[♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Well, yes, so what I'd like to say is that, you know, our introductory meeting so we have lots of time and have get allocated a number of times when we'll have budget public hearing on the 12th and we'll have adjustments and comments from the council members and we would need to have those hopefully by the 19th so that everyone can be ready and prepared for the next year's budget. So with that I'm going to turn it over to the manager and that's there's something else that the council has had I'm sorry. We're going to do introductions thank you. All right let's start with our clerk. Billie Ton'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I one. Good evening, by Lyle's Mayor. Good evening, Malcolm Graham District 2. I'd drink District 7. All right. If you would introduce yourself. Of course it is Tijuana Brown. Charlotte City Council District 3. All right. All right. Julia Martin City manager of this. Okay, any other things that we need to do before we dive in? Very none. Mr. Jones, you have the floor. Thank you. Thank you Mayor and members of council. Julia and I were trying to count and we're counting on their fingers. And I guess that's not the best way to start a budget presentation. But we think this is the ninth budget presentation that provided to the City Council. So I'm pleased to begin the presentation. And I really want to start with FY 2024. We talked a bit about being at an inflection point in this community and trying to navigate how we could go about providing excellent services and to make sure that there's a cost effective to our residents. So in FY 2024, we talked a bit about whether we would be in the decline, be on the steady trajectory or even advance of the bid. And so by the time we got to FY 25, you did approve a 1.37 property tax increase with about .82 going to operating primarily public safety. Another .24 going to capital, really housing and mobility. And lastly, .31 going into arts and culture. I will tell you that in the current budget, what they allowed us to do, especially around the capital piece, is to have historic investments in our corridors and affordable housing as well as in transportation. So I'll start with the corridors, and I don't think the story has been told enough that it's really a five year journey starting off with some investments in the quarter. I believe it was $14.5 million in the CIP and $10 million in Pego back in 2020. And I just want to say that those investments over the years at $95.6 million has really pulled in for every dollar that the city is invested $1.71 in the private sector and federal grants. So really, we start to look at this not as $95.6 million of city investment, but $260 million in community investment over the last five years. I would be remiss if I didn't bring it with Angela. Charles says to me over and over again, she says, Marcus, don't leave out what's happening with infrastructure. So you take that same period of time, Charlotte Water has invested 396 million in the corridors and stormwater another 154 million. So $810 million invested in that corridors of opportunity. It was never the thought process that the city would do this alone. And the great news is that folks have come along with us. Also with that, property tax increase last year, we were able to do more in terms of the bond with the housing trust fund. What's important is if you look at the three bars, not quite to the far right before the blue bar, that's when the housing trust fund went up to 50 million. And so if you start to look at those bonds, that's 47% of all the units that have been constructed since the beginning of the housing trust fund back in 2002. And we just can't wait to see what we'll get out of the 2024 bond, which was $100 million in terms of affordable housing trust fund. It's a new approach instead of just having multi-family construction through the housing community safety committee in this council. You came up with new goals, economic mobility, neighborhood affordability and residential stability. And not just a focus on multi-family construction but home ownership. Natural occurring affordable housing, rehab and repair, shelter and supporting housing and collaboration. And then, just as important as the first two, the historical bond for transportation, $238 million, $123 million more than the highest one record, but it was not just roads, it is congestion mitigation, vision zero, sidewalks, and it's not just the sidewalks with $50 million and vision zero with $20 million, but it was a test, $55 million and what we call strategic investment areas. So let's think about the six quarters of opportunity and then overlay that with 16 additional areas where infrastructure is important. So what we did is took that $55 million and tested it into these strategic investment areas. And while this may seem simple, it's extremely important. A sidewalk that we identified in August, it was constructed by Janey River. But more importantly, it was the missing link between a bus stop and miles of existing neighborhood sidewalks. What we've learned from this test is in this project, we did it twice as fast and in half the cost. And mainly because we had 14 different departments working together as opposed to in silos. And these projects maximize connectivity, safety and accessibility. So we want to learn from that. We want to learn from these strategic investment areas and also create this team of teams approach with an organizational improvement team. So what we will be doing is focusing on how we can just be better in certain areas. How can we deliver exceptional customer service to our residents? Two, with no additional resources again, team of teams approach, we'll have Monica Allen that helps us create these teams as we go about looking in specific areas I will tell you that Allison Craig gotten out in front of us with the Charlotte Development Center and already is looking for opportunities to take these seven departments and provide enhanced services to the community we'll also have a focus on procurement and CBI. It's I am elevating, merging those two together, elevating them to their own, its own city department. So that we can have a focus on making sure that we are being a responsive to our community, but also responsive to the organization. So we'll continue on this path. And I think this is what's extremely important about this slide. No tax increase, no property tax increase is planned for FY26. I do want to take a look at the next two years though. There's a conversation going on in the community about once in sales tax for transportation and transit. If that occurs and we begin to collect revenue beginning next July, 2026, it has an impact on an overall budget and I'll explain that in a bit. If that doesn't occur, the stress that we have on the system would suggest that we need another revenue source and I'll explain to you that why I'm suggesting that. But then we move forward to FY 2028. It's a reval year and I had this conversation with you at the annual strategy meeting and I'll tell you I actually had this conversation with Councillor Remarter takes probably three three years ago at the last reviled that, and we won't go into detail, but you understand, for the most part, when you have to set the project tax rate at revenue neutral, you're not getting the growth that would match some of the inflationary purchase we have. So I just had these two boxes because decision points as we go forward and how do we continue on this path? We still need a revenue source for to match the growth But this council has positioned ourselves in a great place The last time I was here to present the budget we had not agreed to change us to the interlocal agreement so in June 2024 the members of the MTC agreed to to changes to the interlocal agreement. So in June 2024, the members of the MTC agreed to changes to the interlocal agreement. That allowed us, you, the opportunity to purchase the red line, which unlocked a conversation about the once in sales tax of this community is having. The enabling legislation was introduced in February of 2025 with enhancements to rail bus and roads. And then lastly, March 2025, the trans authority legislation was introduced also. So we're balancing the 2026 budget without a tax rate increase, without a property tax increase. At the retreat or the annual strategy meeting in January we talked about making sure that we are recovering our fee recovery accurately. So in other words we have a policy for 100 percent fee recovery and we're not always there with some of them. And then we're also our reducing expenditures. I will tell you that's drawing the belief that we are near the edge of what can be reasonable reductions without having an impact on the community. Much of this budget takes away some of the flexibility that the departments have, but maybe more importantly, some of the enhancements that the departments had are not funded in this budget. Okay, so all it continues to have the lowest total cost of government. We benchmark ourselves against the 12 largest cities in North Carolina. And we start to think about the total cost and that solid waste fee, water storm, water property tax, we continue to be the lowest in total cost of government. So even with the proposed sales tax increase in 2027, Charlotte would continue to be one of the lowest total costs of government would remain low. The sales tax increase with transportation still alleviates some of the stress in other budget areas. So let's do a couple of pictures. So basically we have three pods. We have our general fund, which funds basically, the services that we have as a city. We have a debt service fund that pays for some of the investments we have in the CIP and then we have pay go. And essentially we take the property tax and we take the sales tax. And if you want to call them levers, we pour some into one bucket and sum into the other. What's important about the sales tax for transportation is that's $102 million for the first year. And it's estimated to grow by 4% each year. So that's $5.7 billion over a 30-year period. That can go directly into that debt service budget bucket as well as the pay-go bucket which gives us more capacity to take some of the property tax and put it back in that general fund budget and that pays salaries for police officers for firefighters for the folks in the room. So again, while it's all about mobility, the way we've structured our budget, it just provides a summer leave on the general fund and with the property tax. And this 104 million is really worth about 11% of our general fund budget. However, the big thing is, let's move it away from the let's talk about how transformational this is. $5.7 billion over 30-year period. We started to think about our discussions over the last few years about our strategic mobility plan, 2000 projects across our entire community, but really no source to pay for them. $55 million if we had in the budget, it's a drop in the bucket and we've shown that it worked, that we can take a team of teams approach and we can deliver projects because if we can't deliver the projects, it's very difficult for the community to say, well let's give you additional resources to deliver them. So we've tested it. We believe that we're ready as a team if this comes to fruition. I think what's also important with the FY26 budget is just the principles. We want to make sure that we preserve course services. We have no layoffs in this budget. We wanted to maintain our reserves and invest in key council priorities. This process every year we analyze services and service delivery. We look at to increase the fever recovery rate, but maybe more importantly than anything else. It was just words years ago when we started to talk about breaking silos. And we talk about a horizontal organization. We are that. So this in the department collaborations we live for FY26 budget is structurally balanced. That means one time revenues associated with one time expenditures. And it's not only balanced in FY26, we always have a two year lens. So by June 30th of 2027, and in a two year lens, the budget will be balanced also. We don't take into account an FY27 and any policies decisions around compensation. But again, we don't want to create a problem in 27 as we build a 26 budget. It's a 5.2% growth in the budget, which is about 46.7 million additional funding. So it's not $143 million budget. Almost 70% is in those two sources I've been talking about. The property tax and the sales tax. And so as we went through the budget preparation process, the majority of these sources were I would call it green lights. We didn't see concerns, but two we do have concerns. One is sales tax and the other is a solid waste fee. So I'll start off with sales tax. Sales tax has typically grown at about 4.5%. I will tell you the last few years it's grown a whole lot more than that, but we would never budget that way. So FY25, it was 5.5% growth, FY24, 11.9% growth, FY23, 20.2% growth. So to start off with 4.5% growth in FY26 26 made sense. The reality is that growth is not there. It's about a two tenths of a percent and that's about a $6.5 million hit to the FY 26 budget. The Solid Waste Services fee, we talked about this in January and we talked about fee recovery. When we start to think about curbside, recovery is about 34%. So instead of trying to make a case to go from 34% recovery to 100% recovery, we're just trying to get to 50% recovery and do it over a four year period. So what that said over this four year period trying to get to a 50% recovery, we think that that will help us in terms of service evaluation, managing long term costs and aligning the fees to the service type. We want to talk just a little bit about how the budget was put together. So we start off with that $46.7 million in additional revenue. The reality is, and you have asked me over and over again, well, Marcus, what is it just to keep the lights on? So to keep the lights on is a combination where we call base adjustments, technical adjustments. And it goes anywhere from contractual increases to analyzing the costs of any salary increase to lease payments. And I will say the technical adjustments and the base adjustments were worth about 33.2 million. So it left us about $13.5 million for compensation increases. In a typical compensation increase is closer to $18 million. So we had to figure out how do we continue to provide core services, not layoff, any of our employees, but to also make sure we can compensate them too. I do wanna talk a little bit about some of the, through the technical adjustments that while it's not compensation, while it's not salary, it is compensation related. So outside of compensation, we have contributions to the elders, the retirement fund, which is general fund employees plus police, and that increased by 3.4 million. That's 100% on the city. We have our own fire retirement system, which we have challenges in. And I do believe that's a great referral we can have over the next, within this year, to make sure that that fund, which is the City of Charlotte's fund, is stable. That's again 100% employer contribution, $4.3 million more. And the healthcare fund, and that's employer and employee, about $4.5 million increase with that. What's important to note with this, which really helps the employees, over the past few years, all of the increases the city has absorbed and not necessarily pass any of the increases on to the employees, which is more typical that there's some cost sharing in the increase. So I would just say that those three alone were about 26% of the growth in the general fund expenditure side. Now we could have come in and said, well, how do you make up for that loss in sales tax? And basically for a quarter of a penny, a little bit more than a quarter of a penny, point two, seven. Props of tax increase would be worth 6.5 million. You get the stability back in the revenue stream and it's ongoing. We didn't do that because we believe that first we had to challenge ourselves and see what could we take out of the expenditure side. I'm not sure that all of my teammates are talking to me now, but what we did is we looked at adjustments to make sure we continue to provide core services and continue to have a salary increase. So there's almost 21 positions that we've taken out of this budget. Now, some of those positions are related to our enterprise resource system, the ERP system we're putting in place. We would have programmed those savings from those positions and deployed new positions to it in other areas that are important, but instead we cut them. And there are a number of vacant positions that we eliminated. I will tell you up front, the vacant positions may have been vacant for nine months. And we took them away. It didn't mean that they weren't important to the different departments. But we didn't have them filled. And if the principal was that we weren't going to lay anybody off, the first place to go would be those vacant positions. We also reduced contractual costs and cost recovery we had in alignment. So that was worth about 7.4 million more than what we lost in terms of the sales tax. Employees, backbone of our city, I think what's important is we're going to continue doing what has worked for us. I know the March numbers are a little bit different, but when we start, it's look at the February number for vacancies across all of the categories. Sal, read, hourly employees, police, fire, we got to single digits. And that's something I haven't seen since the pandemic. But we're going to continue with a 2.5% bump for having a CDL and it relates to your position. 2.5% bump for shift differential. I see somebody who's really instrumental shift differential in the room. And all access pass for air employees again about $30 year, that cats all access pass is valued at $2,100. So that's something available to all of our employees and we start to talk about how you impact the quality of life that allows you to have more money in your pocket. We offer more than a job. We're going to nearly double our education to employment, EE, 13 individuals. Graduates from high school came to work for the city, full benefits, full salary like anybody else. We're going to have a 28 this year and eight departments are participating. We continue to have apprenticeships. We have 200 employees that are engaged in our prepayment tuition. In other words, it's not that you have to take money out of your pocket. And then try to figure out how you get reimbursed. We trust our employees. We'll take the risk. We'll take the gamble. We're prepay tuition. What I'm really, really excited about is what we're doing around financial wellness and stability. We have an employee resource coordinator that is working with their employees. But we've also launched an employee rental assistance program. And we will launch the summer a low interest loan program for hardships for our employees. Just trying to make sure that people aren't taking advantage of our employees and we're taking care of home first. So we have a least of 3% increase for all employees. It's a little complicated, but I'll try to do it pretty quickly. So for our hourly employees, it's 4%, it's a combination of a 1.5% cost-delivered adjustment and 2.5% for merit. The general employees is a merit pool about 3%. What I'm super excited about, we're going to bump minimum pay up again this year. $24 an hour minimum pay for a 40 hour a week full-time employees. I'm like, we're stuck around that thing up to 50,000, but it's 80 bucks less than that, 49,920 per year for our lowest paid employees, and we'll keep working on that. We're committed to the step plan for police and fire. So they have a plan and we are funding the plan. Okay. And there's a series of steps and there's at some point you top out and when you top out what you get is the 1.5%. So what I am recommending is to add another 1.5% as a bonus so that no employee gets less than 3%. And the reason I say a bonus is because the bonus becomes one time as opposed to if we had a salary increase that's over and above the plan. It's more than with the plan says, but to be candid, we've been doing more than with the plan since the last few years. So one time resources that are available, 13.9 million is a 2024 surplus. The way that works, the surplus, not the next fiscal year, but the fiscal year after that, we put it into pay go, essentially all of it. After we've made sure that we've made our 16% reserve so this is nothing different than any other year so we take the 13.9 million we put it in a pay go for this upcoming budget and what are some of the things we do in pay go so all together it's about 68.9 million remember we we talked about the buckets and one of the buckets with pay go and how you deal with property tax and sales tax. So the 68.9 million about 41 million 42 million of it is under that well managed government and we spend about 25 million just on purchasing vehicles. We have to purchase vehicles. 6.1 million is to maintain our city-owned facilities. And then we have 3.6 million of the general fund to finish up this ERP system. It's kind of interesting. We're at the final leg of it. It's going to be more than we initially thought. But we're at the final leg of it. And once we have the ERP system fully implemented, I think by September this year, we're going to be able to do a whole lot more in terms of reporting. Safe communities, and I think this is extremely important. This is why we're trying to balance with this budget. There's 6.5 million in what we call safe communities. But 3 million in this FY26 budget is just for public safety radios. It's things that you have to do, cities, sometimes don't do it well. We're trying to adjust this is such a way that we do it well. And it's $11 million over five years for the public safety radios, which are extremely important. I work for some business development, 17 million, I will say 14.6 of that is for our cultural facilities. So again, pay go, we don't talk about it a lot, but there's a lot that's in pay go and surplus is from the year before, two years before, I used to fund that. So then we go, okay, so that's the one-time money, 13.9 million. There was 6.3 million ARPA interests. So in order to pay for the bonus, for the police and fire, individuals who had topped out, that bonus is 2.1 million. And I am recommending to take it from the ARPA interest and then don't touch it. So leave 4.2 million there And then after that this the ARPA revenue replacement that we have that's 5.3 million Did I'm not touching at all either? That leave that up to the council's discretion of how you may want to use that the only thing I would say all of these funds in this column are one-time in nature and they should be one Useful puts one-time in nature so prepare for the big opportunity. I hear it often And I like it when I hear it is you know the three-legged stool Good-paying job a place where you can live and the mobility back and forth and as well as the up and mobility in our community. So how do we prepare for it? The court votes of opportunity, as I mentioned earlier, $5 million that we programmed over two years FY25 and FY26. But then there's a lot of discussions about, well, what if you're not a court or? So what we're going to use is work with what we have in terms of our, as we started to do the community area plans, 14 of those, set us out of million dollars, so that in these areas, certain things can be tested too. So if we have this opportunity for more revenue, that they're not at a disadvantage because we've had time to prepare for the courtors. That becomes exciting. At the annual strategy meeting, we brought in experts from across the country, and we talked about mobility investments in two important places, small business and workforce development. So I want to make sure that what we can utilize from what we learned around the strategic investment areas in being able to implement and do things faster at lower costs. Can we prepare small businesses and can we prepare the workforce for this transformational mobility revenue that's coming in? So with the small businesses, if you add all the stuff, it's almost $3 million. We had a conversation today in the Jobs and Economic Development Committee. We have lessons learned from the blue line. We have lessons learned from the blue line extension. We have lessons learned from the gold line. But we can do better. And so what we'll do is figure out what those opportunities are and get these small businesses prepared for those opportunities. You know, even though I talked about, you know, just for the city, the 5.7 billion, you look at the entire plan we bring in federal funds too, it's almost $25 billion over 30 years. The other thing is workforce development. We have a workforce development strategy. It's the time to make sure that we have people prepared for the jobs that are associated with this transformational investment. So there's almost $3.5 million to the side of that. So again I believe we get this right, which we will get it right. It's a great opportunity for us to address mobility needs in our community. What's new in this budget, we're going to double down on our future. So in this budget, we're recommending that we establish an office of youth opportunities. So if you start to think about what's happening with youth in the city, we have CMPD that has programs. We have Housing and Neighborhood Services that has programs. We have community relations department that has programs. Let's pull those programs together with one mission to promote economic opportunity and positive youth development. And so it's not going to cost us anymore. It is just literally being more aligned and we're going to bet on Rebecca Hepner being able to pull this all together with the data-driven approach. We'll keep seeking opportunities for collaboration and efficiency with all of our partners, the county, the private sector, the philanthropic community. On the short term, we have to get the Medi-. The Solid Waste Recovery, we've talked about the four-year plan. But also in the midterm, there is the Solid Waste Contract that aspires in 2028. What can we do around permitting? What can we do around economic development? What can we do around affordable housing? So it's also important to remember that we serve this region through aviation, cats and water and these are all the highest rated companies or enterprises that exist. So we have the highest ratings. This council has given great guidance and we're providing exceptional services. It wouldn't be a budget presentation without talking about fees. The Solid Waste Services fee, even with trying to get to 40% in this next year, 5% in the four year period, goes up $10 and three cents for the year. that's a monthly increase of $135. Order is a monthly increase of $5.47 and Strong Order is a monthly increase of $0.67. So monthly increase for all of those that's $7.49. Last is a mention before. $5.3 million in a reserve for the council as it relates to some of the ARPA replacement dollars. This is a $3.6 billion budget. It's come down a bit because this is not a bond year and the same concept with some of our enterprise funds and some of the death that they would have. But a $3.6 billion budget across all funds. I want to thank the team Charlotte. I want to thank Marie Harris and the budget team and Teresa Smith, CFO. And whatever presents you as a structurally balanced budget. It's yours. We're here to assist in any way that you want us to assist. The mayor mentioned earlier, the May 12th, the public hearing, the 19th Budget of the Justice, the 29th of May straw votes, and June 9th of the Budget of the adoption. I appreciate the opportunity to present the budget you. And we're here to work for you just like every other day. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Jones, for the effort. I want to say thank you to every person that is a part of this great city and this great organization and how much we all love and respect you. Having those opportunities that do the things that you make possible for us. So I know usually we just get the fake book and Marie is passing them around now. I hope that we'll have a good opportunity to showcase with technology or things that we can do to get the community engaged in this process as well. So it's not just the council that would look at this budget and say how do you feel about it, but all of our community leaders and people that work with us in this respect, I hope that they'll be able to step up as well. I don't believe that we are going to have any particular questions right away. I think if we read through the budget, we will be ready by May 12th to be going this direction. So comments or questions? Mr. Johnson Thank you Madam Mayor and thank you for the presentation It is an honor to serve the city and Thank you for the work that you do Can we go back to slide well 27? If possible. Okay. So slide 27. like the revenues are $943 million. Okay, but that's not total revenue for the city. What bucket is that? That's's just the general fund when you add all the funds together it becomes 3.6 billion. Okay So do we have a list of all of those fun totals? Is that anywhere in the budget? Including the hospitality fund. Is that anywhere in the in the budget? Yes, it is in the budget. And I believe that during the annual strategy meeting, we had a breakdown of all those two, so we can make sure we get that to you again. Okay, and not just me, just for the public, to be able to see, to take a look at, and see what it is that we're reviewing. Also, you said $25 million federal match for the transportation or the sales tax federal match. What was that amount? No, so the thanks were asking. So over 30 years, the once in sales tax is estimated to get about 19.4 billion. And so you pull down almost another five billion from the federal government. And that's what I mean by the almost $25 billion opportunity. OK, thank you. Is there a plan B? We know there's a lot of changes with the federal government right now. Sure. Is there a plan B or just sure or do we anticipate any changes or problems with the federal match? Sure. So let's just assume that there was no ones in sales tax even discussed. We've talked about this for some time that we have our infrastructure needs and so the infrastructure needs if there's sales tax, is actually the property tax. And so if you start to think about it, what would be the tension for lack of a bed of word or what would be the opportunities to raise the property tax at a particular level that the residents would feel fine with to take care of our own infrastructure needs so well before the transportation plan, we talked about sidewalks, we talked about roads, we talked about lighting vision zero. So I would try to decouple them. We have 2,000 projects that we need to find a funding source for and it just seems that having the sales tax makes a lot of sense. Because one, it's immediate and about 30%. I would come some people who don't live in Mecklenburg County. Thank you. I'm sorry, one more thing I want to say. Congratulations on the work for the city employees. That CPC, that program we've talked about this before when I worked in Ohio, yeah, my employer paid for community college. So I got my first degree through a program like that. And when you get that, if you're a non-traditional student, when you get that associate degree, it's very motivating. So I want to want to get two more after that. So it's an important program. I'd love to see the minimum wage, and I think we're responding to the needs of the city. So thank you for that work. Thank you. Thank you Madam Mayor. I know we're not gonna ask very specific questions this evening, but thank you for the presentation and a great job. I just have one question about the timeline. I forget the last slide, but I just wanted to make sure the, I think, I believe this straw votes on May 29th. I don't know, I know that's during a holiday week. I just want to make sure that we have enough council members able to participate. And if we don't, if we have some flex room on that. But I believe that is Memorial Day week, isn't it? I think it's the Tuesday. Is it not Thursday? Thursday. It's right. Okay. Okay. Just it's attached to you know my world for some folks take Thursdays when it's a holiday weekend and make it a longer weekend. So I just want to make sure that we have council members around so So that we'll have the right level of engagement for that. And just that there's another high level comment, not I don't know, we're not taking lots of questions. But when you talked about on slide 43, the intergovernmental piece and working together, I would love this piece right here, which I think is fantastic for preparation for our transformational mobility plan. I would just love for us to think about CMS and how CMS could play a part in the preparation for those jobs and apprenticeships, et cetera. So I'll just leave my high level comment to that point. Thank you, City Manager, fantastic job, NT. All right, we'll have another recognition from Council Member Eshmira. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Mr. Manager, great job on the presentation. No property tax increase while making significant investments, especially in our small businesses, recruiting and retaining the best talent that we have, and absorbing the inflation cost. As we know, there is market pressure, whether it's through inflation tariffs, and to see that we have found ways to reduce the cost while absorbing that. I think that speaks tremendous to the financial leadership of yours as well as the budget team that we have for the city. It's a great model for other cities and municipalities to follow, not just in the state but in the nation. I'd be interested in a couple of things that I will say for our budget adjustment meeting. Number one, animal care and control. I know that we had allocated capital budget last year. I'm sure that it's somewhere in the budget book and I will study this almost 800 pages in next coming weeks. But it would be helpful to get an update on where we are. Are we seeing the course on what we had approved it previously? I think it's more than fair and something as high levels. I should have mentioned it's probably was in my notes tonight. So yes, we continue to have the facility in our plan. Maybe more importantly, as a part of this proposal, it's one of efficiencies. I'm proposing we move animal care and control from CMPD and move it over to general services. General services runs facilities, and there are some efficiencies there with the back office. So that's another recommendation that's proposed is to move and what care control. Now things important because that's about 90 positions and I didn't want you to look at the budget book and say, oh, CMPD is only growing by 0.5%, it's because we've moved so large of a function out of CMPD. Well that's great to hear. I think that is to Ms. Councilwoman Johnson's point. We are responding to community's needs. We've heard loud and clear from various animal care and control. Animal care advocates about the move as well as increasing the capacity. So that's great to hear while also responding to our works who have asked for increased in hourly pay, especially our hourly workers. So I appreciate the work and the investments that you have presented in this budget. That's all I have. All right. Thank you very much. Mr. Jones, I don't know how to say this more than, but I think that you've probably done a pretty good job on an eighth year. So on this budget and we're looking forward to it. I want everyone in the community to be aware of it, that we should be putting this out as much as we possibly can so that people have the ideas that they can come back, especially when we have the public hearing on the 12th. Please take a look and be cognizant of anything. There's a lot of information here, but also a lot of information that I believe is really important to our future and what we're going to do and achieve. So with that, do we have any other comments? All right, Ms. Molina. Thank you, Madam Mayor. First off, it's my colleague here. She said, I need the fifth of May and sinkily my own. It's like, I knew it was the fifth. I did know it was the bit. So it's more of an American holiday than it is. It's definitely a Mexican-American celebration. It's a celebration. It's not Independence Day. It's often mistaken for Independence Day, but Cinco de Mayo's the Battle of Puebla. That was in Mexico, but again, it's Mexican-American, but it's good though, because we get to eat good food and celebrate in America. And, you know, yeah, get some tacos, as people continue to say, but Mr. Manager, thank you for an outstanding job. I think that there were many things that stood out to me in this presentation, but I have to agree with Councilwoman Johnson, you know, the implementation for our employees and us being the leaders in the PAC, right? We have taken on the conversation around workforce development and we're leading by example. And I think for you to structure that in our budget to say that we're not only standing behind it from an implementation standpoint, but we're leading with our own employees by paying them a competitive wage, allowing for learning opportunities that would potentially over time increase their wages. It says a lot about where we stand as an organization and I'm proud to stand behind that. Additionally, I think when we talked about what we talked about in the jobs and economic development committee this morning with regards to the federal matches from multiple federal organizations. And I think it's really important to note that there is some uncertainty, right? We all hear it on the national stage, of course, we're municipal leaders. We do what we can from a municipal space, but knowing that we have those strategic alignment opportunities as far as grants are concerned to kind of extend our reach, so to speak, to provide additional resources to our community members. And I think I saw like Mr. Chairman correct me if I'm wrong, like four buckets today when we were talking about, I think that was the TAP committee too, but we were talking about the different buckets of money that would be in addition to what we're offering from the city's perspective to extend our region. I think even those strategies, and it's just so much the scope, so I would encourage our community members to take a deeper dive, a deeper look because these are inter-departamental budgets is what I've noticed right from everything from our C app to just, and not remiss, we're talking about the implementation of a, we keep using this acronym about a complete computer, an ERP, it stands for Enterprise Resource Planning System. So it actually allows all 14 departments to talk about projects and baselines and we become more efficient where we're not planning in two different departments for something that would, we wouldn't be spending double money. We are going to save money, we'll save time. There will be more efficiency, more communication between departments. It brings us up to speed from an information and technology standpoint. So so many things, I think once we even achieved that, we could see some budget, some budgetary differences over time. So I mean doing. I'm doing a lot of different things that I'm doing. I'm doing a lot of different things that I'm doing. I'm doing a lot of different things that I'm doing. I'm doing a lot of different things that I'm doing. I'm doing a lot of different things that I'm doing. I'm doing a lot of different things that I'm doing. I'm doing a lot of different things that I'm doing. your hard work and your commitment and dedication to doing what you do best. You know, a lot of times as I come in and last year I didn't have a clue. You know what was going on. But you took the opportunity to explain and work with me on the budget and help me understand it. So from my perspective, I like the fact that you listen to the people and you let the people champion the budget. A lot of times people on council seem to think they can do your job, but I beg the differ. I don't think that they can. And that's why you're in that position. I would love to see more of the budget as it is aligned with the people in the community and what their concerns and their needs are. You do an amazing job with putting it together. This is 800 pages or so? I don't, no, is it 800? Anybody know the pages or something? We have a budget in brief. We always provide that. Okay? Okay, so it was thick last year. I didn't read all of it for people transparency. And I won't be reading all of it this year. We're a team. And so I will be relying on truth and transparency, relying on colleagues to come together. There's certain parts I look for. I look for the people's budget. I look for people to reach out to me and send emails. Tell me what they would like to hear. We have date set up here for the budget schedule. I'd like for people to show up. 400 pages of what you do best in your staff. And then I still have community meetings. I have to show up in another capacity because this is a part time job over the, although we don't work part time hours. It's a part time job. So I've, other commitments and other obligations. So I love to see when we have people that champion budget like the people's budget like hearing from the animal shelter advocates and things like that hearing from the animal shelter advocates and things like that, hearing from the city employees that send us emails and tell us what they're looking for specifically. So if I tell you that I'm going to read 400 pages, I'm not going to tell you that because I'm not going to do it. But you know, I will look for people to champion different areas and move it forward. I thank you so much for bringing forth what you do. I'll look over it. But to say I'm going to master 400 pages. I'm not going to say that in this on public record. I'm not going to say that and that's on public record. I'm not going to do it. I didn't do it last year. But I will be looking for people constituents to share their concerns. And I'm always open to listening to the community needs and what they move to advocate those and move those for it. But again, thank you for being the expert in that area. And I look for the people that depend on me the most to come with me like I did last year and share what their concerns and their needs are for this budget. So we can move the agenda forward. Thank you so much. All right. Mr. Graham. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Mr. Manjra, I too want to lend my voice to my colleagues around the table in terms of the preparation of the budget and compliments to you and the whole finance team that does a really, really tremendous job in terms of ensuring that our community, not only by meeting the needs of the budget but in the community, but being able to forward it and working throughout finances. What doesn't get a lot of attention, you just highlighted tonight was really the three enterprise divisions that comprise within the budget aviation cats and water. Certainly, that does a tremendous job providing services normally for the city, but also for the region and just the aviation itself and what's going on over there. The infrastructure improvement, the ability to work with a live variety of stakeholders that make the region. The regional asset, the airport, as well as our cat system. I think one of the best in the country, and certainly we're moving in that direct direction with all those enterprise funds. So I think that's something that tends to get overlooked in the budget because it kind of stands on its own. But I just wanted to highlight that. And also highlight the fact that if you come to work for the city of Charlotte, your base salary is basically $50,000. And so there's a lot of conversation about affordability and with the city's paying its employees and our reach. But things that we control from this day is I think we've trying to put our money where I'm out this in terms of trying to create an environment where affordability for those who work for the city, it's achieved. And I think that's a, you're coupled with $50,000 with the continuing education, the other perks that are in the budget. It gives a long ways and then lastly, and I'll be quiet. Just the youth engagement. We talked a lot about that earlier last year in terms of trying to identify opportunities for youth in our community in terms of getting them away from crime and violence, amplifying resources for them. I think this is a step in the right direction by consolidating all the departments that kind of engage you into one umbrella. I'm almost certain that Rebecca can deliver on that, but it certainly does go a long way in terms of putting a spotlight on that and putting resources with it, not additional resources, but additional time and additional eyeballs. I think that's really, really important. So I look forward to getting into the budget all 800 pages. And there was a great executive summary that's helpful every year. That's not quite as thick and cumbersome, but the executive summary certainly works. And it's really detailed in its own self. So I look forward to reviewing it and as Council Member Brown said, I think every council member has a particular interest where you kind of go look for that particular page. And so we are a team and hopefully we can make sure that all 800 pages, someone's eyeballs has reviewed it and give you and the staff and the community the response of feedback is necessary. Look forward to the public hearing on May 12th. Mr. Jones, thank you again for the teamwork. Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Driggs. So brief comment tonight. I think we need to appreciate that we are now talking over a two or three here horizon in terms of our plans for the future. This is not an ordinary year on year incremental budget. So there's some issues in there that I look forward to discussing in more detail. Should emphasize too though, right at the front under the cover page is a distinguished budget presentation award that the city received in July 21, 2024. And this is the same quality of work. And we also need to recognize, I think, that yes, the manager, the finance staff, and in fact, the preparation of the budget goes way down into the departments. And a huge number of people participated in submitting requests or working out their numbers and then getting them worked into this budget. It is a 450 page document, but most of it is reference. So if you look at some of the tables and so on, you get a feel for the aggregate. And that's really what it is. You can spend an hour or two with this and get a good feel for where we're going. And then anything you want to know, how many employees in this department, it's all broken out. The disclosure in the document is amazing, but you don't have to absorb it all in order to understand its thrust. So, wonderful piece of work as usual, congratulations. Thank you very much. I, one of again, say Mr. Jones, congratulations, and our next step is to recognize Councilmember James Mitchell, who has already gotten his budget and he's ready to go. We would, I'd also like to have a recommendation, I mean, call on our attorney for a motion for a closed session. Mr. Fox. Yes, ma'am. Mayor of the City Council, I request a closed session, and the motion should be to go in the closed session. Pursuant to North Carolina General Statute Section 143-318-11A3 to consult with the city attorney to preserve the attorney's client privilege. That should be the motion. All right. We have a motion on the floor. Do I have a motion? So moved. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Yes, I have a question? So moved. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Yes, I have a question. All right, yes. So does that mean we're adjourning this meeting? No. So we're going to come back after the closed session to adjourn. You can adjourn in closed session, or you can come back out. OK, fine. OK. The action is taken. So is that all in favor of the closed session? raise your hands, anyone opposed? All right, thank you very much. If we'll have. So is that all in favor of the closed session raise your hands? Anyone opposed? All right, thank you very much if we'll have all of our folks that I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm sorry. Oh Thank you.