Austin City Concil Transcripts - 8/20/2012 [10:04:20] I'm austin mayor lee fingwell. A quorum is present so I'll call this special called meeting on august 20, 2012, at 10:07 a.m. We're meeting in the boards and commission rooms, 201 west second street, austin, texas. On our agenda, items 1, 2 and 3 have already been completed so we'll go to item 4, presentation of the city's proposed budget for fiscal year 2012 and 13. We've all had the material for about a week now, so the way I'd like to proceed is after a brief introduction by the budget officer, and then we can go directly to questions. All the department directors are here, beginning with parks and recreation and then library and health and human services and finally planning and development review. So with that, I will turn it over to the budget director. >> Good morning, mayor and members of the council. Deputy cfo. We had initially agendized this presentation for last WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15th, And the discussion about the bond program went a little bit long so we got pushed until today. That's why the presentation says august 15th on the date. There were a couple items that we did get to on AUGUST 15th. The first one being setting the maximum tax rate. That was not adopting that [10:06:00] tax rate, that was just setting the maximum the council would consider as we go through budget proceedings and council chose to adopt a maximum tax 5 cents per 100of taxable value. We set the hearing for fiscal year 2012 and 13, the first of the public hearings will be tomorrow and the second will be on august -- I'm sorry, not tomorrow, the first will be on august 23rd and the second WILL BE ON AUGUST 30th. And then the part of the work session we did not get to last week was the departmental discussions, and so we have here today ready to respond to any questions you may have about their presentation parks and recreation, library, health and human services, as well as planning and development review. We're going to be back before council on wednesday, AUGUST 22nd, FOR A FULL Day of budget presentations. We'll have presentations , as well as austin research recovery, code compliance and we'll end the day with austin water utility and energy. We'll be back on the 23rd and the 30th with public hearings on the budget and tax rates as well as various utility rates that are proposed to increase, and then our budget readings and adoptions are scheduled for september 10th through 12th. That's the remainder of the budget calendar and unless there are any questions I'm going to turn it over to parks and recreation director sara hencery. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Thank you. You are welcome to bring all the help you need. >> I brought it. Good morning, mayor and members of council, and I'm going to run through this really quickly so there's plenty of time for everyone else. I'll start out just real quickly with our source of funds which, again, golf fund, of course,, our c.i.p. Reimbursements and grants. The majority of our department's budget is [10:08:00] general fund. Our uses of our funds -- i need to do this. Our parks planning development and operations, support services, other, which is transfers, and then, of course, community services takes the bulk of it, about 54.5%. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Sara, I don't know if you heard this or not, but we're going to go directly to q and a. >> Okay. We'll just leave it alone. >> >> Mayor Leffingwell: So questions on the parks department budget? Councilmember morrison. >> Morrison: Sara, one of the questions that arose last year was the new fee structure for use of the parks, and it was a structure that it's a certain fee up to 600 people as part of the event, and then the fee changes for over 600. And one of the issues that had arisen is that discontinue use, I would say, nature of us had jumped. If you had 600 people there's one fee. If 601, you have another fee. There was a response that said if I recall properly something to the effect if we had to do it per person it would be more expensive per person. Anyway, I'm still hearing feedback from that especially -- well, not necessarily especially, but secondarily from no one nonprofits who are having a hard time paying these fees. I wonder if there's -- two things. One, could we give some more thought to trying to smooth that out in a fair way so that 600, 601 jump doesn't happen. And then secondly, do we have different -- a different fee structure for nonprofits or is it the same nonprofit and for profit? >> This is angela means, our [10:10:03] budget and finance manager, let her answer, but always we can look at that. I think the resolution that was recently -- or the one that's coming forward about looking at rental fees or special events, I think that's something we can look at across the city and looking at the different jump of fees but also number of users, nonprofits, possibly separating out the maintenance fee, that may help some because I think in some cases we want to make sure we're protecting the investment of the city from a maintenance perspective, but we don't want to make it so cost prohibitive groups can't use the park. So angela. >> Good morning, angela means. I would like to say that what we've done in the department over the last six months [inaudible] how we calculate our fees and looking at the cost of service. And so we're doing a more indepth analysis on all of our fees. And so this is one that we are taking a look at. Not only just how we calculate the fee, but how affordable it's for the services that the individuals will enjoy. So we are not -- they are at this time we are approximately 60% complete of taking a look at the majority of our community services fees and we hope to have that assignment done at the end of this month, early september. >> Morrison: So in the budget proposal that we have up in our offices, are the fees the same as last year's just from -- >> yes. >> Morrison: And you said that you hoped to have it finished, I'm sorry, by the end of september? >> That's correct. We've been working on it the last six months. We have run into a couple of snags just because it's very extensive, but we're not there at this time. >> Morrison: So do you expect you might have a recommendation that comes out of it to change -- so i presume -- maybe one scenario is we adopt the fees as they are, but then look forward to adjusting them early in the fiscal year? >> I think that's probably the best way. [10:12:00] The other thing is we want to have to work with our friends in bbudget office to make sure that we're not taking away revenue that's anticipated and already calculated into our budget and then coming up with something that's less than that, having to find reductions somewhere else. I think there is a way and what we want to do is look at this very holisticly. Some of our parks are in very high demand, some of others don't get used. We've looked at the maintenance fee versus cost of rental. This is something that could be sort of intertwined into sort of the upcoming efforts that we may be looking at for the special events and then use of parks, how we balance that with how we maintain that park and just having somebody from a group of nonprofit individuals who are there, hours of use. We have to look at all those things. But I think like she said it is cumbersome because we're looking at number of hours, number of people, the day, saturdays and sundays are our biggest days, and then how we balance that with keeping the park open for public use, keeping it open, and then having rentals. So it's almost like a matrix that we'll have to do but we can always change it after the fact. >> Morrison: Are you saying you will also take into consideration, think about could there be a different fee schedule for nonprofits? >> Yes, we will absolutely look at that. >> >> Morrison: Thank you so much. >> Mayor Leffingwell: I would like to follow up on that. Originally the rationale for doing this in the first place was two-fold, I think. I think one was to make sure the parks are available to some degree at least to the general public, and another was damage, actual damage done to the park. So is there a component in there aside from the fee to make restoration? I know there's normal wear and tear, there's abnormal wear and tear, and there's [10:14:01] also traumatic damage, people pulling obstacles across the grass and so forth. How do we account for that? >> Mayor, that's a point we're looking at very seriously now. That is that we have a deposit we try to hold if there are severe damages, but the questions that now are being raised for us is that enough money when you have complete turf damage and it's not. Two, if we have to resod or re-seed. The maintenance fee is not adequate across the board. If we are going to look at this, we are looking at this completely holisticly and perhaps there's a less fee for noone profit to use it, but a maintenance fee and certainly a deposit that is reasonable but certainly takes care of any damages that occur because we have had an issue where we had ruts that were -- created in the park. We lost some trees that were damaged severely that they died. And we're talking about more money than what was in the deposit in general. So we want to balance that and that may be where we can -- we're able to do that. It's a very good question, it's something we need to look at. >> Mayor Leffingwell: I do think that's a major factor because park maintenance is one of the areas where we have a severe lack of funds to apply to that. And when someone comes in and does extraordinary damage, there has to be some way to recoup the cost of doing that. Councilmember riley i believe was next and then councilmember martinez. >> Riley: Thanks, mayor, and thank you, sara, for being here. I just have a few questions. First on page 80 of your presentation, there's a note for south district parks ground maintenance and then the first bullet point is parker lane tract which we acquired just recently. It's a two-acre tract. And there have been a number of questions from the community about what we're [10:16:01] planning to do with that. Can you just elaborate on what's in store there? >> Well, we have limited funds as we acquired that property just not too long ago, we have limited funds to do some very small improvements, and that is to kind of physically clean it up and put small improvements in it. And then, of course, the one is going to cover both parks. But we're just now -- we have to get into it, we have to sit down and talk to stakeholders, find out what their top priorities are as far as development, and i think from a capital standpoint, and I need to go back and look, I believe it's very little amenities because they didn't want a lot of amenities. It's a neighborhood park and they didn't want this to be seen as a big destination park. But our first chore is get it cleaned up and in good shape. >> Riley: Okay. So not a lot of infrastructure going in. >> Not a lot of infrastructure. I would like to follow up and tell what you infrastructure and I will do that and send this to the city manager's office so everyone can see that. >> Riley: Great. One other thing that I don't see in the presentation is project saltillo. There's better questions on this subject about the possibility of adding a half-time employee or making other adjustments that would make it easier for folks to make use of plaza saltillo for events. A couple ideas came up as to how we could do that, adding smaller time blocks or lowering the electricity fee, adding a maintenance fee. Could you tell us where we are on all that? >> Right now we have a staff team that is looking at this. That, again, goes back to the question both councilmember morrison and the mayor talked to me about which is the maintenance fee, it being able to help us maintain that area. It's an area we're not able to get to like we want to. [10:18:01] We're not doing so much mowing but we pick up the trash, blow it out and then we go and there's not an ongoing presence there which does present some problems sometimes. By looking at a maintenance fee that would be more applicable to the users, and I think there's a lot of people that want to use this area and it's certainly conducive to that, we might be able to fund a part-time person that would be more visible, which would mean when there are events, someone would be present, make sure it looks like for an event whether it's a celebration or some type of event, and then keep the trash picked up and keep it looking nice. The other thing is by working with maybe some other nonprofits that might want to use the park, for instance, maybe the farmers market, we believe we might be able to form a partnership where we could have them help us in some landscaping and some work, but also some eyes and ears on the park which will help keep it -- the more people in a park, the less we see a problem. The more we can encourage partnerships from nonprofits the better off we'll be. It's an area we need to focus on, have more staff presence, but we need to encourage more of a partnership where we can create more of a positive impact and keep it open and clean. >> Riley: I appreciate your efforts on that. Do you expect we need to make some changes in the budget? >> Right now we just literally take a staff crew that drives by, they empty trash, pick it up. The problem with some of the areas that have higher visibility and we start to see increase in use is when you can only get to it once a day or once every two days, the trash sits. If it blows, it's blowing all over the neighborhood and the businesses. We're not creating a very good sense of community. We do need some presence there, but I think between a half-time person or part-time person with some partnering that we need to develop, we can make it work. [10:20:00] >> Riley: Okay. With the budget as it stands stands now. >> We would have to add some help, maybe some temporary seasonal. >> Riley: Not far from there is the mexican-american cultural center. There's been a lot of interest in that. Will it's been understaffed since its opening and it's been about five years back in 2007. The board for the macc has repeatedly raised terms about the availability of supporting staffing there and I understand the manager morris, has identified particular positions as priorities. I do see on page 9 of your presentation a mention of 1.5 FTEs FOR [INAUDIBLE]. With that be housed at the macc? >> Yes, it would. >> Riley: That would cover -- that would obviously help. There was also concern, interest in custodial or maintenance person, technology coordinator, sounds like that position might cover three of those bullet points but not custodial. >> One of the things I was able to do, bert lumbreras and I met with stakeholders on a number of occasions. I pulled a person from another position specifically to address the issues related to custodial service. We went back to the board and asked from a staff perspective, we felt like keeping the facility clean and in good working condition was important and they agreed so allowed us to use that position for the goal. Truthful we have the same situation at several of our locations so by adding the 5, by moving this position over, it gets us in the queue sort of begin to see where we are. [10:22:00] We need to do more program to go get more people there and we are doing that now. As we begin to grow, we can come back next year's budget to look at additional resources, but this is going to make a huge dent helping us. >> Riley: And I know the board has also asked we consider a -- making use of the parking places in the lot and that could provide another source of funds. >> That would be huge. >> Riley: That would be available in the next few months. >> That will help us because I think you are going to see the parking area will be completely utilized and that bit of funding in addition to paying off those meters, the additional funding going back to the center will certainly help us fund, i think it will help us fund another full-time position, quite frankly. >> Riley: Great. I also wanted to ask about the african-american resource advisory commission, that commission has asked that we provide funding to support the efforts to develop programs and service to maintain staff at an american cultural heritage district which is apparently a knew thing that's come up and there's a lot of community interesting in seeing what we could do about. That have you looked at the possibility providing any support in the budget for that? >> Honestly I have not and we haven't put any positions in there. And that would -- I'll be real honest and frank, we would have to add positions to be able to do that and do it justice. As you can see just from looking at the barrientos center, we can't build a facility or have an area providing staffing for it. I don't want to build expectations and not be able to do that right. >> Riley: Right. There's been a lot of interest in additional full-time employees for forestry division as well as maintenance position. How is the forestry position looking in the current budget? >> Honestly, I will say this [10:24:01] and this is a presentation i did with the audit and finance committee, we have enough foresters to take care of our trees every 90 years. This is not good and it's certainly not a good standard for us in this city. We are creative and we have an outstanding group of people who are dealing with more of an emergency and [inaudible] issues than we are maintaining our trees. It's every city park we have in our system. We're busy answering emergency calls more than we are taking care of our inventory of trees. We have over 300,000 trees in the the inventory so that is once every 90 years getting to awful those. It's not good, but we're going to continue to chip away at things, no pun intended, and trying to get to them. Staff work really hard. They are on call on the weekends. But when we have a tree go down that goes across public land or a public street, our crews are called out. It's during the day, night, weekends, and that's where they spend the majority of times is 311 calls and calls that go direct to parks and recreation. It's rae we're actually able to get out and maintain our trees. >> So you could use additional funding to strengthen the forestry division? >> We could. It's more of a balance. We're going to continue to do the best we can. We're putting new measures in place. Technology is going to help a lot by the hand-held devices and not duplicate work orders from the 311 system which we're working on. A lot of it has to do with utilizing technology and having that technology. Having the trained staff that we have and hopefully incrementally adding to those staff members. The more we can do that, the better off we're going to be. >> Riley: In the meantime, we'll be making progress by making better use of technology. >> That's right. >> Riley: Thanks for all your work. >> Thank you. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Councilmember martinez. >> Martinez: Thanks, mayor, thanks, sara, thanks, [10:26:00] chris, for your points. They were many of the same points I wanted to bring up so I don't repeat all of those, but I do want to ask some questions about some specific facilities within the parks department. And one, starting with the facility we used yesterday that I think is really just a beautiful part of fiesta gardens and wanted to just kind of tee up what the future is hold in store for the stage area, the grandstands leading down to the lagoon. I just think it's one of those really special things that we have that obviously we've not put much investment in over the years. Is it anywhere on our radar screen with the redevelopment of holly shores? >> Yes, it is in the -- as a matter of fact, we're asking all those questions and addressing those with public input to the holly shores plan. The part there is we have the money to do the master plan, we don't have the money to implement it. So we're going to come up with what I believe from what meetings we've had so far some really innovative and creative ideas that's going to take bond dollars, but I think the other exciting part is as we work towards this is the matching private funds to help us redevelop this area. >> Martinez: That's great because that's a perfect segue into the next part of my discussion. I'm glad you brought up umloff I'll state publicly if you can come to agreement of substantial funding as a partner, then I would certainly hope we would entertain a longer term lease. And we're hearing this not just from umloff, from other organizations because what they say to us is they are more than willing to raise hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars to improve those existing [10:28:00] facilities that they use and utilize, but they can't raise that kind of money without a longer commitment. >> I agree with you 100%. Actually I'm glad to hear you say that because, as you know, we did that with the sunshine camp for a 50-year lease and we want to work with our legal department and do, you know, do the due diligence. But I agree, they can't go out and raise $5 million without a longer term lease. And the sunshine camp was only -- they were raising 3.5 million. Weya has committed to doing their great work. From a staff perspective we want to do what's right and we believe the only way we're going to survive is with these partnerships. We'll bring to you what we believe is a have good proposal and we're hopeful we'll have a proposal within the year so we have this one-year gap funding and then we're able to work with them to turn things over and have a great partnership like we have with the bottom half of the land. >> Martinez: It's my understanding since we've been gifted the house and the studio, there are dozens if not hundreds of pieces that are not on display, that are stored. >> That's correct, in a climate controlled storage area. There's some work we need to do with the property, of course, because they are very interested and we're fortunate to have a group like this to want to help us, otherwise we would be asking for a huge amount of money to have to deal with this. >> Martinez: Great. So the other part of the conversation that I want us to start as a council, it's been brought to at least my attention, I don't know if any of you have been approached, councilmember riley brought up the african-american heritage district, but there's other -- you know, the macc, carver, now the asian resource center this year. A question has been posed to me as to whether or not -- because of the high demand to rent these facilities and utilize them for private and/or commercial events, [10:30:01] whether or not it would make sense for those culture centers and even african-american heritage district to be -- this is not an insult, I don't know how to say this any other way, to be better placed under egrso or something that is different than a parks and rec department. Because what we saw in the macc and what we had to do last year is totally change the fee structure so that cultural events really got preferential treatment in terms of fees because that's really what it was built for. But because it's such an iconic facility, people want to hold concerts and events and that's in super high demand. As you mentioned, we need to raise more money to keep operating and growing and doing the things we want. So I'm just going to tee that up as a conversation that I'd like to have whether or not this council there as a policy or whether the manager gets there, I think it's something we have to think about because we're not going to be able to fund the african-american heritage district out of parks budget. It's just not there. But we're going to want to fund it. They've already approached us and asked chris and I to sponsor a resolution which I'm happy to do, but the resolution puts it in your hands, city manager, and says help us identify funding and based the parks budget it's going to be very difficult to do. I'm willing to go down that road and have that conversation with you. >> Councilmember, just so you know, that doesn't offend me and we've asked the same questions. We want these facilities to be where they need to be whether it's with us or another city department, we'll continue to be supportive and do what we need to do, even if it's a partnership, if we do programming and they actually operate and manage our fundraising arm or whatever. We are -- that's what we do. But I want you to know it doesn't offend us at all. We've asked the same questions, where sit best going to be served. And I do need to mention one thing, umloff is in here but [10:32:01] it's not in the budget. The money we have listed is unfunded item for umloff. >> Martinez: And then the last one, councilmember riley brought it up, where are we implementing fee parking at the macc and what does that agreement look like in terms of sharing the revenue? >> This is kind of exciting and you may see more things coming from this one example. We're waiting -- we want to do this holisticly with the whole rainey street effort instead of come in piecemeal. The board has approved this and send a resolution. We're ready. Rob spiller, we've worked with him and steve grassville, they are ready to go putting the meters in, but they want to come in, sue edwards wants to come in with a proposal on rainey street. That also includes the mexican-american culture center. >> Martinez: Thank you. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Councilmember tovo. >> Tovo: Last year in our budget there was a proposal that was adopted to make the botanical gardens a fee based -- to charge an entrance fee, and I wanted to ask you and this may be something I need to submit some formal budget questions about, how has that worked out? Has attendance dropped? Has it moved the kind of revenue anticipated? >> We had a slow start and that was part of logistics. What we thought we could do. It wasn't working so well so we had to take a step back. We're now actively taking in the funds and I don't think we've seen a drop in attendance, but I think we're rethinking is that the best way to do it versus we're working with rob spiller to do an analysis of metering. But we're also looking at zilker and the fact we take money at the front of the park and backup traffic on [10:34:01] to barton springs. So, again, we are trying to look at this more holisticly. We're looking at steve grassfield and rob spiller to look at barton springs in general, zilker park and how we back up traffic, under moe pack within issues with department of transportation and sort of the haphazard parking that happens and then there's issues related to safety. And then zilker botanical gardens and under mopac as well. People get blocked in. Obviously it would come back to council, but we're rethinking is taking money for an entrance fee to pay for coming in the gardens is that the best way, or is it metering it and not having to have a person there which would take away the expense of a person to collect the money. >> Tovo: So it sounds like, and again I'll submit a question and get a sense what that has generated in terms of funds, but there was also a conversation we had about whether the botanical gardens, if we blasted on and approved the request to charge a fee, which we did, whether there was an opportunity to have one free day a month, say on sundays, so members of the public could come in that day once a month for free. The line item wasn't large, but we didn't have the money so we didn't adopt that provision, but I know that you had expressed a commitment to making sure to loo fundraising opportunities and wondered if you had success. >> We actually have. It's not in the way of fundraising dollars, but when things are televised and we had the company tbg contact us and they are doing free work for us as far as sort of master planning the area, working with the board, which they were very excited about because this -- it's much needed to look at some areas that we need to renovate. So they have offered services at no cost to help [10:36:00] us look at some of the priority areas we need to take care of first and they are working with staff and the board to prioritize those and come up with a plan. That would have cost us, i don't know, in the thousands of dollars that we're not having to pay for. And then we sat down -- i sat down with them and kimberly McNealy on two occasions to talk about setting up a strategic plan and then looking for donors or groups to help us move this forward. So we have done these things and we haven't finished it, but these are some of the things we're working on so the board can actively go out and pursue some dollars to be able to make improvements and -- and offer better programs. The other thing we have been able to do is we're working very closely with watershed protection and the possibility of bringing over the ampet they have and working to set up actual live projects that would stay on site for long periods of times. For instance, rain water collection. People don't know how to do that. You can buy the barrel but they are not sure how to set things up. We're working closely with watershed protection for examples of things you can do at your own house, no cost, how we do stream bank restoration and other things for educational purposes. Donna is also now on television on ynn doing some -- going out and visiting people's houses that have drought resistant, drought tolerant planting and now people are seeing that. Then we have other ideas of growing our own succulents and things that we put in parks instead of some of the water -- heavily used plants that drink a lot of water. We're doing a lot of different things and we're working with the board to try to come up with sort of a strategic plan of our priority areas, and they know fundraising is going to have to be a large part of [10:38:00] that and the board is willing to do that. We're working with them on that. >> Tovo: That's great. I appreciate you telling us about all of those programs. It sounds like a lot of exciting initiatives underway. I would just say especially if the botanical gardens is going to serve this in a new way, a new educational function, I think it becomes even more critical that austin residents have access to it one day a week for free. Especially because it is going to educate -- educate young people and parents about concentration strategies that really serve the community's purpose i think in allowing them to access that. It's one of the things that happened last year in the budget that made me think because it is a change when you have a resource like the bow taken ial gardens that everyone has enjoyed. It's featured in a couple of children's books, but one of our residents has written and it's just unfortunate i think when it becomes something people can only access by paying. And so I justment you to continue as they work in all these areas, I want you to continue to see other priorities allowing members of our community to come in at least once a month for free so it's something everybody in the city can enjoy. >> The other thing, that's why we want to relook at this because when they are involved and if we're doing programming for camps for kids, you don't want to charge somebody to come in, they've already paid for the camp. Look at it deeper, if you are dropping someone off, you don't have to pay for parking. Maybe is answer is the parking meters because if you are going to stay for a while you pay. But if you are dropping off you don't pay. Right now you come in you have to pay and it's a little double dipping we don't think is necessary. >> Tovo: That's great. [10:40:04] >> Issue with one of the senior centers, some members of that community came forward and said that their programming had been [inaudible] and we talked about it in one of our work sessions, it had to do with a volunteer who was doing the programming who had left and I know parks department was going to work with health and human services to try to rectify that situation and get somebody back on board who would could programming for members of that community and I wanted an update on that. >> Carlos is here. This was at the health and human services site where we were coming in and offering services and the beloved staff member was leaving, which we always have a problem with, which is a good news, bad news. They are a great staff member, but when they leave, we can't hardly fill their shoes because they are so popular. Carlos. >> Tovo: If you need to get back to me, that's okay. >> We'll get back, but i know we've worked hard to solve it and I think we have, but this is one site that we'll have the ongoing problem with all of our centers when we lose that kind of quality staffing and then have to replace. This was a volunteer actually. >> Tovo: I was going to say I thought it was a volunteer and that was part of the challenge, it was a lot of work to ask for a volunteers but on the other hand you have men and women going to that center for years who wanted to continue the programs. >> We will follow up. We worked diligently to get this solved. I think we've solved it -- it is solved great great great. Great. >> Mayor Leffingwell: And we are going to have a briefing from health and human services this morning if we get to it. >> Tovo: That's great. >> So it's a paid position now, it's a part-time paid position, and it's being staffed by meals on wheels, but it's the same individual that was responsible before. So we have some continuity. >> Tovo: Thank you for following up on that. I know that was an important [10:42:01] issue for many people who had been attending there for years. Let's see, a couple quick questions about just the way the information is presented. Would you please explain, and apologies if you did this for me last year, what is the recreational enterprise fund and what is contained within that and i guess what isn't? >> The recreational enterprise fund used to consist of our softball fun and the recreational -- that is no longer. Everything now is in the general fund except for the golf enterprise fund. >> Tovo: Okay. So that appears on our budget overview just because it was around in 2009 but is no longer. >> That's correct, they are just giving you a history for the last several years. >> Tovo: And I notice in the summary comments you address grants, but, you know, while that actually many as far as grant programs are expected to continue, but I thought i saw in a lot of categories that some of the grants were actually going down. Maybe it was in the budget overview. On the other hand, I know -- I see it in the budget overview it looks like it's dropped from about 474 down to this year 377, 377,000, and there's quite a jump anticipated for next year. I wondered if you could address that. Where are those grants coming from? Is that a result of the grant writer? I know you've hired a grant writer in the last few [10:44:01] years. >> It's been vacant for a while because we lost our grant writer. But we are just getting more keen into what grants we can use and, quite frankly, we're partnering with other city departments to look at grants that we can do together. And many times it may be a small grant from us that we're matching with another city department. We have the food grant that we use with our programs with the summer youth program. We're looking at some grants through the national integration parks association and we're working with some of our friends in the community groups, neighborhood associations with matching grants. It's just coming from a variety of areas, but we're trying to maximize the use of everything we can. >> Tovo: That's terrific. 1 million proposed grant fund, are those grants have you been awarded or are those grants that have been applied for? How southern, I guess, is that funding in. >> We're still in the process of applying and we're very hopeful, but there's always that risk you did not receive the grant. But we are very aggressive this year in going after our grants to assist parks and recreation. >> Tovo:1 represents grants alied for. >> That's correct. One is for the texas parks and wildlife grant for $500,000, the boating. >> Tovo: and apologies again if you've explained this dozens of times to my colleagues, but can you tell me what expense refunds mean? >> Yes. Expense refunds are a combination of things. We have agreements with other city departments where they are or we are providing services to them and we are refunded dollars for that. We also have a large c.i.p. Expense refund. We have current parks staff that works on our capital projects and they are refunded by the capital funds. So that's the bulk of those. [10:46:00] >> Tovo: So that's not -- when it appears under, say, recreational programs, those don't count fees coming in from participants and those activities. Those are strictly like internal funds moving back and forth? >> That's correct. >> Tovo: Thank you. I wanted to ask you about some of the performance measures on 247, please. There was quite a jump in the right direction from the number of registered participants in senior programs from 8,000, which was the anticipated, to the 116,000 estimated. And the actual number in 2010 was 11,000. If you go from 2010 from 1,000 up to 116,000 the following year is a pretty big jump and I wondered if you could describe what kind of -- does that represent programs, funding, different kinds of accounting. It looked like a relatively new measure, but ordinary progress. >> My one answer on this is kimberly McNealy. She has turned a corner for us when it comes to recreational services and looking at based on need, based on the areas of highest need, based on user satisfaction and she's gone out and talked to every single advisory group and neighborhood group and asked questions about what are your needs, what are we missing, what are we not doing. In two words, kimberly McNEALY AND THE STAFF HAVE Tried to turn this around and answering needs based on what areas have asked for. >> Tovo: That's fabulous. So you have increased by almost 100,000 the number of senior participants in programming. >> It's just -- community gardens has helped because we're getting them more [10:48:00] active. Everything from youth, preschool, all the way up, we're starting to see a huge interest in our programs where we saw -- if you remember last year, I talked about we need to do a better job of programming and do quality not quantity and that it is where we've folk you had and that has made a huge difference and we're having to add more classes because we're getting more people want to go take these kind of programs. Have you noticed, since you mentioned these programs, i did want to talk a little about -- you mentioned adding new classes and things. In one of our work sessions we did have a discussion about some of the cost containment strategies that were reducing some of the senior programming and youth programming and I don't -- this kind of high level detail doesn't necessarily allow us to assess where that might be happening. >> Actually the budget office worked with us to sort of help true up some of those costs and that's why you don't see the reduction in services, you see the additional amount of money that we're getting in the history, arts and nature area and those are the areas we were having to make adjustments for sort of reductions. We were able to sort of level that off now. Obviously we are going to have to continue to look at cost of doing service based on the service, but it's a lot easier to charge the right fee when the program is quality. And what we were experiencing was when we didn't have such a high quality, but we were not very consistent with our fees either. So now we've looked at a consistent fee schedule, we've also looked at not turning anyone away from areas of need and we still have to have the number of limit like 50 children in a program based on size of the facility or the room. But it's made a huge difference by looking at quality over quantity, cost of service and then doing it right and that's why this trues us up, sort of gets us where we need to be and what does it cost to do the [10:50:00] service and if there's a full-time employee already is there th, we don't have to duplicate the cost. If it's temporary seasonal, helping with camp programs, we have to put that in whether taking trips, educational programs. But I think next year will be our better year to look at our numbers and see what we are, but I think what kimberly has been able to do with the great staff, we've been able to look at this across the board, make sure we're balancing what we offer and it's quality and reasonable and affordable price and no one is turned away based on the fact they can't afford the program. >> Tovo: And I completely appreciate and applaud that approach. That's the right place to be in. My concern is when we have increased the number of registered participants in senior programs by 100,000 in one year, are we increasing the funding for those programs or does that mean you have to come up with budget constrainment in other areas because I want to make sure we have that conversation. My intent is I want to be sure we have a conversation as council if there are going to be cost containment strategies as there were last year that are going to result in program cuts in our senior programming or our youth programming. I want to have that conversation during the budget session so we can if need be allocate more money to the budget line for that -- those interested individuals to be served adequately. >> Yeah, at this time no, we're not looking at cost containment. What we're doing is more creative programming because of causes. Creating community gardens by working with our friends in other areas. But do we always need more money, the answer is yes, but no, we're not going through a cost containment exercise and start reducing the program. >> Tovo: Okay. That's good to hear. Okay. Thanks. And I will have some followup questions, but that was the main one. I want to understand the recreation and program services, the community [10:52:00] services are divided into categories, but the history arts and nature including the nature science center, the dak, I see thes list of programs under here. Is the recreation and program services strictly camp, and if there's a camp -- I mean it's the center city. If there's a camp at the nature and science center, does it appear in recreation and program services or history arts and major? >> If it's the camp at the rec center, it will appear in the recreation services slide. If there's camps at the museum, that would be -- >> Tovo: In the museum side. And the same with senior classes. If they are senior classes at the dek, they are on the arts, history and culture side. Thanks very much. I really appreciate your work. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Before you leave, I have just a couple of comments. First of all, I think we -- and other councilmembers have made these comments, we have to make better use of pickup private partnership otherwise we're not going to fund and maintain our parks so I just encourage to you continue along those lines. Even, you know, increasing use adopt a park program, especially for people who live in those areas be given the opportunity to help maintain their neighborhood parks. But also agreements with nonprofits. And another quick item, don't necessarily want to comment on it, but the problem with macc parking continues to be a problem, and the whole idea is that the macc facility would have preferential parking for their events there. There's a lot of people that live in the neighborhood here, a lot of new commercial ventures, especially barks and because they are in the cbd they are not required to have [10:54:01] parking. We need to look at innovative ways to accomplish that goal of making sure there's adequate parking for their event. One might be the charge for parking. Set up a gate there at the entrance, people who come there for macc events, of course, could be much like we are here at city hall. Have you legitimate business there at that facility, you could get your card stamped and not have to pay the fee. Just encourage you to continue those discussions and try to alleviate that problem. And my final question is what is the status of the george versus joseph bonnell situation? [Laughter] you don't have to elaborate. >> Mayor, it's -- it is not accepted by the historic commission, we've made every attempt to try to say that we were willing to look at this, and I'll be honest i read the packet of materials and there's a good case for it, but our commission is -- is not seeing that and not willing to -- >> Mayor Leffingwell: Is that the texas historic -- >> that one, yes, primarily that one. And so we'll continue to be supportive and like I said I've read the packet and there's a lot of points there that certainly indicate there's a wrong naming. But it's out of our hands. >> Mayor Leffingwell: So we'll leave it to the texas historic commission to make that decision? >> Well, at this point we've left it in their hands because our own historic commission is also in agreement with that. The one that we worked with on. But I think those two commissions are not willing to take it any further and it would have to be something that if the council wanted to address this and it could be done and we have a packet of information that say it's the wrong -- wrong person. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Got the wrong bonnell. >> Yes. [10:56:00] >> Mayor Leffingwell: It kind of sound that way to me and I know there are a lot of people that feel very passionately about historic accuracy on that issue. And just as a parting comment, mount bonnell park is another one of those parks that frequently used by folks, I don't know if they are paying fees or not, but workout groups, especially on the weekends and mornings and even religious services are conducted there. >> Yes. >> Mayor Leffingwell: I think we need to take a look at that. Thank you. >> Tovo: Mayor, one last comment. I was asking so many questions about the budget, I for got to offer what i wanted to say which was just what a terrific job I think you are doing in terms of youth programs and what a great reputation they have in the community. My colleagues may not know but some of the summer camp programs especially people wait in line for a couple hours to register for, my husband did that for me this year and my girls had a great experience and that was what I heard from parents all over the community about the arts program and the nature and science programs and some of the other programs that are offered to youth in our community. So I just want to commend you and your staff for doing such fine work at all of our facilities. >> Mayor Leffingwell: The guy in the parks and recreation department is rated number one in citizen satisfaction, so that's an accomplishment. Councilmember morrison. >> Morrison: These questions brought up two quick items. We had a great discussion with sara at audit and finance when we were talking about the cemeteries and maintenance and upkeep, and you mentioned hand-held technology there and we talked about you mentioned it here in terms of that's going to improve the efficiency of our maintenance work. One of the things we heard in that discussion in audit and finance was the budget needed for those hand-held devices is relatively small. Sit about 10,000? It's about $10,000. [10:58:02] Ctm has a plan for funding each of the departments, but the parks funding is a little bit on down the line and I wanted to ask if there is a way that our city manager could look into potentially shifting that because 10,000, that sequence, and include the parks hand-held devices earlier in the process rather than later since it is going to be such a key and we are needing to do everything that we can so adjusting it $10,000 somewhere along the lines, i would appreciate it if you could take a look at that. And secondly you mentioned the holistic approach that's being taken for parking at the macc, boat house, rainey street area, and I wanted to highlight we have an item on our agenda this thursday that is related to that and that is we're -- there's an item to approve the sale of a city piece of property on rainey street and as part of that sale they were going to be required to maintain 30 parking spaces. And I guess I just wanted to know are we sure it's an all be parking or if we're doing a holistic approach, how do we know that's the right step to take now? [One moment, please, for change in captioners] >> it will be parking that is set aside for that purpose for city use, for city use. >> Morrison: But if you're going down to rainey street and you're not going to one of those, then you won't be allowed to use that parking. >> No. Part of this deal is they will be managing the parking, so those spots will be for city use. >> Morrison: Okay. Thank you. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Okay. Next we'll go to library. And before we begin, we're scheduled to end this at 12. I have to leave a little bit before that. Some idea of availability of councilmembers? That will put us down to four numbers. Okay. So again with q and a on the library budget. I don't see necessity any questions? Councilmember morrison? >> Morrison: I do have one question. Just breezing through here, one of the items you talked about was the materials budget. It looks like we're going to have a nice hefty materials budget. And then also a dedicated fund for temporary employees. Could you talk a little bit about that? Because that's one of the issues that came up last year. It looks like only yesterday. And that was we had some materials funding, but then we found that because of the need for the temporary employees some of that materials funding was getting shifted and there was some concern about are we not doing what we need to do for materials. I wonder if you could talk about that. >> [Inaudible - no mic]. ... With materials money. We didn't necessarily spend it. We held it so that we wouldn't go over our budget. And we were able in the past not to spend materials budget. And this year with the addition of these five temperatures we will not have -- five temps we will not have to hold materials budget at all. >> Morrison: Okay. I guess that brings a question up for me. We budget for materials spending because we know that we're allow -- we're low on it which is reflected in the intention, so what does that mean for the materials budget and have we been able to make up that impact that we lost? >> What we've done in the past is we've -- we typically have 20 to 30 temporaries that we need to keep the central library operating. We held out in the past over 200,000. Last year we held up to 500,000. But we let temporaries go towards the middle of the year so that we wouldn't end up impacting our materials budget. And then at the end of the year we released the budget, the materials budget, so that we could spend it all by the end of the year. >> Morrison: I see. So all the money that was budgeted got spent. >> Yes. >> Morrison: But I guess what I hear you saying now is that we know we're going to need temporary employees. That's just part of running the library. So that's why it's going to be separated out and then it will be carved out and we won't have to do the shifting. >> Exactly. >> Morrison: Great. Thank you. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Councilmember riley. >> Riley: I have a related question. I very much appreciate the foresight going into the planning for shift to the new central library. And I appreciate you're including a page on the presentation and about the funding over the next four years to get ready for the new central library. Four million dollars is new capital funding for the new central library. And this year alone we're 2 million towards the materials collection of the new central library. But I wanted to ask about -- about an indirectly related subject, which is as we move those materials over to the new central library, at some point around 2016 we're going to find that we have an empty building there, what is now the faulk central library and the history center has long hoped to expand into the faulk building. But that going to take some work. Of course, the faulk building is really not suitable for an archive al facility in its current state. Is there anything that we're doing over the budgets in the next few years, in the intervening years between now and 2016, to help us get ready for those changes that will be necessary or are we looking at a couple of years when that's just going to be an empty building and we have to look at a future bond item in order to have the funding available to upgrade that building to be able to house an extension of the history center. >> Once that building is vacated once we move over to the new central library, our internal facilities services department will do very basic modifications to the building so that it can accommodate the move of the history center over to the current john henry faulk building. We will need a bond package, however, to fully renovate that building so that it can accommodate the archival materials and so on. >> Riley: So you expect that we will be able to make some temporary use of the facility in its current state, just to try to clear out the hallways in the current history center building. And then-- there will be a couple of years of interim temporary use of the facility and then we'll -- and then at that time we'll do additional planning work to be able to go forward with the bond to be able to do the necessary overhaul of the building. >> That's correct. >> Riley: Got it. Thanks. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Okay. Thank you very much. Health and human services will be next. And the last department we'll hear from today is planning, development and review. Questions on health and human services? Councilmember riley. >> Riley: I wanted to ask about a few things. First, the african-american youth resource center. We've been working on a council resolution, as councilmember martinez mentioned, we've been working with the resource center -- we've been working with the youth -- yes, that's right. We've been working on an item on the agenda to find funding for the african-american resource center. And I think it asks staff to see what you can do to find that fund. And I realize that's not an easy task, but I wanted to see if you had any initial thoughts on the prospects for being able to identify some funding for that -- the african-american youth resource center. They're asking specifically for an additional $102,000 to support their work there. Is there anything that you could -- any preliminary thoughts on where we might be on being able to identify that additional funding. >> What we'll do is work with the budget office and try to see what possible sources of funding we can recommend for that. I know the department will have to do that and we'll certainly be happy to see what we can come up with. >> Riley: Great. Another -- >> Martinez: Can I ask one follow-up at this point. Burt, do we take a look at opportunities for organizations like the african-american resource center to assist them in applying for grants that they may be missing because they don't have the personnel and folks available to draft those grants and make those applications? >> Carlos rivera, director of health and human services. Yes, we take every opportunity to invite folks to talk to us about grant opportunities. But we haven't had anything official from them yet, but we've been talking about the partnerships extensively. >> Martinez: So as part of this item, it may not explicitly be drafted into the item, but I certainly hope that we keep that as an option where we can connect them with funding sources that they may not be aware of. >> Yes. >> Martinez: Thanks. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Councilmember riley. >> Riley: Another issue that we've been looking at and getting community input on relates to funding for early childhood and youth services. With respect to early childhood programs, we know that there have been some changes as a result of the funding process that we went through. When we took a look at all of our social service contracts and came one a funding matrix to overhaul our mechanism for funding those services, the results were some changes that may not have been intended. And in particular with respect to youth services in the year -- in 2012 we're seeing a drop of some $500,000. In early childhood programs. And that items expected to fall another -- almost another half million in 2013. So some very significant cuts. There's also been some concerns about youth programs and in particular programs like the council on at risk youth, which do very valuable work. And in both cases with respect to both early childhood and these youth programs, the argument is that investments at an early stage will actually save money down the road as well as improving the lives of all the many individuals that are affected by this funding and the matrix that we came up with for scoring the social services program just didn't do a very good job of recognizing the need for funding at the earlier stages of life. So with all that in mind, can you give us any insight as to the prospects for being able to identify some additional funding to support either the early childhood or youth programs that we've talked about? >> Well, we're in a tough position over the short run. Department doesn't really have any discretionary funding for -- to fund folks with, but we're already beginning to look at the , which is two years away, which is right around the corner, and we want to develop a strategic focus for you, based on the life continuum, the life-span as opposed to like basic needs. So it would take into account the needs of early learning and also adolescent development and prenatal, preconception care. It is unfortunate and a little bit disheartening that what occurred occurred. I know it wasn't intended but we did divest in early learning by about 50%. >> Clearly we've got a lot of work to do. As carlos mentioned the continuum will be very what we would intend to do from here to the next budget is one of the first initiatives, which is the city council resolution that you've already adopted, has to do with the youth submit, and that's really take advantage of the organizations and the folks that are out there doing some good work along with the work that we already have been doing internally in terms of inventorying all of our city youth programs, but even seeing where we may have overlaps and gaps. And so the whole idea that is with the youth summit and then moving forward is to come back to city council and with a whole lot more strategic focus saying these are the programs that we're funding, these are the programs that are out there in the community as much as possible, gather what i would consider as much of a comprehensive set of information that we can and then come to you with specific recommendations on where are the needs. Is it in the zero to three, is it in the 12 to 10, is it in ain't to 22? Whatever the -- the 18 to 22? Whatever the continuum indicates where we have the greatest need. Obviously early childhood is probably going to fall in there, but it really would examine what's out there, what is really needed, and then come to you with a whole lot more strategic set of recommendations in terms of what we're currently doing, but also what we prospectively should be doing as well. >> And I would add that we need to look beyond the absolute needs and look at opportunities for success. There are many needs and we don't have the resources to make them all, but there are also some rock solid opportunities for success again like in early learning, which depends on which statistic you look like you get like a five to one return on your investment. So we do need to really take a close look at what's achievable over the short run and the long run. >> Riley: Agreed. And burt, with respect to the strategic prioritization that you're describing, what's the timing on that? When might we see some recommendations? >> Our goal is once we complete the work with the youth submit, what we would gear up to do is going to come back in plenty of time before the next budget which would be next fiscal year. So that's what our timeline would be. >> Riley: So that would be helpful for next year. We may still have an issue for next year. And it sounds like if we want to make some changes to be effective this year, we're going to need to find that funding somewhere outside the current budget? >> That's correct. And our thought with that, councilmember, is is just that it would help council be a whole lot more strategic in terms of where the greatest needs are, obviously understanding sort of like what we ran across with social services that there will be a lot of needs, but where do you start first and where do you make the best investment that you possibly can. >> Riley: Okay. The last thing I wanted to ask about is a couple of recommendations that we got from the sustainable food policy board. They have suggested that we consider an outreach in marketing program for increasing snap enrollment and it also suggests matching dollars for farmers market and snap. Have y'all had a chance to look at those recommendations? >> We're very familiar with the recommendations. We have a matching program that i believe the -- we have to work a little harder to make sure that folks are using those coupons. We do need to have more availability of farmers markets, just more place for our folks to go to make it more accessible to them. But we have been taking these things into consideration. And just benefits in general, through our neighborhood centers we're making sure that folks are applying for things that they are eligible for. We're trying to expand our ability to do that as within additional service. >> Riley: Great. I'll look forward to continued work on that. Thanks for all you're doing. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Just to follow up a little bit, as you come up with next year's consume for grant funding, I would encourage you to get out there as soon as possible and do a lot of outreach and work with the organizations that receive grant funding. I know it's always worst to have a big surprise at the end than it is to have worked with these folks all along so they can do their planning. They can do their planning for private fund-raising and other grants that they might receive from sources other than the city of austin. And the united way as we all know has made changed a significant way in the way they put out their grant funding and I think that will change the way we do ours. That has to be incorporated and may very well have an effect this year. There may be changes that would be necessary as there were a couple of years ago when united way changed their grant funds. So with that in mind -- just a quick question. There's been a lot of discussion lately about the 15 waiver, but all that discussion has had to do with central health and how these waivers would benefit them. In using local dollars to attract many more federal dollars. 46 in their case. How does this affect health and human services? >> There's five percent of the overall pot of the $1,115 are available to health departments in our region. So essentially our region is ourselves and hays, hays county. So we have an opportunity to capture those dollars. The difficulty for us is that we need to have money up front in order to initiate new programming. >> Mayor Leffingwell: You have to spend money to get more money. >> Right. And right now we have four major programs that are -- comprise our wish list, but only one of them is funded. And that's permanent supportive housing where we have $100,000. I mean, the key is that it has to be new, new programming. So old programming wouldn't be eligible. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Would the new funding, assuming that the bond propositions pass in november, there's money in there for affordable housing and certainly a part of that is permanent supportive housing, I hope a very large part, would that go towards helping secure 1115 waiver money? >> It has to be for services. It can't be for capital. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Councilmember tovo. >> Tovo: Thank you. Just a couple of quick questions. First of all, I wanted to thank you for your comments, lumbreras, about the youth summit, because it will help, especially as we get individual requests for funding. And I know we all hear -- i think it will help us as a council evaluate just the range of organizations out there who may need some additional support from the city, and that will allow us I think to make good decisions about where the highest critical needs are. As you said, there is not a lot of discretionary money available, so I think it's very important if we're directing staff to look at identifying funding for particular organizations or do that in the context of the range of needs that are out there and the city identified priorities. So I'm very excited about the youth summit because i think it will allow to us do work with our community stake holders who are also inventorying the range of needs and resources out there. So thank you for your work on that. A couple of quick questions about the sustainability fund. First an easy one about vending machines. The department is eliminating its permitting fee for vending machines. What does that mean? What kind of vending machines? >> Sherri lane, health and human services financial services. Historically we've had vendors come and request permits to have vending machines in their facilities. And over the last several years we have not had any requests from those vendors, so we eliminated that fee because we haven't had any requests. >> Tovo: Are these vending machines with snacks and drinks? >> Snacks and drinks, yes. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Cokes and snickers. >> Not in health and human services. There are some cokes, but we are making our choices much health yardangs thanks to wong -- healthier thanks to dr. wong. >> Tovo: That's one of the reasons it caught my eye. So in other words, in the neighborhood centers there have been vending machines and permits. I don't understand the contracts. >> They're not city vends machine, they're from outside vendors. And what we can do is I can get a list of the types of vendors who are coming in requesting it. I don't have the information with me, but we can get a list of who has historically requested these permits. >> Tovo: I guess I was really trying to find out where they're requesting permits to locate those. Where are they trying to put those -- when they are requesting a permit, where are they trying to locate those vending machines? >> I can get that to you. I'm not very sure. >> Tovo: Okay. And so the rationale here is that those vendors are no longer interested in having vending machines? >> Right. We have not had -- correct. We have not had revenue in that line item for the last few years. So we are asking to reduce that or eliminate that. >> Tovo: I see. Do you think that has some relationship to the healthier snacks? >> Possible. >> Tovo: But I fully support the emphasis on healthier snacks. >> We're doing well in that category. >> Tovo: Okay. And with regard to the sustainability fee, I see a few things that are proposed to be shifted -- the sustainability fund. And I wanted to talk about the one identified a 181 first. Five employees are being transferred to the block grant from the -- and these had previously been funded by the sustainability fund. Do you have a sense of what might have been funded through the block grant that will now not be able to be funded by that block grant because of this transfer? >> At the beginning of last fiscal year the grant had been cut by 50%, which made it necessary for us to have some sustainability funds in order to keep the folks employed and have the resources available. Then the state has fully funded us this year. And moving forward, as a 10-year situation, we don't know what next year's funding will be, but we're fully funded for the upcoming year. >> Tovo: Did you say 10-year situation or tenuous? >> Tenuous. >> Tovo: I was hoping you said 10-year. >> That would be great. >> Tovo: That's just a matter of this transfers just because you won't need to use the sustainability fund to fund those because they can be funded through the block grant and they have been funded in the past by the block grant. >> Yes. >> Tovo: Thanks for that clarification. And on 182 I see the social service contract, funding for contracts with agencies providing basic needs and homeless services and for the african-american youth resource center will come from the general fund rather than the sustainability fund. I know one of my colleagues raised a question about that earlier about funding for the youth resource center, but it looks like it's contemplated within this budget already. Is that just an ongoing -- is that part of the ongoing commitment? >> Yes. That was funding that was given to the youth resource center last year. They received some contract dollars that will go through fiscal year '13 and so that is the -- historically in the last few years it was funded through the sustainability fund and for '13 it was transferred into the general fund. >> Tovo: So we had a little discussion about this in one of our budget work sessions about the sustainability fund. And I think staff are going to get back to us on some of the history of the fund and its mission and purpose as we talk about some of these transfers that are being made from sustainability fund dollars back to departmental budgets. But I wondered if you could give me a sense of whether that had -- whether this transfer had impacted any of your other programs because obviously it's -- I guess it should be a question for what else in the general fund may not be able to be funded this year if this transfer happens from the sustainability fund. >> The transfer doesn't affect our ability to continue our current level of programming. It is just a transfer from the dollars that were in the sustainability fund were transferred into the general fund to continue those same programming. So it won't affect any of fiscal year 2013. >> I think that one is posted. Has it not been posted yet? >> Not as of the last printout that I got. It's number 17. >> I've seen a draft of it. It will be posted very soon. We'll get that posted certainly this week. And just following up on what carrie was saying, really what we're doing here is looking at what was the most appropriate source for these basic needs services, homeless services, youth services that has historically been funded out of this sustainability fund, ostensibly being funded by the enterprise operations. And we've had the discussion of when we were looking at that that we felt the more appropriate funding source was the general fund. So with the fiscal year '13 budget before you, you're starting to see more of those services funded out of the general fund as opposed to the sustainability fund, and that would be the direction and that would be staff's intent to continue in that direction over the next few budget cycle. But there's no reductions happening here, it's just a matter of are those dollars in the general fund or are they in the sustainability fund. So the general fund is a bigger budget than it would have otherwise been by about 3 million and the sustainability fund is a smaller budget than it otherwise would have been by $1.3 million. But we're not changing the services we're providing, just changing the source. >> Tovo: Okay. Thanks. >> >> Mayor Leffingwell: Councilmember morrison. >> Morrison: So I'm still struggling to try and make sure I understand that whole issue with the sustainability fund. But really I wonder if you could go back to slide number 25, which is along with 26 talking about significant changes in the budget. And it says -- I'm not sure 4 million refers to. Could you just give me an overview of this and the next slide and what they're saying? >> Sure. So when we look at the significant changes of the department, we go through and look at all the increases and decreases that will happen in fiscal year '13. So the first 521,000 are the market increases, the wage adjustments, the health insurance increases for the departments. And then when we go down further into the departmental changes -- >> Morrison: You don't have to walk through each one of them. I just wanted the big picture. So here on this page we have some chunk of change that is an increasing cost to running the department. >> Correct. >> Morrison: Including 5 million in what used to be sustainability, coming out of the sustainability fund. >> Correct. >> Morrison: So did the departmental budget go bye-bye $4.4 million? >> No. It was a net decrease of 4 million -- >> Morrison: Is that what that means? Significant change means it's decreased by 4.4. >> Correct. And included in that is the change of animal services into their own office. >> Morrison: You have something to say? >> No. It's a decrease because of the animal services, about seven and a half million dollars used to be included in the health unlet budget and now it's its own budget item. So there's a reduction in health and human services, but it's not really a reduction. It's now within two pots. >> Morrison: Okay. That's what the next slide shows. >> Correct. >> Morrison: Okay. So I guess -- I want to make sure I have the sustainability fund. 3 million that was coming from sustainability is now going -- instead of into the sustainability fund it's going into the general fund and then into health and human services? Or is the general fund not being bumped up by that amount of money? >> No. The general fund is being bumped up by $1.3 million. The sustainability fund is smaller by that amount and therefore the amount of money that the enterprise operations are contributing to the sustainability fund is lower. So in particular this year the drainage fund has historically contributed around 6 or $700,000 a year to the fund. >> Morrison: To which fund? >> To the sustainability fund. >> Morrison: Is that now going -- part of it, is it now going to the general fund? >> No. That transfer to the sustainability fund goes away. So the drainage fund transfers to the sustainability fund. It just allows them to take that money and now direct it towards drainage projects or other needs that that department has or to help keep the drainage fee lower than it otherwise would be. Ditto for the water utility. They used to contribute about five million, four and a half, five million dollars. And this amount is a little lower now, about five or six hundred thousand dollars lower, which begin gives the water utility those resources to allocate other projects or needs that they have, but the funding now is in the general fund. Those programs are now in the general fund so the general fund, the amount of money we need to make the general fund balance is higher than it otherwise would be. >> Morrison: Precisely. I think that's the key point that is really a significant policy issue that we need to be thinking about as a council. And that's why it's so important to me to be able to get that context of how the sustainability fund was created and why. And why it was created in the first place. Because the bottom line is we have the enterprise fund specifically designating some of their monies, a small portion of their monies to support the priorities which I assume were council priorities associated with the -- what goes into the sustainability fund. And so now with this shift away from that, we need to realize that there's less money -- what would be -- i don't know quite how to say it, but the general fund dollars has to go farther. The general fund dollars have to go farther and we no longer have this designated fund to address sustainability issues that was funded by the enterprise fund. So I really -- for me that's of grave concern. And let me say also I think that what you were saying, rivera, about the 1115 waiver that they need to be new year's eve programs, that we need to find new money for them. That means that every dollar that we can't find to put into a new program leaves $1.43 on the table. And I think that especially, especially in this time when we are working with in the really fabulous way with all the other entities around our region to maximize our $1,115 that I think we need to seriously think about maintaining some of that stability fund and maybe even think specifically -- i know you guys did a terrific job of putting together potential programs that could go with the 1115 waiver. Did you pass that out just to the health and human services committee or was that to all councilmembers? >> I think it went to all councilmembers. I'm pretty sure it did. >> Morrison: Okay. Because I think that health and human services did a fabulous job of looking at that, but the bottom library is we're leaving some -- the bottom line is we're leaving some monies on the table, dropping that one, which are a very small shift from our enterprise funds to invest in sustainability. And that means that there are dollars we're -- federal dollars we're leaving on the table. >> If I might, I certainly agree there were some very large policy issues raised in regard to this issue. And I think from an historical standpoint the fund was created at the same time when the general fund simply couldn't sustain a level of investment in programs that at times in the past that the council was interested in. More recently you all have had some conversations and discussions about the various things that get supported by allocation of dollars from our enterprise operation and some of that is the desire to wean ourselves off of that because it didn't seem appropriate for some of our enterprise operations to be funding some of the things that they are. And in the course of that discourse one of the things that we said is that it's -- in terms of resolving that, our approach would be more incremental because the general fund couldn't withstand wholesale transfer of things that even are more appropriately funded within the general fund because of the cost associated with that and had been built up over time. As ed said in some of these earlier remarks, this is at least an attempt to begin to recognize those programs and services that we believe. And in right light of your more recent conversations, more commonly by the general fund. That doesn't diminish the significance of having the larger overarching policy discussion because I think there are some conflicting things going on as well. So I think to have that kind of discussion and get some clarity will help to guide us in regard to whatever your priorities are going to be. >> Morrison: I appreciate that. And I know when we were talking about austin energy and their transfer at this point we've made a pretty significant change in the way we're structuring that. I didn't realize that we were talking about -- and maybe I just am forgetting, all enterprise funds -- >> even when that was created, at the time they contemplated austin energy participating in that, but there were reasons why and decisions made that it wasn't appropriate, as i recollect, for austin energy to participate. So it was a discussion many years ago and it's relevant today. The circumstances of course are a little bit different, but nevertheless a policy dialogue to have, I think. >> Morrison: And I think once we get some of the background material through that question, and maybe we already do have it and i have an outdated list. >> It is council budget question 17 and it was posted. >> Morrison: Thank you. I hope we'll be able to have that question sooner rather than later as part of this budget discussion because there are some -- because it is moving. Great, great. I appreciate that. Let's see. I have a couple of other questions. One is that I appreciate the update on the thoughts going into the social service contracting take 2. Because that was a really hard process. And you're talking about using sort of a life cycle continuum as a way to look at things. We had struggled quite a bit, councilmember martinez, I know will remember this, in terms of getting our footing and what kind of spectrum do we want to use and it was the prioritization and the scoring and certainly early childhood education was included under one of the priorities that we had. But what I want to suggest is that we not -- that we actually think about the possibility of layering these two spectrums. I've seen some really wonderful, and I'm sure you have too, life cycle sort of spectrums laid out of infancy and all that kind of stuff. And then it becomes a matrix. And you talk about basic needs and prevention and transition out of poverty and all of that because i think that we don't want to swing too far in one direction. >> And that's exactly what it would look like. We're going to again reduce -- it's all conceptual right now, but five major categories or subcategories out of that. >> Morrison: Great, great. Let's see -- can you give us any hard dates on when we and on owe we as a council, we as a subcommittee, public health and human services subcommittee with a community, I know you're already working with I think one voice who had some really important input, when we might start seeing certain steps along the way of this process. >> And I'm meeting with my executive leadership team today to start putting some substance to the framework. I would think three months probably, maybe a little sooner than that. Again, we have a tight timeline, two years left is awarded. So we want to be in a position to have enough lead time in order to have folks or the concept fully vetted. >> Morrison: And lumbreras, I know you mentioned with the youth summit one of the things we'll be looking at is where the gaps and overlaps are to figure out where to spend our money. And frankly overall we need to be doing that, especially as the mayor mentioned, with other major funders shifting their focus and having to sort of divest from various areas. Really challenging, but we'll do better this time. >> We will. >> Morrison: Okay. And then just a last point, and that is you mentioned in terms of trying to make sure that we maximize sign-up for folks that are eligible for programs and in our neighborhood centers we're doing that, there is a program I think that you all have gotten engaged with, and that is the benefit bank of texas. And is that what you're talking about in terms of getting those into the different neighborhood centers? >> Yeah. There's two separate efforts, the benefit bank we'll have that effort at every one of our neighborhood centers and partnership with central health. And then the united way is also -- they're also piloting benefits bank type of -- a matching process where they can make sure that folks -- when they call 211 also have access to that information. So we're going to partner with them on that also. >> Morrison: And i understand there is a fee, but a very minimal fee to be able to have -- to be a benefits bank local. Do we have funding for that? >> It's a thousand dollars for our five locations, so yes. >> Morrison: Great. I'm glad to hear that. Thanks for your great work. >> Mayor Leffingwell: I just want to follow up on a couple of things and then i have to leave. But first of all, on the contracts. My memory is that a couple of years ago the policy decision was made to shift the emphasis to basic needs. And that was primarily in response to what other grantors were doing, that they were shifting their funding away from basic needs. And there was one year when we actually had to step in midyear and give additional money to my recollection is the salvation army because they had been cut out entirely. So I just want to reemphasize that is my understanding of the policy that this council has agreed to, that the priority in grant funding would be basic needs. And the second comment i want to make with regard to sustainability is this grew out of the somewhat lengthy discussions with regard to austin energy in the earlier part of this year that austin energy had been disproportionately funding sustainability. And a decision was made to go back and take a look, and spread that out in an equitable way pro rata among the various enterprises and the general fund departments that were appropriate for that. So just to clarify that's my understanding of the policy that the city council adopted recently with regard to funding sustainability items, that part of that would come now under the general fund. So with that, I have to leave. I'm going to turn the chair over to councilmember martinez. >> Tovo: Councilmember martinez, can I ask a follow-up comment about that? Thanks. So you know, I'm looking over the budget response, but I guess I want to be clear on this. I don't remember as part of our austin energy work session adopting a policy related to changing the focus of the sustainability fund. I'm looking in particular at the q and a, and it says the fund was established by council in the 2000-2001 budget cycle as a mechanism for enterprise operations to invest in the community by funding initiatives. I'm exerting. For more sustainability economic and environmental, equitability infrastructure. And skipping down it says in order to address equity in the economy in fiscal year 2010-2011 it was recommended that the finance workforce initiatives and a child care housing initiative. I haven't had a chance to delve into it because I'm looking at it for the first time now. But there has not been -- one, it was recommended by council or do you have a sense of how that got expanded to include those additional areas in 2010-2011? >> It was part of staff's recommendation to count that they approved. >> Tovo: So it wasn't a council decision to expand that, the focus of the sustainability fund, it was a staff decision as part of the budget process that was then approved by council? >> Right. And you will recall that -- you might not recall, but that was a very difficult budget year, so it was one of the mechanisms at our disposal in order to try to maintain those critical services, but take some of the pressure off the general fund, which was out of balance at the time. >> Tovo: Got it. Thank you. So just to get back to the discussion we've been having, I think if we are shifting from workforce development, affordable housing, narrowing the focus back to environmental, some of the other issues, then i absolutely agree with councilmember morrison that's a policy discussion that we need to have. And it's not one I believe we had during the austin energy rate case. While we did certainly talk about the transfer and some of the other issues associated with that, which are similar and we talked about the sustainability fund as part of that, i think we need a more focused discussion on this issue. >> Martinez: All right. Any other questions? Thanks, guys. The last department we'll try to get through before noon if we can is the planning and department review department. Welcome mr. guernsey. >> Good morning. >> Riley: I want to start with the best slide that shows the performance measures for your department. And it looks like we're seeing some very encouraging projections for the coming year. I just wanted to ask you comment on that. And that of course is a result of the adjustment that we made recently to increase -- to bring our fees more in line with our peer cities and be able to staff the department and have timely views so we'll be back up to 90% of the initial commercial building plan reviews within the code mandated time of 21 days. And then getting up to 95% of the inspections performed within 20 hours of the request so it looks very encouraging. Is there anything that you want to add with respect to the progress we're making in the wake of the adjustments that were made recently with respect to the fees and staffing? >> Thank you, councilmember. I appreciate the midyear adjustment in june that you had to add those -- the positions not only in my department, but also to the fire department. And that is correct. We did raise the initial goal for building plan reviews within the code mandated time, 21 days back up to 90, with the additional staff it's anticipated that our department and the fire department will train these folks and will work over the course of this coming year to actually get that closer to 90. The inspectors, we had three inspectors as well. And we're going to try to maintain the level of getting those inspections done the next day at 95%. >> Riley: Great. I notice at least on the first goal that adopted the commercial building plan reviews that that's higher than any time since '06. We're actually going to be doing better than any time in the projected time frame. If we went back and looked further, would we see any time that we were actually doing better? I guess one might ask since the land development code mandates a time of 21 days, shouldn't our goal be to hit 100%? Have we ever been higher? >> We can go back and look. We've increased our goal back up to 90% and we'll work towards that goal. I think there was a concern that we were trying to shoot for a golfball-size hail that was much -- for a goal that was much lower. So the idea is to shoot for something higher. That is a projected number. It's not going to exactly happen that way, but over the course of the next year we'll certainly strive for that goal. >> Riley: Maybe once we hit that point we can talk about doing better in coming years. I want to congratulate you on the improved prospect even if we haven't done it as of this date. Things are better than they were a few months ago. I had a question on the previous slide on the budget highlights. The phase two subchapter e design standards and i wanted to know if you had a quick update on where we are on that. >> We're working on some right now. We're trying to provide a little bit more flexibility regarding building glazing, kind of like covering the windows and things like that. Also we're trying to take the regulations that we have for larger sites and trying to group them together. Right now it's difficult to work through the commercial design standards because there are bits and pieces that are kind of strung out through the commercial design standards and trying to bring those back together. We're also trying to add some clarity to those things it where you're doing some small additions. At what point do you actually kick in commercial design standards? So we're working with stakeholders right now. It's not something that happens overnight. We'll be working with them and trying to bring that forward. But those are probably the three larger areas that we're looking at bringing some clarity and changes to to hopefully make it easier for everyone to comply. >> Riley: There have been concerns expressed about subchapter e and how well it works. So just so we'll know, of the various efforts you mentioned do any of those involve wholesale assessment of subchapter e, revisiting how well it works and ways that can be made more effective or is that kind after larger, more holistic stakeholder effort that we'll have to look through in the future? >> I think it is an ongoing effort and certainly we're discussing a code rewrite and we'll be looking at how these design things interact. But as an ongoing process, not a quick fix to commercial design standards to make it perfect from everybody's standpoint. >> Riley: You raise an interesting point because the -- of course the rewrite of the code is proceeding really independently of the review of subchapter e. And how do you see those two efforted meshing. Do you see that subchapter e might be improved based on conversations that take place in the course of the whole code rewrite? Or is there or is there something else that you have in mind? >> I think the question to your question is yes, whether you're talking about commercial design standard or other sections of the code. As we go in the code rewrite there is really an emphasis of making it predictable, being consistent, more simple for any user to use, whether it's a developer or neighborhood representative or staff. And so taking a look at those in the context of a larger quota is very important not only in looking at the code regulations themselves or the commercial design standards. >> Riley: Okay. So we have a lot of work ahead of us on both the whole code rewrite and (indiscernible) in particular. Thanks, greg. >> Martinez: Greg, back in the spring some folks had suggestions about the turnaround time for inspections and site plan reviews. I wanted to ask, have you been in talks with some of the private sector folks about what they considered kind of a third-party ombudsman, facilitator person? >> We took a look at certainly the third party. It's a little bit more difficult in austin to use third party. Some of the neighboring communities, like cedar park. We have some unique developments related to austin, whether its McMANSION REGULATIONS OR Commercial design standards. So it makes it more difficult to actually farm out to a third party. They actually would have to sign off. We might actually be paying more for that service in order for those folks to actually look at providing a review service for commercial design standards McMANSION. And actually lessens our flexibility of staff to make a decision to approve because we're basically transferring that to that third party. I think some of the things that we've done as far as adding the positions that we have will make it easier for quick turnaround, which is very important for those commercial users trying to move into the tenant space quicker. So we're trying to place more emphasis on that. So I think we heard from the development community, small businesses, large businesses about trying to occupy those spaces more quickly. That that was really an important piece in moving them into the spaces and getting them open. Some of the other things that we've done over the past year, just to catch up, as far as using some over time and temporaries, i think that has helped tremendously in the commercial building plan. >> Martinez: What about things like an engineering approval? If we had a process where engineers could become certified by the city of austin, we still recover the traditional fees, but they could add a fee on top of that. So as a private developer it may be worth it to me to go pay a few extra bucks knowing that I'm going to get an engineer's stamp on this in a return time that is more conducive to the project times that I'm on. >> We have looked at and are continuing to look at that. As you may recall before the budget amendment, some places, for instance, like dallas, offer an accelerated review where that money would go to basically funds paying for overtime of staff people. And we are looking at that as something that the development community is certainly interesting in paying that extra money in order to receive that extra service for an after hour review. >> Martinez: Great. Thank you. Councilmember morrison. >> Morrison: I'll try and be brief because I know we have four minutes. I'll take one. >> Martinez: I can hang out a little bit longer. >> Morrison: Great. Appreciate that. I had the opportunity to meet with you, greg, and city manager, and the brain trust of staff, if you ask me, on our city code, to talk about the land development code, the ldc rewrite. And I just wanted to share that with my colleagues here. And I think that -- I know staff is developing a process for how that's all going to work, thinking about consultants, and we expect maybe to have a broader conversation. If I recall properly at the planning commission at cpt, our comprehensive plan and transportation committee, and then also with the whole council. So I appreciate that because as councilmember riley brought up, it is complicated. How we align -- we can't stop everything while we rewrite the code, but how we align that. I do have a question about the design standards. It's one of the budget highlights. Does that mean that there are some budget impacts to that or is that a big effort that you're -- that is part of this budget? >> No. We can work with the commercial design standard changes in-house right now. When we talk about doing the code rewrite, certainly we'll be looking at more holistically. But we're working with in-house staff right now on changes to subchapter e. >> Morrison: Okay. And I did -- I think george adams sent out a memo some months ago that had the changes as they currently stand. And one thing of course that stood out to me, which had been a pretty controversial issue and had been dropped, was the neighborhood site design standards. And I know that there's a lot of interest in that. So will that be -- are some of the neighborhood associations part of that stakeholder group? >> I believe there are -- i believe I can get back to you and tell you who is actually participating. >> Morrison: Okay. That would be great. And I notice there are three neighborhood plans. Can you tell which ones those are? >> We've been on the northside of the river and so we're heading back south and picking up three neighborhoods on southside of austin, south manchaca, garrison park, and westgate. And those are the three that you've actually kicked off that process and we've started that, working in those neighborhoods already. >> Morrison: Great. And another thing we had talked to the city manager about is the potential of doing an update to the dove springs neighborhood plan as sort of a way to align city resources with the great work that's going on down there. Do you have any schedule for updates to other neighborhood plans? >> No, but I can get back to you and I'll also explore with parks and the health department about their efforts that are in dove springs right now. >> Morrison: That's great. And it made me think a little bit more broadly, and that is that we might think about just in general trying to do some updates to the neighborhoods that might have high needs that have other things going along at the same time. Just to make sure that we can leverage all that. And then this I think is probably not a pdr question, but I notice in the newspaper today on the front page talking about waller creek and funding and the facelift part of it, how it's going to be funded. There was a comment by staff that there was eight million dollars in our current budget that will be going to that effort beyond the $13 million in bonds, and then they thought they could cobble together nine million dollars next year. So this would be a budget question for me and that is where is that funding coming from? >> Well, I had heard about the eight million. I'm struggling a little bit about the cobbling piece. I'll have to get back to you. We'll get you some information to explain what was said in the paper. >> Morrison: All right. Thank you. >> Martinez: Councilmember tovo. >> Tovo: This may be somewhat related. I see the budget highlights page mentions waller creek and some other projects. But the daytime funding project, streetscape improvement projects, phase two, subchapter e design standards, I see -- my basic question is where are these in our budget data so that we can see what the cost associated with these are? And in particular the downtown (indiscernible) project and the streetscape improvement project? >> I don't have the page number off the top of my head but I can give that we will be coming back next month and will brief you on the downtown way finding plan. So just so you know, that's coming up next month on the 27th. We'll work on phase two of the way finding and that consists more of the engineering and the design elements of that. But I'll get back with you on the page number. >> Tovo: I tried to look through quickly and I don't see those -- I don't see -- I don't see these reflected in our budget document in a way that would allow me to determine what the cost associated with those are. And samsung and apple, same thing. So if those are indeed highlights of the project -- >> I think those are just to let you know that there are things that may be coming that may effect us. That probably would not be found in the budget documents. [One moment, please, for change in captioners] .. it's making them more efficient. Can you tell us just briefly where we are on that effort to try to make our process more modernized and update our process. >> In the last three months people I have have actually started to look at different programs that are out there. We're also looking at our existing program, amanda, how we can make enhancements to bring us closer to electronic plan review. We have limited funds within our budget right now to begin that process and look at those packages that we would bring in before we would probably go forward, we would make sure our stakeholders are aware of that process, they are still able to work with us about making [inaudible]. We've in the past year or so asked for some electronic information up front with our current application, but people bring in those plans are already in electronic format but they are not used right now for the actual review by my reviewers. >> Riley: Do you have any sense of time frame in terms of when we would be ready to take plans [inaudible]? >> I think I would probably want to get back with you on a schedule we have. I don't think it's a firm schedule at the moment. I might be able to come up with some tentative milestones. >> Riley: Appreciate all your work on that and I know a lot of folks in the development community would appreciate [inaudible]. >> Martinez: It doesn't look like there's any more questions so we stand adjourned. Or do you have -- is there a last slide of -- of what's next and when so the public will know? >> We actually covered that as one of our opening slides. What's next is on wednesday we're going to be back with presentations from our public safety departments, our two major utilities, energy and water, also resource recovery and code compliance will be presenting on wednesday. There are budget and tax rate hearings scheduled for august 23rd and august 30th where the community can come down and talk to council, provide their input on the budget and tax rate, and then budget readings and adoption is set to occur september 10th through the 12th. That's the remainder of the process. >> Martinez: It's my understanding that the august 30th meeting is a regularly scheduled council , but it's only a public hearing on bbudget. >> It's only a public hearing on the budget. It's once we had to work with the mayor's office in order to meet our truth statement and have everything line up for budget adoptions. >> Martinez: Okay. Thank you.