They call Cats Connect. And that is, again, one of our programs that we have to be able to reach out to people, get them into the services that they need, for food, for shelter, for jobs. That I know that has helped a lot of people. We go out to a lot of our homeless camps and we give them pamphlets on how to get these things done. And I know a lot of them have actually utilized that system. And that is one thing that I do know that we do, we started here at Cats and it's the work of very well. Hello everyone. Today we will cover some simple practices that will help you better manage your fatso as in Greece or as we to call it, fog. These practices are called best management practices or BMPs. What's wrong? The skill it needs to be clean. You don't want to put Greece down your drains. It'll cool down and solidify. That's going to cause problems for your establishment and our source. Really? I never thought about that. Yeah, what you want to do instead is take a paper towel, wipe it clean, throw away that paper towel, or put your grease in a disposable container and then throw that away. Huh, okay. But what about the oil increase from the deep fryer? Well that should be going to your facility's rendering tank, which is also your facility's responsibility to upkeep. This includes closing the lid, keeping the bar screen clear, keeping it below the fill line, and keeping the rendering tank area clean. Many spills occurills a curve that's always in great should be remedied by placing an absorbent on the spill. This can include sand and kitty litter. Once absorbed the absorbent needs to be swept up and thrown away. Okay Mr. Inspector, but what if there's an oil spill inside of the kitchen? Well if it's on floor mat, you want to wash it off in your utility sink or your mop sink. Do not wash it off outside. If it's washed off outside, it'll make its way to a storm drain. And all storm drains lead to our creeks, our rivers, our lakes, all of our surface waters. What you want to do with the actual spill location is put down some of the absorbent that sand or kitty litter. Let it absorb that oil, sweep it up, throw it away. Wow, I really learned a lot today. Practicing BMPs can really keep my environmentally and also my establishment. Thank you. It's a team effort. To learn more, visit our BMP page at Charlottewater.org. My name is Brenda Moore. I've been here for 48 years. I graduated training in 18 dates. Regis was training with the Society of Chapel. And then I knew I made it. To come a driver. I take a part of the job is driving, being a new people, and friends, and coworkers. A good relationship with my passion is number one. And if they knew I'm there, they know that I'm going to count. The warm waters of summer can increase the potential for harmful algae blooms or habs to occur. Habs are often green in appearance that look like pea soup or spilled green paint and can give off the swampy odor. Haps, can't produce toxins that are linked to severe illness in humans and animals. If you see conditions similar to this on a lake where a pond avoid contact, make sure to report potential to the correct agency. We recommend putting down, stay out. While you're out on lakes of Charlotte, Mecklenburg, take note of any discolored or smelly water, foam or accumulation of dead fish. These are all potential signs of a pollution source. If you come across water that may contain pollution, stay out. Call 311 or use the CLT Plus app to report it. Charlotte Mecklenburg stormwater services will send someone to investing. I'm gonna go back to the game. I'm gonna go back to the game. I'm gonna go back to the game. I'm gonna go do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. 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So I want to thank everyone for joining us today and before I turn this over to the manager, I'd like to note that our plan today includes a short break after our budget discussions and then we will go into a closed session before we go into the chamber today. Okay? Everybody got a playlist? Thank you very much. So let's go ahead and Mr. Jones, I would turn this over to you. Thank you. Mayor members of council, I appreciate the input that we received from the budget governance and intergovernmental relations committee. This continues the pathway. Well, let's have introductions. Would you like to be introduced? So we will start with our council members. Good afternoon, everyone. Council member Teo and Brown district three. Good afternoon, the one of may feel councilmember at large. Carried six. Ed Driggs district seven. Welcome to the district. Mark's Joan City Manager. By-laws mayor. James Mitchell at large. Anthony Fossick in our city of training. Stephanie Kelly city clerk. All right now let's proceed. Thank you so mayor. Remember the council. I right, now, let's proceed. Thank you, so may I remember Mr. Council. I appreciate the input from the budget governance and intergovernmental relations committee. This is a continuation of the calendar we put in place for the budget workshops. And today we'll have a conversation about financial partners, Solid Waste Services and the capital projects update. And may I have no questions, I'd like to turn it over to Marie. All right, thank you. Thank you, Mayor and Council. As we get started today, I'd like to bring up for Cherry Smith. And she's the one that's responsible for leading the program and working with all our financial partners and ensuring they get their reporting in, their applications together. So I just can't go on enough about the work she does to help with our financial partners. Thank you. Thank you Sherry. Good afternoon. So first I want to say thank you for having me this evening and thank you for the privilege of being able to manage such a wonderful program that's obviously impactful to our community. So I just want to start a little bit with the end in mind. Financial partners are organizations that are selected that are able to extend the city's capacity to advance the strategic, to advance council's strategic priority and address community concerns. So really when we partner with our organizations, we keep these strategic priorities at the forefront to ensure that they are showing up in an impactful way with our community members. So just to take you back to October of 2024, City Council adopted the first financial partner policy. This policy ultimately accomplished formalizing criteria around nonprofit status, ensuring that organizations are aware that they can either have nonprofit status when they apply or they can be in pursuit of nonprofit status in addition to formalizing our financial reporting requirements. And setting in place some funding restrictions according to the organization's operating or program budget as well as establishing a term limit of five years with annual council approval required. Regarding funding restrictions we did say within that policy that the city would award a maximum of 30% of the agency's budget and that is either their overall agency budget if they are asking for funding for their overall agency or their program budget if they are asking for funding specific to a program. Within the application process if an organization did request more than the maximum we would then adjust what we were able to fund down to that 30% maximum requirement. So just to give you a timeline we opened the financial partner application on October the 16th of this 2024 for FY26 we then closed the application on December the 6th of 2024 so that gave organizations about seven weeks to pull together all of the application requirements that we set for it for them in order to ensure that we reached as many in the community as possible. We not only leveraged our internal city communications, but we also used some of our partner organizations to invite organizations that they work with or community folks that they were aware of to let them know that our application process was open. For every fiscal year, performance period begins in July and that is around the time when we start to work on the contracting process for any organization that was selected. You'll see that we had two new initiatives this year just to make sure that we were fully communicating the new financial partner policy as well as be a little more intentional about allowing organizations to ask questions in advance and that was during a financial partner information session and we also added a component of application scoring by staff which I'll talk a little bit more in our presentation. So, our financial partners were invited to attend an information session. We had 62 participants to register for that session. We had 46 folks to join us virtually. We shared program information. We shared information about the new policy, and we did allow time for Q&A so that organizations that weren't familiar with the program could ask any questions that they needed in advance of completing the application. In addition, we introduced scoring for all of our applications in order to ensure that we were mitigating the impact of individual bias that could be present when folks are scoring applications. We did develop across departmental scoring team. There were 19 city staff. So. the impact of individual bias that could be present when folks are scoring applications. We did develop across departmental scoring team. There were 19 city staff. So ultimately every single application that came forward for consideration was scored by six different people. We thought that this would allow for a more comprehensive and balanced assessment of the applications across the board. In addition, we did ensure that every organization, when they submitted their application this year, had to select one specific strategic priority. And that was the priority that their organization primarily advances. So in your application packets, you'll see folks grouped by strategic priority. That is not to say that that is the only work that that organization does. We wanted to make sure that we brought to the forefront the primary work of that organization and that's how we started to break them down into categories. So just for reporting for you guys to know, every organization is required to to provide performance measures. And we do that during the application process. Every organization will identify their targets, their objectives, and what they hope to accomplish for the fiscal year if they are funded. And then if they are selected for funding, we further refine those performance measures. They are reported on mid-year, in January, and at the end of the year in July. We did include, as a part of a financial partner policy, the ability to hold payments if organizations aren't caught up on their reporting. So that's not to say that an organization would not be funded. It's just an opportunity for us to come to the table with them, understand where they are according to their performance measures, if they're experiencing any challenges, meeting the targets within their performance measures, and we work together to see if those are still applicable measures or if we need to update their measures. So it's not a way for the city to withhold funding from organizations but rather to check in and make sure that they are well positioned to accomplish what they said they would accomplish for the fiscal year. So our financial partners are typically awarded from discretionary revenue within the city. So that includes general fund dollars as well as pay go dollars. For our conversation, we will focus on discretionary revenue while we do have partners that receive dedicated revenue and there are partners within the fine there are partners within the housing department. So looking at our FY26 request we had 50 organizations to apply for the financial partner program for FY26 for context in FY24 we had 18 organizations to apply So if you're looking at a percentage increase we're looking at over 177% increase and just interest in the program Which is is phenomenal and wonderful for our on our staff from our staff's perspective to have a wide range of organizations available that are at the ready to accept the charge to advance the strategic priorities of City Council. So again, highlighting that we did host information session for all of those that applied, as well as we were available by phone, text, email, to answer any questions as organizations work through the application process. Request total this year was a little over $8.6 million. And I do wanna highlight that was the largest funding request that we have had in looking back through all the records for the city, not just my time in the budget office. On the screen, you can see how we have broken down funding with our ARPA dollars as well as discretionary funding. There were a couple of agencies that did not reapply this year and then you can see our new agency requests versus our existing agency increased requests. All right, so I wanted to put this in a different perspective for you on a historical basis. So if you kind of look at FY24, FY25, we've sat right around that $1.5 million in funding. In FY24, we were able to leverage, are you guys, Council? It was able to leverage ARPA funding for organizations. And we then incorporated those partners that were funded through ARPA and FY24 into our Pego fund for FY25. In addition, you'll see that in FY25 there were partners that were added again as ARPA financial partners. So we have significantly grown the funding that we have been able to provide to our financial partners. But I do want us to recognize that a lot of that was due to the one time our funding that we had coming into the city and you guys is concerted effort to make sure that that funding was deployed back into the community in a meaningful way. All right so going into some of our applications all of our applications they, they are broken down according to strategic priority area. 11 of the 50 applications were for the Great Neighborhood Strategic Priorities, which represented about 22% of our applicants for the year. We also have safe communities, so there were 12 applications that were received with that priority area representing about 24% of our applicants for the year. And we also have our well-managed government. So we had three folks to apply representing about 6%. And then finally, we have Workforce Development, which by far we saw the largest number of organizations Identifying that they were advancing that strategic priority with 44% of our applicants on all of these screens You'll notice that there was an application score to the right side of the screen I want you guys to know that the total score was out of 65 And that's it. I'll put it up for questions for Sherry. Miss Eshnera. Thank you Madam Mayor. Sherry, great job with implementing the new financial partner policy. Certainly, we have seen record breaking applications and that's great because that shows interest that organizations have in partnering with the city. If you can, I know this is a new process, especially the scoring component of it. If you can just elaborate on how the scoring came about, especially out of 65, how some organizations got 55 or 60 versus some organizations got 40. If you can just elaborate on that, that would be helpful because there are certain organizations who have applied are in this room or are watching virtually. And they're interested. They want to know how we were ranked where we are. Great. Thank you for the question. So we identified staff members across the city. So they came from multiple departments. There were folks that were in our communications department, our housing department as well as our community relations department that participated in our scoring process. Every organization, excuse me, I want to give you the exact criteria. So the scoring scale was 5, 3 and 1 or 0 if an organization did not provide the information at all. That is a standard process I've found amongst other funders when they are having applications to be scored in this way. So again, it was 5, 3, 1, or 0. And we were basically scoring on if the organization submitted all of the application requirements. And then we had our staffers to look at their performance and equity measures. So according to those measures, did they feel that they, what they have proposed as an organization, would it advance that specific strategic priority area for council? While I understand that can be a very biased opinion when you look at one individual, we made sure that we had each one scored across our larger group of folks so that we could then take the average. So you will see that you have like some point 2's or point 3's and that's just because we had the scores across all of those different scores. All right, Mr. Mitchell. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to echo a great job from the discussion of BGR Committee. I think for me to what's very helpful, how do you broke it down by a priorities? And so you're keeping us focused on what we agreed upon and how the applications fit into that category. Now, I'm lazy, so I got to make one request, okay? Yes, sir. So, let's go to safe communities. And I'm just going to use this as an example, because we got this thorough book that says financial partners, but I was trying to read the book and match it up with the folks here. And it was a struggle for me. So we're going to use further struggle. It's on page 96. So could we add another column that shows what page it is related to our financial partner. So we can see more of the detail. Yes, sir. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Ms. Mayfield, followed by Mr. Dredge. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you for the presentation. I also had concerns regarding the scoring while some of the partner scored rather low and in reference to the financial partner book, it was highlighted in red, those that their financial request was over the 30%. Now the way that I interpreted that in red is those need to be set aside for later, the way we started out the presentation was saying that we would not potentially fund over the 30% versus the fact that you submitted a budget request that was considerably higher. And one of them, which should not have been highlighted in the read, was actually at 28%, but I think it was an error that that one was caught. So I would like some clarity around if you're over the 30% I would say we're going to consider up to 30 or are those invalid. So let me answer the question about the organization that was in red that was 28% on that particular organization's funding request. They actually requested more than what was on their budget. So their budget and their funding request did not match when you look at the actual funding request amount in comparison to their budget it did exceed the 30%. So that's where the discrepancy was coming in on that piece. Regarding funding up to 30% or taking organizations out that exceeded the maximum requirement, it wasn't clearly laid out in the policy, so I would respectfully say that that is a discussion that could take place among council Thank you and when we When you noted that we had a number of information sessions so there was seven weeks to get the application in I also want to identify Where when the applications were submitted using the example that you gave was there any follow-up with the organization or any of the organizations that was over the 30 to help them clarify their budget? We have one information session, so I just wanna make sure, but I was also available if folks had questions prior to submitting their application. I did not individually reach out to every organization to confirm their budget amounts or what they put in their description of activities. I do want to be fair in that when you have 50 applicants to apply for a program, I would want to be able to provide the same level of service to each. So I just did not think that would be a fair thing to do. Or efficient on your end, but it helps me to know. When we're looking at this breakdown, some of these jump out at me as really should be county partnerships versus city and looking at what our city priorities are, was that conversation taken into consideration when we looked at the breakdown of the different applications that came in. No ma'am, we did not look at an organization and say from a staff perspective that, oh, that's something that could be funded through the county, they applied to the city's program. So we evaluated the applications based upon the criteria for the city's program. And the final question that I have, and you may have mentioned it, and I just missed it. We're saying the total amount of requests is $8,642, 299. Yes, ma'am. How much are we thinking that we have currently in order to have this discussion for, because at the end of the day, there's going to have to be some notes. Because we're looking at a financial shortfall. So did the manager do we know where we are financially right now to even have this conversation? Sure. So let me start with Tim's answer the last part of your question where we're now. So when we started off at the annual strategy meeting, we talked a bit about the gap. Right now the gap remains millions, single digit millions. But I think what's more important is how we begin the building the budget for FY26. So we start off with taking out everything that's on one time. So when we started building this budget in Maria, I think I have this correctly, if we went to slide 10, anything that was ARPA, we wouldn't have started as a base, nor we have anything that's in that additional $1.5 million. We start off with that green box, block, which is about 1.5 million. So for whatever we're trying to balance to, initially we're trying to balance with that financial partners up to what would have been considered a general fund ongoing at 1.5 million. So we are starting and I want to clarify and make sure I understand. For council we are starting at 1.520. The requests are 8 million and some change. So I would hope that as we're going through this process, we're going to have some additional considerations for streamlining. We have a number of new requests and to be honest, they are a number of high dollar new requests. So I think it will be helpful for us to ensure that one, we're not duplicating services. If we have partners that have been doing the work, especially since we've implemented a time limit of around five years, they help them get to self-sustainability because there's a piece of this where you are identifying other financial resources outside of government, but also looking at realistically what we're able to do. And what is our role? We are heart services. We have stepped in and we have done a lot to help with our community financially that might not be as sustainable in the near future, especially when we know the county is also looking at a potential financial shortfall itself. So I would like for us to keep at the forefront in mine 1.5 million, even though there's 8 million in requests to see if we can get some recommendations on which one of these truly one would not necessarily be duplicates where they potentially can be working together like we managed to join our head I meet and last week one of the proposals is in partnership with a separate group that also submitted a proposal. That's not really logical to me, for you, to be looking at two different funding sources from local government to fund one program. But some of these requests are considerably high dollar for new partnerships, meaning we don't have a track record with deal and some of them honestly are new organizations where you don't have a track record of your work yet. So I would just like for us to have that in consideration on the front end. Thank you. Mr. Drey. Thank you Madam Mayor. I appreciate that we're starting this conversation early. And I hope colleagues that we will not end up during the ad deletes considering a whole bunch of things that we didn't talk about before. If you have any preferred project, please get it into the system quickly so that we don't end up with that disorganized process at the end. So remarkably, Ms. Mayfield and I are thinking along exactly the same line. And I do note that for the past four years we have had a Pego component. So I think it's reasonable to assume that at least some of the gap may be funded again through Pego this time. I have to say I don't consider that an ideal use of Pego because those are in fact, I mean in general this is an ongoing thing. Pego should really be one and done. But we've done it so there's something and that means in addition to the questions you were asked do we see any capacity capacity in Pego taking show? Shade should the council decide to tap those funds? And I know the Pego often ends up being a residual, you know late, so I'm not sure how soon we will know about that, but that would be one source. My other point was can we develop any sort of a more objective method based on value added or something like that? Like the state has a step process. State-of-driven, can we look at the results that these organizations are achieving and figure out what the most productive use of our money is instead of trying to come up with some wholesale formula or arbitrarily because somebody likes somebody or whatever, you know, bringing these guys in and leaving them out. And I hope that maybe either the staff or in committee a little thought could be given to what the best basis is, is that objective basis because I would like to be able to tell people that don't make it look. This is what we did. You know, it was fair and this is what happened and you weren't there. So that's my thought. Thank you. Yeah, similar comments that Mr. Drake just mentioned and if we can go back to the scoring. How did you guys take into consideration community impact, The impact that these organizations are having versus an arbitrary 5, 3, 1, 0, right? And specifically related to those who are currently receiving funding. So on this scoring rubric, the question was around the performance measures for the organization and where those performance measures at the organization identified, measurable, attainable and impactful. So we wanted to make sure that it was something that could be tracked. We wanted to make sure that it was a realistic number and we also wanted to make sure that it would be impactful within the community according to the tenants of the strategic priority that they said that they would be advancing. So outside of that that's how we worked how we broke down the scoring and tried to keep it fair across all of the organizations and not bring in too much of an individual's bias to some extent when they were doing their assessments. Were they required to submit annual reports out of the statements? I mean, how do we eliminate organizations, right? I mean, so what's the process for elimination other than based on the score itself? Were they required to submit supporting documentation like that? Any report to audit statements? Every organization is required to submit either an audit or a two year comparative statements for the most recent two years. We also ask that they submit salary disclosures, organizational structures, their HR policies, their financial policies, their retention policies around data. We also ask that they submit over their board of directors. So while we don't scrutinize their documents, because none of the people in my scoring team are CPAs or CFOs where they can analyze a financial audit We do make sure that the organization actually provides that information That was probably my follow-up question that didn't they want to get look at it? I look at those things, but again, I'm not a CPA. I am not a I get it, I get it. But yes, we do make sure that those documents are provided. If they did not provide them or if they were incomplete, then they would not receive the full score or they would receive a zero. Yeah, I think Councilmember Mayfield is correct. There's going to be a lot of, so I'm just like, the college says drop at, right? That we're going to have to do based on the total amount that's requested notwithstanding the impact that many of these organizations have and based on where we are financially, that's the community. Thank you. Thank you. How's the measure? The hand is set. Let's go. Thank Thank you Madam Mayor. And thank you for the presentation. You know clearly there's a need because it's such a high number for request. However, you know I agree with Mr. Driggs that I think we need to come up with a process. Of course we will be emotional about some of the ones that we care about. But given the wide distribution of the scores, I certainly feel if 65 is the top score, is it high as you can get, there are a lot in the 50s, but then there's some in the 30s as well. And I think we need to set, before we even have the individual conversations, I think we need to have some guide posts around. Let's see if an organization has scored a 33 or 32 with the midpoint being 32.5. That speaks to the readiness of that organization to actually execute on the dollars. And I also think we need to have to the conversation around community impact. We know some of these and their impact pretty clearly. And then there's others that, their names that we might not be as clear about their impact, not saying that they don't have an impact, but they might not be as visible. So I think before we jump into it, perhaps we can agree to some guide posts, some guidelines around how we want to go about this. Thank you Madam Mayor. The session here. Yes. Thank you Madam Mayor. Yes. Thank you Madam Mayor. So great conversations on financial partners. All of this conversation did occur when we were discussing the policy last year, especially how do we make this qualitative process as objective as possible. And this is the best that we could come up with, because there is a piece of this puzzle which is going to be qualitative. Because we are ultimately putting more teeth into this process, where we are asking staff from various departments to help us come up with the ranking. So certainly I hear from my colleagues that there needs to be more, that needs to be done to eliminate certain organizations just because we have finite amount of dollars. And certainly we are happy to sort of drill further and figure out how do we make this process even more objective. Some of the information that you see in our package today was not part of our process in the years prior, especially the audit organization, financial statements, all of that is new. So I think organizations that are receiving more than certain amount are asking for more than certain amount, now they are asked to provide audited financial statements. So we have someone who is a third party, a CPA looking at it and giving an opinion, but then also there are organizations that are not going to meet that threshold. So we are not going to have, we will have a hard time analyzing that financial information within the resources that Sherry's team has. That's right. I think the qualitative assessment will take place based on staff's expertise. But I look forward to really drilling further into this. A couple of questions in terms of the funding. I know Mr. Jones in the past, we had used Pego to Mr. Drake's point, but then we had also provided one time from ARPA funding that we had. I know there are still some funds available. Do we have any capacity or everything has been allocated? Excuse me. Councillor Emmer, so typically what we do is when we start off with the pay go, there's some revenue streams that are a part of pay go that's ongoing, but we also look at the previous year surplus. So we had a surplus of just on the $14 million. I would tell you that what we've done in the past, we've been able to fund areas such as the corridors of opportunity, the CF, some other key areas. And I will tell you that some of that will should be used to address some of the reserves that are running low. So for me to say there's no money would be disingenuous. What will occur, I believe, through this process, is that there will be different priorities for the council in terms of what's the best use of the funds. I'll go back in time and we were, I think, Councilmember Drake's, we were talking about a previous surplus, and I remember you said, Mark, as you gave us a slate of things, but it would have been nice if you would have done something around capital. And so those are the kinds of things that we would do. So I know I've spoken a lot. Yes there are other opportunities to use one time. At some point we want to be careful because one time is one time and if you have an organization that's depending on that ongoing, then we've created this expectation. It's not realistic. I couldn't agree more, Mr. Jones. In fact, as some of the organizations that we have seen to Miss Council Member Mayfield's point, some of the organizations did receive one time funding from ARPA. And they knew that this was one time funding, but we are seeing this ongoing request. So at the end of the day, I don't think it's a bad thing. But I think how do we now figure out who gets the funding, and which means which organizations helps us tackle our priorities? And most importantly, there are the gaps, right? I guess that's where looking at the financial partners package, I'd called Marie over pretty late and Marie did pick up her phone. And I said, Marie, I'm reviewing this package. It's overwhelming. Like, one, one thing I think if we can figure out where some gaps are in our services, like for an example, tree Charlotte, let's look at that example. They do the work that no one else is doing in the city in terms of planting on in schools, other properties, right? That's an Oano, we got to do it because no one else is doing. So if we can find organizations that are doing, feeling helping us fill gaps, so we know that these are some of our commitments that we have to deliver on. Just going through the package, I was able to find some gaps that organizations were helping us with, whether it's treasuries, one example. There are a few I have highlighted in my packages. But I think that would be helpful. Because Councilmember Mayfield's point point is correct there are organizations that are collaborating but then they all have requested the funding right so we need to filter those we also need to filter organizations that let's say if you are funding one or two organizations that are working around youth do we need to fund more right things of that nature can just drill further, and I don't want council to spend so much time on this, because I know councilmember Drake will remind us this represents less than 1% of our city's budget. Let's be honest. But I think with Sherries and Marie's expertise, we can do that digging deeper and come to the list where we can continue to strengthen our partnerships with our financial organizations, I mean, with our financial partners and still continue to balance the budget. That's all I have. Thank you. I haven't spoken on thank you so much Madam Mayor I appreciate it. So I was looking at I want to go back to the scoring system because when we started to talk about I heard heard Councilmember asked me to talk about collaboration. But organizations partner with one another. But that collaboration is not individually in that budget. So because they're collaborating with another organization doesn't mean that they do not have the criteria to apply individually for their own funding. So I did want to point that out. I also want to point out the scoring system. If we can go back, I want to look at the scoring system. Can you pull that slide up for me please? Because I'm really concerned about the scoring system especially. So if an organization who's been in the community for a very, very long time, some of the bigger names has been out here. For example, I say United Way of Greater Charlotte. They do great work. If we go and we start to look at, they're gonna have everything that they need for that financial budget. They're gonna have all of their checks and balances checked off. They've been around for quite some time. But when we start to look at like the small organization, which is organizations that I'm fighting for, everybody knows that is not a secret. The smaller organizations, I don't want to automatically be wiped out because of you. But when we start to look at the small organization, which is an organization that I'm fighting for, everybody knows that. It's not a secret. The small organizations, I don't want to automatically be wiped out because if you look at some of the bigger organizations that's been around for a long time, they're going to have some of the highest scores. They're going to be able to check out all the checks and balances and not saying that that's not, should automatically eliminate anybody. I don't think that I wouldn't vote for that at all. That would never be something that I wrote for because I would like to look at the impact. And what is the impact? should automatically eliminate anybody. I don't think that I wouldn't vote for that at all. That would never be something that I vote for because I would like to look at the impact and what is the impact of the organization and what are they bringing. I know we don't need to spend a lot of time as just 1% of our budget, but it is a part of our budget. And we're at the table talking about it, so we need to address it. And so when we started to think about the big picture, like if they, I know you said they had to have a financial audit, but that was a substitute. What was that substitute called? that's it. And so when we started to think about the big picture, like if they, I know you said they have a financial audit, but that was a substitute. What was that substitute call? Two-year financial analysis. Two-year financial analysis. So what is the scoring impact of somebody with the two-year? It would be the same. It would be the same. So that would be no different. Right. So if they had. Sorry if I may interject this is an important point. Just when we're looking at scoring, does not mean that people that scored low with us are any less impactful than the ones that scored higher per say. It means that they were more impactful directly towards your strategic priority. So I just want that on the record. Doesn't mean like if they scored lower that they were any less impactful, but they were less impactful towards your specific council priorities. Okay, so I'll make sure that. No problem. And where can we get a copy of the scoring system? Do we get that? So in the financial partner packet, the binder, there is the scoring rubric. Okay. All right. Thank you. I would like to look at that. And in my final, I would like to thank the staff for all your hard work, especially you. I know that you're doing a big part of it, but I just want to make sure that we're being fair and being unbiased. and sometimes just looking at this, it's a big red flag out there being biased. And I want to make sure that we're not doing that and that the actual impact of the organization is something that we look at. And that's all that I have to say. I'll you to you, Mayor. Yeah, I was just gonna say, I think that one of the challenges we were going to have with this is the scoring assessment kind of rubric thing that they've used to do it probably doesn't hit on exactly what we need to draw a line or make a decision exactly. It's good stuff, but it comes from a different perspective. For me, if I was kind of quickly redoing this, I would get back to the basics of what is the financial partner program for? And I think it has turned into something over the years and decades beyond maybe what its intent was. For me, it's how do you make some kind of investment into something new that a group is doing to promote an outcome that we can measure that's maybe one day sustainable and grows out on its own. So that's why it's one-time money and many times the same groups we see year-over, you're getting it to fund their operations. So I think we need to get back to the basics of like, are you proposing something new in addition to what you're doing today, exactly how can we measure your success a year from now, and then people start graduating either to self-sustainability in doing this, or if we want to outsource because tree Charlotte is going to do something that we value and we're not going to ever do, they come out of this and they go into a budget, right, into the real budget of that group, because this is kind of this special world where we pay attention to everything. I think a lot of it could be whittled down just thinking about what are we trying to prove with the outcome of their sustainable on their own, or they have a chance to make it into our formal annual budget to help us with something that's in our priority list. And I think if you take that lens to it, a lot of those great work, not taking away from the greatness of the work, but it's just going to whittle down when we scope in what are we trying to achieve. Thank you Madam Mayor. So I would say as we have a conversation around trying to level set, if we just look at what the manager just told us, the 1.5 million and some change, that's the top six items if we were to find. Even at that, the top six items, just in great neighborhoods is short, $380,828. I agree that somewhere we need to have the difficult conversation of looking at the scoring. And for me personally, I would have expected, as was mentioned by my colleague, we have some funders who have been funded for a decade plus. The reason and just for those that are new on council, we started this conversation many years ago around having a window looking at Philadelphia and other cities that have a three to five or five to seven year window for funding not funding and perpetuity, but I would have expected those numbers. If you have been a partner for multiple years to have been a lot closer to that 65, which is why I wanted a little more clarification on the scoring because that seemed pretty difficult for those to obtain. But if we just look at the 1.5 million, these first six requests, if they are funded at the levels that they are requesting, that already puts us over $380,000. So we are going to have to have very real conversation regarding if there is an appetite to look at the application scoring. We have identified those current partners that have been doing substantial work. So even about what to say, 40 at the score was 40 or higher. That is still a large number that's in here. Some of these requests, and at the end of the day, for me, we are still but for. That is where government dollars come in to place. There is still an expectation for these businesses to identify other funding sources and not for the bulk of that funding source to be local government. Honestly, the conversation is a little different this year than previous years because we just don't have it. Financially, we have to be responsible as the manager mentioned regarding what we're going to do with Pago when we have everyday needs that need to be provided. When I mentioned earlier, it is on the same lines. In my opinion, just said a different way by my colleague. We need to go back to our core. And by being in our core of what is the role of the city, looking at it from that particular lens may help to guide us in this conversation to ensure that we are supporting our partners but being very realistic and letting everyone know seriously thank you for the application but there's not an automatic guarantee that this is going to be funded at the request that you ask and again with a lot of the new partners it is going to be very difficult to have this conversation. But I just want us to level set that if we only have 1.5 million, you're asking for over 8 million. The first six alone will wipe us out. So, and we're going to have to have the same conversation when it comes around for housing trust fund dollars. So we're, we need to be prepared to do the work of the community and understand that there's going to have to be some nose in here, but we need to try to be as efficient as possible in connecting our roles and responsibility and looking at a level set. I was just going to say this isn't the first, I'm sorry Miss Malina. No, go ahead. Thank you Madam Mayor, I just, I'll be quick. I think there's a diversity of applications here, based on what we see, right? I think, and I want to make sure that, you know, not to say that anything that anyone else has said is wrong, I think we have different types of applicants on this screen. Let's say for an example, dream key partners. That's actually something that was, they are something that was started by way of an initiative started by the city of Charlotte, right? So their sustainability has an inevitable connection to us. And I don't know if that's long term, short term, or whatever, but a lot of our initiatives for affordable housing, because we can't do that directly with the public. We directly aren't partnering with some of these agencies that provide the affordable housing opportunities. The United Way of Greater Charlotte is another one that's one of those staple initiatives that what they provide for the community crisis assistance ministry. For example, these people help thousands of our residents on a regular basis. And then we have the diversity of some smaller organizations like what Councilmember Brown was alluding through that are really just getting started, right? In the same exact conversation with people who are making substantial impact, right? And so if I have any input into what, you know, the current conversation in the atmosphere is, it would be, you know, we have people who are helping at different levels, right? And I don't know if we, you know, kind of consider them an equilibrium because their impact wouldn't even be the same, right? So the impact of crisis, the impact of United Way of Greater Charlotte, the impacts of dream key partners and et cetera, et cetera. We have several different examples on the board. It wouldn't be the same as one of our partners that is doing something on a much smaller scale that's still important, still has impact. But I don't know if the conversation, if this was a policy, the policy would, like a street sign, apply to all people no matter what. 55 is 55, and if it says 55, it don't make sense to decide whether you got a truck or a car, a six cylinder or four cylinder is 55, right? But still, I know, and I think a few of my colleagues, I don't remember which ones kind of alluded to this. Like I said, there are different types of organizations and different types of impact that they have across our community. So I don't know if there's room to consider that when we make some of these decisions as well. And that's all I have, Madam Mayor. So I really appreciate the conversation that everyone has been very honest and candid about what the situation is for us as we move forward into the budget process. We have and had the opportunity to actually say no to groups. And we some, I think this require, this year, will require it. But I think the question is, is the no because of what? I think most people in this community will understand what's going on. And they will really try to work with us and say this. But maybe I think I've heard a couple of things like, is it one time money? You know, what are our criteria for this? We've done a really, the team has done a great job getting all of this, I've had this conversation with Sherry and Malik and as well and it's just been like, oh well, how do we get this done? Because we're not, we do not have a value proposition for a way to look at all of these groups differently. And so if we're going to do this, we need to figure out maybe it's one time, maybe it is innovation, maybe it's sustainability, gaps or impact. With somebody, I'm not sure where we go, but we've got to get someone to give us some idea of what the criteria should be to do this. And it's not to say that it's right or wrong, it's just we're in a situation that requires us to be more specific about what our relationships are as we have financial partners for our priorities. And so I don't think there's an answer right now, but I certainly would hope that we wouldn't end up at the last minute, which we've often done, is say start raising your hand and it's chaotic, and it doesn't really work. So we've got to figure something out. Marie, I'm sorry that I keep saying, you know, maybe we go to UNC Charlotte. Maybe we go somewhere else. I'm not really sure where we go, because we haven't said what we're trying to do yet. So Mr. Jones, are you gonna help us get out of this? Let me see if I can be helpful. Okay. Okay, so a couple of things, what we try to do with these budget workshops is they have no surprises. And so last year we raised taxes, property tax by 1.5, one-half cents and it's got reduced to bid. And some of you said, hey, you surprised me, Mark, it's okay. So we want to make sure we don't want to have surprises. I believe I've been consistent since the annual strategy meeting. We're not going to raise the property tax. There will be programs and services that are cut in the city. our programs and services, and we're going to cut them based on whether or not they are giving us the outcome that we expect that they would give us. So I would just say the same level of scrutiny that we're going to do our own organization, it should also be to well intended groups, the groups of amazing what they do. And I think we all agree with that. It's just what we're doing with this budget. Our goal is to preserve jobs for our city employees, but also to be able to show you that before we come back to the community and ask for something on the property tax side, we've looked at our expenditure side also. So I just wanted to, so when I said earlier, you know, we still have a gap, we still haven't balanced the budget. We're less than two months away. And while it's single digit millions, it's still millions. So Mr. Jones, I'm going to ask you, what do you see out of this conversation before we move to the next one because you have two or three more to do. Sure, you know I'll say the lens that I have and I think what we all agree with is it's the impact lens that needs to be over top of all of this right. What's the value prop. To me there are three categories there are our partners who've been with us over time. There are some of our partners who are one time in nature, and then there are some new partners. And they're all over the board, where they scored. Some of our partners have been with us, have scored level. And some of our new partners that we don't have relationship, have scored high. So I believe this has helped us in that it doesn't necessarily have to be the score on the board, but what's the impact? What gaps are these organizations feeling? And I'd be the first to say whoever used the example of Tree Charlotte, they've been with us so long, and if it's something that literally we don't do, but they do better, do they become a part of the fabric of what we do? Okay. Okay. Well, thank you very much. Thank you very much. We know where Missage Mirror stands on this issue, on value and property. Value prop is it is. So, Mr. Mitchell. Mayor, but I think we need to kind of close the loop what we can about next step so this because I think it was a great conversation around the Dias and I agree with the City Manager Council and the grant impact should be one of the top variables and so I don't know if this need to be referred to BGR, April and May because I told the agree to mayor I don't want this too much from now. And we sit around here and we just raise and show of hand. So can we talk about mayor referral to those items you just articulated and let the committee find two of those and bring them back? Because I- As long as you bring them back with an answer. Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough. So I think that we've heard people, well, six votes, then meet an answer to tell you the truth half the time. So anyway, that's what it does, but that's where we are. So I think that if we could go ahead and do this, if you're willing to take it on, but But I really do think the whole idea is how do you do this assessment and make it work. Mr. Jones. If you're willing to take it on, but I really do think the whole idea is how do you do this assessment and make it work? Mr. Jones, I thought so on that. Well to Councilman Mitchell's point, I think April's fine. However, I introduced the budget on May 5th. So, I guess what I'm saying is it's in a couple of weeks something comes out of a committee that first Monday in April there's some additional guidance. But I think after that is really unfair to try to put a budget together with something that's important. And I think with that, I guess what I hear some council members say that then this shouldn't be part of the Add and Delete conversation. If that's what the majority decides to do so that our budget adjustment is not so chaotic. Right. Let's go for not for no chaos. All right. So you have that first week of April. All right. Thank you. Mr. Heads says he can make it happen. Okay. All right, so you have that first week of April. All right, thank you. We're going to send something to you. Mr. Heads says he can make it happen. Okay, all right. All right, thank you. All right, Mr. Jones, tell us what's in the go. I can't see the agendas. The future of solid waste services. I think Marie will kick that off for us. Yes, sir, thank you. And just to set the stage we're talking about solid waste services We're going to go over a little bit of the lay of the land, what's currently going on, what we're looking at for the next fiscal year for 26th budget development, and then even beyond that considerations. And again, this presentation is focusing primarily on residential services, and a lot of people in the public think of, okay, they're trash pickup on a weekly basis, but it's important to note that also embodies the yard waste collection, recycling and bouquet item collection. But we wanted to also highlight solid waste. Ronnie's team does a whole lot more than just residential services. with litter's health services services. The state's health services. The state's health services. The state's health services. The state's health services. The state's health services. The state's health services. The state's health services. The state's health services. The state's health services. The state's solid waste fees are also included in that. Solid waste are also included in that. And again, we are comparatively very low compared to our peers across North Carolina. And then planning for the next year's budget, analyzing residential services. So that's what we're definitely taking a hard look at in trying to develop this budget proposal. What expenses does the fee currently cover? Again, that first slide we had garbage, yard waste, bulky recycling. So those services cost a total of 86 million roughly. And the fees we currently collect cover about 3939 or right at $40 million, which is 46% of the actual cost. So what we're doing now is looking at, okay, how do we look at the service based on service type versus it's just residential. So curbs side or the rollout versus the dumpster. And again, looking at all these categories of residential services, the fee currently covers roughly 34% of the rollout container cost and right at 96% of the dumpster. So we're looking at analyzing service fees, reviewing the frequency types of services. We definitely want to maintain core services for our community. That's the benchmark of all we do right now is to, we want to build an enhanced, but we definitely want to maintain what the community needs. We're looking at managing long-term cost drivers, aligning fees to type of services. Again, there's only one fee right now, regardless if you're curbside or dumpster and we're looking at analyzing and breaking those fees out separately. Additional considerations under review are the frequency and calls for bulky item pickups and the small business rate. Right now, the small businesses are charged $250 a year and that's been flat for several years so and that's not recovering the cost and we're not saying we're going to necessarily jump up to full cost recovery but we do need as our labor and equipment cost rise we do need to look at that fee as well. And then even beyond 26 continue to assess service options yard waste. You have done a lot already with yard waste and thank you. We've converted to paper bags for yard waste. We're continuing to analyze opportunities to further automate or enhance those services. And to Mr. Councilman, the Mitchell's point, we don't do a good enough job of celebrating our wins, but that transition to paper bags was a big win for our workforce. It helps us to be, and just a reminder, before our workforce had to get out of the truck, bring the plastic bags over, cut them open with a knife, and dump them into the cart. So it's definitely helping our workforce be safer, and paper bags are biodegradableable and they work in conjunction with yard waste carts which we're going to talk a little bit more about. And Solid Waste Services has been transitioning services to automated side-loaders and that's important for again for worker safety think of it this way if somebody can state that our employees can stay in the truck and automate it, versus how to get out of the truck, deal with the trash, get it into the trash, and sorry, get it into the vehicle. And it also is a lot more efficient, so it's a win-win when we are able to move that direction. So in progress, we're continuing to assess considerations for looking at a cart for yard waste and there's a lot of considerations about that it would be more safe for our workers it it's equitable service instead of people how to go out and get their own types of bins for their leaves and brush we'd have a city provided bin that there's also the reason we're not jumping to this because we need to work with the community and continue to do that Rodney is team and also it's a significant additional capital investment because we would be getting rid of the investing in the carts getting rid of some of the rear loaders potentially and getting more automated vehicles. And this slide and I can go over in a lot of detail it's just to show you that Rodney and his team and we work help with them continuously. Benchmark ourselves and look at new and innovative ways to deliver services. And right now though, I've know the cities of Durham, Fayetteville, Greensboro, Highpoint, Rowling and Winston-Salem have all already moved to a cart for yard waste. And we're continuing to work with them and reach out and see what kind of options may be applicable to the city of Charlotte. And potential yard waste options under review. Again, potentially looking at carts, looking at seasonal, some people that have carts use the cart, but then certain times of the year when there's more yard waste also had the rear loaders come by to pick up the bags or limbs. And so we're looking at potentially scheduling services, limiting weekly volume. And again, that's just giving you a heads up of things that we're assessing and looking at and working with our partners on. And another thing on the horizon is Solid Waste Transfer Stations. This is a important piece of the service model for Solid Waste moving forward. And if you'll remember the benefits, so right now what happens is when a dump truck gets full, it has to travel all the way to a landfill and wait in line sometimes hours and line to dump its load and also wets out there. It's not only a smooth little paved road, it's on bumpy conditions, a lot of wear and tear on the vehicles. So that would really help efficiency getting the trucks back quicker to the route and help is just an important consideration moving forward. And thank you for in 2025. I'll designate some funding to set aside for advance planning for a transfer station. We have not found land yet and we're partnering with the county on looking at what are there solid waste plans, what are ours, what locations would be ideal. And also to that point, Mecklenburg County Waste Management Advisory Board has advised the city and county to partner together along term strategies. Another important initiative moving forward are current interlocal agreement with the county on specific solid waste expires in 2028. And just the gist that there's a lot of components of that but the gist of that we transport the materials if it's recycling the yard waste or trash and then this county maintains the facilities or runs the facilities are responsible for the facilities that receive those materials and And important considerations moving forward for us are the landfill tipping fees. Working with the county, what's the best model around that? How can we optimize that? Because those continue to increase every year. And review recycling service costs benefit. What other things can we maybe do with our materials moving forward? That we're in exploring now? And that's it. I'd like to take any questions. Oh My I was thought with mr. Johnson and will mr. Drinks So I thank you may remember the council Moray I've never seen anybody go through a Solid Waste service, this presentation, so bad. So, congratulations. So Rodney Jamison is a superium when he does. I'm not sure that anybody does it better than Rodney and his team. Yeah, Rodney, yeah, he's over there. And along those lines, customer service is so important to the city that sometimes we take it on the chin, maybe doing other folks jobs because it's so important to our residents. So I want to give Kudos to Rodney. It's also very important, as we start to think about this budget, is we have 14 budget principles. And one is a structurally balanced budget, but another one is to get the correct cost recovery for fees that we have. And there's a fee associated with solid waste services and lastly as Marie talked about the interlocal agreement one of the things that we're trying to do in this budget also is to make sure when we start to think about these agreements that we have with some rare partners whether it's a solid waste services or Medic Contract, what kind of cost recovery are we receiving? Because that's still something on the revenue side that helps us with balancing the budget. So I just wanted to frame it up a little bit and you start to have questions why this is such an important conversation we're having because this is a feed that we collect as well as it's a level of service and there are some things that we could do in the future that some of the other cities are doing there are some cost associated with it. But as we start to think about the return on investments, sometimes those upfront costs, especially when you start to think about the safety of our employees or worth the investment. So I So having said that, I'm sorry, I just want to say that. Now go ahead, Mr. Driggs. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for the presentation. So we're talking about 46% of costs. There also is reference in here to various capital costs. So I assume that SolidWay Services, like departments has an operating budget and a capital budget and we are only covering 46% of operating expenses. Is there a debt service component or is it associated with the city's general of Geo bonds or how do we fund capital in Solid Waste Services? So there's also embedded in the fee, there's also debt service in the cost allocation plan so that is loaded in the fee. So it's not their full operating budget. As we said they do a lot of things like the graffiti pickup and the receptacles that aren't residential but you take the operating of residential and then load on top of that to your point the debt service for their vehicles and their facilities. And that is included in the big. On the investment in new capital goods, right? Like the new vehicles, things like that. Yeah, it's not its own fund, but yes. So the 46% is that operating? Or is that- That's both. That's the operating plus the capital overhead and they have presumably a budget going out years identifying what capital needs like Charlotte water for example. It's not the same that's part of the general fund so each year we analyze the need for vehicles and we pay for those but it's not costed out out. We assume but we don't know for sure and we don't specifically cost out the number of solid waste vehicles needed. I think it would be helpful if we had some idea of what that outlook is and we could plan for the needs of solid waste. When we talk about how much to charge, I think 46% personally is a low recovery rate on costs. And I know it's probably sensitive because if we raise these rates and certain people who have the pay more are going to be upset. But it has to be paid for them. And the alignment of those costs with the people who benefit from the service, a closer alignment in my mind would be in the public interest. I had one other question in the past we talked about maybe changes in service between the dumpster and the rollout. Is there any conversations going on now about whether triplexes and so on have dumpster service or rollout or how is that coming along? I'll have to look to right. There's not any specific that I'm aware of changing this current models where you have dumpster versus rollout. All right, so we're done with that. Okay, make sure is there any ordinance change that we're contemplating with that? And I'm just asking, I don't want to say that. Well, that's what I thought. You talked about it in the past. Yeah, I just don't want to have a conversation and then we're doing something different from Allison. I don't know. We're working on some minor modifications. That'd be part of our UDL question. I don't think everybody could hear you, Allison, so let's make sure that we, everybody hears what your question as well. Here we go. Well, I need to say, I'm not going by myself. We all work on also minor modifications to it, though, within the UDL. And? The Solid Waste Ordnance. Yes, correct. So, could you give us an example of something? I think it's really just clarifying the policy. Oh, this one. I think it's really just clarifying the policies that Solid W have had in practice for some time that need to be codified in the solid waste ordinance is what I understand the changes to be. This is more definition placement. So a question is if you look around your world and all of that, I know we're doing that for the ordinance and getting it right and all of that, but are there things that we ought to be doing that are new? I mean, we can do the ordinance and get it all straight and out and for the new UDO and all of that. But is there something that you see in our future that makes this work better for safety and as well as I think in the environment. Definitely, definitely. But what we what was mentioned earlier which is going to automated vehicle helps us drastically and changing how the operation is running especially within the yard waste arena. That is very manual, that is intensive and sweat, and a lot of sweat being put into that. So, and injuries, it's dangerous. The landfill is very dangerous. I know it was explained to you as if it was rocky roads, but you're going up a hill. If anyone ever, if you ever want to come to Salah Ways, please do. And we can take you up these steep hills and you'll see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's rollercoaster. You can see him driving by on 85, too. So you can see it. It's behind the speedway. But the job is very dangerous. So anything to minimize accidents and strains our employees and our residents is what we want to go for. As the city is growing of course waste is growing traffic is growing so our truck is so driving at least 80 to 100 miles a day. Wow that's one truck. I think we tried this a year ago and I don't think we gave you enough time. The concept of the transfer station, can you explain why it's so important? It's very important. I can't give you exact number right now because I have another meeting with the landfill representatives. But as the city grows, the landfill is filling up. The current landfill that we go to, eventually we're not gonna be able to go there anymore. The transfer station will be a major piece of that of being able to get our waste out of the city of Charlotte. So it's very detrimental. So Mr. Manager, I just wanted to conclude by pointing out, if you're committed to not raising property taxes, it's going to be a stretch. This is one place where you might be able to prevent cuts in elsewhere by changing the pricing for solid waste. So Council Member Drake, I think that's part of the concept. And, there's a fever recovery. That's a part of your policy that talks about 100% fever recovery. And so no one's saying jump to 100%. But is there something logical that can be called supposed to be? Yes. And it's important because we're not going to have new revenue in the property tax. Thank you. All right. I think it was Ms. Don, who was first? It's Mayfield or Ms. Anderson, which one would you like to do? You want to go? Well, my name is first on the list. Okay, so there we go. You go with Dante, Anderson, Ms. Mayor Pro Tem. I know you're reading my list here. All right. No, thank you for the presentation. And this is an interesting area. I don't want to make sure that I was speaking from my district. I have residents in district one that are asking me about how the city can help them with yard services because they're older and they're trying to age in place and they don't have the ability to go out and collect the leaves and maintain trees, etc. So I think this is an area that I'd like to see what the real dollars would be. just take yard waste, for example, if we were to convert to a container and have the season, as you're laying out on page 16, go to a seasonal compostable bag. I personally, October to December is a very short time period for the City of Charlotte as it relates to leaf collection and everything that goes on. I just want to see what impact these dollars would have by going to switch into this type of service. And also advocate for if there is a program, if there's something we can do to help those who are aging in place. We're encouraging our residents to age in place and to keep their homes online and to keep them safe and yet, they're unable to do a lot of the things that they need to do in order to maintain their yards, their homes. So there's something that we could do for those agent in place to assist them if needed I think that would be something that should be a part of this conversation as well So I'll try not to be the solid waste services director Wrong just let me know so I believe this concept is side-loaders. When you think about that, there's one person driving a truck. And that person has the arm that comes out dumps it in the back. When we talk about rear, it's two to three people involved. And so if I understand this, what you're thinking too, the leaf season, you would always have the side loader coming in. But because of the fall where there would be more leaves, you would move away from the side loader. Well, sorry, we probably augment the service. You would augment it, yeah. With additional folks, yes, okay. Yes. So you would still get a strong level of service year long. We would just augment that side loader during the leave season. Okay. Miss Mayfield. Thank you, Madam Mayor Marie, thank you for this detailed presentation. A couple of things that jumped out to me when we're looking at that slide 15, the comparison of Yard Waste programs in North Carolina when we're looking at Garn F government, the government, the government, the government, the government, the government, the government, the government, the government, the government, the government, the government, the government, the government, the government, the government, the government, of what is that dollar we're talking about because we get to a point where it Whether it's reality or perception it feels like we nickel and diamond the residents So businesses have a responsibility. So these multi-family units that have approved throughout the city, regardless of the income of it, that is a business. So it will be helpful to understand what you all are looking at for what that potential increase could be in order to ensure your paying your fair share. As well as what that new fee, how it can contribute to the funding needs that we're looking at. And I'm also trying to understand when it comes to the small business rate. If there's a differential from say the garbage pickup of a corporate building versus outsourced. Correct, Ronnie? That's so poor building that outsourced. Sorry, but multifamily small business is what we pick up. Not sorry. So there's dumpsters that are residential that we pick up. Right. Well there's our outsourced as well. So. But the small businesses, you know, I'm just getting some fumbling. So he's coming up to create but there's small businesses that are. So what do we consider small businesses? Small businesses. Sorry. Okay. Small businesses are business that generate no more than five containers, 96 gallon containers collection. So your normal residential waste container, they cannot exceed five of those. Okay. That's considered small businesses. So for me where I think there might be an opportunity in the conversation to ensure a A more equitable payment system is to be looking at the umbrella, looking at what is the fee for multifamily units, what is identified as small business, as well as residential, because the idea of an additional charge on to the residents is concerning to me, because even though we have state revenue neutral, and I believe the county also did a revenue neutral because of the property tax reevaluation, you had some areas that went up over 200%. So that's still created a major impact. I'm also wondering when we say that we've now gone to the paper bags as a homeowner, a modyard, then that's where it's going to go. When I'm driving coming in to this building, especially coming up Davidson, I see multiple and around the city, multiple companies that allow maintenance companies that are blowing the leaves into the street. They are not capturing these. So are we even having any conversations to identify language around that particular incident to ensure that they are also paying towards the cost because again those leaves going into our drainage systems that's causing problems with Charlotte Ward and other areas but we're telling residents this is what you need to do in order to comply. But we have landscaping companies that are contracted and some that are contracted through the city that are not adhering to the same rules. So has there been, do you know if there's been any conversation about the possible impact there? Yes, it is impact there. And there's language being put together. But that's where enforcement actually really needs to take place for us to capture and catch when that happens, because that adds to our job. And manager and manager back in, that's something honestly that we can add to CLT plus because when people are driving by, they can capture the picture and not to give the location and give the information and we should be able to identify. But if we're talking about potential costs, I would love to have an understanding of what that business rate would look like and also what would that rate look like for the multifamily versus just a sample of of what the rate would look like on the individual residential owner and as far as which is something. Councillor Romainfield did you say C click fix? So CLT plus, so yes, C-Click VIX, which took a long time to get here. But those are ways that we can utilize it. And now that you're back in, manager, years ago, we created a partnership regarding around recycling. So we had the facility that was over on the West Side and part of that conversation back then was around helping to reduce what we're taking to the landfill through recycling. Is that still? You're correct there was a pilot in the pilot was seeing whether or not you could take with containers and have only that material in the container, whether it's a paper, glass, plastic, and have something pure that you could take over to, let's say, the barn or the murve. And so there was a pilot with that, my understanding, we can get you some information packet that it was pretty successful. So it will be helpful if we can get an update because that was one of the ways that we were trying to attack because what we don't want is worst-case scenario, idiocracy where the landfill decides to just crumble and the impact of all of that. But we put some funding and support into helping to realign what's going to the landfill. That's also going to contribute to the cost. And we also have an opportunity with our partners of which you and I talked about this years ago, especially for our elders that are Asian in place. Our partners through neighborhood services, through neighborhood matching grants, through Goodwill will connect you to young people and others that will come in and modiate and trim some of the limbs and do some things outside of just house repair to help people in creating a list. We have started that. It's just a matter of it being continued. Thank you so much. Ms. Sejmira. Thank you Madam Mayor. Since I'm going last, I only have one question. Mr. Jones in terms of the recovery rate, historically what has been our recovery rate for our feed avenue? Because I mean, I see that 46% is currently and we always have had a goal of having it as close to 100% as possible as one of our budget policies. So has this changed recently or? If I may, okay, thank you. So it's important to note that currently, there's not a different fee. So the dumpster customer, residential customer, pays the same as a roll-out customer. And by city ordinance, we're limited to, we could only do 100% recovery. So if you look at this slide here, it's cheaper for the dumpsters. For somebody just going in and do that. Five number seven, sorry. So it's cheaper, so we could not, so it was 100% of the dumpster rate. And that's why we're analyzing okay does that really make sense or should we look at the type of service? Because the type of service does service a rollout is a lot more expensive. So that's why we're potentially looking at Yeah, I see Comparison with other peer cities and we are sort of of, lowest, right? So I'm not sure if it's because other cities have enterprise funds when it comes to solid waste, where they recover 100% versus us, where general funds continue to subsidize some of this cost. Do you know, I see Rodney nodding his head so certainly he knows more than. No I was second but because you are correct. Most municipalities are full cost. Full cost and we are not. I agree with some of my colleagues. Obviously, we can go overnight from where we are, 200% because that would be a huge increase to pass it on to our residents. But I think at some point we do need to look at the services we providing and adjust our rates based on the services. So I see there are several options that are provided in this deck. So there are several things we could do, so I look forward to hearing more about that. But yeah, we are definitely on the lowest and if we're having to subsidize it, that means we are pretty much using some of these dollars that could have gone towards housing or infrastructure or public safety. We are subsidizing solid waste services. That's all I have, thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Miss Meena. Miss Meena. Sorry. Malina. I mean, I got door care, but. No. I know. Sorry. It's been a long day. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So really quickly, I think what I would add is, first of all, I think this is outstanding work. Considering the fact, a lot of these peer cities as far as residents are concerned, as far as square footage, don't compare to the city of Charlotte, right? And one of them is my hometown, I mean, Lama hometown, but the whole city is smaller than my district, right? And Lama hometown. But considering that we cover over 300 square miles, over 900 residents, varying degrees of, whether every resident is being covered, but for the people that the city of Charlotte services over like what you were saying, such a wide geography, one truck on a daily basis travels over 100 miles. 100 miles, right? I mean, I think, you know, even though, you know, we want to have a lean perspective when we consider this, I think already we're doing what I would consider to be based on just baseline information. I think we're doing a good job at what we have, right? Can we be more lean? Absolutely. What, absolutely? What fees and associated costs do we have to pass on to the resident? Of course, those are always going to be uncomfortable no matter what, right? And I see that there are cities that we can attempt to try to align ourselves with for a more lean perspective. But I think all things considered, I think so far, I think we're doing a decent job. What we have, like a lot of people to serve, a lot of miles to cover, and we're still one of the lowest compared to cities that are within 100 mile radius of us, right? Because that's what that looks like, 100 to 200 mile radius of us, cities across our state or whatever. But I'll think us to think we're doing a fantastic job, Mr. Manager. I'd love to hear what the perspective would be ongoing for making us a more lean institution, right? I don't know how we achieve that objective, but good job. I want to add, I really think that we have to begin to look at this transfer station as a capital item. It's really important. We can't have, you know, they say fires and people not safe in the way that we operate now. In addition to that, I think, Mr. Jones, you know that there's the Solid Waste Agreement with the county. And that is a very important document for us. So I think we ought to start working on both of these two things, both of these as soon as possible, because it's going to be some kind. Some hard work to do these. Yes. Thank you, Anne. Thank you. You're great for this. Thank you. All right. This is our final one before we go into closed session, and it's the capital investment plan. So it's coming now. Okay hello Bayer members of council I'm Hannah Brownberger the assistant director and strategy and budget and right now the presentation is being passed out to you as well as your project status updates these blue and yellow sheets that we hand out every year. They give you an update on the construction status, the estimated completion date, and the budget status of every active horizontal and vertical capital project. So here with me today, I have Kathleen Cishak. She is our city engineer and she's going to be talking to you a little bit about in more detail on these blue and yellows on the active projects. And I also have Teresa Smith, our CFO who's going to talk a little bit about capacity before we start planning for the next CIP. So I'll go ahead and invite Kathleen Keathley-Duff. Thank you, Hannah. Good afternoon, Mayor, members of Council. I'm going to start off by giving you an update on the existing projects. We've had a very busy year. As you can see on the slide, we've completed 24 projects in the past year. Based on the pictures you'll see that we've completed public art installations, ADA improvements, solar installations, multi-use paths, and bridge construction. Aside from these projects, other projects include installation of electric vehicle charging stations, completion of our first fire equity project, pedestrian hybrid beacon installations, street lighting projects, sidewalks and roadway projects. So as a reminder, this is not a bond year, but we did want to come in and bring an update on our bond projects. We currently have a total of 152 active projects. 19 of these projects are currently in construction. Over the last year, we were able to complete 17 projects and we added 20 new projects. Of the 152 active projects, 138 of them are on target. We currently have one project that is listed as over budget. And we also have 13 projects listed as at risk. As a reminder, a project will receive the at risk title when the estimates are currently aligned within our budget. But we are starting to approach a critical threshold within the project. It's simply a designation that serves as a warning that we're nearing the overall project contingency level. Staff will continually evaluate market unit prices that we received during the bid process on all projects. This data is then used to update our project cost estimates. So for facility projects, these projects consist of police stations, firehouses, ADA projects and sustainability projects which include our electric vehicle charging stations and solar arrays. We currently have 30 active projects and up those 25 of them are on target. We completed seven years or seven projects, excuse me, over the past year, and we've added eight new projects. We currently have three projects that are showing some level budgetary risk with the denotation of atrisk and then two projects that are currently listed as over budget. So many of you are aware of ongoing developments at the federal level. We are closely monitoring this and the City Economist discussed this at the February workshop. Recent actions by the current administration could have wide-ranging implications, particularly in areas of tariffs, immigration policy, consumer spending, construction activity, employment trends, and federal grant availability. These factors have the potential to influence our projects to some regard. Though increased material and labor costs, potential labor shortages, supply chain disruptions, and the need to modify project scopes to stay within budget, this could impact any number of our projects. We are actively monitoring this to mitigate any potential risks. I've included images of two of our upcoming projects that are currently in design. The first one is our CMPD helicopter hanger. And then we also have our firehouse number 44, which will be the city's first mass timber facility. So next, I'm gonna move on to providing an update of our advanced planning design program. As a reminder, the advanced planning design program was created in FY20-20 to explore potential projects and create a project pipeline for possible future funding. The slide shows four projects that are currently in this program. The first one is upgrade existing animal care and control facility. We looked at the option to build on site at Briarm Avenue. Given the site constraints and building infrastructure needs, it was determined that the project was not financially feasible. We are now exploring a satellite option. The project is currently in the design phase, and we anticipate reaching 30% design by third quarter of calendar year 2026. The CMBD Hanger is the next project on the list. If you'll recall, we took the Land Acquisition, the City Council, and September 9th. That project is located at 801 Woodridge Center Drive. The project has a very similar schedule to animal care and control. It's following that schedule by a few weeks and we anticipate completion of 30% design by 3rd quarter of 2026. CDC which is our asset recovery one is the commission. which is our asset recovery disposal, commissioning, decommissioning facility, is currently in advance planning. We are evaluating the feasibility of two existing warehouses on aviation property. And then last but not least, you guys just received an update on the Solid Waste Transfer Station. We are continuing discussions with the county, those are ongoing. But currently the project is going through a master planning effort, which will work to understand Solid Waste Services needs, excuse me, and an overall program, will help develop the project scope. At this time, I will turn things over to Theresa Smith, who will provide an update on the Capital Investment Plan. Thank you. I'm Teresa Smith and just wanted to give you a couple of updates. This is a slide that you all have seen before. This one you've seen at the retreat. This is a reminder that 2026 is not a bond here. So we just had a bond, which I'll talk about in just a second, 2026, however, will have cops and Hannah will be talking about those in some of the future slides. This reflects the budget that was adopted for FY 25 through 29. This is another slide that you have all also seen. You saw this one at the retreat and this one shows that the steady state will return to 220 million. What this shows is that the past referendum that we had was the $400 million referendum included the $100 million for affordable housing and then $238 for streets and 62 for neighborhoods. We will return to a steady state of 220 after this year. The other piece to highlight here is that we did use a portion of those future years to purchase the red line this past September. A couple of highlights about the $400 million bond since this was the largest bond that the city has had. Of course starting out with $100 million for affordable housing you will recall that historically we were at $15 million we were able to move that to $. And then this past November, the voters approved a $100 million bond. We were also able to focus on corridors of opportunity. 25 million remained there. And then we also started the strategic investment areas. And you will remember that these are targeted areas, 16 targeted areas that are in addition to your corridors. These are where we look for scalable mobility projects that we can deliver to citizens more quickly. And we've got some pictures here of two of those winds that we have had. So the Far East Harrisburg Sea completed sidewalk there, and we also had the Errorwood Sea, which also has already completed some sidewalks under that program. Couple of other large items there that we've included, Vision Zero, sidewalk street resurfacing, and then some of the named road improvements. So with that, I'm going to pass it to Hannah. All right, thank you Theresa. So as Theresa said, this is not a bond year that we're heading into in FY 2026. And so since it's not a bond year, we're going to focus on our facility funding, which are, which is our certificates of participation. The capacity has not changed here. So on average, COPS has about 26 million of capacity per year, which total is 130 million over the five year plan. This is the plan that you adopted as part of the FY 2025 budget. And you'll remember just like with all of our capital planning, you adopt year one of the five year plan and the other four years, the out years are simply a plan. So we revisit them each year. So this year we will be revisiting FY 2026 specifically. And then we will be making a plan for FY 27 through FY 2030. So I want to go a little bit deeper on all of the projects that were in our facility planning in FY 2025. So we'll start with fire public safety facilities. We have a program for equity renovations in our existing fire stations. Through our master facilities plan effort several years ago, we identified some existing fire facilities that needed a little bit of work to make sure that there was appropriate space for female firefighters. were 13 firehouses identified that needed work. Five of those are also on a list for future replacement. So we've sort of set those five aside. We have eight firehouses remaining. As Kathleen mentioned, we finished our first of those renovations at Firehouse 2 this past year. Firehouse 22 is expected to be complete within this next fiscal year and Firehouse 12 retrofits are in planning currently. So we still have a few that we need to tackle and this is intended to be an ongoing program as capacity is available. Moving on to our Fire Facilities Program. This program has been funded for several years now, and it provides dedicated funding to construct new infill firehouses, as well as training facilities or to replace existing firehouses that are no longer serving the need that they need to serve. So so far we have funded $63 million since FY 2022 and we have an additional $44 million planned across FY 26 and FY 27. We'll go a little bit deeper on the components of the fire facilities plan. And as we look at this program a little bit more closely, you'll see that each project is in varying stages from planning to construction with the new in fill Hidden Valley Firehouse anticipated to be completed in the next few months. You'll also see a little bit of budget concern on some of these projects, but remember that they are in a program. So the way that we do this is we budget at the program level. So as higher priority projects are completed, like Hidden Valley, budget savings from those projects roll down to the next project in line. So we aren't too concerned about this. Similarly because it's a program we think that we can adjust the planned budget between 26 and 27 and slide some funding around to make sure that we have the right cash flow in order to keep all of these moving in 2026. As we move on to our police public safety facilities, we added the 911 expansion to the budget in FY 2025. This funds, it funds a renovation at both the Law Enforcement Center, police headquarters, as well as the police and fire training academy. And this allows for 22 more floor consoles in our telecommunicator space. Each of those consoles has someone sitting at it 24-7, so three shifts a day. So 22 consoles really adds space for the equivalent of 66 FTEs. So this is a really important expansion project for us. We placed $7 million in the budget in FY 2025, and we have an additional $2 million planned in this upcoming year in FY 2026. And right now both of those projects are on budget and will be completed in 2027 and 2028 respectively. The police division station program, we haven't talked about a ton lately because this is an older program it started in 2013 and it was a program to build six police stations. At the time police was leasing space and they wanted to have a more permanent presence in the community so they started to construct permanent stations. These six stations five of them are now complete. We are working on our last station, the Northwest Division, which is under construction. You may notice on your blue and yellows that it is listed as at risk. And the reason it's listed that way is because we think that the program funding for these six stations is going to expire. But don't forget that in FY 2024, when we were seeing high inflation rates, you approved a bucket of funding for projects and Northwest Division was specifically named in that program. And so with access to that money, we think that this project will be able to continue without becoming over budget. And that's mountain on the lake. Here we go over there. 1800 Mount Holly. 1800 Mount Holly, 100 spoke row. OK, I also want to mention a few other ongoing programs that have been long standing in our facilities program. We have building sustainability improvements. This program has funded its first fast charger for our class eight CIMI truck. We continue to install EV charging stations, including in the last year we completed the largest one at the CMGC parking deck. If you go up to the roof, there are 53 charging ports on the top floor of the parking deck. We've also completed seven solar panel installations, including one that you can see looking down where we are now over the chamber. ADA and equity renovations continue. We've completed phase one renovations in CMGC as well as ADA improvements in old City Hall. Phase two ADA improvements in CMGC are currently in planning, and the solid waste services annex building across the street from their main building. Female locker room expansion project is in design and on budget. We also have capital facility improvements, including four HVAC replacements at firehouses and other city owned facilities. We've replaced seven roofs in city facilities and installed car readers in the CMGC stairwell to enhance safety and security. So you may remember these buckets. We show these buckets a lot. Usually debt services in the middle. We have the bigger general fund one and the debt service fund and then a tiny little Pego one. And the way that we show them that way is because property tax and sales tax are the primary funding sources in these buckets. So we talked a good bit at the annual strategy meeting about how Property Tax Funds debt service this debt service fund is what we use to pay principal and interest on all of our debt-funded projects at the city. So all of the projects that we've been talking about that our facility debt-funded projects funded by cops, the principal and interest is paid through the debt service fund. And you may remember that property tax does not grow with inflation. That was part of our conversation at the annual strategy meeting. And so that lack of inflationary adjustment in property tax not only affects the general fund and our operations, but it also affects the capital program and our long term capacity to advance priorities. So we are well aware that we have far more needs than we can fund, but as capacity remains strained, we want to make sure that we use any new capacity to ensure that the existing projects within our facilities program and within the advanced planning program projects that we've talked about today like the transfer station and the helicopter hangar can be funded and advanced in advance further to construction. So as we look ahead on April 7th at the Budget Governance and Intergovernmental Relations Committee, aviation and cats will be there to discuss their budgets, including the capital portion of their budgets. On May 5th, the budget will be proposed, including the FY26 through 2030 CIP budget. May 12th, we will have our budget public hearing. May 19th will be budget adjustments followed by Stravitz on May 29th and on June. We will present a budget for adoption. All right, I have a couple of folks on Miss Ejmira followed by Mr. Drex followed by Miss Macyl. Oh, I Mr. Driggs. Thank you, Mayor. This is a lot to take in. I appreciate it, but processing all of this is hard. I'm trying to just on a high level get a grasp of what the magnitudes of the at-risk projects are collectively, like we don't have numbers here for any of these. And we got into a situation some years ago where we were in a pretty deep hole. So I'd like to understand better in the aggregate, what all of this means. I don't wanna go line by line through each contract and so on, but there must be some way to consolidate where we say total projects on budget or this, at risk projects or this amount and under budget, over budget so that we can get a macro feel for exactly what our situation is. What was the annual rate of cops issuance capacity that was mentioned? 26 average per year. So over the six years on the graph of ravaging about 35, 30 to 35. So how do I reconcile that? We had some additional growth last year. You know, we pulled a lot forward for the bonds, but we also had some in cops that allowed us to adjust it slightly. And we had some time sensitive needs like fire trucks that are in a four year replacement schedule that we needed to get added to the program replacement schedule that we needed to get added to the program. But we have returned to the average now just like Theresa mentioned on GeoBonds. We have returned to 220. We have returned to about 26 per year in COPS. So if I look at the slide 11, it looks like we've got 39 in COPS in 26 and 37 and and 27 and then we're going back to 15 and the out years of 28 and 29 so I would just observe that when the time comes it could be very difficult to do that and I think we may be robbing Peter to pay Paul a little bit here. The other thing I wanted to mention was colleagues, I don't know if anybody's noticed, but occasionally in our meetings, there's this talk about animal control. And I don't see anything in here. Are we doing anything about animal control? It was on the last. I'm sorry. That was on advanced planning. Could I miss it? I'm sorry. It's in advanced planning, I think. Okay, so what's the timeline? And the advanced planning is inexpensive. It's just cute. Wait, and let Willett Hannah, what is the Mr. Diggs asked what, where are we on the plan? We anticipate that we'll be at 30% design in quarter three of calendar year 2026. Uh-huh, here we are. I'm sorry. I didn't see that line. And 30% is generally our benchmark in advance planning because we know enough at that point to feel comfortable setting a budget. So this has animal care and control reserve. What does that mean in terms of our plans for a facility or how does that translate into investment in a facility? Sure, so last year when the budget was proposed there was a line item for essentially a hold of Future capacity for projects coming out of the advanced planning program and through the budget adjustments process City Council asked us to change that name and just go ahead and dedicate it for a future animal care and control facility. So we changed that name and that same capacity that was being set aside for projects coming out of the advanced planning program is now set aside specifically for the animal care and control facility. Unprogrammed capacity. So if I'm reading this, when would I expect to see a new or improved facility based on this planning process? A facility or a budget? A facility. When are we actually going to see something built? Do you understand? Council Member Driggs, thank you for your question. So as outlined on the slide, We're going to be working on the design process. So, we're going to be working on the design process. So, we're going to be working on the design process. So, we're going to be working on the design process. So, we're going to be working on the design process. So, we're going to be working on the design process. So, we're going to be working on the design process. So, we're going to be working on the design process. We bring a GMP guaranteed maximum price contract to council sometime around the same time frame. So third quarter calendar year 2026, I would anticipate probably a second quarter, 2028 completion date. But all of that will be reliant on us onboarding a design builder to help refine the overall schedule. And the intended total investment is 30 million based on this slide. Correct. Okay, thank you. All right. Let me just hit one thing. Mr. Downs, so sure. Councilor Drake's, this is typically not the way we do this. Typically we finish the advance planning, gets it 30% and then have a number. But what we've done is we've said no matter what, we've said we've taken 30 million capacity so what I believe is we are building and designing towards a 30 million dollar facility based on the earmark from council is that correct that is correct okay yes I just would highlight that facilities as old as it is and so on and so forth so I think a little accountability on our part for when we can actually expect to see a facility, you hear this design and it sounds a little squirrely. So the other thing in Kathleen keep me on the straight and narrow. This is more or less an adoption center, something that is elaborate this inviting that will help promote getting animals adopted. Is that kind of where we're headed? That is correct. So it is a satellite option. So I may be interested in a cap. But it's not going to solve the problem. Yeah, thank you. Okay, Mrs. Meera. Thank you, Madam Meera. I agree with Mr. Drake's. This is overwhelming to go through this list while keeping up with the presentation. Especially this capital investment plan project updates. There are about six pages here. So I haven't been able to go through every single line item, but I did look at the ones that are highlighted, the ones that are at risk or over budget. So couple of questions. First, if we can, yeah, on this slide, since we are on this slide, let's, let me ask a question on this one. Number three, can you help me understand what that is? For commissioning and decommissioning facility. This is for the CF. So Councilmember Agmerra, the RCDC is how we affectionately call it but what it is it's a function of asset recovery and disposal Which is where we send all city related items to be sold off whether it be an auction and then commissioning decommissioning Is also a function of our fleet group where we will bring in police cars Solid waste service vehicles to be upfit for their intended purpose. Okay, so we are relocating that facility. It is currently on aviation property, and we're looking to relocate that into two other aviation warehouses. Got it. So that's already in our advanced planning. So does that, so I guess my question is, you know, Mr. Driggs brought up animal care and control facility which last year when we were discussing budget adjustments, there was a remaining capacity of $30 million and made a motion to put that money specifically a sign to animal care and control facility. Well the question is, you know, some of these projects are at risk over budget. How would they get prioritized with the limited funding that we have? Considering that there are so many projects on here that are at risk or over budget. So Mr. Jones, if you can speak to that, how are we going to prioritize some of this? Well, Councilwoman Hashmere, so the good news is when something is in advance planning, it's being designed to have a future project. I think we're, I don't separate the two. One, we will give you more detail on these projects than are at risk and over budget. I believe that Hannah suggested that there isn't a problem with the over budget projects that can't be solved within some existing capacity. Many projects are going to be at risk. You get a lot of yellow each year in this project and it it's just saying, in some of these things, we haven't even begun to get land acquisition. But it's a warning signal that we're keeping our eyes on some projects. Then we'll care in controls. I think it's a bit different in that we have a set amount of money. We're designing to that set amount of money. And I believe the only reason why we're talking a certain quarter in 2028 is that in a normal process that's how long it would take to design it to Construct it and we're really looking if I got this right to draw Scheduled of where the funds would be needed so so to follow up on that You know it's good to hear that when it comes to over budget, we have some cushion, because I know there is always 20 or 30% cushion on each project that can be used to address any over budget. You know, I look at cross Charlotte trail. I thought we had addressed that. That was a big issue. That was at risk a while ago and that was And now here it's again at risk Yeah, if you will recall I One day I'm gonna get through one budget workshop and not to the cross-rawlit trail There's so many segments of the cross-rawlit trail So so now no matter how good we may have been with setting aside money when you're talking about something endless. there's so many segments of the cross-strawlet trail. So no matter how good we may have been with setting aside money, when you're talking about something in, let's say, 2019, and you're building it in 2027, there are going to be some changes in the economy that put some things at risk. Yes, and I understand that whenever we plan something for... Thank you. you you . Thank you. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the I guess what I'm saying is we don't allocate everything and we anticipate projects will be at risk and we attempt to solve those without taking any additional capacity. I guess I have more questions after this presentation than I had before. I guess in my mind we created this whole advanced planning to not have projects at risk. So if you're saying we are still going to have projects at risk, I don't know what we accomplished with this advanced planning that was put in place. Was it five years ago or was it six years ago, we put this new process in place that we didn't have before because back, I guess before Mr. Jones, you came on before your leadership, the process wasn't a lot of vetting, was done to come to a number. So the number wasn't very accurate, so that's why we kept seeing a lot of at risk projects. But now, are you seeing, are you seeing, are you still have projects that will be at risk? Yeah, I don't believe there's a city, a large city in the country that can anticipate the cost of a project with only 30% design. The difference between what occurred beforehand, there there was no design. It was well intended people saying, I guess it'll cost this, and then it would be in a CIP. At least with the exception of animal care and control, we don't put anything into these cycles, unless we at least have 30% design. And I think we all know as you get further along the design, whether it's 50, 60, 70, you get more refinement with the numbers. But there is no, anybody who can sell you that 30% design projects are not going to be at risk. I don't know, I wouldn't buy what they're selling. So currently, do we still have 20% cushion on all of our projects? I don't know what we have on our projects. I do know that beforehand, before we got to this advanced planning, some contingencies were, in my opinion, outrageously high, because there was no design behind it. So the further you get along with design, the more that you can pull back some of these contingencies. I would say that the team is really doing a good job. And I would add to that this new way of addressing projects. I call it the Ed McKinney group where we are literally designing projects and implementing based on those two sidewalks to see is. I think that you will see a, I don't want the staff to walk away today thinking that they're not doing a great job because it's apples and oranges eight years later than what we were doing. Yeah, so let me make sure that I say this because when it comes to some of this project planning, certainly we've come a long way, then we were before, right? Before we had this advanced planning, where we would have less and less projects at risk than we had before because we are doing some of this planning ahead of time. I'm not saying that we will eliminate 100% all of projects, but I think we should be on track to have lesser and lesser where we are seeing at risk because of contingencies that are in place. We are doing some more design and we are doing some of the sidewalks. That is what the city does every single day. Some of this infrastructure projects, so we kind of anticipate some of the risk that we would see. Well, that's all I think. Thank you. You know this one. Okay, I think we've gotten a dive into a different conversation, but I do think that, well, I don't think I have at this may feel a Mr. Mitchell that would like to speak on this, and then we can come back to you, Mr. Thank you. Madam Mayor. Who else? Ms. Mitchell. I got it. Yes. Ms. Mayfield. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Mr. Manager, thank you for what you just shared. I would ask that when we're looking at for animal care and control, this investment is for the adoption center. I would like for us to, while we're in the design, say, do a little bit more research, because here's the reality. Because of the financial impacts that our residents are experiencing, they are abandoning animals. The shelter is overcrowded because of so many animals that are being abandoned. Adoption is not necessarily happening now, the way it once did. Now, for disclosure, out of the list of priorities, you know this is not in my top 10. Yet we need to address it, but I want to make sure that what we're investing in is something that's actually going to be beneficial to the needs of the community, which is to my limited understanding. More storage space that is healthy storage space versus putting having a state of the adoption center when there are not as many people actually out there adopting. I also have a question regarding stand here on slide nine. So we currently are utilizing for the CDC aviation property. And at the same time, we're supporting multiple projects that come before us for aviation, including the selling of land that's going to be on the books tonight. I hope that we are having some different negotiations since the airport is our partner to identify and a much shorter time period. Another facility if we need if there's an immediate need for this facility versus it being 10 15 years down the line if it's 10 15 years down the line then we should be able to stay there as a partner considering how much airport comes to us in partnership. If not, identify a space that is the amount of square footage that we need versus trying to split up two spaces and then in the future future councils having to figure out more funding for another relocation because every time we move that costs a certain amount of dollars. You know, I'm going to ask you regarding fire. So when we go back to slide 15, I do appreciate the funding that has been identified, but this funding is for buildings. I do not see, and maybe I'm missing it, the funding for the investments needed for our training facility. Because it's great for us to have these buildings invested in which we need, but our training facilities need investment. We are now looking at fires that are upwards of 3000 degrees. We have a facility where the simulated fire is only getting around 800. We have a facility that is also starting to see the wear and tear impact from having multiple fire simulations. We have a water tower that is leaking. We have pallets out there. We should not necessarily have to send our training staff over to Gaston County or other areas for training. Even though I know that in community and you and I have talked, Mr. Manager, that there may be conversations that Central Peabont might be doing something. I would like for us to have a real conversation about what we're going to do to protect our fire. Because I'm concerned that we're not necessarily giving them all access to the training here that's going to truly prepare them for what they're walking into because of how we have done infield development and the proximity. How quickly the fires are going up on with the wood versus what we used to have when you're sitting on a half acre or acre land, you will put out a fire very differently than the way we're doing today. So it would be helpful to know that we have at least funding identified for the design process. I will say I'm not as concerned at what we see at risk in this packet because of all the projects that our own target or have been completed. I would like to see numbers because just telling me you're at risk, I will risk by 100,000, I will risk by 20 million. That would be more feasible if we're going to have a real budget conversation. Yet I don't want it to get lost and I hope my colleagues also will see the benefit and us making sure that our training facility is state of the art and that our future firefighters have every possible opportunity to be successful here versus the money that we spend sending them on the road to go get trained elsewhere. Thank you Madam Mayor. Thank you Mr. Mitchell. Thank you Mayor. So just a couple comments particularly for Catalina and Phil so Catalina you can go to slide three They they will Go say to bar and project updates. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We complete the projects that you've had given us the confidence to complete. In the Construction Industry I will tell you is my own boggling to complete 17 projects, but then I add 20 new projects that's coos to what the team is doing. 130 projects and we're going to have one over budget. Great job. In construction sometimes there's many as 20 to 30 projects over budget. Thank you for showing the transparency to 13 at risk. We have this right here, so thank you for providing this. Go to the next slide of facility. 30 out of 25 on target. You don't see those percentages and I enter. you don't have them at your place We gotta give you all the dose of what's happening to market so Thank you all for the job you doing this is tough and I would say you say you articulated very well the potential project impacts. Those are real in the construction industry. Labor shortage, cost of material and supply challenges. So keep up the good work and to our citizens right there, you're in good hands where you approve the bonds and we go build a facility for the City of Charlotte. Thank you Mayor Mayor. Thank you, sir. Ms. Anderson. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Just a couple of points. One is I want to speak to the whole process of advance planning. And I'm very happy that we have that process in place. If we didn't, I would be scratching my head a little bit with the city our size and the monies that we manage. But being something being in advance planning at various clips of design, 30, 50, 60% does not necessarily indicate that we would have fewer projects at risk, but hopefully what it's doing is crystallizing the effort and the financial backing needed to complete that particular effort. Whether or not it's at risk or not. And so hopefully this, the advance planning process is providing great insight, sort of a harbinger into the insight around what it's really going to take to complete these projects. And you guys to Mr. Mitchell's point, the completion rate and what's on target and what's at risk is a great indication that you guys are utilizing this advance planning process well. So thank you for that. I do want to echo the same sentiments that Ms. Mayfield echoed as it relates to Charlotte Fire. I've spent a lot of time with our firemen and I hear continuously that our training facility has just been worn out. It's aged and it can't provide the most accurate training that Firemen would like to have for the trainees. And so if there is a way that we can invest in our training facility for Charlotte Fire, whether it's upscaling what currently exists, but certainly leaning into helping them ensure that the fireman coming out have the best training possible in order to protect our community. So those are just two quick points. Thank you, Madam Mayor. All right, thank you. I do want to recognize Mr. Drew's. That's what I want to do. Before we leave the whole subject of advanced planning, I'd like to clarify my understanding of it. When we work on these projects, we start from a position of very little and then we evolve as we work forward. The advance planning process basically had the effect of waiting until later until we put a number on it and waiting until later until we scheduled bonds. Because what was happening in the past was some of these bonds had to be the issueing authority had to be renewed because the bonds hadn't been issued seven years after they were put in the cycle. So I think the intention was to avoid some of the big shocks that we experienced. If you do this contingency planning, what you do is you put that cushion in there and it's meant to cover 80% or whatever. Not so big a cushion that you're covering 100% of the possible downside on every project. And so there will be a lot of projects that come in under the contingency. And you're able to return some capacity because it didn't use all your contingency. And then you're gonna get these situations. The reason I'm asking for a better quantification is because I want to get comfortable that that's what's happening that as we manage this whole process the magnitudes of surprise or disappointment are not as big as they used to be. I mean we had stuff like the JCC was going to cost $90 million and the animal control center was $70 million. So all we're trying to do is create a more stable environment, and I think we have, but it would really be helpful for us to know how stable by seeing some numbers. Thank you. I'm going to ask the council members if they're prepared to now go to our closed session. So I'm going to ask our attorney to read the resolution for our closed session. We're doing a closed session now. Did we need was this a formal? Do we need them? So this meeting is adjourned. Would I have a motion to adjourn this meeting? Some of. Second. Any questions? Raise your hand. Please raise your hand. And now any mayor. I don't think this was part of the budget workshop agenda so you don't have to adjourn. So I didn't think we had to do anything about closure on it. So we're good. So Mr. Fox. Yeah, I think you do not need to adjourn this being you just need a motion to go in the closed session. the closed session, the golden closed session to discuss matters relating to the location expansion of industries or other businesses in the area served by the public body including agreement. in close session to discuss matters relating to the location or expansion of industries or other businesses in the area served by the public body including agreement on tentative list of economic development incentives that may be offered by the public body in negotiating pursuant to Northland Journal statue. I mean, 143-318-11-A4. Thank you. That would be the motion. So moved. So we have a motion and a second all in favor. Please raise your hand. I mean, 143-1811A4. Thank you. So that would be the motion. So moved. So we have a motion on a second. All in favor, please raise your hand. Anyone opposed? I see no one in opposition. So we're now ready for our closed session. If we can ask our friends and neighbors to step outside of this room before. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. you Thank you.