Thank you. you 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 sorryynan. Here. Councilmember Lincoln. I'm here. And Councilmember Romero. President. Councilmember Abrika did not mention that he was going to be absent today, today but here. And councilmember Romero. President. A councilmember of Brickard did not mention that he was going to be absent today, but he is not currently here, but you do have a corn mayor. I think he's upstairs. He's present. He'll be a little late. Yes, he'll be coming in shortly. So I think we're going to go ahead and get started with our meeting then. If you could please remind us James of our translation services please. Absolutely. So if you would like to listen to the Spanish portions of this meeting usually at public comment, please use the interpretation feature located at the bottom of your screen by clicking on the globe icon and selecting English as your preferred language. There will be interpreters available. Thank you, James. So I'm going to go on to item number two, which is approval of the agenda. All in favor, or yes. Yes, sorry, the motion. Okay. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Moving on to item three approval of the consent calendar. Do we have any? This is no consent calendar. Okay, no consent calendar. Okay. No closed session, which is item four. We're going to go on to public comment, which is item number five. At this time, we're accepting public comment. I've seen, seen on mayor. Okay, perfect. Moving on to item six, which is in informational reports. Do we have any tonight? Nope. Okay. So we're moving on to item number seven special presentations. Do we have some tonight? Nope. Okay, moving to item number eight. Public hearing 8.1, the fiscal year 2025 26 proposed budget session hearing number one. And I believe this is by Mr. Tomo. Yes, thank you Mayor Baragon. This presentation will be Finance director Tomo Okoo will give the majority of the presentation on the background. However, I wanted to start off with an initial message that I'll try to keep brief. Ultimately, I'm pleased to present this recommended fiscal year 2526 budget for your review and input. This budget reflects our commitment to fiscal responsibility, organizational efficiency, and alignment with your strategic priorities, even as we navigate a complex economic environment. For example, the broader economy continues to evolve nationally in 2024. we saw modest growth with a 2.8% increase in gross domestic product and interest rates holding near 5%. The housing housing market remained stagnant and federal spending reductions add uncertainty to our economic picture. Locally, East Palo Alto continued fiscal challenges. We have rising service demands, which outpace our limited resources. Our revenue streams like property taxes, measure JJ allocations and Tee elections show limited or no growth, while the VLF backfill remains uncertain. As a result, we're projecting a general fund structural deficit of $2.1 million for next fiscal year. Given these constraints, the budget you'll be hearing about, or that you've seen in your packet, is a conservative, straightforward budget. It's not thrilling. There's no frills. It's pretty vanilla. Dry, as some say. But we're prioritizing our core services and high-impact projects that are already in progress. Our reserves remain healthy, but we still have a structural deficit that's not sustainable long-term. Due to that we must have strategic restraint as well as make strategic investments for our future. Despite the fiscal pressure we continue investing in infrastructure that benefits residents, cultivates economic activity, and improves service delivery including water system upgrades, storm drain upgrades, street improvements, park improvements, as well as investments in a new library, city hall, and police station. These projects are critical to building a resilient and financially stable future. The total proposed budget is 60.3 million in expenditures with 77.1 million in projected revenues, yielding a 16.8 million dollar citywide surplus that's driven mainly by capital and enterprise funds. The general fund remains in a deficit, so we've kept staffing expansions minimal. This budget does not include any new full-time ongoing positions, but it does include three continuing limited-term positions. Today, when a department's present, you'll also hear, well, today when community development presents, you'll hear about, and when public works presents on the 27th, you'll hear about two additional positions. One being a maintenance worker and the other being a housing specialist, which will present these during a budget presentations, but they are projected to have minimal impacts on the general fund. They'll be funded by enterprise funds and are restricted housing funds. But these positions are ultimately why they weren't included in the proposed budget. I think they are worth the council strongly considering given their limited impact to the general fund and their ability to help the city better address matters like illegal dumping, housing production, and housing preservation. This budget also is supports the emerging strategic priorities for fiscal year 2025 through 2029, focusing on public safety, housing, infrastructure, and civic engagement. We are constrained and launching new initiatives, but we've also preserved funding for ongoing high-impact projects. Staff are currently assessing the resource needs for new council priorities with a recommended work plan, which will be presented to you all on June 3rd. This budget also marks a key milestone of integrating the East Palatol Sanitary District as a subsidiary district. It's budget is structured as a standalone enterprise fund ensuring transparency and alignment with city processes. The EASPAL the EPA SD Advisory Committee will review the proposed EPA SD budget on June 22nd and the EASPAL the EPA SD Board or City Council will review it on June 27th. In conclusion, I want to take the time to thank City staff, particularly the finance department, under Director O'Koo's leadership and Bokyung Kim's leadership as well. Thank them for their preparation working with all the different city departments and divisions to prepare these budgets, checking the numbers multiple times and Helping us to develop a budget that ultimately is balsanced. I also want to thank you all city council for your ongoing leadership and support and With that I would like to Pass it to mr. Okoo Is it okay? I just wanted to briefly make an I'm an announcement, I guess. We are trying to make it out tonight by 9 o'clock. So if we could please limit our presentations to 10 to 12 minutes. And then the council comments or questions to five each, I think that would be good because we also have a gem packed agenda. Thank you. Thank you Melvin for the introduction and good evening mayor council members and member of public. This is the first budget session proposing fiscal year 2025, when is six budget. And this is going to be followed by the second session on May 27th and an adoption hearing on June 17th. So today's presentation, we focus on the partner and presentation. But before we jump into the department presentation, I'd like to provide a big picture and then budget capacity for the proposed budget. So you can stop me anytime if you have any question during the presentation. Next slide please. Yeah, so this is agenda for my product presentation. The first I'd like to talk about the key considerations and budget highlights for the fiscal year 2526 budget that I'd like to counsel to take into account during these budget sessions. And second, I talk about the right budget overview. It's a big picture. And next, General Fund funding structure. So I basically want to talk about the General Fund revenue sources know core services that funded through those revenue because we have you know two new council members so this is a good information for them. And general fund budget deficits of course I'd like to talk about that and you know I'm I'm gonna deep, deep dive into the general fund revenue and expenditures. And reserve status. So I talk about available reserves by various fund types. And strategic priority funding. I talk about funding status of new walk plans from the City Council strategic priorities. And lastly, I will talk about I'd like to explain proposed budget documents. I have to attachment on the staff report and then I want to explain those documents. Next type, please. So key consideration for 25, 26 budget. So I like to talk about important considerations and budget highlights in development of this proposed budget. The first of all, as Melvyn mentioned, we have two million dollars deficit in general fund. And this deficit, as you all know, not one time. So general fund structure of deficits, I want to talk about that in detail, what's causing the deficit. And the deficits is basically the annual results. But we have accumulated reserve. And I'd like to talk about that and strategic priority funding. So this is a new item, new course allocation studies. So the city is in progress of this COS allocation study with the user fee study. And previous study was conducted in fiscal year 1920, so it's been five years, and then that's the best practice in this industry. This is still like draft allocation, but I'm using that draft numbers as of now. And it's, we are planning to finalize it on June 17th, same adoption date of budget. This is important because this new co-salt location study provides saving to general fund through overhead distribution to various funds. And lastly, EPA budget is incorporated in the department of budget. We are, yeah, so if the financial finances are accounted in a single enterprise fund and if the budget will be presented on May 27th and adapted to be adapted on June 17th on the board. I mean, by the board. Next slide, please. This is the citywide budget. It's a big picture. Malvin briefly mentioned, we are projecting 70, 7.1 million dollars CitiW dollars citywide revenue which is 3.7 million dollars less than a previous adapted budget. And we are projecting about 60.3 million dollars citywide expenditure generating about 16.88 million net surplus. The takeaway here is the Genofon deficit. Other than Genofon, we have surpluses and we recommend Council to use the reserve money to balance the budget for $2.1 million. Next slide, please. So this chart shows the general funds sources in percentage. So this is, I guess, the first time I present it, but this tells a lot of things. So the most important takeaway is the top three revenue. So 70% of general fund revenue come from these three sources, property tax, full 50%, 12-tax 15%, and TOT, which is basically the hotel tax, full 6%. Next slide, please. So now this chart shows what city course services are funded through the general fund revenue. So, let's see. So nearly 60% of the tax money are used to keep the city clean and safe, meaning, you know, public, I mean, police department, basically providing the public safety, public works, 16% is basically maintenance and engineering, cleaning the street, you know, constructing the safer streets. Next slide slide please. This chart shows that a city's general expenditure by type. So the running of city business or providing a municipal core services depends on Mount Power or Labor. So as you can see, 60% of the expenditure is coming from wages and benefits. And we go the previous slide. You know, 60% of general fund expenditure come from police and public works. Because, you know, our people, you know, our actual employee go out to the street and parks to make sure the city is clean and safe. Next slide, please. So I'd like to emphasize this general fund budget deficit of $2.1 dollars. So we have about 130,000 in the previous year's adaptive budget. And I want to explain here how the deficit grew to 2.1 million dollars from hundred thirty thousand dollars. So as you can see the red in a font means a negative impact. And green means a positive impact. So first of all, we have a new loss of 1.3 million dollars. This is a net loss from Major JJ, which a voter approved in November 2024. So basically Major JJ risked the general general business license tax from land load to the housing purposes. So that's a 1.3 million dollars net loss because we are projecting about $1.6 million revenue and 20% of the revenue can be used for administrative purposes. Next negative impact is a personal cost increase. So we are projecting about 1.1 million dollars increase in wages and benefits. And I talk about the self-stacks revenue decline during the mid-year budget. We are experienced about 900,000 dollars revenue decline in self-doc. So now turning to our positive side. So previous year, General Fund adopted budget included 1.1 million dollars capital transfer. So this year there is no transfer. is recorded so. So we have $1 million saving in Genofund. And additional saving of $1.7 million from new co-sallocation plan. I think current plan saves about $900,000 in Genofund. And this new aquas allocation study indicates that we will have about saving of 2.6 million dollars. So we have about 1.7 million dollars saving compared to the prior adaptive budget. Again, but this is still draft and then it's planned to be adopted on June 17th. So both prior year and a current year budget experienced 2.4 million dollars and 2.5 million dollars property taxing due of the left shortfall respectively. So there's no, I guess difference between previous year adaptive budget and current proposed budget for the VLF show for. So that means, and also we are not including potential backfill from the state. State has been reimbursing the show for the past three years since we started the show for. But in this budget, we are not including that expected a show for backfill of 2.4 million dollars. So if- Tom, Tom, when was the last time the state reimburse star VLF? I mean, it wasn't in last year's budget. They're in budget session right now. They have not included it in this year's budget. And if I recall correctly, the last time we got money was for 2022, correct? That's correct. Yes. So we, so it's been three years, right? That we've not received any reimbursement. It's not, it didn't show up on the budget because, okay, first of all, the show for that backfill that we received was for the show for came from fiscal year 22, a 21-22. And that came in August of 2024. So because of the revenue recognition, we included that show for in the fiscal year 23-24 aquifer. So we received that 22-23. I mean, I'm sorry, uh, aquifer. So we just we received a 2223. I mean, I'm sorry, 21, 2022, uh, sure for in 2324. Right. But those were much different state budget years. What I'm saying is that there's no one up, I mean, everybody is up hat in hand in Sacramento right now trying to get at least a portion of the money that's been cut. I mean, there's a deficit. So I don't, I mean, it looks like we haven't received any VLF since 2022 or for the 2022 year. And in previous budgets, there has been no money available like, hey, we're going to backfill on the VLF. So I think it's it's pretty safe to say we ain't going to get no VLF. Yeah I'm sorry I misspoke so we received the showboard came from Fiscal Year 2323. I mean 2223 in 2324 Fiscal Year. So we are anticipating the backfill came from the show for in 2324 and 2425 this fiscal year. So I'm anticipating the backfill for 2324 coming in this fiscal year, this August or later, but depending on the timing, it's going to go into the this fiscal year aquifer or next year's aquifer. But you're right, it's not guarantee. So have we heard from from NOSMEN through through the through the chair. So as a clarification, last year, the state budget included the VLF backfill. However, that they did not include the VLF backfill in their proposed budget or they may revision. But in the final budget approved by the governor on July 1, the VOLF backfill was included. And we shared that information via email with the council, but Tomo just explained that that amount, which I don't recall from the top of my head, was budgeted to the last fiscal year's budget because of the point when we received it. Your question asks to whether a Nosman has let us know, no, we don't have a clear picture of whether or not it will be included in the final budget. In the meeting that I have, what the San Mateo County City managers, the county executive says that he thinks it will be put in there, but it's still not certain. Thank you. Thank you for gratification. Yes, so we are not we are anticipating the 2.4 million dollars backfill, but we didn't include this 2.4 million dollars in this budget. So if we receive the backfill, then this one time deficit is going to be resolved. But it's not guaranteed. And then they're risk because we have to ask the backfill every year. It's the we need that that's like the fix. If I could just add a just additional context in that I've spoken to a number of my peers and other cities and a number of other cities do what we do which is not budget it and then receive a pleasant surprise when it is received some communities have taken a point of budgeting half of the anticipated VLF backfill we are a little bit more conservative here because in the event event that we don't have it, we don't want to be dependent on those. Next slide, please. So again, this $2 million deficit is not one time thing. So the deficit is structurally caused and what I mean by that is basically expenditure growth is outpacing the revenue growth. And looking at the revenue, most of our revenue sources have reached their peak. So recall that three major taxes, property tax, self-tax and TOT revenue. So the property tax, you know, taxable property assessed value group is pretty low. We have about 7.9 percent in the past 10 years in average but we are a a project, I mean, we have actually the document from the county that we have only 3.99% and 2.39% in fiscal year 24 and fiscal year 25 respectively. And again, so staff revenue are in a flap or no growth since fiscal year 2019 and TOT has no growth since pre-pandemic time. But on the other hand, personal costs have been growing steadily. you know, we have, you know, remember the previous slide, 60% of the total revenue, a total general fund expenditure consists of personal cost. And the personal costs are increasing in the average of 6.8% every year for the past five years. So you can see in this image, the difference between expenditure and revenues are getting wider and wider. Next slide, please. So in addition to the, you know, flattened revenues and the rising personal cost, they're following risk factor. That's exacerbating structural deficits. So, first of all, again, property tax in the U of B andF show full. We have 2.5 million dollars and there's no legislative fix for now. And you know, luck in the revenue diversity. Remember, we have, you know, 70% coming from the top three taxes, property tax, sales tax, and TOT. And looking at the sales tax, we have two big, you know, giant retailers. And, you know, TOT, we have only one hotel. And also we have different infrastructure improvements issue. And also we have delay in taxable development. Because of infrastructure constraints delay in RBD, a specific plan development and changes in real estate market. Next slide, please. This table shows the general fund revenue by sources. This is more in detail. So I'm gonna just highlight big changes. So an important changes. So property tax growth is only 388,000, which is about 2.2% increase. And as I mentioned earlier, we are losing about 1.5 million dollars spin license tax from major JJ. And sorry, back to the sales tax, we are compared to the mid-year's projection. We are, I mean, the sales tax revenue is decreasing about 200,000 dollars. It's due to the inflation, the know, the target departure and then changing consumer behavior. And this, I guess, phenomenon is not only to our city and it's a statewide. Next slide, please. So this table shows the general fund expenditure by department. I am not going to the detail because each department is going to present their own budget. And then if you like to see why these highlighted numbers are caused, I mean the highlighted variances are caused, you can go to the page 11 of the agenda. But briefly explained, so city managers office has 1.71 million dollars increasing the budget compared with the previous years adopted, because they have really a lot of plans to undertake the new initiative. And the community and the economic development has 1.8 million dollars decline in the budget compared to prior year because prior year we have building inspection and staff augmentation contracts, anticipating a big development project are coming in. And police department has an increase of 1.1 million dollars, but this is due to the wage and benefits. So looking at the structure of the police department expenditure, about 70% is coming from the personal cost. And, you know, we carry the result from the previous union agreement. And the increase is about 7% and the align with the increase in the personal cost. And then the last year overhead allocation, this is coming from the new cost allocation study. As I said, we have about saving 1.7 million dollars compared to the previous study in general fund. Next slide please. So this table shows that reserve status, specifically for the restricted fund. So these reserves are restricted for certain purposes. So I think one number that I wanted to clarify is the 2.6 million dollars capital project. This is coming from the impact fee that we are projecting and you know impact fee is restrictive for the capital purposes. And if you'd like to see more detailed level of the reserve information, you can go to attachment one of the staff report. And also it's in the booklet that we provided. Next slide please. I have a question. So for the CIP funds, is that what project is that from the impact fees? I don't recall my head, but I think the impact fee that we collected, we are going to focus from, I think, Woodland Park. And maybe someone can know the large development project that we are expecting. I think that's on this slide that's showing it's discussing the 2.618 million, is that what you're talking about? Council member? Yeah, yes, that's what I'm talking about. Oh, I'm sorry. So yeah, this is this is coming from the So this is I'm sorry, so I should have said this. This is the projected reserve as of June 30, 2025 So the impact fee revenue that we are anticipating in this fiscal year. So I think mainly coming from nine sixty five weeks for the housing project. So that's on the next slide. The projected are now. Sorry. Yeah, next slide. Oh. Yeah, next slide, please. So. Yeah, next slide, please. So, so go go go back. The title is off. Is it committed funds balance for? Yes, one. Yes. Yeah, so this table shows the project reserve as of June 30 for committed fund balance. And we have, you know, carpers be funding for three million dollars. I give reserve for 3.7 million vehicle equipment reserve for 900, almost 1 million.-insurance reserve for 2 million. I'd like to break down this capital project, Community Fund Balance. So, first of all, Community Fund Balance is restricted by the council by formal actions. So these are all So, committed by the council, not the external parties, and you're back to this kept a project of $8.4 million. $3.5 million is coming from reach to. And we had about $5.5 million as of January 2024, but we have we budgeted for the safer pay for one million in this fiscal year. So it's going to be reduced about $4 million. So so far, $3 million from reach to and safer pay for million. And we have half a million dollars coming from RBD specific plan transfer from Genofon. And lastly, we have $350,000 city whole innovation. We budgeted in this fiscal year, but most likely we are not using up that $350,000. So those items make up the 8.4 million dollars. Through the chair, going back to the slide. So the CalPERS prefunding, the information technology reserve, the vehicles equipment reserve, and the self insurance reserve, those are all general fund money. They could be spent anyway, but they're being reserved for CalPERS and IT and vehicles. Yes, that's... So there's no legal restriction on them. It's previous councils or budgeting has set this stuff aside. Yes, council can remove the restriction by voting. Okay. What, CalPERS pre-funding, that's for retirement plans for city employees? Yeah, it's a pre-funding money that you can invest in the section 115 like trust money okay or you can use the money to pay down the unfunded and pension my ability. Okay and then but the IT reserve and the vehicle equipment reserve if we chose not to spend the money on IT or spend the money on vehicles as a council, that would just go back into the general fund and it would be just general fund money with no restrictions. Correct. Yes, that's correct. Did council ever vote on this as an IT reserve or was this just put by staff? Yes, through the approval of the reserve policy, council members voted. Okay. And then is there an actual budget for this money? I mean, like, is there a specific spends like we're going to be buying X, Y and Z? Is there a plan to spend it or is it just sitting in a bank account and future plan to spend it? I can answer that vice chair. We are currently putting together a plan. We've gone through for the IT, I will say, for the IT fund. We have gone through and assessed citywide IT projects that the staff is aware of around the city. We have those all on one document and we're assessing the relative priorities and then assigning those according to year. I don't have a total amount for you in terms of dollar value but it far exceeds the amount that's currently in that balance. Yeah I have no doubt I'm just curious how this is being set aside and who's making the decisions. Just a point of clarification every year we passed the budget. We have discussed this before. I've actually have been not in favor of having such a high number. We've discussed it. We've discussed what, what it was needed and the board every year, the body, every year unanimously approves the budget with this number. So, or, and in this case, the number has been increasing. But every single year previously, through this budget process, we have agreed to this, to the reserve that is there and to maintain it. So we can change it, we can be profligate. But again, every year through the process of approving this budget, we've discussed it and approved it. Yeah, I guess I mean, for the vehicle equipment reserve, I mean vehicles are expensive, but that looks like at least, you know, somewhere between 10 and 20 vehicles that we have cash for, by, you know, for next year if we wanted to. So, okay. That was my question. Do you want to talk about the schedule, Mr. City Manager, that's what it's based on? Yeah, it's based off of our vehicle replacement schedule. And then also just note this isn't only for like what you see is kind of passenger vehicles. This also includes the vehicles that are in our maintenance public works division, the vac trucks and things like that, which, and the tractors and things that have much higher costs. Thank you for clarifying. So I would like to make a point on the CalPERS pre-funding. Let's make it really clear this council, as well as just every single city in this county and in this state, basically has an unfunded pension liability, right? This is money we owe, and it will continue to go up until we pay it down. If anything, this CalPert pre-funding should be significantly higher to reduce the liability that we have on future councils. So let's not be profiligate. Let's not play with these fun balances if we don't understand the Mr. Vice Mayor. Thank you for the comment. I'm planning to bring this item in next fiscal year. We already presented to the council about the potential, I mean, options, the vehicles that we can write on for this three million dollars. So yeah, I am going to come back to the council for this initiative. Next slide, please. So lastly, this is a reserve status for assign and assign fund balance. So there's only one item in the assign fund balance, capital project. This is assigned to 10 years CIP project. We have about 400 million dollars CIP projects that we haven't started in the CIP 10 years CIP plan. And the last we assigned fund balance. So we have two components. One is contingency reserve for 11.3 million dollars This is based on the reserve policy and we are required to set aside 30% of general fund expenditure budget and Left over 32.8 million dollars is an assigned fund that City Council can use at its discretion. But this 32.8 million dollars, an assigned balance is going to be reduced to a 30 million dollars, a 30.7 million dollars because of the deficit. Madam Mayor, if I may ask a question. So the $12.84 million, $8.46 million in the CIP funds, that is an aggregate number. So if you go to the other two reserve status slides, right, this is, this number reflects those two numbers added together plus some because if you add those two together you get 11 points, something million. Or is that money above? So could you go to the previous slide? Right. So the 8.4321, is that included in that number in the previous slide or is that the balance that we have of unassigned capital CIP money? Thank you for the question. So this 12.8 million dollars in the independent number. Okay, so this is money that we have for the to fund the $280 million of unfunded capital projects. Okay, that's great. Thank you. That's your interesting. Yeah, I was just going to say that as we were in previous years, I don't know if we've done a sense I've been here, but transferring, doing a capital transfer, it was essentially building the city's reserves to fund those $200 plus million of capital projects. So there's not assigned to a specific project, but there's a specific purpose, that purpose being the $200 million plus dollars in capital projects we know we have to do. Thank you. Does that include the sanitary district? It does not. OK. I also like to add that this, this is a projection. And you know, a lot of grants money are on the rain, burstman basis. So we are expecting to receive grant revenue later after we spent. So the timing might be not this fiscal year. It could be next fiscal year. So grant funding will basically reduce the projected capital improvement amount. It won't necessarily change what we're going to spend on it. That's correct. So for the future project, if they're grant funded, then we don't have to tap into this reserve of $12.8 million. Next slide, please. So this is a table showing the new CIP project. So I'm going to just touch on the two large projects. The first one is a street light upgrade. This is the citywide street light upgrade and we are projecting about 2.5 million finally on dollars. Next large one is the San Francisco Quito Creek Reach 2 project. We are projecting a million dollars. Next, I please. So this is about the strategic priorities project funding. So I wanted to emphasize that most of new initiatives are not included in the Disproposed budget. Some are included and then I think each department is going to present their budgets and then they're going to mention it. And also I'd like to emphasize that we have limited financial and staffing capacity. So I'd like to recommend to the council being cautious about proving the new ongoing staff. Having said that, we have $30.7 million reserve in general fund. So I recommend considering that. And if it's a one-time item, it's appropriate to use reserve for new work plans coming from the new council strategic priorities. And then for the next step, we have June 3rd Council meeting and we are presenting the final work plans and we're going to discuss the budget inclusion or exclusion during the meeting. And finally, we are upon to adopt a budget. How do the council adopt a budget on June 17th, 2025? Next slide, please. So I wanted to explain the proposed budget documents attached to the staff report. First one is attachment one. This document described the fund description and budget information for each active fund maintained by the city. And as I said earlier, it also shows the project reserve balance at the bottom of the financial summary pages. And the second attachment is the detailed budget information by division. It includes a detailed budget by contract and project, which make up the total proposed expenditure. So you have any question during the department presentation, you can see the presentation, but at the same time you can refer to these documents. Next slide please. So now I'm passing to the department to present their budget, but I wanted to show the order so that some public members are, might be particularly interested in the specific department. So we're going to start with the City Manager's Office, Second Community and economic development, third finance and non-departmental, fourth police department and so on. So I think time is limited so I don't know how far we can go but we're going to go until 9 p.m. tonight. So I'm going to pass it back to city Manager's office. So just a point of order through the mayor. I know you had wanted to impose some time restrictions, terms of presentations and discussion, but because we've scheduled, I believe, three budget meetings, is that correct? There are two scheduled and we have the ability to discuss it on June 3rd. It will be well. So we could go to the nine today, and I think the mayor wants to, you want to get out here at nine, call it a hard stop at nine, and if it means we only get through two departments, we only get through two departments because we have two other days that are potentially scheduled. I mean, generally we go faster than that, But just I'd like to have as in depth the discussion is possible on this budget. And so you know. two other days that are potentially scheduled. I mean, generally we go faster than that, but just I'd like to have as in-depth the discussion as possible on this budget. And so, you know, through the mayor, because we have scheduled other days, we can get through, I mean, we've never taken three days to get through all the departments. So, and we've been low quashes in the past, garyllis, all right. Yeah, I just to also make sure that we don't spend like an hour and a half on just discussing one particular department. I do want to make sure that we do budget or time correctly so that we can still have that in-depth discussion but not going around in circles and not spending too much time on one particular department. I think that would be the equitable way to go as well, because we do have quite a few departments to hear from. And like you said, we want to make sure that we do get it done in an effective manner. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Vice Mayor and Council Members. I'm Sherry Cleam. I'm your Assistant City Manager. And I'm the Acting Department Head for the City Manager's Office. I'm joined today, of course, by Melvin, who is the actual department head, as well as Dean Nisgarcia and Orlea Amy, who are assistance to the City Manager. And I am joined by HR Manager Anatorra's Community Services Manager Mori Spaker and IT Manager, Jimmy Tulubing. Thank you. So the City Manager's Office is comprised of four divisions. There's the actual core administrative City Manager's Office. There's human resources, there's community services and information technology. The city manager's office, the administrative portion of the office leads city operations, aligns work with the city council's policies and provides strategic direction to the rest of the city. Human resources, as you can see, recruits and retain staff ensures workplace equity and supports employee development. So our HR division is just like any other organizations, HR division, except that public HR is a little different than private HR with respect to some of our regulations and also our relationships with our public employee unions. Community services organize as public programs for all ages. They provide meals and transportation for seniors. And then finally, information technology supports staff with technological systems, to improve service efficiency and delivery. This is again similar to IT in any other organization except that, again, public IT is a little different with respect to the Public records act and other similar regulations. So this is the budget snapshot for our department this year. You can see each of the divisions listed there with a department total. You can see that IT also has a separate line at the bottom, a separate row at the bottom. And that is because IT's staffing is charged to the City Manager's office and IT's projects at the bottom are charged to the non-departmental line item. So if you were to ask me what is the department total, you can see on the right hand side it's around $9.2 million but then IT also has that $579,000 additional that is not within our department. So, in to look at this in a little more detail, the City Manager's Office increased by around $733,000 mostly due to professional services, program implementation and operating needs. You will see that these directly relate to your strategic priorities. Human resources increased by $294,000, reflecting investments in reducing workers' compensation claims and in implementing a classification and compensation study community services increased by 2.36 million dollars in one-time park improvements and additionally staff originally requested $350,000 for the TOT summer program but but as you'll see next week, we are now recommending $360,000. That agenda has been published, but we'll go more into detail in that with that recommendation in a week. And then ITs increase the budget by $184,000 to support these internal technology needs. Next slide please. Good. Can we ask questions along the way? So you made a reference to the new priorities. So if I heard the finance director correctly say that this budget right now is not in the expenditure's potential expenditures for any new priorities that came out of the couple of the meetings, but they're not final yet. And it'll be on June 3rd when we begin to deliberate on that. But did I hear you say that this does include some of those because I just want to be clear if it is then which ones are they? And when do we finalize those because I thought I heard say this budget doesn't include that. So it either it does or you know which ones and and and to tag those so that when we get to to deliberate on all the potential new expenditures, anyway. So if you could address that briefly. Sure, Councilmember, the priorities that you all set, that this council set for February 25th, for fiscal year 2425, which you've determined are carrying over or which we recommend to be carried over are included. The new priorities we did not include. May I jump in? So this, so this, yeah, okay. So that's the explanation then this has like the. Did I get that wrong? There are continuing. Anyway, I just want to clarify that. Well, I agree. Yeah. Through the mayor. Um, so I might have miss broken, but, um, some new initiatives of our new work plan for the new council priority are included. Some, but mostly, you know, the new initiatives are not included coming from the new work plan. For example, I think your department has emergency preparedness item, which is, you know, carry forward or, you know, and also consider as a new item, but it is included. So a, so the emergency preparedness item is a good example. It, one was on the current plan, but then cost council also took specific action when we had, not specific action, that's a miss spoken, but during the study session we had for emergency preparedness, council affirmed a proposed work plan, kind of outside of the strategic priorities process. We already knew, even though you later kind of added it to your work plan, but you hit our previously given direction for the city to implement the emergency preparedness work plan. So we included funding for that. Okay, yeah. so I guess along the way, or maybe for June 3rd, just to somehow sort them out, kind of put them in a little different, at least for me, it helps you put them in a little different category. So yeah, I understand that one. So the origin of your premise already was a priority, and then it was added some budget items were added to that so it kind of so it's kind of a continuum one but but it is some new funding or yes and a plan for June 3rd is when we submit kind of the staff's analysis of what the fiscal year 25 to 27 to year work plan could look like. Each project has a funding appropriation associated with it. And we'll be asking for you to approve those that day. And then we'll bring the funding appropriations and the final budget on June 17th. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. So I think it's just keeping them sort ofing them out and so we know what's what. Thank you Through the chair. Could you give a brief description of the 3.977 million and 2.27 million that was spent under all of their expenditures with community services Yeah, can I ask Mr. Baker if he's on to join in. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Assistant City Manager. Vice-American, is there a piece of question for me? I'm sorry. Under the, I guess, fourth column, there's all under all other expenditures and there's community service as 3.977 million and an increase of 2.2 million over previous year, I guess. What was that money spent on for all of their expenditures? So this is the proposed budget for next year, and this includes some of those one time improvements that we talked about or that they'll are part of your priorities. So all of my priorities in community services aligned with council's priorities. So it's at your discretion. I was confused. I thought this was for last year or not this year. So thank you very much. No problem. Yeah, and those expenditures are, and thank you very much. We've had to ask for this in the past and you gave it to us. They're in the packet. Those expenditures are page 30, 31 and 32. Very detailed this to what they are, what that money is going to be used for. Any other questions or should I move to the next slide? Okay, so we'll city managers 2024 and 25 accomplishments in the city manager's office, we launch the economic development strategic plan. That was Denise Garcia. You heard her bring forward to you the RFP and start working with you all and with your subcommittee on that project that should be coming forward to you this winter. Orley has led the FY2529 Council Priorities Project as well as the FY 2527 Work Plan. You all have been working with her and with Matt Ramy and associates on that. Denise presented updates to the city's emergency operations plan. Hanson led the Nexus study adoption and the and Melvin has led the EPSD transition since October and then we've also continued to make some progress on the new library fundraising partnership. So all of that has been accomplished in 2024-25 through the council's funding of our department. In human resources, our staff is small but mighty. They processed over 900 applications and they've helped achieve near full staffing in this organization, which has not happened for quite a few years. You will hear more about that next week when Ms. Torres comes and tells you about vacancies as she has to report now annually according to state law. I'll give you the small little advance notice, which is we don't have very low vacancies. We don't have very many vacancies and many, many cities around the state do. I have a question. So I thought we had some vacancies with our police department. Is that or those issues resolved? We have. I'm sorry, did you want to? We have vacancies, but the requirement to present on vacancies is if you have certain thresholds within a particular, but then any particular bargaining unit for us, that would be the police officers association, SEIU or the management employees association. And we don't meet the threshold where we're required to present that. But we do have vacancies. H.R. this past year's strengthened leave and return to work programs, which we were very, very time consuming to work on. And they completed year two of the employee coaching and training program. You'll see other accomplishments listed as well. I have one question again. Sorry. Yes, council member. So the return to work coordination, what was that? Was that like a pandemic era? Or return to work or was that like a policy that we put in place for remote work or what is that return to work coordination? Yeah Ms. Torres, I'll have her jump in and explain that program. Good morning or after evening actually. That is part of the interactive process where as a city we were collecting a list of available assignments throughout the if a department could in coordinate that we could actually offer other assignments for its staff to be able to opt in and actually participate. I'm sorry, can you clarify? I'm asking what the return to work coordination is I'm just asking for a clarification. So that usually related to someone's out on injury or if there's other situations that are happening outside of work but just integrating them back into the workforce? Okay, thank you. Next slide please. In community services, our staffaged 1800 above 1800 participants in the summer parks program in the combined holiday event and the toy drive Which delivered over a thousand gifts to children They the department advanced public art and planning they completed the utility box art phase one. They progressed the MLK Junior Park Master Plan, which is near completion, and initiated the Youth Commission development. We were working with consultants on that right now. The division expanded youth access to dance and sports through epicenter and the YMCA partnerships and supported over 3200 seniors in our community via nutrition trainings, age friendly planning led by the senior advisory committee. in IT, our staff transitioned IT services in-house, upgraded the core systems such as servers and storage for better performance and energy efficiency, integrated the data for the rent registry and improved the validation processes and boosted cybersecurity across the city. As you know, cybersecurity has been a huge problem for all kinds of California and national agencies, government agencies have been hit since the pandemic many, many more times than before. And so cybersecurity is in a very important priority for our organization. So looking at 25, 26, we have quite a few department priorities and we are focused very much so on existing and new council priorities. So first we're going to start with the city managers office. Generally some of the existing priorities include adopting the economic development plan. That's the plan that we started last year. As I mentioned it should be coming forward to you this winter launching the sidewalk vending program. So again you heard about that from Denise and and now she's going to be working with you all and with City Attorney's Office on the ordinance and so forth distributing community resource grants, partnering with SMC Libraries on the ordinance and so forth, distributing community resource grants, partnering with SMC libraries on the library funding strategy, finalizing or working on finalizing the beach street property acquisition if the county is interested. And then there are also new proposed priorities that our department will be taking on launching the emergency preparedness program, implementing a shopping cart abatement program, preparing a revenue measure for the ballot for 2026, planning for a new community hub, and studying the creation of a parks and rec department. This all assumes, of course, as Council Member have recommensions, that these are actually adopted priorities. This division has one department led priority, which is to begin performance audits across the organization and those boost efficiency. They will give some suggestions to management in the different departments of how they can improve in terms of getting the most out of personnel, helping train personnel, and so forth. HR this year is going to update the city's personnel policies and procedures. The last version was from the 1980s. And so it's not a council. It's not only a council strategic priority project. It's also absolutely necessary to run an organization of this size. And it's going to be a big effort. In addition, the department has to continue to improve marketing strategy regarding staff recruitment. That is, as you know, a very online process right now. We want to reach far and wide and try to get the best staff here in our recruitments. We want to update the class specifications and compensation study that was last done five years ago and it's important to keep that current so that we're competitive. HR is going to engage in the citywide ergonomic refresh and also increase labor management meetings. Next slide, please. Community Services, as Mr. Baker mentioned when he spoke, is focused this year almost exclusively on all council priorities. In addition to standard operations, he's going to be focusing on the creation of the youth commission, on launching a pilot dog park, and having a joint youth agreement with Ravenswood School District, we're already in that discussion, our staff and their staff. And we hope to bring that forth to your council, and to the Board of Trustees. That effort is going to expand park space for residents. The new proposed City Council priorities include some quick win projects from the park's master plan, potentially funding the YMCA and the epicenter, and potentially starting and maintaining of all maintaining a vulnerable populations emergency contact database. In IT, we have one existing City Council priority, which is to develop the Citywide Information Systems Master Plan that's going to take the projects plan that I had mentioned to you all before and integrate it within a larger plan related to cybersecurity and cyber infrastructure and so forth. The remaining priorities are department led and they include launching a working group to improve IT coordination, supporting departments with new systems and process implementation, strengthening cyber security and exploring and adopting emerging technologies. Really want to emphasize that IT this past year came in house. We used to outsource that from Redwood City and now we've brought this in house. Your council also adopted a second FTE and so this is a very small but mighty division that we hope to really get off the ground and really implementing some positive changes technology wise. Do you have any further questions? That's a summary of this department. If not, I can pass this along to Amy Chen for community and economic development. Just on the last one, the information technology, you know, we have these different master plans that we, some of them are kind of stayed mandated or at least recommended. So is there also a kind of a plan being developed for information technologies? I'm kind of master plan or I mean, Jim, he could probably put it together over the weekend. He's done all this first so many. But in terms of just what that means, and even though it's more of an internal infrastructure, you might say, to run the city, but I think for the public, be good to know, kind of like this is our plan for IT plan way. Um, that is, is that one of the things that's being developed now that it's in house more versus, you know, just kind of assisting us before they have it. Yes, Councilmember, the citywide IT master plan is on your strategic priorities. It's definitely something that he will be working on. We will have to be very careful with what portions of that are released to the public because some of it as you know are security. I don't mean releasing it. I mean, well, you know, this is just the back of a mind sometimes. I think people, if you're like the city's not doing this, the city's not doing that. That's all I mean. For people to know that the city does in fact have is developing a master plan and saying, I don't mean to do all that. You know what I mean? Is that versus like, okay, somebody's in charge of it, like, okay, I'm glad, but, you know, what is it anyway? Or what does it do? What does it not do if anything? So, yeah, so I'm so I'm just gonna get it. So this is, because I guess before we didn't really have one, this will be the first time that we actually put it together. The dollar we had. To my knowledge, that's correct. I don't know if anybody who's been here longer knows otherwise. But to my knowledge is the first sub-unplanned one for this. Maybe there was something. to my knowledge that's correct. I don't know if anybody who's been here longer knows otherwise. To my knowledge is the first plan for this. There was some plan, but I'm just saying now that it's in house, then it kind of falls into these other plans that we have. You know, the parks master plan, the whatever, the water master plan, those kinds of things. That's really a bright point. So that's this year, kind of in the process of leaving. Correct, council member. Yeah, okay. And then back on the, not community services, but the prior one, if the prior human resources. Let me see the, you know, the one that I just want to make an observation on the where they mentioned the age friendly, age friendly plan. So. Yeah, that was that was a part of the community services. We did adopt the age friendly plan in 2024, 25. There's a slide that actually mentions that it was can you go to the accomplishment slide, please? I think maybe the accomplishment. Yeah, that's correct. You know, I just wanted to say that I think that this plan, which the council did approve, several councils have approved that one developing one and then approving it, et cetera, that although it's not a sort of traditional again master plan, right, that we follow. and it's not something that we're saying we're going to implement everything that's there but I think that it's a very useful document for the staff to use in ways that can improve senior services already because it did go through a process of a lot of input it went through a process of reviewed by external sources. And definitely, Maurice, there's been a lot of time. You too, I mean, the whole staff was very supportive of us. For the first time really having a kind of an action plan as far as like what can be done to improve senior services. So I would hope that even though it's not, you know, like formally approved for with a big budget and all of that, but that it doesn't just become something on the shelf, you know, like the housing elements used to do in the state. You produce this beautiful well-researched document and then it just kind of sets there because so anyway so I just want to make that. The other thing I would add here is you know so now it's kind of working with the senior advisory committee. I would add and with the involvement of the senior center ink and the reason for that is that because in East Walta we do have the structure of having a separate, not profit, you know, leasing the space and running the Senior Center versus other places where the city directly runs the Senior Center and all the services. And so I think it's important to involve the senior center ink because they were part of this too. So, and you know, I'm sure it was just an oversight, but I think it's good to put it in there. It's an accomplishment because it did take a few years, I think to get the advisory committee in the senior center in board to work closely and it partly had to do with the involvement of the city and the good faith of the staff and staff so anyway thank you council member cloud would be an amendment achieving yeah okay. So I think like in terms of technology, I know one of the departmental ed priorities is collaborating with departments to sense the implementation of new applications and processes. I think that will be kind of like very important because that can drive more efficiency. I mean people can get more stuff done. So I think that really should be a higher priority. A high priority is exploring newer technologies and updating our systems. You know particularly within even with handling code enforcement complaints and cases and they're software that tell you manage those projects and also like you know issues and so I think that should be a higher a high priority within information technology. I think maybe Councilmember Donnan can speak about like different softwares and stuff, but I think that that should be a high priority. But yeah, I like the work that you guys are doing and look forward to you guys continuing to make progress. Thank you, Councilmember. I just wanted to say thank you for your report. I do see that in the current slide. You do have a collaborative with other departments to assist the implementation of new applications and processes, and I believe that touches on what Mr. Lincoln was saying, as well as conduct comprehensive evaluation of the senior center as required for contract. And then again, I think that also touches basis a little as to a council. Abreke was also pointing out. So thank you. Thank you for taking all of that into consideration. Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, so I want to specifically go through some of the line items in the budget. So there's a $200,000 performance auditor's piece, which is new that did not, that wasn't there last year that are your consultant, professional technical. You explain the performance audit, please. Yeah, absolutely. So that project, we put out an RFP which were drafting the RFP and we would only really sit if this is something that you all funded. The performance auditors, they're not, they can be used as financial auditors in part, but their real value is in going from department to to Department and finding a lining, for example, the department's daily work plan with its larger goals, helping the department head in whatever struggles that he or she may have, looking at where the work is versus where the staffing is. And typically the model is a former department head in that department. So for example, a former public works director, a former police chief does that performance audit for that particular department. And so they have a real sense of how a department like that should work from their past experience and they are partnering with the department head and really giving some concrete suggestions. So this is this is a firm that would do this for every department or this is just for a specific number of departments So this is a firm that would do this the recommendation is over Five-year period because this is a very thorough They will not cover the whole city in that first year So that 200,000 is the first year so so, so this could be a million dollar engagement. Correct. Okay. So I have not seen the RFQ or the whatever it's going to be. But that's a pretty sizable amount of money. So I assume it will come back to us for third deliberation. If I mean, it's in this budget, but if we decide that, you know, it's not the right time to do it, whatever, then we strike it or you're going to tell me where are you approved it and I didn't know it. No. So you all did not approve it. This is proposed in this budget. Okay. And the $200,000 amount would be a limited number of audits, a limited number of departments. And we don't intend to look at every department in next fiscal year. That $200,000 amount might cover one or two departments. So what we're asking for is the commitment for us to do these audits and I am determining which department would go first. So when you say it could be a million dollar commitment, that is true. However, right now we're asking for a $200,000 commitment, which we'd return to you all to release the RFP and in that share more about who I've selected for which departments we'd like to start with. And then Councilmember, at the end of the process, the entity provides to you to all of us a report and they offer recommendations for efficiency. They can offer, for example, software recommendations. They can say, I've been, you know, the auditor can say I've been the head of three public works departments, and I've seen that it's more effective to move engineering over here, to do the following with maintenance or whatever to run the fleet in a particular way, whatever their recommendations might be, you will get it all in writing. And then you all along with management can make some really strategic decisions about improving the different departments. It's a very collaborative process. It's intended to be with the department leadership. Yeah, I'm less interested in the explanation right now more about the process to approve and or to deny. So it's if it's in the budget and it comes to us and we say, well, we don't quite see the value of the value isn't additive for this year. We don't want to do it. I mean, I just hope that you don't come back to us and say well Here it's in the budget. Here's we're gonna do it because I really think that this still is something that this council doesn't have a full understanding of So councilmember you're gonna get two passes at this Project the first is the one that you're highlighting now the budget and the second because it is above the city managers authority, your council will have to award a contract if you do to whatever entity. And I hadn't ended to sort of scope that project with you all. It is intended to be something that you all are on board with something that you see value in. And certainly if you don't, I would encourage you not to fund the project. in and certainly if you don't, I would encourage you not to fund the project. I don't believe me. If I think there's no value to it, I certainly will say not to fund it. That doesn't mean my council members or my fellow council members will agree, but yes, I will definitely not be shy on that. Let me move to 1-1-10. It's the fund 1-1-10. Well, that's your fund. Give other chair. Can I just comment on that. Let me move to 110. It's the fund 110. Well, that's your fund. Thank you. Other chair. Can I just comment on that? Excuse me on what I'm sorry on the performance audit. I just want to comment on it. I'll yield to the council member for this one. Thank you. So essentially the performance audits will allow the performance audits are the purpose of those performance audits are to improve efficiency and to potentially reduce costs, right? Because essentially, when she become more efficient, you can determine based on their recommendations, how staffing is allocated. And that... because essentially you've become more efficient, you could determine based on the recommendations, how staffing is allocated, and that long-term will, you spend money to make money on the back end. So I wouldn't necessarily say that we're going to spend a million dollars when we can actually could be saving money based upon the results of these performance audits. You could count some member save money. You could just be much more effective in getting toward your goal. You could expand and allow for a lot more projects or work to be done out of a particular department with the same resources that they currently have. That's exactly what you're looking for. Doing more with less, much. Well, or the audit could say, you know, you really need two more brumid technicians, right? So it's not necessarily a cost-cutting or a cost-constraining exercise. It's an efficiency exercise, which may, not a fiscal efficiency exercise, it's an operational efficiency exercise, correct? Correct council member, we're going to ask the auditors not just to give us a memo of all the things that, you know, all the positions that we need. We're going to ask them to really focus on what can we do with the resources that we have. But yes, they may recommend more positions or, you know, what would be more effective as if they recommended moving around positions internally such that we have an optimization of the FTE count that we already have. Okay. Thank you. So I think performance improvement will allow us to eliminate a lot of waste. Yeah, I'm not going to take back the floor. Thank you very much. I'm not done here yet. I did do that at a courtesy. So the question, why are the professional technical services? There are a number of park items which I'm I'm fine with but why are they included in the city managers? One item and not in public works or Just I'm just curious as to why they wound up in your so Council member what we're recommending the engineering it's about two million2 million worth of expenditures. The engineering division of the Public Works Department is incredibly busy. As you know, has a very lengthy CIP and a lot of strategic priorities. If we had added the parks project to the engineering division, I think that would be adding too much, frankly, or you all would have had to prioritize parks over other projects, or, frankly, probably had to get rid of some of the parks projects if you felt like water, streets, and other projects were more important. In order to expand beyond that limitation, what we're proposing is that community services have a consultant, which is a project manager engineer, that they will be working with to implement these projects, then we'll be working with engineering still, our city engineer will be involved, but these are not high engineering complex projects. So for example, it's replacing a scoreboard or replacing, well, it's also a pilot dog park, right? So well, it's only $75,000. Yeah, no, my next question was going to be why the inclusion of a $255,000 park project manager. That's the 85% by the way, it's not a full time position. I guess it's 85%. So, yeah, I don't, I guess I don't quite understand why it doesn't fall under public works. And again, I am worried, I mean, there are particular expertise that each department has, right? So, you know, I, that, you know, in terms of, you know, beating a project, whatever, you know, whether it's a, whether it's a hard cost or soft cost related so yeah that's so council member we have talked with the public workstractor and confirmed that he will be participating in this project we wouldn't be doing this without him because but because these are sort of smaller and not very complex projects, I'm certainly not gonna pay the road on my own, but because these are sort of smaller in-scope projects and because the consultant would be an engineer, hammer herself, they would be guiding the path and we would be involving the public works director of the city engineer in that process, but they would have the least possible role such that these projects can continue while they focus on the more complex projects. To your comment that the this is 85% of a position that is because some of the funding, uh, some of the projects are in the lighting district. And so some of the funding is being allocated as allowed to the lighting district. Thank you. Yeah. I, again, I would just question whether you would just put the project manager within the public work department, but it's your decision that's made. And I guess I'm not going to, I'm not going to fight that. I have two other questions. One is there's a citywide ergonomic refresh. It's about $150,000 number. Is this the right time to do this? Should we be waiting? Um, ask that question. Yes, this is primarily around in the HR manager's online as well, but I oppose the question like the level of investment and these will be things that would be flexible. Chairs and um. Desk desk. desk, not desk, that's not desk, um, but maybe the sits stand type that's right to add to it. Yes, but not big furniture purchases. Um, I mean, come back to that at another meeting. Um, and then there's the, there's a acquisition of land, Parkland is, it's a $200,000 item. I'm going to understand that. I'm probably forgetting something, but what are we acquiring? Yes, it seems to be managing. Yeah, so it's right, 206, fund 20 purchase price purchase acquisition of Parkland. Is that a down payment? Is that? Yes, I can refer to Maurice to Mr Baker for this. Yes, thank you, City Manager. The acquisition is the possibility of expanding Parkland along the Bay Trail, so that definitely, you know, Verbena area where it's underdeveloped, we can utilize that to potentially acquire land there at the cost that is being recommended. Okay. Business is the right time, but I, my fellow council members made, disagree with me, but I just don't know if this is the right time to do this acquisition. And I also don't know where the acquisition is. So I assume that has to come to us anyway, right? I mean, it's a real estate transaction. Yes, sir. Again, it's at council's discretion. So if it's not the right time this year or you would like to explore more, please take the time. Okay, you know, I was just surprised to see it there, but maybe I can talk to you offline. Thank you. I'm done. Thank you. Madam Mayor. Yes, Madam Mayor. Thank you. So I would like to see if we have anybody else on council that has any questions or I was requesting. Okay. Thank you. Well, so the first, you know, this first session, I'm just remembering when we have this first sessions, which is always a little bit of everything. And one of them is an opportunity for, I feel council members to make requests of information or clarifications, whatever. So I'm going to make a couple of requests just because it would help me and then, sorry, can I think in theita I'm sorry I'm gonna yeah we could have like sidebar conversations kind of limited and we just got featured sorry no that's good all good all good sorry because it's really hard to hear him sorry about that guys thank you I forgot what I was talking about. So then, yeah, so in other words, yeah, so I was saying that part of this initial meeting for me has always been an opportunity to kind of understand the process and the way that staff has prepared the budget. I mean, most of it is always the same, but there are some differences, I noticed over the years. And then, regardless of the merits, so I'm not focused so much on the merits of any particular things, but I would make a couple requests. One is if we could have a separate document that identifies and I I know that a lot of probably most of the things they're all here, they're embedded into this detail, you know, the description, which is good. But I, like right now, I think the staff, your perspective is valuable as the council's, because you run the city. So you're saying, you know, we see this as something that we'd like to initiate. Okay, and I know that at some point we'll have to discuss it, but for me, it would be useful to have, just like we came up with a table of what the council is coming up with priorities, and that's being finalized, it's like a list. So here's a list, right? Then we have to put money next to it and then finalize what we want to do or not do. And I think it's the same with the staff that you see things that need to be done. And obviously you're you're putting them in there. But I would appreciate if it was on a separate table and say, these are kind of like staff recommendations, right? And they also have a budget and then we'll have the ones that the council has. And that way, I think it'll be easier for me to make my decision on what I support in terms of money wise, because eventually it does come down to that, that we might wanna move money from here to there, or maybe not adopted this year, you know, that, okay, so I'm not speaking on the merits, but if that could be done, that would be helpful. No problem, Council member. And, you know, that includes, well, you know, there was a vote taken last month, which I didn't support not because I didn't support clean enough to city, but I felt that it was premature to vote on another code enforcer and throw in code enforcement person and basically approve 150,000 $50,000 there without figuring out what it is that we, you know, how are we going to do that project? So, you know, so including all those new things, I think it's important with what the price is so that we can, at least for me, is going to help me to, you know, make up my mind where what am I support or not or maybe delay it or add to to an existing initiative, that kind of thing. So that would be something. I know it's some extra work, but maybe with the technology, you can just pull all the new ones on one. Here's the list of all the new things from the staff and then from the council. And then the other thing is when we're talking, because some of the new things sometimes also involve personnel. So having a list of the like current FTEs by department and then having the proposed FTEs, you know, for the new budget. And it can just be numbers. I didn't see a particular table here. I know that they're spread out again there, but anyway, so that's those are my two requests. Thank you, Council Member Abedica. So for the clarify on FTE, the city manager's department, we showed on our initial slides It's just the number of FTEs and a number of additional FTEs on the slide you see now. Yeah, but I remember it some years seeing like a whole table of all the departments just all together. All the FTEs, you know, for this past year. Or a summary for the NSW. And then it's more like a summary table. Yeah, we can create that for you. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, it's here, but like a summary table of all the employees in the city and then all the proposed changes. I'm happy to do that particularly since our department is not asking for any FTEs. So we will have an easy request, but we will put that together for you. Department wide, city wide. Got it. May I respond to one of the questions? So regarding new items, in this budget booklet, detailed report, also attachment to the staff report, indicate one time item costs by using the asterisk mark. So yes. Yes, I did see the asterisk, but to follow that, right. But again, maybe from me, just the way they I learned things, I would like to, but here's a table right with it. So pulling out all the asterisk and they're all together just helps me. I see. Yeah, thank you for the comments. We can incorporate that in the next year. Thank you. I have one, I have two, maybe three questions, about keeping So I was one of our priorities like implementing a grant management system Yes, that is one of your priorities. It's in finance. Okay, cuz that will help with like the the budget deficit, you know and reducing our reliance on the general fund And I I just wanted you to address the ergonomics. Essentially, what that does, it doesn't that reduce liability on the city because we're talking about whenever you go to work that they come and they make sure you have the right chairs, you're not hunched over on the computers and over the long term that will reduce workers compensation claims and stuff like that right so spending a little bit of money will reduce liability in a long time correct that is the goal. Okay. Thank you. I think I addressed the other thing. I think the performance on it's a good thanks. Thank you for your presentation. Thank you. Lean on to the next meeting. I'm going to go to the next meeting. I'm going to go to the next meeting. I'm going to go to the next meeting. I'm going to go to the next meeting. I'm going to go to the next meeting. I'm going to go to the next meeting. Good evening, City Council. My name is Amy Chen. I'm the Director of Community and Economic Development to the desk and invite up Balso Karen Kamacho and Natasha Rebern in a moment. I have the pleasure presenting on our department budget. We have an amazing team of 20 full-time employees and our four core service areas by division. It shows four divisions here, but it actually incorporates more programs and more areas of focus beyond these team names. Of the 20 full-time employees, we have five in planning, seven in building end code enforcement, four in housing and rent stabilization, and four in admin and economic development. One special thing I wanted to point out being that half of our department name is economic development, we actually don't have any dedicated staff towards that area. So part of my time as the director and part of Karen Komachos time as a housing and economic development manager is going towards that effort. But as we'll discuss in a little bit around the council priorities, we are working on a economic development strategy. And so out of that outcome, we hope to have recommendations on how to build out our team and thus serve the city better in community and economic development. Next slide. So on our budget snapshot, one of the key things that I wanted to emphasize is that we're doing three things simultaneously right now. We're reviewing the council or reviewing the city budget. We are reviewing council priorities that we shared with you on April 22nd and coming back to you in June and we also are going through a master fee schedule update with a consulting firm that's led by the finance department and it's working with a team called Matrix. So as our staff have been trying to work on these budget numbers and keep our eye on the target, we also have additional targets that have been added to our plate and we really appreciate the fact that we have a have additional targets that have been added to our plate. And we really appreciate the time that has been spent on council priorities and those open discussions with the public. But hopefully we can come together when we finally here and adopt the budget in June, that we also have a conclusion on council priorities and also on the matrix master fee schedule update. Because then with that master fee schedule update, we hope to be more cost recovery and more balanced as our staff and our team and be able to provide better services as we discuss the moment ago, being more efficient with the limited resources that we have. Cognizant of the budget deficit and also the future years to come that may be somewhat unknown with development, progress and changes in our community. So one of the main changes I did want to highlight is that we have shifted around some budgets between divisions. And so like I said, starting off with that other side with our four divisions, there's a lot of crossover among our teams. One of those that we did do a shift on was shifting out some of our technology improvements to our newly formed IT division in the City Manager's office that you heard about a moment ago, as well as the development of a citywide rent registry. So we started off with posting that in the CED admin team as a core function, but is going to be implemented and fully depolied by our housing and rent stabilization team. So there is some shift in those numbers, but overall the reduction in the department total of about 1.5 million. The other item I wanted to point out, and I'm glad Toma mentioned it earlier, was around our staff augmentation contracts that we have on call to supplement staff when needed, especially when there's increases in development and thus staffing capacity is limited. And so we pull in additional consultant help on an as needed basis. On May 6, our last council meeting, you approved two sets of contracts, one set for building and code enforcement, and the other for planning pre-development review services. And so those agreements are underway and we hope to execute them by July 1st for the newiscal Year. And again, as Tomah had mentioned, those are passed through agreements and are hoped to be reimbursed fully by the development projects that are in need of those services. So it does have, though, an impact on our budget because it shows that shift in those budgets from our prior year. Point slide. And so in terms of accomplishments, you are not meant to read the itty-bitty font in here, but wanted to just highlight that our team, we meet actually monthly to go over performance metrics and report out on, you know, calls receive projects that we've entitled hearings and notices that we've posted. And the development activity, especially during the pandemic, did not slow down. It was actually at a fairly steady pace. And I believe that it's only increased since I've been here five years and development activity has been steadily growing in both large projects and planning but also in building permits, small home remodels, and our need for review of those permits that we've been trying to expedite them over the counter and administratively process them as efficiently as possible. Also the growing need for housing and rental protections that support of our community as we're building projects like 965 weeks, Calibri Commons through Midpen housing. That has been a showcase of a project where from start to finish partnering with mid-pen housing on Cityland, so nine six five weeks is a city own site and working with the developer moving it into the construction phase. So we hope to actually be done with that this calendar year and wanted to highlight it here in our accomplishments because it started many fiscal years ago and this is really a culmination of that hard work. Next slide. Moving into key priorities starting with planning. We had three existing priorities and there were four additional priorities that were added by staff. No additional priorities were added in the discussions with City Council on April 22nd. But staff do feel confident that we've reflected priorities that we are hearing from the community, which includes the development community. And so some of these priorities are needed and reflect changes in state and federal law, but also are timely with our growth in development and trying to maintain efficient processing of development applications. Next slide. For building and co-enforcement, as I mentioned, the Affordable Housing Project at 965 weeks has been the main focus completing construction on time and hopefully on budget. Our building inspectors are out there almost every day and we hope to be completed later this year. So our building inspector staff as as well as our permit technicians are on the phone five days a week available at our permit center located at 1968. And we have a constant communication window for applicants also request dedicated time virtually or in person, even when our doors are closed to the public on Wednesdays and Fridays. It allows our staff to meet with individual applicants and prioritize their projects for processing. The other thing to highlight under building and code enforcement and as we heard earlier this year on April 15th, there was an emphasis to focus on tier 3, low priority code enforcement cases. And as council had discussed that item, as you may recall, one of our main concerns was making sure that we had adequate staffing resources and support to look out for code cases before they are reported. So being more proactive, incorporating as we're driving from case to case, also looking out for additional cases, and thus coming back to the office to file those notices and follow up on newly newly set cases. Because the council had voted during the April 15th meeting, we thought it was important to add that here. but also number two, which is an additional item that was discussed on April 22nd at the Council Priority Session. Although a residential rental inspection program seems really simple enough on the screen, it's a really complex program and project to pursue. And so if this is a council priority that is approved, staff will need to do a lot of research and initial development of a program. Come back to council of course, seeking guidance and approval. And so there will be several bites of the apple on this one, but we wanted to note it here because it would have implications on our budget, our staffing and our resources. And again, lastly, I would just emphasize that conforstment is a key priority for East Palo Alto, most importantly for health and safety and upholding quick response times, as as well as partnering with our outside agencies. So if that may be Menlo Fire, County Health and also human services, and just making sure that it's not just all on code enforcement that we also have partners here in the city. So the police department, public works, community services, and so forth. Next slide. For housing, the key priority added last year was a creation of the rent registry. We've selected a firm named Tolemie to develop the new online database for us and we're in the process of transitioning the old rent stabilization database and hope to launch in the new year. So in January of 2026, four of the items that were added to this list in yellow include the council priorities that were discussed on April 22nd. These are fairly sizable items again. The titles don't do a justice, but if they were to be added, be added to an even more sizable items again the titles don't do a justice but if they were to be added it be added to an even more sizable list and existing list of housing and rent stabilization priorities. So again wanting to make sure that we keep in mind the alignment with our housing element, our affordable housing strategy that was adopted in February of 2024 and also carrying out existing projects that we already have underway. Lastly, again, housing and rent stabilization. Last council meeting on May 6th, the council voted to transition that as two million in funds to create an affordable housing preservation program. There will be more to come on that as well and we hope to leverage more grant funds to even create a larger program around that. Below we have admin and economic development and as I said earlier, no staff specifically dedicated towards economic development but but our admin support team is surely there as well as housing. And we've spent a lot of time on measure HH and specifically the job training program. And so we'll be bringing that back to council later this fiscal year and into next fiscal year with an evaluation of how that job training pilot went and seek for the recommendations of how to carry out the measure HH goals. Next slide. So I'll invite up Karen Kamacho, housing and development manager and Natasha Rayburn, our rent stabilization manager. Hi, good evening council. I'm Karen Kamacho, the housing and economic development manager. And I'm Natasha Rayburn, the rent stabilization administrator. And housing and rent stabilization are seeking a one FTE temporary staff person and a budget allocation of $140,000 for salary and benefits for the limited-term housing specialist position. And this position would be split between the rent civilisation program and the housing program. And it would be funded through the rent rent registry fees and housing funds with no anticipated general fund impact. This staff documentation can help support implementation of the city's ambitious housing element and city council's new housing housing parties that Amy just presented on including the Affordable Housing Preservation Program for some home buyer program, home repairs program, for closure prevention program, and review and potential update of the inclusion housing ordinance. In addition, this position would also assist rent stabilization with the new rent registry that would be coming online. There are approximately 2,500 units under the rent stabilization ordinance. However, our oversight will expand beyond this to the additional rental units that will fall under the just cause for eviction ordinance. We anticipate oversight of the just cause ordinance scope to triple once the rent registry comes online with the additional registrations that will take place. Both the housing and RSP programs have been participating in the Matrix Master fee study to increase the rent stabilization annual registration fee and improve the calculation of housing fees. We are asking for this position and anticipate it will have little to no impact on the general fund. This position is not included in the proposed budget, but we're asking council to add this limited term position before proving the final budget. Staff are available to answer any of the council's questions. Thank you. Well, we asked the question now. It's a it's a limited term position, limited term meaning it's a year, it's two years with what is the limited term mean? Yeah, so it would be opposed just in this budget. So it would be a limited one year position. It's only being considered under this years upcoming fiscal year budget. Okay, thank you. And I'll continue on to the next. We just have two more slides. We also have one on building and co-enforcement. Excuse me. I certainly have another question. Sure. Yeah. I say that well, those of I guess is different. Not the we're sent. We don't have any written registration fees, do we? You wanna, you may. Or is that something we're anticipating? Okay, so our registry has two parts. So we have the red stabilization ordinance, which has an existing registry and a Tachel explain that collection of fees. And then we are expanding this city wide. So it will also cover our just cause ordinance. So the hope is also to collect fees as needed to be cost recovery on that part. Okay. The housing is that coming from measure JJ? Okay. It's actually a split of housing successor funds and housing and Luffy funds. Okay. Our housing are measure JJ funds. We've pretty much fully accounted for in terms of registration costs that we've allowed it to HDL for the business tax license program. Okay, I know for JJ, we've allocated, or we can allocate up to 20% of that to administration, correct? Correct. Okay. I was asked because when it says no impact on general funds, it kind of already impacted it by restricting it indirectly. Correct. Yeah, but those measure JJJ funds, if they have not already been spent on existing staff or HDL administration, for this position we would not be asking for more from measure JJ because it's already been allocated. been allocated. Okay. I could just add more to the annual registration fee. So rent stabilization currently has an annual registration fee of $234 per unit and so that against the 2500 units with the matrix study that's currently taking place they're allocating and looking at how much time is actually spent on each process under the rent stabilization ordinance. And so it is been that the rent stabilization fee has not actually been increased over the years. It has actually been subsidized and decreased at some points using penalty fees that were collected to lower the fee. So this study will actually see where our fee potentially should be to account for the staff time that we've been using. Okay, thanks. Any other questions for housing or in stabilization? They'll be right here if you have more, but I will just finish off with building and co-enforcement. Thank you. So as mentioned on April 15th, we discussed co-enforcement moving to a more proactive approach and a focus on tier three low priority code enforcement cases in order to be more proactive while still upholding the municipal code and the building code addressing tier one and two. So high and medium priority cases, there is a need for more staffing and resources to support the building division. I did want to explain the change that we went from April 15th and that staff report, the recommendation was to add a hybrid position which is both a code enforcement officer and a building inspector. Originally, that was casted out at an estimated cost of 202,000. And then we also included the code officer or position that would cost 165,000 annually if we were to bring them on board to the team. Concurrently in April we completed a request for proposals for consulting services and as I mentioned approved on April 6 by the City Council. And so we now have two on-call firms that can provide both building and code enforcement services as needed. And so going through the rate schedules and the number of limited hours that we can have consultants provide in staff augmentation. We calculated that we would just need 150,000 then to provide that additional position but through a consultant provided contract. The funding would be required to come from the general fund as that is a, that is how co-enforcement and building services are funded. And so this would be again asking for just a one time budget, a one year, a lot, many of 150,000. And we would work with the two consultants that we have on call to pace out that time. Of course, if council has a specific recommendation of how to utilize that budget more efficiently, whether it be among staff, we also kept in mind that staff could provide some services through overtime because there is evening and weekend co-enforcement patrol that we think would be extra important, especially in light of unpermitted work. So people working without building permits, as well as we discuss the sidewalk vending program and a lot of those violations that are occurring after hours and on weekends. So with that, looking at a ask of 150,000, again, one time in this year's upcoming budget. Next slide. And then just ending with our team photo, this was taken at our recognition barbecue last summer. And as you can see, it just highlights our team spirit, color coded and all, and a hand painted flag. So really appreciate the team that I am honored to represent our 20 full-time employees and some of even our temporary staff and staff that have come before us to get us to where we are today. So thank you. Thank you for your presentation. I have a question. Can we go ahead and build a code enforcement slide? How did we come up with a determination that it was $150 for our code inspector? Great question. So among our two vendors that we had awarded, so it was CSG, as well as West Coast Code Consultants WC3. We looked at their rate schedules between a code officer one all the way up to a senior code officer. We calculated the rate according to our labor limited number of hours, which is 980 hours per year. And we basically came out with 150,000 that would get us all the way up to 980 hours. And so of course that detail of like how many hours per week or which days of the week we still are going to determine with our two consultants and scope that out. But that wouldn't begin until July 1st. And that is when we're planning on executing the contracts and the purchase orders so that they could start those services if this budget is approved. Okay. I was wondering how can we couldn't just not outsource that and do that internally and just bring on some FTEs? Because I know you're paying probably Premium or something on top of what you'd normally play a regular code and for us or just a contract it out for one year What other things have you guys considered when it comes to increasing staffing for code enforcement? Yes, yeah, so the other consideration and that's why I mentioned the two estimates that we provided back in April. Because focusing in on the code enforcement officer priced out fully loaded with benefits, it's 165,000. It could be proposed as a term limited position, but we understand that to be proactive and especially hit the ground running like as of July 1st, we can utilize consultants more so on the front end to make a larger dent in the co-enforcement proactivity of front. But certainly it's the council's prerogative if you would prefer to put that budget towards a term-limited staff position and whether it be term-limited or ongoing. So keeping in mind the need to pull from the general fund as we also have a general fund deficit. So that's why we came together with finance and the City Manager's office to come up with this proposal just for 150,000 as a one-time ask. And the consultant route was what could fulfill that right up front. And so one of our priorities, the inspection program, so does that under code enforcement or is that under housing? The fall under building. Oh, building. So yes, the building team would be impacted by it. So the 150 is being asked for just code enforcement. It doesn't take into account that new council priority if approved. And so if it's under building what funding would that come from? It would also come from general funds. Okay. Because I was thinking maybe that would be a hybrid kind of position. It could be if you're doing rental inspections and cut enforcement and go hand in hand. Correct. Yeah. And that was my initial approach when we discussed this back on April 15th is that shifting to having the two code officers right now focus on proactivity and focus on tier three cases. And we have an existing hybrid position. It is vacant, but we are backfilling it with our consultant and then adding an additional hybrid position so that we could expand on our services, including that rental inspection program. So it's basically like two and two. It's always good and personnel world to have back up to because there's a sharing of cases if there's complexity in terms of cases and like you're saying inspection and co-enforcement go hand in hand. So having a solution to a code enforcement violation, not having to send them to a different person, it's the same person that would walk them through the building permit process to remedy their code violation. Okay, I think one city you should look at is probably sacramental. They do, they have their own, it's like an absentee landlord rental inspection and they pay an annual fee so that will cover some of the costs of doing those inspections in the time. So that might be implementing the program might pay for some of that FTEs or whatever contractor salary. And I should just mention, again, because we mentioned it several times with the master fee schedule and trying to be more cost recovery. The building team has gone through and analyzed their fees for service. And so like I mentioned earlier, we're kind of doing three things at once, but this should all come together hopefully on June 17th when both the budget is heard. The council priorities are already discussed on June 3rd, and then the master fee schedule update is heard at that same meeting on June 17th. Thank you. I think we have another question. Yeah, hi. Thanks for the presentation. I guess I had a couple of questions related to co-inforcement. Is there money in the budget for new and upgraded software for co-inforcement? Is that part of this plan or is that part of an IT plan or is it separate budgets? Great question. Yes, it refers to actually the IT master plan that Sherry mentioned earlier. We're shifting all of our IT focus. We went through a kind of wish list set of workshops with IT with Jimmy and the City manager's office. And that was one of the items that we included, actually even before April 15th when we discussed it before council. Because we know that some of our software is antiquated and there's a need to have a more responsive and efficient way of logging cases. Yeah, what efficiency would you anticipate with new software? Yeah, so like we discussed on April 15th, we talked about a 311 system, so an ability for citizens to report cases, but also to have some point of reference and follow up. So they would actually have the status of their co-enforcement cases. We also talked about, and we already actually are deploying this, but having iPads so that case officers can bring them and be mobile and actually file a case right then and there. The actual process of logging a case has been very form heavy, so you're actually like filling out a fillable PDF, but not one that is automatically generated. You know, there's a lot of new technologies with AI, artificial intelligence being able to help you basically fill that out automatically. And then also plugging it into our existing database, which is track it. So our LandU software, another wishless item we've already added to the IT master plan, for those all to really integrate, as well as working with finance and their electronic management system because even billing and charging of the permit fees should all be synced together. Yeah, I guess I don't object to spending $150,000 on a contract code enforcement if that's what we got to do. I could also imagine a scenario and I was walked through the process of how code enforcement is done and frankly it's painful, it's antiquated and highly inefficient and I could very easily envision a scenario with new software where productivity goes up like you know 700% where you take a picture automatic AI generated report and it takes you know two minutes instead of 20 minutes or whatever and you can do it right there on the spot. So I strongly encourage you know the building and code enforcement office to you know find the best software for them and you know go from 1989 or whatever 1999 to 2025 and I think a lot of these complaints can be resolved very easily, but if you have to drag and drop a photo and you have to fill out a PDF form, I mean, that's very, very slow. It's very inefficient. It uses a lot of staff time where something should be, you know, five minutes could be a lot more involved in that. And it's just not fun work. I mean, why not, you know, pay some money and have the software? That was my only question. So thank you for your presentation. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. And that's on that same topic. I think that, um, yeah, you know, I, I was, again, you know, I was really reluctant to support definitely like adding another person full time. It could skyrocket up to $200,000. At some point, and if it becomes a permanent position and all of that, what I think that doing it this way is a better way. And perhaps, yeah, really investigate all those different ways in which things could be done more efficiently. We are a small city. We're not a huge, huge city, although obviously there's a lot of units to inspect. And we've spoken also about educational program or some ways in which if people are warned, ahead of time, you know, some percentage people will take notice of it and they will do something. And then there's the ones that are, you know, maybe violating something that are the ones that code enforcement could focus on. And the other ones, again, there's that, to me, there's that thin line when you get to that tier three, where just people's private property, it's very sacred. I mean, people, and they do have the right to have whatever they want in their property pretty much, seems to me, unless they're're violating something and so even sorting that out because I can see a case where if if we become a little too heavy-handed somebody could follow lawsuit and they would win. I can just see it on court. The judge is going to say, well this is your private property, yeah? And the government did what? It's like, okay, you know, they're going to push back a lot. So I think part of this will be kind of finding ways that are efficient, that are not too intrusive, and that can, you know, help with that area that they need some help. So thank you for your presentations. Thank you, Mr. Thank you. So we're moving along to the next. Actually, I haven't my question yet. Yeah, I don't know. Actually, I'm not in favor of the $150,000 for the extra position. But I lost that fight. I mean, clearly, we have three members of this council who want to impose a particular lifestyle on folks and let's see how that goes. But the big problem is not going to be identifying. It's going to, it's compliance, right? So that's, it's fine. In five seconds, you can identify. But you have to go back, you have to talk to those people. There is some due process involved. So this is a lengthy process to assume that a single notice, right, is going to get someone to make the change, is ludicrous. It's fantasy. And so I think what, you know, maybe this one person will indeed show us how complex and difficult it's going to be to enforce all of the quote-unquote quality of life blight issues that the vice mayor is talking about, which basically for most people we can live with. So excuse me. I mean, for now, I think we can go ahead and we can fund the 150. So I just want to remind us of the code of ethics, to please not go ahead and start, you know, referring to other council members. As I said, as the vice mayor has said, thank you. That he wants to put forward this position of basically eliminating blight, which we have not defined, we will find indeed that it's going to be far more difficult to do that and far more constantly. So the $150,000 is probably just one way to figure out, indeed, how much, how difficult this process will be. And it's not just an AI operated piece. But again, I've already said my piece against it, but it'll probably pass. So let me, I have some questions here about your line items. Under membership dues, you have CKAG, which is $400, and I haven't found a miscellaneous piece yet, but CKAG's dues are certainly significantly larger than that. They're probably, I don't know exactly what the number is. I'm on the finance committee and I remember looking at the EPA ones. And anyway, they're all pretty significant. Is there a reason, is this 400 to go to a meeting or something? Or is this because the prior year was 10,700, but you may have redistributed things around. So just trying to understand why the C-Cag piece is so small and what was there in omission there? Or is the C-Cag number somewhere else? And I think... I think it should be a non-departmental. Okay. Okay. So... Yes, sorry it's on membership dues for non-departmental. Okay, okay. So, yeah, sorry, it's on membership dues for non-departmental. Okay, that's fine. So this $400 for CKG, maybe to attend some meetings that they have or something, is that right? Yeah, and there was some transition that we worked on transportation demand management in past years where planning was taking the lead and working with public works and also with the city manager's office. This might be a remnant item but I can definitely follow up and we can clarify by the final budget. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't understated but apparently it's not because I'll look at non-sortimental. Yeah, that's fine. I got it. Okay. Let's see. Question about... So there's the rental assistance piece. The... JJ says, a minimum of 30 percent. You've plugged in a 30 percent number, which is the 5, 10. It's been suggested that that number for this first year be 40%, there seem to be some interest in increasing it. I mean, we can come back. I'm going to suggest again the 40% number, which is something that we had talked about before. Obviously, I can reintroduce it, but right now that that number is a static 30% minimum, right, which is what the ordinance says a minimum of it doesn't say a maximum, right? So, and that's where that 510 comes from. Correct, but we had talked about the possibility of increasing it so we could do so during this budget period if we wanted to. Yes, you could direct staff to do it in this budget period. And we do plan to come back with measure JJ later this year, more like calendar year. And so we would of course take that into account if it does occur after the fiscal year change. Yeah. And so again, I'm suggesting the 40%. I as an amendment, I wanted to ask about the heart dues, which are close to $10,000, $9,267, which are kind of our highest dues that we're paying on some of the housing side. What exactly is the value out of heart? So I don't know, I don't see Karen here, got in here, but yeah. Yeah, I can speak to that. So we've had a long relationship with heart through 21 elements and the community collaborative. So we actually work with them in three different parts. So they provide a shared housing that we actually coordinate with other jurisdictions through the 21 elements collaborative. When there is, for example, the housing element was the biggest example of that, where we all were experiencing the same thing, and we shared do's and don'ts and lessons learned so that we could all get our housing elements past. But this doesn't cover that shared person we're actually paying for some of that salary. These are just the annual do's, is that right These are just the annual dues to participate in some of the work that they're doing. So for example, they're aiding in reviewing below market rate administration guidelines that are universally shared with other cities, including ours, helping us rewrite some of our detailed goals among our housing element. And whenever there is legislation or anything new that is changing, again, reaching out to us to provide us that additional support, so that we're all in it together. And just to cover the third part, that heart is also providing staff augmentation services to our team. And we would not be able to get that staff augmentation if we were not a member of heart. Is that your understanding? I think it goes hand in hand. It wouldn't make sense for us to disengage from the heart, like, listserv and the heart community group that we're a part of when we are also meeting that additional staff augmentation. Keep in mind, and I realize we didn't point this out, but that housing, the staff augmentation that we granted that the City Council granted us last fiscal year was a one time that that we're currently carrying out with part right now. That contract will end and there won't be any more funds that go towards that. Staff are shifting the focus on this one-time housing specialist term limited position. We still see value in partnering with heart but we also see value in having in-house staff even on the short term so that we actually have the in-house knowledge base and keeping it here. And I know that the I can't remember the consultant's name but the heart's consultant's name, but he was very helpful in terms of both backfelling some of the maternity leave that we had and also bringing in expertise in other areas. So obviously, there was value there. So, okay, thank you. Yeah. The other item here on this same page is the loan advances, the Bay Road loan advance, annual payment to the owner. So this was, you know, a, when we approved that project, which is the courtyard, right? I think we said, I don't know if it was a $600,000 fund, it may have been larger, in which basically we're subsidizing their operations, correct. But my understanding is that the project has been sold, is it not, or not yet? Not yet. Yeah, they did go through partway through selling the project this past December, but the escrow was not complete. So it did not go through? Or it's still in the process, just didn't go through. It didn't go through. Okay, so then this obligation still is on, okay, great. I thought that it had been sold and we didn't have the obligation. Okay, thank you. It would still be housing funds, but I mean, it's okay. So the rent stabilization program is the other thing. So I see, I'm happy actually. So we have $82,500 for hearing examiners. So I know that the number of Additions increased. So this 82,500 is to cover the increase activity by tenants in filing for these warranty of habitability petitions, correct? That's correct, because we've had an increase in petitions. We are also adding on an additional hearing examiner to help expedite the process because we've only had to so far lately. Okay. So this is partially that augmentation. Correct. Because some of it is coming out of the rent stabilization boards, rent stabilization programs, funds right next. Okay. So it's going to come out of the fees to basically anticipate that we're going to have to renew the contracts for the current examiners because we anticipate it's going to be expended there are a lot of it and then also adding in the additional examiner. Okay. So along those lines I have heard from both tenants as well as from several of the board members that There's an interest in actually having the city perhaps provide on an annual maybe semester basis some sort of direct communication with tenants via whether it's postcards or even a newsletter One many of the tenants are not particularly in a net savvy or they're not, some emails don't work with them, texting can, but it's a little more difficult. So I wanted to know if you all might wanna think about augmenting this budget to allow for a couple of, and again, these aren't city-wide mailings, right? You're talking about a 26, 2700 base of people. So, is that, you know, I would love to actually see something in here that would allow for you to do additional mailings to make sure that people know their rights and also know that there is a theing process. That and you're getting good at this, I'm sure because you've done a number of these petitions already. So a suggestion. Yes, obviously, staff would be interested in doing that stuff, we're also looking at bringing back the workshops. It's just looking at staff capacity in order to create and initiate those workshops for tenants or landlords to get the educational purposes through our office. I just want to make sure the resources are there, because again, there have been some tenants who have suggested this. I've asked for it, and I know there's some board members who were saying, hey, this could be good way that we could get out the word. So perhaps if you wanted to think about an augmentation, that'd be great. And then lastly, the statewide rent stabilization, statewide stabilization, the state wide conference. So I see us $1,600 there. Do we send any of our rent stabilization board members to those conferences? And don't we want to increase that? Because I think it's really valuable. I mean, I went to them 37 years ago. Jesus, I mean, maybe like 38 years ago, right? When I was cheering it and and whatever. So, and I found them extremely valuable. So, that was actually adjusted to include at least one of the board members to go with us to the conference. So, that is the plan. Yeah, and again, I would suggest if maybe it was, you know, if there were two or three members at one of the go, because I just, right, it is valuable, valuable information that they they're probably best practices or for that matter pitfalls that other people have encountered that we can all learn from. So that's all. Um, see, there's no loan events. I'm done. Thank you very much. Thank you. Um, I would like to take a point of personal privilege and address some comments made by council member Romero. I think what he said was that three council members are trying to impose their will on the city or something to that effect. But I don't think that's the case. I think that we're actually trying to improve service delivery in our community and make it a better place for everyone. So I think that's really more appropriate. So thank you, Carlos. Okay, well thank you for those comments. We name is Boquion Kim. I am a Finance service manager. Today, I'm going to present the finance department budget and non-departmentary budget. So I'm going to start from the finance department budget. The core services we provide is that first, the safeguard public assets and fiduciary duties. So to make this happen, the most important thing is that we have to have strong internal controls. And we already implemented very strong internal controls to most of our modules that we touch in the finance team. So we have a good risk management, cash management, and treasury relief. So second one is the financial planning and analysis. The finance department forecast our requisite annual basis we updated and also to do that, we have kind of set ten years module and we update every year. And also we do the budgeting and reserve planning, capture planning in that management and tax administration. Third one is the reporting and audit. This is more like compliance requirements. Most important thing is that city will prepare a defer and your comprehensive financial report. And this year in 2324, the finance department also prepared EPA SD financial statement. And most of the cases, the hour city received a federal grant, so we prepare a single audit. And also we do a major specific financial statement in this case, measure AHHHW. Also we prepare an annual street report so that we show where we use actually our gas taxes. And so many other reports again remit, but yet any compensation, maybe 16 reports so that we always make sure we submit all the reports and requirement on time so that sometimes if we do not make those connected to you then we are going to lose our money in the next year's budget. So we always try to make sure we make all the compliance requirements on time. Next one is the internal finance services. Finance department is the internal service department. So our priority is always we try to make sure if we provide right services to the department so the department can provide programs and services to the community on time in an efficient and effective way. That's our goal. Lastly, finance operations are one of our core services. This one, most our step time, like 50%, 60% of our step time, we use for this operation. So we process bi-weekly paid or we process weekly AP and everyday cash receipts. We do the general ledger maintenance, bank reconciliation monthly. So we prepare monthly bank reconciliation report and we go back to the council monthly basis. And also we do the business license. Although we outsource business license work to the outsource third party, but still if the case is complicated and it comes back to us, so we have to reserve those issues. So we still work on the business licenses. Next slide, please. This is the budget snapshot. If you see the first row, the finance department, we have now eight FTE. Even though it says one FTE increase, but this FTE was actually approved during the media budget for the senior accountant. So the salaries and benefit increase of $246,000 is basically due to the one additional senior accountant position plus co-la increase. The other expenditures, the total amount we are going to propose is 349, but actually this is the reduced amount compared to the 25 adopted budget, because as Amy mentioned and Shuddy mentioned, our metrics contract to set up a user fee project is going to be ended sometime soon. So that project is done, that makes our total other expenditure that reduced by $110,000. The next row EPSD items, we have only $57,000 this year. It's mainly for the audit for EPSD and related to that, we have to prepare reports such as like O make sure we are report and then if there is new guest be implement needs to be implemented and we are going to use this budget. We have 172 thousand dollars decreased compared to fiscal year 25 that's because we were not sure what how How complex this EPA SD accounting. So we budgeted $230,000 in $25,000. But it looks like we don't have to budget that much. So we reduced by 172. So we are requesting only $57,000 for the EPSD expenditures. So if we compare the total department budget, there is not much changes compared to the fiscal year 25 to fiscal year 26. So we try to reduce, minimize the buffer as much as we can since we have general funded deficit. That's why our budget is pretty similar to the prior year. Next slide, please. Other question. So you guys increased, you're asking for an additional FTE, is that what you're saying? Yes, but this FTE is for the senior accountant. This FTE was already approved during the media budget season. So in this presentation slide, we are comparing to fiscal year 25 adopted budget. That's why it says this is one FT increase. But actually this position was already approved during the media budget. Okay, because I mean, Okay, cuz like I know EPSD had probably had one and they got rid of it and you're budgeted for that. Some wondering if that increases because we're working on more EPSD. Does everything in relation to EPS here? Well, this new senior account position, this person is going to be definitely support the EPSD work, but that person is going to also work for the city's finance as well. So some of some of the benefits and salary coming from EPSD. All right. Some of their time will be allocated to EPSD. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. accordingly. Yes. Okay. All right. Thanks. Yes. And actually for the EPSD employees, we have one, we already approved during the media, but see for the additional FTE for the EPSD support that one that position is through the through the chair. That's the position you're discussing now. The one we added at mid-year was to provide additional support to EPA SD. Yes. And there is additional position in the public work for the EPA SD support. Okay, yes. For EPSD, we have this position in finance and we have the IT position that you all approved in mid-year was related to providing additional service to EPSD. We have a office assistant. It might be called a administrative assistant, I don't recall. It was for EPSD and FY2324, you all approved a utility manager, which was designed for assistance with EPS SD. Next piece. Yes. So for the finance accomplishments, the first thing is that you may remember that in December 2023, we have implemented a new European system called CASEL. In the December 2023, we were focused on, we focused on operational modules such as pader, a conspariable, a country-resivable. In this fiscal year, we focused more on the budget. So this budget, this time this budget was prepared using that module-implemented module embedded in our new ERP system. And also a credit card payment, we are almost done. The setup is done, testing is done, but the only piece left is that we have to finish the PCI compliance. This is more to protect credit card information or maintain secure network. So once this PCI compliance is done, then we are planning to announce to the public that now city is accepting credit card payment. So that's why we are planning to do in June 2025. Another one is that approval procedure is the one that we set up in this year. So now we, when we process the invoice purchase order and contract to be signed, we use DocuSign. DocuSign is very useful and reliable system, but at the same time we have to pay now, document by document, so it costs a lot. So what we're going to do is that we are going to use the that can pay approval module, embed it in the new ERP system, that way we don't have to use the docuSign for the invoice process and purchase process, that way we can save some money. We are going to train our staff in June 2025, so that from that time, we are going to save the money by not using docuSign anymore. To be honest, we had some eCups with a new ERP system. We found some of the data were incorrectly migrated, but yeah, incorrectly migrated. And we still see some system glitches here and there. So next year, what we're going to focus on is, call it like a phase three. What we're gonna focus that is that focus on is, we try to find errors and fix it as much as you can and they would like to have a clean historic data. So if something happens then, no. So yeah, so that is our plan for next year. We try to complete our ERP implementation base next year so that we can continue using a new ERP system. Next to a complete accomplishment is that as many, the presenter already presented the Costal Location and master fee study. We started the contract in November 2024 and almost done we are planning to go back to the council to review the study in June, 2025. So in this study we prepare a city's full Cost allocation and master fee, including EPA SD portion. Also, in the study, we try to ensure the city meets all the required standards and remains in compliance. So yeah, that's cost allocation and master fee study. Next one is the Senate redistrict in cooperation. What finance department did is that we tried to import the EPSD historic finance data into our new IP system. We did all the past past years budget and general ledger information implemented into, included, migrated into the new system. Also, we trained EPSD how they process AP, how they issue the purchase order, how we are going to process their payers as well. So all those trainings were already provided to them. Also, we found some unusual transactions in the EPSD, so we conducted forensic investigations. Last piece is the compliance report. As I aforementioned in the previous slide, finance prepared all the reports on time, and the key reports such as ACFER, GAN limit, budget report, those information are on the city's website. So if anyone interested in, then go to the website and see the detailed information. Next slide please. This is for the key priorities for next year. The first one is the core financial functions. This is more like aggregated items that I mentioned in the previous slide. So the day-to-day operations budget audit reporting. This is foundational task for the finance department. by doing all those day-to-day operations and budget audit, we can build a good public trust and then we can have a good financial integrity. And then second one is the development of a long-term fiscal strategy. This is one of the proposed council priorities. The city is developing a 10-year long-term fiscal plan to address the structure deficit. The strategy will balance revenues and expenditures, maintaining core services like policy safety services, and incorporate capital planning to ensure long-term financial stability and asset maintenance. Next, grant management system is also proposed council priority. As of now, the finance department has grant management policy, written documents, and then we track all the grants in the access tradition. But if we are implementing this grant management system, this place is going to be kind of hub for all the grants so we can see if the grant is applied and if the grant is actually over-did, if there is any expenditures, if we requested reimbursement and once the grant is done if we meet all the compliance report requirements and close our report is prepared or those information can be found in this grant management system if this one is implemented. Next one is the early redemption of successor agency tax allocation bond. We will research and implement early redemption of successor agency tax allocation bonds. Actually, this is recommended by the county's oversight committees. If we do the early redemption, the good thing is that the more property tax is going to be coming to the city directly, and then we don't have to pay the interest. So we plan to pay off this successor agency's bond in 2526. Next one is the financial policy update. As I mentioned earlier, we already have strong internal controls, but we found some cores here and there. So for example, like a credit card policies, we don't have updated credit card policies. So we don't, we are not sure who can actually have the city's credit card and how much it should be there credit limits. So all those information needs to be written and we are going to prepare the detailed policy for the credit card. Not only the credit card policy we have some kind of feedback from the staff that certain template needs to be updated for example like a travel reimbursement. It's sometimes it's kind of not easy to, it's not intuitive, so we received some feedback. So we are going to actually conduct a comprehensive review of all the finance related templates and procedures, and we are planning to update it in 25, 26. Yep, any questions? To the chair. On the sanitary district, if somebody were to request financial records, how far back do you have them and at what level of detail? Actually, we are planning to, the system, the EPA SD was using is called Quickbook. And then we are planning to access, we are planning to extend their annual subscription, and then we can have all the past history information. So if somebody asks the past information of the Senator District, then we can provide all the information in their system, Quickbook System. Because the Quickbook account is still alive. So we can just, as long as we pay the subscription fee, we can access to their whole previous years information. Say that last part again. So the records are being kept in this system. In the notebook system, yes. We don't have access to them yet, or we have to pay. Yeah, we have to pay the subscription fee. That way we can access to it. So we haven't done that yet, or is that part of what's... No, we have passed a couple of years' information already implemented, embedded in our... No, but I'm talking about, like someone says, I won the records from five years ago, five years ago. Five years ago. Yes, we can get that information. We can get that now. Yes. Somebody can get that now. Yes. At all levels of detail. Yes. OK. We can basically log into the system and then as they are accountant to use to access, so we can get the same level as the previous account used to access. OK. So we can get the same level. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. So a few questions and what you guys did or what our IT folks did for the sanitary district is that they basically kept their website alive and there's literally a link on our page to their their website to the former website that has all of their financial well at least their outwardly publicly facing records. We have since migrated everything to the city of EPA.org webpage website and there's a page for EPA SD. So that must have just happened? Yes, that's really good. Because I was accessing it a month ago. But it was through, you could still the information. Their their audits for what they were worth their budgets, all that of the stuff. But what you're talking about is like ledger level data, which we don't provide to the public, right? I mean, I mean, I suppose we could provide it if there was a you know, some sort of ask for it, but what we provide is basically the forward facing documents like the Act for the budget, that's the stuff, which is already provided to the public. Yes, and sometimes the PRA request I received is that they want to see the new vendor in a certain fiscal information. In that case, we have to access to the more detailed information and get it. Yeah. I just, just a couple of questions on the details here. There's a $70,000 Castell or Cacell's, excuse me. Cacell's fee in 2026. Is that a license fee or is that money we're going to be investing to, to try to fix some of the data migration issues. That's an annual subscription. Okay, so that's their license fee. Yes. Got it. Okay. But within this budget, was there money to fix some of the data migration issues that you said you said? You want to be free. I'm free. Pardon me? It's going to be free. Okay. Because that one should have been done before we actually open our new system. So, so Kassel is going to do this. Is that right? It's going to do it. Yeah, there is no addition of fee to fix it. Yeah, well, it was it was an incredibly expensive system. So I'm glad that they're doing it. Yes. That was great. Great. Let's see. A quick question on the and this is a little off topic, but so the early redemption of the successor agency tax allocation bonds, I believe the vice mayor is the chair of that body. I think we should convene that body and you should explain to us the early redemption piece. I think it is very important for us to understand the transaction and understand the savings value, etc., etc. So I would ask that the vice chair is the president of the successor agency, you know, convened within this meeting sometime and sooner than later because, you know, it's on this list of something that the department wants to lead. How this is going to work, and certainly what savings are. I'm very interested in understanding it, so thank you. That was my only comment on the early redemption of the success rate and Z-tax location box. Oh, I'm sorry, there is another thing. There's a garbage, so garbage services fee. What is that? So it's $3.5 million, then it says BFI, but you don't use BFI. Is that, can somebody explain, or maybe we are using BFI, and I didn't know that, but so there's a garbage services B Or garbage service fee is that The we pay to the Recallogy Right, okay, so it's about $65 per month and we have 4200 accounts Got it. So that if we aggregate it that's so is there a reason that well what what is the BFI stand for? But we don't use browning ferris and freeze so can we take that off please? Either we think waste we can update it. It's an old r record. Let's let's let's go in there and change that little account. Okay. General ledger here we come. Okay. Great. That was it. I'm sure the executive director Joe Mariana would be happy that we did that. So, okay. Thank you, Mayor. You know. Okay. That was it. Thank you very much. Thank you. And then the next one is the non-departmental budget. Next slide please. So I have listed out the key significant dollar amount items in here. So first thing is the garbage service as councilmember Carlos Romero mentioned that this is the 3.5 million. This is the payment we make to the Recology Quality Basis for the residential garbage pollution. And then the second one is the insurance and settlement. This is the plan JPA insurance premium for both property and liability. Next one is SAP payment. This is the successor agency payment. It includes everything like a transfer interest and bank charges. So it makes 1.6 million next year. And then transfer out is 3.5 million. Since this page only shows the expense side, this only shows the transfer out. But if we see the revenue side at the same time, we will see transfer in, then it's going to be offset to each other. And then maybe the more, kind of meaningful review for this transfer out is going to be how much is going to be transferred from general fund to non general fund. In 2026, it's 0.8 million, but 2025, it was 1.8 million, that's due to the decrease of CIP transfer, the finance director briefly mentioned in his overview. So this is the one million decrease the transfer out to the non-general fund for the transfer. And then lastly, the other is this is more like the aggregation of everything else, including a miscellaneous payment. But the significant amount is the JPA Nure due, which is 900,000. And also we have properly listed city hall lease payment about 235,000 and then the other county services of 100,000 and some miscellaneous items. It makes 1.5 million. So the total non-deportment payment for next year is going to be 11 million dollars, including transferire. Any questions? Yeah, I had a question about the doubling of the JPA. So what JPA would join powers of authority are we talking about? The SFJPA that's not going to skate the creek. Okay, so that That is doubled this year. Is that correct? Yes. OK. Um, so is that a one time doubling or is that the new fee would council member Abri Kano? No, it goes here by year. Right. So that's the fee for this year, this one million. Okay, it's well worth it. That's fine. I just wanted to understand. OK. If I may answer to the question, so majority of the increase is coming from the reach to project management cost. And that led to increase of doubling the contribution. So that's their side of a project cost. So is that, I mean, if you're listing it as a fee, but it's weird, cause it's actually a project cost, right? That's correct, but that's not the city, I mean, it is a city portion, but it was included in the annual contribution. It was. Yes. Okay, and they're like bill to us or Yes. Okay. So why disaggregated if it's coming as one single bill? That's correct. All right. Thank you. Yeah. I think that was those were the two major items. Okay. Thank you. So I'm interested. I know one of our priorities is coming both along to our plan to address our structural deficit. But have we identified any potential things to start addressing that like new revenue taxes? Is that something you guys handle? What do you want to respond to? No, I'll know. Are you guys just check the money? That item is one of the new work plan items. So, first of all, the estimated cost is not included in the budget. Okay, but Yeah, so we we have election in 2026 and one of the city managers office initiative was sick for the new You know about majors including the revenue due amount and Also one of the our priority. I mean finance key priorities, the redemption of the successor agency tax allocation bond. That might, I don't want to speak right now, but that may provide some additional tax, property tax increase. Yeah, that's that's all I know for now. But I think this initiative will help us build a strategy to address the deficit. it. Thank you. Thank you so much. Did you have another question? Okay. Thank you so much for your presentation. Thank you. I don't know if we want to try to squeeze in the last presentation within these 20 minutes. As long as he doesn't try to have a long list of accomplishments, we might be able to do it. Okay. Okay, let's give it a shot and if not to be continued. I'll give you a fifth notes version. You know, actually, I just heard city attorney. So I don't know if you, I have a bunch of questions for you, right? I think I also wanted to know about overtime stuff, which you have the research still. Got the numbers. Okay. But I'm wondering if, because the city attorney should be really fast, if you do the city attorney, we'll get that done and then we can do you the next time. I don't know because I I know the mayor does not want to go after night Go past nine o'clock and I'm gonna suggest you want to just move them around Oh, I can I don't know about you guys. Yeah, so I'm gonna tell you I have questions for him So I'm not to wait till I'm not going to do. I'm not going to stop my questions. We're going to end at nine. So you guys can continue without me. That's fine. I'll just have to leave at nine. Okay. So proceeding. You've got my slides though. Okay. So, well, quickly on this page is our mission statement, administration operations and investigations. Essentially, we set up into three divisions, one, to maintain the structure and build on the structure and direction of the department, which is administration. Operations is essentially patrol and investigations is, investigations kind of speaks for itself going to the next slide There's our budget snapshot by division Despite what the numbers look like we're not really adding anything Anything big you might see some large increases. That's professional services like flock and vector solution. Critical incident, there is a critical incident video contract that we put money in. That's only if we need to use it. State law requires that if we have an officer in law shooting, we have to produce a video within a certain amount of time and a lot of work has to go into that. We don't have that capacity, so we set the money aside in case we have to use it. We have not yet had to use it since we put it in there, which is a good thing. Turbo data, we had to increase that amount because of increased parking citations that we've been issuing. We've been writing, we've been issuing an all-time high in terms of parking citations, so we're building out the budget on that. So we're planning ahead for next year. We're raising it up a little bit. We talked away 200,000, rough 200,000, to administer the permit parking program if that's come to come to fruition. But in anticipation, we put it there. It may not be enough. Chances are very good, it may not be enough, but it's a starting point. Few expenses are getting higher, so we had to mop that up a little bit. Investigations, the big plus is we've organized a lot of the line items in the different category so a lot of the investigative tools move from administration over to investigation. So you'll see a large increase right there. Oh, in terms of your question, Councilman for Merrill, our OT budget for fiscal year 2425 was 1.1 million. And this year, we're asking for 1.2 million. And and per Tomo it's a pretty accurate projection of what we use. So go to the next slide accomplishments in the interest of time I'm gonna let you read them for yourself. And then go to the next slide key priorities. These are based on your council priorities from that last meeting where you guys are setting your priorities. So of course we want to make progress towards a new police department. We need to retain and recruit more police personnel, which is a very difficult thing right now. Finding good candidates across the board, every agency is having the same problems. The quality is just not out there. We wanna implement a leadership development program targeting line level officers so we can build leadership but skills in them early on. So they'll be ready to take the next step earlier in their careers. Our department's very young and we really need to do this and invest in our personnel. Expand our community commission and involvement. I don't feel like we put enough information out on our website or social media because we just don't have that capacity right now. So I want to find ways to make that happen because it'll help curb misconceptions that we don't give out parking tickets. We give out a ton of parking tickets but we're not telling people. This will help with that. And then I'm sorry, you said you don't give out what I didn't hear. There's a perception that we don't give out parking tickets. Oh, I got back. We give out a ton of parking tickets. I got some. Michael's just sitting here complaining about a parking ticket. So I don't complain. I just pay you just pay. I appreciate that. Yeah, I would appreciate your contribution. I would say that it was not so much of a perception about parking tickets. It's about enforcement of parking in general. Like, well, parking tickets, but even lines with it. But one of the questions that I had about, I think you just mentioned and East Pell also that's not related to the parking permit program. Select the abandoned trailer or the parking permit. but what can we do to address some of those issues in terms of parking and East Pell also that's not related to the parking permit program? So like the the abandoned trailer or the untouched trailers, the RVs and all that other stuff. So my plan was to let you guys sort out the permit parking program and give us some direction and then when we put out an RFP for a vendor to manage that program, also contract with them for targeted enforcement to give us directed enforcement for parking. The way we're set up right now, our CSOs do a variety of different duties. They're not just parking officers, so the way we're set up won't give you the type of return that you're looking for. So hopefully with the new contract Parking management company. We could give you that kind of delivery. Okay, but right now with CSOs There's no way we'll ever meet that expectation. Yeah And stuff for the budget. That's all you put 200,000 for the parking permit program was that based upon the Mobility study. That's just a wild guess. I mean, I had somebody kind of reach out to one of the parking companies and say, hey, just give me a ballpark. Well, I was gonna say the scientific one, but we're in a formal setting, sir. Yeah, kind of. The mobility study, they allocated two full-time police officers and it was only for the gardens. And I think at that point, it was only 250,000. Just for that. So mobility study of crack enough from wrong, but that was like 10 years ago, I think. No, it was five. Was it? It's a few. Yeah. Yeah. So it's been a while. It's been a while. But when you're looking at a police officer or city staff, you're looking at total compensation, not just salary, we're contracting out. That's their business. We're just asking for the service. And then eight vacancies is up to that company and a fill to give us what we're paying for. Okay, well I'm just interested in knowing more about how you came up with that number. Oh, there's nothing scientific about it. It's just a guess at this. Okay, all right. But it's a starting point. We'll have to make adjustments as we go. All right. Let's see key priorities. Let me see. New technology. Always looking at new technology to make our community safer. We want to reach full staffing on patrol. We're constantly working towards that and hiring as many people as we can. But it takes a long time to get people from a police recruit through the Academy through field training and onto the street as a solo officer, but we'll be keep working towards that. So hopefully one day it comes at fruition. Full staffing on CSOs. We have a few vacancies right now, so trying to get that filled. We have vacancies because one of our CSOs is moving back to Washington and a couple we've promoted to police recruits got one through the academy and the other one just started the academy. So it's not that they're even prepared. And I want to create a traffic enforcement solution of some sort. I know we don't have the funding that give me a full time division, but I want to get creative about it and see if we can come up with some kind of solution to address some dedicated traffic enforcement. Investigations, of course, want to solve more cold homicides, look at new technologies to make their jobs a little more efficient and make it easier for them to solve crimes. We want to reach full staffing investigations. They're running short because patrols running short. And then I'd like to create an interim position, a college intern to help with some of the things that they can process. They can look through data and help detectives. I didn't, sorry. Excuse me. I did have a question. When you said that you wanted to create a traffic enforcement solution to have like an idea, any brainstorms as to like where and how would you like implement it? Are you basing it on, for example, say for routes to school or something like that? I don't know. Right now, you know, I'm going to talk to my captain's about him. We're going to get creative. We can't use the traditional methods because we just don't have the capacity to do it. But we got to get creative with it, maybe doing on an overtime basis, put some officers on motorcycles. So they're a little bit more mobile and can catch speeding vehicles a lot easier. But that will probably have to happen on an overtime basis because we just don't have the numbers on patrol right now. We have five people out on injury, a couple of vacancies into in the academy and out of 36, that adds up quick. It's a pretty large percentage. So we just gotta get creative with it. And then when we find the way to apply the solution, then we'll figure out how we're going to do it. Yeah, I think it's actually very important. I'm sure that all of you by now probably heard what happened last week. You know, near a school in Menlo Park of that individual that got hit. He was on a bike. And so I think that given the fact that we have seen a lot of more folks moving up to this area, I think it's a very important solution that you're thinking of ahead. And I am in full support of it. So I just wanted to point that out. So thank you. And that's just the way to expand on what we're already doing. I already have officers coming in on their days off to work traffic, like Oscars in today, doing a lot of traffic enforcement. I've heard them all over the radio. He was top in a lot of cars today. Thank you. So when you talk about traffic enforcement, is that specifically related to like speeding or is that like red light stuff? Yeah, any moving violation. Okay. Yeah. But I mean, the officers, they're focusing on the egregious violations, not the like barely California role something. Yeah, it's like failure to stop. They're the, they're getting the ones that don't even tap the brake. Yeah, I've seen it today, to the council meeting, do the strict, do the straight through the stop. Yeah. Yeah. Have you thought about any technology that could address that? Looking at it right now, I mean, technology. I know there's been a lot of legal debate about red light cameras. So kind of looking at that, I was talking to chief Norris from Menlo Park. When he's with San Mateo, he actually let it initiative to remove the red light cameras. So, it's kind of want to look at what the issues are with that and see if it's something that's viable for us. I heard about speeding cameras. We got to see if they're working California. I've seen it in other states, but California is a little different sometimes. Well and the legislation only said what? Seven cities in the state can do speeding cameras right now. So it doesn't apply to us. Not yet. Not yet, but we can look. I mean, you can look. So with that, next slide, open for any questions. Yeah, so sorry, as a follow up of my last question about technology, when it comes to the parking program, have you looked into the cost of software and like automated license plate readers and how we're going to administer that program or at least that pilot that we want to do? So my hopes is that would come with the company. Let me ask for the service. That's something that they would provide. hopefully let me do the RFP, well identify those things as those things they need to do. That way we're not paying for it. Yeah, they're providing it. Because then you have to have a service or a sort of software for people to register or someone to the thing can go up to or whatever and then getting gas permits and all that stuff that might require someone on site or it could be through online or some sort of kiosk or something. I mean, obviously we're probably still too early in that situation. We haven't really put together the budget and the costs that are going to go into this program. But I was wondering if you had looked into that. I have not done a lot of research yet because I don't have any direction, solid direction just yet. But my intent is to find a full service company that comes with all those things we're looking for. That way we don't have to worry about hiring personnel for it. We don't have to buy the technology and maintain the technology. We can just contract with this company and let them handle all of that. Okay. Hi, are there any plans to use drone technology in the upcoming year? Do you have a budget item for that? Or do we need a direction from council to do that? Or what? Use drones, yeah, I should probably get direction from council to use drones. In terms of getting a drone, it wouldn't be very quick, especially with everything going on with China, but I know Menlo Fire has a lot of drones and they replace theirs on a regular basis. We have a good relationship, it wouldn't be the first time they gave us their extras. So I'm not if you know if I get that direction then I'll go that route. I'll go one more. I'm good. So for fuel cost and I'm thinking about like transitioning to electric vehicles. Have you guys, I mean how are we considering our, we explored how that would look in terms of like our fleet, our police fleet and going electric? Yeah, so we've, we bought the three on mark the electric. So we are just now, we just got two in service. We're waiting for the third one to to get the lights and sirens and it just came in. It was a Chevy Blazer. That's going to be used by the executive leadership team right now so that we can explore their technology. And from driving these things around, I've learned a lot of things. Refueling takes a lot of time. That's something we have to build capacity for. The capability of charging, we need something that's going to stand up during a disaster. A couple of years ago, we're out of power for three and a half days. If we had an electric fleet, we'd be dead in the water. We've got to another city. What's that? Go to another city in charge. Because we were with our power for four days, like middle of park band electricity as well. But yeah, even if you go to a supercharger, it's gonna take an hour or two to get your car up the charge. And then we have to pay somebody to sit there and wait with the car. There are things that have to be overcome. Hopefully with the, if we get this new Civic Center, then they can build in a ton of solar panels and have a power bank so that we have the capacity to charge even when we're out of power. But that's a different discussion. There are some things we get overcome especially the power issue and how to recharge it and which vehicles to use to. There the chair, I think chief Lou, maybe you talk about just patrol vehicles switching. Let me know it would be the largest fuel cost is the patrol fleet. So yeah. We have any question. Yeah. So I'm, you know, it seems like every department has furniture and equipment. So you have $170,000 for an furniture and equipment. They had $150. There was another department that had like 10. So we're looking at what, $300, $400,000 in equipment in furniture stuff. Should we just like maybe hold off till we can like figure out what we're going to do, where we're going to go? I can say anything else. I don't know, I just, I see these furniture prices here and like, I don't know, are we doing this comparatively? I mean, how,, how? Do you have a financial purchase plan for next fiscal year? We don't have anything planned right now, because we're in anticipation of what may be. We don't want to do a lot of upgrades right now that may be away some of money. So we've been pretty frugal about that and haven't bought really much in furniture. Although I just asked HR for a go assessment for the detectives. So maybe some chairs. Okay. I'll let the city manager toy with that idea. So, look, I'm opposed to the parking program. I don't think it should be in the budget. I think we should pull it out. But I think just that little conversation you had with a council member here about what was needed, I mean, this could be a half million seven hundred thousand dollar program, right? I think the two hundred thousand dollar program. Right. I think the two hundred thousand dollars of lowball and I just, you know, we're going into this eyes closed, not eyes wide open, right? Trying to implement a program that we have no idea on between the cost. I mean, as you said, it was a much higher cost, I think, in the mobility study, right? Isn't it like 350 or something like that? Yeah, I don't know the cost of mobility. Yeah, yeah. Um, so... As you said, it was a much higher cost, I think, in the mobility study, right? It was in like 350 or something like that. Yeah, I don't know the cost of mobility. Yeah. Yeah. So, again, I'm just expressing my position to the program one because I don't think it's been built out enough theoretically. I think the council wants to rush on this and I think that's just ignoring our fid our fiduciary responsibility. I mean not you know I don't want to come back to us and you're gonna have to you know what I need 300,000 more dollars and I can't yell at you Jeff because We mandated a program that we don't even know what the cost is. I mean the same goes with you know the tier three stuff so yeah I'm certainly opposed to. And I understand why you have decided not to move forward at this point, pricing it out because you don't know if it's actually going to happen. But, you know, I'm certainly here, um, voicing my opposition to including it there. Well, through through the chair. And again, similar to what we were talking about for the City manager's office performance audits Depending on the cost that come up. This is something that the council will have another opportunity to chime in on and ultimately approve when the agreement With a particular vendor is brought before you if this were adding staff, then you would be approving that now, but because it's adding funds to the police department's budget for professional services, essentially, we'll be bringing that item back for your final approval with specific costs. So this council could have the opportunity to say, you know what, we appreciate it that, and wanted to do that, but now it's going to cost a million dollars. It's not a smart idea. We would hope that financially sound heads would prevail. Okay. So let's thank you for the overtime information. I want to kind of dive into that for a second Your overtime for this year is you're programming it at 1.2 million is that right this year is 1.1? No, I'm sorry, but this this this Which I guess is about 15% of your You know personal budget for You budget for that group of folks. So that's essentially 5.65.75 people out. I mean, you're making up for 5.75 people. You could pay for that basically with that money. But then you also gave a few stats there on where your force is right now. You said there are five people out on injury. Injury. And then, yeah, actually, give me the numbers. I only got the first five out on injury, who in the academy, two Academy field training of program, yeah, and two vacancies and two vacancies officer. So essentially you're down nine out of 35 or 34. 36. Oh 36. Okay nine out of 36. But I do my numbers that's 25%. That's a lot. Right. Small agencies that adds up quickly. Right. So actually 25% 15% here on the overtime. It's not kind of messing. So when you look at overtime, you look at it differently for police. It's not just having somebody here. Forg's and audacious was very, very busy this week. Today's their last day on. They're gonna be here till one o'clock in the morning, typing the report. They're gonna be here. At 7.30, the whole team's here writing reports till one o'clock in the morning. Over time for court, when people get called in on a day off, there's court overtime, special events, traffic enforcement, special details. This is the last thing mile, all the person now you saw there was all over time. They were partying. They were partying. They were engaged in this kidding. But then after that is when we had that, the heinous crash over there, they were being uniluckly, everybody was still here. So when they thought they were going home, they added another six hours onto their shift. So overtime adds up really quickly. If we get a flooding, for example, then you could see overtime, you know, fly through roof as well. But a lot of what we do because we're a small department has to come in the form of overtime. So it's not just having somebody there and it's not just backfill. That's just the tip of the iceberg And over time I assume is not paid at your hourly rate. It's hourly rate plus whatever it is, you know, 50 percent It's twice I guess if you're on a Sunday holiday whatever. No, it's just time and a half. It's just time and a half. Okay Except for me. Yeah. Except for why I'm sorry. Except for me. And the cat that's we're salary. That you're salary. Correct. Yeah. That's good. That's good. So what would you, could you provide us? And I know we had asked one of the previous chiefs to do this, I know, comes when Robert E. Scott and I had asked, could you provide us historical data on the, let's say, going back, you know, seven or eight years on over time and where we are, you know, granted, it's, well, I think the staffing is probably the same, but is that possible for you to kind of provide us a chart as to like, you don't even have to graph it, just a chart, like where we're spending the overtime dollar? Well, no, just to navigate like this year, it was 1.1 this year, and if our level of staffing was changed, like if, let's say, if it's, let's, let's go back to, let's say 2018, right? 2018, we were fully staffed at 33, right? Then you would say 33, this type of this over time. I just want to understand kind of where the trend is and, you know, whether, what's happening there. I could check with finance and see if that's possible. Yeah. I know we switched to cassette for years ago and a couple of growing pains there. So I mean, there was a predecessor of yours whose name I won't mention, right? Who was just recalcitrant giving us kind of deep information so we could kind of analyze what was going on. And there was a lot of overtime going on. Yeah. I'm not going to say who that person is. I know. Yeah. Right. So I just, you know just want to want to try to see on top of it and just okay, is this 1.2 million, you know, the sound number would have you. So. Council member, that is an excellent way that a performance audit can be used. Well, actually, actually, I was about, I would like to see a performance audit, and I would actually not like, you know, I don't want to chief to do this. I'd like to see a performance audit done on the department to say, are we adequately staffed? And that is to say, like, can we reduce, like I'm looking at these numbers and saying, well, wait a second, if we've had all of these folks like not here, yet, I think your department is performing really well. You guys are triaging. So, do we need to have 36, 6? Is it really a 33 and 33 with, you know, two, three people doing paperwork? I don't know. That to me would be a super valuable thing, which you probably wouldn't appreciate, because we might be reducing the force. But my objection is you'll be asking for more numbers. Well, it really depends on who's doing that analysis, right? But okay, so anyway, that to me would be like a super valuable thing. It's like, okay, let's look at performance, staffing, what's the correlation between numbers. And of course, a lot of it is just societal. There's a dip in some of that behind. I'm sorry, it's trying to call up your presentation there because there were a couple of priorities. Just give me a quick second. Keep priorities. So you have reach full staffing on patrol. You don't expect to reach full. So the problem with full staffing is if you have five out on an injury, you have no idea when they're coming back, right? If they're coming back. If they're coming back. And that's actually, I'm glad that the director of human resources was on, because when that question was asked about like returning, what was the question? Return to work. Right, return to work. Had nothing to do with COVID, had to do with like, how do you get these folks back in or how do you then move them out in a way that, you know, doesn't, you know, affect the department or have you. I'm sorry. Yeah, that is correct. It's how we reintegrate people back into their jobs or transition them away if they can't. Right. I know that in several of your departments, and probably in the police department too, I think human resources actually have been more effective recently in trying to reintegrate and or show people that maybe it's the time to retire. So, but again, I'm looking at the reachful staffing on patrol. I mean, that's... Is that... Are you over-promising? I mean, really, what do we do? I don't see this as a promise as much as a goal. And I think the immediate thing is the field of vacancies. So right now, there are two complete vacancies, and then we have something... What I'd equate to being underfilled, which are the people who we've hired and they are in police academy. But the hope is that they successfully pass police department and then successfully pass their field training and become full time officers. So right now it's really two positions we need to hire for, and depending on what happens to our five officers who are on leave, we may need to fill additional vacancies. Yeah. Okay. So I'll ask this, this, I guess last question. So the police investigations line in your chart is the line that has the highest largest increase, right? It's $834,000 over last year, you know, according to this, I guess. And I think you tried to explain it, but maybe I just didn't understand it. That you moved some people over from one area to another. So then I would assume that if people were leaving operations, I would see a decrease in the operations expenditure, but instead I see an increase. So could you tell me what exactly is that 834,000? Thank you for calling it up. 834,000. So for the all other expenditures, it's all the contracts for investigative services that were in the administration line, they moved over to investigations. So it showed up as a plus there. And I was having a discussion earlier with finance trying to figure out why is, you know, how does this all work? But, yeah, that counts for the plus or investigations in terms of personnel. You know, although we're running short investigations, we have a detective out on the injury, so we're still paying. So, yeah, we still have the plan as if we have a sergeant in four detectives in that unit. But this is just restructuring stuff, moving stuff from admin over to investigations where it belongs. So, and those you're saying are consulting type, their professional services, technical services contracts. Okay, So it's not broken up that way here. But I'll, I'll, I'll, you know, I'm in the budget detail, budget detail, which I assume you put together. Um, I'll, I'll take a look at it. It's, it's now 9-11. I'll take a look at it. And if I have any questions, or maybe I will call you and just say like kind of what of what falls into that category because it is a relatively large shift from and with no decrease anywhere else. Or if you could just email me then I could actually look into it and make sure I'm giving you an educated answer instead of just yeah okay and then at the same time I can tell about that car that's been there for a week. Yeah and you and you'll get it moved because you do get it moved thank you. Thank you. Are there any more? Yeah, so I know you guys started implementing like AI until your report generation. How are you guys seeing efficiencies? And how does it cause you mentioned that a lot of the time spent, I guess some of the overtime is related to writing reports. Yeah. So how is AI making that more efficient? How many offices are actually using that service? Off the get back to the number of officers, but I've used it myself when I got involved in a case and I divided a supplemental report. And the AI is good. It gives you, in my experience, it gave me about 40% of my report. I had to go in and fill in about the next 60% just to get it to what I wanted it to be, but it gave me a head start. But what it does not do is it's not filling your face shape for you, it doesn't put in all the property, it doesn't put in people. There's a lot of, when you're entering a report, it's a very time consuming process. A lot of boxes check, a lot of things to fill in. So the report writing only helps with the narrative portion, which sometimes ends up being the shortest part of the report. But hey. lot of boxes check, a lot of things to fill in. So the report writing only helps with the narrative portion, which sometimes ends up being the shortest part of the report. But it can reduce it. And we have a requirement that when officers use the AI report writing, they have to change at least 20% of the police report. And then check off and confirm that all the information there is completely accurate. So they can't just generate copy, paste, and be done with it. That doesn't work. And yes, so the I just wanted to make a comment with the parking permit program and with the fees that we collect from enforcing an issue and tickets. How does as much as that office, I mean, how much does that offset the cost of like, say, our CSOs and their salaries and budget? I remember that, you know, I've seen some of the numbers recently and I think that as we're issuing more tickets, we're seeing a significant amount of revenue. And so that, that kind of is paying for some of the extra enforcement. Right. And I think we lost out a lot of money because we weren't enforcing, you know, some parking issues. But when it comes to the parking permit program, we ever really discussed like the fees or the cost because that will also help pay for some of the services. But yeah, I'm just interested in on maybe if you can come back or give us some more update and then if this comes back on the agenda on a proposed budget just to do the pilot, you know, because we're not like trying to make the city wide, you know, that into the year. I think our goal is to pilot it in some areas, see how it works and then make adjustments. Okay. Yeah. You all have to get with finance to see how much money actually comes back to us. I mean, I know how much we're finding for, but after everybody gets a piece of their pie, how much are we getting back off the field with that? Okay. Thank you. Are there any more questions from council members? I understand we have public comment. Yes, we do have one speaker slip from Mr. Michael Francois. Just pay that for getting. Thank you. We get a bunch of you guys didn't hear that. Mine is going to be real. I'm just going to go down real fast. Don't put on this time or thing. One thing, the chief needs. It'll be good for the city. Give them three battery, op-ed motorcycles, battery op-ed, electric motorcycles are quiet, they're thinner, they're cheaper than a gas motorcycle. Two gas, two batteries, motorcycles can take the place of one and they can be taught. And they're quiet, like I said, a quiet, they're cheaper. I talked to Sam and Tell about it. Take care of that. As far as parking is in the city, I'm going to keep repeating this every time I come up here. This is a blue collar neighborhood. People can't afford to live in other places. They live here. Kids, we have people having large families here, and they're going to have two and three kids. And they don't need, in fact, since we have the people parking not on the squares anymore, the streets have narrowed down. It's working. People are slowing down. You don't need one way streets. You don't need all this hoopla you guys are going through. It's working. People are slowing down. I see it. I drive at night. I run the streets at night because I run at night when all you guys asleep. I'm running at three o'clock, five o'clock in the morning. That's the only time I can get peace. Second of all, let me see. I have it written down here. I think we should have have when you redesign the city have an open plan for artists to come in and design something that you think you want. You want it? Have an open art and just see what people are going to show up with and make sure you something that you get somebody to chip in on and maybe something that we all will like just not you five or not you six Have an open art display and see what people pick and you can be happy with that. And I think that's fair to the people. You'll get Stanford, you get Fort Hill, you get Google, you can Facebook, you get all sorts of people. I'm almost finished. My name is real simple. I'm only speaker here. Second of all, the lines on the street, you need to paint those right and you need to put them in the law as of January said 20 feet from crosswalks you're not doing it. The only thing you have to do is get one person to get hurt and the city will lose because the law says you have to put them out there and we're not doing it and And Morris is good. Thank you, Mr. Franswell. Okay, but Morris is good. He believes in the four foot window. I mean, a space you should have. Okay. And you guys need to get rid of that. We've been in building the 80s. Thank you. 40 years. Thank you, Mr. Franswell. have one more speech. I want you to know that we're only city in San Medellin County that has two minutes. Two minutes. That's ridiculous. Sometimes you only have one speaker two minutes. Other cities have three minutes. Thank you, Mr. Franco. Next speaker, Isabel Lopez on Zoom. Good evening Council and City staff. I want to thank the City staff department heads for their thoughtful presentations. I wanted to say that I think providing ergonomic equipment such as chairs and Adjustable des is very important. And it's, I think it's the bare minimum of what we should be doing for the staff who work so hard, who are working overtime, who are generally under-resourced. And, you know, people, it's hard on our bodies to be sitting in uncomfortable positions all day. And this is the bare minimum of what we should be doing to allow them to prevent injury and be productive and happy. Thank you. Thank you. And those are last speaker. All right. I guess with that, we'll adjourn the meeting or in musters any council reports. I'm sorry. So one of the things that I forgot to ask and maybe they can report back either and formally at the next meeting. But for our office on Tade Street, what would be the budget in the resource allocation for having that office open to hours a week, or done regular business hours and providing mostly in-person services. I didn't see that as a part of their proposal increasing staffing, or at least having their office open to the public during regular business hours. And that's something I want, some information that I want to get. Yeah, direct their chin is online still, but just an in brief, I don't believe that having increased hours is something that would require, increased hours where the department and its takes street includes both community development and public works or perhaps the public works director can share some things about that as well. Engineering people come in and get engineering permits. It's not necessarily closed because of a lack of staffing. It's more closed because of the need for the staffing that we have to have focused on. They can't only be responding to public. For example, if you're coming to get a planning permit, the planners who come to desk hours also have to do work in a back office writing reports and things of that matter and processing. So it was a function of that. However, we can explore increasing the number of hours that the, what's called the permit center is open. Because right now I understand the in-person office hours are about 18 per week and we can look at it increasing. I think it's not just permitting but people come in there because they want to speak with someone about say a code enforcement issue or they want to resolve an issue and it's just in general for all services that are in that building but maybe this is a part of the performance audit process. We can review that. It potentially could be, but right now, I just want to make clear that we, we, the doors might not be open, but the expectation is that staff are available for appointments and things of that matter. I think what you're referring to is the ability for someone to walk in. Yeah. And we have it currently, I believe, on days a week. We don't have walk-ins there and it will not be a cost function to increase that It just might be just as Modifying our operations. Okay. All right. Well, that's good to know. Thank you With that will adjourn the meeting at 9.22 p.m. on May 13, 2025.