us a thousand dollars a year for a few years, I think it's probably worth hanging onto, because the price of a replacement vehicle isn't going to increase by a thousand a year for a few years. I mean if it gets to where we are spending maybe 1,800, 2,000 a year to drag out the life of this thing, then, at that point probably it would be more appropriate to replace it. But if it only costs a grand I think it's worth stretching it a little further. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: I somewhat agree with that, though a lot of times when a car starts having problems they just start getting bigger and bigger and bigger and very expensive and as Dennis said, needing a four wheel drive to read the meters and according to the Farmers Almanac this year is going to be worse than last year. So, I think we need a four wheel drive truck, regardless of even the condition of it, but -- De Weerd: I think that's in addition reliability has to be -- the down time, you don't have the assets to do the work you need to do. So, that thousand dollars might constitute a number of days out of service that you -- we need the vehicle and I guess I would have to depend on the -- the department that is asking for this replacement with all these different considerations in mind. I think an 11 year old pickup where you see others that are much newer , they have tried to extend the life of this vehicle, so -- Dennis, do you have any -- Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 12 of 147 Teller: Yeah. Madam Mayor, if I may -- of all the vehicles that I have in my fleet for the Enterprise Fund these are probably the most important vehicles we need to have up and running at all times. This is the one that captures our reads on a monthly basis for months. If we don't have this vehicle it makes it basically impossible for us to capture our meter reads if there is a situation where it was out of service. So, we do need it for those times during the month and we do need it for those weather conditions. So, it's critical. I understand that it didn't have a lot of maintenance cost this past year, but it's -- as Genesis has stated, that it does continue to increase in maintenance. I know the front end of it is actually starting to wear out, so that will be an upcoming cost that is going to be needed soon, just from all the turning and starts and stops that it does. So, I would ask the Council to, please, consider the replacement of this vehicle just for the criticality of it for our revenue capture. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: Thanks for that. I'm good. Yeah. Borton: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Borton. Borton: To the point I appreciate bring up the question on that truck. It invites the question of the scoring criteria and sort of the objective process you guys go through so you're not replacing things just because you want to, but you do do those calculations and -- and probably somewhere in that matrix is the necessity of that car in relation to other cars and that probably has some value to it. I know Fire does that with their engines and if that's something that you can share that just says here is sort of the general matrix we run our vehicles through of the Enterprise Fund to determine when and if -- if there are opportunities to extend the life that's factored in and, then, we bring forward the recommendation, that would be the -- it would be good for us to know. De Weerd: Well -- and I believe that Finance is working on a better, more visible check sheet of each of those assets and when they come for replacement that you can see that kind of evaluation. Borton: Fantastic. Teller: Madam Mayor? I think this starts the plan to see that -- if it hasn't already been that as the city grows we are probably approaching a critical mass of vehicles where fleet management needs to start to enter into the picture , where you have a very dedicated resource who goes out and does these evaluations and ensures that the reliability of that fleet are done so in a manner that is efficient. I know in Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 13 of 147 Public Works alone, you know, we have dozens of vehicles and as does, you know, police and fire, everyone else, so we are -- I think from my perspective we are approaching, you know, another analysis that hasn't been done recently on just exactly how we manage the fleet of the city as it continues to grow. De Weerd: Todd. Lavoie: Madam Mayor, I can add to that. So, we agree that we need to have -- we are getting to that point where we need to understand what we have and how to manage it. I'm working with an individual from the Police Department, they actually have a fleet coordinator, she is actually helping us assist -- or helping us develop and create a new fleet maintenance kind of mindset using -- leaning on the matrix that Public Works already has. So, again, where Dale is going, we are moving forward in that direction to see if we can start leveraging the resources we have at the city, so we have a unified approach to how we look at vehicles and managing them, maintaining them, repairing them, because Dale is accurate, we are at that critical point where we are getting a lot of vehicles we want to manage and we need to be prudent with the assets that we have and we are moving in the direction -- working with one of Mr. Lavey's team members, we will be de veloping something over the next 12 months and we will be happy to report back to you with our progress. De Weerd: Anything further? No? Okay. Thank you. Lavoie: Any other questions for the water department while you have the water department here? I see no questions. We will move on to the wastewater division. So, any questions on any items submitted to you, Council, for the wastewater division -- or department? Sorry. De Weerd: Any questions? Okay. Lavoie: With that, Council, we will consider the Enterprise Fund budget request submitted to you as accepted. Oh, it looks like we have a question. Mr. Borton. Borton: Yeah. Madam Mayor? Real quick can you remind me and everyone viewing online the blue box and kind of refresh us with the comfortable level on the projected ending fund balance negative -- what that is on the -- Lavoie: I will be happy to, Joe. Borton: Thank you. Lavoie: The impact on the fund balance. So, as we have accepted the budget itself, we are accepting that total expenditures were 56.97 million dollars as presented to you today. We have a carry forward request of 33, with a total request of 90. But just for fiscal year 2018, we have total revenues of 38.46 million dollars Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 14 of 147 is what we are projecting. Total expenditures of 56.9. So, we are asking Council to consider to using 18.5 million dollars of the ending fund balance to balance this budget. De Weerd: And, Council, I guess I would direct you to the summary pages that are in the front of your book. That -- that is the main one on that summary, so you're not creaking your neck trying to read the -- the screen. You do have it on your summary sheet. I thought that would be helpful. Lavoie: Yes. So, with that, that gives you your projected or requested funding needs from the executive branch to the Council. So, with that request we are requesting 18.5 million dollars to come from ending fund balance to balance for this fiscal '18 request. The blue box represents the projected fund balance for fiscal year 2017. What that takes into consideration is the same request that we presented to you at this time last year. So, if we collected one hundred percent of all the revenues, if we spend one hundred percent of all the expenses, this is where the fund balance would be as of 9/30/2017. Again, those are all projections. We will be coming back to you in two weeks with our year-to-date fiscal year '17 calculation and I can inform you right now that we are not going to spend one hundred percent of the expenditures that we requested from you in 2017 . We are actually looking at an increased fund balance from 9/30/2016 to 9/30/2017. So, this box here is a little misleading, but it's the best information that we have for you from a projection standpoint until we report to you next quarter. Next quarter I can inform you that the projected ending fund balance for 9/30/2017 -- where it says eight million dollars, we have a feeling it will be more in the 50 million dollar range. So, you have a lot more comfort level, but, again -- Cavener: Five zero or one five? Lavoie: Five zero. Five zero. But, again, unfortunately, the information that we have for you is based on the information that we have for projections. We are not going to spend one hundred percent of our expenditures and that's the biggest kicker. We are going to carry forward a large -- we are carrying forward 33 million dollars. So, that's the difference. Borton: You just can't show it yet. Lavoie: Just can't show it yet, because we haven't closed the books yet. But I can give you a sense of mind -- or piece of mind you will have more like 50 million, not the eight -- not until next quarter can I change that eight to a 58 cover, but that's the best I have for you right now and you can see most of that is represented with that 33 million dollar carry forward, since we did not spend it all in '17, we will spend it in '18 and that's the gap that -- hopefully that answers your question, Mr. Borton. Borton: Absolutely. Thank you. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 15 of 147 Lavoie: All right. Thank you. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Milam. Milam: Is there another nine million somewhere? Lavoie: It would be the difference not spending a hundred percent expenditures in operation and personnel and also increased revenues above what we projected. So, the assessment revenues are looking like they are coming in a little higher than we projected. Growth has grown. We have seen it. So, our revenue projections, which is the blue box, that's our pledged projection, so we have additional revenues that are coming in higher than what we projected. We have expenditures being spent in the one hundred percent, so that would make up your other nine million gap. So, if there is no other questions for the Enterprise Fund, we will put into the books what the Enterprise Fund is requesting and we are going to approve next week 56.97'ish million dollars. Again, next week we will present to the citizens and Council the tentative fiscal your 2018 Enterprise Fund next week. So, again, if there is other questions for the Enterprise Fund -- again, if you need them let us know, we can get a hold of them, but we will move on to the Community Development Department and do the same process with them. Again, Dale and your team, again, appreciate your time and efforts today. Chatterton: Good morning, Mayor, Council Members. Just remember we have four enhancements for Community Development. There was some questions about one of our enhancements and we thought we would start with that one first and that was the 50,000 dollars for the growth goals consultant. So, we -- we were asked in particular to scope out the project more and come up with an outline of the scope of services. Caleb has done that. We want to hand that out now, Caleb. We know this is the first time that you have seen this, so when Caleb gets back if he could -- he can walk you through, but let's go just in general as far as what we are anticipating doing. Hood: So, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Bruce and I have been in conversations since the workshop where we presented this enhancement and received the questions about the scope of what would be included with the potential consultant to do this and I kind of want to jump to the -- the bottom part of the summary of the scope or the tasks that this consultant would do first and we started to look at it -- we stepped back a little bit and said you know, we have got our -- our Comprehensive Plan for the city that's going to need an update here in the near future and a consolidated financial plan that's scheduled for 2021. So, we said, hey, this has a lot of similarities and should inform the Comprehensive Plan, if not be done even in conjunction with that. So, one of the things we want to just bring before you today is, again, kind of look at this and go should we either accelerate doing the comp plan update or -- or maybe wait on doing this until we Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 16 of 147 get to the comp plan update, because, again, there is a lot of similarities in what we will have a consultant do, so that's kind of what we -- the flavor of our discussion. I think there is still a lot of value in doing this now and it can still inform that, because this will take some time, it will take a good portion of -- of this next year to get through that process of coming up with growth goals. But I just want to kind of put that out there as well to say, hey, this is going to inform our Comprehensive Plan, which was last adopted in 2011. Again, it's been, you know, a lot, you know, about our growth over the past six or seven years. Our Comprehensive Plan I don't think is outdated, but our community is changing every day and some of the policies we currently have may need to be updated and we need to inventory and figure out where we are going as a community and, again, the Comprehensive Plan for the city is one of the main documents that sets that -- sets forth that vision and we will review new development against and inform our residents of where we are going as a community. So, kind of putting that out there. Going to the scope. I'm not going to read this to you. I apologize this wasn't shared with you earlier, but, again, we have been kind of stewing over this and figuring out the right approach for this. I'm just going to summarize that third paragraph there. So, we really need somebody to gather the existing plans and studies, including financial plans from CIPs and what everyone is doing and really consolidate those, summarize those, make sure we are all kind of pulling in the same direction or if we are not call that out, too, and say, hey, you know, parks is planning on building parks over here and wastewater is planning sewer over there or whatever the case may be, just to make sure they are all pulling in the same direction with those -- with those -- with studies, plans, and policies and the related growth goals. And, then, a big portion of this would be to engage city leaders, other service providers. Again, where are those other providers and the leaders envision our city growing and how do they envision it growing and what services are being provided and where. And, again, compiling that information gathered to understand what -- what our vision is for the community in the near, in the mid, and the long term as well. You know, again, without a -- we have kind of reacted to growth. We have a comp plan. We have some -- but we really rely on developers and property owners coming to us when they are ready, should we influence that in part of the areas or sectors for growth and, then, to help us synthesize and summarize those existing plans and procedures and look at other communities that have done growth management system and have growth goals. How successful have other communities been in -- in setting that vision and implementing a plan for growth management. Again, this would all be done, then, and the report that is provided to the city it says here is our strengths, this is what you're doing well, maybe some things that need to be improved with policies and whatnot and, again, changing those plans, then, to reflect some of the recommendations. So, in a nutshell that's kind of what we would ask a consultant to do . There is other things within that. I think it was -- it was -- I mentioned before could an intern, you know, do some of these things. No, it's -- it's more complex than that. There would probably -- you know, obviously, they are taking notes and doing -- and setting up meetings and things like that as well that isn't put in here. Not to that level of a scope. But that's, Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 17 of 147 essentially, the meaning or the tasks that we would have this business firm or this group do for us. Chatterton: It's worth -- we had just one staff member solely devoted to comprehensive planning, long range planning, design and we keep them very busy. We give them a lot of assignments. So, the idea of -- of us being able to do this entirely in house is just -- it's just not feasible. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: So, Caleb, did you have a specific consultant in mind and where does the dollar figure come from? Hood: Madam Mayor, Council Woman Milam, we -- we do not have -- and we would need to go out for an RFP. It would be a competitive process. The dollar figure, I'm going to defer a little bit. I'm not quite sure where that came from. It's just my opinion. Again, I didn't come up with the 50,000, but that's a ballpark figure for what it would take to do something kind of like what we have here. But I do not put it in the consolidated financial plan and I'm not quite sure -- Chatterton: Well, Madam Mayor, Council Member Milam, I used to work with a whole different department with a brilliant architect slash planner and I would say to him, Alfredo, we need to do a plan like this, how much do you think it would cost and he would have to close his eyes and say about 50 K. I'm kidding. But it is -- in terms of planning -- in terms of doing master planning, city wide planning efforts, it's probably a good -- just in my experience in the public world, it's probably a good round figure. We would try to bring it in for less than that. I think you could probably look at that as easily as a not to exceed sum. And certainly through the RFP process -- of course, you pick the first -- the most qualified and, then, you negotiate with them to try to get those costs down so you can get the best -- the best bang for the buck. But this idea also we wanted to offer up do we want to -- this is closely related to our Comprehensive Plan. We will definitely be needing some consulting assistance for the Comprehensive Plan update. We have -- you know, we have got a good plain vanilla plan right now, but it feels like it's being stretched I think by the unprecedented growth of Meridian. Do we want to bring that comp plan process forward and do it earlier and perhaps hold off on this for a year or two. That was -- that was an alternative that we wanted to offer you. There is no perfect way of doing this. You do a special planning effort like -- like this growth goals plan -- growth management plan and the best way to inform, as Caleb said, the comp plan and plan to update that. Vice-versa, if you did the comp plan first and, then, you do another special planning effort, the comp plan informs that. So, it's an interactive process, a chicken and egg thing, there is no perfect way to start that. De Weerd: Any questions for Bruce or Caleb? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 18 of 147 Borton: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Borton. Borton: From what you have described -- and, Caleb, you mentioned it a little bit, it seems to make sense to chicken and the egg, I guess, to accelerate the comp plan process and blend these together. It is in 2021 in the CFP. It just doesn't seem to make sense that you might have a growth goals analysis done that's based on a comp plan that is about to change. There might be some efficiencies to blend those together, have one consultant kind of accomplish a lot of the growth goal tasks as part of developing an updated Comprehensive Plan. Chatterton: Madam Mayor, Councilman Borton, I mean yes -- yes, I mean certainly that -- that's the -- is -- I mean that's entirely possible that could be a good scenario. I guess our sense of urgency with growing so fast to develop growth goals that if we were in a sense of urgency to get these updates in place, what is going to inform the other no matter what, so that we do the -- if we do the management protocols projects first there will no -- no question is there will be recommendations for the comp plan update coming out of it. It won't really I think be held back by an older comp plan, it will, in fact, prod that comp plan when we do update it into being a better plan. Borton: Madam Mayor? My thought was to accelerate it and move -- if we were to do this, why not accelerate the comp plan update, which is ballparked at 50,000 in the CIP, but trying to accomplish them both in a broader scope that -- that doesn't go the next fiscal year when we have got -- none of us on the Council participated in the 2011. I struggle to see why not do it this next year. Chatterton: I think it's a perfectly logical way to do it. Caleb, did you have any comments on it? Hood: I mean -- Madam Mayor, Councilman Borton, I don't think our comp plan is woefully out of date. Again, we have seen change in growth. We do update it annually, some of the policies, to make sure that it's -- it's fairly current. The vision, though -- you know, again, we have changed since and it's the 2011 adoption date, but most of the work was done in 2009 and 2010. So, it does take some time to pull, you know, sub committees together that tackle transportation and land use and the different aspects that are included in the -- in the -- I don't think it's critical that we update the comp plan. Ten years is a pretty good life cycle, especially in a community like ours. It's growing so rapidly. A lot of other communities can get by a little bit longer with that. Not to say that seven years is -- I mean I think we could do it, too. I just don't think it's at a critical state and I don't think the policies that are contained in -- I think it's a good guiding document today. Again, I'm not opposed to it and that's one of the -- you know, options, is to accelerate that and do it sooner. I just don't want you to feel like we Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 19 of 147 are pressuring you to -- to do that any sooner. I think it's a pretty good document that isn't out of date, but, yes, things have changed, including leadership, and if that's something that you all want to do, we are certainly open to that and undertaking that. It will probably take a solid year anyways. I don't know that we can even do it in one year. Most processes like this are pretty intense and, again, you're relying on volunteers a lot of times to come and provide that -- Blue Print Boise was -- it seemed like a three year effort, you know, from beginning to end. I would hope it wouldn't take that long, but it's not a simple -- you meet a couple times you have got a new comp plan. De Weerd: Well, Mr. Borton, would you like this team to go and see what they would need resource wise in addition to this request to blend the two? I think conversations have come up in certain particular parts of town that, you know, working on the northwest area right now, the south southern rim has come in with some concerns, recommendations. There is value that the current Council was part of a visioning piece and -- and none of them have been involved -- I think you were -- when you were on Council before -- but it is a good process to go through and, then, you have a better collective vision then you know what the other Council think. Borton: Yeah. It's thrown out there -- De Weerd: It has been seven years. We have grown tremendously and the -- the market is changing. I think that it would be interesting at least to see the numbers. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yeah. Milam: I agree with accelerating the comp plan. I think the changes have been so immense over the last several years and the growth and I don't -- I don't -- because I have a hard time saying let's do this and analyze something that's about to change. Whether they -- you do them together or put that off until that's done, that seems to make sense to me. But to do this now -- if we are going to change the comp plan and it's soon -- the short term, then, I don't think it makes sense to go forward with this ahead of time. Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: Madam Mayor, Members of Council, I guess I'm holding a lot onto what we have heard from staff, which is that while, yes, Meridian has changed dramatically and is changing dramatically. Our comp plan isn't woefully out of date. Yes, there is some -- some big changes happening in lots of our community. I think that we are asking a lot for staff to give us recommendations here and about Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 20 of 147 maybe changing an enhancement that they have brought forth to maybe changing something completely different. I think that this particular item, both the growth consultant and accelerating our comp plan is a much larger conversation and I guess -- I just don't know if right here and right now is the best time for us to be having that. I'm not a hundred percent in favor of this -- of a growth consultant plan, separate from looking at changes to the comp plan and -- and vice-versa. So, I guess what I would recommend for the Council is that we remove this enhancement from the budget and ask staff, Madam Mayor, to come back with a -- a plan based on the feedback that you have heard from us today as potentially a budget amendment. Give Council the opportunity to weigh the pros and cons from there and make a decision at a later point. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: While budget amendments are not something I am super fond of all the time, I think in this case more time is really what we need and so I'd be much more comfortable with it as a budget amendment later with more information than right now as an enhancement. Borton: Madam Mayor? Maybe another way to get to the same spot is -- correct me if this is wrong, Todd, but in remaining in, this is a tentative budget that gets published in public. It can't increase as a line item, but generally, right, the categories don't increased, but they can go down. The public meeting is in August. If it were to remain in between now and August, that provides some time at least to give a more detailed response to say, well, if this were to be accelerated and you were to contemplate doing a comp plan growth, blending them together, here is why that might work or we have looked more into it, it doesn't work, you shouldn't do it, at which time it can get removed. I mean we could do it either way, but we know this is a cost that's coming. If not this year it's coming, we got to do the planning -- this planning process. To your point, you know, if we go forward it's probably adopted by the Council in the spring of '19. You know, it's really a long -- it is a long process. So, the opportunity to get it started, knowing that it's going to be an expense we are going to incur, I don't know if between now and August 23rd -- the late August -- 22nd? De Weerd: I think I understand that. Borton: August 22nd. That that provides us time to say today it stays -- it's in, but here is what it looks like. If you wanted to accelerate to 2021 comp plan amendment into this process, it might not get any additional funding, right, it might still only get funded at this ballpark amount in hopes that efficiencies can be found, but I'd just as soon see if the process can get started and get your questions answered, so -- Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 21 of 147 Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: And, Councilman Borton, to -- I appreciate the -- the intent of that. I hesitate to -- to start off the General Fund discussions with, well, we can always take this out later, because, then, as we go into everything else that we might want to remove, you can always make the argument, well, let's leave it in for now and think about taking it out in August. With this one, yeah, I'm not really worried about that, it's just future ones I hate to set the precedent that we might leave it in because we might take it out. Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: Councilman Borton, I think you -- we get to the same finish line either way. I guess -- I want to be fair to staff in that if -- if this can be accomplishment for 50,000 dollars, great, but I also know that as much as Council doesn't get excited about the budget amendment process, staff is even less excited about the budget amendment process and having to come before us to ask for additional funds. So, I guess if you -- if you don't have a clear picture today and potentially having to, then, go through that process regardless, having it come through at a -- at a more accurate amount to me satisfies where I guess I -- I think the process needs to play out. This document here, Caleb, Bruce, is fantastic. This -- I wish we would have been able to have had this a month ago. I understand the logistics of not being able to. Because this helps clarify a lot of the questions that I had and this is really not assigned to -- well, maybe it is, but I guess I want to -- I want to have a clear picture of what our total costs are going to be if we are going to accelerate the comp plan. That's all. Hood: Madam Mayor? If I may, I think I'm hearing general consensus that marrying the two efforts together is kind of where we are headed, at least that's the sense I'm getting from everybody and just to be honest with the -- kind of two options that are on the table, there will be some efficiencies, I think, if we marry them together. Again, there is a lot of overlap in one form -- the other provides first, but I don't think we can do both for 50. So, even if you left it at 50, I think we are coming in with an enhancement -- or, excuse me, a budget amendment later in the year for another 20 or 25 or whatever. So, regardless of how you want to get to that same finish line, we are probably still looking at a budget amendment if the direction is marry these two projects, because, yes, there will be some efficiencies, but we can't do both for one cost. Borton: Madam Mayor? If this were to come out now, then, how soon could you bring back -- not necessarily a budget amendment, but the recommendation that Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 22 of 147 says here is the blended approach of doing these, real rough calendar or schedule, and this will give you the green light, and a budget amendment would follow. Hood: Madam Mayor, Councilman Borton, I mean to be fair I think we need to think that through, you know, a couple of months, though, I think would be enough time to really develop a good -- almost to update that sheet that was handed out to -- to put that together. But I would want to consult others that would need to be part of this process and kind of get an idea from them. Borton: Not really a -- I want an exact -- it's not a fair question. I'm envisioning it -- Hood: Later in the fall. Yeah. Borton: -- September workshop as an opportunity to bring back that as a discussion point proposal to blend them together and the cost. Chatterton: Madam Mayor, I think that's good consideration, because we also want to look at some examples, because we have just started to look at, for instance, this Bismarck. A growth management plan that was also their comp plan. So, there are some examples out there. In many states growth goals are -- are a required part of the state level of comp plan and we can look at some of those examples as well. Hood: Madam Mayor, if I can to piggyback one more comment just on -- onto both your comments, Madam Mayor, and Councilman Borton's question, it kind of depends on what we are doing with the Comprehensive Plan. Are we throwing it all out and starting a new? Are we look -- doing some kind of sub area specific plans with that? Because if we are going to look at the southern part of our city and kind of go specific area plan, like we are doing with Growing Together or -- that may, you know, drive the cost up. Is that something that's within the scope that you want to have done or is it more of a refresh to our Comprehensive Plan. So, kind of depending on how much -- you know, what that level of effort is -- again, you kind of get what you pay for. So, how outdated do you think our comp plan is? Again, do we need to start from scratch or are we trying to keep a lot of what we have and do this over here and not over there. So, I think that workshop in September will even help and we may just come back after getting some more direction from you on what are we doing here, what -- what is, again, the level of effort and the scope. I need some more input from you. I have my thoughts, but what do you want to do? De Weerd: I think it would be helpful for you to huddle with your team and look at what recommendation you might bring back and have the convers ation with Council in September and get their feedback and you might have to , then, come back again as -- as you wrap that feedback into a more formal plan that you can come with a guesstimate on an enhancement. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 23 of 147 Little Roberts: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts. Little Roberts: Probably my biggest concern with taking this out right now -- and, please, correct me if you don't think it will, but my concern is it would slow the process potentially of getting some type of growth plan . That's probably the number one question that I get is how does Meridian manage growth. What's happening with growth. Growth. Growth. Growth. We all -- that's the language we speak. And so I think getting a plan done sooner rather than later is really critical and combining the two would that slow us down considerably? Is it a couple of months? Maybe -- your team does so much with really not a big staff, I can certainly see how a consultant would be critical. But finding the right consultant also takes time, too, and so if -- if we pull this out, does that slow or stop that process? Chatterton: I think it does slow things down somewhat. The question is -- I guess what I would like to do, Madam Mayor and Council Member Little Roberts, if we could all take a look at that proposed schedule together and see if it is acceptable. Again it could be possible if Council wants to do that, that your concerns are something that resonates with the Council to -- to move ahead again with the plan -- I'm not trying to (unintelligible) in any way, but we certainly would have options. But if we can all look at that schedule together and maybe decide if that is acceptable for our community is perhaps the best way to do it. Borton: Madam Mayor? So long as through this process we set time hard dates. If we don't -- because we could talk and think about talking about changes for a long time. Chatterton: And, Council Member Borton, that's a great point, because we are here because of the strategic plan and the strategic plan objective and that is, in turn, what we decide here is going to influence the dates on strategic plan objective. Borton: So, this -- Madam Mayor, the CFP contemplated the city wide strategic plan overhaul -- I don't know if -- not necessarily throwing it out or not. You might have recommendations in September of how that happens or should happen, but it would be city wide, not -- and there may be specific area components to it, but the city wide -- Chatterton: Well, Councilman Borton, if I understand, you said -- so it went strategic plan -- Borton: Or, excuse me, Comprehensive Plan update. Yes. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 24 of 147 Chatterton: The CFP -- Borton: Right. Chatterton: -- anticipates that -- that happening in 2020. Borton: Right. Just -- Madam Mayor. What we would discuss in the September workshop is here is how a blended gross goals Comprehensive Plan city wide update would roll out. It would -- we are going to ask for a budget amendment of 79 -- 6.4 and we are going to RFQ on December 1, something like that, and have it in front of you March of '19. Not holding you to it, but we can see the framework of how this process can get done. Chatterton: That's our intent for sure. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: Some one of you said a little while ago, I certainly don't think we need to scrap the plan and start over. I think it just needs a little updating and refreshing based on the growth patterns, the southern rim, you know, that -- we have had a lot of communities not liking certain development, because it doesn't follow the comp plan and they looked at that before they ever bought their house and , you know, just update it, refresh it, so it's not a completely new plan I think. My opinion. If that helps with your -- in my opinion. De Weerd: We agree. Okay. Chatterton: Todd, you need a decision point here or -- Lavoie: We will. Yes. Appreciate that, Bruce. So, if we wouldn't mind addressing -- do we keep it in the budget for our noticing process or do we remove it from the budget for our noticing process? So, that's the question I pose to the five Council Members. Do we keep the 50,000 dollars in and we would carry it into next year and they may present a budget amend of some value like they spoke of, or do we remove it completely and they could come back to a budget amendment with a stronger, more dialed in number. So, I would pose that to the five of you, keep it in or keep it out. Little Roberts: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 25 of 147 Little Roberts: I guess I would like to see us keep it in. It's money that we are potentially headed toward, even if you have to make an amendment to make an adjustment to the 50,000. Cavener: Madam Mayor, I guess I was going to say I think we should take it out, so -- I don't know how you want to do it. Borton: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Borton. Borton: I think both points -- we are all getting to the same spot, really. I would keep it in, maybe retitle it as a growth goal, comp plan, consultant. It keeps it on the radar, it keeps the public aware of this being part of the discussion. It carries forward the funding for it. I know we are going to be dealing with it in the next 90 days anyway. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: If we pull it and do it once with the right amount, as opposed to doing this and adding later, if we are concerned about perception of the public, I think it's more important that we do it once with the amount we actually plan on spending for the route we end up going. As a placeholder we might ask for it. Milam: Sorry. Madam Mayor? Lavoie: No pressure. Milam: To me it's just a number that -- I can't use a term that I wouldn't use, but it was just pulled out of thin air and so I would rather it come back with a more concrete number as an amendment later than as this vague enhancement that we don't have anything really to -- De Weerd: And I know what the vote is right now, but I would also say that you had -- you have a description of what -- the original intent and you look at our city survey results, I just truthed those results in our listening tour and growth is high on the minds of every part of our community. This enhancement shows a good faith that we are going to -- as Council Member Little Roberts said, give them a better answer as to what that growth plan is, how we are approaching it, and if answer -- if questioned about the 50,000 say that may change with a budget enhancement to combine it with the Comprehensive Plan update, but right now growth is high on the minds of our citizens and they -- they do want answers. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 26 of 147 Milam: Madam Mayor? And I agree and I'm saying when this comes forward I am totally in favor of doing the growth study, plan, comp plan, whatever it is, I just think that just throwing a number into the budget just -- I don't think that many people are really going to read it. I mean they are more likely to watch this and see the discussion than actually read the enhancement. So, I think they will realize that it's something that we support and we want to work towards and it's definitely a goal, but some random number thrown in the budget is -- I don't think is the right thing to do. Cavener: Madam Mayor? We heard from staff, our subject matter experts, that it's going to be a high amount, so for me, because it's going to be a higher amount, come back with -- and work this number and I think you have heard from -- that Council is open to this and the willingness to hear what the total cost is at the appropriate time. Chatterton: Well, Boise spent a little over 200,000 dollars on their update -- on Blueprint Boise, their update of their -- their Comprehensive Plan. We were not thinking about anything close to that level of community engagement and -- and comprehensiveness and, frankly, they got off a bit into the weeds, as you can imagine, with a -- something of (unintelligible). So, this would be considerably scaled back from that. De Weerd: So, on September 12th we will get an update on this and maybe -- this is record breaking knowing when we will have our first budget amendment. Chatterton: Any other questions on Community Development enhancements? Lavoie: Again, appreciate the dialogue. If we wouldn't mind kind of following the same pattern we did with the Enterprise Fund -- again, apologize. If we can open it up to Council to discuss any items presented to you within the building division of the Community Development Department. So, any questions on building? If there are none, then, we will move on to economic development and, again, as we finish each department we will consider that department accepted as proposed. De Weerd: And, Council, I would just note, since I did see a desk chair on the replacements, that Todd has put out a readmission in June -- we were putting together a chair recommendation list and that we will have some uniformity. I just wanted to make sure you knew there was a follow up. Lavoie: Oh, go ahead. I apologize. De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: You said building. Are we talking the building tab or planning? Lavoie: If you look at the building tab. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 27 of 147 Palmer: Okay. Lavoie: So, we are in the building tab. So, any questions in there? So, if we have no questions in the building tab, we will move to the economic development tab. Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: One question on economic development. If I remember last year, economic development had one and a half employees. It's changed to one. Has that -- De Weerd: That hasn't changed. Cavener: Well -- Chatterton: No, that -- that hasn't changed. I don't know if -- there is still coming from the Mayor's office, half an FTE of contribution to economic development. Cavener: And Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Uh-huh. Cavener: You see that number -- you see the personnel transfer on the economic development, that's just -- under the list of employees just has one. So, I just -- that is where the question arises. There is a perso nnel transfer from the Mayor's office, but only looking at one employee. Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Councilman Cavener, I pulled up fiscal year '17's budget on my computer here and we can bring it up for you. I only show one FTE allocated to the economic development department in fiscal '17. Cavener: Okay. Lavoie: I apologize if -- you know, we can help you identify the 1.5 document that you have, but right now I only -- I am pulling up last year's file and it shows 1.0 FTEs allocated to the economic development department for fiscal '17. De Weerd: Todd, that's because you have a full time FTE that's split in -- it's not too different positions -- Lavoie: Right. De Weerd: -- it's one that's split. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 28 of 147 Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: Okay. So, I have got a few questions. Forgive my ignorance. What is a agriculture biotech consultant? What do they do for 20,000 dollars? Chatterton: That -- Madam Mayor, Council Member Palmer, that is a continuation of the Growing Together roundtable -- basically, the Fields District that we have been engaged with. The intent there is to continue this effort -- where we are -- without going into a lot of detail about where that effort is going , the roundtable participants have decided that an ag accelerator -- basically something like New Ventures Lab but for agriculture, ideally located in the Fields District, would be a real boom for our local economy and so we have a number of roundtable folks putting together an overall plan around that. So, that money would help keep that effort going. We have a facilitator, Beth Geagan, who has been helping us with the -- with that roundtable and where a number of projects are beginning to emerge, hopefully that they won't have to have direct -- a direct funding role in. Palmer: Madam Mayor? And I may end up merging a few tabs here. You had mentioned that part of the Fields stuff going on. Does the industry target analysis have something to do with that, too? Chatterton: Well, gosh, I'm sorry, Brenda is not here right now, because she didn't have any enhancements that we are talking about, so I -- I know that that has to do with -- with her work and business recruitment, making sure that we are targeting the right -- the right businesses. Other than that I can -- I can get that answer to you. Palmer: Okay. A few more if I may, Madam Mayor. Then -- I think it was under planning and it talked about a Fields District land use planning for 20,000 and also Fields District outreach for 5,000. Is -- are those -- is that another 20,000 or is that just another place where it mentioned it. Chatterton: It's in addition to that. That is money under economic development, Council Member Palmer. The -- the pieces in planning are more around that specific area plan as a land use focus that Caleb and his team are working on for the -- for the Fields District. Similar to the way we did the specific area plan and specific focus area for both our downtown and Ten Mile district. We -- we have launched that effort for the Fields District as well. So, that's the land use piece of that. The other is more economic development engagement and project development. The money in planning has to do more with the land use piece of that. And, of course, that feeds back into what we were talking about earlier in the Comprehensive Plan as well. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 29 of 147 Palmer: Madam Mayor? So, then, as I add them we are at 20, 40 -- 65 thousand a year that we are spending on the Fields. Are we -- I don't know if I just don't understand it well enough. Are we getting anything out of this process? Chatterton: Madam Mayor, Councilman Palmer, I guess we are due an update on that process. Happy to get that to you. It is yielding some really exciting results. We have pulled in folks from Canyon county, from Nampa -- it's called Growing Together because just where the two cities will eventually, you know, have a common -- common border there at the county line and there is a lot of excitement around this idea of creating economic development around ag. Not at preservation, because that is not part of this plan. That's -- we are not -- you know, the property is mostly spoken for, so that is not about ag preservation or ag land preservation, but it is around trying to find a way to leverage the ag resources in our community, so that we can have research, so that we can have a center for ag best practices, so that we could have something called a learning farm where both school kids and -- and actually farmers can come and learn about some of these techniques and we have a number of potential partners, including the Ada County Soil and Water Conservation District, Canyon County Soil and Water Conservation District, potentially, and they are tapped into a number of potential funding grant sources where they might be able to actually help us to create this research commercialization piece. And, again, it's all around economic development. But I wasn't really prepared to give you all on that, but I'm happy to come and -- happy to come back and do that. We have in -- in August is our department focused -- strategy focus presentation and I'd be happy to give you a full presentation on that and, if necessary, bring in some of our partners. De Weerd: Madam Mayor? So, then, as I understand that, we are spending 65,000 dollars to hopefully put together some people that can find other tax dollars to, then, hopefully, they will be able to recruit some private industry to go in there. Chatterton: Well, not in necessarily tax dollars. A lot of these grant sources are not -- are not public. There are other grant sources as well. I'm not saying there wouldn't be any tax dollars from some of those grants. At this point we don't see any Meridian tax dollars going to that project and if that changes we will tell you that and give you a heads up if that could be a request. But it's really a consortium of a group of folks that are very excited about the -- the future of agriculture in our area and how that helps to create jobs. Palmer: Okay. Cavener: Madam Mayor? Bruce, with the Growing Together, who from the City of Meridian is participating in that? Chatterton: It's -- well, we have staff, of course. Cavener: Sure. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 30 of 147 Chatterton: The Mayor. I believe you attended, Council Member Cavener, the first roundtable and, then, we have -- Council Member Little Roberts as well has been at some of those. Cavener: Okay. And, Madam Mayor -- Bruce, you will have to give me some clarification, because as you mentioned I -- I was invited to the first. I haven't received any invitations for any of the subsequent meetings. As I understood it the goal was for the City of Nampa, City of Meridian, to coordinate and grow together and has been shared to me by the city of Nampa they are not really participating in that process anymore. Chatterton: The city of Nampa continues to be at the table. They don't see the same value I think from an economic development standpoint. However, the Nampa chamber is just the opposite. They see a big value in this and so Debbie Kling has been a very strong partner on this and is -- is very interested in taking the efforts of the -- their ag forum, which is a big annual event and folding them into -- to our efforts. We also have facing Canyon county, the -- the SBDC, Small Business Development Center, and with Doug Cobby and they are a strong partner as well. They are helping us do also this idea behind the ag accelerator or the ag incubator. So, there are -- and Canyon county staff as well are involved, so -- and from a land use standpoint, the City of Meridian land use planning staff are involved with land use planning staff from Nampa as well on that basis. De Weerd: And I think what you have is -- at the last group meeting Mayor Henry was there, the chamber was there, their planner has been involved in the land side of things, but we are planning our area of impact and so the question has been why would I spend my time with Meridian's land use. More so it's working in the subgroups and where we will go together in making sure there is complimentary land uses. You have CW I, the incubator at the tech center and our Food Services of America. We have had a couple of small innovation companies involved from Meridian. So, it's a consortium of difference stakeholder groups and businesses. But, yeah, Nampa was at the last group meeting, so they continue to invest the Mayor's time and their planner's time. Chatterton: So, city of Nampa economic development staff, their focus is very much on taking a number of vacant sites and buildings -- sometimes I wish we had more of those in Meridian. We don't have a lot of them. And specifically trying to fill them up through a business recruitment thing. Most of the -- De Weerd: You know, Bruce, I think you can give the update in August. Chatterton: Thank you. De Weerd: The request is the economic development side and identifying -- identifying an economic strategy and target industries and what types of Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 31 of 147 businesses would be there. Then on the planning side what that land use map needs to look like and what the transition from those types of economic activity and -- and projects would -- would be and so property owners is the -- the next component to that -- can bring to the table, see a conceptual that they can provide comment and engagement in. So, that's the difference parts of those efforts that are multiple departments or divisions that have all pieces and parts to the overall effort. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: Madam Mayor, there is -- are we the only ones paying for these meetings or is there -- them chipping in? Is anybody else paying for any part of it? Chatterton: The Nampa chamber has been a partner and the SBDC have both helped to host the roundtable meetings. De Weerd: We are planning our land, our area of impact, not Nampa's. So, they are participating in the cost of meetings, but our consultant is working on our area, not Nampa's. Little Roberts: Madam Mayor? If I may also clarify, the industry target analysis will definitely touch on the Fields District as well, but it is certainly city -- city and Meridian wide. Meridian widening it in regards to the grant, but the chamber has received to help target our areas of marketing as well. Palmer: Madam Mayor? I'm like we are spending a lot of money here and -- and I don't think we are getting what we are going for and -- I'd love to start going to these meetings -- well, I would love to stop having them, but they keep happening. I mean because maybe -- maybe I'm totally wrong, but at 65 and, then, if the industry target maybe needing 75,000 dollars spending towards this, I don't -- I think we are spending too much. Am I alone? Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: Maybe what might be helpful for me is I think -- at least a good question to be asked is how much money have we invested over the past five years on projects or programs related to the Fields District? Chatterton: Madam Mayor, Council Member Cavener, I would have to -- I would have to go back and add that up, because it has been -- it goes back several years. A little bit before my time, but I -- I don't know how much it is. Because I wasn't Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 32 of 147 involved with it when it -- when the ball got rolling. I would love to give you all a comprehensive update about this so you can decide whether it has value or not. Cavener: Madam Mayor? This wasn't something that was even on my radar, but I think Council Member Palmer brings up a valid point that we are spending a lot of money related to a project that's -- if it's off the ground I haven't -- I haven't seen it. I know there has been lots of meetings and charrettes and discussions about it, but, man, there has got to be a point where we are getting return on our investment and I recognize, Bruce, that I have put you on the spot with how much have we spent and -- but, man, it would be good to know if it's 100,000 or 500,000 -- there has to be a point we are saying, oh, that's -- that's worth it or it's a good time to move on. Chatterton: It's a completely fair question. As you know from 2007 to -- in the last couple of years we have spent a considerable amount of money on the -- the Ten Mile specific area plan and, then, urban renewal to get that out there and we see the results of that. My hope is that in a very different way the Fields District would yield those kinds of results in terms of economic development and positive outcomes for the -- for the city. They are two very different projects, but we are trying to set the table so that the private sector and some public sector groups can come in and sit down. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: I like letting the free market do its thing. So, I would just as soon just pull it all out and kind of see what happens over there in whatever time we have been doing it, but I don't know if there is an appetite for that. So, I would say let's leave it for another year, but make sure that we can define a serious timetable for results or -- or drop the effort or seriously scale it back in '19 and, then, that would give us time for sure to make sure we are all up on how well or well -- or not it's doing and -- yeah. Sorry to just hit you with it here at the moment, but this is a really big book and it's hard to get with everybody on everything that I had questions on. Cavener: And Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: I don't know if I’m not allowed to attend these meetings or if it just was a clerical error where my e-mail got lost off the invite, but -- Chatterton: Well, Councilman Cavener, I thought you remained on the -- on the invite list for the -- Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 33 of 147 Cavener: Well, I haven't. De Weerd: You might check with Kim and see and -- Cavener: That would be great. Chatterton: I will. Cavener: It sounds like maybe Councilman Palmer, who is the development liaison now, and if he is going instead, that's fine. I -- I think that having a few more members of Council involved would help people to be able to answer some of these questions -- Chatterton: We would love to have more direct Council involvement, because that makes it easier to tell the story, frankly. Borton: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Borton. Borton: On that point, it's a great discussion on an important topic. It h ighlights opportunities to accelerate the Comprehensive Plan city wide, that process, and if there is -- I don't know if this is now or at a future date, but if there is funds -- the 20,000 -- 25, 30 thousand, excuse me, to be allocated for Fields District land use planning, at least that's within the budget. That could be reallocated towards this broader comp plan growth goals process that you are going to bring back in September. I don't know if it necessarily would require it to be moved or removed, but in the planning -- I know we are in economic development, but that's a planning budget expenditure. The additional part that's in ED, the ag biotech consultant, I don't get either. That's a little different. It's part of it, but I do know that necessarily gets reallocated or perhaps gets removed. Maybe we will know more in August if it stays in, but I would have the same questions and concerns of what that consultant is doing, because we have got opportunities to plan and create th e roadmap, but we are not funding -- you know, a public entity is not funding an educational farm, farm incubator, farm lab. A private -- private developer would find that utilizing our plan to do so, but it's not coming from us. So, maybe -- at the August you will probably say when you invest 20,000 in a biotech consultant, here is what they do that allows private industry to expend these resources to, then, put in a -- whatever. Whatever they would do from an ag perspective I'm not certain, but without that I don't know why we would spend the 20,000. So, that one -- that 20,000 is a concern to remain in for me at least in the Fields District land planning. Rather than keep it there, perhaps reallocated it towards the broader comp plan growth goal. Chatterton: Madam Mayor, Councilman Borton, this is -- we do have a lot of activity around the Fields District right now and I think what we really need to do, again, is Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 34 of 147 say we are setting the table for the private sector to come in . Should we be? Do you think -- what are our chances of success. Should we be setting the table to the tune of that number of dollars and really assess the value of that to along the lines of -- of -- you know, back when we did -- in 2007 the specific area plan for the Ten Mile interchange, it took a long time for that to -- to come to fruition, but it did. Borton: But -- Madam Mayor. I remember those charrettes and attended several and that was really long, but it was -- I think it's apples and oranges and maybe in August we will get educated a little better, but the concept of setting up mixed use commercial, large scale development planning opportunity, as opposed to one that's really industry specific to ag, which I don't yet have my head around private business profit model of how that works in a city like Meridian. And that's an August discussion of maybe the info we will get, but that's kind of the disconnect I have at least right now. Palmer: Madam Mayor, if nobody has anything else for the Fields, I have more questions. Okay. The Idaho Technology Council, who are they and what do they do for us for 4,000, if you know. Chatterton: That -- Council Member -- sorry -- Palmer. That is a membership and they help connect us and keep us in touch with the -- with the technology community. I think if Brenda were here she could explain more about that. I don't know if you have anymore -- Little Roberts: Madam Mayor, Mr. Palmer, it's an organization that -- it's statewide and it really is a connectivity for all those things technology wise. Everybody comes together -- we have had Jay Larsen, who is executive director, speak -- help us with certain connections and, then, various -- as far as I'm concerned very -- very unofficial regarding the things that are happening and some businesses that we have gotten to Meridian with their help. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Uh-huh. Palmer: And same question for Your Economy at Work. Chatterton: I will need to get back to you on that, Councilman Palmer. I don't -- I have -- I know that it's a group that we -- it's a database for information for economic development. Beyond that I -- I would need to get information on that. De Weerd: Any other questions? And staff? Lavoie: So, let's go ahead and move to your Planning tab. So, any items within the planning department that were submitted to you that you have any questions? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 35 of 147 Cavener: Madam Mayor? Just for clarification, I know we started talking about the piece on the planning tab, but I don't know if we took a formal action or if we needed to take formal action on the growth goals consultant. Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Mr. Cavener, we had the vote three to two. We took the notion that it was going to be removed and presented to you in a few months on a budget amendment. Cavener: Perfect. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: I'm going to say something no one is going to expect, so I hope you're all listening. The associate city planner -- I wish there was two in here. The biggest thing I -- I hear from people wanting to build here is they are wanting to do things fast and as government there is a way that things have to be done and it's not always fast. So, there -- I'm glad that this one stayed funded, because I feel like it's super important that we are able to take care of the people that are trying to invest all kinds of money here and also if there is other -- other staff or other ways that -- other things that you need to be able to facilitate that process , make it any easier or faster for yourselves or for those that are trying to build here, please, ask. Bring it out. De Weerd: Okay. Any other questions in planning? Okay. Lavoie: And the last department within this discussion would be the administration department. So, any questions for that particular department as presented to you? There should be a tab called CD Admin. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: The downtown catalyst project. What is that exactly? Chatterton: Madam Mayor, Council Member Palmer, that has to do with trying to -- in case we are able to attract a project along the lines of what our steering committee with the chamber and MDBA and the city -- that steering committee, in case there is a need to try to attract a developer for one of those identified projects, which had to do with performing arts, hotel, or a conference center, it would allow us a little bit of money to put on that. Currently we don't see any real opportunities. So, if that's something that you all want to take out of the budget, I -- there probably is not a need for that. It certainly was preservation of the base budget, but we don't Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 36 of 147 have any opportunities now that I'm aware of to use that money. If we were to do that we come back and request a budget -- a budget amendment. Palmer: Madam Mayor? And I think we would all -- I mean some of us probably, but we would be pretty open to that, you know, if there was an opportunity that it could certainly be used, but if -- if you don't have anything planned for it and rip it out of there. Chatterton: It was a contingency if an opportunity arose. That's all. Palmer: Sure. Borton: Madam Mayor, it sounds like there is some consensus to remove that. De Weerd: Okay. Any other questions? Very good. Lavoie: Again, appreciate all the input and discussion on the Community Development Department. As it stands we will approve or announce to the citizens next week for the Community Development Department of approximately 3.9 -- 3.85 million dollars. Again, we will present them to the citizens and the Council next week. Again, appreciate your questions, appreciate your time and I would like to propose maybe a break before we move into the General Fund. Thank you. De Weerd: We will reconvene at 10:10. (Recess.) De Weerd: Okay. We will go ahead and continue this budget workshop and I will turn it over to our CFO. Lavoie: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Again, with the Enterprise Fund and the Community Development balance. Let's move off into the General Fund. Again, with the General Fund we are going to process -- or facilitate the discussions the same way we did with the other two departments. Go alphabetical. We will let you know what tab to turn to. As a quick reminder as Mr. Borton mentioned earlier, the General Fund right now is presented to you with a zero percent as requested. You heard from myself. We, as the executive branch, are promoting you to consider the three percent at the end of the day. Right now the budget is currently utilizing what we are calling new growth revenue to pay for base and replacements. That's one supportive reason why we believe we need the three percent, so we continue the services that the citizens have expected from us. So, with that we could talk about the revenue after we hear about everything. We will talk about the unfunded list after we hear from everything, because some change -- chances could occur. That way we can discuss what changes are available and the unfunded list at the very end, if that's okay with you. So, with that in respect to everybody -- that your staff -- your staff is here. With that let's start off with the city clerk. So, if you will Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 37 of 147 move to your budget book under the city clerk tab, if there are any questions on the city clerk department the staff is here. De Weerd: Any questions under the city clerk? Okay. Lavoie: We will go ahead and move on to the next tab in your budget book, which is called City Hall. If you have any questions on any items submitted to you for City Hall, we have the staff here for you. Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: On the enhancements for the building maintenance worker, I had a note that we were going to be provided some additional information under the -- what that position would be doing and the cost savings and I'm hoping that -- we have got that more information. Bolthouse: Madam Mayor, Members of Council, good morning. Councilman Cavener, we do. So, I wanted to just take a couple minutes and, first of all, thank you for your time this morning. We certainly appreciate the opportunity to come before you and talk about this and you might remember at our last budget hearing there was some considerable discussion regarding this enhancement. So, at that time we committed to coming back to this group with some additional information , provide you with some additional context around -- around this enhancement request. When we left that last discussion we, as the team, went back and did some evaluation on this. We looked at our data, looked at some very deep -- deep dive into this and we felt, in addition to some of the specific questions that Council posed, there are really too probably primary gaps that existed when we left that last conversation. One was what the breath and scope of this job really is. In other words, what does this position really do for us. And, two, why do you need it, essentially. So, I want -- I will kind of address both of those items in just a very brief format here, answer your questions in that process and, hopefully, provide just a little bit of additional context regarding that . So, the building maintenance worker is a pretty multi-dimensional job here. You have heard us talk about boots the ground, folks that are involved in the process. This is a prime example of that. The primary duties of this role revolve around building maintenance and building repair. That's a broad topic all by itself. This can be anything from as simple as rehabbing an office when one person leaves and another comes in from spackling walls to painting over those things, to simple and basic repairs that we do in -- in the work area. If a person needs a new white board in their cubicle, that's an example of something this worker might do. So, they have to have a basic understanding of plumbing knowledge, electrical knowledge, construction knowledge. We also rely on this position as one of our primary inspectors to our life and safety equipment here in our facilities. So, that would be fire extinguishers, emergency lighting, those kind of things. This person also serves as an oversight Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 38 of 147 to our contractors that come on site and do work for us . That alone is an incredibly big duty. That involves meeting the contractors, generally taking them into the work areas, explaining the work that needs to be done to them. Coordination with the department that is -- is in need of that work. The follow up that is involved following that work. So, a huge amount of work. There is a logistics element to it. There is an inventory management element to it. All the repair supplies and maintenance supplies that come into City Hall and our other facilities. The distribution of all the janitorial supplies to all the city facilities is all handled through this position and another aspect which, frankly, we -- we get to when we can is an inspection piece. We rely on this person to be the eyes and ears of the facilities. There is -- I think sometimes we lose track of just how important it is to have a maintenance professional on your staff who, when they walk into a room they see it in a completely different way than we do . When a John Sweeney walks into his room he can immediately tell you, geez, I need to take care of that lightbulb. There is an issue with that carpet there. These are things that I don't think we typically look at when we walk into rooms. So, there is an entire aspect there of that that we rely on for this employee. So, one of the questions that came out of the last one was how do we -- how do they get their work, how do we prioritize their work. Most of the work for this employee comes from two primary locations. They are all city related requests. So, if I have something in my work area I need, I can submit a case and they work with the case management system, but we have also found that there is an awful lot of work that comes from what we are lovingly calling impromptu requests. This is -- I catch John or -- in the hallway and I say, hey, I need work on this or I need your assistance with that. John does his very best to balance those requests and make sure that he's still working on his case management load, but the reality is there is an awful lot of what this worker does that's undocumented and that presents a problem for us when we are out there trying to quantify an extra employee. So, I will get back to that in just a minute, but I just wanted to kind of give you an idea of where the work comes from. The question came up regarding how do we prioritize the cases. Essentially cases are prioritized in two ways. There is either a life safety issue or a building and structural integrity issue. Examples of life safety might be a fire extinguisher that's not properly in working order. Maybe the emergency lights in an area aren't doing what they are supposed to do. So, those are immediate issues that could compromise the safety of employees and public in our -- in our facilities. That's a priority case. That's how that case gets prioritized. The same can be said for structural issues in buildings. If I have got a roof leak, perhaps I have got a plumbing issue and there is water pouring out into a restroom, these are things that are going to damage our structures relatively quickly. Those are things that get a priority case rating right away. So, that is -- that is how this team evaluates that. Most of the rest of the cases that they deal with are general or lower priority cases, which means they are important, they need to be getting to, but they are not something that they -- they need to deal with immediately, so -- so, gap number one, we wanted to just try to give you a little context about the breadth and the scope of this position. And the second gap was why do we need a second person. And so I guess in a sentence we are really not accomplishing that mission right Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 39 of 147 now that this -- that this is intended to do. One of the things we did on completion of the last budget work session -- so, we decided to go back out to our customer base and have a conversation with each of them. This stemmed from one of the questions that Council had regarding what's not getting done today that should be. So, we talked to Police, we talked to Parks, we talked to the Fire Department, we went through our Public Works divisions and in those conversations, not surprising to us -- maybe the number was a little surprising to me -- we accounted for almost 800 to a thousand hours annually of work that those departments are doing on our behalf that really falls in the wheelhouse of this -- this role. That's a significant amount of effort that our customer base is doing on our behalf. As you all know -- and it's been a common topic through this entire process -- growth has been occurring at an astronomical rate. That's true internally, not just externally. We always talk about it in terms of how the city is growing, but the city facilities have also grown. This individual is handling 15 separate facilities. Sounds like soon to be 16 with another firehouse. Those buildings are all over the city. So, it's a geographical challenge for them to get from spot to spot. That is a great deal of what adds to the complication of our customers and a lot of times why they feel like they have to take care of some of these things themselves. So, that's a little bit of a look at kind of what's challenging them today. Another question that came up was the in source versus out source, right, from a cost perspective. So, we took a look at the cases that we dealt with over the last 12 months and we identified a few dozen examples of where we brought in a contractor to handle whether it was a simple maintenance issue, maybe plumbing or electrical, that we really probably could have handled in house, but we simply didn't, because we didn't have the time to get to it. On average those professional workers that we bring in cost us about twice the amount that it costs us to just pay an internal employee to take care of that issue and typically we don't bring them in for just 15 minutes, it's an hour to two hour billing rate that they are going to give us, whereas, again, if it's a simple issue, John Sweeney might be able to take care of that in 15 minutes. So, there is another example of the kinds of places I think we are -- we are not -- we are not hitting the mark where this position is concerned. The other issue -- and it's something that we are working towards, but we just don't simply have the time to get into a great deal, is the mentality of being reactive versus proactive to our facilities maintenance and I can tell you right now we are in a better reactive mode, you know, we have a hundred and some cases on average that are pending at any given moment. We triage those, we do the best we can to get through them, but it doesn't afford this group very much time to go out there and really do the evaluations and say do we have a preventative maintenance program that prevents these kinds of issues and problems from creating bigger issues and problems. I think we all intuitively understand that when you handle an issue preventatively it's generally cheaper and quicker than waiting for something to completely fall apart and so that's another aspect to this that we feel like this FTE request gets us there. It's another one of those -- those elements that we just haven't been able to grasp onto for this role, so -- so, just in summary, we really do feel like this is a need and not a want from a budget perspective. Hopefully, we have been able to provide you with a little bit of detail and maybe breath and scope Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 40 of 147 of what this person does. I think, again, when we look at our customer base and that there is 800 to a thousand hours of work that's being performed by departments that we should be probably doing, that's a policeman, a fireman, a parks official -- we are taken away from jobs that we hired them to do to handle building maintenance work. I think those are pretty compelling issues regarding why we feel this is a pretty critical request for us going forward. So, obviously, the geographical differences, the addition to structures -- the floor space alone that this group handles has almost tripled in the last eight years, so -- so -- and in moving into a preventive maintenance program is critical. All of these structures are aging and as that occurs the maintenance requirements in there are going to become even more intensive. The advantage to preventative maintenance over reactive maintenance is -- is clear, so -- so, that's just a little bit of additional context around this FTE request. We thought we would just take a couple of minutes I can give you a preamble to that and we are happy to answer any additional questions that maybe we haven't addressed at this point , but I will stop there for a minute. De Weerd: Questions from Council? Bird: I have none. Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: Just a couple. Very through. Thank you. Bolthouse: You're welcome. Cavener: You provided a lot of insight to some of the questions I had. You talked earlier about kind of the primary life safety issues that this position and Mr. Sweeney handle. What percentage of the calls or work orders that emerge are related to that critical to life safety piece? Bolthouse: I don't know if I could give you an exact number on the life safety piece. I can tell you that approximately ten percent of our cases are generally a priority level case. Cavener: Okay. Bolthouse: So, I would say that in a given day if we have got a hundred cases, you can figure ten of them are priority rated. Life safety -- councilman, I could get you that data. I don't -- I don't have that at my fingertips right now though. Cavener: Madam Mayor, one additional question. The number 800 to a thousand hours, that's a big number. Last month when we talked about some of those Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 41 of 147 things, one of the examples, rightly or wrongly that was used was changing light bulbs -- Bolthouse: Sure. Cavener: -- and I hate that -- that's a sticky thing that just stuck in my head. I don't know if -- I don't want to beat around the bush. I mean is it a big deal if a police officer or if a firefighter changes a light bulb if it's within reach? And we talked about in a room like this it's not feasible -- Bolthouse: Sure. Cavener: -- but a standard office room or a lamp bulb -- is it intended that this position will come and change those bulbs as well or are we -- I guess walk me though what the process is so I have a better understanding. Bolthouse: Yeah. Madam Mayor, Councilman Cavener, you're right, some of the duties are changing light bulbs, but it is a very small piece of what -- what this job does. I will give you an example, a flavor of what those departments gave us as far as things that they felt like we should be doing. Annual generator service on buildings. Generator inspections. Quarterly gate inspections. Adjustments and lubrication. Roof inspections. Appliance maintenance in the structures. Basic painting. Wall repairs. Maintenance checks. Replacing baseboards. Filter change outs. HVAC maintenance. And will say each of them probably did mention light bulbs in their discussion, too, but, again, we -- we regretted the discussions focused around that and the last one for sure. I mean it -- the job is so much more than that and, you know, if I could share just one additional thing with you, we -- we were talking, in fact, last week, just for example -- talk about preventative maintenance, we spent two and a half days bringing an outside organization in to deep clean the police department server room. That was because the dehumidifier filter got clogged down. So, when I talk about a professional maintenance worker being able to walk into a room and recognize things, that's a prime example of a person being able to go in there, perform a simple filter change out, versus waiting until something fails and now we have to have a two and a half day operation of bringing the crew in to clean and, in fact, we had to have a staff member with them, too, because they were in a sensitive area of that facility. So, I don't know of that answers your question, but -- Cavener: It gives -- it gives me a flavor of what those things are. Bolthouse: Okay. Good. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 42 of 147 Milam: So, there is a -- under building maintenance there is a line item for HVAC preventive maintenance at 11,522 dollars. So, is that assuming that this maintenance worker is going to be able to do that and that can come off? Bolthouse: I believe that building maintenance line item is probably more for the repair and service of -- of our HVAC systems. Milam: Well, this says preventative maintenance. Bolthouse: Okay. I can check on that, Council woman. I'm not sure right off the top of my head. I would say that the level of technical expertise that John Sweeney would bring to that particular example would be more of an inspection or filter replacement kind of situation. Most of our large HVAC systems require some kind of regular preventative maintenance from a contractor to come in and do -- and do these kinds of things and, Max, I don't know whether you maybe want to mention -- Jensen: That's what that value is for is to (unintelligible) a contractor some in here (unintelligible) and specialize in that maintenance service. (Unintelligible) come here and do the rooftop here at City Hall. Also the (unintelligible) so that they would come in (unintelligible) three times a year (unintelligible). Bolthouse: Madam Mayor, Council Woman Milam, I would just say, you know, when we talk about preventative maintenance I'm thinking in terms of visual inspections, filter changes, these -- these are relatively surface level kinds of things. Some of this equipment certainly is still going to require professional maintenance depending on the complexity of the equipment, so -- De Weerd: Any other questions? Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Palmer: The replacement of the Council chamber woodwork maintenance is currently unfunded. What (unintelligible) considered for the (unintelligible). Jensen: Councilman Palmer, there are certain areas where -- where the wood has started to separate on its own. There is corners that are damaged. There are dings in parts of the (unintelligible) gouged out. So, it's work throughout the whole wood area. Palmer: Okay. That helps. Lavoie: Madam Mayor? I just might clarify for Mr. Palmer, that was -- that particular item was an item that was removed from the unfunded list to the funded Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 43 of 147 list in the discussions that we had earlier with -- from Jenny. As we go to the departments we will pre-set the items that moved so you know as a reminder what items moved. We apologize we didn't get to that one before th is conversation, but that was moved from unfunded to funded now. Palmer: Madam Mayor? In that case I mean I spend a lot of time in this room and, you know, nothing really stands out to me as -- to a level of professionalism, you know, for those who -- the public can come and join us and others to use this room, so I would be fine to have us base that one out and look at it next year now that it's in the funded column. If no one else has any issues. Didn't get it replaced now. Borton: I agree with leaving it unfunded -- or moving it back to unfunded. Lavoie: Madam Mayor. So, is the consensus amongst the Council Members to remove it from the funded and put it back to the unfunded list? Is that the consensus? I see a couple nods. Palmer: Next. Lavoie: We will go ahead and take it from the unfunded -- or from the funded and move it back to the unfunded list for discussion at the end of the General Fund then. Thank you. De Weerd: Anything further in the (unintelligible). Okay. Lavoie: All right. Council, with the City Clerk and the City Hall completed, the next alphabetical department is Council themselves, but I don't know that -- again, I will let you ask some questions about your own department if you wish to . I don't think you submitted anything in particular that made it to the funded list, but I will open it up if you have discussions about your own department . Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: All right. I have got some questions. Well, we will see. Todd, how much did we spend last year in business meals? In business meals. Do you have that handy or not? Lavoie: Councilman Palmer, I can definitely look it up while we are here. Palmer: Okay. Lavoie: And when you say last ye ar you mean fiscal year '16 or the current year '17? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 44 of 147 Palmer: If you have a year to date and -- Lavoie: We will have a year to date for you. Palmer: -- and, then, '16. Lavoie: I will do both for you. Palmer: Madam Mayor. The reason I ask -- I mean it's a very nice service that's provided by the taxpayers for us to -- when we have those meetings that are going to -- or we have got to be here -- you know, often we don't have time to go home or grab some food before coming to an early meeting that we have before Council or situations like today. I look at what the legislature does. They have a cafeteria in the Capitol building and they require all the legislators to contribute towards -- I guess prepay for the meals, so that they can justify having the cafeteria there. I don't know that we need to necessarily do that, but I feel like if -- that there may be opportunities for us to -- I know I'm nickeling and diming here, but campaigned on that, so I'm going to -- to possibly say whether, you know, if we know far enough ahead of time we can brown bag it or all bring some snacks for everybody or some way to maybe cut back on that a little bit or -- and save a few extra bucks, depending on what we may or may not use anyway. Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Councilman Palmer, I can give you year to date. As of today right now you have -- the Council has spent 1,921 dollars on the business meals line item and you're currently three quarters into the fiscal year. Palmer: Madam Mayor? So, in '16 did we -- so, we had 4,000, is that what I'm -- Lavoie: Three nine nine three. That's correct. Palmer: And we had the same budget (unintelligible). Lavoie: This year's budget -- 3,250 this year. That's correct. Palmer: Well, in '16 did we have 3,250 when we (unintelligible)? Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: Todd, does that include -- these business meals include the -- when we pay for Councilmen to go to -- to chamber or something like that? Lavoie: It would include that if you -- if you attended. Bird: So, it isn't all -- it isn't all the -- Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 45 of 147 Lavoie: Correct. Bird: -- from what we have had here for lunches or dinners. Lavoie: No, sir. Bird: That's what I thought. Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Councilman Palmer, fiscal year 2016 budget, 3,000 dollars. Palmer: Madam Mayor? How does that work when you spend more than what's budgeted? Where does that come from? Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Councilman Palmer, what we usually look at -- a department has a program itself. The whole program has a budgetary value of let's say 30,000 dollars. In this case if you look on the screen you will see Council has a program budget of 16,255 dollars proposed as fiscal '18. Fiscal '17 you had 22,505. We do allow you to overspend some lines and underspend other lines, so that the program budget of 22,500 is not overspent. So, we give you the ability to make that decision within your program. So, we do -- you are allowed to overspend if you need to, but make sure you underspend in the other departments that gives you the management ability for that flexibility. Palmer: Madam Mayor? The other question I had for Council were up in our office expenses for 500 to 750, is it just because we are tending to spend more or is there something changing that we need 50 percent increase in that? Lavoie: We can find out for you. Madam Mayor, Council Palmer, the information will be on the data tab -- on the sheet in your book called adjustments. I think it -- the white sheet of paper, maybe the third section that Council has all the reasons for the changes and we have it on the screen for you , but in this case we did increase your office expense by 250 for the Council pictures. Palmer: Madam Mayor. Yeah, I did see that. I have to update my notes. Lavoie: No problem. So, back to the business meals. I mean we are three-fourths the way through and we are -- I don't know what percentage it works out to in what we have spent, but, I don't know, I -- I'd like to see us -- and when we know that -- you know, at least -- it's hard where we often find out about agendas the Friday before what's coming up on Tuesday. If we can maybe find out ahead a little better and, you know, hey, we are having an early meeting, then, that way we can plan ahead for ourselves and take care of our own food here and there and maybe cut that back to 2,500. Again, I know I'm nickeling and diming, but it's less than a drop in the bucket, but -- I don't know if anybody has an opinion or we will just move on. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 46 of 147 Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: I think Council last week, two weeks ago when we were having the discussion about conversation -- or conversation about compensation, said that every dollar is important. If Council Member Palmer wants to -- is for reducing that amount, I'm not necessarily opposed. I will share this, because this is just my perspective. We are a Council now that is predominantly of working class individuals that come from a job, rush to Council, oftentimes giving up time with our family or having the ability to grab a meal from our office to getting to our meeting and time to make it for some of those earlier meetings . It makes it a lot easier from an employee standpoint that I don't have to give up additional time at my job to make it here knowing that I will be able to get a meal while we are being updated on critical information. Every dollar is important and I'm not opposed to it. I like Council Member Palmer's thoughts about having greater notice about some of those meetings so that we could plan accordingly, but at the end of the day I think that it allows us to get here sooner to conduct business of the city and there is a certain cost savings from that addition of -- a significant cost savings in not having to have staff stay here later as well by having us come early to address some of the issues at hand. So, I don't disagree. Every dollar is important. If you have got a motion to be made I'm happy to hear it. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: So, sometimes I would have time to bring my own food, but I really enjoy those days where we actually get to eat together and have a meal brought in for us and I think we probably could cut it back to 2,500 and Councilman Palmer could bring his own lunch. And I'm not trying to be mean. I'm just saying I -- you know, sometimes it seems like it happens a lot and, then, sometimes it's a long time in between and I don't -- I think it's such a small expense. We are volunteering our time, we are coming in early, we are leaving other things, we are canceling some things and to, you know, just have a little bit of food I don't think is a huge burden on -- on the taxpayers. We are not being extravagant. We are getting some Jimmy Johns or something, you know. I think -- I don't think that is something that needs to be cut, but -- that's my opinion. Little Roberts: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts. Little Roberts: I think it's worth the convenience and the time that we save as well, along with the -- the opportunity to have other -- more discussion and at times feed Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 47 of 147 our guests that are here to help us, whether it's staff or consultants or whoever is participating with us, but it's not just Council that's being fed, it's everyone that is participating in that part of the meeting and so I think it's a benefit and especially the days that we start at 3:00, we would about have to take an hour break or something instead of -- if the meal isn't there we need the opportunity to -- because I -- you know, most of us can't -- don't have that time during the day. We would need to take a break and be able to go get food. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: Given the number of staff present it would not take very long for this discussion (unintelligible). So, I'm going to (unintelligible). De Weerd: Okay. Bird: Thank you. I thought we were going to nitpick for an hour. De Weerd: Okay. Anything further on this -- Borton: Are we still on City Council or are we -- Lavoie: We -- if you have more questions for City Council -- Borton: Not on food. Lavoie: Okay. We are at (unintelligible). Borton: Yeah. We have got a standing item of -- of internal auditor, which is funded under the Council. It's a continued carry forward -- I believe it is. Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Councilman Borton, your '18 budget proposal to you had the internal auditor removed completely from the book itself. So, it will not -- you should not see that in your document. Borton: It was reflected as a -- oh, I see. Lavoie: A reduction. Borton: Oh. Okay. I missed that. When did that happen? De Weerd: That -- that follows Council's policy that if the position is not filled within a certain amount of time it falls off. Borton: That's where I was going. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 48 of 147 De Weerd: And that comes forward again for consideration. Borton: Madam Mayor, that's where I was going with it. I didn't know if we were formally notified on those occurrences when that happens. If we were I missed it. Maybe this is the falling off process right here. I don't think that necessarily the purpose behind the discussion falls off, because it's just going to be revisited a different way, whether some of those services are provided by consultants, job descriptions have been bandied about. That will be a topic for another day. It's out for now. Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: Maybe just in light of discussion about positions falling off, I don't know when the appropriate time is, are there other positions that are falling off that are in our budget? Are there any positions that have been recommended to be unfunded? Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Councilman Cavener, to answer your question, the only position that fell -- quote, unquote, fell off would be the internal auditor for the budget as proposed to you. Borton: Madam Mayor? At a later date let's address when that happens. Is it a matter of, you know, a funded position which isn't filled after -- De Weerd: Two years. Borton: -- 24 months and then -- Bird: Yeah. It's 24. De Weerd: And we haven't had other -- I think we may have had one other position since that policy came in play that has fallen off and I can't remember what department that was. Lavoie: Any other questions for the Council department before we move on to the next department? We will move to the Finance Department. Any questions for the Finance Department with the document submitted to you as is? De Weerd: Any questions in this section? Okay. Are we ready to move to the next tab? Yes? Okay. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 49 of 147 Lavoie: So, if you wouldn't mind moving to the HR tab in your book. We will discuss any questions that you have for the Human Resources Department request. Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: I do have some questions about a couple of enhancements that are in HR. I don't know if -- I see them walking up. So, Madam Mayor, question about I guess the first enhancement or the Peak Academy training. Crystal, I remember when you presented this enhancement last month, this training is designed for directors. Is that accurate? Ritchie: Council Member Cavener, yes, intended for directors, Council and department heads. Cavener: Madam Mayor, then, a follow up question. And, Todd, I may need your assistance in this. And maybe just because it's sticky to me, but it seems like that we spend a significant amount of funds on training for directors and Council. Can we get a ballpark about how much we have spent over the past few years? I just -- De Weerd: Is your question about each director and the training that they go through or when they all get together? Cavener: Madam Mayor, I guess I would say both. And I guess to kind of get to my point is it seems like that we spend a significant amount on trainin g and I think trainings are important and they are valuable, but I guess I don't know if -- is there ever a point that we are sufficiently trained in areas or is this something that we should just expect every year to put forth our directors and Council Members through leadership training. De Weerd: Well, I guess this -- this had a number of purposes, I guess to frame it in -- it was not just team building, it was team building, we have had only one activity with Council between a senior management and Council and not all were able to attend that and at the time Council said we would like to see these opportunities happen. This is a training for the team building, but also look at better efficiencies and learning that process together and how we can find efficiencies , process improvements, and -- and all hear it at the same time, so that we are moving forward together as a senior level group. Cavener: Madam Mayor -- and, again, I'm -- I'm all for efficiencies and process improvement. I feel like those are -- those are two words that I hear that we are always trying to accomplish and I guess if -- if I have heard before we are doing training for process improvements and team building, 17,000 dollars to bring Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 50 of 147 somebody in -- goes back to my earlier comment -- if every dollar counts, to me this does not ring as a critical priority in the city in my opinion. De Weerd: Just to follow up in this. It is a three day training and it's the least expensive training I have ever seen come across the table for up to 20 people. Again, we felt it was important not just for the efficiency and -- and program learning how together -- it's also about the team building. It would be in -- next spring, so we will have at least one new face and so we felt it was really important to -- to work together and learn together and this seemed like the biggest bang for the buck. Cavener: Madam Mayor -- and I appreciate the -- the value. I guess you touched on another major concern of mine. Three days. That's three days that our directors aren't in their departments working with their staff. That's three days that five out of the six Council are going to be asked to be away from their jobs. Bird: (Unintelligible). Cavener: Well, we don't know if the sixth may be retired, too. We never know. But I just think that that's -- it's -- to me I think the intentions are -- are pure and are well intended, I just don't think that this is a particular enhancement that meets a critical need for this. And, again, I may be alone, but -- Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: Madam Mayor and Councilman Cavener, you're not alone . I don't have three days to take off for -- for this and, again, I didn't think we should have our directors taking three days off for team building and what other training aspects come along with it. I know every which way possible -- De Weerd: Okay. Borton: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Borton. Borton: Whether it's superfluous or not, one of the most important parts of this type of line item would be the feedback, that there is takeaways from the training, there is changes in practice, there is tangible improvements in city operations that we can see. Otherwise, it is just spending time. I don't know if you're able to answer what would -- what would we anticipate to see different after this training? I trust there is great change that comes from it and I'm supportive with your recommendation, but that's the follow up that gives some comfort that it's worth the expenditure. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 51 of 147 Ritchie: (Unintelligible) that was done -- excuse me, Council Member Borton. There was some leg work and some research that was done prior to moving forward with -- on an enhancement of this nature. We did have I believe a few leaders from our organization -- maybe 18 to 24 months ago possibly -- I could be wrong on that time frame -- who did travel to Denver and visit (unintelligible) Academy to really take a look at that and just determine whether or not that would be of value add for us here in Meridian and they brought that information back and shared it with the director team, who do see potential value in that and want to carry it forward and that's the reason I'm here before you today. I can appreciate that you see the value in the cost of the training and I certainly respect that. I think all of us here at the table are working to be mindful and cognizant of every dollar that we spend when we talk about the actual investment for 20 people to participate in this training, it's about 875 dollars per director for three days and that's an extreme value for the type of information that we potentially will be receiving through this type of training and I do recognize on the flip side of that the time and commitment it would take from everyone at the table , in addition to the director came to participate in this type of training, but as leaders of this organization (unintelligible) just to ensure that we are bringing the best strategies , efficiencies. We take a look at how we are doing things and can we do the better. Can we do them differently. Can we have a cost savings that results from -- from trainings that we go to. We don't frivolously -- not that you say that we are, but we don't frivolously just look at what's the latest and greatest thing, it's really what is going to be of value and benefit to us as leaders of the organization . De Weerd: In the -- or you have got the book that a lot of the training is -- is considering, but part of that process is going through a particular program or -- that is in the city and dissecting it, so that people see how you can do it with other programs. So, you will be dissecting a particular city program that is to be -- yet to be determined until we get closer to the time and a walking through that -- that exercise of how to evaluate program, identify where the redundancies or efficiencies can be gained and -- in moving forward and anticipating what those savings are in either time or actually expense. So, I -- I guess -- Bird: Let's have an up or down. De Weerd: Okay. Bird: (Unintelligible). De Weerd: So, those in favor of taking it out indicate by saying aye and those to keep it in indicate by say nay. Okay. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 52 of 147 Milam: So, the -- the employee engagement survey for 12,000 dollars -- I need some more information on that. That seems like a lot of money for a survey. Ritchie: Council Member Milam, yes, that is the annual -- not annual -- bi-annual -- every few years we do an employee engagement survey that reaches out to all of our employees here at the city. It covers different questions ranging from their pay, their benefits, their job satisfaction. We have been benchmarking the same questions and adding new and additional questions to that survey as (unintelligible) we continue to see because of improvements that we are making in regards to our employee feedback. This 12,000 dollars that you see in front of you is to partner with (unintelligible). It is their fee to provide the services. That would include -- we actually develop the content of the survey as the solution team , but they are the ones that actually administer the survey out to the public , they are the ones who receive all of the data. They compile all that data. They analyze the data. They provide us the general overview of feedback to the city of the results and, then, they will break it down for department as well and, then, they will partner with us to have employees and each department director team leadership (unintelligible) individual department to look at their department results and identify any action items to move that -- move that needle forward for an action plan for each individual department that, then, they can implement and communicate all the way down to all of their employees in each individual department and, then, be able to (unintelligible). De Weerd: And I guess we have tried this two different ways. We tried using Survey Monkey, so it -- but our employees felt having that third party be able to scrub some of the personal -- to make it more generic so you still get the -- the outcome, but you can identify the (unintelligible) and those kind of things -- was very important for us. The thought of having the -- the confidentiality and -- in the third party was very important. So, we have tried it both ways. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: Crystal, you say every other year. With our retainings being 95 percent, do you think we need it every other year? Ritchie: I would strongly -- Bird: Couldn't we stretch it out to three or four years? I mean when you're -- when you're keeping 95 percent -- five turnover and most of that is retirement, I don't see where we have to do this every other year. I do -- I do agree with keeping Ameriban or Idaho Employers Council (unintelligible), because they -- it's -- it's very good -- they come back very good. But I -- I would like to look at maybe doing it every three years or every four years. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 53 of 147 Ritchie: Council Member Bird, thanks very much for that -- your feedback on that. This was something that was done on an annual basis for many years. Bird: I know. Ritchie: And to your point of what you're bringing to the table today, we did make the decision to extend that -- life of that cycle from every year to every other year. When you start extending past that you get in the position potentially that you're not having a good (unintelligible) on what's really going on with your employee population and we want to be proactive as a leadership team in regards to their feedback, rather than responding and reacting. We want to maintain that 95 percent plus retention rate and this is a tool that helps us do that. My recommendation would be -- to answer your question. I would recommend every two years (unintelligible) much longer than that. Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: I think to Crystal's point, I actually think that every other year makes the most sense. I think it could be argued that one of the reasons why we have such high retainment -- one of the reasons is because the Mayor, HR, department directors, take the feedback from these survey so seriously and as a result you receive recommendations from HR, from the Mayor, and the department directors. So, I support an every other year survey. I think the results have been very beneficial to the city. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: Have you researched -- I know there is Survey Monkey, but there are other online surveys. Are there any that still give the anonymity to the person filling out the survey that you could break down to departments? Ritchie: Again, Council Member Milam -- again, this will go back to what the Mayor was saying. When we took a look at this, what is the best way to deliver this type of survey, first and foremost we want (unintelligible) the employees' perception and feelings. Anything that you do that's more internally online service, as with Survey Monkey or any other type of -- they feel like the city (unintelligible) human resources have access to that information and they may or may not feel completely comfortable providing us the valuable feedback that they have the opportunity to when its (unintelligible) and that's directly from the employees. Palmer: Madam Mayor? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 54 of 147 De Weerd: Yes. Palmer: I agree. I think bi-annual is -- is the way to do it. My -- my concern is in skipping FY-19 in that if Congress gets their act together and does something, it really is going to affect '19's budget and so I would want to know sooner than sometime in '20 the -- what the survey results would be based on what -- it very well may play to the benefit to do it '19, because they might not do anything next year. I don't know if that's a major aspect or not of the survey is medical benefits or -- and if something does change maybe even doing kind of a supplemental survey based on any changes that may end up happening should it be in an in between year. That was just thinking out loud, but -- De Weerd: I think maybe what -- this would allow flexibility, if there is anything that -- that is coming down the pike that would have an impact on what the city can offer, you can add to -- add a special section to that, if that's what you're -- you're asking. Palmer: Madam Mayor, I'm just wondering how -- it really depends on whether Congress does anything or not as to timing of everything. You know, if they do something that's going to affect how our benefits are offered in '19 and, then, we are not doing another survey until sometime in 2020, I want to know how the -- how the -- our -- our employees feel that they are affected through that third party. Ritchie: Council Palmer, we have the ability, as those decisions come down -- the decisions we are not sure what are going to happen in the future, but if decisions do come down that we feel will have an impact on (unintelligible) we have the ability to decide to do supplement surveys (unintelligible) to position ourselves to gather that information as decisions are made. We are not locked into every other year. If we feel that we need to do that we could go back to the (unintelligible) and talk about that. But we want to maintain the schedule that we have in place, so that we still have a good post check on our employees. Palmer: Madam Mayor, one more question. When does the survey take place? Ritchie: Let me think about that. So, generally -- I'm trying to think of (unintelligible). It would be early winter. De Weerd: I was thinking January. Ritchie: January when (unintelligible) after the -- after the first of the year is when it generally will take place and we open the survey up for a number of weeks. Th at data can be collected and, then, it's (unintelligible) the survey (unintelligible) Ameriban, who is (unintelligible) the provider for us. They take some time to analyze that data and they bring that data back and, then, we move forward for several -- a few months sharing that information, communicating that information, Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 55 of 147 developing action plans, celebrating successes, those types of things. Generally February through March, April. De Weerd: And one of the reasons they do it in January is so it doesn't have any kind of impact -- you have employee evaluation, we don't want them to think they have to say something nice, that it impacts their evaluation, but it also gives enough time that once the results are delivered -- and the consultant meets with every department, along with the department director, so those are delivered by that third party -- neutral party, so that is communicated clearly. But it allows time to move the dial before evaluation are done. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: One thought about Councilman Palmer's question, if we are asking a question just healthcare, Survey Monkey might be fine, because that's not something that I think anybody is going to care what -- if anybody knows who they are, specifically asking not just the healthcare benefit, because they know we are trying to help them. So, I don't -- I don't even think that would be a problem for that particular point. Asking about management and coworkers -- Ritchie: And we would make that determination based on the changes that have occurred (unintelligible) to gather the information (unintelligible). De Weerd: Okay. Any other questions on -- on this? Okay. Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: Crystal, a question for you on the consultant for succession planning. Ritchie: Uh-huh. Cavener: What -- when the consultant has completed his or her assignment, what -- what's the end result? Ritchie: Council Member Cavener, the end result will be we will have a formalized defined plan that we can implement in the city and the components that are going to be working with Human Resources and the department directors to identify (unintelligible) in the city that we want to have succession planning or identifying those individual employees who have the potential to fill those positions as we move forward into the future. It takes a look at the job descriptions and the requirements and the skills and certifications and the licenses for each of those positions. It takes a look at those individuals who have been identified as potential Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 56 of 147 leaders of the city to see what they (unintelligible) they are still lacking and, then, define -- define a development plan for each of those individuals to fill that gap, so that when we move forward into the future and we have a change in leadership or addition to leadership we are looking internally as well and we have taken the time to invest in our employees to develop (unintelligible) and all of that will be a part of this online program. Cavener: Madam Mayor, one more question if I may. Crystal, how long is that plan designed to last for? Ritchie: If approved through this process we would like to start that after October 1st and wrap that up after the end of the year -- the calendar year, so moving into January. So, there is about three months that we would anticipate something of that nature. Cavener: Madam Mayor, can I clarify? How long do you anticipate the succession plan lives for -- meaning before -- Ritchie: The -- Cavener: That's okay. Ritchie: I apologize. In working with the -- so, one of the things that we did is we reached out to different consultants in the Treasure Valley to help us with the cost that we are bring forward to you today. One of the questions that we have taken into consideration is the life cycle of that plan and that this should last us anywhere from three to four years if we manage it and operate it and we act on it and work towards it on an ongoing basis. Cavener: Madam Mayor, one more question if I may. Crystal, is this enhancement being proposed because the department doesn't have that particular brand of subject matter expertise or is it a matter of not having the time to be able to execute? Ritchie: Councilman Cavener, fair question. It is a combination of both. So, we have some skill sets within our department to facilitate a process of this nature, we run very lean, as other departments in the city do as well. Ope rationally we are extremely busy. Currently (unintelligible) to execute on this. I made the choice, the decision to bring it forward for a consultant to get us going to formalize a program (unintelligible) skill set over the next few years in our departm ent, so that we won't need to come back for a consultant when it's time to refresh or revisit that, we will be able to do that internally as well. Cavener: Madam Mayor, one more additional question. Crystal, can you share with us -- I understand what looking forward means, but can you maybe share with Council (unintelligible) have we experience (unintelligible) because we haven't had Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 57 of 147 a succession plan in place there have been challenges for the city or the department to fill a position or to recruit appropriately? Ritchie: So, if I'm understanding your question correctly, the challenge is that we -- we want to have a balance here at the city. We want to provide growth and development opportunities to (unintelligible) rather than consistently going external and bringing in someone new. So, it's a combination of balance of both providing that professional development to attract and retain employees. Studies will show that professional development programs and the opportunity for successful advancement provide a loyalty and a higher retention rate for the organization and one of the things that we are striving for citywide, but we promote through Human Resources, is we want the City of Meridian to be an employer of choice. I can tell you that every two weeks or so -- two to three weeks or so we offer a new hire orientation for employees who are (unintelligible) the city and one of the components of that -- we talk about training and development and I can tell you the number of times -- I can't tell you the number of times we have new employees to the city to say my former employer never invested in that. I have never seen that. This is fantastic. This is great. Because they want to learn and grow as well. So, this is an avenue to accomplish that and put the expertise that we need (unintelligible) for a back fill position. Cavener: Madam Mayor? And maybe to start, I have a few questions. Ritchie: That's okay. Cavener: Is it the goal, then, to create a pathway for maybe a supervisor to grow to be eventually maybe the department director? Is that the -- Ritchie: It will also depend on the -- each individual's department. It depends on the employees as well, but the ideal would be -- the idea -- idea, excuse me, of this program or the intent of this program is to identify -- for our first effort at this to identify those positions key within the city. Eventually I can see down the road where we can develop those development plans through all levels of the organization that ties back to one of the other strategic plans that we have on the table for training -- specific training dates. Cavener: Sorry, Madam Mayor. You touched on the word key positions and I guess -- Ritchie: Leadership. Leadership. Cavener: Sure. Not -- and not to discredit the consultant not truly very competent, but I also feel like we have a really good sense in this room probably about what those key positions are. Do we really need to hire someone to identify those things for us. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 58 of 147 Ritchie: Maybe I misunderstood or didn't articulate it properly. We as -- as the City of Meridian will identify those leadership positions and, then, they help us develop and implement the program. Cavener: Okay. Great. Ritchie: But we identify that ourselves. I apologize. Cavener: Thank you. De Weerd: Any other questions? Okay. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: In the middle of that I had to deal with -- was that also on the success rate? Okay. And talk about the citywide; right? Ritchie: No. We are not there yet. De Weerd: That is in the handbook. Ritchie: I'm sorry. Yes. Palmer: I guess maybe you -- maybe you wanted to make a presentation before we -- do you have any -- Ritchie: I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. Palmer: I guess you had given us material. Was there some -- did you want to discuss that before we started asking questions, I guess? Ritchie: The information I think you're referring to is what I handed to you I believe yesterday. Palmer: Okay. Uh-huh. Ritchie: And that is for the city wide annual events, not procession planning. Palmer: Right. Ritchie: So, I just want to try to -- okay. De Weerd: Any other questions? Yes. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 59 of 147 Cavener: Don't look at me. I'm not -- Ritchie: So, thank you, Council Member Palmer, for clarifying for me. So, yesterday -- or last evening before Council I did provide you to view conditional information that I wanted to share with you. There was some questions following the last budget hearing that we had in regards to our citywide annual meeting. Upon further review of the enhancement that each of you have in your budget binder, I found that that was a draft form of an initial placeholder that we had when we were developing the enhancement and it didn't get updated properly, so I wanted to bring forward an updated enhancement that I gave to you last night and a detailed sheet to provide you some additional information in regards to really what we are envisioning and what we are proposing as a citywide annual meeting and that's the information that I provided each of you in memo form yesterday. I'm happy to go over that information again . I know you have had an opportunity to review it, but I will also stand for any questions or -- for any questions that you have in the information that is provided to you. Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Cavener. Cavener: Crystal, is this meeting contemplated to be an all day meeting, a half day meeting, an hour long meeting? Weekend meeting? Ritchie: It's anticipated to be about a (unintelligible) meeting. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: Under the proposed content you got team building. What did you have in mind? Ritchie: (Unintelligible) team building in this type of event. One of the things that we want to focus on is bringing all of our departments and all of our employees together and kind of blend the lines of -- we are all city employees, not just HR employees or Fire employees or Public Works employees, to get to the (unintelligible) of your question specifically what type of team building event are we looking at, this is in the development stages under approval for this item and if it looks like you might want to add something to that, maybe I'm wrong -- okay. I didn't want to talk over you, Mayor. So, that is something we are going to be looking at and we will be vetting that within the leadership group -- is to pick a specific type of team building activity. This is just a component of the -- of the days' events that we would like to bring forward to our employees on an annual basis and (unintelligible) specific activity in mind, yes, but as -- upon your approval, once Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 60 of 147 we develop that, we will be able to share that and, of course, typically you will be invited to participate in this event as well. Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: Crystal, a significant amount of work was (unintelligible) work City Hall hours. How do we engage those employees as well so there will be more participation? Ritchie: Councilman Cavener, that's a great question. That's something that we have also touched the surface on and something that we would be looking to do is actually videotape different segments of different activities (unintelligible) through our communications manager and her staff and the Mayor's office to capture that information that we can use in multiple different ways. One, we can put it up on our intranet and make it available to those who aren't able to attend. We can supply that information to each of the department directors and we can work with them to help incorporate the transfer of experiences and knowledge s --or knowledge of that -- of that day's events to staff meetings and department meetings and those types of things in the workplace so that everyone does get a touch of the information provided. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: I have a very similar question, but -- so I was just trying to envision this. I'm having (unintelligible) is it a -- is this a weekday during the week meeting? Is it mandatory? It's -- obviously it's not mandatory or we would just shut down City Hall and everybody takes off and goes to this meeting and, then, those who can't, then, we show them a video and look what you missed out on it. I -- you know what I mean? Ritchie: But not just a video. Hopefully we will capture it all on video and, then, we will work to be able to -- with the department directors for maybe the emergency personnel, things of that nature, folks that are on vacation -- whatever the case may be that don't have the opportunity participate , how can we transfer that knowledge and experience, that information, that communication to each of those employees and it's not just the ones that go and if you don't get to attend you lose that opportunity, we want to carry that opportunity forward and that information forward and we would identify the best way to do that right now. What we are contemplating is at least starting with the video and capturing the day's events and, then, working with the department directors to strategize opportunities to actually bring it forward within their respective departments. Every department is of a Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 61 of 147 different size, so one flavor may not fit all, if you will, and so we would love see that and carry it forward that way. Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: Crystal, I think you have the best intentions behind this and I think if we were the City of Meridian in 1995 it would be a lot more achievable. I think a lot of your goals in the proposed content that you have can already be accomplished via your city -- the employee newsletter, which I think is a great publication. In addition a lot of the award and recognition -- some of it already happens at our city picnic. Now, I know that other departments choose to have their own picnic and not participate. They miss out on some of that. But I would hope that we would focus our time and effort to building more of a comprehensive city picnic event where you can accomplish these things, as opposed to doing something that takes employees out of their role for three- quarters of a day. So, I appreciate what you are trying to accomplish here, it's just not something that I can support at this time. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: Councilman Cavener took a lot of words out of my mouth with regard to the -- some of the -- I don't know that they are duplications, but they could be implemented for sure within the picnic, whether it's adding awards, whatever, having some kind of team building activity or whatever you can come up with and just -- just the sheer number of people that wouldn't be able to attend, that makes it difficult to try to fully envision -- so, yeah, I'm not too (unintelligible). De Weerd: Well, I would tell you the -- the employee picnic is not the place for that. You have family members and many of the employees don't attend, because it isn't during the work day. So, it is -- it just wouldn't -- Ritchie: And to add to that, the city picnic is more of a social aspect that (unintelligible) bring their families and celebrate the work that they (unintelligible) and enjoy it together. Not to confuse the two and I -- and I don't think everyone -- anyone (unintelligible) to be clear, the picnic is a social event for families and employees. This would also be a work-related event, an opportunity for us to share one consistent message to all employees in regards to things that you have there in front of you, the strategic plan update (unintelligible) the progress and the efforts that the city as a whole is making towards that strategic plan, those types of things -- Cavener: Madam Mayor? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 62 of 147 Ritchie: -- not just a fun day. De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: And I recognize it's not just a -- a field day like a school year, but, Crystal, you propose I think a unique idea that I'd like to see flushed out over the month before we -- to maybe talk about this thing next year. If it's good enough for us to capture some of this stuff on video for the employees that can't attend in person -- let's say that you're capturing that on video, putting it on the intranet and see how many of the employees are wanting to seek out that information in addition to what -- I'm sorry, Madam Mayor, I'm not trying to direct staff, more just proposing an overall idea -- and see what the response is from employees. If it's compelling and there is a big desire to see them, to me that makes it more convincing to grow and build something that's already proven to be successful. De Weerd: I would applaud Crystal. We heard about this from the city of Twin Falls that has found success in -- in moving the city forward in the same vision as that -- with their strategic plan, with their budgets, with their growth and what they found is bringing everyone into the same room, they were hearing the same message and they had an opportunity -- it is kind of like taking the incident command or IEC -- whatever -- that saying and in doing it -- the training online versus doing it in a classroom setting or a group setting where you hear the questions, you have that opportunity for one-on-one dialogue. It is -- it is different. They have netted results in moving forward together towards their strategic goals and a better understanding of how growth grows that has happened and growth projections as impacted the city and each of the department functions in a way that has been very beneficial and so this is a proposal to see if this Council sees value. We saw value. It is new. We don't have it flushed out. Much of what Crystal has presented has been based on the success of what Twin Falls has done and we would want to custom it to our own city and -- but using the lessons learned from a different city on -- on what to start with, so it is a best guess and if -- if there is not value seen by this activity it's -- it's something that she brought to you that the senior management team did see that there would be value for each of our departments in working together as a city. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: I definitely see the value in doing something of this nature and I have seen firsthand with my own employees when you get them together in the same room and you do a training together it completely changes their thoughts, their relationships, it's definitely an improvement in their work ability -- you know, how hard they work and I guess my only issues with the logistics -- and someone has to be here answering the -- you know, how many people can't go because -- I feel for the people that couldn't attend more than -- where they are not seeing value. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 63 of 147 I'm just trying to figure out how that works and, you know, just turn on the recorder, we are closed for the day so that everybody could attend or -- De Weerd: Is that what Twin Falls did? Ritchie: Yeah. So, let me back up. I had information a month ago. Let me refresh our focus on that. So, when Twin -- when the city of Twin Falls originally (unintelligible) they had some lessons learned regarding timing (unintelligible) making it mandatory. In addition to that also was having (unintelligible) those types of things. They are going into their third year with their council for the value that it brings to their city -- I forgot your question in the middle of that. Milam: I'm glad I'm not the only one that does that. Ritchie: Preferably not me, though. And so what we would like to do, recognizing the issues that you just talked about, would be to -- yes, it would be shutting down the city for a three-quarter day event -- a half day to three-quarter day event and we would work out what would be a good day to do that with minimal impact to our citizens, for example. A lot of our citizens don't necessarily (unintelligible), so we don't see a lot of foot traffic on certain days or following right before a significant holiday, like the Fourth of July and things like that. We have to balance that, though, with taking our employees as well, because we certainly (unintelligible). So, we want to do everything that we can to minimize the impact to our citizens, but also communicate to our citizens the reason -- the purpose, which is one of the things the city of Twin Falls did was communicate to their -- their public to value added of what they were trying to do and they had that support as well. I have been working frequently with Ryan Pike, who is the deputy city manager there in Twin Falls and I just spoke with him yesterday in preparation for the discussion today as well. You know, obviously, it works well for their city. We want to glean what can work well for our city and our employees, as well as custom it to Meridian and we brought that for you as an idea and certainly some of the ideas and things (unintelligible) feel like have value and won't necessarily (unintelligible), but one of the things they actually committed to with their council and their leadership team is they (unintelligible) every single year and they see the value in that (unintelligible) and they see the results in their satisfaction survey. Cavener: Madam Mayor? Crystal, just out of curiosity do you know how many employees the city of Twin has? I know their population is less than half, but they have an airport and (unintelligible) and a street department, so they have some other services that we don't have. I'm just curious if their employee numbers are -- Ritchie: I'm sorry, I don't. I can get that (unintelligible) search it. Cavener: I tried to do a quick search myself and didn't find it (unintelligible). Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 64 of 147 Ritchie: But if there is any more information I can certainly get it and get it to you. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: So, I'm in favor of leaving this in. We will never know if it works unless we try it. Obviously, we will just wait for your feedback and the departments feedback to see if they felt like it made a difference in their departments and go from there for next year. De Weerd: Most definitely I think that to build a summary and coming from the Council afterwards and seek feedback and having the desired or intended result. Palmer: Madam Mayor? Lavoie: Madam Mayor, the IT guy, the guy that is smart on the computer, he -- De Weerd: Must have Googled first. Lavoie: Yeah. He Googled it. According to the website approximately 280 employees for '15 -- fiscal year 15-16. Bird: About 65 percent of what we got. We are about 400, aren't we? Ritchie: We are very close to -- a little bit over 400. Bird: And they go 280 some. De Weerd: Without (unintelligible). Bird: So, they are about 65 percent. Ritchie: And the city of Twin Falls (unintelligible). Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: I'm like Genesis. I think that we leave it in, let's get it worked out. I know we are going to have some bugs the first year or so. You come back to the Council telling what it was -- what was good and what was bad and we redo it or however we do it, but I think it's something that is definitely -- I mean face-to-face or in person is a lot better than videos. Videos can show you how to put something together or how to do something, but it don't connect like being right there in the room. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 65 of 147 Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: I just keep picturing somebody coming in, going to the newly renovated counter -- MUBS counter and find nobody there, because their water was turned off and they have got cash wanting to pay for it, get it turned back on, I mean if that's someone who is going to be there, okay, now we got them, we got fire, we got police, we -- I mean how many are we going to have to still have in their positions, not at the event? I mean several times there has been language similar to we need to make sure that there is an opportunity to push a clear, consistent message of the plan -- the strategy and culture and whatnot to everybody and I feel like that's incumbent upon the directors to ensure that that message gets across and if it -- if that message isn't making its way and not being -- not taking place, then, there is other issues. You know, if we do this one year, then, we are going to be able to come back and say, okay, we know how to make it a lot better next year and if after two or three years it's just going to be something that we just always do and is always expected , whether or not we are really getting the -- the return on investment for it and with -- just with the sure number of people that certainly cannot be there I don't think we should do it. Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: Just one additional thought. We as Council Members hear all the time from directors and staff that they are very, very busy, we have lots going on and today we have been talking about a lot of events that take staff away from their primary duties and all -- all that continues to do is to compound the effects of the things that they are being ask to do with less hours in their week and their month and their year to get things accomplished. So, I don't think an employee would ever come and say, hey, I don't have anything to do, but I hear it all the time from directors and staff we are overwhelmed, got lots going on, and three quarters of a day here, three days for a training there, it adds up and I just -- I think that we are creating a lot of burdens for our employees by scheduling and creating some of these ancillary events. While well intended and beneficial will cause a lot of unintended consequences I believe. Not in the least are that we are not having our doors open for our citizens, who are the ones ultimately we should be here to serve. De Weerd: So, we have heard from four. Little Roberts: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 66 of 147 Little Roberts: I know there is still a lot of vetting yet to do, but we had some conversations with Twin, I think that the benefit can definitely outweigh the time and the inconvenience. I think there are -- you know, we do get in our kind of groove from talking to departments -- different people in different departments and tend to stay focused and we are very busy, we are growing, everybody knows that's, again, one of the things that we are dealing with and I think to be able to blur those lines and -- and have everybody on the same page, because it surprises me how many times the questions that I get that could be answered in a meeting like that and an event like that and I think (unintelligible) meet versus an event, even though I know it's kind of a combination, I think people when you say the word event, that it's like the city picnic as an event, rather than conveying information and things like that, and so I think a lot of it may just even be in the verbiage and the how we put it out there. But I think that it definitely has significant value and I think maybe even talking more with different people that have participated in Twin Falls might be helpful. But at this point I would agree with leaving it in. Borton: Madam Mayor, I can't make it -- the conversation anymore cattywampus. I would -- I understand the benefits, I don't understand the cost that everyone is raised great concerns that you would certainly track from who could attend and not attend to ensure city services are maintained, time of your department to facilitate this is probably -- all these costs may be greater than we anticipate, but I trust your judgment that there is a net value to doing something like this. So, the concerns are all valid and you will be reporting to us , here is the plan of when and how this would roll out, here is some more specifics on what those costs would be and who could attend and not attend. In light of that it's still feasible and so I trust you can accomplish that, so keep it in for now. De Weerd: Okay. Anything else in HR? Did you get your questions answered with -- during the June budget in regards to the personal reclassifications and -- okay. Anything further? Okay. Lavoie: All right. Council, appreciate the time on the HR. If you wouldn't mind going to your budget book and finding the information -- services and technology tab, we will -- we have the subject matter experts here to answer any questions for IT. Again, as an update, there was one item moved from the unfunded list to the funded list and that was the position known as -- get it here. I apologize. That's the one. That was moved from unfunded to funded. So, again, we are here to answer any questions regarding that department. Borton: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Borton. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 67 of 147 Borton: On that position, I was glad to see that included back in. Learned a lot from Dave on how necessary it is, but there was an additional one time expense for an office for this and it seems to be appropriate to include as well. It's listed as unfunded. It's a one time capital expenditure of 30,000 dollars. De Weerd: Mr. Borton, the reason that was unfunded is that when this building was built that we did not anticipate building solid walls and this would have a cubicle and have access to meeting space within IT or throughout City Hall, but did not anticipate a hard walled office for this position and that's what that enhancement is for. Borton: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Just for clarification. Borton: Okay. And maybe we will get into that later I guess in the discussion at the end. I hear that two different ways is there is a -- it's not a necessary improvement, because it's not required or the alternative it sounds like you described it may be necessary, but the physical structure of the building didn't contemplate it. And if it's the latter we can probably address it. If there is a true need for this type of office environment for the position, let's make it happen, as opposed to this position doesn't need an office , even if we could do it. De Weerd: Just trying to be consistent with other departments and denying hard walled office for certain positions. It was to really have consistency. Borton: Okay. Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: Can you give me some more clarification of that policy and how that works, what types of positions get hard walled offices and which ones don't? I guess I can remember in the four years we have done this having discussion about that, so it would be beneficial for me to hear kind of what the previous philosophy or policy was related to that. De Weerd: Well, primarily because the departments have requested it and it was denied, didn't put it in their enhancement. So, you didn't see it. Cavener: Sure. Okay. So, Madam Mayor -- De Weerd: So, primarily these hard walled offices were envisioned only for directors and the department leads in -- in that. In a couple of instances the -- there has been exceptions, but generally those happen without the knowledge of Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 68 of 147 Council and the Mayor. So, now we have a different process of approving that and so that's -- that now has been trying to have a consistent application . Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: I could use a little bit more information on why software maintenance is going up 50,000 dollars. Tiede: Council Member Milam, could you repeat that. I -- Milam: The software maintenance. It increased 50,000 dollars. Tiede: So, that is detailed more in the fixed detailed cost tab in your workbooks. But what it really comes down to is our -- we have a contingency in here for our storage area network that we have on here as a replacement item , but the maintenance went up substantially and so that budget item is in here, because we don't know whether or not it's going to be approved, so we put both in, because that will go down quite a bit if that happens, but the other thing that it really comes down to is just the number of software packages that continue to increase. With most software packages that we have the maintenance increases an average about five percent a year and so they tend to go up and once you buy a new software you're kind of locked in. The other one that I forgot to mention (unintelligible) 18,000 dollars. That is part of our backup and recovery and that went up substantially over the last year and a half, because we had to add onto that hardware to meet our needs for recovery services. So, in this case it was a nice -- it was kind of nice, because we actually got them to give us more product free of cost, but, unfortunately, we still have to pay for support of that product. Milam: Madam Mayor? So, with the new software that's going to analyze all of our software programs that possibly that number will go down if we find some redundancies in software that we are using, wasn't that the plan for that? Tiede: That would be us -- yes. I don't anticipate this list changing much, because this is more the annual costs (unintelligible) a one-time cost software. I'm trying to think if there is anything on here -- we have a number of things in here that are -- that are under maintenance that may not be software. For instance, support for (unintelligible) that is split between multiple departments or divisions. Police takes a share of that. Wastewater and water takes a share of that. IT has a share of that as well. Our internet is in here. No. Not in here. Our cyber operations and maintenance support is in here. Not software related. So, there is a number of things in here that are maintenance or support for hardware or other types items as well. So, I don't anticipate that going down a lot, but we do try to make an effort to eliminate costs where we can. One item that we will be looking at here in the next year and a half is (unintelligible), which will be 2,500 annually. I anticipate at Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 69 of 147 this point a potential reduction or removal of that completely, but we are in early stages at this point, so it's too early to say for sure. De Weerd: Other questions? No? Thank you. Cavener: Madam Mayor, sorry, just real quick. Just a comment. Dave, this is my fourth budget cycle and each year the -- the data and the feedback from your department gets better and better every year . I'm so appreciative of your presentation last night and that we were able to articulate replacements on the servers and the computers. So, just thank you. I just -- and to you and your whole team, I know that you have to support all of us and that's the six of us and the whole city and I know that can be more than a full-time job, so just thank you for all you do. Tiede: Thank you, Council Member Cavener. De Weerd: Yeah. It's not an easy task. Okay. Anything further? Thank you, Dave. Lavoie: Well, Madam Mayor, the question it's noon. I think the -- I guess the question -- I just want to verify -- C.Jay, has the food arrived? Yeah. Just want to make sure -- I inform you that the food has arrived. I want to respect your guys' -- your guys' time. I'm more than happy to jump into the legal department, but wanted to let you make the decision. Do you want to take a break, grab lunch, work lunch, or begin? Ask the question for you guys. De Weerd: Okay. We will take a 15 minute break reconvene and work while you eat. Unless you can eat really fast. (Recess.) De Weerd: Okay. I will open -- reconvene our budget workshop and I think the next tab is Legal. Lavoie: Madam Mayor and Council, if you wouldn't mind focusing on the tab in your book -- budget book under Legal. We have staff here to answer any question within the Legal Department as submitted to you. De Weerd: And feel free to ask many question s -- Bird: Yeah. I was just going to say, this is where the red pencil comes out. Nary: Whatever you want. Palmer: Madam Mayor? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 70 of 147 De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: Actually, yes. I think I brought this up when we had talked -- talked about it before. I mean can't we make the argument that we need to not be putting into our budget a courthouse design based on -- we are waiting to see what comes out of all this, but if we move forward saying, hey, we are budgeting this, we are ready to go, that kind of takes away a lot of our -- our playing chicken argument I think. But if it's something that we have to do that strategically it's the best move then -- Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Council Member Palmer, I guess the direction that we have generally been given is to avoid coming back as much as possible and getting budget enhancements -- or, excuse me, budget amendments. We know in the next -- the next fiscal year the potential exists that we may be looking at a design. We are still in the planning process. We haven't completed that yet. We haven't had a court design approved for -- by the court yet, but that's anticipated for FY-18. It may not happen in FY-18, but I think to be fair to the process we wanted to put the -- the funds in the budget that if it's necessary it's there, without having to come back a different time to say, okay, now we have this, now we have to budget for it and the money isn't really accounted for it the same way. So, that was really our intention is to make sure that we are staying on track with what the court has directed to this point and what we are being -- you know, we have already funded at the planning stage and we are in the midst of doing that. So, this is just the next logical step after that. So, that was our reasoning for including that. Lavoie: Madam Mayor, I apologize. I forgot to emphasize that part of the documents that got supplied to you this morning, the unfunded list has changed with the Legal Department having one item -- we moved the courthouse design from the unfunded list into your funded list. So, I apologize for not setting that up first. Palmer: If I may. I -- if it's just for, you know, convenience in adhering to the -- the normal plan of, hey, this is a very likely or possible expense that was put in as an enhancement and, then, if we don't use it so be it, but I think strategically I mean we are -- we need to stay resolute in that this is not happening. We have hired lobbyists and we have promoted this working group and we are doing all these other things to make sure that this doesn't have to happen, that saying we are not even going to budget for it, because we plan on a better thing happening, keeps our message consistent, instead of giving -- giving ammo to the opposition that, well, you budgeted for it, you know, where is the planning, why haven't you moved forward with it. Nary: I think for the integrity of the city process and the integrity of the court, that we are taking this seriously. I think we do need strategically to put it in our budget now. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 71 of 147 Palmer: Okay. Nary: If we don't use it we don't use it, but -- and I agree with everything you have said, but I also have to stand in front of the district judges and say we took you seriously and we are doing something and we paid for a planning process, but we didn't budget to do anything else when they -- we have told them that's the next logical piece we will do. So, I think really for the integrity of the city and the process that's undergoing -- yes, there are other irons in the fire right out there, I agree with that, but I think -- I think budgeting it puts the city in the best position in front of the court. Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: I don't disagree I think at all with what Mr. Nary said. I guess my question, though, is about what was the argument for unfunding it when the budget was first presented to us and why is that argument now no longer valid, so now it's funded? De Weerd: Because now he wants to. Nary: I think to answer your questions, Councilman Cavener, I mean originally it was -- it was an estimate on the timing of the process and the likelihood would be that it comes back with an amendment instead of an enhancement. As the funding has shifted around a little bit in the process of the directors, the funds are available potentially now and I do believe it is something that logically should be funded now. And, again, it could -- and it may not happen in the next fiscal year, there may be other factors that could come into play, but I -- I think the city's perspective of being able to say to the court we heard you , we -- we are doing something and, you know, we have the funds to at least move forward. Cavener: Madam Mayor, I don't disagree. I'm happy to see it funded, I just was curious about why it wasn't and that was -- De Weerd: It is -- it is further conversation and I guess we can't deny that we don't have a court order and it's the right thing to do. Other questions on this item or anything further for Bill? Lavoie: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Council, if we could direct you to the tab labeled Other Government, that will be the next department we -- oh, I apologize. I apologize. The Mayor's Department. Find the tab in your book. Again, ask any questions on those. Palmer: Madam Mayor? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 72 of 147 De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: This question I have based on several different places -- just happens to be where I put it in my notes. I notice that there is -- there is -- I guess how do we determine what the reimbursement for cell phone would be? Because I notice there is some places where it's 42, some it's 50, at least one is a hundred a month. I'm just curious how we determine what cell phone reimbursement is. Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Councilman Palmer, I'm surprised to hear there is a hundred dollar reimbursement in there, but -- Palmer: Maybe I read it wrong. Lavoie: -- but there is one for one individual that -- we do have -- you're correct, there is one with -- one person. But there is standards that we go with. We have a -- kind of a practice that we look at our annual current rates in our cell phone bills and we feel that whatever that rate is is the rate that we would be willing to reimburse an employee with, that they had funded their own phone -- that they funded their own cell phone. So, right now I believe the current rate is 50 dollars for a data plan cell phone -- city-owned phone. That's the cap of where we would be willing to reimburse a city employee if they provided their own phone. So, the directors have the choice to going all the way up to 50 or they can do a 25 -- excuse me -- or a 42 or 18, but the cap on the city reimbursement for an employee phone will be 50 dollars and that's based on our current rate with Verizon for a city- owned phone if we went that direction. De Weerd: And so the reimbursement is up to a percentage of -- of the cell bill, because I -- I guess carrying two phones when I can't keep track of one is -- is not an option, but that was something between the Council President and myself. So, again, it goes back to the conversation we had last night with mobile devices , that it's the approving person that -- that helps make that determination and that's what Council has given me as an allowance in the past. But it is not to exceed 70 percent of my cell phone bill. Palmer: Madam Mayor? And I assume that, yeah, your -- your cell phone usage would be significantly larger than quite a few others. Understandably so. Yeah. I noticed three -- two or three different prices on all that, so -- thanks. De Weerd: Other questions in the budget -- or in this section? If there is none, we move to Other Government. Lavoie: If there are no other questions we will move to the Other Government tab within your book. If you have any questions on any of the data presented there, please, let us know. Palmer: Madam Mayor? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 73 of 147 De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: I have got a few things. I will start with maps. I know. So, we had a -- last Sunday? Whenever that was. I was over at the Mayor's house for the -- the listening tour and the discussion kind of led me into asking the question of the citizens that were there -- I say here -- here is what we do, here is what the maps ordinance is, here is how it works. I said -- you know, an argument that I make nonstop that the ordinance should be repealed and that Council should own, you know, whatever we are going to budget for a public spaces. That way it frees up 50,000 dollars for us to decide whether to spend it or not, 49 -- whatever it is this year. It will be 50,000 next year. And the -- it seems that those at least -- that either commented or not, it had -- seemed to agree that -- that it should be something that a present Council gets to make that decision on, rather than a past Council, putting it to code that you have to spend 50 cents per citizen up to the 50,000 dollars and -- but there was another one that made a good point. He said -- but you can't drop it completely. He said when you -- understanding that there is certain years that you might need -- you might need to divert the majority or a portion of the funds from one thing to another, you made the point that you can't just drop something altogether for a year, because it becomes really easy to do it the year after that and that was something that really gave me thought, because it -- to me it's always been, no, I will disrupt the whole 50,000, but I do feel that there is a portion of a role for the city to provide that and I agree with him that -- that just completely eliminating it wouldn't -- wouldn't be the best decision for our citizens. But I do still -- am adamant in my belief that it shouldn't be a past Council binding present Council's hands to spend all that. If we are going to spend 50,000 let's spend 50,000, but let's make that decision and budget it. So, my question, again, this year is anybody else willing to repeal the ordinance , but, then, still budget it and have a budget discussion as to how many dollars we are actually going to put towards it. Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: A good question to ask I guess -- is are we as a Council I think have funded pathways -- it seems like a hundred thousand dollars every year and it comes as an enhancement, we discuss if needed, and, then, we move forward. I can see making the same argument for maps. I support maps. I support the ordnance. I still do support the ordinance, but there is a belief there is a better mouse trap or greater transparency for efficiencies that we can gain by doing it a different way, I'm open to that, I just -- I just don't know what we gain, Councilman Palmer, if you can articulate that. Palmer: Madam Mayor? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 74 of 147 De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: We gain the ability for the present citizenship of Meridian to grant authority to those that they are electing to make a budgetary decision. Right now we left that in the hands of a past Council, but in the code. If the present Council still wants to spend 49,000 and whatever it is, that's fine, that takes a majority of -- of the Council to do that, but to be able to just say that's in code we have to do that, I think is a disservice to those who are -- who may have moved here even since they elected the Council that made that decision. De Weerd: I guess the ordinance contemplated bringing it back to Council on an annual basis for that reason. If you want to change the amount that's certainly your prerogative during the -- the budget discussion. The ordinance did put a formula, so they started with something and the Meridian Arts Commission has also put a five year strategic plan to what that spending would look like and what those projects are and sometimes they are more than the 50,000 that it takes them more than one year to -- to fund. So, they have tried to be responsible to the up to and what that amount would be and how those amounts -- those breakdown amounts to be allocated. So, I think what you're suggesting is -- is allowed under the current process by bringing it to the budget discussion each time . I think that was the intent. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: Mr. Nary, is that -- we can change that number without changing the ordinance? Nary: If you give me a minute I will have to pull it up to verify that. Cavener: Madam Mayor, maybe while Mr. Nary is pulling that up -- I know people are -- De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: Todd, are there any other enhancements that are in Other Government that were unfunded that are now listed as funded? Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Councilman Cavener, we have zero items from the unfunded list that moved to the funded list from the Other Government department. Cavener: Thank you. Nary: So, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I was pulling up the ordinance and looking at how it's -- how it's worded. It directs that the Council will allocate Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 75 of 147 up to 50,000 is the maximum that's allowed. So, no matter how large the city grows after that the 50,000 is the cap. It does say that it will be appropriated to the maps program. The expenditure of it -- you could spend none of it -- for all of its recommendations by the Arts Commission and if the Council at any point decides that -- they could, obviously, repeal it as you requested, or they can not fund the project that's being requested. So, it's not required to be spent, it's just required to be appropriated. And, again, it carries over year after year and, eventually, if the Council does determine that they simply don't want to fund that program anymore, they can change the ordinance. But right now the language is pretty specific about -- about putting it in the budget, but it's also very specific that every project has to be approved by the Council based on a recommendation of the Arts Commission. So, if the Council directed not to spend any of it, they certainly can do that. De Weerd: But it does say up to -- Nary: It says it's 50 -- it says an amount from the General Fund equivalent to 50 cents per resident, as estimated by the current annual population estimate adopted by COMPASS. No more than 50,000. So, it appears to me that the intention is to budget the funds for use, but the -- the expenditure of the funds are always in the -- in the control of the Council. So, if you don't want to fund a project or any project, the Council has the ability to do that. De Weerd: Okay. Any other questions or comments? Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: My question to Council is does anybody else have any desire to lower it any amount? Bird: To lower it -- this existing enhancement? Palmer: Or -- I guess you would have to budget it for that. Bird: You have to budget whatever. You don't have to budget that. You can budget less. Palmer: We have to budget it, we just don't have to spend it. Bird: We don't have to spend it. Palmer: So -- Borton: Madam Mayor? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 76 of 147 De Weerd: Mr. Borton. Borton: You bring up good points, but I -- I'm comfortable with the balance of the ordinance commitment to the arts as an annual part of developing our city in support for the arts, balanced with the Council's review of how those are expended. So, it will come back to us with a request from the Arts Commission to expend them on a particular item that we, then, can -- bless or not bless appropriate as we see. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: Well, you already kind of said what I was going to say. It's really hard for the Arts Commission to plan ahead and it takes a long time to get these projects done and to -- you know, you put out a call to artists and, you know, everything takes a really long time and -- but they can't plan ahead into the future and know, you know, what they are going to do. They can't do that if they don't know that the funds will be there or not. So, I think it's important that they know that the funds are going to be there every year and -- and, I agree, we still got to approve a specific project, so it's not like we are giving them 50,000 to do whatever they want with. So, I have no desire to remove the ordinance. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: Madam Mayor, maybe what I will do going forward is I will bring it up every year, but I will take the discussion as a reiteration that this Council approves of the ordinance and move on. De Weerd: Anything further under Other Government? Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: I got a question about the participatory budgeting program. We talked last month a little bit about moving this program from just a component of the Mayor's Youth Advisory Council to something that is more open to the community. Is that still the plan? Is it going to be a subset of the Mayor's Youth Advisory Council or -- I just wanted to get more of an update. De Weerd: The discussion as I remember it is to -- to continue the Youth Council and see if there was interest from the Senior Advisory Board. I did go to the Senior Advisory Board and they would have an interest in something similar that they Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 77 of 147 would develop a process to and bring it back to Council in how they would engage the members in the 55 and older communities to -- to identify and -- and, again, create a voting process to determine that project . They -- they had an interest. They -- we gave a brief overview of what MYAC has done and they said that they would, indeed, be interested and would be eager to bring something back to Council if this is an approved item. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: What I had recommended at the last meeting was adding an additional 20,000 dollars for the line item for that, in fact, purpose, what ever the Senior Advisory Board or some other group that we had discussed that. So -- so, I'm still making that recommendation and we can change the amount. Cavener: Madam Mayor? And I guess I'm on the opposite side of that coin is that I would want to make sure that if -- if we are going to continue to fund the participatory budgeting program, which has been successful for two years, I would hope that in a third year the next evolution to this is opened up to the community as a whole and not just a piece of the youth council program. So, if the Senior Advisory Council wants to participate and come up with projects, great. If Historical Preservation Commission wants to, great. If the Boys and Girls Club comes up with a project, great, let's -- let's really let the public anticipate in this and not just build it as programming for an organization that is involved with City Hall. If participatory budgeting is going to be part of Youth Council programming , then, let's budget it in accordingly. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: Madam Mayor, I like the idea of -- of expanding the reach beyond just MYAC, but having it be -- you got to present the better idea, whether it's just MYAC and in the senior council or other organizations or -- to have the opportunity, I -- one while I see the value in -- in the process that the MYAC went through with this last one to -- to come up with what they did, I'm not a fan of that one and I think if they were having to compete with other entities for those participatory budgeting dollars, then, I think we would always have a quality, valuable project. So, if that's what we came up with, that's what we are doing. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 78 of 147 Milam: I think it's so incredibly important to involve our youth and the engagement and the learning and the process they go through is incredibly important as -- along with they are coming up with great projects and they are improving our community for people there and I would not want to get rid of that. I'm in favor of adding. So, if we want to add an extra 20,000 for the senior group, that's great. If you want to add an extra 20,000 for Shark Tank like best idea in the city, great. Then, let's make it 60,000 dollars and we got that for participatory budgeting. Borton: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Borton. Borton: The genesis of the participatory budgeting -- let me take it back a little bit. I think keeping it as is is appropriate and the discussion to Mr. Cavener's point of expanding it kind of goes back to why it existed in the first place, is you're trying to provide a democratic voice to a segment of the population that either doesn't have a direct voice, might be underrepresented or have some unique needs that were not given opportunity to recognize and the youth was one, because they don't vote for any of us, obviously, and so they seemed to be a good beta test for the process. The process works and the process would not be reinvented by a different subgroup that might utilize it. The seniors seem to be perhaps a second group that the city could propose as being made available. I saw this as being a continuation of the youth project, because the youth annually run it and this is -- this is the appropriate amount if this continues. If the Senior Advisory Board wants to utilize participatory budgeting and come back with a request to their timeline similar to what the youth did, that may be a budget amendment to add an additional 2,000, 20,000, whatever the -- the Senior Group wants to make a request for -- to utilize this system and tell us that there might be within that community particular needs that aren't being met or we are not maybe recognizing as well as we could or should. That's how participatory budgeting could expand. It wasn't -- the original design isn't as a citywide as a whole is letting the entire public or a particular organization have funds, it's trying to capture a portion of our residents that might not have an opportunity to have a direct voice share with us what is neede d for their community, so I would encourage you to continue as -- as is and invite the seniors, using the same structure, to make a presentation to us, the Senior Advisory Board, that they would like to use that process and that tool to help our group and we ultimately bless the expenditure and I think that's a wonderful opportunity for us to -- I know the youth kind of opened our eyes to some needs that they saw that none of us really put on the map. Seniors might be another -- and, then, part of the youth doing it is this third year might be the year where they can explore the opportunity to -- to grow the reach of the youth. We talked about expanding it into area high schools within city limits and allowing, you know, high school students to vote and participate. So, it might expand beyond MYAC in exploring whether that's feasible or not. So, I would hope it would stay. Cavener: Madam Mayor? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 79 of 147 De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: And to that point I'm sufficient with that, if it is branching out -- outside of the Mayor's Youth Advisory Council to incorporate other youth focused organizations, school groups, what have you. I would just ask that maybe some additional evaluation on sideboards are put in place -- as someone who has some experience with the Mayor's Youth Advisory Council and working with high school students, sometimes the best speech, the nicest individual, the person that comes to all the meetings, their project sometimes rise up. Not saying that's the case, but I have seen that happen in lots of circumstances. So, some sideboard -- so, maybe that individual or that group that isn't maybe as familiar with the Mayor's Youth Advisory Council, has the same fair ability to have their project be selected as someone who is active and involved with the Mayor's Youth Advisory Council. De Weerd: Well, we are certainly not looking for another project and so I followed up with the Senior Advisory Board to see if there was interest and I'm just reporting back that there is, but certainly we don't need to -- to have another project, so -- but if you budget it we will add another project. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: I think we need to leave it just like it is. The reason I see before this one when Joe brought it back was because it was with the youth. They learned how to budget, they learned how to be -- learned how to do projects and stuff and after all here in a few years they will be the ones that will be sitting here and I -- you know, by the time we get 55 we probably went through a lot of budget projects and stuff on our own. So, I'd like to just leave it like it is. I think that you have done a fantastic job and I would just leave it to the 20 and let them handle it. Little Roberts: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts. Little Roberts: I would agree. I think the -- in the last three years the way that we have seen the project ahead of -- be reformed and refined, I think that some of the youth that maybe we didn't see as much of have really taken an interest in this and kind of risen to the top, where they may not have in other areas and so I would guess that it is doing exactly what it was designed to do and it does reach a population base that can't vote . So, we are not really here representing them, other than what they come to us and say, which that's one of the ways -- one of the ways they are in front of us. So, I would say leave it as it is. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 80 of 147 De Weerd: It looks like the majority says leave it as it is, but I will put out the challenge to the Senior Advisory Board that if they have an interest to bring something back to Council with how they would envision going about doing it, because I do see that there could be a benefit of how to engage our 55 and older population more in city government and create more of an interest in the budgeting process that has some of the national examples have shown that participatory budgeting does create. So, if they have an interest they will come back in front of you and make a proposal. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: I just would hope that if in the future when they -- I'm looking for an opportunity to -- I mean they are learning so much in the process -- you know, the first year what they planned cost way more than what they had -- I wish we had told them, sorry, it's not happening. Back to the drawing board. I think that would have been a major lesson for them to learn not getting the project funded, because it went over budget. So, I'm not an enormous fan of -- of the program, but by keeping it I hope that we make sure it's as educational as possible. If that means being told no, then, so be it. De Weerd: I think the teens that were involved in that first year's project gained a lot, because they had to go out and brainstorm about how to close the gap and sometimes that learning how to leverage taxpayer dollars has a great benefit as well and in doing so they -- they learn that as well. So, there can be a lesson in most everything. Okay. Anything further under Other Government or -- is that what we are under? Yes. Okay. Todd. Lavoie: Thank you, Mayor. De Weerd: Where are you going now? Lavoie: The next one we will direct your attention to would be the street lighting tab. If you wouldn't mind focusing on that. Do you have any questions for us on this department? Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: What is listed as unfounded is that -- Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Mr. Cavener -- De Weerd: And it is in the two percent? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 81 of 147 Lavoie: Madam Mayor, confirmed. Two percent. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Palmer. Palmer: I think we had the -- the question answered last time. How far do we anticipate this -- how many street lights are -- what street distance or whatever -- that we covered. Lavoie: So -- Stewart: Excuse me, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Councilman Palmer. The typical street light averages somewhere between 3,500 and 5,000 dollars per light, depending on the height of the pole and some of those things -- how far we have to pull power. So, with that in mind there is some design money involved in this -- a portion of the 50,000 dollars would be in design and, then, the rest of it would be in construction and so you can -- you get -- however that divides out. I can't remember off the top of my head. That's how many poles you could get. Poles are set depending, again, on the -- the street width and what the spacing requirements are, anywhere from 120 to 200 feet apart, depending on the height of the pole. So, that may or may not answer your question directly, so -- Palmer: Well, that isn't the part. Regardless, it would be a noticeable improvement to where ever they go. Stewart: Yeah. We can cover, you know, quite a bit of the street. You know, if -- if you're talking about neighborhood streets around a high school or an elementary or whatever the case may be , we can get a couple of streets sometimes for the -- for the money that we have. Palmer: Madam Mayor? Then I just want to point out that street lights provide an obvious public safety upgrade and we are presently set at unfunded, while we have chosen to fund things that look cool at 50,000 dollars. So, I would much rather put this in and find something else to eliminate, whether it's public art or any number of other things. I have got a long list of five and ten thousand dollar things that would easily cover this if we want to get into them or we can leave it unfunded or we can fund it and raise taxes. Milam: Madam Mayor? I (unintelligible) fund. So, I would like to fund this as well. This is a safety issue. It should be in the unfunded category. Cavener: Madam Mayor, if we are chiming in, I echo both what Council Woman Milam and Council Member Palmer say. This is -- I think last year we had a great presentation from staff on the importance of street lights in terms of safety for both Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 82 of 147 pedestrians and drivers. Of almost all the enhancements that we have seen , this would be the one that I would be saying we should be funding more than what they are asking for. So, to see it as unfunded, I have always questioned that. If the Council thinks 50,000 is appropriate, I support that. If the Council is open to having a larger discussion about funding this at a higher level, I would also be interested in having that discussion as well. Council Member Palmer hit the nail on the head. We have discussed at great length some items that this Council felt is important, do not have a life safety mechanism that this does and so if we are willing to support some of those other elements it really needs to be focused on making sure we are funding those. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: Maybe we should have an ordinance that funds this every year. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: With some of the things that we have pulled out so far we are 14,600, closer to 50,000 on some street lights. So, want to keep going naturally as we are and see if we can come up with this or -- or get into some of the -- De Weerd: We can come back to it and see what your -- Lavoie: So, Madam Mayor, yeah, we will go ahead and add it to our unfunded list and, then, just like the Mayor said, at the end of the discussion we will see what the bottom number looks like and, then, we will have to make some moves at that time. But we will add it to the list for discussion. Thank you. Any other questions for street lights? Well, thank you. We will go ahead and move on to the next department. The next department is the Fire Department. Thank, Mark. Again, any questions for -- done. Madam Mayor, as a reminder, as I stated earlier in my entry presentation, Fire Station 6 that was approved last night is inside the base budget as proposed to you today. Cavener: Madam Mayor? Sorry. Todd, are there any items that were on the unfunded list for fire that are now listed funded? Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Mr. Cavener, no. All items stayed the same. Cavener: Thank you. Lavoie: You're welcome. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 83 of 147 Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: Chief, last month when we first went through this there was a significant amount of discussion related to barbecue grills, chairs, fitness equipment. Do you have an update for us, a change in recommendation? Niemeyer: Madam Mayor, Members of Council, yeah, after that heavy discussion, the Mayor and I went out and did a tour of all the stations. We did cut back that list regarding barbecue grills, the chairs (unintelligible) Todd created a spreadsheet of here is the applicable chairs for all (unintelligible), so we have taken that into account as well. I believe we cut back on two of the stations regarding the painting. That was in the peripheral amendment items. The fitness equipment you received an update last night on the overall plan for the Fire Department. It's an overall fitness plan. Did meet with Council Woman Milam and her husband on a Saturday when I was working with Battalion Chief Riggs and so we went through the one station that we could actually get in the gym. The others are being cleaned from the mold issue. We didn't want to expose her to that. And so we had a good discussion on is that equipment list applicable, does it extend to the pricing based on what is needed. So, we have gone through that process to evaluate. We did cut back on some of the items. The most current list is what you have in front of you today. Cavener: Madam Mayor? Question, then, for Todd. Do you have the proposed cost for replacements for us in light of the changes that the department has made? I know the form that I have in my binder is -- I think is on my current one -- at least has all my notes on it. Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Mr. Cavener, fortunately, we do not have an updated form, but we will get -- we will work on that right now, so that you can have an updated form with all the updated numbers for replacement. They will go on the lesser side. Cavener: Sure. Lavoie: I apologize. Milam: Madam Mayor? My husband and I went out and looked at the equipment that they have. I was concerned -- I mean, obviously, we kind of talked about that at their June meeting. They are getting rid of like a big squat rack, which is totally antiquated. It's old and it should go. But what they are putting in is really more functional equipment. I went through the price list. It looked very reasonable -- it's just a lot of little things, because there a lot of different exercises they are going to be able to do, but it looked really reasonable, it looked like It's probably a much better program, it's going to help with their flexibility and strength and stuff that is more applicable to the jobs that they are actually doing, as opposed to just Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 84 of 147 benching and squatting. So, I really think after going out there being with Mark and going through the program, it's a good thing. If that helps. Cavener: Madam Mayor? And I just -- I want to commend the chief and his staff, as well as the local for providing me with a significant amount of information about this program. It answered I think a lot of the questions that have raised last month. I just more wanted to get to where we were on the bottom line piece. I'm satisfied with their record of these changes. I just want to make sure that it was articulated and that we had a number that we saw. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: Got a couple questions. Just the -- the flag banner expense, 1,050, is that just like (unintelligible) stations? Are they placed over here? Is that (unintelligible). Niemeyer: Madam Mayor, Councilman Palmer, that flag budget is for the first station. So, we -- as we evaluate the flag and they start looking a little tattered, we do replace those. We do have flags on the engine as well. You know, they are a smaller version and so when those get worn and tattered we will replace them. That would be appropriate (unintelligible). Palmer: My other question for you -- the towing of extrication cars for training. Just curious what -- how many cars you end up towing and where they are being towed from, to, how that process all works. Niemeyer: Yeah. So, extrication we usually run that about two to three times a year where we get cars and we practice on those. We have those towed l ocally here in Meridian at two places -- and I can't remember their names off the top of my head, the two junkyards, essentially, here in Meridian where we can get those cars, but we have to tow them at our expense, so we (unintelligible) bring those cars in and, then, we, obviously, have to haul them off, so they are not (unintelligible). Palmer: How many total cars in a year are you having to move around? Niemeyer: I would estimate roughly 18 (unintelligible) about 18 cars in the course of a year. Palmer: So, towing twice. Okay. Cool. I have towed a lot of cars for my work and so I was just -- if we are towing five cars -- okay. Thanks. Cavener: Madam Mayor? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 85 of 147 De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: Chief, I think last month you talked at great length about the vehicles that are set for replacement. I don't have any additional questions about the apparatus, but the -- the other vehicles at Meridian Five 020, the mileage report that was provided to us it shows that this vehicle hasn't had a lot of mileage over the past three years, four years. I'm just curious if you can share with us why this vehicle needs to be replaced now, as opposed to into the future. Niemeyer: To go back, that's a Ford Explorer, just -- that was my original vehicle when I get hired in 2009. The reason it hasn't been driven a lot in the last two years, we had a vacancy with the departure of Deputy Chief Amenn and so that vehicle was used as a staff car -- for our support staff until we hired Chief Butterfield, so it's being driven full time now by Charlie Butterfield. That vehicle, with the mileage -- it also has some extra engine hours on it as was alluded to, because it was a response vehicle and so it's been out for the past nine years on response (unintelligible) and some of that. The concern that I have with that vehicle, outside of its age and some of the little things that we are spending money on, is the transmission is ready to go. It's shaking pretty bad. We had the mechanic for us take a look at it, he said the transmission needs to be replaced. The value of that vehicle right now to sell it is between 11 and 12 thousand dollars. Putting significant money into it for a transmission replacement to get another maybe two years out of it, it just didn't seem like it added up from a financial standpoint. But certainly happy to answer any other questions. That's kind of where we are at with that vehicle. Cavener: Madam Mayor, I could ask a question to -- I'm not that smart when it comes to auto repair. What does it cost to put a new transmission into a vehicle? Niemeyer: That (unintelligible). Cavener: Twenty-five hundred bucks is what -- two grand? Bird: I don't think that much. Cavener: So, Madam Mayor, I think -- I mean it sounds like between two and thirty- five hundred for a new transmission. I -- for a low mileage vehicle like that that hasn't been driven a lot between fiscal years '14 through '17, recognize there is a -- there is a legitimate reason why -- at least that period of time of a year or so that vehicle wasn't used. I guess of the mindset that we can get some additional mileage out of that vehicle and so I would -- I would suggest that we keep it on for at least another year. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 86 of 147 Bird: Mark, is that the one that sits out in your parking lot most of the time? (Unintelligible) 028? Niemeyer: I know -- the vehicle we are talking about is being driven every day by Chief Butterfield. Bird: What's the one sitting out here that's -- Niemeyer: The one spare that we have is an F-150 pickup. That's the one that -- Bird: You got -- isn't there an old Bronco out there? What's F028? Niemeyer: Boy. I could get you that -- Bird: I would look it up, but I don't know how. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: (Unintelligible) 2,800 to 3,800 for a rebuilt transmission. That's just what Google says. And that's for the transmission. The transmission is -- replacing it is four thousand (unintelligible), so this may not be very accurate. Bird: Follow up on that. De Weerd: Uh-huh. Bird: Mark, you are replacing this with the F-150s? Niemeyer: This actually would be replaced with a Ford Explorer. The same -- same as it is today. The new Explorers -- a lot of fire departments, even police departments are going with the Explorers for some of their staff as a response vehicle. Bird: What are we looking at in price? What do they run now with the state? Niemeyer: State bid I believe is about 32,000. Bird: How much? Niemeyer: About 32. Bird: And probably around 40 by the time you get it all set up. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 87 of 147 Niemeyer: Yeah. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: Throw a transmission in it. (Unintelligible). Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: You can throw a 4,500 dollar transmission at it and it's still only going to be worth 11,000 dollars. If the transmission is bad you better -- as bad as I hate to say it, it probably needs it replaced. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: If it's a 4,500 dollar transmission, then, throw it away. If it's a 2,000 dollar transmission -- Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Milam. Milam: So, transmissions range from 1,500 to 2,500, according to this site -- that's for the transmission. And, then, your labor is going to be somewhere between five and nine hundred dollars. So, if it's -- you're looking at an expense interval of 25 -- you're looking at 30 (unintelligible). That's my real number. But ten percent of the cost of the vehicle. De Weerd: Do we want to vote on this, so we can maybe move on? Okay. So, we will wait for Anne to get back. Any other questions? We will come back to the vehicle. Okay. And, then, you will come back with updated numbers. Do you have those? Niemeyer: Madam Mayor, I believe the replacement spreadsheet that is currently in the packet is the most updated spreadsheet. Lavoie: Madam Mayor? We have Jenny updating the spreadsheet as we speak, so we will be providing you the final updated before this conversation -- before we finish the General Fund, so the numbers that we look at on the summary sheet are live and updated to where they need to be, so you know what the bottom number is. So, we will have that done within 15, 20 minutes. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 88 of 147 De Weerd: Okay. We can move to the next tab and when Anne gets here we will vote on the vehicle. Lavoie: Madam Mayor, it looks like the next department is Steve in Parks. Bird: Parks and Rec. Siddoway: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, there were a number of questions raised at the last workshop. We tried to respond to those in detail and I received a couple of follow-up e-mails, which we also responded to. So, hopefully, we have sent out the information that you need in order make a decision and I will stand for questions. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: Steve, just as a suggestion, if we were to cancel the fiber -- that's General Fund? If we were to cancel the fiber project, that would more than cover street lighting. Or even just what's being requested for this year comes to half of it. Just to ponder on. And, then, I have got a question for you, Steve. It's my understanding of impact fees is you can completely build a park on impact fees if you have got them; right? Siddoway: As long as it only maintains the same level of service, yes. Palmer: So, for the south Meridian park if we had the impact fees we could -- Siddoway: The acreage we are looking at now could be -- no. We can only -- the entire current impact fee study allows us to develop up to 70 acres and that includes the three we are building this year, plus additionally (unintelligible) 77 acres. But for the 25'ish acres that is out there, yes. Palmer: Then Madam Mayor? As much as I would love to see that happen sooner than later, because I live out there and there is, obviously, you know, a lack of Kleiners and Settlers in south Meridian, I feel like it would be more appropriate for us to wait until we have more, if not all -- being able to do it with impact fees, instead of taking that large of a chunk out of General Funds, just to make it sooner. De Weerd: That -- that project has been one of those that is in our capital improvement plan that we have been saving for, so this is a specific project that we have been setting aside money for. Siddoway: And I would just say we -- you know, while impact fees can be used to, you know, maintain the level of service at three, we do have a goal of reaching four Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 89 of 147 acres per thousand and we have anticipated using General Funds. The question is when and like the Mayor just said, this is one we have been saving for. Little Roberts: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts. Little Roberts: And that's probably one of the number one questions I get from residents south of the freeway is when -- when is this going to get done. We are ready for it. People are excited and want to see this park happening as soon as possible. Both of our parks. De Weerd: Okay. Other questions? Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: Todd, do we have a projection or do we know how much we anticipate in 2018 receiving in park impact fees? Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Mr. Palmer, we do have that projection. It's actually on the summary sheet of the General Fund that we gave you, so I think I put it in the front of your book, but we will put it on the screen for you so you don't have to go to -- all the way up to the top of the summary sheet there is our projected revenue screen that we have for impact fees for revenue and right now we are projecting that the Parks Department will generate about one -- a little over one million dollars which is projected for the Parks Department. So, one zero three eight. You see that one million thirty-eight, that is what we are projecting in fiscal '18 from revenue for impact fees based on the development and growth that we see coming forth in the next 18 months. Palmer: Madam Mayor? One year's delay opens up a lot of General Funds for public safety or a number of other things. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: We have been working on this project for a really long time. I don't want to delay it, but my -- this is just phase one, so we are still going to need that money for future development. So, it's not just going to go to waste. There is a big need for it. I mean if we waited there is still going to be that need, we are just kicking the can down the road to a later date, so -- Palmer: Madam Mayor? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 90 of 147 De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: And to that point we are going to kick something down the road. Police officers or park. We are going to kick something down the road. We are here to decide what that's going to be. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: I don't think we need to kick anybody down the road, but that -- that park is a necessity and you guys all know how I feel that it's a Boise, Kuna, Meridian park and I think that's great, as long as it's used. I don't care who uses it. The attitude that's coming up right now, this is -- this is what Meridian -- this sounds like the Meridian -- old Councils of '70 and '80 and -- '70 and '80 and you -- you've got to have something for the -- the public to be able to participate in and I will guarantee you, you take a survey and your parks is going to be your highest priority. Don't get me wrong. Safety comes first -- we always have to back them, too. But I think there is money -- we can find the money and I think we got to get started on it. We have sit here, we have talked about it and talked about it, and those people out in the south are building and building and building and paying their fees and not seeing any progress. If we -- if we set it back a year we need to be ran out of the town. De Weerd: Well -- and, again, we had a capital improvement plan that anticipated certain expenditures in a certain order and we are kicking any public safety need down the road that was not slated for 2018. This has been anticipated. As I said, we have been saving for this capital expenditure and one of the things that is interesting that comes out of south Meridian is there is a sense that they don't have the same amenities or parks that north terrain -- north central Meridian has and that is because we haven't had this regional size park that accommodates community events -- community style events. It's been a priority for a number of years -- for our councils of the past and this was the year it was slated to move forward with phase one. That's why we invested last year in the design stage of it and we would like to see it continue on schedule. Siddoway: And, again, the -- if Settlers Park is any indication it took about 15 years to fully develop, so there will be numerous phases of this park. This is just the first phase to get it started. De Weerd: Unless we can find another Gene Kleiner. Siddoway: Yeah. Milam: Madam Mayor? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 91 of 147 Siddoway: We are always open to -- De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: (Unintelligible). De Weerd: Do we need to vote on the park? Bird: (Unintelligible). De Weerd: Okay. Those in favor of keeping the park in as presented say aye. Those opposed say nay. Palmer: Nay. De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Ms. Milam. Milam: I would like to see the snow plows and blowers funded -- or have those -- did we -- De Weerd: Those -- they move into -- Bird: They got funded. Milam: They already did. So, we -- Lavoie: Madam Mayor, I apologize, right when I walked away we jumped into it. I didn't -- Milam: Yeah. Lavoie: -- get to inform you that we did move some items from the funded to the unfunded list. Or unfunded to funded. I apologize. On your list you will see Home Court facility -- Home Court facility we moved equipment and, then, those are the replacement items on your unfunded list. If you're referencing the unfunded list those are now going to be on the funded list. And, then, we also did the snow blower and plow as Genesis was speaking of and we also did the Kleiner Park band shell. So, those items did get moved from unfunded to funded , along with the ADA compliance. So, if you looked at your old unfunded list, if you mark those down, those are now all showing up in your unfunded summary sheets as according to -- so, sorry, it didn't get in there before we started. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 92 of 147 Milam: Okay. Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: Steve, one on -- on the Home Court facility, we anticipate the YMCA moving out in the next 12 to 18 months? Siddoway: Certainly I think within the next 12. Cavener: Great. So, I guess just maybe a question for a conversation starter. Does it make more sense for us to wait for the YMCA as our -- as our tenant to vacate our facility before we move into the resurfacing. Meaning we have got a tenant who is in there, a heavier use currently, and if we are going to resurface it does it make sense to have -- to reduce the use before we -- Siddoway: Absolutely. Yes. And that was -- that is the intent of this part of the enhancement is for FY-18, but would -- would happen only August; is that correct? August of next year after the YMCA -- Cavener: Okay. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: Then why don't we just wait until September of -- if it's not going to happen until August anyway, why don't we put this in the -- in the 2019 budget and do it -- Siddoway: It has to do with the use of the facility and once we get -- August is our sweet spot for having lower reservations to be able to do some of these bigger projects and close it down without impacting in a major way these -- the reservations. Go ahead. A Voice: Councilman Milam, that's exactly what I was going to say. The slower use time (unintelligible) is in August -- middle of August. To resurface the (unintelligible) to go down to the wood, resurface, repaint everything, is literally a five to six week process. The annual resurfacing project that we do ever y year is about a two week process. So, because of the scale of the work it's five to six weeks. Heavy, heavy use starts the last week of September through May so -- Milam: Madam Mayor, follow up. De Weerd: Yes, Mrs. Milam. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 93 of 147 Milam: So, you're basing this all on a construction project assuming that it's going to be done in a year. We all know that usually that there is -- it's going to take longer than that anyway. There is a good chance that they are not going to be out of there by August. So, I just -- if we are looking for things to cut out of the budget, I just don't see why that couldn't wait another -- even another year if need be and I don't know if that -- if you're telling me that the condition of it won't even withstand one more year of use, but there is a good chance they are still going to be there. Siddoway: Well, their current projections are the outside May. So, we feel like August is fairly safe. Milam: July -- Siddoway: But in July, August -- I mean it puts a three month buffer in it. You know, you -- you and I know we can't sit here and say we -- Milam: Yeah. Siddoway: -- we know if it will or it won't, but given that their projection is May, we felt like August gave a three month buffer and after they were moved out would be the time to do that. Milam: And you promise not to do it until after they move out. Not matter what. I mean -- Siddoway: Yes. If they are not out by August we will carry it forward. Milam: Okay. Cavener: Mr. President? Bird: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: I guess I appreciate where -- where staff is coming from and I don't think when Council Woman Milam says that we are looking for things to cut that Council is looking for things to remove, but more of a conversation about each enhancement as presented. Well, maybe five us with a move to cut. But I do still struggle with -- I recognize the need for resurfacing, I just -- I really struggle to see if it needs to be included in this year's budget, because there are so many elements that are outside of our control. If things go as planned we have a process for you to come before us and we can discuss it again at that time. I think there is a significant expense coming into the -- the Home Court that -- as Steve has kind of articulated in his e-mail to us, it's subsidized greatly by the folks that rent our facility and with that being subjected to change somewhat, I would just prefer that we hold off until our major tenant is out of there and, then, bring this up, either if it's next Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 94 of 147 year's budget cycle or as a budget amendment. Both the hardwood and I would also support removing the fiber connection from this enhancement complete ly. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: Garrett, when is the last time the floor was finished? Garrett: Councilman Bird, it's never happened. Bird: It's never been? Garrett: No. Bird: Let's see. How old is that? Garrett: Twelve years. Bird: Twelve years. Either you do it -- you hold off and every year the sweat and the jumping and stuff going down on that wood is going to get worse and pretty soon you won't miss the (unintelligible) replacement and, then, you're -- instead of looking at 180,000, you're probably looking at 320,000. Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: I don't think anyone's advocating this and don't do this. I think, rather, it's advocating that we do it in (unintelligible). I think that when we toured that facility one of the things I heard from you, Council Member Bird, is how great those courts are. How great condition there are in. Bird: They are good. Cavener: All I'm saying is let's wait until our major tenant that has the highest use is out of there before we refinish it, so it's in great shape for our taxpayers when they have the opportunity to use it. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: They are asking for -- to do it in August of 2018. Right? Siddoway: Correct. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 95 of 147 Bird: Okay. The budget we are setting right now is from October 1st, 2017, to October 1st, 2018; right? De Weerd: Uh-huh. That's correct. Bird: So -- and if it don't and we have done this -- particularly in Public Works a hundred thousand times, if they don't -- can't get in there and get it done, it will carry over. It carries over to the next year. So, I would like to see them get it done at this time if they possibly can. From the looks of the Y out there I think they will be easily in by next and they got that Toby going like mad. So, I'd like -- I don't -- unless we really need to save 186,000, I would -- Milam: Eighty -- Bird: Uh? Milam: How about 80,000. Bird: Oh. Siddoway: And to be clear, the -- if we do the 80, we have -- we have saved the 20 that's in the annual maintenance item, so it's the difference -- Bird: Oh. Okay. I see. Yeah. Siddoway: If we don't resurface it we would only use 20. Bird: I see why you fell out of your chair when I said 380. I was looking at the wrong place. Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: In the enhancement document staff articulates the floor needs to be replaced every 12 to 15 years. Siddoway: Resanded. Not replaced. Cavener: A resurfacing project needs to be done every 12 to 15 years. Siddoway: Yes. That's correct. Cavener: Would that be -- Madam Mayor? That's what we are talking about; correct? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 96 of 147 Siddoway: That is what we are talking about. Cavener: Great. So, if -- if it needs to be done every 12 to 15 years, worst case scenario we are talking 13 years or maybe 14 years, but it's still within the 12 to 15 year range that staff has articled to us that it needs to be done. Siddoway: Sure. And that's an average. If it's been used hard and we felt like once the Y was out it was time to do it and, then, bring it back up to a -- a good level or service -- Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: Now, home court has been used hard a lot more than any gym, because not only -- most gyms you have 160 pound kids bouncing around on it. Over there you got adults, you got young kids, it's going 24/7, where a gymnasium isn't. I mean I'm sure that it's not going to kill us to wait three years, but I think I'd like to -- once we take complete control of it, have it up and back ready for us, so -- that would be my preference. But if we need to save 80,000 we can save it. Siddoway: From my perspective you are both touching on points of truth I would say. The sky doesn't fall if we don't do it next year, but we feel like the responsible and the right thing to do is do it next year when they move out and bring it back up to standard. So, that's -- that's where we are at. We would like to do it next year. De Weerd: The fiber connection was -- was touched on by Councilman Palmer. do you want to make any comment to that? Siddoway: Yeah. Dave, I'm going to invite you up. David can help me talk about the -- what its uses are. It's sharing the internet connectivity and phone resources that the city already uses, rather having it have a separate system. It's network connectivity for the computers that are over there to be able to interface with our software -- reservation software, things like that, and security badge access to the -- to the building. We want to be able to do that. It makes it so that HVAC can be monitored by the building maintenance folks here and, then, if we ever want to do something like public WiFi, that gives us the opportunity to do that and we wouldn't have the opportunity otherwise. Would you add anything else, David? Tiede: No. I think that pretty much cover it. I would say that just to -- one detail to bring to your attention. This is an addition to add to funds that we had la st year, so if we didn't get it, then, I don't know what we would do with the funds, maybe carry them forward. But those are really the -- the driving factors for it. It really supports the department's needs and serve our citizens better. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 97 of 147 Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: Then what's the total cost for this fiber project for that building? Siddoway: Seventy-five. We had 25 last year and do you remember right -- do you remember we projected it last year as a 175. Those costs over the last year have been cut by a hundred and it was IT that did the research on those. So, it's come down significantly from where it was, so we were quite happy to see that. We might even have some savings beyond that, but right down to like 75 right budget number with trying to get it to come in less if we can. Is that right? Tiede: Absolutely. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: Is this also a part of what you would be doing after your tenants exit or something you would be doing immediately? Siddoway: I don't know the timing. Tiede: I mean preferably I would rather have it done before Meridian takes over all operations, just because those things we could transition over and be a lot smoother, instead of trying to figure out how we manage all those services. If we don't have the backbone to do that, then, we are going to be in the situation of trying to figure out how do we piecemeal things together in the interim. So, I would prefer to get it in place before we transition over, but that's just -- I mean we could do it either way. I just got a little (unintelligible). De Weerd: Any other questions on the Home Court proposal -- request? I don't know if we need to do it line item by line item. Cavener: Probably. De Weerd: Okay. Cavener: If we are going to. De Weerd: Probably need to take this enhancement and do it -- all this. Line item by line item. Siddoway: Or talk about those (unintelligible) and the fibers in the building. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 98 of 147 Cavener: Madam Mayor? I have one additional question for -- Steve, if I remember correctly, isn't our reservation software changing and becoming a web based tool? Siddoway: Yes. So, there are -- it can be accessed over the internet. Cavener: Okay. Tiede: The interface and the connectivity with our systems would be more seamless overall, so we wouldn't have to do it either through -- as a third-party user or (unintelligible). We would be like we are here in City Hall. So, it's (unintelligible) while the reservation suffers one component of what they will use out there, there is also other systems that they use and those ones, while the -- the reservation and even the new reservation software will more likely be web based, it's doesn't account for it. It's the same use to get their job done. De Weerd: Okay. So, those in favor of the fiber connection say aye. Any opposed? Okay. On the hardwood floor resurfacing, those in favor say aye. Those opposed say nay. Palmer: Nay. De Weerd: Who did I hear nay from? Okay. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions under parks? Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: A question for either you or for Steve. So, the (unintelligible) funded, on the sheet you provided that shows that it's used about 50 times a year, can you talk to us about the discussion about having to be unfunded and the argument for funding it would be beneficial for me. De Weerd: Once there was funds allowed to have it considered it has been the number one priority from our citizen commission group and so I value their recommendation and suggestion. Cavener: Great. De Weerd: That's why I moved it in. Siddoway: That is correct. It is very important for our commission. They are very focused on shade as a need and we are trying to be responsive to that. Cavener: Thank you. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 99 of 147 Siddoway: Again, I talked about this last time, but the amount that's in there is based on the CFP. We don't yet have a final design or bid, but this -- this funds in that level. We will be before Council with -- we actually have designs and -- and costs and we can talk about doing it within this or standing in as needed. Cavener: Madam Mayor, just a comment. Steve, thank you for your very comprehensive response to what I thought were a significant amount of questions that were thrown at you a month ago. I thought you gave each question, whether it was large or small, the time and response that each one deserved and I'm just really appreciative of that. A comment and maybe just a request for the Mayor and Council is I would like, though, over the next few months to have you come to maybe a workshop session where we have a much larger discussion about our cost recovery model and I think there is some opportunities there that we need to look at -- haven't done that for a significant amount of time and really set ourselves up for the next ten years to make sure that we are really covering the cost associated with the programs, classes, and activities that we offer. Siddoway: Sounds good. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: Steve, Garrett, I want to thank you for the information you got out, revenue and stuff. That's great. So, keep that up. Keep the Council informed with that. It's very important and it's very nice to look at. Thank you very much for doing that. Siddoway: Thank you. De Weerd: Anything further for our parks? Okay. That leaves police. Bird: Oh, boy. W e got all the guns coming now. De Weerd: Well, yeah, several. While we have this opportunity we did need to get back to the vehicles requested by fire. Now that we have all six Council members. The question was to keep the Ford Explorer in the plan or not. Those in favor of -- yes. Palmer: (Unintelligible) when she had stepped out or how much of the conversation she heard about the transmission -- Little Roberts: I heard most of it. Palmer: Did you? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 100 of 147 Little Roberts: (Unintelligible). Milam: Madam Mayor? Before we move on I wanted to clarify some stuff. De Weerd: Okay. Milam: Is the transmission -- did you say the transmission is going out or you think it might go out? Niemeyer: Is going out. Milam: It is going out. Niemeyer: And I did -- just some information. It's kind of in line with what we discussed. Our fleet mechanic says it would be roughly 4,000 dollars, parts and labor, to replace that transmission. Milam: That was a new or rebuilt. Okay. Is there anything else wrong with it? Niemeyer: Certainly with that age and those miles you're going to experience -- Milam: (Unintelligible) never mind. Niemeyer: But that's the big deal with that. Milam: And it's Ford; right? Niemeyer: Ford Explorer. (Unintelligible). Niemeyer: I'm not going to go there. Bird: Fix Or Repair Daily. De Weerd: Any other questions on this item? Okay. Those in favor of keeping it in the replacement schedule say aye. Those opposed say nay. Palmer: Nay. Borton: Nay. De Weerd: Okay. Milam: Wait? Did you say aye? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 101 of 147 De Weerd: Yes. Palmer: Four thousand dollars (unintelligible). De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. Okay. Lavoie: Madam Mayor, to finish off the final unfunded request list, I just want to inform you that if you looked at your old unfunded list we have moved three items from the unfunded to the funded for the Police Department. You will see a trailer, software, and counter top. So, if you were following on the unfunded to funded list, those three items have now moved to the funded list. De Weerd: And those were in replacements for the two. Lavoie: Two replacements, one enhancement. Lavey: The software can be eliminated. We have already purchased that and it's being taken care of and it will be added under fixed next year. Lavoie: Thank you, Jeff. Lavey: Background; correct? Lavoie: Background software of 2,000 dollars. Lavey: Yes. It's already been purchased. Lavoie: With that guidance we will remove it from the overall budget summary and you will see the bottom line change. Thank you, Jeff. Lavey: That was thanks to IT, so -- Lavoie: Thanks, Dave. Lavey: And it was only 1,500 in cost and, then, ongoing costs of 1,500. So, somehow that got passed over. Lavoie: With that, Council, if you would move to your police department tab in your budget book, do you have any questions for any items provided to you for the Police Department? Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 102 of 147 Palmer: Todd, you said the -- the counter top was moved and the radar trailer. What was the cost of the -- Lavey: Nine hundred and some for the counter top and five hundred and some for the radar trailer. Lavoie: Nine forty-three. Lavey: There we go. Forty-three dollars off. De Weerd: Nine forty-three and eighty-five hundred for the trailer. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: It's in your replacement summary. Mrs. Milam. Milam: On the enhancement for patrol officers, with it partially funded, I would like to see all seven positions funded, so we keep up with the growth and keep up with the model that we are trying to have in our level of service. Bird: And I will second that. De Weerd: Chief, do you want to walk through these -- any other questions, so we can walk around -- starting with patrol, lieutenants, any questions on that? Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: Maybe just a conversation for a question. We all -- it goes without saying we all support our law enforcement officers, but seven officers come at a significant expense to the city and I don't fault Council Woman Milam for saying we need to add all seven. I guess in terms of priority for operation (unintelligible) what is most important, personnel additions (unintelligible) it's just a big addition from -- to move from unfunded to funded and I think it's worthy of a discussion. Lavey: Madam Mayor, Councilman Cavener, is that question directed to us or to the Mayor? Cavener: To -- I guess I would go to you, chief. Lavey: I would -- well, Councilman Cavener, I would tell you that the priority positions are listed in the budget. The priority -- or the positions that weren't a priority have been cut from the budget prior to you seeing them. We absolutely believe that the seven patrol positions and two lieutenant positions are the highest priority you could consider and that we should remind Council that when we put Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 103 of 147 together the patrol staffing study we chose the most conservative approach that we could to the point where I do not believe it adequately covers our community's expectations, but it was the most conservative, knowing the high cost of those full- time positions and I guess I would like to defer to Lieutenant Brown and Lieutenant Stokes would like to -- to highlight the importance of those positions in patrol. As you recall I gave you a number of -- of things that we are facing in patrol in just -- in the last 24 hours we have had five mental holds. So, that's just one take of what we are facing out there. So, Jeff, do you have any -- Brown: Madam Mayor, Councilman Cavener, as we discussed in our last budget workshop the seven patrol officers that we requested came from the model and patrol staffing study that was done. That was the most conservative number of recommendation on staffing to be added. Our officers are increasingly having to cover the additional square miles that the city has brought in. The intersections that go along with that. We were responding to calls that -- it's still -- is amazing to me that we were going out into the se county parcels and taking the calls for service, but those are properties that we have annexed in and we provide service for and those people expect and we will deliver the same quality of service to them that we do the rest of our city. So, the lieutenant positions we have not had an increase in patrol lieutenants in over 15 years and we believe from a command and control standpoint that we need to support our supervisors and be there for them on a more full-time basis and the city growing the way that we have, the frequency of incidents it's going to require -- those types of decisions are only going to increase. De Weerd: Thank you. I -- I feel that -- I need to be clear that the budget you have in front of you is for the three percent. So, this funded and unfunded I am having a problem with, because you see the three percent, but that's in my funded list. That's what I'm recommending. I think we need all seven officers. I think we need the two lieutenants. I think we need the street lights. This -- this funded and unfunded is uncomfortable, because you asked me to bring a zero base budget -- or zero budget, but I think our needs to meet expectations of our citizens , for continuing a level of service for existing citizens today and for the commitments we have made to service the growing community that we have, that we have approved, that we need to take the three percent. So, all seven officers are in my recommendation. In order to make it to what was requested by Council I put before in the -- in the zero and the other three in various levels of the percentage of property tax increase allowed by state code. So, I just want to make it clear I am recommending all seven as well. Lavey: Madam Mayor, this might be a good time to say, too, that I understand there is a difficulty considering that three percent and I'm glad I don't have to make that decision, but I will tell you that there was over a million dollars worth of cuts that we made in our police budget to get to what you have right now and those cuts are going to come back to you next year or the year after . There is 500,000 dollars in captain position, there is a 400,000 dollar roof membrane that's coming. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 104 of 147 We got to find revenue to pay for that. Those -- those are coming and so, yes, it's a difficult discussion to have, but I think with the growing city we have justified the request we have made. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: Chief just hit upon something that has really been a thorn in my side. We -- back in the 2000s for the population we had more patrol percentage out on the streets. We had definitely -- I think we had -- if I remember right -- I could be off an officer or two, but I think we had 34 sworn officers -- or sworn people. Lavey: Back in '97. Bird: Uh? Lavey: '97, yes. Bird: Yeah. Okay. When I go to -- and we had -- I think it was six -- what I call executives from lieutenant up. We had a chief, two captains, and -- Lavey: There were seven. Bird: Seven. Lavey: Four lieutenants, two captains, and the chief. Bird: And look what -- look what these guys are doing now. You have got a deputy chief that's doing what the two captains did. You got lieutenants that are working seven twenty-fours. We -- and they are still the best police department in the -- in the state of Idaho, if not the United States. They care about citizens. They go beyond -- above and beyond the call of duty and the time. We have got to have an out there. You guys had -- you know, we got to make sure that those officers are protected and there is plenty of them out there for our people and we got -- if we -- we have overworked some of these people, they are not going to be around. So, it's your choice. I think that -- I think he's come in very conservatively which his approach. He knows how I feel. We ought to have been in with more, more because I think we have grown to the point where we need -- De Weerd: Other questions regarding the enhancements? Want to continue on down? The canine building cooling equipment. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 105 of 147 Milam: A couple things. Should we vote on the officers? Yes, it's going to change the budget, but I think we should vote on that regardless of what we decide later. De Weerd: Okay. Well, I -- do you want to vote on each of these line items then? Milam: Well, just the ones that -- sorry. With the other departments we didn't go through these one by one, because we did that in June. We just -- you asked if anybody had any questions, if anybody had any specifics on any of them and they would bring that up. De Weerd: Okay. Milam: Just trying to make it easier. De Weerd: Thank you. Okay. Well, the suggestion is to vote on the seven patrol officers. Palmer: Madam Mayor, before we vote? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: Chief, I want these positions funded. My vote on this -- you're kind of a victim of the alphabet. Had this been the discussion before the parks I would have voted to fund it and, then, voted against funding the park for a year, at least to build upon the General Funds. However, since that decision has been made, I'm not going to be vote a tax increase and I'm not going to vote for items for the budget that would require that, as I made that as a promise when I was campaigning. So, I want these funded, but just so we are clear, you're a victim of the alphabet here. Lavey: Madam Mayor -- De Weerd: Hold on. Just to clarify, on the south Meridian park, that you are referring to, is out of impact fees and General Fund reserve. It has nothing to do with the base. Although 126,000 is a personnel, which is an ongoing, as well as a hundred and fifty one seven is operational. So the millions that you just referred to is actually out of dedicated funds in the impact fees and the reserve. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: So, I just wanted to make sure we had a little clarification. Palmer: I mean -- so, the General Funds that are being used to construct the parks, none of that would be able to be used for funding police officers? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 106 of 147 Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Councilman Palmer, you're a hundred percent correct. Those dollars are allocated towards the construction of the capital infrastructure. We would not recommend using that for personnel wages or ongoing operating, so two separate items. Palmer: Okay. Then in that case, the alphabet is irrelevant. As far as a tax increase, therefore, I would have to vote against it. De Weerd: Okay. Cavener: Madam Mayor? Before the vote and I -- I hate being the wet blanket on this, but the budget as given to us -- and while I appreciate that this -- the Mayor's budget recommends (unintelligible) I even more appreciate that she brought up the budget (unintelligible). That gives us a great starting point and -- and in the Mayor's budget there were other priorities that were placed (unintelligible), like training and events. So, when we look at the budget and the priorities that were given to us, that's what we focus on. Personally I think that these positions are more important than training and events and some of the other items that are in here in the funded list. So, I support the positions. I think they should have been ranked at a higher level personally, but I'm not in a position to make the decision about taking zero, one, two, three percent or some variation therein right now until we finish the process. So, I would hope that you know if I vote no on this that maybe there is an opportunity to review this at a later point today, but for this wasn't forthcoming progressively I will be voting against it. De Weerd: Okay. Borton: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Borton. Borton: I couldn't -- I couldn't support all seven of these any more. And you have outlined it. I know we are going to talk about levels of service. I think it's absolutely critical the discussion we can have following it -- where do you close the gap. Is one of the six or seven of us able to find an ongoing revenue stream proposed to be funded in this budget that we would remove? You know, training and the class doesn't do it. I mean that's a massive pivot to find that kind of revenue or, in the alternative, utilize the resources that are made available to us when you encounter great growth. The thing that I struggle with is if we have a philosophy that is private property focused and development focused and we reward and encourage expenditure of private funds, growth in a variety of directions and we approve that weekly, which is great, but it comes at a cost and part of what we talk about with annexations -- it's not just that I want to be a part of your city, I want to develop in the community, but everyone that comes to us and wants to be part of Meridian it's quid pro quo and so they all say not only are we going to be part of Meridian, but I want something in return and I want our community -- our new development to use Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 107 of 147 your park and to have that fire response and have the police service. I need something from the city and that's what I expect as the quid pro quo. So, I really struggle not having all seven officers. I know the level of service is going to be a better level of service from the study, that it can be a tool that helps us maintain that. It's critical. I think that these are included. Now -- and I think that's an obligation on us when the legislature affords us the opportunity in those really rapid growth scenarios where you're base budget expenditures far exceed your existing revenues and you're not -- your -- your General Fund dollars that aren't coming from new growth aren't sufficient just to maintain your base services, that those circumstances might require utilizing those additional revenue sources. It's that or we curb our growth and have that philosophy where we are just not going to expand nearly as fast, because the third option is one I don't like and that's where the return to the citizens -- the level of service we are just going to cut. We are just going to have, you know, fewer cops on the streets, we are going to respond slower, our fire is going to respond slower and -- and that's what we are going to give you in lieu of utilizing what appears to be a reasonable additional revenue source. A necessary evil. So, I'm going to support all seven. I think the conversation -- if we can't take some or all of the available three percent is -- it's a drastic cut in other areas and I don't know where that would be. Lavey: Madam Mayor. One of the lessons I have learned from Finance is that personnel costs for ongoing, program costs, are -- you know, there is one-time costs, so we can go in the budget and cut all we want, but if it's a one-time cost you're going to have to do the same thing next year and those positions are added -- added to the base. I can tell you that every command person up here recognizes that we have a mission to accomplish and we will accomplish that mission regardless of what decisions are made here, but you asked us what we need and you asked us what our priorities are and we tell you that and we leave that to you to figure out how to fund it. So, no hard feelings of whatever decisions are made, you just know what our priorities are and what our needs are and we will continue to accomplish that mission regardless of what happens. De Weerd: Okay. Those in favor of keeping the seven police officers as requested in the budget, please, indicate by saying aye. Those opposed say nay? Palmer: Nay. Cavener: Nay. De Weerd: Okay. Are there any concerns or need to voice vote on any of the other requests? Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 108 of 147 Cavener: Just one additional one. And first I want to thank the chief who has been really great with providing a lot of information to me about the shooting range membership. I don't know what the rest of the Council has been thinking about this, but one thing that stood out to me is that we are, essentially, paying for our officers to have a 12 month membership to a range where they would only be training it sounds like four times a year that that's required and I -- I struggle with that. We are paying for 12 months, they are only required to use it four times -- if that's the right use of funds. Are there opportunities that are worth exploring and I think the facility is remarkable. I think that we will get I think a significant amount benefit from it. I just -- I struggle with paying for a 12 month membership for each employee when -- when they are only going to be using it four times a year. Required to use it four times. Excuse me. Little Roberts: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts. Little Roberts: I guess my question would be if you 're only required to use it four times a year, what is it really used -- it's right in our backyard. Leslie: Madam Mayor, I can probably answer some of these questions. Good questions. I think we are talking about the four times a year we are talking about our training model prior to having access to a range at our fingertips. So, when we talk about the training center originally and building a shooting range , the -- four times a year is what we are doing currently based off of the facilities we have available to us. The whole intentions of building a shooting -- a shooting range was to have officers increase that frequency, but not necessarily increase the number of hours training. For example, now what we are doing with the goal of every month being on the range for an hour, an hour and a half, and doing it on duty and getting that -- use of that firearm and that training, so that the frequency of that has increased drastically. You do something once a year or twice a year you're not as good at it as if you do it more frequently. So, the whole training concept of four times a year is based off of -- we have to travel a great distance. If you have to bring four instructors out there to handle 15 students where now we have one instructor with four students and so the -- the cost of that training itself has gone down drastically as far as personnel. So, having four officers and most of the times our training personnel in firearms are supervisors. There are either corporals or sergeants. Just based on how it works out over the years. We take that personnel off the road to be given those instructions and so the goal of this is to be there -- hopefully once a month that we are there all the time for an hour or two hours for each student. So, the concept has changed drastically. I think that hopefully answers your question a little bit. Cavener: It does. Thank you. Milam: Madam Mayor? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 109 of 147 De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: Not to be too redundant, but another great aspect is they can -- I'm really -- I'm really excited about this one, so -- Cavener: It's a dramatic shift in concept. (Unintelligible). De Weerd: And I hope you can see it also. There will be savings in over time, because you can better accommodate it. Leslie: Absolutely. De Weerd: Okay. Any other questions? Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: I think we should hold off on the scenario village design at least another year. De Weerd: Todd, my question on the scenario village is can't that come out of our reserves, because this is something we have been saving for? Lavoie: Madam Mayor, you could use your Capital Improvement Fund if you wished to use it, because it would be allocated towards infrastructure for the City of Meridian if you wish to ask that. De Weerd: So, that would be up to Council. Lavoie: You could. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: We have been putting this off for quite a while and in order to get the building built we need to have some design plans and we are planning on working with the school district for building and keep the cost down and maybe getting some sponsors, but we can't do any of that until we have design. So, I like the idea of using the reserves and so I would be happy to move that money from there, but I'd like to keep it funded. Cavener: Madam Mayor? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 110 of 147 De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: Just a quick question for Lieutenant Leslie. Earlier you shared with us about some of the challenges in getting the school district involved in design. Are there -- are there concerns about -- can you utilize them for production? I would hate that we -- we spend the funds with a plan to get something designed and, then, our cost to execute the design goes dramatically higher than what we have raised. Leslie: Madam Mayor, Councilman Cavener, I -- I'm not concerned at all about the construction of it through the -- through the Ada West technology. I think they have proven that they can do that with the -- the homes that they are building every year. So, that is a well-oiled machine and they do a really good job at that. It really was -- the pitfall is the design and engineering of it to make sure that it's a cost effective design and purposely built, if that makes sense. Lavey: You know, Madam Mayor, Councilman Cavener, one additional item I guess I would make, too, is that we haven't had any promises of -- of community donations or business donations yet, but we can't accept those if we have no idea of what the purpose of those are going to be for. So, we can't even solicit community donations until we have an idea of what it's going look like and so that's really the push for -- for now and if we had to wait another year we would wait another year. That's -- that's just really why we are doing it now is that we need something hard copy, shovel ready, so when those opportunities come up, regardless of what those partnerships are, we are ready to go. De Weerd: Okay. Any -- any other questions? Okay. Thank you. Oh. Palmer: Actually, Mayor. Lavey: Yeah. I was going to say you told me you had a -- Palmer: I almost forgot, because you had answered it. Lavey: I almost got up out of my seat, because -- Palmer: I had some questions -- chief, briefly, we talked about this during lunch and answered some of them to a point, but my question was -- and I started with a story about car seats. Car seats are built so well -- companies that have built them put expiration dates on them , so that people will buy more car seats and so my question revolves around the -- ballistics vests, the shields, and the helmets, understanding especially the vest and the shields -- I mean the vests and the helmets -- I mean I guess I don't know how much (unintelligible) being worn, what it -- and manipulated, whatnot, and I understand those could wear. More curious about the shields. Is there a time factor for them where that's -- where they are being stored in the sun or any other factor where the expiration date could actually Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 111 of 147 provide a risk to officers using them and needing, then, to replace them or are they perfectly fine if there is any risk at all to replace them, but if really there is not -- I just had a question about it. Basterrechea: Sure. I can take that. So, really, no difference than the vest. They are a ballistic shield. Will they last after the expiration date? I don't know, but I don't want to be the person standing in front of the camera when it doesn't work and it's expired and we have an officer that's been injured because of that. That's just a risk that, really, we are not willing to take when it comes to our officer safety. That's one of the things that we have certainly put as a priority as an agency, which is why we train the way that we do and we have developed the culture that we do have. So, I agree with you that -- that people put expiration dates on there because they want to -- want to keep an income stream coming in, but I'm not really the one willing to take that risk that when it is something that is a life safety device, to push that envelope and say I'm going to go against the manufacturer and roll the dice on that. Palmer: Madam Mayor? And I am with you. (Unintelligible). Brown: Madam Mayor, Council Member Palmer, two of those shields are over ten years old and one of them are -- it's 16 years old. So, we have exceeded the manufacturer's warranty for those three shields and they do need to be replaced. Lavey: Madam Mayor, we did have a discussion and I told him to bring it up, because it is worth having that and I do believe it is -- personal safety equipment and, hey, we should replace these, they need to be in two separate categories and the deputy chief has already said why it's important to do the personal safety equipment. If we are talking about other items, yeah, we can -- can the car go another year. Yeah. The worst thing that could happen is the transmission could go out. The other thing is it's not -- and we also talked about it -- it could be the sunlight, how it's stored, weather conditions, all those things factor into how much longer we can store them or versus how much -- how soon they wear out. The other thing you need to realize when it comes to ballistics is that the shield was rated at the time, but technology and experience have shown us that -- perfect example is the nine millimeter round. No -- no agency was going with the nine millimeter round because they are ineffective. Ten years later they are quite impressive and so that shield may have stopped the rounds that we are facing 16 years ago, but they by no means are effective today and I do know that the shields that Lieutenant Brown was talking about, because I'm the one -- the first -- when I was in patrol as a lieutenant that's how old they were. So, I would say that not only have they went past their expiration, they have went past their expiration probably two and a half times. So, it's time. Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 112 of 147 Cavener: One -- I guess a two part question. The two vehicles that are up for replacement, I think the 2010 Dodge Charger and the 2008 Ford -- sorry, Genesis, the Ford -- Ford Ranger. Both -- it looks like that they have had -- out of 20,000 -- more than 20,000 miles on them over the past four years, so low mileage vehicle (unintelligible) the Charger want to be changed to a -- like a (unintelligible). So (unintelligible) and why the change from the Charger to a (unintelligible). Lavey: So, Madam Mayor, Councilman Cavener, there is -- there is two things in there is that -- and we did cover them last month and I'm going to refer to Jeff to answer them as well, because the owner of the Dodge Charger was here, but he's -- not owner. Driver. Cavener: I know what you mean. Lavey: The Ford Ranger is not being replaced, it's being transferred, and it was through a deal with the Parks Department -- there is a need in the Parks Department for a truck. There is a need for a utility vehicle in the Police Department. So, instead of you seeing a replacement vehicle, new vehicle purchase in the Park's list, they are going to transfer that truck into the Parks and, then, we are going to convert to a -- so you can see in the new vehicle, the additional vehicle half under the police side. So, that's -- that's for that one. So, that truck will still be on the city books and will be in a department, just not in the Police Department. In answer to the second vehicle, we purchased some used vehicles from Hertz car rental in 2010. That's the vehicle in question. This car is a slug. It absolutely needs to go away, but it's driven by a patrol commander and the patrol commander in the field, we are putting them in actual police vehicles and so as those cars wear out we are converting over to a police package Ford Explorer. That's what you're seeing in the police -- the police version. So, that's why you are seeing that higher cost. I have already asked the question, hey, can it -- can it last another year and, you know, anything is possible, but I'm going to defer to Lieutenant Brown, because he's the one who is going to tell you that it absolutely needs to go away, so -- Brown: The -- Madam Mayor and Councilman Cavener, the 2010 Charger is currently assigned to Lieutenant Stokes, eats a quart of oil every one hundred miles. He keeps a case of it in the back seat -- Leslie: Fill the oil and check the gas. Brown: It is -- I will tell you from driving one of those 2010 Chargers when I was assigned to investigations, they are not the best vehicles to drive in inclement weather, in the snow and ice, but mechanically that motor is consuming oil to that extent -- it's just not a reliable car to have when you are going to need to respond at any point during the day or night. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 113 of 147 De Weerd: Thank you. Lavey: But the transmission works. De Weerd: Any other questions? Okay. Well, we are going to take a 15 minute break and, then, we will reconvene for the disposition. (Recess.) De Weerd: Okay. I will go ahead and reopen our -- or reconvene our budget workshop and I see the chief is here and we have updated enough. Niemeyer: (Unintelligible) but that is the current list of replacements. We originally had three on there. The Mayor and I went out and determined to take one off. You will see the bays being painted. We had five on there. There is no three. The fitness equipment is still in at the full cost. I want to bring that to everybody's attention as far as the replacement of the items that we needed to full implementation of the program. Now, certainly there could be a discussion there understanding where we are at with the budget on what else could be done to get the program started. So, I wanted to backtrack around on that to make sure everybody was on the same page as far as that T100 replacement list. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: Mark, the third grill that you decided not to -- to change out, is it still safe and everything to use? Niemeyer: It is. Bird: Still turns off then the -- the call comes in and stuff? Niemeyer: Yeah. Bird: Okay. Niemeyer: Yeah. It's at Station One. They can definitely go one more year. We are trying to make sure we replace with grills that -- the down side is the grills we had in there prior, the replacement parts, the guts, they no longer make and these grills are a little special, kind of like -- Bird: They have got to be. Niemeyer: -- in that they are LP -- they are LP gas, they are not propane. Most barbecue grills are propane. These are all LP gas that connect automatically to, Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 114 of 147 then, the system that shuts off if the (unintelligible). They are a little bit different. Bird: That's very important. Niemeyer: Yeah. Fire at a fire station is not a good thing. So, any questions you have I would be happy to answer. Okay. Thanks. De Weerd: Okay. Thank you, chief. Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Council, again, appreciate everybody's great dialogue today. We made it through all of the departments. So, again, t hank you very much for that. There are a few more items that we need to present to you for discussion and final decision and direction. The first that we would like to present to you is the compensation plan as proposed to you or presented to you in the presentation earlier. The proposal that you have in front of you has a three percent compensation plan. Right now I guess we will open it up for discussion if you're acceptive of that is still -- if it's okay we will move forward with the three percent application to the final budget as proposed to the citizens next week. Again, I open it up for dialogue and discussion. Again, right now we have a three percent placeholder for a citizen -- or for the employees, their compensation plan. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: I think it's also important to note that every other year we do have the police STEP plan and that's on for next year. So, that's not up for discussion. Yes, Mrs. Milam. Milam: As I have said all along, that -- I have to talk about these together, because to me they go hand in hand. Our inflation is basically our merit. I mean that's -- our regular cost -- ongoing cost, they go up every year, as they should, but that's inflation and in order to cover the inflation I believe that's what the three percent is for and so in my -- the way I look at it and I believe is the merit needs to match the -- the increase. So, if you take three percent and we take -- and we give three percent, pay three percent. It covers about the same number and that is a basic cost of doing business inflation. So, I can't really talk about this without talking about both of them at the same time. Lavoie: Madam Mayor, if I could add onto that. As the Mayor stated, this year we do not have the police STEP plan adjustment, so if we actually did the STEP plan adjustment every year the two would not line up. This year it's convenient in that it does line up pretty nicely because of the values -- Milam: The point is, though, Todd, that's inflation. That's our -- that is our cost of doing business inflation. I mean like the electricity and we could also -- you know (unintelligible) whatever. I'm not saying I'm for it, I'm for -- but they are going to have to be the same to match up or I mean they are going to (unintelligible). Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 115 of 147 Lavoie: I would agree with you that if you increase one the other one is going to get lost behind and you will get in trouble down the road . Yes, if you do one you probably need to do the other. Agreed. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: I'm not sure if I missed when I was supposed to bring it up, but when would be the appropriate time to discuss membership dues for the various organizations? De Weerd: You can do that now. Palmer: I don't want to interrupt the discussion on the -- Milam: Okay. It just started, so I -- before anybody said anything I just want to say -- De Weerd: We will do it after the compensation. Okay. So, Crystal and Christena are here if you have questions for them. I don't hear any questions. But thank you. Ritchie: You're welcome. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: Yeah. Wagewise how do we -- how do we compare? I think I know, but how do we compare out in the private world? Ritchie: Well, that's a -- Council Member Bird, that's a challenging question to answer, because it really is going to depend on the specific functional work that we are looking at. We can look at engineering and you will look at information technology and you look at some of those types of jobs, the private sector certainly is much more far advanced in the wages than they are with ours. So, it really depends on the type of work that we are looking at in comparison. So, that's something that we take into consideration. We have worked hard over the last several years, if you recall, to bring the compensation -- a formalized compensation forward to the Council that was approved for us to provide (unintelligible) that keeps it a consistent across the board for general employees, but it also provides us guidance and keeps us competitive in the market. As a municipality looking at the other local municipalities in this -- the Treasure Valley in this state by far we don't lead the pack, but we remain competitive within that market. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 116 of 147 De Weerd: Okay. Anything else for Crystal? Thank you. Okay. The next question was to go through memberships and -- where is that, Todd? Lavoie: No problem. Madam Mayor, I think you're leaning towards the dues and the city memberships, if I'm correct. Mr. Palmer. Palmer: Yes. De Weerd: I assume so. Lavoie: Okay. So, on your -- in the back of your book is a supplemental section or we put it on the screen for you. It's your dues and memberships in the very back of the book under supplemental documents. We also have it on the screen for you as a reference as well. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Palmer. Palmer: So, the questions I have got are what is the core? De Weerd: The core is the health science and technology corridor that's along Eagle Road that includes ISU, Icom, St. Luke's, Blue Cross, they have all been participants in that, promoting the health science, technology industry cluster in that area. Palmer: Madam Mayor, not really knowing much about it and maybe if anybody else does, are we experiencing appropriate (unintelligible) investment for (unintelligible)? De Weerd: I think that is a great question for Brenda and she generally reports back on all of those different membership during their annual report, which is next month, so -- Little Roberts: Madam Mayor? I'm on the mailing list for the core and I must admit I haven't seen really any activity lately. De Weerd: Yeah. I -- from my knowledge the activity has been in bringing businesses together to talk about work force innovation, but it's mainly been in forum. So, I can't tell you that we have achieved tangible benefits. Palmer: Madam Mayor? Then can we get rid of it? Little Roberts: Madam Mayor? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 117 of 147 De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts. Little Roberts: Can we see if Brenda is here to give us a couple of minutes? De Weerd: Can you see if Brenda is around. The core membership. She's not here then? Palmer: Madam Mayor, my other question on dues, about Treasure Valley Partnership -- what that is, too. De Weerd: Treasure Valley Partnership is the funding group for the (unintelligible) project, as well as the group of the Treasure Valley mayors and county commissioners that talk about legislative issues, of societal issues, of the initiatives for support and Darkness to Light, which is the training for -- yeah. And TIP. So, it's a -- it's a group that talks about programming and how we can bring those varies components to each of the communities. Palmer: Madam Mayor. So, as the group gets together and talks -- De Weerd: And funds (unintelligible) the project. The (unintelligible) project is the special US Attorneys as special prosecutor that prosecute the gang and drug related activities in the Treasure Valley that rather than sending these offenders to the state facility, it sends them to federal -- oh. Chief. Lavey: Madam Mayor, I thought I just might help you out on that one. Eleven years ago we started the violent metro task force and it's a partnership between the law enforcement agencies in multiple counties, the FBI, ATF, and a few others and we go out and deal with violent offenders in our communities and it 's really gang related and pharms related. We also get into narcotics, but, then, we turn those over to other divisions and we fund a special prosecutor to the Idaho US Attorney and we prosecute these people in federal court and the idea behind that is we break their connection from the state of Idaho, because there is no federal prison in the state of Idaho and so we ship them out to a federal prison, hoping to break that connection and stop or at least reduce violent crime within our communities. So, that -- our portion of that prosecutor is also paid out of those fees. Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: And you do get monthly e-mails on -- Bird: Yes. De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Cavener. Cavener: What percentage of that Treasure Valley Partnership does goes to the Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 118 of 147 project? Is it a hundred percent? Fifty percent? De Weerd: It would only be a guess, so I couldn't tell you. Cavener: Okay. De Weerd: Sorry, I wasn't -- I didn't know I would get those questions or I would have been prepared. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: I think Treasure Valley Partnership -- what, you have one employee? De Weerd: Yeah. He's -- Bird: Part time or -- De Weerd: Quarter time or -- Bird: Yeah. De Weerd: -- half time. Bird: And the rest of it goes to this and I don't know if -- if I remember right I think we took 52 of the felons off the streets last year and sent them to federal court in this valley. If I remember right. I could be wrong, but I think it was 52. De Weerd: I don't know. What we have found -- and because of the success of this program eastern Idaho has started a similar -- similar project, because it does remove criminals out of -- out of the area, so they cannot continue to communicate with their gangs and it does break the chain. But I can't tell you how -- how much percent of the TVP's budget that is. I will tell you that the fees were reduced this year and they haven't increased for probably -- is it in there? I can't find it in my -- Little Roberts: The decrease is on the board. Lavoie: So, yes, Madam Mayor, the budget in 2012 of 12,963 and has not increased since then, going on now. De Weerd: So, we do get (unintelligible). Palmer: But it went up this time. De Weerd: No. I think it decreased by a thousand something. Oh, it increased Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 119 of 147 by a thousand? Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Councilman Palmer, it went from 10,957 to 10,044. De Weerd: By 890 dollars. De Weerd: Madam Mayor? So, am I looking at an old -- mine says 12,700. Milam: Mine, too. Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Councilman Palmer, I apologize, the form was not submitted to -- updated. I believe this was an item that was noted this morning. It was a couple hundred dollars on each one. We did not supply all new documents for the couple hundred dollars. I apologize for that. De Weerd: We saved a couple hundred dollars by not printing it out. Palmer: Then, Madam Mayor, when it comes to the VRT we had one thing planned and, then, they asked for something else for the Harvest Dial a Ride and whatnot and we haven't really had a discussion on the increased amount -- I don't know if we want to go with it or contemplate -- De Weerd: Council -- and I know both Luke -- I'm sorry, Councilman Cavener and Palmer are on VRT. The presentation that VRT gave us I'm not sure it came out much more enlightened about the value we get for our money. However, the citizen survey did show -- and the listening group did reconfirm or truth the results that we got from the city survey that public transportation is on the minds of our citizens and they do understand that there is a need for commuter investment and so the Route 40 and 42 do give that option and the more we can communicate about it maybe we can increase the participation. But I heard what Kelly said when gas prices drop so do the -- so does ridership. But I think we haven't given Harvest Transit a go and I think a lot of people are already excited about it, in particular once they hear about it, that there is an opportunity to have a great impact on the need in our community for those who do need it the most is our senior and our disabled community. So, I guess -- Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes. Cavener: I would echo your comments. Though Council Member Palmer is somewhat skeptical about public transit and the cost associated with it and I don't -- I don't blame him for anyone who spends taxpayer dollars for being. skeptical. When it comes to I think the small amount of public transportation offerings that we have in our community meeting our most vulnerable and our needy, the Mayor is right on with our -- our city survey. When I meet with constituents, whether they Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 120 of 147 ride the bus or don't -- have never ridden the bus, having a public transit available is something that's important and typically phrased under the service where they are most needed and we have had more people ride Harvest Transit that ever rode our Saturday Fun Bus. I think that it is a -- right tool for the right needs and I think to the Mayor's point is worthy of letting us have a full year under its belt. Again we will be back here again next year -- or some of us will be back here next year to have the opportunity to readdress it, make sure that it's meeting the needs. Palmer: Madam Mayor? And I agree to the point that I -- almost as many people in a month ride Harvest as did the entire program of the Fun Bus. So, instead of a hundred dollars per rider, we are closer to five or six, especially as they meet their goal and I think about 800 or 880 per month, it's a little concerning that it's the -- kind of the same fairly small group of people who use it over and over, hoping to expand that, but I just wanted to make sure that -- a larger dollar was requested than we had anticipated and I just wanted to make sure there was an opportunity for discussion (unintelligible). I'm good. Cavener: Madam Mayor. I will say that VRT is somewhat atypical of outside government agencies that actually reduced asking amounts for certain elements, so I think they are trying to be very much aware to the feedback that they have heard from both Meridian representation on VRT about making sure the request for dollars aren't just big numbers that can grow into, but a more accurate dollar reflective of the need. So, I'm -- I'm satisfactory with their request and with the (unintelligible) it's taken, but -- De Weerd: Okay. Any other thoughts on that? Little Roberts: Madam Mayor? My next door neighbor is a special education teacher at Mountain View and he just started before school got out to utilize Harvest Transit in teaching and getting the higher functioning students out into the community and is able to teach them how to get Harvest Transit themselves and so we are actually going to see as more students are coming out of at least Mountain View High School they will be able to utilize the service and they are also going out in the community and learning how to shop and because in '07, '08 the funding was taken away for transportation and through Harvest Transit they are able to utilize and have that learning experience again. So, I was very excited about that. De Weerd: Okay. Thanks for sharing that. Any other comments? Okay. Any other questions? Mr. Palmer? Palmer: No. Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 121 of 147 Cavener: I think Bruce and I both have heard from -- from Brenda and she's not opposed to us removing our core membership from one of our dues and partnerships. De Weerd: Okay. Any comment you want to share on it? Chatterton: Madam Mayor, Council Members, no, not really, it's just that I think that in the report focus has shifted more towards Boise and is of more limited value to us here in Meridian. I think we were staying engaged with them simple to be engaged with the community to support other efforts, but that's -- I think at this point there is limited value (unintelligible). Little Roberts: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts. Little Roberts: With kind of a transition with the core I would recommend we take it off out of the budget. De Weerd: Okay. Anything else? Okay. Todd. Lavoie: Well, thank you, Madam Mayor. So, with dues covered, the compensation plan covered, that brings us to the last item which is our healthcare benefits. As we proposed to you in June and updated you today, our broker has come back to us with a 9.69 percent. Starting January 1, 2018, the Fire Department will be leaving the general plan and moving to their own plan an d we have the subject experts here if you have any questions, but right now the 9.69 has been built into the budget as proposed to you today. We can answer any questions for you if you have any. Bird: (Unintelligible). De Weerd: He's asking what kind of increase that is per person -- per employee. Lavoie: Madam Mayor, we have -- we can get that calculation up. I will let you know how much it is. Cavener: Madam Mayor? To that point -- I don’t know if this question is for you, Todd, or for Crystal. We have two options for our employees, either the high deductible with the HSA or the more traditional plan. Is that -- is the ten percent increase across the board, it doesn't matter which one our employees decide to pick it's a ten percent -- almost a ten percent cost increase? Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Mr. Cavener, what we do in the Finance Department is we do a generalized budget for a pool. We determine -- we do our best estimate of Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 122 of 147 what we believe the total bottom line will be, because we know that we have some singles and we have some family members and we have some in between. So, what we do is we budget one number per employee, anticipating that the singles will help offset the expenditures of the family that kind of meets in the middle. So, that's kind of how we do a budgetary spend point. But Christena can answer the question about how they get the (unintelligible). Barney: Madam Mayor and Councilman Cavener, that is correct. So, it is 9.6 regardless of which plan you choose, the 9.6 increase applies to both plans. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: Christena, did we go out -- are we getting an RFP ready to go out for brokers or are we just staying with Mercer? Barney: Madam Mayor, Councilman Bird, yes, we have sent out an RFP for broker services and those are going to be sent to three different vendors here within the next few days, but it will be published here soon. I don't know the exact date of publishing. But we are in the process of doing that. Bird: Is it open to everybody or just to -- Barney: It's open to everyone, yes. So, we have three vendors that have contacted us and wanted to be included in that as well. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: Are we -- have we revisited or will be soon the idea of self -insuring? It seemed like at AIC a lot of cities were talking about -- and cities that were even smaller than us and it seemed like that was one of the -- the issues that came up, well, maybe we are not big enough or we don't have a large enough pool, but from the sounds of it that's the way to go. Barney: Madam Mayor and Council Member Milam, it is something that we discussed. It's always on the table. The benefits committee is discussing it. There are some key indicators that look at when we decide that we are going to go to self funding. At this point where we sit with our experience rating it doesn't make sense. For this year we are -- are definitely considering it for next year and I came to you -- to the Council last year and asked for the nine percent increase that we had anticipated or had budgeted for last year to be set aside for self insured, because you have to have a reserve in order to do that. I would like to keep that there, because we are trending towards self funding. So, we are -- we are Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 123 of 147 discussing that. We are looking at different options. We are always looking at different funding mechanisms to try to get the biggest bang for our buck. De Weerd: And have you brought in representatives from these other communities like Caldwell that have been self funding for quite some time to talk with them about what they are doing, what they have learned, and -- Barney: Madam Mayor. So, I have reached out to several of the cities that are self funded. Some of them have gotten back to me, some of them have not. I have learned through our broker some of the do's and don'ts and as we get closer to making that decision the benefits committee can take all of that into consideration. You know, is it -- is it right for the city, is it right for the employees, is it the right funding mechanism for us. Do we have everything we need in place. What are the hiccups that the other cities have encountered. So, those are all things that -- we have looked at other agencies. We have a broker who advises us on things that we should fix, things that we should do or things that we should take into consideration. So, we -- we fully vet that out and we will do that before we bring that as a formal recommendation to Council. Lavoie: Madam Mayor, I can follow up with Mr. Bird. Our experience is 9.69. That's why it's been called ten percent. We currently budget about 14 to 15 -- almost 15,000 dollars a person. So, right now we are anticipating between '17 and '18 about a 1,500 dollar per employee budgetary increase due to the 9.69 or ten percent. So, hopefully that answers your question. So, right now we budget about 15,000 dollars an employee here at the City of Meridian for the services or for the benefits that we provide. And that's on average. So, a single would be less and family would be more, breakdown into the even -- about 15,000 a person right now. De Weerd: Okay. Any other questions on the benefits? Okay. Borton: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Borton. Borton: Maybe more a comment than a question, but one of the items that we shared earlier was within the basket of compensation benefits that employees have is the employer contribution to PERSI, which is -- was increased this coming year? Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Mr. Borton, we did increase our budgetary expectations for PERSI, the guidance that we currently hear from them is about a one percent, so we have adjusted the -- the base budget to anticipate that for fiscal year '18. Borton: Madam Mayor. The employer provides 11 percent for the compensation towards PERSI? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 124 of 147 Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Councilman Borton, there is two different rates. You have the general employee and, then, the public service -- public safety employee. Borton: Right. Lavoie: The general employee I believe is 10.8 -- Ritchie: 11.32. Borton: Okay. Lavoie: Okay. Ritchie: Public safety is 11.66. Borton: And that's the employer's contribution on behalf of the employee? Okay. Thank you. De Weerd: So, the employee will also be seeing that increase and they will also be seeing the increase in the -- the medical. Ritchie: Yes. Lavoie: Yes. Barney: Madam Mayor and Council, I do want to note that that hasn't been formally approved by the PERSI board, they will have the option to waive it, delay it. We have seen in the past that the legislature has adopted this, but, then, the PERSI board has elected not to or has elected to extend the time frame, so we don't -- aren't sure, but we have budgeted for it. De Weerd: So, just backing up. Crystal, on the merit -- Ritchie: Uh-huh. De Weerd: -- is that a COLA and a merit or is that just the three percent merit? Ritchie: Three percent merit. De Weerd: Okay. And I have additional figures (unintelligible) that would help you with your decision today. De Weerd: Okay. Any further questions? Borton: Madam Mayor? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 125 of 147 De Weerd: Mr. Borton. Borton: For the purpose of compensation, in light of a lot of the other growth, I didn't know if it was discussed or decided, I was going to propose a two percent -- all two percent being merit and I wasn't sure if the three had been decided to be all merit or merit cost of living, but the -- at least the General Fund or General Fund, Community Development is about 80,000 dollars swing between those two. I believe so. I believe that number is correct. So, as an alternative item for discussion would be to fund that at two percent. All being merit. Yeah. There you go. Little Roberts: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts. Little Roberts: Crystal, you said you had some numbers. Ritchie: Uh-huh. Little Roberts: If you wouldn't mind sharing those with us what other communities are doing regarding cost of living and merit. Ritchie: Right. So, let me just share these figures with you. So, it looks like across the state within municipalities that participated in this request of information the average COLA increase for municipalities who offer a COLA increase, a cost of living adjustment, is at 2.95 percent. The average -- overall average for a merit is at 3.3 to four percent and those that are doing a market adjustment, we did the market adjustment last year in FY-17. The overall market adjustment that is going to be offered across all of them are 3.06 percent. So, we are recommending a three percent increase to our compensation program for our employees. Little Roberts: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts. Little Roberts: Follow up. Crystal, do you know are most municipalities doing a COLA or not? How many are? Crystal: So, of the 15 that participated in our request for information, three are doing a COLA. Little Roberts: Okay. Ritchie: Okay. Merit. Seven confirmed for merit and some just gave us a percentage. They didn't provide whether or not they are going to split it or not. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 126 of 147 Little Roberts: Perfect. Ritchie: Uh-huh. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: Two percent is what I had in mind. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: Maybe you said, but why are you recommending a merit, as opposed to COLA? Ritchie: So, under our compensation program in -- you got it. So, under our policy we don't do COLAs here at the city, we do a market adjustment on (unintelligible) organization, so we operate under a merit program. We did the market adjustment (unintelligible) as study that and we monitored that this year, looking at what everyone else is doing and was best for our recommendation is that three percent merit under our comp plan. Borton: Madam Mayor. Part of the reason at least for that alternate proposal is not so much just this year, but insuring the ability to adequately fund the growth in personnel necessary for future years, whether it's police and fire or all the other support services. We believe it's coming and labor costs, unfortunately, are one of the areas that have to be closely monitored and controlled. Everyone would love the -- if you could do four percent or five percent. The problem is it bites you down the road and maybe it bites -- or can bite you down the road and it can bite future councils that aren't sitting in these chairs. It's not easy to do, but I think two percent is appropriate to provide some merit reward for those employees who have earned it. De Weerd: I think the three percent is -- is kind of derived by -- as Crystal had mentioned, to -- to be at market rate, but also to absorb the cost of increases, whether it's PERSI or the medical, those kind of things, even keeping a neutral -- net neutral with some of the increases that would be the concern that they are actually next year are going to be making (unintelligible). Borton: Madam Mayor, are we -- I missed that. Are we passing a portion of the increased health insurance cost onto the employee? What portion? Ritchie: The employee would experience the 9.69 percent. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 127 of 147 Borton: From their -- their portion? Okay. So, for family members I guess. Ritchie: Across all the tiers, so single will experience the same percent increase as a family would. Borton: Right. We -- Madam Mayor? The city pays the employees' coverage; right? So, the employee's check -- compensation to themselves isn't changing, because the city is picking up that added increase? Ritchie: Yeah. Borton: So, it's not a net increase in compensation. The employees -- it's not coming out of pocket to make up that difference; is that right? Ritchie: (Unintelligible) are insuring anyone else -- any other dependents on the (unintelligible). Borton: Okay. No pay. The additional 25 percent of the nine percent. Ritchie: Uh-huh. Borton: Okay. More than zero. Got you. Okay. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: Just in my millennial mind, just to give a live view, at two percent that's (unintelligible) as we discussed it. De Weerd: Any further -- do you want the other chart? Oh. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: Crystal, in the -- in the merit raise what does the percent range from -- one percent to four and a half percent, five percent? Ritchie: Yeah. It will (unintelligible) on the matrix that we use that individuals could possibly receive based on their performance, but depending on where the employee is placed in their salary range will determine, in alignment with their overall job performance will determine their increase ranging from that one percent to the -- the four or five percent that is set across the matrix. De Weerd: And what is the CPI? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 128 of 147 Ritchie: It has fluctuated at between 1.9 and 2.2 percent. De Weerd: And in the fire contract we did the two percent increase to wages and the other percent was really to defer cost for the -- the medical. Is that what it was? Ritchie: Well, it's one percent. Bird: Yeah. One percent. De Weerd: What was one percent? Ritchie: Next year. Lavoie: Year '18 wages -- De Weerd: So, this year they got three. So, we are giving the Fire Department employees three percent increase. Lavoie: Madam Mayor. Fiscal year '17 is three. Fiscal year '18 that you're discussing here today they are only going to receive one percent. De Weerd: One percent. Because the two percent goes to -- I got that reversed. Okay. Okay. Well, we have heard from a couple. We probably should get others to weigh in on the compensation. Milam: You all know how I feel. Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: I'm happy to chime in. I support the three percent as recommended by staff. I think it's -- if we are going to be -- have a true merit system, three percent seems appropriate. I think if we all had the ability and money wasn't an object, we would do 30 percent. I mean we want to -- we want to compensate employees as much as possible, but there is a prudent amount. I think the three percent recommended by staff fits that. De Weerd: I'm sorry, I lost that -- at 30 percent you would never see. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: I don't have any problem giving a three percent. I get back on my track Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 129 of 147 record, I have always tried to make sure the employees in 20 years have always got a raise. Sometimes that wasn't very big, but I do have a hard time getting my arms around this when we were told the other night that the average wage income for Meridian Heights is 39, 40 thousand and our average salary is 56,000 for the City of Meridian and our average hourly rate -- the hourly rate right now is 28.74 I think -- 9.4 or something like that, multiplied by 2,080 hours, see what you come up with. And I don't think you will find probably a private company that's got the benefits that we have got. Very few of them have retirement programs like we have, unless you get up into (unintelligible). Ritchie: And in addition to your information, Council Member Bird, one of the things that's very difficult is to compare -- over time to compare an average wage with apples to apples and we are not apples to apples and so, you know, you do work with a number of degreed positions that we have in the city and the positions that we have hired certification, the number of professional individuals that require an education to do that job that we have hired them to do. So, it's not an apples to apples comparison when you start getting into the numbers and the details. We do monitor, in fact, the number of requirements for jobs and licenses and certificates and education and degrees and things of that nature. So, across the board it's not an apples to apples comparison. Bird: No, it isn't, because private is a different world. Milam: Madam Mayor. Didn't -- last year didn't we do a two percent merit and a one percent -- and a one percent COLA? We did three, but we broke it up. Ritchie: Broke it up. Milam: So, if we do three I like that better. I want to make sure that -- if you're talking about the expense going up for some people, I want to make sure that everybody gets a little piece of that no matter what. So -- Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: Councilman Bird, did you have a number for it? Bird: On what? Oh, I said I was okay with the three. Palmer: Oh, you said three? Okay. Bird: But I'm kind of like Genesis, I'm going to want to demand that we take the three percent. Not demand, but ask. Milam: Madam Mayor? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 130 of 147 De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: So, what about -- do you want three percent merit or do you want two percent merit and one percent -- Bird: I would sooner -- I'm with you, kid. I'd like to see everybody get a little bit. One percent. And we know -- we know dang good and well -- and I can probably go down the payroll and tell you who is going to get the five and five and a half percent increase and who is going to get the half and the one percent. But, anyway, I would go with the two and one. Very much so, if the rest of the Council agree with it. Little Roberts: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts. Little Roberts: I guess question. Does that fit into the plan with the market adjustment and everything to spit it out? Ritchie: It certainly -- excuse me, Council Woman Little Roberts. It's certainly an option that we have. We did do a market adjustment last year to ensure that our wage scales were competitive and we adjusted those wage scales and we adjusted scales at the same time. So, typically, you don't see that change back to back to back and we are merit based. So, in looking at the numbers and looking at the information and looking at where our salary ranges fall and where our employees fall within those ranges, the merit recommendation is what I come before you with today. It doesn't mean in the future we won't come back with a market recommendation for consideration as we march -- or watch the market as well. One thing to just share with you -- with Council Member Bird's and Council Member Milam's addition to the conversation in regards to you want to see a little bit go to everybody and just remember it's a pay for performance organization. We have very strong employees here at the city. I don't want you to walk away with a feeling that everyone will get something on a merit program, because it is performance based. So, the only opportunity that an employee would see not receiving an increase would be if they were not performing to the expectations of the job. So, we found that out and truly pay for performance under our merit program. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: Crystal, let me -- have you up to listen one more time to my (unintelligible). If an employee works here a year (unintelligible) an increase, if they are not worth the increase they shouldn't be working here. Period. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 131 of 147 Little Roberts: Madam Mayor? Bird: That's my last -- that's my last time I will say it. Ritchie: And we have processes in place to manage those very situations. De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts. Little Roberts: Because I am in support of the three percent, but I certainly want to follow the plan that we have and would recommend the three percent merit, knowing that the vast majority, unless they are on some type of improvement plan, would receive something. Borton: Is that a motion? Little Roberts: Let's turn it into a motion. I move that we accept the three percent merit as recommended by HR. Milam: Madam Mayor? Can we have the other discussion first, because I don't want to vote on it. De Weerd: Well, do I have a second first? Borton: Second. De Weerd: So, I have a motion and a second to accept the three percent merit and discussion. Mrs. Milam? Milam: Madam Mayor, what I wanted to discuss is the other three percent, because it's hard for me to vote on this concretely without having the other discussion, because they go together. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes. Palmer: Then maybe it would help if we had a -- with where we are sitting what percent increase exactly to take to cover -- because this is the last thing; right? After merit there is more before the -- Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Councilman Palmer, we still have the discussion of the three percent and anything on the unfunded list that's still outstanding that we want to consider. Again, the Mayor has proposed to you the budget as is, but we are still recommending a full three percent consideration. So, there are three percent Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 132 of 147 items on there that, again, the Mayor is promoting, the executive branch is promoting to you for full consideration still. De Weerd: I do have an active motion from the table and -- okay. Those in favor of the three percent indicate by saying aye. Those opposed say nay. Palmer: Nay. De Weerd: Okay. Lavoie: Well, Madam Mayor, Council Members, appreciate decisions on the healthcare and the composition plan. We will input those data points into our budget proposal for the citizens next week and during the week we will send out the final numbers to you as we update everything and should be relatively similar to what you have -- a few pennies might be different when you do final calculations, but, again, appreciate the guidance. So, that gets us down to kind of the last topic of the day, that's the revenue calculation. Again, three percent is up for recommendation from the executive branch and the Mayor. If we could bring up the unfunded list. Again, as the Mayor has stated -- Bird: Todd? Lavoie: Yes, sir. Bird: And Madam Mayor. I'm sorry. De Weerd: Yes. Bird: Todd, can I -- before we start in the revenue, Council, I want to -- I want to discuss -- I know we turned it down, the Mayor's raise. I -- I think that -- I think that -- I think that we are doing an injustice to that office if we keep it -- if we keep it down there like that. If -- you know, evidently the voters felt that they are worth it. They keep re-electing people and I'm not just talking for the person in the office now, because to be truthful with you, if it was just that I would want more than three percent. But, anyway, I -- I think we take to -- need to take a hard look -- if you want quality people to run for that office and we have -- and I hope we do, we have been fortunate enough to have quality people at that low wage, but when you got -- when you have got -- I'd almost say, if not all, 95 percent of your fire employees are making more than the Mayor and not -- and that's not the only department either. I just -- I think we are doing an injustice to the office of the Mayor. I think we are actually put -- just slapping the face. I would like to -- at least for this year give a three percent and next year you guys can do what you want, but I will tell you, they work hard. You know, they are 7/24s, the Mayor, and I don't care who it is and they are -- they are our face. The face of Meridian. So, I'd like you to rethink that and I know it -- it isn't a big budget item, but it is -- it is something and, personally, three percent is a total in my opinion. I have said my say. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 133 of 147 Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: I agree and I am sad that I missed that conversation, because (unintelligible), but, unfortunately, we don't get to do it based on the individual, because in this particular situation I can look at you and see how hard you work and you work harder than almost anybody I have ever known in my life and you're doing things early in the morning and things late at night on a regular basis and so I think it's very well deserved. Unfortunately -- well, if you don't do this job anymore there could be some slacker come in having way too much money, but I do -- I am supportive of it anyway, so -- Ritchie: So, I'm not sure if it's appropriate and I was at the meeting, so I'd like to add some information, so that you can consider this as well, because I hear what you just said, Council Member Milam. Milam: I am supportive of it. Ritchie: Yes. Milam: Okay. Ritchie: And I hear what you say when you talk about, you know, if it's for our present mayor you're absolutely supportive of it, but the concern is going forward with future mayors and so one of the things -- just to make sure that we are all on board and have the same understanding, is that we work with the citizens on every election year to take a look at that information and what we set as the mayor's salary today doesn't necessarily mean that's what we have to set the mayor 's salary if we ever have a new mayor come into office. The elected officials committee members would assess the new mayor, their qualifications, their skills, their knowledge, what -- they will take all of that into consideration when making a recommendation for a change to either a change of decrease, change -- or keep the same or change as an increase for that mayor in office. So, I just wanted to make sure that everyone understood that what you choose to do now carries it forward, but doesn't remain constant as we move forward into the future. Milam: Great. Wonderful. Ritchie: Okay. Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 134 of 147 Cavener: I appreciate the discussion and, actually, I think it's, yes, worthy of us maybe continuing it. I just -- I wonder if right now is the appropriate time. Council Member Bird, I think your comments are poignant and at the right time, but I guess I, for one, would like us to maybe finish our overall budget discussion before we return to a decision that was made at a previous council meeting. Bird: No problem. But you're not getting out of here without making a decision. De Weerd: Well, the decision was made and only those that supported the motion can open it up for discussion and consideration and so -- that's correct? Okay. Nary: Madam Mayor? Madam Mayor, Members of the Council -- De Weerd: Mr. Nary. Nary: -- if you do -- you will have one additional opportunity, because the current ordinance for both council members and the mayor, runs through each election cycle. So, currently the ordinance expires at the end of the year -- is what the salary of the mayor is. So, I have to bring you a new ordinance for both the salary of the mayor and the salary of the council to continue it to the next two years. So, the state law requires that you make these decisions in an election year, you can change the salaries, you can only do it every two years, which is why we have this committee every two years. So, you will have this ordinance coming back in front of you. But the Mayor is correct, if you want to reconsider the decision, then, the person -- and, then, anyone on the prevailing side that voted previously for it , can move to reopen it, it requires a second and, then, you can have a discussion about reconsidering the decision. But you will have that ordinance back in front of you. I was planning on bringing it next week, so -- De Weerd: Okay. Lavoie: Well, thank you, Council, Madam Mayor -- or Madam Mayor. We are down to the three percent discussion. What do we -- we need to determine on what number we wish to put into the budget. Again, I have explained zero percent is what was put into the budget per your request. Mayor, Finance, and executive committee -- or executive branch are promoting the three percent. You have heard from me for the last two years why I believe the three percent should go -- should be considered to the growth, the cost of doing business, the 2.2 percent CPI. You heard from Chief Lavey, the -- the police force that they need to maintain the safety. The citizens have told us that we -- that they are comfortable to value that they get with the services they receive from the city. Mr. Lavey talked about some expenses coming up . A roof. We have -- I know Chief Niemeyer will let you know that there is some vehicles coming up for replacement. All these items I speak of are expenses that I believe we need to use the three percent and the current base revenues for. We generate a revenue called -- what we call new growth and we believe in new growth sh ould be used for new growth Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 135 of 147 items to support the new growth needs. The only reason we are collecting that new growth is because people are moving here and things are changing and we need to make sure we add to the current infrastructure that we have to su pport those. So, with that, this fiscal '18 budget as I proposed to you in June is requesting funds from the new growth revenues to pay for the current based needs and the current base expenses. Now, you can tap into the new growth every so often, but to make this a practice will be dangerous, because if growth stops, the question to me -- to you would be where do we find the revenue to pay for the cost of doing business to cover the base -- base cost and need for that particular year. Now, last night we approved Fire Station No. 6. As we have explained -- or promoted to you it's about a 1.5 million dollar expenditure starting fiscal year 1019 forward. Unfortunately, or fortunately, that fire station will not always be 1.5 million. There is a cost of doing business. There is inflation. There is wages. There is medical benefits. So, in year number two or 2020 most likely that station will run us about 1.6 to 1.7 million. Year after that maybe 1.8 due to the inflationary cost of doing business. The question to you, then, that some of you saw on my white board in the homework assignment, how do I pay for that without using new growth and you always heard from me, cost of doing business is three percent. So, I will continue to promote that in this current climate, because we are experiencing growth, we have expenses coming up. I believe we need to continue to consider taking the three percent. Mr. Bird has been here for ten plus years, you have seen the results of financial management of looking at the revenue correctly and budgeting the revenue against expenses and the anticipated expenses in the future. So, with that said, again, I appreciate you guys letting me give my soapbox of three percent, you know, meeting after meeting, but, again, with this proposal as we have proposed to you with a zero, the Mayor and I and the executive branch are still promoting a full three percent recommendation. With that the current budget as it stands right now to -- as Mr. Palmer is alluding to, you're currently at a 351,000 dollar shortfall. So, we do need to make up 351,000 dollars to balance the budget as is. Now, if you take the three percent we can generate 848,000'ish dollars and take into consideration the items that the Mayor and executive branch are recommending to you as a full three percent Mayor's budget proposal. If you take the three percent we can add the public safety fund reserve to help offset the future fire truck reserve payments in the future. We will add a code enforcement officer for the PD to help with the needs on the boots on the ground, quote, unquote, and, then, we can also add an annual report mailer and some funds in our capital improvement fund to help pay for the future park development that's coming down and also any scenario villages or capital infrastructure. So, if we did that we could fund all those items and balance the budget as it's proposed to you today and that's my soap box. If anybody else would like to -- Mr. Borton. Borton: Real quick. Madam Mayor? I don't think we answered your question, Genesis, about -- for the scenario village, expanding capital improvement funds, as opposed to these General Fund, which are eligible -- that's a 70,000 dollar swing; correct? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 136 of 147 Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Mr. Borton, you could tap into the capital improvement fund if you so desire and that would be a 70,000 dollar swing in this case. If you wish to move that direction. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: Todd, I -- I can't agree with you more and the way I look at it is taking this three percent pays us until the taxes on this new stuff starts coming in, which is eighteen months to two years. I thought we had decided last year on the fire trucks fund that we have to fund -- we have to find something every year. I don't -- I mean one of these days you young people are going to have the Fire Department coming in here asking for two or three engines and, then, see, you're looking at two million dollars. We have got -- we have got to fund it. That -- if we hadn't of had the fund in there we wouldn't have the truck today. Every year you -- De Weerd: Two trucks and one -- one truck and two engines. Bird: Well, yeah, but I mean -- De Weerd: That's three units. Bird: We had enough in there to do it. We have got to -- we have got to keep that fund in place. Absolutely. I don't care whether you give it 50 -- whatever you can every year. Give it some money so one of these days you're not digging up two, three million or we are going out with fire trucks that don't have no transmissions. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: You chair the meetings. It's up to you whatever order you want to do it. My preference would be that we go through each of the items that you would like included and, then, why don't we put them in or don't, then, we have a number that will tell us how much we -- to fund that would have to increase and that would facilitate a discussion on whether to take the rest. De Weerd: Okay. We have -- we have gone through the -- each of the departments and we did add from the unfunded list the police officers. There was an indication that streetlights were preferred to be funded . Is that still for now? Borton: This is it. It's there. De Weerd: Oh, it is? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 137 of 147 Milam: Public safety. De Weerd: So, you have the public safety reserve. My recommendation was using one percent of the property tax with the knowledge of what Councilman Bird was just stating. In the next three years we have -- we know of two engines and one truck -- three engines and one truck -- two engines and one truck which would total 2.5 million. We need to start working to offset those costs. So, I was recommending the full one percent. The street lights. The code officer. The annual mailer and also we had talked previously about the -- the capital improvement plan -- or a capital improvement fund reserve that we need to continue to invest in our -- our list of capital improvement programs or projects and so that was at one percent or half a percent. Borton: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Borton. Borton: Yeah. I -- when police were presenting I shared my perspective on it. It's the trade-off that comes with the growth that we are promoting and improving. I'm not going to sacrifice public safety as job number one of this government for our citizens. I would propose funding the reserve -- public safety reserve, which is proper planning. We know the expenditures that are coming. And the code enforcement officer and the capital improvement fund. I removed the annual report mailing. That's in a different category of importance. So, with those three included in the existing gap, which is generated by funding the necessary patrol officers to keep our streets safe, that we utilize that portion of the allowable to cover that expenditure, which I don't believe is the full three percent. It's something less. But I think it adequately funds the essential services in the city. So, it would be the 281, the 141, and the 96, which I believe is less than the 848 of available revenues. Milam: Yeah. It was 550 -- Borton: (Unintelligible). Okay. Lavoie: Madam Mayor. Mr. Borton, I just want to confirm that you are recommending 282,000 for the public safety reserve, code enforcement officer, 96,301, and the full capital improvement reserve at -- which equates to half a percent of property tax of 141,000? Borton: Correct. Lavoie: So, that -- if you added those three lines up -- Jenny. Column Charlie. Column Charlie. There. You're asking us to do 520,000. We have a shortfall of 351. And so make that equal the C-8. There you go. Let's see if we balance. Thirty thousand dollars a little bit too much. So, right now what we are doing is we have a short -- we have a gap of 351. We need to figure out how to cover it. That Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 138 of 147 872 number is the kind of number we are looking at that needs to be smaller than the 848. Borton: Madam Mayor? Lavoie: So, we can adjust the capital improvement fund to that value. Borton: Yes. Lavoie: We can do that for you right now. Let's see what that is. Borton: Madam Mayor. Instead of the 141 allocated to the capital improvement fund, it would be closer to 110. Lavoie: So those -- you're correct. So, if we follow Joe's proposal those would be the three items that we slide over to the funded proposal with the three percent full calculation of 848,000 dollars. Borton: And, Madam Mayor, it's -- and, again, I use the phrase necessary evil. It's probably not the right way to put it, but -- but, really, what we are doing -- the code enforcement officer is necessary to maintain that service level, but the other two are -- are doing exactly what we say we do, pay as you go, and for the larger expenditure -- we have seen a few of them this ye ar, that we are able to do, because two, three, four years ago we did just this. So, for that -- that capital item we are going to buy in 2021, it's this type of conduct that I think is necessary to make sure that we can do it. De Weerd: Without -- with having existing services, not -- Borton: Correct. De Weerd: -- borrowing to new construction to balance the budget. Borton: And the alternative of constricting growth and -- and clamping down on the exciting developments going on, I don't think that's what our community wants. If they want to ensure that we maintain our service levels, police, fire, parks, public works, that's why our citizen survey rating is great. Our employees do fantastic work, because they know we support them in that endeavor. So, that's what I think is appropriate. Little Roberts: I completely agree with Councilman Borton. I think our -- keeping our service level up there is absolutely crucial. We hear -- I hear on -- almost on a daily basis on why we are what we are is because of safety and, then, the amenities, such as parks (unintelligible) to plan for the future with our growth we are going to have to have replacements on things and I think that planning now is how we manage to do it and do it well. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 139 of 147 Borton: Madam Mayor? To that point the alternate to this -- if -- if not taking the three percent is preferred, then, I'm open to whatever suggestions reduce labor costs on personnel, 351 -- 352,000 dollars. So, to not take that, that's what's going to have to come out and it's not one time money. It's people. I don't know who -- who those people would be. Bird: Unless you can (unintelligible). Borton: No, I'm just -- I don't think there is. I mean that's -- you can't cut a single captain expenditure. Those are ongoing, recurring expenses. We don't want to (unintelligible) for one year, so -- Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: You know, we all like to make sure that our taxes are the cheapest and the less of anybody and we happen to be in the fortunate place that we are -- Meridian is for -- comparing city to city. Even taking the three percent still keeps us down. Our mill levy is still probably half of Boise and half at least of Nampa. So, I -- I just think it's -- I think Councilman Borton hit it right on the head. We have got to do it. There is no -- you know. It's either that or start falling back. You figure out -- don’t take the three percent this year and don't take it next year and in three or four years you have lost 12 and a half to 14 percent. Or are you going to take it out of your -- and your city is growing. Where are you going to take it out of? De Weerd: Additional discussion? Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: I don't think any one of us are talking about next year. I think we are talking about this year's budget here today and the discussion about taking zero to three percent or somewhere in between should happen on an annual basis in. I think Councilman Borton hit the nail right on the head, is that if -- if this Council doesn't want to take the three percent or a version there less of, then, those are the discussions that we need to have. The way this process pans out is we add, we add, we add, we get to the end and we feel that's the amount, are we comfortable? Do we take zero to three percent or do we go back and cut. I'm very supportive of taking the one percent for the public safety reserve. I'm also very supportive of the half percent for the capital improve reserve fund. That still would put us a -- over to 350,000 dollars. I'm of one that is willing to go back and have the discussion about the 350,000 dollars that we have overspent and see what, if anything, needs to be taken out. I want to respect everyone's time and if I'm alone Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 140 of 147 on this, then, let's just take a vote and move on. I don't think that we need to discuss or pontificate about those items any longer. That's where I'm at. That’s what I believe is that we have said let's add, let's add, let's add, we had a significant amount of items that moved from the unfunded list to the funded list today. I think those are all worthy of discussion, in addition to some of the positions that we approved today. Borton: Madam Mayor? I invite the conversation of what positions, because that's the only way to really grasp what the alternate would be is what positions would we not include. Cavener: Madam Mayor. I don't know if you want me to chime in on that. I think that -- that a maintenance worker that was proposed, I believe we had a position from information services that moved from the unfunded to the funded list. We have a -- two positions I believe in Finance that we could discuss. A position with the Parks Department related to the new park. I mean I think there is lots of options to discuss. We have a potential vacancy in another department that this Council has to discuss if that will be filled or unfilled. All of those combined could come up with that 350,000 dollar shortfall. Again, I don't know if -- I recognize sometimes that I -- I pound my desk and I say this is what I think is best and I also recognize that when I pound my desk I'm the only one that's pounding and I want to be respectful everyone's time. If I'm the only -- I'm okay with that, but I'm not of the mindset that we have enough of a reason to take the full three percent. I'm supportive of one and a half percent, but I don't want us to continue down this rabbit hole if I'm the only one that wants to go. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: I think it goes without saying, I'm ready to go all night and look at those kind of things that I would add. There is the code enforcement. There is also maybe a second look at the (unintelligible). Those numbers add up quick to reduce from the three. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: You guys approved -- I know you're (unintelligible) we are talking about this year's budget, but this year's budget creates next year's budget, so we are not just talking about this year's budget. You guys approved a million -- a million dollars of new wages every year and now you want to say no w I don't want to fund it, because that's kind of what you're saying and -- Cavener: No one is saying that. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 141 of 147 Milam: Well, yeah, because that's (unintelligible) in there in order to pay for it next year. Cavener: No. Milam: But you're going to have to increase it or -- or what? Cavener: Madam Mayor? We had the discussion about to take zero to three percent on an annual basis and process is created to have what is (unintelligible) we are having right here right now. Milam: I'm just giving my opinion. If you -- you want to fund a whole bunch of new positions and you want to give merit, then, we have to take the three percent. I mean if we don't we are just -- Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: And I -- and I think some of that is that Council Woman Milam is talking about is 1.5 percent or 1.5 million that was approved last night -- Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: And what are we going to do -- if we don't take the three percent this year what does next year look like? Because right now we have revenue that's filling that gap. We won't have that next year. That will be added to the base and that's what our CFO indicated -- talked about as we looked at this. So, to Council I guess my question to you is do you want to go back and go through all of these items again or do you want to first see where all of you are at with the three percent and, then, see if we need to go back? What is your -- what is your flavor? Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: I'm for -- you know, seeing how I was two hours late, I guess I'm just early here, but I -- I think that if we want to go back and discuss this stuff, I don't -- we -- we discussed all that stuff I thought pretty dang good and I don't know if we are going to -- if we are going to change -- if we are going to change our votes re- discussing it. I mean I just -- I think that nobody likes to take any more revenue than they have to, but I think there is a time when you got to have some common sense and realize what's coming down the tube. Meridian isn't nine thousand people anymore. We don't have a volunteer fire department. We don't have half our officers reserve officers. Our citizens -- and, you know, we get these city surveys -- we spend good money on them and what comes back -- I mean Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 142 of 147 (unintelligible) that we must have been doing something right. That's what I keep telling myself. We have evidently been doing something right, because we got the lowest taxes in the state for city to city, equal cities, and we got some of the best amenities that any city has got and dadgummit, we have done this in 20 years, people. I'm telling you, it's been done in 20 years. It had -- it -- it certainly wasn't like this up to 1997. We had one park, a four acre park. We had a baseball -- two baseball fields -- and private groups built -- that's our private group got the ground for the city. So, we can go backwards, but I hope you guys don't. It's you guys that are going to have to -- two years down the road are going to be scrambling to make up. Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: I have been the wet blanket all day today, arguing -- Bird: Luke, you're not either. You're asking good questions. Cavener: Well, fair enough. But to move this conversation along, I think I know how this is going to land, but I'm going to make a motion right now that we take a one and a half percent property tax increase and , then, after that's been established we work backwards to cut. Palmer: Second. De Weerd: Okay. I have a motion and a second. Mr. Clerk, do you want to call roll. Roll call: Bird, nay; Borton, nay; Milam, nay; Cavener, yea; Palmer, yea; Little Roberts, nay. MOTION FAILED: TWO AYES. FOUR NAYS. Little Roberts: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts. Little Roberts: Given that I really believe we need to keep our level of service and be smart (unintelligible) regarding capital improvements fund reserves and some other things, I move that we take the three percent. Bird: Second. De Weerd: I have a motion and a second. We have discussion? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 143 of 147 Borton: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Borton. Borton: Is the allocation of the three percent reflected on the screen or some other allocation? Little Roberts: As reflected on the screen. Borton: Okay. De Weerd: Second agrees? Bird: Second agrees. De Weerd: Okay. Any further discussion? Mr. Clerk. Roll call: Bird, yea; Borton, yea; Milam, yea; Cavener, nay; Palmer, nay; Little Roberts, yea. MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. TWO NAYS De Weerd: So, Finance, do you have the information you need to bring back final numbers next week for Council? Lavoie: Yes, Madam Mayor. Again, appreciate the information you have provided us. We have everything we need. We will work on the ne xt two days to develop the final fiscal year 2018 budget for all funds discussed today and city overall. We will work with the Legal Department and the Clerks Department to have a tentative proposal for the citizens on your Tuesday agenda accordingly. I know we want to get out of here. Again, appreciate this time. I'm going to take one second -- a couple quick seconds. Mayor, appreciate all the time and all the guidance that you have provided us. To Council, again, this was a great workshop. I have to say I enjoyed the dialogue that you guys all provided . I thought this worked out really well. Again, hopefully, we can continue the great discussions and collaborative approach to this. So, I want to say thank you to you guys I have to say thanks to Jenny, obviously. The -- the budget person who put all this together. You know, she's going to give -- De Weerd: And she didn't go into labor. Bird: She made it through the budget. Lavoie: She made it until tomorrow. All right. Go ahead. Madam Mayor, I want to hand it back to you and all the staff members, all your time, they have put in Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 144 of 147 thousand hours. I know the Mayor probably has -- wants to say some things, but, again, I just want to say thank you to everybody. Bird: Thank you, Todd. De Weerd: I do want to say to our directors , our departments, you are fiscal stewards. Certainly appreciate the efforts you have gone through in working with your liaisons, going through, justifying each line item in your budge t, providing detail to the best of your ability to -- and specific requests and questions to provide the detail that backs up each of those line items , that your staff work diligently to find cost savings. I think that's a lot -- there is a lot of that going on and it's not seen and we need to do that better. We need to let Council know where those cost savings and the efforts of our staff is going to find a better deal and -- because I do know in talking with you that that is going on. I want to thank Finance and -- for your first budget on your own, whole year shepherding it through an entire process. Jenny, you have been phenomenal. Todd, you and your entire in and supporting. You are our fiscal eagles. Certainly you keep -- or fiscal hawks. You keep an eye on every expenditure and you have done a phenomenal job at that . Our budget process started in January at the tail end of your audit and we are beginning the year close out here soon. So, it's -- it's really an interesting season that you guys always have a season, but the supported documentation, I hope that Council got the kind of information you needed, so that you could have these discussions and know what your questions are. Council and our -- well, our department directors, our Finance team, all stand ready -- and I hope you saw that -- to answer questions and give you further detail. All these efforts of past councils and this Council has kept our city debt free and I think we are the only city in the state that can say that. It's something that we have maintained, while maintaining a mill rate that is one of the lowest in the state and that is when you compare apples to apples. I appreciate the forward thinking of the Council today and being committed to keeping the traditional alive and investing in those big ticket items that are coming up as we respond to growth and maintain service levels and I think we have more to discuss that came up in the fleet management and what we can do to improve our process next year and better supportive documentation, so you know in our replacement, the thought that goes behind that. When we come back in September on the growth plan and the Comprehensive Plan update you -- you will be probably hearing from the Mayor's senior advisory board and -- and I appreciate -- because you're going to have the 50,000 dollars coming back from our Community Service Department on -- does it stand up or does it need to be more, because of the Comprehensive Plan and the courthouse design. So, there is a number of things that we do owe you, including the cost recovery model from the Parks Department and having further discussions. As you look at this process, if you see additional things that you would like to look at as it relates to policy and how we can improve this for this next year, things -- maybe in looking at the schedule of how you have gotten information and to have that moved up, let's have those conversations that look at policies that you thin k maybe need to be dusted off. We are trying to find those policies that -- that probably have a few cobwebs Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 145 of 147 that we need to remove. So, thank you all. Each of you have participated in our departmental line item by line item reviews. That's really where the roll up your sleeves and the real work begins to get us to today. So, this is the lengthy process and we learn every single year. So, we know we can get better. Cavener: Madam Mayor? Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: You know I think we should give Council Member Bird the last word. I echo your comments. I appreciate you passing on your compliments to staff. I personally wanted to thank you and your leadership . I recognize how challenging it is to bring a budget at zero percent and to go through that process to question, scrutinize, you know, trade ideas and, then, to bring that plan to have it questioned and scrutinized and traded and discussed and that's a challenge and I -- this is my fourth year doing this and without a doubt for me it was the best year that we have done. I would also like to commend the clerk and IT for putting up this setup. I had the opportunity to thank them both specifically, but this process made it a lot easier for us to really have a discussion about the item, that it's not about I disagree with you on this thing or I don't trust that that's the right use of funds. It's a discussion for us to be educated. You guys have had the opportunity to live with these items for so long and for us it's really about a month and a month and a half and so to put us on the same level where we can have a healthy discussion is really appreciative and, then, I'd like to thank Councilman Bird for his wisdom. He's one of those entities that just as soon as I think I know what I know, it turns out that I know about a smidgen of what he knows and your advice and your wisdom -- even though I -- I don't always agree with you, it is so valued and I have learned a lot from you and it's -- it's a shame for our city that we won't have you in that chair next year. Bird: You -- Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: First of all, you guys -- you young people, keep asking the questions. I mean your questions are usually right on and while sometimes it drives me up a wall , but -- Cavener: Sometimes. Bird: -- it drives me up a wall. And department heads, department employees, this is my 20th year and I will tell you what, I think this -- I told Todd this. I don't know how he's going to improve on it. It is -- it has went so good. The facts and figures -- everything is right there. You should have joined Rita and I back in the Meridian City Council Budget Workshop July 19, 2017 Page 146 of 147 early years and Tammy even when she come on. I have got a couple years even on her now. But you guys -- you employees and directors and stuff present a -- such a good, open budget. I mean we never had to question a single thing, because you had it out there for us and you explain why you needed it and that means a lot when it comes to the budgetary items. But -- and, you know, it's -- it's good that some of these Council people have these good questions to ask, because it does keep us all on our toes. It makes even old guys like me thank you. Thank you guys again for everything. I appreciate it. De Weerd: Well, with that I would entertain a motion to adjourn. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: I move we adjourn. Bird: Second. De Weerd: All those in favor say aye. All ayes. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. MEETING ADJOURNED AT P.M. (AUD)- RE RDI ON ILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) DATE APPROVED e;� 01 �c�� Pied �� ATTE 0/ /7 ?9/ 7 C JAY C S, CITY CLERK DATE APPROVED �P�Ep AUG�/ST' QO �� O� Z City of �E IDIAN > W i SEAL ��