Austin City Council Meeting Transcript - 9/10/2012 (meeting continued 9/11/2012) >> Mayor Leffingwell: Good morning. I'm mayor lee leffingwell. I call the meeting of the austin city council to order on monday, september 10, 2012. The time is 9:06 a.m. We're meeting in council chamber, austin city hall, 301 west second street, austin, texas. Without objection, council will begin with our executive session items, items 11 and 12. So -- yeah. 071 of the government code, the council will consult with legal council regarding the following items. Item 1 and 3 to discuss legal issues related to the adoption of city budget fees. Item 11, discuss legal issues related to open government matters. Item 12 to discuss legal issues relating to prevailing wage matters on city construction contracts. Any objection of going to executive session on these items? Hearing none, we're now in executive session. [09:26:15] [Rumbling] Announcer: What if a disaster strikes without warning? What if life as you know it has completely turned on its head? What if everything familiar becomes anything but? Before a disaster turns your family's world upside down, it's up to you to be ready. Get a kit. make a plan. be informed today. [10:54:03] , directly directly cell cell >> Mayor Leffingwell: We're out of closed section. In closed session we took up and addressed items 1, 3, 11 [10:56:01] and 12. So now we'll take up agenda items about the budget for fiscal year 2012-2013. We'll begin -- we'll begin with the presentation from the staff in just a moment and then after we get a motion on the table, as soon as we adopt the proposed budget with amendments from staff will be an opportunity for amendments from councilmembers. [Inaudible] I think we'll continue with the same process used during the deliberations on the bond items that no amendments would be automatically considered friendly. If any members objects to an amendment, that item goes to a vote and either pass or fail or be incorporated. Also note there will be no amendments to the amendments. If there is objection to the amendment, the process would be to vote against the amendment and then propose another one [inaudible]. Before we begin again, on august 23 and august 30, council will take public comment about the city's proposed budget and the proposed maximum tax rate. The public comment part of the hearing to adopt the budget and the tax rate will close on august 30 by a vote of council and the council will now conclude the hearing by discussing and voting to adopt the city's budget. And the actual tax rate for [10:58:03] 2012-2013. Since the public hearing is formally a part of the budget process, we need to formally close the public hearing and I'm entertain a motion to that effect. Mayor pro tem moves to close the public hearing. Is there a second? Seconded by councilmember martinez. Discussion? All in favor say aye. Opposed say no. That passes on a vote of 6-0 with councilman spelman off the dais. The public hearing is closed. So I believe at this time we're ready to take up staff presentation on the budget and their recommended amendments and staff will ask council to adopt the operating budget. >> Good morning, mayor, mayor pro tem and members of the council. Before I begin, congratulations to councilmember martinez on his new baby. Congratulations. Staff has a number of amendments to present to city council. As always the time we deliver the budget on august 1 to the time we come back to get approval of the budget, a variety of circumstances come up and staff has a handful of recommendations to the operating budget. These are the same as what we presented to you on AUGUST 29th. The first one is in regards to austin fire department. In the general fund staff is proposing to amend to add THREE FTEs. Create a wildfire mitigation division. There is no cost associated with this. The department is going to be [inaudible]. Essentially taking money away from the warehouse relocation. [Inaudible] [one moment please. ] does not apply to the extended hours and extended geographic areas. This amendment doesn't sync up with that change in the ordinance the council approved. The next three amendments are all related to the rosewood environmental remediation project. When the bids on that project came back they were about $861,000 higher than what staff estimated. That project is being funded by three departments who are going to equally share is increase and cost of that project. So we have a $287,000 increase in the budget of the austin resource recovery department to transfer funds into the environmental remediation fund. Another $287,000 going from the drainage fund on the environmental remediation fund. And them one more, another $287,000 coming from the water utility to the fund. So in total three different departments contributing $861,000 to fund that rosewood environmental remediation project which will be a total of $261,000. You are going to see this again when we get to the capital improvement program and actually on the next slide [inaudible] for that project. Number 9 on this list is amending the water utility's budget to decrease revenues by $900,000. This is related to a fee proposal that's going to be coming forward on item 3 which would be to offer a lower fee to those customers that are in the customer assistance program, so essentially a larger subsidy for those programs which result in reduced revenue to the department. There is that $861,000 that the previous three amendments transferring money into the environmental remediation fund. This is the environmental remediation fund transferring money out and you will see it again under that c.i.p. item. Amendment number 11 is to amend the proposed budget of the code compliance department by increasing revenues in thement a of $352,392. And increasing expenditures in the same amount as well AS ADDING THREE NEW FTEs For the short-term rental program. There will also be amendment under item 3 on your agenda, the fee item, in order to enact the fees associated with this increased revenue. Moving on to a couple grant amendments, the first one has to do with the safer grant that we were very happy to hear we were going to be awarded. It's 5,010,000 and adds 36 full-time equivalents to the fund. Number 13 the the health and human services special revenue fund, increasing appropriations in the amount of $186,000 for an emergency solutions grant from the department of housing and urban development. The health and human services department is receiving the grant, but the grant is actually going to fund two positions in our downtown community court and that's what item 14 does is amend the proposed budget of the municipal court special revenue fund to add those two full-time grant funded positions. These will be case managers that will work out of our [inaudible]. I believe that concludes staff's recommended amendments to the operating budget, both the general fund and nongeneral fund. And with that I would be happy to answer any questions. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Questions for staff? Councilmember morrison. >> Morrison: This gets a little bit into the fee items. I assume we're going to take up later. But with regard to code compliance adding three FTEs AND THE REVENUE FROM The short-term rental fee to cover the short-term rental program, I did have a couple of questions. One, I wanted to understand if we thought that there was going to be support from any other department for the short-term rental program besides code compliance. Because I think that the way the fee has been figured out has been specifically based on the assumption that the fee -- the fee times the number of expected short-term rental registrations would cover THREE FTEs. >> Good morning. Mayor, councilmembers. There will be support from other departments in implementing the short-term rental program. We've been meeting already with planning and development review. They would have a role in the registration of the program. They would actually identify the cap for each ofthe census districts. Census tracts. And they would also help us to identify and make available, make accessible certificates of occupancy for short-term rentals. We would also have to work closely with the controller's office making sure that the hotel occupancy taxes are paid and that we've got some proof that -- proof of payment or proof of registration by the short-term rental. And so -- and we'll also be , our police department documenting any kind of complaint, problems that occur with short-term rentals. So the staffing that you see there, the three staffing, although they are going to the code compliance department, those would be two code inspectors and one administrative person to help with registration, they are really just the basics. We will keep track of what it takes to completing run the program throughout the year. I think part of the ordinance requires a review, and by bringing a review -- review by staff and bringing that back to council next year, around june I think we're looking at june of 13 coming back. At that time we may be able to document and show the need for additional resources or we may be able to show that it was incorporated into existing resources in those other departments. >> Morrison: Well, I guess one question I would have, first off, is -- and I don't know if this is okay for me to talk about what the fee is right now. We're not talking about that quite yet, about out the fee is -- that's been proposed is $235. And the assumption is that that fee will fund those three code compliance. But it sounds to me like we're going to have additional costs, maybe not , but there are resources from other departments that will be needed to run this program. Our fee that we're charging does not sound like it's going to be supporting any of those other resources, and I thought this was supposed to be a completely self-funded program. So how do we -- you know, if it takes throughout the year a quarter of a person's time in pdr, where are we getting the funds to cover that person's time? And is it appropriate for that to come directly out of our general fund as opposed to having revenue from -- from [inaudible]. And I guess I'm not sure who that question is for, but i think that's something we need to be asking. >> I think director guernsey would need to reply with regard to the additional staff. The additional burden this will put on his staff, but in regards to the appropriateness of using the general fund to support that cost, it's certainly appropriate, but those are costs associate with the short-term rental it would be appropriate to include them in the fee as well. >> Morrison: Okay. And voila, there is mr. guernsey. >> Greg guernsey, planning and development review department. The amount of time it would take to do the estimate of the cap that was mentioned really doesn't take that much time. My department can easily [inaudible]. I think the notice requirement is one where it would take some time and there's already a fee associated with notification whenever we do any type of application. So that should cover the cost for doing [inaudible] >> Morrison: And who is doing the website? >> Actually the website is being coordinated through many different departments. department is taking the lead as far as establishing a website. Compliance department, controller's office, my department and eventually probably avd will be involved as well. We'll all be contributing to that. And it's actually being built right now. >> Morrison: And so in the coming six months or whatever, is there a mechanism that we have at the city to actually track when somebody is expending hours on a short-term rental? For instance, we can count up how many hours. >> I certainly -- in my department we could have a number that we could put on our time sheets to log the time. And we can get with your office and work among the different departments and our staff to come up with that so we could track that. >> Morrison: I would appreciate that because i understand legally appropriate use of general funds, but on the other hand it would be an interest of mine to make sure that the fees that people are paying cover the cost as opposed to draining our general fund. And then I wanted to raise one other issue when we do get to the fees. It's a flat fee regardless of a type 1 or a type 1 so that if somebody is renting for, say, a week out of the year and they are registering to be able to do that versus somebody who will be renting their short-term rental as a type 2 for 50 weeks out of the year, they are being charged in this proposal the same amount, and in a way that feels a little theological to me, and I wonder if we could maybe have staff comment on that, on why we need to start there. >> I think, councilmember, that's certainly something we can take a look at. We computed the fee, we looked at the -- we use the number of 1500 ftr's, which is documented by the auditor's office, estimated by the auditor's office, and we used that to determine that fee. Across the board. And you are right, it's a across the board number for ALL FTEs, BUT WE COULD Take another look and see if we could -- if we could break that number out so that if you are one or two time type event would it be a less number. Now, the key is going to be how much -- how much of staff time it would take to handle the one-time ftr versus a full year. It may not be a lot of difference in that, but we could take a look at that for sure and then get back to the budget director on that. >> Morrison: Right. I would appreciate that. I think that, you know, if you are tracking so that we can make sure as we just discussed that there could be a number that you all could put together so we could track, so we could refine that for the folks working on individual ones, whether it's a 1 or a 2, we would be able to figure out if it takes more time for you all to deal with one that's funded all year versus one week. I understand they have the same registration requirement and they have to pay hotel taxes so there are things that are common. Aen the auditor did break down that 1500. They thought that between type 1 and type 2. If you guys -- if you all can give some additional thought to that and look at that, I don't want to hold anything up today, you want to get moving because I know it's a program on fire ready TO GO BY OCTOBER 1st. But I think it would pay to really think about that. >> We will do that. >> Morrison: Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Councilman spelman, welcome back. >> Spelman: We looked at -- do you have an idea what kind of workload would be required of your staff to deal with those complaints in short-term rental properties and figure you are going to need three full-time equivalent staff people to go through those complaints. Is that about right? >> That's correct. Two field persons. Two field officers and one administrative officers. >> Spelman: Okay. And that ratio of two field, one addmin pretty much the way you work your operation? >> Well, short-term rentals is a little different animal and we're looking at approximately 1500 and guesstimating maybe the number of complaints that we might get on those 1500 and looking at the number of inspections. We know that one officer can handle around 500 inspections like that per year and so we're thinking two people will work. We'll track that very closely, document it through the year and to make sure that that too is a good number. Right now it's our best guesstimate. >> Spelman: So something like not every short-term rental is going to have -- some are going to have a lot of inspections required, some are going to have none, but our average a little less than one required for short-term rental and about 1,000 inspections per year but obviously we haven't focused on short-term rentals [inaudible] understand very recently so there's no way to know for sure. >> Yes, sir. >> Spelman: How do we usually pay for inspections? Do we usually have some sort of fee basis that pays for your operation? >> Currently we do not have a fee that takes care of individual inspections. As noted before, we have become a enterprise fund or are becoming an enterprise fund through this budget and the cost of our inspections and doing our code compliance program would be borne by the community fee. In the short-term rentals, the fee as we talked about is designed to cover the cost of the program. That fee should, if you multiply it by the 1500, it will cover the cost of the program. Now, will 1500 register or will more register? We'll have to see how that goes during the year. >> Spelman: If -- I'll have more to say about that in a second. Let me get to that in a moment. If we have -- you've got 1,000 sections being done. You find some percentage of those inspections somebody made a mistake, somebody is not up to code. Then we maybe red tag them, write them up somehow and they've got to come up to code and they may have to pay a fine. >> Yes, sir. >> Spelman: What happens to that fine number? Does it come back to you? Does it stay in municipal court? >> If it goes through municipal court, it stays in municipal court. If it goes through the bidding and standards commission as a civil penalty, we have a source of -- we can recover those funds into the department. But municipal court stays there. >> Spelman: About what percentage of your total enterprise budget comes from the building standards -- >> building and standards commission. A very small -- maybe one, two percent, very small percentage. >> Spelman: So the vast majority of what you are doing are funded by fees like this or the general fund. >> Not the general fund anymore. As of this year, all enterprise funds. >> Spelman: It's all enterprise funds through the clean community fee. >> And that's assessed as part of my formerly known as solid waste bill; is that right? >> Yes. Anti-litter fee was the official name, but on the utility bill sometime it appeared as solid waste fee. >> Spelman: That's your fee. >> We will share it with austin resource recovery. About a 60/40 split, we're getting 40. >> Spelman: And they are getting 60 for cleaning the streets, for example. >> That's correct. >> Spelman: Gotcha. All right. Here are the core of my concerns. I understand that we think THREE FTEs IS ABOUT RIGHT. [Inaudible] sounds about right. You are not going to get very much off the building standards commission fines because you don't get very much out of that right now. So basically if we're going the pay for this thing, it's going to be self-contained as councilmember morrison suggested, this fee [inaudible]. I'm concerned about the following. If you've got somebody who is what we're calling a type 1 short-term rental owner, somebody owned a house, they just want to rent it for a week. The people who own the list aren't asking questions. Then we might miss the opportunity for a fee and also might miss the opportunity for a fee to collect taxes associated with whatever rentals are going on. I'm concerned that the fee -- if the fee were high, 1,000 bucks, there's a whole bunch of people that are going to say I think I'll cheat and see what I can get away withen a plead ignorance and see if I can get away with it and not pay taxes and see what happens. If the fee were 20 bucks, a lot of people would say 20 bucks, some day I might want to rent my house, it will make it easy for me to do it, I'll pay my 20 bucks. And somewhere in the middle there y going to -- versus people who may pay a fee and not rent their house out at all. And I'm wondering if we're giving much thought to what point in that continuum between zero and 1,000 if it can get us the largest revenue. Have you given that much thought? >> We have, and we think that 235 is a good number, that we were looking for a number, you are right, that would be reasonable. Where it wouldn't be a deterrent to comply and it wouldn't encourage folks to just get it -- the license without really having the intent on the short-term rental so we think the 235 is a good place. We'll keep an eye on that during the year and we come back to council next year we'll have some information on how well we think that fee will work. But we're hoping that's a really good number right there. The other point, you mentioned about craigslist and websites and those kinds of things and the ordinance does include a section that says if you are advertising as a short-term rental, then that can be used as prima facie evidence you are a short-term rental, we can use that to deal with the case. So that would help us a lot. Obviously we will need to monitor and so we will. >> Spelman: On the other hand, monitoring, for example, a b&b or home away to see which properties are being offered is not always going to be dispositive because you could argue there's been a breach, there hasn't been a breach, I'm not sure how you would end up with that, but more on point, you might find somebody has offered a property but it's hard to identify exactly which property because the address is rarely published on line. And -- >> we'll have so see how -- we'll do the best we can in researching that and see if we can identify the property. Then be able to go out to the property and try to determine based on the site visit if it's being used as a short-term rental, then follow up. >> Spelman: I could easily imagine saying oh, what the heck, let's -- formula one is coming up, let's put my property out and see if i get any nibbles and I won't register with this program because if I don't get any nibbles I'm not gooding to spend 235 bucks and you get one and you think wow, this is great. I can imagine some people thinking, well, maybe i don't need to do this just this once. This is probably going to be especially true for people type 1 rentals and not doing this for a living and not expecting to make a whole lot of money off short-term activity. And I suspect the commercial short-term rental, the type 2s, ARE GOING TO BE DOING This enough 235 bucks is a little more perhaps than they expected but a cost of doing business and not particularly a big deal and will probably get a large percentage of them registering, but we might get a much smaller percentage of the homeowners doing this on a very, very small-time basis, registering, that might be something we'll have to rethink downstream. >> Well, yeah, we'll take a look at that. We'll think about that. As councilmember morrison was saying, maybe there should be a difference between type 1 and type 2 and we really didn't see it that way, but we'll go back and rethink that a little bit. You could conceivably reduce the type 1 registration fee and increase the type 2 in order to still have a balance where it covers the cost of the program, but we'll take a look at that and see if we have a recommendation to bring back to council. >> Spelman: Again, the last point which is where i started with this, is the real money we're getting out of the short-term rental program, it's the hotel taxes. And the higher the fee, there is at least an argument that we're going to be getting less in taxes and if the fee is high. And establishing a low fee and perhaps eating some of the cost of our inspections through the community fund. Councilmember morrison is not happy with that though i just heard her clear her throat though not into the microphone -- completely unrelated throat clearing -- that might end up as a way we're better off by setting the fee quite low, getting everybody and his kid brother to register so we know where they are and we can ensure they are paying. >> Something to consider. >> Spelman: I appreciate your consideration. >> Thank you. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Councilmember tovo and remind everyone we're talking about the general fund. >> Tovo: I just will add to the record I agree the cost of administering the program so I would not support lowering the fee with the -- out of intention that some people may not want to pay the fees and then we wouldn't capture the hotel-motel tax. People should follow the rules and if they are going to rent there residents on a short-term basis, then they need to pay the fee, whatever it is, and I don't think we should be in the practice of subsidizing through taxpayer dollars people's private enterprise. So absolutely I think the fees that we set whether they are lower for type 1 and higher for type 2, but those fees at the end of the day, in my opinion, ought to cover the cost of implementing this program. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Any other questions? Okay, so what we have before us is the staff proposal with the amendments that we went through today and i would reiterate that keeps the property tax rate at 50.29 cents. No change in that. Is that correct? >> That is absolutely correct. And I just want to clarify that the amendments we gave you were for both the general fund and -- [inaudible] >> Mayor Leffingwell: Right. Obviously this item pertains only to the general fund and I would entertain a motion to adopt the city's 2012-2013 operating budget with the staff recommended amendments. Councilmember morrison so moves. Mayor pro tem cole seconds. And now we're at the point where it's possible, if there are any, council amendments to this budget. For a start, I just want to say that we -- the city, the nation, the world, has just gone through a very difficult period. We're in the process of recovery. I feel very good about where the city of austin is, but we are in recovery, a gradual recovery not only here but around the nation and I don't think it's a time for a huge tax increase. What we have before us is a tax increase, a significant tax increase, the effective 32 cents per hundred. That's a little bit of above 11, but the effective rate, the actual tax is 48.32. What the council has approved as a maximum, which, of course, is the 5 cents per hundred. What is before us with this motion is 50.29 cents. That is over a 2-cent increase above the effective rate. A very significant amount, in my opinion and one that I'm not going to, frankly, be able to support. So I want to try to reduce that amount, I've said this all along publicly and i want to try to reduce the amount of property tax increase and still provide necessary services. And so I'm going to make that proposal here in just a second. I realize this budget prepared by staff is a good budget, a lot of thought went into it. It reflects the influence of the community and re-- input of the community and councilmembers, but I'm going to make a proposal that will reduce that and I'm going to make it in the form of amendment in accordance with the process we just went through. It is very difficult to go through the budget and look at line by line for cuts and trying to identify cuts. When, frankly, this is a large operation. Almost 12,000 city employees, multi-billion dollar operation. A lot of expertise down at the levels where these cuts might be applied. With the, of course, supervision of the city manager. So what I'm going to propose these cuts be made in the form of a generalized across the board cut. And what I'm going to propose is going to reduce the property tax by approximately .57 cents. These numbers, of course, are I'm saying approximately because they will be verified with the actual numbers by the staff, but approximately -- that would bring the proposed tax rate down to about 49.7. 4 cents above the effective rate. The rate at which anything is considered to be a tax increase. But it's somewhere close to the middle, a little above the middle, because the 5, that would be a two dollar -- 2.18% increase, about. So a 2% across the board, we're talking only about the general fund here, not about the enterprise fund. My motion would read as to amend the general fund budget by reducing appropriations 4,468,224 in the following manner. And I want to interject here that by charter I have to enumerate the department, but that does not preclude further budget amendments after the entire budget is approved. But by department that 2% works out, these are the numbers that I obtained from staff, municipal court a decrease of $285,201. Planning and development review reduction of $500,216. Health and human services, $436,286. Animal services reduced $163,409. Social services reduced $349,863. Parks and recreation reduced $1,022,892. Library reduced $604,910. Transfers out to support services, 736, $1,180, transfers out $369,268. That is all departments that you'll note that I've excluded all public safety departments. They are not subject to this 2% across the board. The second part of the motion is to amend the general fund budget by reducings property tax revenues $4,468,224. That's exactly the amount of the appropriation reduction. So, again, I realize this is very difficult and the process of identifying specific cuts is going to be a difficult job, I know, but we do have a number of proposed new hires on the table. I would suggest provide direction that that be looked at first, additional hires within these various departments, and noting again that there would be opportunity at a later date to come back and adjust these numbers between departments, but that would have to be done by an amendment to the budget and would have to be approved by city council. So that is my proposal as an amendment. Is there objection? Councilman spelman. >> Spelman: I just have a couple questions. Would a question to you be in order? >> Mayor Leffingwell: I think so. I'll sell you after I ask. >> Spelman: Fair enough. You listed the departments and I wrote down what you were saying. Is this in writing anyplace? >> Mayor Leffingwell: Yes, right here. >> Spelman: Okay, I'll look for the details of that. I noticed you read off a the look of departments and I'm thinking a million dollars in parks, [inaudible] library. I didn't hear you mention anything from two of the biggest general fund departments which are the police department and fire department. Would you be exempting them? >> Mayor Leffingwell: I did mention that public safety departments were excluded including police, , and c-tac and wireless, having to do with public safety. >> Spelman: And this is not a specious and rhetorical question. Why exclude public safety? >> Mayor Leffingwell: I guess the short answer is that it's public safety and I think that's our paramount duty as a city is to maintain public safety. I just expand just a little bit, I believe that we're right on the edge right now, we don't want to go any lower. We're looking at men new hires in the police department, for example. I know there's going to be discussion about the fire department's expanded role in combating this new situation we have, hazard with regard to wildfires, et cetera. , I know everybody's [inaudible] is the same the extent overt has caused costs to increase so these are definitely areas that i don't think we can afford to cut beyond what's being proposed. That's just my opinion. That's why I'm proposing it the way I did. Councilmember tovo. >> Tovo: I have a few questions that I will direct to you and hopefully then you can -- if they are acceptable, you can answer. I wonder, this is a pretty big -- obviously this is a big -- this would be a big amendment and I don't have a clear sense how this would impact the department nor was I able to copy down the numbers as you read them so I guess my first question would be could you please go through those proposed reductions again department by department, and my second question is whether we have think sense from staff of those individual departments what the impact would be, for example, of a $1 million decrease in the pard budget. Would it require staff layoffs, what kind of programs would we be looking at cutting. I would add to that it might be appropriate since we have self days of budget hearings scheduled, I know we probably had all intended to get through it today, but i think with the contemplated impact such as the one you've suggested, I would argue that we would want to come back and have some sense of a direct impact on those affected departments. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Well, I'll just say the nature of across the board cut is to give the people who manage these departments the flexibility to make the cuts in the best and most effective ways they see. Frankly, I feel like they are better qualified to make those individual judgments than I am or any of us are. So that's just the nature of a across the board cut. I don't anticipate that this 2% of each one of these departmental budgets, i don't anticipate it would cause any layoffs and i would be surprised if that were the case. Total I think there's 157 new hires planned, something in that range. Not all of those are covered by these departments we talked about, but i suggested in my opening remarks that would be the place to look first. Maybe we need to not hire some of these new folks. And I think the judgment of strategically deciding where to hire and where not to hire is best made by people who work most closely with those departments. >> Tovo: Mayor, I'll ask my first again again, would you mind reviewing the numbers -- >> Mayor Leffingwell: Yes, and I'm sorry I don't have this. I think we can try to get the numbers out to everyone. You've got the numbers. Do you want to pass them out? It's a lot of numbers. Do you want me to read them again? >> Tovo: If he is handing them out, I'll take his version and I would like to hear responses from some of the impacted departments. And I appreciate your comment that they would be in the best position to determine where that 2% is, but I want to get some sense since we've been looking at a very different budget the last several months, I want to hear what impact that would have on their operations and they could avoid staff layoffs. >> Mayor Leffingwell: I'm assuming at this point we've heard objection which will lead to a discussion, and discussion and vote eventually. Now we're in the discussion phase and I think any questions -- you have the floor. Are there any questions you might want to ask of staff or others? >> Tovo: Thank you, mayor. I appreciate that. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Before we go on, councilmember, the procedure that we're operating under is that there won't be friendly amendments. That amendments that would be proposed would be incorporated if there were no objections by any councilmember, not just the maker or the second. So we're just proposing amendments. If there's no objection, they are adopted. If there is objection, there's a vote. >> Cole: Have we had a second? >> Mayor Leffingwell: We don't need a second. We have not been using a second. That's the procedure that we unanimously agreed to adopt. Councilmember, go ahead. >> Tovo: I'm sorry, mayor, do I still have the floor? >> Mayor Leffingwell: Yes .>> Tovo: DO WE HAVE THE Director of health and human services who could speak to what a $436,000 cut might have on that budget? >> Mayor Leffingwell: The city manager might want to address that first. >> I guess I want to say at the outset in light of staff being called to come and speak to these proposed reductions, we have not analyzed them so I have a little bit of concern about any staff member coming and trying to react to what the impact would be of the proposed reductions as the mayor has outlined. If we have people that come up to do that are really just shooting from the hip and I don't think that's wise. It would really require us get together and discuss what's been proposed here. >> Mayor Leffingwell: And let me just answer that a little bit. That's exactly right. This placing a cap on these budgets and asking the management, city manager, employees of the city to look at it and see how these can best be accomplished. It could be that throughout the course of the year if we happen to have a rosy scenario, it would not result in these reductions, we could experience increased revenue from another source. If the worst case scenario comes through, we probably need to be making these cuts anyway. What I'm talking about, the other major source of revenue is sales tax. And in this budget very conservatively and correctly assumes that the increase of sales tax will be 3.5%. The last now months it's been a great deal more than that. So if that trend continues, these cuts may not be quite as deep as 2%. So it would require analysis and coming back with potentially budget amendments after that analysis takes place. Councilman spelman. >> Spelman: First, I'm not -- I guess I am objecting, but only to the format of incorporating this in the discussion item that we actually adopt today. I like the idea of saving $4.5 million. I like the idea of spreading it around so that it is roughly, well, at least roughly even-handed among all departments, although i would extend that even hand to at least some extent to our public safety departments. Not every dollar we spend on public safety is equally valuable. Not every dollar christian county to public safety to the same extent. But I would like to know, i think it's important before we make any decisions on this to have at least a better sense of what we have now as to what is going to happen if we lose $285,000 in municipal court. HOW MANY FTEs ARE WE GOING To be losing that we were expecting to have available. What services will we not be delivering or not delivering as well. And I guess the question i have for the city manager, budget director, anybody who could answer it, if we want to get at least a rough-cut sense for what the ramifications would be of these reductions, how long would it take for you to come up with those consequences? >> Councilmember, all that i can say is that it would be difficult, we would do our best to do it within the context of the three days you have allotted for budget adoption. >> Spelman: Well, all right, that helps, but is it realistic that you would be able to get us to a point of saying, for example, in animal services, these services would be reduced. We would not have these FTEs THAT YOU WOULD EXPECT Us to have in these particular program areas. This is fairly specifically what we're going to get or everything is going to be about 3% less than you expected it to be? >> Again, it's just hard to say. To do this requires us to go through much of the same exercise we went through to provide our budget recommendation this the first place. >> Spelman: Right. >> And in doing so, in providing our recommendations, you know, and when you take into account the past three or four years, we're at a point where none of the decisions are easy to make. I say that to try to put in context that going through this process will likely require us to make some pretty tough, thoughtful decisions in regard to making recommendations in the context of three days, i said we would do our best, but it would just be difficult. >> Spelman: From a [inaudible] point of view, when do we have to adopt the budget? >> Your last day wednesday. Is that correct? >> We're posted till wednesday, but under state law we have until SEPTEMBER 30th. 29th. I'M SORRY, 29th. >> Spelman: So the charter is binding on us, this is more restrictive than state law, so we would have to come up with a budget by the 27th and we could post another budget meeting so long as we had 72 hours advance notice. I'm asking hypothetical questions because I'm flying in the dark here and I'm only eligible for vfr flying. If we were to give you another week rather than another three days, would that significantly improve the resolution that you could give us as to the consequences of losses in each of these departments of these amounts? >> Yes. >> Spelman: Thank you, mr. manager. Mayor, let me ask you a question, if I could. Much as I would like to deal with this budget in the next three days, which is what we've posted for, what i think everybody in the community and staff has expected us to do, if we're talking about this kind of a change, I'd like to have a lot more information available and I would be happier making this decision a week from now knowing what the consequences on each of these operating departments would be than making the decision now without those consequences. And I wonder how you feel about that. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Well, I will tell you it was not my intention to go through an indepth analysis. That's the reason I proposed it the way I did, a across the board cut and let the manager and the folks who work for him work out the details within that constraint. If I had thought, for example, it was going to cause some huge degree of hardship, disrupt city operations, I would not have done it. That's why I limited it to 2%. It's really not as much as we would like to see. I would like to see right at 32, but I realize when you start talking about cuts, and that would be something like 3, perhaps 4% in the way that I've proposed it here. I feel comfortable myself with this proposal. Again, that it won't disrupt city operations or cause hardship or even cause layoffs, but if someone is uncomfortable that might be the case, might just not want to support this amendment. If it's the will of council to stop everything dead in its tracks for this, i personally would not like to see that. I'd like to see us go ahead and either vote this up or down and go ahead with the rest of our business, but if it's the will of council, so be it. >> Cole: Mayor, I have a couple of questions. First I would like to explain I'm wearing shades today because I have an eye infection. Second, and the mayor has just shocked my eyes. >> Mayor Leffingwell: It looks really cool coal cole I do want to be cool, but i do have an eye infection. I want to back up a little bit and talk about the budget process in the context of what we're considering right now. The mayor mentioned that this particular proposal would take us back to the effective tax rate. Will you please -- >> Mayor Leffingwell: No, that's incorrect. The effective rate is 48.32. This only takes us back to about -- relying on the confirmation of the numbers, 49.72. Still almost a penny and a half above the effective rate. >> Cole: Right. So close to the effective tax rate. And it's my understanding that the effective tax rate is thement a of revenues that we would have -- the amount of revenues we would have received last year. Is that correct? Please lay out that definition. >> The effective tax rate gives us the same amount of revenue in the current year as we had in the previous year for operations and maintenance from properties that are taxed in bows years. So it excludes new valuations, new properties. >> Cole: So this proposal does not make much of an adjustment or tell me if you know how much of an adjustment for the additional growth that we've had or increase in tci. >> Well, I think the -- I'm not sure exactly how to answer that other than the proposal would reduce our 5 million roughly and would lower the tax rate by a little more than half a penny, 0.57%. >> Cole: And we do not know the impact on each of the individual departments. I think we've established that and you guys have not had an opportunity to do that. When do you start the budget process? How long does that last? >> Well, you know, we really get started with it as early as november where we're working with our departments on their business plans and their strategic objectives for the next fiscal year and then that turns into a fiscal forecast and unmet needs and budget reductions ab meetings with board and commissions. It's a lengthy process leading up to budget adoption today. >> Cole: And I think you do that with prudence and it's not the situation council leaves rubber stamps at, but because you go through such a lengthy process, we tend to look very carefully at what you do at the same time respecting what is it season input that you have had. Citizen input. If we were today to take these numbers without any of that input or any of that process, I believe that we would be acting very prematurely. So as much as I would like to see us cut our tax rate and save money, I wouldn't want us to do it in a manner that was not prudent and had not been through that process or even ask the city manager or his staff to do that even in a week's time. So I will not be supporting this motion. >> Mayor Leffingwell: And mayor pro tem, with all due respect, I do think this is a prudent proposal. [Inaudible] >> Cole: I just mean evaluating -- >> Mayor Leffingwell: Councilmember morrison. I just wanted to get that on -- >> Cole: I don't mean to say a across the board increase or decrease of 2% by all the departments slugged public safety is necessarily not prudent, it's just not the way we have done the budget process in the past since I've been on council so just to even make a change in process like that would be a significant deviation from what we've done. >> Mayor Leffingwell: It's innovative, mayor pro tem. >> Cole: I can say that with my cool shades. >> Mayor Leffingwell: I have to say I've been seeing for many months now that i wanted our -- I didn't want to see a large increase in taxes, I didn't want to see it be any more than we absolutely had to have to maintain city services, basic services and I believe this proposal -- may not be in conventional way, but after a lot of investigation, this is the way that I felt was the best way to do it. In my opinion. Councilmember morrison. >> Morrison: Thank you, and I appreciate some outside the box thinking, although I also have concerns about whether this is the right way to do it because I think everybody wants to keep the tax rate down. One question I have about this kind of approach, I'm not sure who can help me with this, but our budget is for the general fund is pretty packed and has a lot of detail in it. And so if we were to -- i guess I'm questioning the formality of now at this point saying, well, we mean this budget but let's just take a million out here and 200,000 out there so we don't really know what's left in our budget in terms of some of the break downs below the departmental level. Is that actually -- what exactly are we adopting here as a budget if we adopt the budget today? Are we -- I'm wondering how we can do this in a general manner like this at a department level. Could you help me understand it? >> I mean, I think it has to occur at the department level because one of the things council is adopting is an appropriation for each department, so that's what we need specific recommendations from council that this budget, this department's budget would be lowered by this dollar amount. That's one thing that council is adopting is the appropriations for each department. Another thing you are count for each department, how MANY FTEs ARE WE Authorized to hire by department. Council is approving that as well. Now, the manager, city manager does have discretion in terms of administering that budget. If the dollar amounts are less than what we need in ORDER TO FUND THE FTEs That you are authorizing us to fill, we would have to do a higher increase or some decisions would have to be made. The charter requires us to keep the general fund budget in balance and if the revenue we have to keep it in balance is lower by 5 million and the department appropriations 5 million, we would have to come up with a plan to manage that budget prudently. >> Morrison: Okay, so that's helpful information, even though there's a lot of detail in here. What our formal action is the [inaudible] for departments and the number OF FTEs AND WE HAVE Situations where we've seen the city manager and staff rearrange some of the things within a particular department. I guess my concern is there's been -- for me i have looked in such detail some areas obviously where i have more of an interest, more of a concern, and to, you know, turn things over to a process where council is no longer involved in that would -- would raise a lot of concern for me. And I guess I also want to say that if we're talking 5 million, that is about 2% of those nonpublic safety departments, i gather. And my question would be if we wanted to spread 5 million completely across the general fund in an even way, including all the departments, including public safety, my guess is that we would end up with something like rather than a 5 -- is that the right order of magnitude or .05% cut? >> It would be right about 0.75%. That would still exclude some of the items in our fund level budget, things such as our economic incentive payments, our workers' compensation, liability reserves, things that we have to fund, we would exclude putting the cuts -- it would be about a 75% reduction across the board if we were to apply to all departments. >> Morrison: I appreciate that because that sort of lays out for me if we're looking at a half a million dollars for health and human services, that's a big impact and that means programs can go away. 75% would limit it, but we're not taking substitute motions, I'm not making a substitute motion, but for me there's just a lot of different ways to go about this. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Yeah, and let me say nothing in this motion, were it to pass, would preclude another amendment within departments that set certain amounts for certain line items. As long as it stayed within the [inaudible]. So that could still be done. That doesn't preclude that. Councilmember martinez. Martinez thanks, mayor. First of all, I want to thank you for understanding that, you know, you are trying to do everything you can to minimize the tax burden to the citizens, as we all are. Not one person's attempt, it's seven councilmembers trying to do the best that we can. But I just think across the board cuts, one, is not based in policy, and two, could be even irresponsible because we just don't know the impact. And I can't imagine being a department director sitting out there right now hearing that after all of this work and all the public hearings we've been through and all of the comment that now, you know, they could face a potential severe cut of this magnitude, which I don't think they are going to face, but at a minimum, you know, we've been given a laundry list of items by different departments that if you included the public safety departments and internal services, including ctm which I think was exempt in your motion, we're almost at $4 million. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Ctm was not in the motion. Ctec. >> Martinez: Based on what staff has brought to us there's almost $4 million here and we haven't even started with these potential items. And I goodes to respond to councilman spelman, this is probably what you would get back this three days saying this is how we reached that goal. I'm all for making tough decisions and cutting the budget where we believe it's important and where a majority of this council believes it's appropriate, but an across the board cut is something I cannot support, one, but it short circuits the entire process we've just been through since april, since our first budget briefing and budget forecast. And so I'm looking forward to the next couple of days if it's necessary of going through each item, but I do want to point out something that you did bring up, mayor, that I think is really important and it's something that we don't have which I believe puts us in this situation. We don't have line item based budgeting. And that's a big problem. We should be able to go through line item by line item. We should be able to as a council to see that and make tough decisions and prioritize the finite resources that we have. So I'd be all in favor of this body taking action to move forward to create a line item based budgeting process as opposed to what we go through now because i do believe it's difficult for everyone to engage and understand the totality of the context of our budget. So I won't be supporting motion but I will be making proposals that would cut funding and reallocate it in other areas as I believe [inaudible]. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Well, thank you, councilmember. And certainly I respect your opinion, but I would just raise a couple of points. First of all, I don't think it's irresponsible and i don't think that the work that's gone into the budget process to this point has been a waste of time. They've come up, we need -- with a needs assessment and this is what we need to run our departments and you'll I've done is come back and say, okay, you good aetna minus 2%. So it's based on their work. It's not a shot in the dark, so to speak. With that I think I've kind of said my piece on it. Again, I don't think it's imprudent or irresponsible and I certainly respect the opinions of my colleagues. Councilmember riley. >> Riley: I certainly appreciate the mayor's suggestion about ways that we can tighten our belts a little further and minimize the impact on the packs pairs. Like my colleagues, I have some concerns about doing that blindly without fully understanding the impact it would have on the effective departments. So I would -- if there is interest on the part of council, I would support something along the lines of councilman spelman suggested, if there are places we can make 2% or more -- my concern is based on the information we have today that there may well be unanticipated consequences in the form of very severe impacts [inaudible]. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Having discussion. Going down the way about how to save more money in the future and throughout this fiscal year and we can do that. There can be proposed budget amendments throughout the year but what we can't do after this week is reset the property tax rate. Once it's set, it's set for the entire year. Even though we were to reduce the expenditures, we couldn't change that. That's why I'm taking this approach. Is there any further discussion? Councilmember tovo. >> Tovo: And I agree with all of the comments made earlier and I want to thank the mayor, we you will want to see the least amount of impact on the residents of austin and if there are appropriate ways to reduce the budget, then certainly that's the path we should take. I wanted to ask the city manager if you could just remind us all of the kind of belt tighten that has gone on. And you've elaborated on it in previous budget sessions, but I don't want anybody in the public there hasn't been ongoing intent of the management of this city to reduce the budget and to eliminate extraneous expenses. >> It has been actually from the time of my arrival, and my arrival here as city manager coincided to the decline of the economy. So we were from the very beginning in a mode of watching the expense or the cost side of our budget just from an historical standpoint, I would note that prior to my arrival in terms of a tax rate, it was based upon the rollback calculation for a good number of years prior to my approval. This may be the third or fourth budget cycle, I think the fourth, but in the course of preparing those budgets and in the midst of, you know, significant decline in the economy, we have offered this council budgets that were based on a rate that was less than the rollback calculation. As I said before, that hasn't happened in a good number of years prior to my arrival. It is in an overarching sense an indication of our effort to drive costs down at a time arguably when it was probably the most difficult set of circumstances to do that. Having said that, of course, we, you know, our approach was to not in terms of looking at our budget and being mindful of expensive cost, not to go into the toolbox that cities have and use the typical tools to try to get through a time, a period like we've been through by doing things that were essentially one time. You know, sort of band-aid kind of fixes that result in only having to contend with the same kind of challenges in subsequent years. So we indicated to council early on when we first started that our approach was going to be, you know, was going to be strategic and structural. Structural in the context that we wanted to try to apply methods that -- on the cost side, reducing our costs that would have a recurring impact. And you've heard some of those things alluded to along the way. For example, the elimination of positions. You know well over 100 during that period of time have been eliminated from the budget. You know that staff in one of those years have gone without a pay adjustment. May recall that. He did I believe some consolidation with respect to some of our functions, our departments, and a number of other things. Staff could probably provide additional details in terms of some of the cost measures, you know, that we took. And we just worked very hard to live within our means. Our physical posture throughout this period has been one of being conservative. And I think that that has paid off in terms of where we find ourselves today coming out of -- to the extent that we have the impact of the economic decline. We've had, you know, our public safety department that the mayor -- to step up and assist us in terms of foregoing the 3% pay adjustments and putting them on the tail end of their contracts. We've done a variety of things to, you know, to focus on the cost side and that's true also in terms of the very budget recommendation that is before you today. Ed, would you have some things to offer that I may have missed in terms of steps we took along the way to keep down our costs? >> I think you've hit on all the ones that are related to our employees and our employees are a huge part of this in terms of we've deferred market studies. We've had our sworn personnel step forward and renegotiated contracts to go without a pay raise in 2010. None of our employees got a pay raise in 2010. We capped pay for performance in 2009. Our employees have done a tremendous amount in terms of trying to restructure our budget in a way that saves costs. We've also looked as services and there's been difficult decisions made by this council and previous councils in regard to the trail of lights and reducing library hours and after-school programs. There's definitely been some challenges over the last three years and belt tightening that has gone on and continues to go on even though we didn't have things of that magnitude in this budget, I think the manager mentioned earlier to the extent you consider any of those things you mention low hanging fruit it's been picked and you start looking at how to cut the knowledge budget further the fruit higher up the tree and more difficult. >> Tovo: I appreciate that description. Thank you for reminding us about some of the measures you've taken to reduce the budget and also keep it from increasing and also reduce the impact on taxpayers. I concur with the comment that was made earlier that if there is an interest in prolonging this discussion and having the staff go back and look at whether 2% decrease would look like, i would be open to continuing that dialogue. But at this point, not fully understanding what the -- what this cut would mean for particular critical programs, I will not be supporting the motion. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Councilman spelman. >> Spelman: One last word, I wouldn't have made it unless one counts yourself and councilmember tovo and riley and you add me to the list of considering a 2% cuts so long as we knew the consequences, that would be the majority of the council who would be willing to consider that. But I believe I'm just reiterating what I heard from the two councilmembers who mentioned this previously, we would expect the city manager to need more than a couple of days to do that justice and we would probably have to come back next week. So you would have a majority of people who 8 consider your proposal but only next week, I suspect, sir. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Thank you, and I guess any kind of action would have to take the form of a motion until a date certain. We'll see how that goes. Let me say I think I can read the tea leaves on what I've put out there so far here today, but at the same time I can only see that we've started a discussion. We've started a serious discussion about how we're going to reduce expenditures of taxpayer money in this city and I think that's a regardless of how it turns out, we'll go ahead and have this discussion. If the tax rate, and again is set today or wednesday, that can't be changed. But we can still work on that process of trying to address not only the needs -- nobody has more respect or more admiration for the employees of the city than I do. They are a great bunch. I've worked with them for, let's see, a long time, ten years, aen my respect every year and admiration every year only grows, but we also have a responsibility to our taxpayers and rate payers. Here we are in this fiscal year, we're not just talking about increase, respectable increase in property tax, but also in a little while we're going to be talking about some very significant increases in electric rates, water utility rates, wastewater rate across the board, even down to clean community rate. So taken in content, I think this is something I had to put on the table. And itself just going to call for a vote and councilmember morrison wants to speak. >> Morrison: We've been getting a lot of memos and all in the past few weeks, but the one that our deputy chief financial officer sent on august 29 included a listing of potential budget reductions per department and so I do think that that does offer us a way, and it may be in the interest of each of us -- I mean for us to talk about each one of those today, because it does offer us a way to discuss cuts that have been already evalua prioritized by the departments should cuts be made so I'll just direct to you that august 29 memo for a listing of all -- and it does in the general fund come to 2 million or something like that. If, so I'll look forward to discussing some of those as we move forward. >> Mayor Leffingwell: I think we can do better, and as I said, I think we've begun this discussion and after this vote I look forward very much to hearing the cuts that other councilmembers might propose in giving those very favorable consideration as we go through this amendment process. So with that, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say no. I think that fails on a vote of 6-1 with councilmembers riley, martinez, tovo, spelman, morrison and cole voting no. Now the floor is open for additional -- mayor pro tem. [One moment please] >> Cole: The additions on the bottom and the reductions in savings are on the top. First, we have austin free met who we received testimony from who does worker training programming with computers and they've been very successful and this would cover their gaps. It is funded through our general fund and also through a grant. They have facilities primarily in east austin but also at hancock center and they've been a very productive program and i think it gets at the issue that we oftentimes face with not wanting to create two austins meaning a very prosperous austin and also a very challenged economic austin. And so this provides a mechanism for people to help themselves. The second item that I have on my list is actually the auditor's budget for an additional city -- assistant city auditor and continuing education for the auditor. You may remember that we have used the auditor on special projects this year especially water treatment plant 4 and he helped out an incredible amount with austin energy. And we had an unusual situation this year where the auditor brought forth a proposed budget that didn't entirelyly match the city manager's budget and this will satisfy his request for additional funding and as we anticipate using him into the future, I think that we should close that gap and i believe that everyone in the audit and finance committee was support I have of that and we discussed it extensively in work session, so that additional amount is $195,000. I also have proposed an amount for the parks and recreation department for urban forestry. We've had drought conditions and we need to prepare for fuel mitigation and this is unwith of the departments that also deal with that that is in the parks department that is very sensitive to environmental issues facing our urban forestry and contained within the city of austin and this would add, i BELIEVE, TWO FTEs TO THAT Department. And finally, I have recommended a landscape architect also for the parks department. It is mentioned in the same memo of august 9th they've had cuts over the last two careers. So those are the proposed additions in my motion in total. [One moment, please, for change in captioners] >> Spelman: I realize that would require some changes from the procedures that were laid out by the mayor earlier in the day. Here comes the mayor, perhaps I could address the question to him. >> Cole: Please do. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Could you repeat the question. >> Spelman: Certainly. Mayor pro tem cole has -- i had to think about that, i wanted to say mayor pro tem cheryl, my apologies. She has sent around a list of proposed cuts and additions to the budget before us. They look interesting. I would like to discuss them further but I would also like to discuss them if possible in the context of other proposals that may be forthcoming from other councilmembers, I wonder if that is at variance from the procedure that you outlined today or whether there's a way of making those consistent. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Well, I think that we are considering amendments one at a time. If you want -- if the purpose of discussing them with other possibilities would be to amend hers, that would be the procedure that we are operating under. The procedure is supposed to work very quickly and efficiently. We vote up or down on these amendments. The reason for doing it this way is sort of the substitute for the old friendly amendment style, the thing that's wrong with that, of course, is the only people that can object are the maker and the second. This is in the nature of a friendly amendment with just a -- just requiring approval of the whole council instead of the maker and the second. >> Spelman: I have two reasons for asking for a counter proposal. First reason is because by our understanding of state law, no majority of us were able to talk about -- about mayor pro tem cole's amendment or any of the other amendments that may be forthcoming in advance. So at a maximum, mayor pro tem cole, has had a chance to discuss with this other two other members of the council and doesn't know what the other four of us think. And I think that's just generally true unless somebody is not playing by the rules, I think we are all playing by the rules. So none of us knows what all of the possible amendments are going to look like yet by design. We can't know that in advance. The second one is personal, I have not been here for the last month, I have not been participating in the discussions with any of the rest of us. I don't know what anybody wants to propose. At least I am in the position this is alienator me today. I personally would be better off if there was a -- let me suggest as these amendments come up, we could table them just so we could see what they look like first, put them on the table and then systematically take them off the table. Once we understand what the whole list looks like. That would accomplish your need for speed at the same time it would accomplish my concern about wanting to getting the context proper. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Yeah, that sounds very reasonable to me. I think that we could proceed in that manner. Lay them out first and then go back the way we had intended to go with the approval of any amendment. We have a running tally. What does this do, how does this get to the bottom line, how does that affect the property tax rate. But certainly if there's no objection from the rest of the council we can proceed in that manner. When someone proposals an amendment, if there's objection, a suggestion to table, we will just table it and go back and address it later. But that -- we could vote on it, it's just the option is to -- I'm not sure about this one. Let's table it and we'll go back. Is everybody clear on that? And if there's no objection to amending our rules to proceed in that manner. It has been suggested -- >> mayor? >> Mayor Leffingwell: That we table this motion, this suggested amend, all in favor say aye. >> Aye. >> Opposed say no. Passes 7-0 as laid on the table. >> Spelman: Mayor? >> Mayor Leffingwell: Mr. Vanito, your responsibility is to keep up with all of these things. Councilmember martinez? >> Martinez: Going just -- just want to go through the process out loud again. So if I wanted to add additional items to the table, so to speak, i just -- do I make a motion and then we make a motion to table it again. >> That would be my proposal. Then once we've got all of the proposals for additions and subtractions on the table. They can take them up systematically one by one. >> Mayor Leffingwell: That's what we've already adopted as our modified procedure. >> Martinez: Right, I was just clarifying. So I need to make a motion to make some amendments to the budget as proposed. As follows -- I will say that I'm supportive of mayor pro tem's items that are on the table because they address some of the things that I wanted to address. So I will be supporting them. But in addition to that, there are a couple of things that we've been talking about through the process, this wild land management division within the fire department. We've talked about the -- about the extreme cost in ramping up, we need some lead time. Staff has come forward with a thoughtful proposal that i think ramps them up. No the a full departmental proposal but does give them what they need to get started. Once they have that rampup time we are going to be sitting waiting for the next year's budget cycle. To actually do mitigation and get the department up and running. I think that it's prudent that we start doing as much as we can within this budget cycle. So in the fire department's summary of potential budget reductions, they identified some areas, one specifically being that we would hire from certified applicants, precertified firefighters we now have a -- have a process that allows us to hire certified firefighters as a preferred candidate for the academy, which would create $243,423 in savings. I would -- I am proposing that we accept that budget, recommended budget reduction, apply the $243,423, to -- to a -- to a -- wild land management division within the fire department. That consists of a battalion chief, a captain, a lieutenant and a burn boss and this would be for half year funding. The total for the captain, for the chief, the captain and the lieutenant burn boss is 248,356, we would apply the 243,423, leaving a balance of 4,933 and that would propose eliminating 4,933 from the overhead door preventive maintenance bringing that total down to 90,067, which is another -- which is another potential budget reduction suggested by staff. So the total amount would be a reduction of 248,356 and then applied to the wild land management division with that same amount of. >> >> Mayor Leffingwell: So councilmember just to reiterate your proposal also is revenue neutral and expenditure neutral. >> Morrison: Mayor. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Councilmember morrison? >> Mayor Leffingwell: Let me see if there's any objection to adopting -- you want to lay it on the table? >> Morrison: I want to make a comment. That is that was something that caught my eye, hiring only from certified firefighters. I asked staff a question and -- in our q and a, it was question number 93. I wonder if we could have staff come speak to that specific issue and where things stood on that. Because there were a couple of issues that were raised. And I believe it was sort of a lay question and the answer came in somewhat late, also. Because of that. So it might not have been seen by a lot of people. >> Mayor and council, rhoda mae kerr, fire chief. That staff or that budget reduction was made in previous years when we -- when we were able to and we had a list from which we could hire certified candidates and the reduction that -- the reduction was based upon less time spent in training or in our cadet academy. We have graduated one class that did come from that certified list. And have -- there's a couple of realizes that have come into everything. Number one, we don't have a list in which to -- in which to hire from any longer, so we would have to go back and do the whole employment process over in order to realize a savings from a lateral or a certi class. Second the training time we have -- 12 weeks, was adequate, we have actually added two weeks to our normal basic academy, we would have to have two weeks plus an additional four weeks to make sure that the transition of -- of our certified candidates was adequate into the workforce. That [indiscernible] realize that $243,000 savings based upon that. I think the other part was that lateral class, we actually took that into everything, hoping that would improve our diversity when in fact it doesn't have that great of an impact upon our diversity. >> Morrison: Okay. I guess my question is this still a practical budget savings that we can -- that we can work with? >> No it's not. >> Morrison: Okay, thank you. >> I would love to be able to see it in -- if my colleague has -- I would love to hear your comments on ways to maybe expand and really take advantage of it. >> The list by staff further potential reductions and cost savings. If it's not feasible why was it in the memo as a potential option for the council to undertake. >> That list included in that memo was originally published to council I think back in may. As chief kerr was mentioning the list was originally developed as part of 2012. A lot of things were cut from that list. That is what was remaining from things that weren't cut as part of the 2012 process. We published that list initially back in may. I think what's occurred is the recruitment process got ahead of the budget process we have not put ours in a position where we have recruited for laterals because we didn't know at the time that this action was going to be happening. Back in may I think it was still viable. Right now it wouldn't be. Not that it couldn't be viable in 2014, given where we are right now in the budget process and recruitment process. We are at a point where we have recruited for non-laterals and it would delay the academy if we had to do something different. >> Martinez: Until we run another process that potential savings can't be realized. >> Yes, sir. >> Martinez: That also depends on the size of the class and the number of hires. >> Yes, sir. >> Martinez: Then I will withdraw that proposal, mayor and simply make a motion that we allocate $248,356 from our -- remind me, ed? I can't pull up the memo in front of me. >> Budget stabilization. >> Budget stibbleization reserve. 248,356 From budget stabilization researches, which we have already taken from budget stabilization reserve from the wild land management division, but this would specifically go to that proposal that i fireside of the four positions, battalion chief, captain, lieutenant, burn boss for half year funding for this fiscal year. In addition to that, I will also proposal that we reduce overtime budget by $200,000. And allocate that $200,000 to the services provided via our health and human services department. But it's something that's directly related, in my opinion -- >> Mayor Leffingwell: Excuse me, councilmember, are you going on to a different proposal now? >> Martinez: I'm making all one motion but yes a different proposal. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Let's take them one at a time. Your first proposal is to allocate 248,000 odd out of the budget stabilization fund. >> Martinez: Yes. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Is there any objection to that? Councilmember tovo objects. Councilmember tovo. >> Tovo: I don't necessarily object. >> Mayor Leffingwell: We have to have an objection -- >> Spelman: If objection is the term that you are looking for, I will object. Although I reserve the right to vote for it later on. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Okay. Yeah. >> Tovo: Thank you, councilmember. >> Martinez: I thought we were putting them all on the table anyway. Why do we have to object if we're going to make a motion to put them all on the table? >> Mayor Leffingwell: Councilmember tovo? >> Tovo: It's my understanding that the budget stabilization reserve fund is available for one-time expenditures. I know that that is being used for the $87,000 there or with some change for the wild lands for the capital expenditures for the wildlands. Would this meet the requirements of being a one-time expenditure because we are relying on savings in subsequent years? Can you help me understand whether or not this would meet the policy of the budget stabilization reserve fund and if not with do we have an option of veering from that policy here today? >> My understanding of the motion it that it would not be consistent with the council approved policy for the use of budget stabilization reserves which essentially says we can't draw them down by more than one third in any given year. We are okay there. But also dictates that it needs to go to one-time type of expenses that we can't use that reserve fund to fund ongoing obligations that the four positions would presumably be ongoing obligations not just something that we would add only for fiscal year '13. >> Tovo: Has it ever been the case that ongoing staff salaries have been funded through the budget stabilization fund with the understanding that there would be other funding available in subsequent years so it would be a one-time funding of those ongoing expenditures because other funds would be available later on? >> Since I've been budget officer that's not occurred. >> Tovo: Okay. Thank you. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Councilmember riley. >> Riley: The presentation that you gave this morning spoke to the transfer out of the general fund, from the budget stabilization reserve fund in the amount of 87,000 [indiscernible] equipment for the fire department to create the division. I understand that was for-- that's for one-time property, one time equipment purchases? >> 50,000 Of it was for the development of the cwpp, the plan, 30,000 for a vehicle and equipment. >> Riley: There have been suggestions about the need for additional funds for fuel mitigation. Did you all look at the possibility that there could be -- additional one-time purchases that would be appropriate to -- to secure through the budget stabilization reserve fund for the purpose of fuel mitigation? >> I think the motion or direction from council was to pull from those reserves a certain amount of money for a contract to do fuel mitigation type services. It was clear that that was -- we are going to take 500,000 for fuel mitigation in 2013 it was just a one-time allocation that would be consistent with things that we have done in the past out of that fund and consistent with the policy. >> Riley: Okay. Then how would that work if we don't -- the staffing positions that are contemplated and -- apartment the motion on the table. If -- in the motion on the table, if we just had the actual fuel mitigation purposes, would our staff be able to manage those purchases with the -- would the existing staff -- actually not the existing staff but the staff being proposed as part of the budget package that's on the table? I guess that's a question for the fire chief. Basically the question is can we look to the budget stabilization reserve fund to increase the fuel mitigation up to say $500,000 and keep the staffing levels as currently proposed, but just increase the -- the fuel mitigation funding? Would you all be able to manage those additional one-time purchases for fuel mitigation that we could get from the -- through the budget stabilization reserve fund? So can I just clarify the question. I'm not sure that i understand entirely. Are we including the staff that was proposed by councilmember martinez as well as that which I have incorporated into our budget? >> Riley: No. If we back off of looking to the budget stabilization reserve fund to support staffing positions in light of our financial policy and instead just increase the amount of fuel mitigation funding, through the use of that fund and then look to the current budget proposals in materials of staffing to manage those additional amounts for fuel mitigation. >> Okay. So the answer to your question then would be we es and then you are asking me then, I just want to be certain that I answer correctly, whether if we were awarded additional dollars for fuel mitigation, would we be able to utilize those funds with the current staffing? And the answer to that is yes we would be able to do fuel mitigation with the approximate 'em that I have proposed -- with the people that I have proposed and we would use some seasonal workers and there are ways that we can manage fuel mitigation within certain limits, of course. The most important thing becomes the development of a plan, a cwpp, which is a community wildfire protection plan. But we can take allocated funds and use them in our high-risk areas as well as those that are fire-wise communities and be able to do further fuel mitigation and still be sensitive to our endangered species act and our environmentally sensitive lands. >> The development of a plan like that could well make sense as a one-time purchase because we don't have a plan in place now. It would be an appropriate one-time expense for the use of the budget stabilization reserve fund. >> That's correct. >> Riley: Thanks. >> Tovo: I just want to clarify that in is the staff's amendment that $50,000 for the community wildfire protection plan is part of that 87 so they have already suggested that we treat that as a one-time expense and fund it through the budget stabilization reserve fund. >> Councilmember, your statement is correct. There is a $50,000 ask and it is in the one-time request. For the cwpp or the community wildfire protection plan. And so -- I just want to clarify a point that my colleague made. It sounds like the answer yes we could contemplate a motion to fund fuel mitigation for fiscal year '13 in the amount of 250 or something like that as a one-time expenditure and chief occur you did say with the staffing that you have proposed you feel that's an acceptable level of management. >> The answer to your question is yes. I believe that we could manage fuel mitigation with the staffing that I have proposed. >> Thank you. >> Spelman: Mayor. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Interesting discussion, but what is on the table right now is $248,000 for staffing requirements by councilmember martinez. Without objection that is laid on the table. Councilmember martinez has additional amendments, proposals. >> Martinez: I appreciate all of the comments. But before I make any further proposals off of this document that was given TO US ON AUGUST THE 30th, What else is not acceptable in this document that we can't use for potential budget savings? You said this was brought to us in may, but you sent this to us on august the 30th as a potential reduction in budget considerations from staff and now you are saying, at least in this instance, that -- i understand the explanation. But why didn't w update this list before we sent it BACK OUT ON AUGUST 30th, Saying here you go council, here are staff's recommendations for potential further budget reductions? Anything else in here that's no longer applicable to a budget reduction? >> Tom change that's been brought to my attention is the change in regards to the recruitment process for the fire department and that we would not be in a position right now to do a lateral class in 2013. That's the only change from what we initially sent out that I've been made aware of. >> Martinez: I would just say city manager, that's pretty significant. 240 Something thousands, why 7 wouldn't we have updated this before we sent it to our city council and aides less than 12 days ago saying here's a list of menu options. >> Mayor Leffingwell: City manager. >> I don't have an explanation beyond what mr. Ravino has said to you. >> Martinez: Mayor, I'm going to make another proposal that we reduce or yes that we further reduce the police overtime by $200,000. And reallocate that to our council and at-risk youth. >> All right. I'll object to that just so we can have discussion. Is there someone here from who will give us a little bit of information. About how this reduction of $200,000 in over time would affect the department? >> Good morning, mayor, council, city manager. The 200,000 would be difficult for us, challenging for a variety of reasons. Number one our overtime budget has been cut by about 5 million over the last few years on an annual basis. This year we're looking at going over our overtime budget. Those are the dollars that we're using to target some of the spikes in crimes and some of the issues that pop up around the city. So that will really impact in terms of our ability to -- to respond in a tiely manner to some of these emerging threats. The other issue going on, that was a rollover from the previous year that was -- that was remained in our budget that we have other issues that we're going to cover with that this year. Including our human trafficking coordinator position and the overtime that was used for human trafficking, which is a significant challenge here in central texas and throughout texas. As it relates to that specific issue. We also are using that to cover the $43,850 related to the communications operation that we have lost grant funding for some of our communications operators. As you know, that has been an issue that the public safety commission has been looking at for the last several years. So it will have an impact. You know I never scream that the sky is falling, you all make the decisions, we will do our very best. It will limit our ability to address some of these issues and will limit -- further reduce our ability to respond to emerging issues around the neighborhoods as they pop up. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Is it extreme to say that it will have a negative impact on your mission? >> It will. Our overtime budget was close to 10 million about five years ago when I first got here. What's happened reduced by 2.5 million a year. On top of that, those dollars that remain don't go as far because the pay in benefits that the officers received due to the contractual obligations, so we have fewer dollars and on top of the fewer dollars they don't go as far because of those additional cost drivers and the other piece is the reduction in the grant funding that we are receiving from -- on a national level. Again, I never say that the sky will fall, but it will have a negative impact. It will further limit our ability to balance our budget. Again, this year, we're going over, looking at going over our overtime budget by about $1.1 million. So it will be tough to handle. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Thank you, councilmember morrison. >> Morrison: Thanks, chief. You mentioned in your response that you are going to be using that funding to cover the loss of the grant and the human trafficking program administrator, did i hear you correctly? >> The overtime piece of that, yes, ma'am. >> The overtime piece. So we're still losing the in the human trafficking program? >> That was actually a temporary f.t.e. Which will happen is one of the sworn officers in that unit will have to pick up some of that responsibility and what we're hoping to use is that piece of the funding that actually covered the overtime for the actual investigations. Human trafficking investigations are very time extensive. They are 24/7 type of investigations that go on day and night. So that's what we're going to be using it for. Use the sworn staff to use -- to complete the duties of the actual coordinator that we had in a temporary position. >> Morrison: So if we could actually find at least the stopgap money for the program administrator in human trafficking, would it be fair to say that we would then have to rely on less overtime? >> No, because that administrator, those administrative functions are separate from the actual that goes to the over time for the officers working the investigations out in the field. >> Morrison: What I heard you say was okay we're losing the administrator because it was grant funded. I thought that I heard you say that the detectives that are working in that in organized crime and on human trafficking are going to have to absorb the administrator's work. >> Correct. >> Morrison: Which will add to their overtime. If we had a less expensive civilian program administrator, there -- they would use less overtime? >> Well, that's -- that piece of us absorbing it, that's already happened because that position is already gone. But I don't understand the second piece of that question. >> Morrison: I'm just saying if our detectives are doing some administrative work, if we can offload that administrative work to a civilian, they're going to be able to do their job more efficiently and not going to need as much overtime because they are doing some non-police work. IS THAT michael McDonald, deputy city manager. I think what the chief is explaining is that that administrative function being done in the program has already been absorbed by 's within that unit. The additional cost out in the field, that portion of it was done by overtime, that's the portion that they are handling with overtime and what they plan to handle with the additional overtime that they have in place here. So that administrative function, the old f.t.e. That was in place, that's already been absorbed. >> Morrison: Absorbed by sworn officers or -- >> yes. >> Basically what the coordinator was doing is actually working on an education piece during the day. Most of our education functions for that is, you know, monday through friday, it's through different organizations throughout the city. Where most of the overtime factors are at night. That's when we would be expending those dollars: >> Morrison: Okay. My take away from this is we have sworn officers doing work that was previously done by an administrator that is a lower paid position. >> Yes. >> Mayor? >> Councilmember martinez. >> Martinez: I just want to put a little context to this. Because it's $200,000, in the grand scheme of the 1 billion budget and the police department's budget it is small. About you in the grand -- but in the grand scheme of what carey provides it's pretty significant in that they actually are a public safety if you think. They provide these kids with -- public safety function. They provide these kids with counseling services that keeps them, prevents them in many cases from dropping out of school, from attending school so that aisd can get their full funding and hopefully keeping them out of the juvenile justice system. I sat here a few months ago and I voted and I stood in the face of criticism to 's request for an almost 4 million-dollar helicopter fund. We did that under the conversations of it will create efficiencies, we will be better off. We're asking for $200,000, as opposed to 3.1. I supported that. I'm trying to strike a very difficult balance. I think $200,000 is nothing but it means everything to the council and at-risk youth and to those 600 middle school students that they provide services to each and every year here in austin. I just want you to keep that in mind and that you all consider that in totality of what this council has done in support of public safety, you know, throughout time. This is not a slight on or what they need to do. This is just simply trying to find a way to fill some gaps that I think are sorely needed to be filled. >> Cole: Mayor? >> Mayor Leffingwell: Let me say my concern is what happens when we run out of overtime money. That means that we don't have the correct machining of the officers on the street that need to be there. That's -- we're not going to vote on this right now. We'll vote on it later. But that's going to be my concern. Mayor pro tem. >> Cole: I simply wanted to express my support of councilmember martinez's statements. This is an organization that we have both supported since we have been on council and they do tremendous work and I think that some preventive maintenance increase dollars would help. I certainly understand the connection to the police department that I will be supporting this. >> Councilmember tovo and just for strategic planning purposes, I think we're going to need to take a recess, short recess for lunch. I think it's important that we all be on the dais for these discussions and kind of impractical to go one at a time. So with that said, about five minutes. Councilmember tovo. >> Tovo: Chief, since you are up here, we're talking about your budget. I wanted to say that I think councilmember martinez i appreciate this suggestion and the -- the interesting conversation about overtime. I do notice something on your highlights as an increase and that is $123,000 for the lease space for the special events center and I did ask a budget question about it. I got back some information saying that, you know, since we -- since the city owns it, it's -- anyway the answer was not entirely clear about why your department has expressed that as an increase and other departments have not. But I would also just say with regard to that line item, and also the answer that I was provided about fee, I do notice that you have some collections that need to happen within the special event fees that the department has expended, has some expenses outstanding, so I will be either today or at some subsequent point making a recommendation to this council that we look carefully at the special event fees that we are charging, what does it cost our city to -- to experience these events. What are the direct costs to because there are some very direct costs and frankly we haven't recovered those costs at this point in the budget. So that is also money that should be available for overtime or for victim services counseling, which has suffered a hit. I see in this budget. Or for human trafficking. I mean we want those moneys to be spent where they are most important and most critical and in my mind, you know, we shouldn't be -- we shouldn't have -- we should have nose funds going to the -- those funds going to the direct critical services that are necessary and not to subsidizing private events that are responsible for paying their costs, so i hope we can all look at that together and very carefully. But I do want to ask one more question about formula one. I see in the response back that you are not anticipating any out of the -- extra ordinary overtime costs related to formula one. I just want to be assured that the 200,000 that we're talking about is not contemplated to be spent on that. Just sort of a general. >> No, ma'am. I don't think we are. Some of the events that will be impacting city they will be required to hire offduty police officers like they always do. You might have seen in the paper where there are going to be quite a few closures downtown potentially for the different venues and we are working to make sure that the costs associated with maintaining those closures, crowd control, and the entry points, depending on the venue to make sure that the organizers are paying for that. I just wanted to add to councilmember martinez and to the council. I'm actually on the board of cary, we are very supportive of that. I just want to make sure as you make those decisions try to stretch those budget dollars I want to be as transparent as to -- has to come from somewhere in our budget some of the things that we're looking at. >> Tovo: Great, thanks, i hope we can have a conversation as a council about how to make sure that the events that are taking place are paying their own way, paying the city's costs so again you have the money you need to serve these other critical needs. If no objection, councilmember martinez's proposal to cut police overtime by 200,000, reallocate that money to youth services is laid on the table and without objection, we will go into recess now for lunch and other activities and be back in about 40 minutes. Thank you. >> Mayor Leffingwell: We are out of recess and i believe we left off councilmember martinez had the floor and was in the process -- do you have any more amendments? >> Martinez: Not at this time, mayor. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Okay. Councilmember morrison. >> Morrison: Thank you, mayor. I have a few that I want to put out there on the table and [inaudible] of amendments. The first one is a proposal -- you know, we certainly have many unmet needs and some of them are critical one-time needs and some of them are critical needs. Our critical one-time needs can be funded by our -- well, that fund is funded by our budget stabilization and we had a good discussion at audit and finance about our reserve and how much we can draw it down in terms of one-time funds. And the bottom line was that what we really like to be able to do is have 12% -- can you help me with these numbers -- as our reserve represents 12% of our general fund. Is that correct? Of the general fund operating budget. And we're actually -- the way the proposed budget sits right now, our ending 8 million is going to be swept over into the reserves and that's actually going to take us above 12% by a little bit. And actually it's going to take us to 12.08%. So what I wanted to do was propose that we capture what would amount to $580,000, 08% is $580,000, and move that into our critical one-time fund to actually spend, and I have at least one important thing I wanted to propose to spend it on. And I think it's not an unreasonable -- I don't believe it's a risky thing to do because that 12% is a really good number to be at. We've been below 12% before. 8% Is an absolute minimum that we don't want to be anywhere near in terms of conservative fiscal policies, but 12% is good and the other thing this is all based on a projection of the rest of the year in terms of sales tax. And our sales tax is looking -- has looked good and is looking good so what I'd like to do then is propose an amendment basically to losen up some more funds for one-time expenditures. And that would be to amend the proposed budget of the budget stabilization reserve fund to increase transfers out of the -- do I have this right -- out of the critical one-time fund? And I'm sorry, I need to transfer it out of the budget stabilization reserve to the critical one-time fund. Is that correct? >> [Inaudible] >> Morrison: In the amount of $580,000. Which would then allow for 580,000 more in expenditures in the coming year either now at this budget time or later in one-time expenditures. Did I get that right? >> You do and if I could clarify. Councilmember martinez's was to take $148,000 to help fund fuel mitigation in the wildfire division. If your goal is keep that at no less than 12% and that motion were to pass, 248,000 would already be [inaudible] >> Morrison: So what i might do then is make it 580 minus 248. Whatever that turns out to be. I mean 580 minus 240. So that's my motion and if there are any questions i would be glad to discuss it now or we could put it on the table. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Well, I'll object to putting it on the table and I'll just say that at the end of the day when we get around to voting on this, which is likely not to be a while, I'm not going to support it, I'm not going to support any motion that increases expenditures without off set. I don't think that taking money out of reserve is an off set. Mayor pro tem cole cole yes, I had a question first of councilmember morrison. Can you clarify, it's my understanding that what you are doing is tapping our budget stabilization reserve at 12%, and then you are putting the excess at -- excluding the amount councilmember martinez has identified for -- for wildfire mitigation. In another fund that would be used for the same purpose as budget stabilization fund during the year. Is that correct? >> Morrison: Will with, it's my understanding that the funding from budget stabilization that we make accessible for one-time critical needs goes into a budget called the one-time critical fund. I'm merely moving those over so we know what we have to work with. >> Cole: For that particular purchase. Really it's an accounting sort of transfer. It's not any money that's been allocated for a specific purpose. >> Morrison: That's correct. >> That is correct. In terms of we're putting things on the table so we can certainly add to our list that's on the table is to move $580,000 from the stabi reserves to the critical one-time fund and take [inaudible] to help fund fuel mitigation for wildfire division and then the other thing brought forward by council to do with the remainder [inaudible] >> Cole: Thank you. >> Morrison: And just to clarify, it's not that I'm suggesting we have a cap. I'm just suggesting that we hit 12% this year. And likely it will go up. You know, our [inaudible] may come in this last quarter and that means it would go up above. And my intent was for it to get on the table how much there is to actually work from. >> Mayor Leffingwell: So the motion is to take $580,000, there about, from stabilization fund and transfer it to critical one-time need fund. And I hadn't realized before, but councilmember martinez's motion was also dependent on this -- you said that would also come out of the critical one-time -- >> it's my understanding. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Which would also require -- for councilmember martinez's motion to be funded, this motion would have to pass, transfer 580 out, otherwise that 284 would not be available. Is that correct? >> Yeah, short of a motion saying just to transfer 284, that's right, some money needs to be transferred out of stabilization reserves to one-time fund. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Right now if this were to pass 580, out of that would be potentially 284 and other things. One-time. Did I say 284? [Inaudible] so if there's no objection, we'll put that one on the table. Did you want to say something, councilmember? Put that one on the table and go to the next. >> Morrison: So the next one is aclly a use of $250,000 from the critical one-time fund. And that is to support the expansion of the healthy families program. And I don't know if we have our health and human services staff here. The healthy family program, healthy families program, they can speak to it a little bit. It's a very important program that we already participate in in terms of helping new families sort of get off the ground and works with all sorts of folks that are at risk, it works on child abuse issues and things like that. And before they describe it, what I would like to mention is that this is for an expansion of it specifically targeting african-american families that are where we have a demand that's not being met, additional outreach needs to be done, but also importantly this is one of our 1115 waiver programs, which means that for this expansion, we will be able to to apply to the -- I don't know if it's the state -- I guess it's managed at the state level, the state government for each one of the dollars that we spend for this expansion, and it does need to be an expansion, we will get an extra $1.43 in return. The idea is we use this as a one-time seed money to get this started and then we will actually be generating those 1115 waiver funds to help us support it as an ongoing program. And we have staff here to talk about how all that storks. Works. >> Human services. You are absolutely correct, it is an 1115 waiver project which we presented to city council before so you should be familiar with it. Right now there are two units that provides services to our at-risk families out of the county. And the programs are provided out of the county. We would like to expand it. Currently 87% of the clients are hispanics. There's an amount of african-american youth that could benefit so the 250,000 would go towards a program dedicated to that particular ethnic group, african-americans. >> Morrison: And I think the critical health indicator reports that you put together a I will whew ago identified some pretty poignant health disparities in our minority communities, but specifically in the african-american community and I wonder if you could list some of those office. >> What we're trying to accomplish is to prevent children from being taken out of their families. So we're doing some prevention work, making the family stronger, doing some pre-natal care with them before they are born and then working with the families up until the age of 2 to 3 years old. So it would be a savings to the economy and also it would have these children go through less trauma and the families go through less hardship, you know, by strengthening their skill sets. >> Morrison: And thanks, i wonder if you could talk about how this could be seed money and just summarize what I was trying to say also. >> So we submitted this as one of our projects. In fact, it's one of our top three projects, we only have one project funded currently. So this 250,000 could be sent up and it would come 46 worth of match. I didn't do the math on that so it's like 300 and something thousand dollars that could potentially come back to the city because of $250,000 investment. We would have to meet performance measures which we're quite confident we could meet because this is an established program the county has been running for a number of years so they have the expertise to executive. Once we hit those performance measures, we would get the money being about. We are allowed to submit our performance measures for reimbursement twice a year. >> Morrison: I think that -- I mean -- do you want to say something? I saw you scrunching your eyebrows and that makes me worried when you do that. >> Me too. >> Morrison: But I think this really points out for us, you know, we did -- we do have a list of programs that we've submitted that are expansions and we don't necessarily -- that are really supposed to be transformative health initiatives had this community and we don't really have necessarily funding for all of those, but there is -- it's money that will be leveraged by the state. So I think we really need to be thinking in terms as broadly as we can about how to get these programs funded so we can take advantage of the opportunities that are out there in terms of [inaudible]. >> You should also keep in mind that once we are reimbursed or the money is matched, there is really few strings attached so we could use it in in I way the department felt fit, which would be to continue the program. >> Morrison: Right. And in fact we get more money back than we send up. I think it would be really helpful if we could get staff to sit down and think comprehensively about how we might be able to use some of those funds to help start on the road to funding other programs and all. So, okay, but the bottom line is this is a very worthy program in and of itself. The reason it makes sense to do it with -- with one-time funds it is sort of a situation where it can be seed money to start an additional cash flow flowing that can support it in the long run. So that's 250 from critical one-time funds. >> Mayor Leffingwell: I have a question for you. Obviously this sounds like a very good deal, taking advantage of the 1115 benefit, almost 150% matching. In fact, it's so important I'm surprised you haven't already allocated this money in your budget from other sources. So if this item were not approved, would you go back and readjust your internal budget and make sure that you apply for these funds or would you just let them go? >> Well, my budget is such where we have no discretionary funding really. So I'm really not in a position to take any money and make it available for this project. And that's the way the project was always spelled out, the way it was introduced is that it has to be new funding, and again, the department is not in a position -- we would have to take it from somewhere else and those funds are already allocated. >> Mayor Leffingwell: So there's absolutely no way that you could find that amount of money. You would pass that out to fund something else. >> I have no discretionary funds. Again, that's the way we operate. We fund our current operating program, we're very grateful to be able to provide the services that we do, but we don't have a the look of wiggle. What we would end up doing, there's a certain amount of money set aside for health departments in our region and there are only two health departments, ourself and hays. So we would leave that money on the table if we didn't come up with money to use for a new program. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Councilmember morrison. >> Morrison: A good point, mayor. I think that we need to have some real brain power sit down and help us figure out where to get additional funds because leaving this money on the table in times of need, it's really just not acceptable. So this is one opportunity to get things started and i think if we can get our financial wizards sitting down with our experts in the field, we could figure something out. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Yeah, and I guess that -- you stated there's no way you could find the money, but maybe there's a way that somebody else in the city of austin could find that money. >> Yes, sir. >> Mayor Leffingwell: And so in that case I think i could definitely support something like this. Councimember spelman, did you have a comment? >> Spelman: Only if the department director has no discretionary money we need to ratchet it up a level and find somewhere else. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Without objection, that is laid on the table. >> Morrison: I do have some more. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Yes, go ahead. >> Morrison: We did have some discussion about the human trafficking position that has been grant funded for the past several years. The grant is now half. What I took away from that discussion is that our foreign officers are now doing administrative work which they are having to absorb that which is obviously more expensive than it needs to be and it drives more overtime. Now, that was a grant funded program which means that it wasn't in as a sustainable f.t.e. I would like to propose that we actually fund that position of the program administrator to the tune of $84,057, from the critical one-time needs fund with the understanding that it only extends it for a year. We normally don't do personnel with one-time funds, but the bottom line is that it's been grant funded, which this is essentially just like treating it like it's getting one more year of grant funding. And I would ask at the same time that staff look for a way to carve out this f.t.e. And I would like to highlight that there have been some -- there was a huge arrest that was done back in august and I think that's where three people were arrested and broke up a couple of human trafficking rings, and, you know, for me it's one of those things that it's hard to imagine that goes on in the city of austin, but the comment was that -- from the police was it's a hidden thing, obviously, but it's prevalent. And I just don't think it makes any sense to be transferring our administrative jobs over to our sworn officers. So that is to take that as a one-time cost of $84,057. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Anything else? Councimember spelman, I was just going to say ditto. Councimember spelman. >> Spelman: Ditto is fine with me. >> Morrison: Okay. And then -- >> Mayor Leffingwell: Let's lay this one on the table far mallly and go to the next one. >> Morrison: We've had discussion the river city youth program which is a fine program and organization in dove springs. And the city has funded for several years dove springs to the tune of $146,000. And because of the -- one of the unexpected impacts, i think, of our social service funding was that it was left off the list of those organizations that we funded because of the way the priorities had been structured. But I think I certainly believe and I think there's a shared sense that that organization brings a really critical affect to the table. And in fact there is $73,000 in unallocated social service funding within the health and human services department. So I would like -- my motion is to actually it's not a change in the budget, but it's just to direct staff to reallocate $73,000 of the unallocated special service funding within the health and human services department 2013 budget to fund river city youth foundation. And then also to ask staff to continue their efforts to identify an additional $73,000 so that we might be able to fully fund for last year as well. So that's -- I don't know if that needs to be laid on the table. >> Mayor Leffingwell: See if there's any discussion on it. Councilmember martinez. >> Martinez: I think before today's meeting that was staff's intention with that item. I don't see bart in here -- there he is. If,. >> That's all right. [Inaudible] >> Morrison: All right. Thank you. >> Mayor Leffingwell: So without objection that's laid on the table. >> Morrison: That's correct. Let's see. I have a few more. One is regarding the innovation office that we have had some discussion about recently. We've had some discussion with the city manager and then open austin came down and has been talking with staff about this concept of having an innovation office. There's been I think open austin's perspective was a little bit more of how do we use innovation and leverage technology to improve our ability to engage the public and to have an innovative interface with the public. We've also had discussions about trying to promote innovations from within in terms of our internal processes as opposed to just our external processes. And what -- we heard from the city manager that he was certainly interested in continuing to explore that possibility and seems what -- there were folks in discussion. We've certainly talked about it I think and planned to talk about it at emerging technology committee, but the scope had not completely been defined. We don't have a real specific detailed amount of exactly who and what and when. I would like to be able to put a stake in the ground that says we are going to move forward and fund something in that realm. And in order to fund that, what I wanted to do was think about funding something only a half a year or three-quarters of a year because we know we have more work to do before we know exactly what it needs to be. In order to find funds for that, I went to -- c.t.m. Has a line item of a million dollars to fund a consultant to come inen help develop a strategic plan and do assessments of our i.t. Environment here. And what I would like to do is to -- I think that we likely can get a very professional report and strategic plan for less than a million dollars, and I'm very concerned that if we even have a million dollars on the budget, everybody that bids on the statement might actually bid a million dollars. So I think that it would be very safe for us to crimp our $250,000 of that line item to cover some portion OF A YEAR AND TWO FTEs FOR An innovation office. That's my motion and that is that we amend the proposed to add TO -- TO ADD TWO FTEs TO Form an innovation office and direct the city manager to reallocate 250,000 within for the citywide strategy assessment from 1 million to 706. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Any discussion? I guess -- can anyone speak for ctm? I guess my question is this something new your office has been doing with regard to open government or whatever the term of art is? Is that something that your office or some other office in the city does currently or are we doing something entirely new? It seems to me I've bean a the look of innovation this this particular area in thes thes last couple years. >> We've actually been doing some innovative things. I think we've been doing quite a bit with the website, with mobile apps. With open data so we've been doing quite a bit to engage the citizens so I'm not really clear -- >> let me see if I can help you. He's correct, from a technology standpoint the city has done some very innovative things over the year. I think the gentleman who was here awoke or so ago, rosenthal and he think he pass out information. The other piece of this is -- was a staff initialed effort to create what we initially characterized as r&d, that ultimately we changed the vernacular. That notion is browder than a would encompass what rosenthal presented a few weeks ago. And if you'll recall my remarks, I embraced with what he had to say and I see a logical connection and you the broader notion in terms of where the constitution began with staff, actually with me. And so councilmember morrison is correct, we were still in the defining refining process, but this money that she's proposing would help us get a lug up in getting that started in 2013. The broader notion that I'm talking about, r&b, and i think we've had some conversation with councimember spelman, just let him now we were working along those lines. It's really open to the entire organization to bring innovation ideas fort. So the two quite naturally come together so I think this makes a whole lot of sense. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Is this new employees or are you just redesignating employees? Two new hire employees we're talking about or just going to move two people -- yeah. >> This would be two new people, and I do want to say the question is it a c.t.m. Function or sort of a different level that we're trying to talk about in terms of innovation broadly and it's not just technology. And while my motion SUGGESTED TO CREATE FTEs And it may be appropriate to come back and look at a budget amendment to move THOSE FTEs TO A DIFFERENT Place in the budget. We know it's going to be related to technology, but in the end the idea I think was it may well lead to something a little different, but it's definitely two new employees. And there's been some talk about best practices in other cities. I know you all have been looking at in terse of boston and I believe chicago and maybe philadelphia have some of these. So it's also wanting to rely on what other cities have learned in doing this. If,. Q.further comment? Without objection it's laid on the table. >> Morrison: I have two more to talk about. And one is I wanted to talk about our transportation fund and some of the special projects for the transportation system that we might think about using that for in terms of, you know, we have certainly in imagine austin and over the past 10 years with our different funds how to focus on sustainability, on equity, on the sustainability of the three-prong things as defined equity, the environment and the economy. And what I want to talk about or propose here is that we like with other funds take 1% of our transportation fund, which i understand would amount to about $570,000. And not transfer it out of the transportation fund, but dedicate it to -- to transportation system improvements that are -- that are addressing more equitable transportation systems with a special focus on imagine austin actions and outcomes that would fit within that. Hello, howard. Q.good afternoon. >> Morrison: I'm not talking about moving this funding out, out of the transportation fund, I'm talking about putting a special bucket in there, and it's not clear to me we even know exactly what those programs would be right now. It's also I just want to say I understand that the ending balance of the transportation fund is $1.1 million this career. So this would -- if we put a special line item in the transportation fund of this $570,000, it would reduce the ending balance, but doesn't require any other jostling of any other planned activities that you have. >> Howard lazarus, public works director. There are many things that we do each year that I think would qualify for types of activities that you just mentioned. I think maybe what we could do a better job of is highlighting what those things are. Some of the things we had talked about for the coming year included relooking at our transportation criteria manual and make it more inclusive, less descriptive and more adaptful, particularly at relates in working in areas of established infrastructure. We also are doing things there that relate to increasing bicycle acceptability and I think there are a lot of things we could designate to meet the requirements of what you just mentioned and provide you with some feedback on that without changing the ending balance. The reason for the concern in maintaining the ending balance is two-fold. One as we presented during the financial forecast, we need to keep a balance in coming years so the fund doesn't go negative. We are still this year spending more than we need in revenues and we need to reverse it. The he could is is make sure we maintain enough of a balance to address contingencies. A couple years ago when we had fun spin on hurricane spans. I would offer that maybe what we could do instead of designating an additional $570,000 in expenditures, identify those things that need the criteria what you just mentioned. >> Morrison: I procedure that input. The reason I would like to go ahead with a motion is you mean can of fold. One, you are talking about improving the things that we're already doing. I'm talking about going above and beyond things. We've had transfers in the past and talked about having a whole list of discussions about transfer and if we -- this for me is a way they are sort of able to maintain a similarity to what we were doing, make sure that we're focusing on the transportation system and keeps us from having a piecemeal change in our transfer policies and allows us to have that discussion over you're overall. I think we have our budget set and I think we're going to see as we have every year that there are council priorities that come up through our interaction with folks in the community that I think especially if we try to ensure a tie between this, equity and transportation system, as seen through the imagine austin plan, then I think it's a really good exercise for us to keep in mind that imagine austin, we're supposed to be using it as a guide for how we move forward. A couple of things that i would -- I would envision. This could be use for it just to give you a flavor what I'm thinking about. I'm not going to suggest we allocate this money by any means at this point and i would think we could leave it open and work with staff to help gather ideas. One, I was originally thinking about cruising it for continuation of the safe routes to school program. Because that was grand funded and the grant funding as ending. And safe route to school is an amazing program that, you know, I think the numbers show increasing active travis county to schools in some neighbors by some just a little bit, by some 10, and I think I saw 10 and 15%. That's amazing changes. It turns out that public works has picked up those positions and is going to continue the safe routes to school program for a program like it. It no longer fund 9. Is that correct? >> That's correct. I said with burliss and he explained the grant position they had for the public health trainers was not going to be remood. We talked about how to THEREFORE THOSE FTEs INTO Child safety zone. And we were able to accommodate that and I think both of us are extremely, combining the training and education with the infrastructure and physical part of it. The best and most recent examples are the green lines by zilker elementary school which is one case those things come together really well and willing to create healthier choices when it comes to getting things from school. We're excited about that. The staff are great people. I think the [inaudible] is phenominal. We will continue the relationship to make sure we continue the progress they made. >> Morrison: That's great. That means we don't need to think about it or we could expand it. With regard to safe routes to school, I want to mention I hope that especially now that if we have more layover, I did see the criteria for selecting a school and I don't see a measure of, like, childhood obesity and different health indicators in the criteria and I really think that we should be addressing hot spots there and I hope that we can talk about doing that in dove springs. [One moment, please, for change in captioners] >> so we are excited about the process of expensing -- expending the value of the dollars that are specifically set aside for traffic calming that is an enforcement of the future of what we are doing. I will let rob address it. >> Before rob starts it, I want to say I congratulate you on that. I know under your leadership, public works has really increased the efficiency of the work that we do by coordinating different efforts and not going back over and over again. >> Thank you very much. >> Will you tell me where that comes fro. >> To support more equitable transportation system tied to imagine austin. where does it come from? >> Morrison: It comes from the ending balance of the transportation fund. so that's a revenue neutral? >> It's -- I don't know if it's accurate to say it's revenue neutral. The department or the fund 1 million ending balance projected for fiscal year '13 with this proposal that would put it 538,769. So they weren't proposing to increase the rate. It just draws down the ending balance. all right. >> Robert phillips transportation department. I don't know if you were requesting a response with regard to the traffic calming. I wasn't quite sure. But you are absolutely right. There has always been a backlog. In fact, that's why we moved from the previous neighborhood calm to go the new latm, more than just acronym. It is really designed to try to resolve that backlog. There is certainly some different procedure that is we think will accelerate that and we have gotten a huge response to that change and clearly that's a set of product that is the communities want. We are working with public works and I know there was discussion about staffing the issues. We are going to be working with public works to see if we can use some of the existing staffing that howard has to get over the hump of restarting or reenergizing the whole program. >> Morrison: I guess my point is, for me, this is an example of where it might make sense to try to go above and beyond what we have already budgeted, because speeding traffic through neighborhoods is a product of densefi cation and the growth we have and one of the goals of imagine austin is to protect the integrity of the neighborhood and this program is specifically to cut down on a safety issue and something that impacts quality of life and neighborhoods and so if we only have 3/4 of a person assigned to it right now, it really could help rise it up a little bit. >> So this money is for actual traffic calming infrastructure, or is this purely -- >> actually, mayor, we fund the infrastructure through bond funds. We have bond funds. Who are getting ready to hire a rapid response. what would you do with this money if it weren't spent for planning. >> We would use the front side of that to run the process to get community buy-in when an issue is brought to our attention and then, also, on the management of that contract. Yes. >> Mayor, I do want to be clear, though, that if we are doing -- if we are going and doing routine pavement maintenance in the neighborhood and there are areas where traffic calming devices are going to go in, we will pay for that out of our operating budget, which is the transportation fund. So while there are dedicated capital dollars for traffic calming, if it's done instant to other work, we will pay for it out of the fund. so it might or might not be spent for infrastructure? >> Yes, sir. That's correct. >> Morrison: And, mayor, what i was intending to do with this motion is to move some funds into the specific line item for priorities that come up like this, within the -- to improve the transportation system but working under these kind of assumptions, yes. That's my motion on that. Now I have my last motion. we will put that one on the table. >> Morrison: Okay. Thank you. The last one is an a austin energy item. We have had some folks come talk to us about the amount of funding that's budgeted for the solar rebate programs -- does this have to do with the general fund budget? >> Morrison: No, but it's the operating fund budget. Ed, is this something I should be talking about under number 1? >> Item number 1 approves the operating budget for all department general fund and nongen fund. Your amendments need to come now. >> Morrison: Okay. >> Morrison: Amount of money allocated to the solar program was $4 million. We heard a lot of folks suggesting that it should be higher. It should be $10 million, and to show our strengths and our commitment, we have heard from weis that there is a commitment to meet the demand for the rebate program, even if it exceeds $4 million, and I do want to note that we have a lot of good work going on in the local solar advisory committee and they will be coming to us for a recommendation for future years, not this year. I guess the timing doesn't work. For future years of recommendations on how much should be allocated to the solar program, you know, on a longer horizon. So what I would like to do is try to find some middle ground here because we did have a 10 million-dollar recommendation from the local solar advisory committee. Their budget working group actually, I believe, came up with 7 and a half million dollars and showed a methodical outlay of how that would work, so I would like to make a motion that we -- that we amend the proposed budget of austin energy to increase appropriations in 5 million, to 5 for the solar program. And I understand it's similar to the situation -- the situation is similar to what we talked about was the transportation fund. There is an ending balance there so it would just be -- it would just be adjusted to account for this extra 3 and a -- 3 and a half million dollars. any other questions? >> Morrison: If we can put that on the taint I do have a question about the austin energy operating fund beyond that. okay, without objection, that's on the table. Go ahead, council member. >> Morrison: Great. We also heard quite a bit about funding for clean air force and there is some suggesting that we have been funding the membership -- our membership there at 90,000-dollar level for 20 something years or something like that. There was some suggestion that we might change that this year, and I understand that that change is off the table. >> Let me, if I may ask our chief of sustainability officer to respond to that. Essentially, yes, there is and she is going to outline an alternate proposal for this year but talk about going forward after that. >> Yes, we are planning to continue the funding for the clean air force as a it has been previously, so that's the plan for the next -- this next budget year. WEñooRa Responding to a resolution from council that you will recall that asked to have to do with an assessment of how we can be working towards improving air quality in our region and so those -- that report and some recommendations that are coming out of quite a bit of stakeholder process that we have been undertaking will be forthcoming to you and I think that will help inform for the next budget cycle what we would want to do with our resources, but for the next budget year, we are planning to can't the support of the clean air force. >> So we will have plenty of time to talk about it. >> Yes. >> Morrison: And figure out what's -- because I was hearing let's shift some money to marketing, and to me, we need time to talk about that, because collaboration -- regional collaboration is not necessarily the same as marketing and we didn't really have a chance to have that discussion so i appreciate you being able to change that. >> Absolutely. You will have plenty of time to review the report. I think you will be pleased the report. It is thorough and 300 comment there is stakeholders that have been taken into account with the recommendations that will come forward to you for your consideration. >> Great. so this does not require. That's already done. It's not a required amendment? And I would like to reinforce council member morrison's comment about this being a marketing effort. Whatever needs to be done to reinforce the idea that this is a regional collaboration effort, an auction-oriented effort and a not a marketing effort, I would suggest that we pass that on to the clean air force and make our plans accordingly, because we've got to get this right next year. >> Thank you. >> Mayor leffingwell: thanks. Council member riley. >> Riley: Thanks, mayor. I want to first say I am very glad to see a number of the amendment that is have come forward. We have covered a lot of ground that I expected to cover, so i am very pleased with where we are. I also have to say there was a lot of good stuff in the budget already and I want to thank the staff for all they did to include a lot of very important items within the proposed budget. There are a couple of outstanding concerns that i have, one of which I want to address first. That relates to early childhood services. This is an issue that has been troubling to a lot of folks in the community and -- I was talking about the spider that was on the dyas here. Sorry. [Laughter] >> Riley: That's another concern. [Laughter] but -- but with respect to early childhood services, as y'all know, we went through a very difficult process over the past year or two to go through the reworking of the way we fund our social services programs and one outcome of that was that there was significant cuts to funding for early childhood programs. We heard from a lot of folks in the community that really want some further attention because we all know what critical needs there are with respect to early childhood programs. There is a wildly held sense that we are not doing nearly enough to address that critical need, and so we have struggled to figure out ways that it could be better addressed within the context of the current budget and I would like -- I wish i could say we had come up with a solution but at this point i can't say that. This is not in the nature of a one time need that we can look to the budget revenue -- the budget stabilization reserve fund for. This is -- these are -- these are long-standing, ongoing needs, and the question is, can we figure out sustainable funding sources to support those important efforts on an ongoing basis? That is not -- we are not going to be able to solve that today, but we can give it continued attention in the public health and human services committee and a I just wanted to make a note of the importance that we continue those discussions, unless my colleagues have other suggestion that is we haven't heard yet about ways to address that, I would just note that we have talked within that -- that subcommittee about a it. Our expectation that we will be continuing the conversation about that important problem. When he even talked about -- we even talked about having a youth submit this fall to get more stakeholders to the table and figure out more planstor goings for going forward and I want to emphasize we take it very seriously and i wish I had a better solution to offer that today, but I will say that my hope is that we will, through the course of efforts in the -- if that subcommittee, that I hope -- in that subcommittee, I hope we will be able to come up with funding -- I would hope we would be able a to consider a midyear budget amendment this fiscal year to the extent we can identify funding to be able provide support for the important service that is have suffered some cuts over the past couple of years. With that said, I want to shift to one other item that's much -- that I hope will be a much simpler item and that relates to to -- to the fee structure of one of our parks. And saltillo, I asked a question, budget question number 21 about the fees. The city currently leases prezza saltillo from capital metro and has strived to maintain that park and we would like to see it made available to community park that is could bring life to that park that critically located on the transit line in central east austin. We have talked to community groups and other stakeholders of ways to revive the park an one thing that is clear is we can do a better job of structuring our fees, to make it easier for groups to rent the park and for -- for events that -- some events that may be even less than a day. So I have -- based on all of those discussions with stakeholders and staff, I have a proposed amendment that would revise the fee structure for plaza saltillo, adding 150 per day maintenance fee of rental of $150 for four hours. Reduce electricity fee of $150 per day to $50 per day and delete the $200 per day minimum fee. It would also amend the proposed budget of the general fund, the increased revenues from parks fees by $21,731 based upon these amended fees for plaza saltillo and amend the proposed budget for parks department and increased appropriations for the same amount and had half time for maintenance of plaza saltillo so revising the fee structure, adding a half time -- .5 f.t.e. For maintenance, and then adjusting the budget numbers based on their expectations of the additional revenues that that fee structure would bring in once we are able to make the park available on a more frequent basis. So that's the amendment that i looked over. That's all I have. >> Mayor. go ahead, ed. >> I want to -- in regards to that motion, we have the fee amendment down. I think the motion for item number 1, though, would simply be the revenue increase and the and them we will bring back to council on item 3 the ac amendment to the fee. >> Mayor leffingwell: okay. So is this revenue neutral with the general fund? >> This is revenue neutral to the general fund. 21,000 increase revenues from fees, and 21,700 in increased appropriations. >> Correct. anything else, council member? Council member tovo. >> Tovo: I have some amendments to propose but I would like to ask some questions about this item, if I may, probably ask it of the parks department. First of all, I think it sounds like a great idea and i appreciate the creativity, council member riley in bringing this forward. I just wonder if we've got any other examples to point total tax suggest that the fee -- that having that half time position will indeed bring in that amount of revenue, because, you know, at the last -- certainly none of us want to move forward in a direction that, if it doesn't pan out, you know, represents $21,000 more you need to find in your budget. But do you have a pretty good sense that reducing the fees in this way will indeed bring in the expected amount of revenue? >> Council member, sarah hensley director of parks and recreation. In this particular case, we do. This is a site where we have not been able to utilize in a rental capacity like we would like to, and we believe -- we were given some opportunity to really do some analysis and actually this -- we believe will come to fruition and be able to cover 5 position and maybe even more, to be able to open it up and have rentals there and have it available to the public. >> Tovo: Great. I am glad to hear that. So some of the logistical issues that you have raised here, it sounds like there are good solutions to them with regard to electricity access and things of that nature. Do you feel those aren't going to be impediments? >> No, the other thing, this is a site where we have had some requests for use already, whether it be receptions or small activities, and we weren't able to accommodate because of the lack of being able to pay attention to it from a maintenance perspective, and truthfully, we didn't want to open it up and allow for use and not be able to take care of it prop her i. This is sort of a win win, to be able to open it up, allow for a rental, reduce and kind of restructure the fees, still be able to generate the revenue and cover the costs. Not saying there aren't other opportunities out there to do the same. This is the one we have been able to tackle and staff did a good job of analyzing how it could come out but we believe this will generate to cover enough money not only the position but also generate a little more that will help it. >> Tovo: Great. I think that's great if it serves as a good model for other sites. >> Absolutely. >> Tovo: I appreciate your work and for council member riley for the idea. >> Thank you. >> Mayor leffingwell: go ahead. >> Tovo: I have several amendments to suggest. I will start with the one we haven't talked about yesterday today and I did hand out three yellow sheets on the dyas. The first one is to keep austin water utilities contribution to the sustainability fund at 1%, consistent with previous years, and then to increase the transfer to neighborhood housing and community development to support administrative staff salaries, so as background, you know, we have heard from housing advocates, as well as from the cities community develop commission that they have serious concerns about what would precedent setting change in how we use the housing trust fund money to approve the budget as it is currently proposed. In this year's budget, four administrative positions totaling $557,000 would be shifted to the housing trust fund and that would, in effect, make less money available for the direct assistance that is the primary purpose of the housing trust fund and so i share those concerns. I think it's really critical we have that money available for purposes to which the housing trust fund was set up which are home buyer education, counseling for owners who are in danger of losing their home. Financial education, tenant assistance for the homeless, downpayment assistance for individuals with disabilities. There are many, many critical programs that operate right now with the support of the housing trust fund that would be impacted by this shift and I do think we have a good solution available to us. In the past the austin water utility has transferred 1% of its revenue to the sustainability fund. This year, it's proposed to transfer slightly less. If we keep their contribution to the -- their transfer to the sustainability fund at a constant level of 1%, that yields $659,203, and that would fund for neighborhood housing and community housing positions which total $557,518, and, indeed, result in about $101,000 difference and I have, as you will see, another motion that speaks to the use of those fun. So that is the first amendment i would like to propose and a i believe we -- and I believe we have staff here to talk about -- can you give perspective me the numbers again? >> Tovo: Yes, and, actually, mayor, it's on the -- I have another set. I believe so. Those numbers, to amend, it would be to amend the proposed budget of the water utility to increase sustainability fund in the amount of $359,203 and to increase transfers in from water utility business in $659,203 and amend the proposed budget of sustainability fund increased transfers out to neighborhood howing in the amount of 557,518, and then amend neighborhood housing to increase transfers in, 557,518, and then to amend the proposed budget of the housing trust fund to reduce appropriations in the amount of $557,518. vandeho for working the ins and outs and whatnot. That should be pretty close to the language that he had proposed. And as I was saying, I believe we have staff from neighborhood housing and community development here as any of my colleagues have questions about the housing trust fund, how it's typically used. I did is several budget questions that are relevant to this issue and hopefully my colleagues are had an opportunity to read them but in the past the only staff that has been used to fund the housing trust fund is a position directly related to -- directly related to rental assistance counseling, I believe, or housing counseling and I believe I am correct in saying that when we did have a situation this -- very recently when where the tenants in one of our multi-family housing that needed assistants, I believe it was the trust fund support that was went to bare on that situation so i think it's critical that we make this budget amendment. I will object. Get it on the table. Do you have a comment, council member morrison. >> Morrison: I have a question. spencer could talk a little bit about, if we do this and it loosens up some hundreds of thousands of dollars, I take it, in the housing trust fund, so what would be the process of figuring out what to use that money on? >> Typically we use the funds in our rental housing development program or our and acquisition and development. And supports ownership and rhd supports rental housing. We typically include that in the application process, on or october 1st when folks apply for go bonds, from the housing trust fund and when we apply, we score everybody and allocate funds, the trust funds typically go out through that process. >> Morrison: So this would, in effect, really allow for additional funding to go directly to housing? Right? I have a question for somebody from the water utility. From your perspective, this is about $659,000 a transfer out to the sustainability fund, most of which should be spent on cdc? Tell me how this relates to the delivery of treated water to our customers and the recovery of wastewater. >> Greg lazarus with austin water utility. It doesn't directly relate to that. They will have historically transferred 1% of our revenues in support of the sustainability programs and community health programs, so to the degree those kind of investments support the overall health of the community -- well, i just asked you what the relationship was. Not what the past justification is. >> It's not directly related to the provision of water and wastewater services. so that -- this is kind of the discussion we have had over the last six months, about austin energy. Austin energy paying for things that weren't directly related to their primary mission, and there was a long discussion about how we are going to try to set about correcting that. But we haven't yet had that discussion, about what -- the austin water utility also funds a lot of services and projects and programs and aren't -- don't have anything to do with the delivery of water to our customers or the recovery of wastewater and so I thinks this the place to begin that discussion. We need to take a hard look at any item that would cause a utility to spend money on thing that is are unrelated to their primary mission. This is the old thing we have been doing for years and years and years, and that is using our utilities basically as cash cows to fund other services. Thanks. >> Mayor. council member spelman. >> Spelman: Would you prefer to have council member tovo continue or can we still ask questions about this item? well, i think we can go back to council member tovo after -- do you have something in response or -- >> [indiscernible] >> mayor leffingwell: go ahead. We are going to -- we aren't going to fight over it. Go ahead, anybody. >> Spelman: A quick question on the use of the -- the current recent uses of the housing trust fund money. I understand the idea that this s with one fairly minor exception which is closely related to what the housing trust fund has usually been used for, but I am looking at response to council member tovo's request number 31, how the housing trust fund might actually have been used, and i will keep the -- I don't know if you have a copy of it in front of you, that's great. Terrific. Okay. In every year -- fiscal year '10, '11, '12, we have actual revenues which are probably -- full of numbers, budget requirements which I presume are the program requirements which were passed by the city council in '09 and '10 and '11 prior to the fiscal year, and the actual program requirements, which are roughly one-third of the actual budget program requirements. I wonder -- it is an interesting pattern, budget $2 million and spend $600,000 and we do that for every year three years running. So why is it the budget requirements are so much higher than the actual uses? >> My understanding of the requirements is they are actually -- it is the carry forward funds. It's money that has been in there. Again, you are absolutely right. The third column is what was actually spent and so this current year -- the year that we are in now, there are several project that is we have just actually -- are this close to starting construction on, to which we have dedicated the funds, so that we would expect the -- the challenge has been that some of the project that is we have dedicated the funds for in the past either didn't make or we ended up using other funds for, so this current year, we have got three different projects that we expect to spend the majority of the funds on and several of them are within weeks to be able to get started. Historically I can't speak real directly why they weren't spent before. But I do know the last two years we had them dedicated to programs that either we were able to use other funds for, or to the projects that I have got right now, have been on the books for a very long time. >> Spelman: Kind of like the presumption we have made is we will take the fund balance down to zero every year and for whatever reason, we have found other ways of funding things we needed in the fund or they haven't worked out. We haven't been able to do that. The reason I bring this up is there is a presumption in this year's budget is that we will bring the fund balance down to zero again and my guess is we probably won't bring it down to zero this year any more than the previous three fiscal years and the end of this fiscal year, there is probably going to be a fund balance from the trust fund. >> There may or may not, with all of the programs and real estate and the difficulty part with our application process or funding projects is the ability to cobble together all of the funds, get the permits, get all of the stuff together for the project to begin. Sometimes they can take six, twelve months for an a project to actually start. From the moment we dedicate funds to when it actually will occur, affordable housing being one of the activities more complicated than straight up real estate or a for profit kind of activity, sometimes it just takes longer for these projects to get started, so it would -- we may or may not have a balance at the end of the next fiscal year, but we tend to, in our budgeting process, allocate the funds, we just don't always have the opportunity to spend the funds. >> It looks like the last three years we haven't had the opportunity to spend 2/3 of the funds by and large but there is reason for believing because there are some project that is are on the verge of being able to make, that this year we might actually be in a position to spend all of the money that is budgeted in the previous fiscal years? >> Yes, sir. >> Okay. >> Is there a way you could put a possibility? Is there a way -- a possibility -- a possibility is just a possibility, we are in a weird of position of setting up a budget where maybe this will work, maybe it won't. My best guess, based on past experience ought to be about a third of what it is that we have allocated we will actually spend and, therefore, my best guess is even if we spend $557,000 on personnel, which, of course, would be an anomaly, something we have ever done before. If we did that and set a ide 2 million for everything else, chances are we will only spend 2 and stillave 800,000 left in the trust fund at thend o the year. Is there a number you can give me which is your most probable guess or something else other than the possibility of having it left at the end of this to give me a sense of how much we will be giving up from the uses for which the housing trust fund was originally envisioned by setting aside 557,000 for s from the housing trust fund money. >> Let me see ifs this a different way to answer that. >> Okay. >> Of the million 7 that we have budgeted for '12-'13, several hundred thousand is for what we call the anderson 24 unit project which has been a commitment that we have had for quite a while. We are currently in the purchasing process on that, i hope the and expect to start construction in the fall. The other one is juniper olive phase three which we are pending permits for. Once we get the permits, that work will begin. Then the third project is the life works project. Probably of all of the tree projects I listed, the third one is probably the one that will take the longest. The other two projects are both very real and I expect to spend funds this fall. >> How much money is in the anderson and in the juniper lines? >> Roughly $400,000 each. >> About 8 hun thousand dollars, we can say we are real likely to be spending, and the amount in the lifeworks line is a little less likely? >> About 200. >> About 200 for that? >> Uh-huh. >> So your best guess is about a 8 roughly? >> Uh-huh, yes, sir. 5 and still 2 left -- we will still have a little money left over. We will still be able to meet the needs you identified right now? >> Yes, sir. >> Spelman: Okay. That's what I needed to know. Thank you. >> Uh-huh. council member tovo. >> Tovo: Thanks for walking through that. I would like to talk a little bit more about some of the items in the community development commission letter. We have gotten also some feedback from the housing repair coalition requesting, again, they were concerned about this and their point was that they could certainly absorb more housing -- there is a great demand for housing repair that they could satisfy if their budget was increased through the housing trust fund. Would you concur, that's the case that, we have needy families in our communities that could benefit from the housing repair funds, if that's a decision. >> I believe we have people that benefit all of our programs to include the home repair program. >> The community development commission's letter talks about the consequences of allowing such a decline in the funding for housing programs. They talk about the city's action plan and some of the decrees are that are in the 2012-2013 action plan, that it projects 47 fewer families will be assisted in transitioning out of homelessness, while only 13 units of rental housing will be produced in the coming fiscal year. Do you agree those are accurate? >> Yes. >> Tovo: So to get back to council member spelman's question, what we might do with those funds if they aren't going to fund salaries, are those ways in which the housing trust fund moneys could be deployed, to try to get the numbers back to where they were the year before? >> They are certainly eligible expenses. >> Tovo: One of the other discussions that we have been having has to do with multi-family housing and the extent to which that will be an increased priority of code compliance. It would seem to me that that would also create some new service demands on neighborhood housing and community development and I did is a question about that in the budget process and I think the answer was, you know, it niece at possible at this point to certain whatever additional service demands there might be but would you say that is one consequence if we had code enforcement -- code compliance -- I knew they had a new name but I couldn't come up -- but new code compliance inspectors looking at family housing and responding more rapidly about concerns of multi-housing families that may need significant repairs, is that more of a for tenant counseling, rental assistance, thing that is are through the program -- having trust fund money? >> Yes, when the question came to us, because we didn't have a lot of time, we didn't really have the opportunity to put thorough research on what the impact of that could be but i can certainly tell you from the wood ridge experience, if we continue to have more opportunities like that, then we will be resource strapped as a department as well as the tenants rights council. >> So that would be another eligible expense as I understand it for the housing trust fund money? >> Uh-huh. Yes, ma'am. >> Tovo: So I guess the last question I had about housing trust fund is I understand that, of course we don't want our money sitting in a fund rather than being out, providing direct assistance, but it would seem to me that sometimes you might may have to let the funds accumulate so that you can undertake some of the project that is are costlier. Is that part of the rationale of not spending that down to zero every year. >> I would say one of the biggest impacts is the go bonds, in addition to being a significant amount of money sometimes for the applications. But we have been very fortunate with if go bonds to be able to provide towards probables. For us -- I don't like to use this term generally but the perfect storm has occurred the last few years with the federal funds, go bonds being spent, everything is suddenly coming to light. There -- I would not say concerted effort to not spend the housing trust fund dollars, we just had an ability through other opportunities to utilize those funds first. >> But go bonds would not be able to be used for all of the things we just talked about? >> They would not be used for support services, but any capital improvements, they would be. >> Tovo: Right. The letter that we all received from housing works -- I think we all received it, maybe I just received it from housing works this morning, talked about certain programs that make use of the housing trust fund moneys that are not eligible -- they are not eligible for go bonds fund support. Can you give us a couple of examples of what some of those might be? Programs that are not eligible? >> I apologize off the top of my head. >> Tovo: Okay. Sorry to put you on the spot. I have the letter somewhere. >> Miles per hour, it would be more along tenants counseling support or social services type acuity. Anything that is capital should be eligible under go bond. >> Tovo: Downpayment assistance, financial education. >> Correct. >> Tovo: Those are the kinds of programs currently being funded through the housing trust fund and would on the to be eligible expenses but would not be eligible for go bond money. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Tovo: Is that about right. And then the last thing about the sustainability fund, the questions about the relationship between the programs that the sustainability fund has in the past funded and the water utility, the sustainability fund, I had an opportunity to go along with the staff of kind of siphoning the past history of the sustainability fund and when it was created in 2000 and 2001, it was -- its purpose was set forward to provide resources for projects to help the city of austin build a economic, environmental and good infrastructure and we have learned that it helped fund things like workforce development, childcare initiative and community technology and then affordable housing came into play. At some point since its creation but they have always been eligible programs in support of sustainability -- the general goals of the sustainability fund. And austin water utility as i understand it has always contributed at 1% level. Is that right? >> That is all correct. >> Tovo: Sos this the first year where the 1% would have dipped down that we know of? >> Yes, sir. Yes. The first year. >> Tovo: Thank you. So -- and. and i feel like I have to respond, yes, yes, we have been doing these things for many years. The energy company has been doing the same thing for many years, but the end result of it is our -- in the case of austin energy, those customers have to pay for that. Some of them adopt live in the city of austin. The case of the water utility, those rate payers have to pay for that. That's the reason -- I am not saying absolutely all of these are not legitimate expenses. I am saying as we have begun that discussion with regard to austin energy, so should we begin it with regard to the water utility. Council member tovo, morrison. >> Morrison: I just wanted to chime in on that. We've had -- we have been focusing in on this budget for the past several months and when it came up in the earlier months, talking about dismantling the process and the sustainability support, you know, I think everybody recognizes we need to have that discussion, but I am not comfortable doing is dismantling it in a piecemeal way. If we are going to be changing and shift weigh I from those kinds of transfers and those kinds of support, then I want to make sure that we talk about a what are the impacts of that. What are we developing. How does that -- what are we dropping. It impacts the property tax rate if the general fund doesn't pick it up. Otherwise, we are just not going to be supporting some of these programs that are -- you know, have been -- many of them critical to helping to lift folks up and it was make austin -- bring austin to the prosperity that it has, that, in the end, supports the -- these different utilities, so while i agree we need to have the discussion, I will not -- I just can't support dismantling this policy in the piecemeal way. and nobody suggested dismantling it in a piecemeal way. Council member tovo. >> Morrison: Mayor if I can just respond. >> Mayor leffingwell: yes. >> Morrison: My point is, if we are undoing some of the two or three funds transfers this year, it looks like we are dismantling it in a piecemeal way so i disagree with that. and we can agree todays gree. -- We can agree to disagree. Anything else council member? Do you have another item. >> Tovo: I do. with no objection, this one is on the take. Go ahead with the next one. >> Tovo: I agree with both of you. I think we should have a policy discussion about a it. In the meantime, we should not make decisions that have the impact of dismantling the fund or the program without having that full policy discussion. I know that we had an opportunity to talk about a similar issue during the austin energy rate case, but I -- we have not, at this point, had a full policy discussion about the sustainability fund. There are some changes this year in terms of which -- which departments are making those transfers, but, again, I would strenuously argue that we have this policy discussion as a full comprehensive discussion, and at this point we keep the austin water utilities transfer at the rate it has been, since we have not had a policy discussion to the contrary. So my next item relates to that. I think I will skip to that one. As I mentioned, bumping up the -- or keeping the austin water utilities transfer rate to a consistent 1% does have the net result of providing an opportunity to fund those administrative staffing positions and there would be a balance of $101,685,000, so you will see -- 101, $685 and you will see a motion to allocate support for senior programs in neighborhoods that are high crime and high poverty and my shorthand here, I just want to explain, we have obviously a lot of neighborhoods that are -- where we have economic challenges. These funds are not great, $101,000 is a relatively small amount of money for this budget line, and that's why I have suggested that we is hard to use strategically to look for those areas experiencing high levels of poverty as well as high levels of crime. We have more information on the rovers leader q and a program. I think it will be a dynamic program for this funding. It's listed as one of the unmet needs within par for a very high dollar cost but I think there has been a lot of back and forth in council member morrison on ways to scale this down. This is an opportunity we had an opportunity to talk about at our youth -- our counselor retreat. We had an opportunity to talk about the roving leaders and the significant impact that that program had on reducing crime among young people in our city and I think it's a very, very solid investment of our dollars, so I would suggest if this motion passes that we is hard to perhaps return to us on how to spend what is really a small dollar amount again in that and the other opportunity that i think is really a critical one, if you notice another question council member morrison had asked member -- 68, talks about the fees, this is something i heard about constituents and other colleagues may have as well. The fees for our program -- for programs not our facilities have increased. In some cases they have increased from a fee of 0 to $175. And this is -- this is going to pose -- I am sorry, $125. This is going to pose a real challenge for many of the families in those neighborhoods. In the past, as I understand it, recreation center staff have been able to make some adjustments to those fees and propose fees that they thought the families in that community could handle. In this case, what we would be doing, as part of this budget, is standardizing those fees, so no matter where you live in the city, you would be responsible for the same level of fee, though the families in that community may be able to less able to bare it. I know some of the questions present in the q and a it is present of pard to provide fee waivers or scholarships or other financial as assistance but as far as this budget goes, there are no plans tods and I think -- to do so and I think the 101,000 provides some opportunities to provide some very, very limited assistance in that way. I will leave it there and let people chime in. so we have 659,000 from the water utility. >> Tovo: From the sustainability fund. and proposing to use 557 for one purpose and 101 or 102 for the other? >> Tovo: Correct. 102 for pard and these are two separate? >> Tovo: Right and the 101 depends on the first one passing. We would need to agree to increase the sustainability fund transfer from the water utility to have those moneys available for neighborhood housing and then as a separate -- a separate matter -- this page is incooperative here? >> Tovo: I haven't gotten to that one yet. oh, you haven't gotten to that. It's another one. >> Tovo: I will move to that quickly. It is a downtown different fund. -- it is a different fund. with no objection, we will lay that on the table and go to the next one. Council member morrison. >> Morrison: I did have a question about the 101 from the sustainability. Can we consider that ongoing funding or does that have to be thought of as a one-time thing? >> That could be on source of revenue, the water utility increase transfer back to 1% where it has been, that would be ongoing source of revenue. >> Morrison: Okay. What I would like to suggest we think about, in terms of roving leaders, the answer we got from staff is we need about -- we could actually implement it in phases and although it had 800,000-dollar price tag, we could actually implement phase one with a quarter of one of four teams that would be one that I believe is about 100,000, and then about 100,000 plus a little bit more in one time capital fund. So I just wanted to put that into the mix because that's -- that would be a possibility to actually get that going this time. that is just discussion item, council member? >> Morrison: It's just a discussion. >> Mayor leffingwell: okay. >> Morrison: I would also like to chime in on the fees. My question -- I would urge all of my colleagues to look at the answer to question number 68, because it is -- I understand staff wanting to standardize things, and what they have done is what's the cost of the program, how many kids are there, and then they included a subsidy based on the type of program, so what seems like a good approach, and as i understand, the subsidy is for youth development, subsidized to 50% and for recreational athlete tick, it subsidized at 30%, but I really think that we need to look at subsidizing -- either doing it on needs base or subsidizing based on geographic -- income levels in the geographic area that it serves and I don't know which way would be the best way to do it but I hope we can have some continuing discussions about that. council member. >> Tovo: Yes. I want to say that I would absolutely support a motion, and if one isn't forthcoming, I will make one, to provide for some one time funding for the capital expenses for roving leaders. So at last, we had an opportunity today to look at the drainage utility fund in executive session and I would like to ask staff from watershed, if they would be willing to come talk about a few matters. >> For the drainage utility fund, as I understand by purpose set up by state law is to impact areas like erosion control, storm water detention. I wonder if you will briefly describe what the purpose of the drainage utility fund is and how it can be used. >> I am for the watershed protection and barbara lee, for this fund, the mission is to do for water quality control, erosion control. >> And those -- >> Tovo: And those controls as i understand the state statute can be both artificial as well as natural? >> Absolutely. >> Tovo: So one of the things that I have asked some questions about through the budget process has to do with one -- the extent to which we turn our pard department, the forestry department and other programs around the city engage in tree maintenance and watering, and whether those might be eligible expenses for the drainage utility fund, and I wonder if you could address, in situations where they are -- can be -- can be illustrated to show that -- or can be illustrated to show -- can -- in areas where trees and vegetation and the watering and preventative maintenance of such have storm water benefits, would those be eligible expenses for the drainage utility fund? >> We definitely recognize the benefit of trees and vegetation, the benefits to storm water management. It helps, with storm water absorption and also water quality control. However, our understanding of the benefit has been broad and general. And we have not had a chance to quantify the type of benefit, and if you know that -- as you know, the drainage utility fund is limited but our needs is tremendous. We have -- our master plans need this cost estimate as about 2 million, so we are -- 2 billion so we are trying to budget for the next 40 years, plus all of these other council initiatives, like the tod development and all of these drainage, the utilities that we need to accommodate and support different types of initiatives. The total cost is tremendous, 3 billion, 4 billion, depending on what you need to include. So with all of that in mind, our management strategy has been using strategic partnership and also database decisions to produce the biggest bang for the buck so that we can maximize our utility fund and so we have prioritizing and we do appreciate this opportunity to look at the trees and vegetation's benefits in trying to do more studies and quantify that so that we can include that in our document. >> In looking at some of the past work done, it looks like in 2008, there was a study done that actually did quantify the storm water benefits of the trees here in austin and estimated that benefit at being somewhere in the neighborhood of $3 million. Is that -- is that accurate? >> Yes. I believe that study was conducted maybe by the parks department. We would like to have an opportunity to review that and verify the benefit and do a study so that we can continue to produce bigger bang for the buck. >> Tovo: Could you describe for me or a member of your staff what the storm water benefit -- how the trees assist us in terms of storm water benefit? If you can sum it up. >> Basically the trees absorb lot of water, when you have quick run off, the trees absorb the running water and at the same time, because the storm water goes through vegetation, goes through trees, then it produces water quality type of control. And at the same time, chief vegetation grabs the soil and helps with erosion and so erosion would not happen if there are trees and vegetation there that help with the water quality in our creek. >> Tovo: Thanks. So we have talked -- you know, we have certainly heard from constituents about their interest in seeing more money for maintenance of our parks, especially more -- more funds available for tree maintenance and preservation and we know the trees in our city have direct storm water benefits and direct benefits to the purposes that would be in alignment with the purposes of the drainage utility fund so I am proposing -- i understand from going back and forth with staff that there is no way today to quantify what that dollar amount is, so when we look at, for example, the 770,000-dollarish, that pard has in their budget for watering our public parks, that is a cost entirely absorbed by the parks department right now but certainly some portion of those would be eligible for funding through the drainage utility fund because they meet the benefits of that fund. There is no way for us today to quantify what that number is or figure out from the forestry budget to what extent within 8 million program, how much of that might be directly benefiting storm water, erosion control and some of the other purposes of the drainage utility fund, but I think those are very important questions to get to the bottom of because we do have a need to increase our resources in that area and increase the funds that we have available for tree maintenance and preservation. I believe recently we had a discussion at the auditing and finance committee about our schedule -- the amount of time -- the amount a of dollars we have to spend on landscaping and tree preservation and maintenance and then 91 years it would take for the existing staff to attend to all of the 300,000 -- the 300,000 trees within our city's inventory. So I think this is an important question to get to the bottom of. We won't get to the bottom of it today so I have, with the help of staff, I am proposing an amendment -- an amendment that we would prioritize up to 1% of the drainage utility fund for the maintenance and watering of vegetation and trees, where doing so furthers the mission of the drainage utility as provided in state law. This will direct the city manager to conduct the study regarding the relationship between drainage utility functions prescribed by state law and the maintenance and watering of trees on public land and the necessary fiscal requirements and to report back to us within 90 days. [One moment, please, for change in captioners] thanks very much for being here all day. >> Mayor Leffingwell: I've got a question for you. Don't leave. The question is what do you understand, prioritize for maintenance and water? Do you have to set that money aside? Yes, as I explained, our need is tremendous. We are -- we are using our fund in a way the highest priority. >> Mayor Leffingwell: So this is before the study and analysis takes place. You are already being directed by this motion to set aside 1% of the drainage fund is the way I understand it. >> Up to 1%. >> Mayor Leffingwell: That's your intent, councilmember? >> Tovo: You know, we had gone back and forth a little about the language and I'm certainly open to suggestions about altering it and I would just remind you up to 1% means it can't exceed 1%. It can certainly go a lot lower. >> Mayor Leffingwell: That's why I asked the question what do you understand by that. 1 or 1.0? >> I hope to be able to do an analysis to show the priority and the cost beneficial analysis and then reprioritize the dollar amount. >> Mayor Leffingwell: [Inaudible]. >> Financial manager diane gonzalez. What I understood it to be was 1% of our revenue and that we would have the option with the budget amendment language of deciding whether or not we would want to absorb that, try to absorb that money or take it out of our ending balance which would mean a budget amendment. >> Mayor Leffingwell: So actually when it says up to 1%, you take that to mean 1%? >> Yes. >> Tovo: And I'll point out that one of the reasons that I've landed on 1% or up to 1% is because that is the amount that traditionally has been transferred from the drainage stability fund to the sustainability fund and I believe that I am proposing here fits solidly within, again, the goals of the sustainability fund and how we broadly think about sustainability. I am not proposing this transfer into the sustainability fund. I'm just suggesting this is a way to support our city's commitment to sustainability clearly within the drainage fund. >> Mayor Leffingwell: I'm not going to be able to support this for a couple of reasons because first, as you just described, there's such a long-term need, a 40-year-plus, billion dollar plus need for the kind of work this fund was designed to do. And now we are talking about diverting it for some other funds or having it -- some other purposes that have not been fully exposed, examined. So I'm not going to be able to support this effort to -- once again, to take money from a fund that was established and dedicated for another purpose and use it for another before that purpos sub stand i eight. >> The amount of that 1%. >> Mayor Leffingwell: That's why I asked the question. >> Tovo: That's fine, and I appreciate your comments, mayor, and if you would feel more comfortable seeing the study first, but the intent here is that if we believe there are -- I mean, i believe based on my discussions and also based on the literature I've read, that there are indeed -- there is a very close alignment between the work that our parks department is already doing to preserve and maintain our tree canopy and that we can -- that we are not really proposing a diversion of funds, we wouldn't -- I certainly wouldn't support a diversion of those funds. I'm suggesting that we look at the state statute and its emphasis -- not its emphasis, but it's notation of natural -- natural ways to work toward erosion control and other things and consider those within the mix, broaden, if you would, our thinking about how we undertake addressing these issues. >> Mayor Leffingwell: I understand, but -- >> Tovo: To green infrastructure as well as kind of the built. >> Mayor Leffingwell: vanino pointed out his understanding and mine at this point is this is also a budget amendment to take 1% of the drainage fund and dedicate to maintenance and watering vegetation of these [inaudible]. Is that still part of your motion? >> Tovo: It is, but I'll give a look at it and consider whether -- before it comes up again. Yeah, that is my intent. I mean that was my intent and if it fails, I may make another attempt. >> Mayor Leffingwell: So you understand 1%, you got to figure out what that is and then the other part, the legal he's is redirecting that to another purpose. And as we discussed -- >> Mayor Leffingwell: Councimember spelman. >> Spelman: Ed is bursting with information. He would love to tell us what that 1% is and I'd love to hear it. >> It would probably be about $650,000. >> Spelman: And could anyone give us a sense for what we could expect to accomplish with $650,000 now that we actually have a number? How much watering can we do for $650,000? >> Tovo: Well, we know in this year's budget, one of my budget questions asked how much we are currently spending and I think it was in the neighborhood of $750,000. Again, it's not clear how much of that would be specifically related to watering of trees and vegetation that have storm water benefits. So it's likely a smaller number than 770,000, but there is also work within the forestry program that i think fits really within this mission as well, but it would not exceed that drainage number and I've got that somewhere in my notes as well. 648,000, I believe. >> Sara hencery, director of parks and recreation. There's two things, one is the earth with aing of trees which we're doing now. Not a lot of our parks are irrigated or sprinkled so many trees we plant to continue our urban forest program are knew so we have to hand water those. It takes a lot of extra care to do that and we have to have the water trucks which we have and take go out on a regular basis to make sure they stay alive. Second of all, of course, as the number you quoted, councilmember tovo, we're able to get toen a maintain our trees in if inventory we have which is over 300,000 when you include the cemeteries, one every 90 years. That means we can get around to trees in our inventory every 90 years. Any kind of infusion into the department for forestry purposes would make an impact on being able to help maintain those trees. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Okay. So that is the proposed amendment. We'll lay that on the table. Councilmember morrison. >> Morrison: I would like to make a comment I think this is a really interesting and positive step, this motion, because it's helping us to broaden our understanding of really attacking and addressing our drainage issues and obviously we're overwhelmed in terms of the needs, but it's important to be integrating and thinking about every way to address it so that we can find out the way to be most effective and how to get the biggest bang for your buck. So I think this is the good stuff and to put a stake in the ground to say, yeah, we are going to start integrating this approach to drainage issues with jugs a small amount I think is a really conservative but productive step to take. >> Mayor Leffingwell: I understand, and I would just add to my earlier comment i think it throws into serious question where we don't need to have a question regarding the legitimacy of the drainage fund and that's another reason I'll not be supporting it. So I have one more amendment. Others may have more, but this is all I have. And the motion would be to amend the proposed budget of austin resource recovery by decreasing the appropriation for public education campaign by $1 million. And I would note that the current budget for public education campaigns is 75 million so this would still leave $750,000 in arr for public education campaigns which to me even after the $1 million cut is a staggering number. But just basically for t.v. Ads and the like. In the second part of it is to amend the proposed budget by decreasing revenue by $1 million to reflect the reduction in the clean community, that is what's paying for this public relation campaign, and to use that $1 million, reallocate that $1 million to purposes that I believe originally intended for, street cleanup, graffiti reduction and cleanup and code enforcement, which is very important. I think everyone agrees that we can use that additional money in code enforcement. So it's revenue neutral as it sits right now. It's just reallocation of $1 million from one purpose to another. And that's -- that will be my proposal. Councilmember morrison. >> Morrison: I wonder if we could have [inaudible] come and speak to the fund that's being decreased here, the public education fund. I remember talking about that when we were talking about the whole plan that we were looking at and it was a big number and we had a little discussion. Can you remind us about how you see public education fitting in as being able to achieve our goal? >> Yeah, a couple of quick comments, but I also would want jessica king to answer more precisely. 75 million that the mayor mentioned is spread over two years. It's a two-year spread of expenditures. And I just wanted to clarify that. I also want to note that the education and outreach that's intended by that fund is not only for 800,000 residents in our city but also 20,000 businesses that are affect. We have a responsibility to educate our businesses that are directly affect, and a good majority of them have not been engaged in the process of this discussion. And so -- and I also would note that our visitors to our city are impacted so there's some ongoing education. But I would like jessica to note the 1 million that's being referred to here. >> Good afternoon, council, jessica king. The 1 million that has been referenced in the budget specifically relates to education and outreach to a variety of issues, primarily the [inaudible] and education and outreach primarily again to businesses that will be directly impacted by that ordinance. So the 1 million if that is pulled back would impact the outreach to educate businesses and in particular to the city of austin's customer bases 185,000 customers. So when you look at that million and you look at changing and creating an impact among businesses and about 800,000 residences as well as visitors coming into our city, the impact is pretty tremendous. And so we do have to reach out. It's a very specific, coordinated, focused effort in terms of the message and the campaign so that's why we looked at million initially and 750 k for the next fiscal year for that campaign. So I can answer any more detailed questions if you like. >> Morrison: If I could follow up a little bit, how did you figure out that to be successful with our conversion to reusable bags that it would cost 1.75 million over two years? Can you give a feel for that? >> Sure, absolutely. We looked at other cities that started off with our own campaigns as well. So programs in los angeles, portland, seattle, other cities that adopted -- brownsville also, cities in texas. In addition to that we look at campaigns that really focused on behavior change, that really required people to really rethink how they handle things and how they approach their lives and look at a behavior change because it does take a little rethinking before you go to the grocery store or retail centers to bring your own bags. Looking at that campaign, we looked at one in the city we do right now which is the smoking cessation campaign and that smoking cessation complain looked at how they reached out to the community, the social media efforts that they embarked on, a lot of the outreach not just to citizens through partnerships with cdc online as well as television media, print and a lot of social media when you are looking at that direct citizen to citizen contact, that was really critical to us. When you look at campaigns like that, they averaged in the million range. >> Morrison: And as we go to this I guess march is our date where we're going to be converting to reusable bags, I don't know how if you have a sense for how do you measure whether we make the transition successfully or not, but my question is what impact, if you can even define that, what impact will cutting this million dollars have on being successful in that transition. >> I actually saw on channel 6 today an interesting fact which was 250 tons of trash pulled from the lady bird lake on an annual basis. And a lot of that definitely I'm sure is water logged. We have been working with keep austin beautiful too to start documenting the amount of plastic bags during their event to see if we can see an impact from year to year in the reduction amount of bagged litter that you see in any type of litter because litter in and of itself is critical. But for plastic bag use, but reusable bags are critical to zero waste, reusable anything, so we're looking long term at knowledge and knowledge about reusable products and seeing that emerge as a whole. It will be a difficult and basically the point to your question is performance measure will be difficult to track. >> Morrison: But I think an even more diff but one to track but one I'm concerned about do we have a smooth transition or is it chaos and the whole community is up in arms because they don't know what's going on and things are, you know, a big surprise and as opposed to having smoothed the way for the next six months, and I know you've been working on that. >> That's exactly why working with a group to really focus on that education and outreach to citizens is critical because the transition -- what we don't want them to do is go to the store on march 1st and not know what their options are. And for businesses even more so to not know what they can provide to their customers. Our biggest concern really is the businesses because then they have to reach out to staff, educate, and in terms of planning for the purchases they make long term, inventory of bags, they need to know what their options are. This campaign will allow us to do that. >> Morrison: You mention visitors and I imagine it's also important to work directly with hotels and motels and, oh, hay, commercial short-term rental owners, and to make sure they are doing outreach to the folks that are coming to stay so people aren't getting, you know, in trouble for bringing their plastic bags and expecting them. >> That's correct. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Well, let me just say about five years ago I visited san francisco and I went to joe's market grocery store and they gave me a paper reusable bag because i didn't know they had an ordinance for reusable bags, but I was a tourist, I just looked at it and we want on out with it. It was no big thing. With regard to tourists. The second thing I'm not sure comparisons with what other cities have spent are valid. I don't know. I just would question that. But I think one big difference is, and I know this because I really was instrumental in the effort originally with regard to reusable bags or specifically plastic bags, that's what it started off at and probably still should be at is plastic bags, we've had over four years of intense education, hundreds of public meetings. We've met many times with people in the retail industry, the texas retail association and six major bag users here. So I would suggest that we've had a long process already of good base to build on. And the last point I want to make is that, you know, seems like this is very appropriate for psa. Channel 6 was mentioned. I don't think we paid too much to put information out on channel 6, but even on the commercial stations we could internally work out PSAs AND HOPEFULLY Commercial television stations would run them for no charge. It just seems like a lot of money. >> Mayor, just some quick responses. THE PSAs ON COMMERCIAL Stations do cost money. They are a reduced fee but they do cost money and it's the production as well as the placement of those ads. But I would also add that we've done a lot of press releases. We issued a press release last monday and there was a four-hour radio show that displayed a tremendous amount of misinformation about the ordinance. Simply because the talk show host disagreed with the ordinance. So we have -- >> Mayor Leffingwell: That's never happened before. >> And so we have a reeducation on a regular basis of what the ordinance is about and what it doesn't do and what it does do. So we are challenged economically to constantly reeducate the public. And I want to just reemphasis jessica's statement that we do need to work the retail businesses to get them to know what their responsibilities are on the ordinance as well. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Thank you. Any other proposed amendments? Councimember spelman. >> Spelman: Let me ask a question first and then i have a proposal for procedural proposal. Is there somebody here from austin police department? They all left. >> Mayor Leffingwell: They were here five minutes ago. >> Spelman: I'll ask my question at some future date which is something to do with a procedure issue. I'll be honest with you, mayor, I'm tired and a little bit confused, we've spent almost five hours proposing things we would like to take out, things we would like to add. I'm not sure all of that is completely cooked. There's been some people said, well, they would like to revisit this, I'd like to reconsider that and I'm not sure all of us -- I'm certainly sure about me so i won't try and point this to anybody else, I would benefit from having some time this evening and tomorrow morning to take a look at this again and get a sense for how this all sorts out in my own head. So rather than continuing to push forward and try and make these decisions right now, I would appreciate an opportunity to recess the meeting and take them up 00 tomorrow morning. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Well, what our original plan was to at this point this time to take a 30 to 45-minute break while staff went out and quantified all these amendments and give [inaudible] on the effect of it so that was the plan, to come back here. I'm certainly willing to consider that, but in my mind that's going to require us today to post another meeting for friday. We have to potentially have three meetings, do we not, city attorney, to ensure that we -- in case something takes three readings, some part of this takes three readings so we'll be able to do that. >> I would think we would be able to do that. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Who is speaking? >> I think that would be correct because if you haven't taken a vote and if we want to have the possibility of rereading [inaudible]. >> Mayor Leffingwell: I'm sure we would have to do that. I mean, just as we originally posted three meetings, three meetings for this session, monday, tuesday and wednesday, although we've never taken all three, we have to post it to make sure that we have adequate meetings to pass a budget. >> Mayor -- >> Mayor Leffingwell: City attorney. >> We haven't done this, but the open meetings act does allow that we could recess this meeting, today's meeting, reconvene it tomorrow so it would still be this meeting where we could have one reading, and then we could then adjourn it at some time tomorrow and call the meeting that's been posted for tuesday and that would be a second meeting. And then we still have the meeting schedule for wednesday. So there is a way to do it. You know, we've never used those provisions of the open meetings act, but they are allowable. If, of course, the safest thing to do would be just post another meeting, but there's a way to do it legally under the act without posting another meeting. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Okay, so noting. Councilmember morrison. >> Morrison: I wonder if there's another option and who knows depending on how this council would want to act, what if I were to make a motion that we adopt the proposed budget on first reading only today before we leave. That means that we would only need two other meetings as most and I don't know if people would be comfortable doing that or not, but that's something we could consider. If,. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Well, I'm not sure if people would know exactly what we're voting on or what the amount of the -- what the amount -- what the expenditures in the budget would be and what is revenue would be. >> Morrison: Mayor, what i said we adopt a proposed budget, the one that the city manager proposed. And then tomorrow we get one reading under our belt and then pass through tomorrow and if need be wednesday two other readings. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Does that work? City attorney. >> I just want to mention that in adopting the budget, you also know you have to then levy your taxes in accordance with that budget. So we would recommend that you go and at least have first reading on the other items that are directly related to the budget as well. We've only taken up really item number 1, so in order to make it sure that we're on track to get three readings of the other items -- >> Morrison: We would have to do all. >> We recommend you have to do the others specifically related to the budget as well. The other nine, ten items. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Mayor pro tem. >> Cole: I have one-third option which is to do both, which is to go ahead and recess the meeting, reconvene tomorrow and also post for friday as a safety measure. >> Mayor Leffingwell: I think certainly that is what we should do if we're going to recess this meeting until tomorrow morning, we should go ahead in abundance of caution and post for friday. So is there any objection to recessing this meeting now with austin city council and 30 tomorrow morning? >> Cole: Mayor, I do have one other comment. The information that staff is supposed to compile that's going to take between 30 and 45 minutes, I would like to be able to have that for myself and I'm sure everyone before we leave today. I don't know the plans for that, but I would like to work that out. >> Mayor Leffingwell: So mayor pro tem is suggesting that we recess the meeting and come back in 45 minutes to get the input. Is that what you are suggesting? >> Cole: I guess we can just agree that's going to be emailed out to us. I just want us to be clear about what we're going to do with that information because councimember spelman, I agree with that. I just wanted to make sure, ed, you can do it that way. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Councilmember tovo. >> Tovo: I mentioned this when I was talking about the sustainability fund fund and 2,100,000 and talking about the -- I would make one myself and I want to say I'm going to work out the numbers and propose a motion or I will amend my $101,000 motion to include funding from the one-time expenditure for the roving leaders. I just wanted to put that out before we recess the meeting. I think it's a critical program and we have an opportunity to fund the capital expenses through the one-time expenditure budget stabilization fund and the difference. Then I think we should do that. >> Mayor Leffingwell: That's an additional motion. >> Tovo: It is an additional motion. I don't have the numbers. I'll have to talk with director hensley. >> Mayor Leffingwell: We'll put that on the table and without objection we're 30 tomorrow morning. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Good ing. Austin leffingwell. A quorum is present. I'll call back to order this meeting of the austin city council where we left off with the briefing from staff regarding these proposed budget changes. It's a very complicated thing and I think we need a little guidance. >> Good morning, mayor, mayor pro tem and members of council. I would like a moment to walk you through the materials we distributed via email last night. [09:12:01] Essentially before you we have eight pages of amendments to different funds that council discussed and put -- I think the language we discussed was put them on the table. That's are things from council so far in the process, they are on the table. Page 1 is showing you amendments that would need to occur to our general fund revenuen a you will see right off the ballot there's some color coding. A lot of times amendments require a budget change. Our critical one-time fund, maybe revenues and expenditures so to facilitate the discussion we have color coded them. On the right-hand column you will see a running column for the general fund. We are required by law to have the general fund be balanced, revenues need to be balanced with spend yourself. The top line says fiscal year 13 proposed budget. That's the budget that staff delivered to you all. It had a zero balance. Revenues were in balance with expenditures. And then you can see the running tally with positives being to the good. As we start making amendments, you can see the revenue we have to work on. If you go to page 2, these are the amendments that council put on the table in regards to general fund spend if you are changes, and again you can see the color coding for the different amendments that are interrelated and how the gap changes. The gap numbers start to come down now as some of these proposals get put on to the table. Going on to page 3 then, you can see the conclusion that all the expense changes [09:14:00] balance currently with the revenue changes. The general fund budget would still be in balance with -- but with an ADDITIONAL 9.5 FTEs AND $449,000 Of expenditures in revenues. There would be no change to the tax rate. That would stay exactly the same as what's currently in the proposed budget. Going on to page 4, this is that pot of money that gives us funds that we can draw down by up to one-third per year and we can draw that fund down to fund one-time purchases. Typically it's allocated to capital purchases but it doesn't have to. It needs to be constrained to things of a one-time nature. With the staff's budget amendments, one of our amendments was to spend some of that money on the cwpt and vehicles and equipment FOR THE THREE FTEs IN THE Fire department for phase 1 of the wildfire division. We were spending or proposing to spend $87,000 out of the fund and so the fund balance number there is 43.1 million. That's 12.1%. We had some discussion about what is our budget stabilization reserve and how will the changes council is talking about making to it change that percentage. You can again see the -- the one-time type of expenses that are coming out of that fund. Flipping over to page 5, you can see the bottom line that there was $706,713 of proposed appropriations to come out of the budget stabilization reserve fund. That would drop the total 1% to 12% which is still a nice healthy level for us to be at. There's a bit of a kind of [09:16:01] an accounting flow of funds here, but typically what we do is have dollars flow from our budget stabilization reserve to a fund we call our critical one-time fund. The reserve fund, the pot of money where we keep our reserve dollars in and then the extent that we want to appropriate some of those moneys to capital purchases and one-time purchases we first move them into a critical one-time fund and from that fund we expend them. So you can see a couple of amendments where we're moving those moneys from the stabilization reserve to the critical one-time fund and you can just see the amount of money we're planning on spending on critical one-time. 7 million out of that fund. That's for technology, equipment, vehicle replacement and all the types of capital we need to maintain on a regular basis. You can see the additional changes that came from council. There are things on the budget stabilization reserve that are not going to the critical one-time fund and maybe I need to explain those a little bit. If you went back to page 4 and kind of followed the color coding scheme I gave you, two of those amendments have to do with staff, which is atypical, unusual for us to be funding staff members out of our one-time fund because staff members are typically recurring ongoing commitments. So for those two items instead of the budget stabilization reserves, transferring the money to our critical one-time fund, transfers are going to the general fund so we could fund the staff they would be supporting. That's why you'll see the off setting expenditures related to the blue item and the green item. Those are over in that general fund budget. The gray item and the orange or peach colored item, you see those on page 6. That's balancing out the critical one-time fund. [09:18:00] The last two pages have to do with all of our other operating funds. That's austin energy, the water utility, the drainage fund, sustainability funds, all those funds are captured on the last two pages and a lot of them are interrelated. If I looked at councilmember tovo's proposals related to taking the austin water utility transfer to sustainability back up to 1%, we could then allocate some of that additional sustainability fund money, the proposal was to allocate some of that to the neighborhood housing department. But they then to rely on the housing trust fund to fund THESE FIVE FTEs, THAT'S All interrelated. We can't do those other items if we can't do the transfer from water to sustainability. If we're going to adopt one of those, we probably need to adopt all of them otherwise it doesn't all fit together. I did have one change. Page 7, the documents in front of you are correct, but I want to make clear in regards to the documents we sent out last night, item 2 on page 7, there was three words at the end that said AND 3.5 FTEs. That was a correction and we've removed that language. The language before you where it ends at 212,371, period, that's the correct language. If anybody has a version THAT SAYS 3.5 FTEs, CROSS That out. Page 7, number 2. Should end 312,371, period. If that's what reads, that should be correct. -- 212,371. With that, could we bring up the presentation from yesterday? [09:20:01] Slide 20. >> Mayor Leffingwell: A question before we go on. It seems to me like we would have to take these as one motion per color code. Since they are interrelated, say, for example, all of them are [inaudible] proposals in light blue as one motion and then go on all the way through, including the general fund, stabilization reserve fund, critical one-time fund and the other operating fund. >> That would be my recommendation. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Without objection that's how we'll proceed. >> [Inaudible] >> Mayor Leffingwell: The color code -- number 3 on page 2. Number 1 on page 4. And that's it. All of those would go together. And in a similar fashion, take up all the purple, all the green, all the pink. Seven I guess. Salmon I guess it's called. Brown, et cetera. That's all. >> And I did have one more staff amendment. It's not an amendment to our DOLLARS OR FTEs, BUT EACH Year it's part of crafting the budget staff looks at its financial policies. We presented a financial policy to the audit finance committee in regards to the one you see on our screen here and the audit finance committee had a recommended [09:22:01] change to the language and so I wanted to read that language to you because in adopting number 1 you would also be approving the financial policies pertaining to the operating budget. To improve financial planning, nonemergency amendments to the budget, in one meeting except in cases off set by new revenue resulting from the [inaudible] and there is no discretion how the revenue is spent. For the most part this is the existing policy and a good policy. Everything up to that comma is really existing polity. Shall be accomplished in one midyear council meeting. What it's saying we don't want to be coming back to council every council meeting, we want to spend more money out of our general fund, we want to spend more money out of our general fund. We want those discussions to have happen cohesively and recognizing that we may need to come back during the year to make amendments and wanting that to happen at one time. The current policy allows an exception if it's grant funded. So if it's something where we got a grant that's going to pay for the program, there's really no reason in waiting, in fact, it may not be practical to come back once per year. We're just trying to provide council and staff with flexibility here. There's been some situations where maybe we enter into an interlocal and need to add a funded by the third party agency. Under the current policy we couldn't do that except for once per year. If it's an amendment off set by the revenues, expenditures are off set by revenues and there's really no discretion how we use those revenues, we can come back at any time. Essentially if it's an [09:24:01] amendment that is looking at sales taxes or property taxes, discretionary revenues, we would try to bring all of those back at one time so if there's competing initiatives we could have a collective discussion about the priority. That's the change and the recommendation from the audit finance committee was to add the last part about no discretion [inaudible]. >> Mayor Leffingwell: So it would be item 20 on page 8 pencilled in. Is that correct? This is -- this is already -- yes, that would be item number 20. [One moment please] >> Mayor Leffingwell: Is that related to any of the other amendments? Councilmember morrison. >> Morrison: Regarding the policies, I thought that we in audit and finance had actually looked at several policies, but I think maybe what you are saying is that we only made an amendment to the staff recommendations in that one policy. [09:26:01] >> That's correct. There's six policy changes that are outlined and included in your budget document back in the supporting document section of volume 2 where we lay out our financial policies. There's six policy changes. All of them were looked at by audit and finance. This one policy they had a requested change this the language which is what we're bringing forward, an amendment to the document, a language change that audit and finance requested. >> Morrison: Okay, but i think there was one policy change that we did not make a recommendation on one way or another. >> That's correct. >> Morrison: So I think -- I wonder if you could put that policy up. And I think there was a presentation about whether we felt that was the right way to go or not. >> We don't have a slide, but I have a handout that we could pass out so people could see the -- it was the one with the austin water utility, I believe, [inaudible] pass these around and if we have [inaudible]. >> Morrison: That would be great because I think it would make sense since we don't come to any recommendations at audit and finance, but I'll highlight that one. I wonder if you could come [09:28:00] and explain what the recommendation is and maybe those of us that were in audit and finance [inaudible]. .>> One of our proposed changes goes back to old long standing policy statement for austin water where we would have revenue bond [inaudible] specially for projects in the drinking water protection zone. There's been several [inaudible] over the years it's not authorized to -- other policies have been updated to reflect this. There was an audit review of this about a year ago and based on all those recommendations we had proposed to revise this policy to remove this particular policy where we would not have revenue bond elections in our plans and policies in conflict with the legal opinions and instead would fund all of our projects through our commercial paper and regular revenue bond [inaudible] for finance. I would mention there's one other part of the finding that was continuing to work to achieve the council's desire to [inaudible] drinking water protection zone project. We have public input on that. Obviously we take all of our projects to council. We had been working to update some of our titles of our capital projects, clear which ones were in the drinking water protection zone so there would be additional transparency on those projects. But those are rare. >> Morrison: But you are talking about an audit, is that an audit that was done by our city auditor or was that internal is this. >> Our city auditor. >> Morrison: I wonder if i [09:30:01] could ask [inaudible] to come down to speak to that. And I don't know if I'm putting you on the spot, if you are familiar with that. Because it has been a topic of some conversation at least in the community and certainly on the dais and in executive session. Session. >> Good morning, councilmembers. Ken, city auditor. >> Morrison: Can you talk about that audit recommendation? >> Greg is correct, we did recommend that we reconcile the differences so that part of it -- we're also in concurrence with the transparency issue. We recommended -- it's been a while so I'm sort of paraphrasing. If you look at it from the perspective of transparency [inaudible] >> Morrison: Okay. Thank you. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Is this a discussion or is this related to what we are about to consider? >> At this point I believe it's just a discussion. The policy change you'll see there on page 1 of what i handed out that starts with voter approved revenue bonds, then it says deleted. That change is this the proposed document before council. Audit and finance took no action on it and I think councilmember morrison is making it clear that is in the proposed document. >> Mayor Leffingwell: It's in here. Delete this entire section. >> Yes, sir. And approving the operating budget, that's a change in financial policy. >> Mayor Leffingwell: And the net effect of deleting this policy statement would be what in very simple terms? >> Zero. Dollars. >> Mayor Leffingwell: In terms of dollars, but what about in terms of policy? >> In terms of policy, you could argue that in terms of policy it doesn't change anything. State law says we can't be doing this so we're not [09:32:00] doing this currently. >> Mayor Leffingwell: This alliance our policy with state law? >> Yes, sir. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Thank you. Councilmember tovo. >> Tovo: meszaros, can I ask another question. One of the reasons we didn't take action on it in audit and finance we didn't have an opportunity within that setting and meeting to discuss this in any depth and I'm not sure we're going to have that time today either. What is -- is there a time -- is there a reason why we would need to approve this today or is it something we could approve after today? I don't know if that's a question for you or city legal. >> I would probably defer that. From our perspective, you it would have to be approved today. I don't know if there's a budget -- >> the council really just needs to make a decision of either they want to make a decision on this today, which in adopting item 1 currently this policy would be deleted. If you do not want to take that action today, then we would offer up a number 21 amendment that would maintain this policy which we could craft that way [inaudible] I think staff's preference would be to get it resolved today because there's an issue of it not being in alignment with state law and we like to have our fiscal policies for 13 be in alignment with auditor's recommendations and state law. And I don't think -- [inaudible]. >> Tovo: [Inaudible] for quite some time. meszaros, I know you said that you talked about transparency. There has been a lot of interest in this particular issue of revenue, voter approved revenue bonds, and I appreciate that you are interested in moving -- in making sure that it will still be a transparent public process especially when we're talking about projects in the drinking development zone. Have you -- have you done -- excuse me, drinking water [09:34:00] protection zone. Have you done any -- have you laid out what that process would look like or can you provide us with any information? I'm thinking if we're substituting this I would rather have some sense what your aims are for a public process and be able to present that to the public as an alternative. >> One, all -- all investments in the drinking water protection zone that occur through private development or service extension requests, there's already council language that requires all those to come before council so we think that's already taken care of. In terms of our own capital improvement projects, we had a couple of thoughts. One were to put in the title of any capital improvement project if it's in the drinking water protection zone so it's clear from the title of the project that you know it's in the drinking water protection zone. The final piece of it that we were considering to offer up would be at the budget time council could hold a separate public hearing on only capital improvement projects in the drinking water protection zone. We always have a public hearing on rates, you would have a second hearing on drinking water protection projects and any projects in the drinking water protection zone and folks could come to council and discuss that prior to the budget approval. >> Tovo: I like those ideas very much and would suggest it would be useful to get some of those written up. If we are moved to eliminate this policy to replace it with something else. So I would suggest that we do consider this on a separate day. But that's a motion, that we remove this from consideration today and get meszaros' points in some kind of fashion so sothat we can take action on it. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Mayor pro tem objects, so [09:36:03] mayor pro tem, just for the purpose of discussion. >> Cole: Yes. I do degree we did not explore this completely in audit and finance and there is interest in the community. And so I would simply like to request that we hear this particular policy change in its entirety with your recommendation at the next audit and finance meeting and then we'll bring that to council [inaudible] take a lot of time [inaudible]. Mayor? >> Mayor Leffingwell: Councimember spelman. >> Spelman: As i understand it, the only change in financial policy brought before the council by staff is the first one on this list. But the only one which councilmember tovo is concerned we need further discussion on is the second to last on the list with respect to revenue bonds. Am I right? Could we not consider 2, 3, 4 and 6 today? >> Tovo: I'm sorry for not being clear. That was exactly my intent, that we just pull the one that needs more discussion. >> Spelman: Okay. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Well, I assume you are talking about sequentially because I don't see any numbers on mine. So you are talking about just count out the paragraphs? 2, 3, 4 And 6? >> Spelman: At what point would a motion be in order? >> Mayor Leffingwell: I think councilmember tovo just made one. >> Spelman: I'll second it. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Is that your motion, councilmember tovo, to have an item numbered 21 that addresses incorporating only items 2, 3, 4 and 6 and not item number 5? >> Tovo: Yes, mayor. >> Mayor Leffingwell: [09:38:01] Okay. So we will put that one on the table and take action on it in order. >> Tovo: Mayor, I will say there's one on the back. I don't know if it's part of the same 21 or not. On page 2 of the financial policies there are some recommendations from the austin water utility and i don't intend to delay those. But the establishment of the water revenue stability reserve fund, so that can remain on there too. The only one I'm suggesting postponed, all the rest could go forward. >> Mayor Leffingwell: I'll just say I'm not sure what the concern is on item number 5. From what we just heard, it's an effort to align written policy with state law and we're going to continue to operate in accordance with state law irregardless what our policy says. I'm not sure what the purpose is, but we can continue to disregard our policy and follow state law indefinitely, I guess. So I guess no -- it does no harm. So with that, adding item number 21 to the amendment list, I think we're ready to start making our way through the entire list. Councilmember morrison. >> Morrison: Having had -- I think this process has been very helpful and now that once we got this last night and once I understood it, it helped me realize that I -- looking at the priorities and things we're having to trade off, i wanted to withdraw one of my amendments and add some [09:40:00] additional ones. The amendment that I want to withdraw is the one that first shows up on page 1 as number 3, morrison. It's the one about filling in the grant funded human trafficking program and i want to thank [inaudible] for following up with discussion yesterday on i now understand in terms of the lack of this position is not taxing overtime as I was under the impression because actually the overtime is from evening calls because there is no coverage from these experts in this unit evening calls. And reinstating that position to be as productive as it was, maybe somewhat difficult, but I also heard councilmember riley's comments and reminded me about the need for early childhood education involvement and investment in this community. So what I want to do is withdraw that one motion and put in -- put something on the table that takes those funds that I had mentioned, the 84,057 that are one-time funds and invest them in a one-time early childhood investment. And I hope you can manage that without too much trouble. So basically big picture point of view, withdrawing that motion about a one-time year extension on that position and just add a one-time investment in early childhood. >> I think the only thing we would need clarification on is department. >> Morrison: That would be health and human services. That's one thing that was really helpful that we had -- excuse me. [09:42:01] For me that helps align priorities a little bit better. The other issue on the table for me is I think that an investment in the roving leaders program is -- >> Mayor Leffingwell: Before you go into this one, so as I understand it then, number 3 on page 1 would just substitute hhs department early childhood programs for the language referring to police human trafficking program. Is that right? >> No. If I could -- number 3 on page 1 will go away. It will be eliminated. If,. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Okay. >> Number 9 on page 3 would also be eliminated. >> Mayor Leffingwell: And what about 5 on page 4? >> Number 5 on page 4 will stay the same except instead of transferring the money to the general fund we'll transferring the money to our critical one-time fund. >> Morrison: And then do we need an addition on page 6? >> Yes, eventually the language that I deleted on page 3, number 9, that language is going to get added at item number 3 on page 6. >> Mayor Leffingwell: So language here would be what? >> Well, it would actually be to amend the language on number 3 on page 6 would be to amend the proposed budget of the critical one-time [09:44:00] fund to appropriate $84,057 to 2 health and human services department for early childhood program. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Okay. So number 3 on page 6, morrison green coded would be to amend the critical one-time fund to appropriate $84,057 to hhs early childhood program. Is that about it? Councilmember riley. >> Riley: First I want to thank councilmember morrison for thinking [inaudible] i strongly support trying to find the funding for early childhood services and i would certainly support this amendment as proposed. The only question I have is about the amount. How did we land on 84,000 for the amount on that. I understand that was the amount we were discussing with respect to the human trafficking program. I'm wondering if that number still makes sense if we're shifting to early childhood services. And just by point of reference, I heard from one provider in particular about funding for head start program that they requested-he have requested 334,850. I just wanted to raise a question about whether -- whether 84,000 is the right amount or whether we could possibly do more. >> Morrison: Mayor, if i may. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Councilmember morrison. >> Morrison: I would certainly support doing more if we can do that in such a way that I think I'm sort of working toward the goal of making sure that we keep our [09:46:00] reserve at a comfortable level. And so I guess if some additional fund open up by some of these other motions not passing or perhaps there's really -- I think that the number that ed gave us take us to 12%, if it really takes us to 12% or 001% and there's additional funds -- I'm getting [inaudible]. >> Mayor Leffingwell: I think that's right, councilmember. If we're going to talk about a different number here, i think we've got to go through the entire process and maybe take a break and have you realign these numbers. >> I think that's going to be necessary. What we just did was probably one of the simplest ones we're going to hear and it's going to be difficult to do it live. We're going to have to come back with a cleaned-up version of this would be my suggestion. >> Morrison: What I would suggest, councilmember riley, we take a look at where that number is after we get our final numbers in from sales tax and everything for the fiscal year and see if we still have some room because i wouldn't be surprised if we have some room if our sales taxes come in in a healthy way. But I think as long as we remember that remains priority for us, there might be an opportunity later. >> Mayor Leffingwell: There's always the opportunity any time in the year to amend the budget. Councimember spelman. >> Spelman: A followup on the same issue. How would the 84,057 be spent? >> What I would like to do is leave that open at this point and maybe we could [inaudible] speak to that because I'm not sure exactly what might be the most -- I'm not sure they know or have a recommendation what might be most effective use of a one-time $84,000 [09:48:00] investment. So this would give them some time, and in fact we could ask them to come back, have health and human services to talk about it and get priorities from the early childhood council, or maybe they've got one [inaudible]. >> Spelman: My strong suspicious is adding to an existing grant would be a lot more efficient than requiring a new proposal [inaudible] but I would like [inaudible] that money could be spent appropriately before we [inaudible]. >> Morrison: And if we have -- mr. city manager. >> Good morning, mayor and city council, bert lumbreras. What we have proposed to do I think alliance closely to the council resolution on the youth services summit. This falls very much in line with looking at the whole continuum of services as it relates to all sorts of programs that not only the city invest in but also what's out in the community with all of our great service providers in looking at everything from zero to 21 years of age. And the whole idea with the youth services summit that we're already planning for for sometime here in the fall would be to look at what programs are out in the community, align with the city and then work that through the public health and human services subcommittee and eventually come back with city council to determine what the values are for youth services and what the priorities were, the gaps were, the need, and then come back with what i consider a robust set of recommendations on what would be a good investment. What we clearly know is early childhood is a need based on previous year's funding that has not been -- that has been decreased and also we know that based on where we see a significant growth in our population in [09:50:00] our communities, the zero to five years of age is a tremendous need. So those two things along with the work that will be happening with the youth summit, youth services summit I think will give us a better idea. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Mayor pro tem. >> Cole: lumbreras, can you tell us if any of those needs that have been identified by your department or the early childhood council or the health and human services department involves capital expenditures of one-time need as opposed to operating needs? >> I would respectfully say that I would need to get with staff because what I do know, prior to investments in early childhood where there was a decrease in funding had to do a lot with, like, for example, service provider training, teacher education. You know, I don't recall right off the bat. I would need to go back with staff and look to see whether there were any capital areas or not. I'll be happy to get that answer for you as soon as possible. I just don't have that right off the top of my head. >> Cole: Okay. I certainly support early childhood development and recognize that as a critical need this our community and support additional funding for it, but I have a concern about our budget [inaudible] being directed for one-time expenditures that are of an operating nature and either we fund a capital need within that department that we can actually improve the program or we do what i is suggesting and put it on the table and look for our potential funding mechanisms in our operating budget. But I would still support this. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Councilmember martinez. >> Martinez: I think councimember spelman makes a good point and so does mayor pro tem cole, but the way i [09:52:01] view this, if it's a grant and if we can extend the grant, it's not an ongoing operating expense, it's just a finite extension of fund with an existing agreement. I didn't really hear the answer to councimember spelman's question that i believe was do we have existing grants that we can apply funding if we identify funding through this process without having to go through process for $84,000. Maybe there's something already on the ground that we can just add that to. >> Director of health and human services. We definitely have a variety of projects that are available for that. Child safety issues such as bike helmets and child -- proper placement of child seats. We also have the opportunity to provide scholarships to providers of early learning services. We could do some work around making sure that providers, the actual physical sites are ready for accreditation. There are any number of things we could do with that funding. >> Martinez: So there are opportunities. >> Yes, sir. >> Martinez: But it does not preclude health and human services or this council from issuing an if there is enough funding and unmet need identified that would have to go through that. I'm not opposed to that, i just want to make sure all those options are available. Thank you. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Councilmember morrison. >> Morrison: I did want to mention a couple of other things. Looking at the kind of decisions we're going to have to make and i mentioned -- I was just mentioning I think that investing in things like the roving leader program is very important to me and whether or not the motions that require that are going to pass is still to be seen. It had me looking at some of the other positions that we're talking about and i want to thank mayor pro tem for the work that she did in terms of opening things up [09:54:03] so we could check some of the priorities. And one -- which many of them I agree with and will be supporting, there's one that jumped out and that was the landscape architect position for supporting community initiatives. And I started thinking about that in terms of other priorities that we might have, especially since we added two positions last year in the parks department to work with community initiative. What I want to do is offer two additional amendments that I know will -- if we -- if we approved both of them, it would put us over our general fund balance and that's not my intention. My intention is to offer alternatives to the landscape architect position. And one I would like to propose as amendment that would only need to be considered if in fact the other funding for the roving leader position does not have, would be to make an amendment to add the roving leaders, the one roving leader position to the parks department. And it would have to be at the amount that the landscape architect is in there for because I don't intend to do anything else about it. The second amendment I'd like to have on the table and apologize if this is getting complicated, but if in fact the roving leader position can be funded through another mechanism that we have on the table already, I would like to consider, frankly for myself instead of the landscape architect position, meeting [09:56:02] one of the health and human services unmet needs which is the public health nurse. It had been grant funded. The grant has ended. 5 public health nurses that we have serve our neighborhood centers. This public health nurse specifically was assigned to south austin center working on diabetes, outreach and screening and hypertension outreach and screening so i wanted to get that on the health and human services that we may have as an opportunity to consider alternatively if there's a way that we can work that out. >> Mayor pro tem? >> Mayor Leffingwell: Let me make sure I understand this. Number 22 would be to add to the parks department if the roving leader proposition does not pass? Is that essentially it? >> Morrison: Yes. >> Yes, the roving leader is currently on the table, funding for a roving leader program that would be interrelated with austin water utility in its transfer and sustainability fund. >> Mayor Leffingwell: If that fails, then that f.t.e. Would go with the same dollar amount to parks department. >> It would be a slightly smaller dollar amount. I think about $20,000 less. >> Mayor Leffingwell: We're going to need to -- after we get all these things on the table, are we going to need to go back out and have you redo this? >> Yes. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Okay. >> Morrison: Well, my intention would be to keep the dollar amounts the same so that -- if that means 8 roving leader, same with the public health nurse. I think that it's a higher expenditure. [09:58:00] It may only be for 76,000 might only .75. So the intention is to create whatever portion of a , that amount would be equivalent because I don't want you to have to recalculate. >> That's understood. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Theoretically it could be or something like that. How would you do that? How would that ever be administered? >> We're going to do it in quarter chunks, so half time or three quarter time. >> Mayor Leffingwell: And number 23 would be to change landscape architect f.t.e. In park and make that a nurse in health and human services. If the roving leader item passes. >> Morrison: Well, and i think the assumption is on page 2, if you look on page 2, number 1, that's the -- mayor pro tem's proposed amendment to actually create the landscape architect assistant. So I don't know if we want to somehow bunch those all together and I would look to staff for how to handle this. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Maybe we should take a recess, but I'd like to get to the end of this process before we do that so that we don't have to come back out and redo this all over again. [One moment, please, for change in captioners] >> one position trying to go to eight sites and run this. The whole idea is with temp seasonal, part-time staff, we are doing this program between the ages of nine and 19, that would be -- while we would always really be thankful for anything that we receive, I want to make sure that you understand. I want to be honest and clear about what that would do and it would be almost impossible to do that and do it effectively with quality. >> Morrison: Well, I guess we got some confusion around the answer to number 97. >> Okay. >> Morrison: Because that suggested that the full program, four quadrants, required four specialists. >> Okay. The specialists are the full-time positions that helped to lead the program, but then there's another line item that looks -- that actually looks at hiring part-time seasonal staff to help us actually implement that program. >> Morrison: That's also one per quadrant in the answer. >> One group. Kimberly if you want to -- i CAN ASK kimberly McNeilly to come up and answer it more extensively. But the whole idea was to have different quadrants, start with the most highly needed area of need, those quadrants would have eight sites in them. Meaning eight different sections based on need. Then there would be a series of staff at those sites running programs that would work with staff to run programs, there would be a mobile unit that would go through, have a variety of technology, games that we would pull out and then so one person could not just do that by themselves. >> Morrison: I think that we have then some misunderstanding in reading the answer. >> We could take two individuals, one temporary, kim McNeilly assistant director of parks and recreation. We could take one full-time person and one temporary staff and be able to visit those eight different sites and provide a program. I think in our mind's eye, the full-time person with multiple temporary individuals provides a more quality program and provides a more -- provides us an opportunity to serve more individuals. As she said, whatever you are gracious enough to give us, we can create a program that will be of quality, but the number of individuals that we serve will be based upon the budget that we receive. I apologize for the misunderstanding. I think in our minds we were thinking temporary staff four and one full-time person. But whatever amount we are given will create a program that will be of quality and will meet the objective of the roving leader concept. >> Morrison: To be clear, we already have in our list of amendments a one-time amount for the vehicle and the one-time thing. What we also have, maybe where the confusion was, we're looking at 382,000 for the full program, we were dividing that by four, and that includes one full-time and one temporary and maybe it needs to be allocated separately. And so commodities. So we divided that by four, thinking that 95 would get you almost a full quadrant. What I am hearing from you kim is saying if that were actually 76 instead of 95, you might have to scale back, but you could still get a phase of the program going. >> Yes. And of course I would be concentrated in the highest area -- we haven't been able to fund it for a while. >> Cole: Mayor. >> Cole: I guess when i received all of the amendments last night, I had one overarching issue and that is that I did not want this council to take a vote that was in any way contradictory to our financial policy. And because of that, one of the amendments that i planned on offering was to eliminate the landscape architect position and to also eliminate the two urban forestry positions and for those funds to be used for -- for councilmember martinez's motion on the table for ftes for the fire department. I know this is starting to get us in never-never land. But the reason to do that was to -- and then also to take the funds from budget stabilization reserve from parks for equipment. So let me back up. >> Morrison: Okay. [Laughter] >> Cole: So -- so councilmember martinez has a motion on the table for four 's in the fire department. That is roughly $248,000. I currently have a motion on the table for the landscape architect for $76,000 and two urban forestry positions for $154,000. I would take both of those motions together with those amounts and direct that they 's in the fire department. And then I would direct that the budget stabilization reserve be used for those amounts for equipment, one-time equipment purposes in the parks department. And I talked to sarah briefly about that this morning and so -- so because we're trying to lay this out altogether, sarah, will you come up and talk about that a second. Before you talk, let me actually give ed an opportunity to comment on the extent to which we would then be using budget stabilization reserve dollars for park equipment and that would be one time park equipment and that would be within our existing policy. Is that correct, ed? >> That would be correct. >> Cole: And then the money that I have on the table allocated with my motion for the landscape architect and urban forestry could be used for the 's for the fire department for wildfire prevention. >> Mayor? >> Mayor Leffingwell: I'm definitely going to recommend that we go into recess while all of this is reformatted at this point. But councilmember riley, go ahead? >> Riley: Just a -- to respond briefly to the mayor pro tem. I had intended to offer an amendment to -- to what's on the table now, with -- on -- on item 1. Instead of looking to the budget stabilization reserve 's i was going to suggest we -- we use the budget stabilization fund to support fuel mitigation in the amount of $250,000, which is roughly the same amount. And we heard from the fire chief yesterday that with the additional wildfire staff that are currently in the budget, that they would be able to manage that -- that money, so that would -- that would allow us to meet that need without foregoing those positions in the parks department, including the forestry division, which could actually help serve some of the same purposes. >> Cole: Thank you, councilmember riley. Then I will not be putting that motion on the table. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Okay. Councilmember riley, is that your motion that we fund 1 with -- instead 's in the fire department, that that be used for fuel mitigation? >> Riley: In the amount of $250,000. >> Mayor Leffingwell: 248,356. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Okay. All right. Councilmember spelman? >> Spelman: I have -- i have plain forgotten our procedures whether friendly amendments are allowed or not. >> Mayor Leffingwell: No. >> Spelman: Okay. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Just offer a new amendment. >> Spelman: Okay. Let me offer a new amendment in hopes that perhaps this very marginal change in councilmember riley's original amendment may be improved, just slightly better. As I understand it, the staff's proposal on wildfire management is first to come up with a plan and second to implement the plan. The money to come up with 's to come up with the plan are funded, that's in the budget, that was one of the recommendations which -- which ed made to us yesterday. And what I understand councilmember riley suggesting is that we put in some money for fuel mitigation, which is one of several things that need to be done to implement the plan. But there are other expenditures which could be useful for implementing the plan in addition to fuel mitigation money. There is substantial public education amount which is likely to be useful for implementing the plan, in particular a lot of the work of reducing the risks in wildfire neighborhoods or residential neighborhoods that are close to wildfires needs to be done by the people who own the property. And is not public land but is private land. And as I understand it, a lot of what happens in -- in comprehensive wildfire protection plans is to work with the individual residential owners to -- to have green space between the public land, which may be a source of wildfire and their house, to -- to work on the physical aspects of their house so that they are less likely to catch sparks, things like that. This is one of many things which could be a part of that plan, fuel mitigation of course is another one. My only concern here is if we earmark money strictly for fuel mitigation, it can't be used for any of the other several purposes that might be helpful in implementing the comprehensive plan. So the amendment I guess would be -- the substitute i suppose would be that it be used for implementation of the comprehensive plan once that is ism thed and the fuel mitigation could be the entire use of that money but there could be other uses as well. >> Mayor Leffingwell: So councilmember spelman's new amendment is that the 250,000 approximate dollars be used in a general fund including mitigation, education, other purposes. Is that right? >> Spelman: For purposes of implementing the comprehensive plan once it's completed. Comprehensive wildfire protection plan. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Not the other comprehensive plan. >> Spelman: Right. >> Mayor Leffingwell: So as of now, those are both on the table unless councilmember riley would like to withdraw his. >> Riley: Mayor, I would like to hear from the chief just to make sure that we're all on the same page. In particular, I want to make sure that the plan that councilmember spelman is referring to is funded within the proposed -- the budget that is proposed by staff. The plan for -- for wildfire prevention. And that -- and that you only need additional funds for implementation. >> Cole: Mayor and council, rhoda mae kerr, fire chief, first of all. And there's several answers I think that are required by your question and by your statement. The one thing that I just wanted to clarify to start with, it's not a comprehensive plan. I want to make sure that we're saying the right thing. It's a community wildfire protection plan. To answer your question, councilmember riley, there is money in the one-time expenditures in that $87,000 to develop a plan. A cwpp as we call it. You know, another acronym for something that we need to remember. And if we were to use the -- the $250,000, it would be -- could be very appropriately designated for fuel mitigation and then as councilmember spelman stated, there are many components to creating a fire safe community or what we're now being called fire adaptive communities and part of that is education, part of that is assisting homeowners with their private lands and part of it is also actual technical fuel mitigation. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Okay. So you are saying that's already really in there, that if councilmember riley's amendment were to pass, that money that's earmarked for mitigation could be used for -- besides just cutting down trees and brush, it could also be used for education with regard to mitigation, et cetera. >> Well, that would be part of the cwpp. And I think councilmember spelman was trying to make sure that we didn't just designate that whole 250 just for fuel mitigation, that we could actually use it for some of the educational portion of the preventive end of wildfire mitigation. Not just fuel mitigation. >> Spelman: Mayor? >> Mayor Leffingwell: Councilmember spelman. >> Spelman: Chief, I was talking with deputy chief evans yesterday and he actually had a list of items which show up on community wildfire protection plans. My apologies we have so many comprehensive plans, i filled in a different c for that cwpp. >> That's quite all right. I just wanted to make sure that we were making the right statement in a public document. >> Spelman: Now that you've properly stated what the acronym means. Of the I'll just use the acronym now. There's a list of things that go into implementing a cwpp, my only concern is all of those things be eligible expenses so that you have the opportunity to use whatever money is available as efficiently as possible to best accomplish our objectives. >> You are correct. That would be the best way to take the money and not only say fuel mitigation, but all of those items that include public education and a number of items that i couldn't list them off for you without looking at the document. But I think to answer councilmember riley's question, there is money for the cwpp if we were to designate a money, it could be used for education, fuel mitigation, all of them contributing to wildfire mitigation efforts. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Okay. Councilmember riley. >> Riley: So we're talking about fuel mitigation and other measures related to implementation of the cwpp. >> That's correct. >> Riley: If I could just ask ed to make sure that we get the terminology right. In order to remain consistent with our financial policies we probably would need to be a little more specific than that because for instance 's might be questionable, but -- with these funds but there are other expenses that could be associated with implementation of the plan that would be inappropriate use of the budget stabilization reserve. What would you suggest would be the right terminology? If we want to say -- would they be one-time expenses, capital expenses, what is the appropriate term that would keep us consistent with our financial policy? >> I think that I would offer you to amend the budget stabilization reserves to transfer money into the critical one-time funds and then one the [indiscernible] to appropriate $248,000 to -- to one-time implementation costs of the cwpp, including education and fuel mitigation efforts. >> Riley: Sounds good to me. So moved. >> Mayor Leffingwell: So moved, that's councilmember riley's proposal. Without objection it will be laid on the table. Who was that? Councilmember martinez? >> Martinez: Yeah. Totally appreciate the -- the attempts here to allocate this in an appropriate manner. And certainly appreciate staff putting this -- putting this sheet to work from -- but if we just wanted to stay consistent with budget policies, all that we would have to say in my amendment is that we only fund it for six months. Just as we did in councilmember morrison's original proposal of the human trafficking program. but simply because the language said for only one year, it's consistent with budget policies. So my proposal is not inconsistent with budget policies. I just didn't add the language that says only for six months. I want to be very clear about that, because I'm not proposing that we violate policies. We're trying to fund a bunch of unmet needs in the best possible manner and I just wanted to point that out. There's a subtlety in two or three words that all of a sudden gets you tagged with not being in line with financial policies. I think we can make it clearly within those policies if we just added that language. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Okay. Well, let me just say my purpose in any questions that I might have is just to make sure that it's clear. That what we're voting on is clear because I personally intend to vote against any items that are funded out of either other enterprise funds or out of reserve funds. My only interest, as I said, is to try to keep them straight. Do we have others? >> I have a point of clarification, mayor. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Yes. >> But I believe councilmember cole removed her -- >> Mayor Leffingwell: Yes, she did. And councilmember spelman, did you remove yours? I think we kind of -- >> Spelman: I believe councilmember riley restated what I suggested. I'm happy with his restatement. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Good, councilmember morrison? >> Morrison: I need to ask staff, I'm -- I may have had some dated information about the public health nurse position. And I wonder if staff can come speak to us. It was on page 7 as one of our unmet needs, but there might be some more current information about whether that need for a public health nurse was unmet or met. >> Yeah, I can just respond briefly that the health and human services departments number one unmet need was requesting funding for a public health nurse in the amount of $86,892. That is in the city manager's proposed budget before council. >> Morrison: Okay. I apologize for that. I didn't realize it was actually in the city manager's budget. But I would like to ask mr. Lumbreras if -- what would -- is there a second priority that is in front of -- of health and human services now that that need was met? I apologize for misreading that if I did. >> Councilmember, one that comes to mind that I think that really would benefit the city that falls in line with the discussion that was occurring yesterday with the 1115 waiver, there were three projects that were identified as the priority projects for -- for the waiver, one of those is permanent supportive housing. As you recall, in the city manager's proposed budget, there is $100,000 and the city council has really been very supportive of -- of permanent supportive housing which we have found across the country as a -- as a strategy that is very effective to addressing the needs of our homeless individuals and the folks that have a lot of needs. So what we have in the budget is 100,000, which 46 return in dollars, so i would say that that certainly is a one that's worthy of consideration because of the added benefit of the return of dollars that we could use for investment. Those dollars, in effect, are part of that overall plan to reach the 350 350 unitsthat we wanted to chief in the four years, we're about halfway towards that goal at this point. We have huge capital and operating needs both in terms of buildings, but also wrap around services. So I think any funds towards that purpose would certainly be worthy of consideration and with the added benefit of the run of additional dollars. Return of additional dollars. >> Morrison: That 100,000, if we were able to add more 's, did those get converted into 's to help to manage the services or did we contract out for services? >> It would primarily be wrap around services that we could potentially contract out with service providers. Everything from case managers to folks that would ensure that those folks are stable within their -- within their housing units. So for the most part, it's going to be operating dollars for contracts. >> Morrison: Okay. Thank you for that clarification. So -- so that motion that i had -- with regard to the public health nurse, I would like to withdraw. And replace it with a motion that would actually not but just allocate those additional $76,000 in funds in -- to services to add to the permanent supportive housing services for consideration. >> Cole: Mayor, I would like to respond or object to that, just for the purpose of discussion. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Mayor pro tem? >> Cole: I would like to offer the landscape architect position as a basis for funding that position for permanent supportive housing. >> Morrison: Does that mean that you are withdrawing your landscape architect. >> Cole: I would withdraw it and your motion would be to approve it as a funding source for ed, ed, did you get that? >> Morrison: Mayor pro tem, I appreciate that. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Anything further? In the way of amendments? Councilmember tovo? >> Tovo: Mayor, I just want to point out you had talked about maybe reassessing and coming back, I just want to ask that we do after we work through this and I want to say that there are a few things where -- if a tweak needs to be made, I may make a motion that tweaks something. So I'm not going to lay it out now, but we've already talked about, you know, some plan b strategies if the motions here don't succeed, I just want to indicate there may be others. If we could take a recess later rather than right now if that was your intent to take one right now -- [multiple voices] >> Mayor Leffingwell: My intent it to take it right now rather than start through this process without knowing what the big picture looks like. Because without -- without an end in sight, you know, we're going to have to go back to -- we might as well have started as we originally planned to do with just going through one by one and keeping a running tally. If our objective in accordance with councilmember spelman's suggestion, which was a good one, that we lay everything out there, so that we could look at all at once and vote on each item in context, in total context, if we still support that, I think we need to go into recess and -- and realign everything. Reprint. >> Tovo: Mayor, if I may then, I'm reluctant to continue to engage in a discussion about what happens if my motion fails. But I will continue along that path I guess since my colleague has raised it as a possibility and say that, you know, we've been talking about the roving leader. I think it's critical that we fund that program in -- we are talking about scaling it back from what the staff has envisioned to one-fourth of it. And so I do not want to scale it back to the 76-5 that we were talking about before. I would like to get that back up to what the staff have said they need to fund it in one quadrant. I think that number was 95,000 something. I would suggest that if we get to the point where we are talking about finding other moneys for it and we need to use councilmember morrison's motion rather than mine, then I would suggest we take mayor pro tem cole's suggestions of reducing the commodities number and bump that up to get us to the same level. So I will -- I will throw that out there as a -- an option. This was on your sheet, management services, partial reductions, contractuals, it was a potential budget reduction identified by management services. It's attachment c, page 11. You have proposed reducing it by $17,444 and I would propose reducing it by whatever amount gets us from -- from 76,000 and change up to 95,000 and change so that we can fully fund the roving leaders program in one quadrant. But I'll just use this opportunity to say that i think that we've got a -- a great option out there of -- of using our sustainability fund to fund that and I'm going to argue strenuously again that we do that because it is a need. If we have another $100,000 to be realized, through the potential budget reductions, then heck let's do it in two quadrants instead of one. But again since we're talking about plan b, that would be my suggestion for -- >> Mayor Leffingwell: That a new motion? >> Tovo: Yes, that's a new motion. I'm sorry I don't have the figures in front of me. Ed, did that give you enough to work with? >> We can work with it. >> Tovo: Thanks. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Council, without objection, we will go into recess for come back about 11:00. we're out of recess. I think we are ready to go into the voting on the individual amendments. There may be cases where we need to deviate somewhat. When we run across that eventuality, we will deal with it at the time. I thine need to start moving. I think the first item to be considered were together item 1 on page 1. Item 3 on page 2. Item 1 on page 4. And I believe that's all. >> Councilmember martinez? this item was amended by councilmember spellman and riley and now it is back before us from the same form. I did not take that to be a replacement motion but -- not to be a substitute motion but a motion in addition to this one. so we have to vote it down. or you withdraw it. >>Martinez: I will withdraw. that is withdrawn by councilmember martinez, the maker of the motion. Second one to consider is item 1, page 2, this has to do with the general fund for increased revenue associated with plussa saltillo b changes. The second on page 2 related is item 8. I believe that is all. Item 2 on page 1 and item 8 on page 2. These are an item that is totally funded with revenue, changes in revenues. From the parks department, i believe, to support this increased expenditure of $21,000. >> Mayor? councilman spelman. this would be for changes in fees for them is that something voted on differently or administratively. >> If it passes, we'll have an amendment to the schedule which is item 3 on the addendum. >>Mayor leffingwell: ok. All in favor of that aye. Opposed, no. That passes on vote of 7-0. Item 3 is withdrawn. Item 4 on page 1 is transfers in from the sustainability fund for a part rover program. And that is associated with item 10 on page 3. Item 4 on page 4. Item 2 on page 6. Items 12, 13, 14, 16 and 17 on pages 7 and 8. Councilmember tovo. I want to speak to this again for one minute. I want to remind my colleagues the sustainability fund was set up for exactly this kind of purpose. To help the city of austin build a sustainability environmentam and economic infrastructure. The program funded through that program have consistently been child care, economic growth -- I'm sorry workforce development and also technology and affordable housing. This is squarely within the mission of the sustainability fund. All that we're doing is keeping the transfer from austin water utility consistent at 1%. I hear the mayor that he wants to have a policy discussion about the sustainability fund, we can do that. For this budget cycle we should keep it consistent for previous years and for purposes that the city council set up the sustainability fund for. further discussion? Councilmember spellman. in the 412, 12, 16 -- there may be something else going on here tied to the 1%, in the water sustainability, or is that the only issue? >> This is a complicated one that involves a lot of different items. In general getting the water sustainability back to the 1% where it has been historically been increases revenues by $659,203. $557,000 Of that amount go to the housing department for fte and reduces reliance on the housing trust fund for fte leaving it out of the trust fund. That left 102 of the mone unallocated. We would transfer that to the parks department to fund one team of the roving leader program. this is the entire package of getting the roving program and the housing trust fund and non-fte only? >> It is the entire package. is it possible to separate the two pieces? >> It is. I suggest if you are trying to separate, decide whether the water utility will increase by 1%. We can take extra pieces from there. the reason I raise the issue, although we have not had the conversation that i think we very much need to have, specifically on the extent to which the utility needs to put in the 1% it has always put in, sensitive to the mayor's concern that we need -- we need to with some of the funds, we need to reduce the reliance on the funds of transfers from the enterprise funds, to keep the enterprise funds primarily the use of the enterprise. I understand that. This is a small piece of that, the general policy statement and obviously this particular issue. At the same time, I understand wanting to keep enough money in the housing trust fund to make sure that we have enough there to fund. On the commission in previous years and have to spend more money out of the housing trust fund on an annual basis. At the same time, I don't feel the same need to keep the -- i don't feel the need to keep the housing trust fund pure. That seems to be a secondary issue, so long as there is sufficient money in the housing trust fund with the support. .. it seems to me that there is a way of backing off slightly on the 1% for the sustainability fund from water utility, we can further that general policy initiative of trying to weed some of the funds off of the reliance of the enterprise fund and make sure there is enough in the housing trust fund as long as it gives up on the general statement. That seems to be a secondary concern. Where we are backing off on 1%, keeping the trust fund money sufficient to meet its demands and the expense of keeping an fte or twoutof the hou -- two out of the housing trust fund. I'm apologies to making this more difficult. Wanting to get what we are looking for, and not necessarily all of some things, none of another. >> I think it would be helpful, I think if you look at numbers 14, 15, 16, collectively, which I will talk about the housing trust fund and council can give us some direction about this $557,000 that we would like to -- currently $557,000 of the housing trust fund is going to fund staff. We would like to create less, if we can get an amount, we can revise this to reflect that direction. 557 is for five staff members, is it? >> For five. is there a way we can get -- pardon my use of the evil " it seems like it would be an appropriate use. If we have the 557, take it or leave it. WE COULD PARCEL OUT TWO FTEs. Keep two in the housing trust fund. Take out three for what we use the housing trust fund for and back off on the total amount to take out of the water utility and move forward on that initiatesive. I am 5 fte, 557. >> We have a budget question that we are trying to find the number to where we talked about THE SPECIFIC 5 FTEs BEING FUNDED Out of the housing trust fund with dollar amounts for each. >> Mayor? it might be useful to go ahead and table this item or this set of items and address it after you had a chance to work on the numbers a little bit. I don't want to go back into recess again. >> No. that will be an endless process. We can do the others and take this later. >> Mayor? >>Mayor leffingwell: Councilmember tovo. the budget question is number 32, I believe. It is also an option to consider it as it is and consider an alternate. if you want to consider it as it is, that is your privilege, if you would like to offer a vote on that. >>Tovo: I would. I will make another point about the sustainability fund. Until this year, the sustainability fund has received transfers on the user fee and drainage utility fund. We are making changes to the sustainability fund this year. Just put that out there, that -- >>mayor leffingwell: Councilmember tovo has suggested this set of items doesn't pass, you can offer yours. although I will vote no on this entire package, i think it is possible for us to square this circle by circle out OF THE FTEs OUT OF THE HOUSING Trust fund and keeping some in. I'm generally -- I generally agree with what councilmember tovo is trying to accomplish. all in favor of this set of items, aye. Opposed, no. I believe that fails on a vote of 4-3. Councilmember riley, martinez, myself, spelman. >> I voted no. that is what I meant. You voted aye. Councilmember martinez voted no, I voted no. Councilmember spelman voted no. That passes 4-3. >>Tovo: it still fails. [Inaudible, multiple people speaking] >> show of hands. May I suggest we call the roll since we're doing budget votes. To prevent confusion. >>Mayor leffingwell: all right. You have embarrassed me into doing that. Councilmember riley -- >> councilmember riley? Councilmember martinez? Councilmember tovo. >>Tovo: aye. >> Councilmember morrison. Councilmember spelman. >>Spelman: no. that fails on a vote of 3-4. Myself, spelman pro tem, martinez voting no. So we go to the next item, which would be -- councilmember tovo. before we move on, why don't we consider an alternative along the line of councilmember spelman. Did you have an opportunity to pull up item 32? >>Spelman: I have not. why don't we go in order. We will bring it back. >>Spelman: ok. so on page 2, we have items 2 and 6. 11 On page 3, correct? That is by a different maker. But it is the same color. I believe it is because I decided to use number four instead of 11. >> That is correct, councilmember cole removed item -- so we are voting on items 2 and 6 on page 2 and item 11 on page 3. >> And. and items one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight on page 7. >> That's correct. >>Mayor leffingwell: Councilmember morrison. I have a question here. This is ultra complicated. As I laid out earlier, for me, i wanted to look at plan b, ensure that we got the funding for roving leaders. I guess I want to ask if you would be inclined to share with me, my colleague councilmember spelman, part of what you may be revising and bringing forward, part of what was there was some funding for roving leader person. I wonder if you intended -- if you would share with me. >>Spelman: happily. do you intend to keep that? I want to back out TWO FTEs, TO KEEP THE 1% FROM Coming out of the water utility rate. that gives me room to support. My plan b won't be needed hopefully. as far as I'm concerned, you will have four votes. depending on what the others think. It is sounding hopeful. >>Spelman: good. contingency votes are not allowed. >>Tovo: I will support this. If we are not successful in funding a roving leader position in the reconfigured austin water utility sustainability budget, i will make a subsequent motion to REDUCE THE TWO FTEs DOWN TO 1 TO Fund the roving leader. I'm voting for this right now, but fair warning I may amend it later. mayor pro tem. I think this is the only thing on the table. We talked earlier about the need to increase funding to early childhood development through the health and human services department. For page 2, item number 2 and we talked about needing equipment in the parks department to actually help with urban forestry. So what I want to do on that item is to actually take that amount. The $154,159 and fund that for equipment in the parks department through the budget stabilization fund and use that funding to go to health and human services for early childhood development. Let me repeat that. We talked earlier about the need for additional funding in health and human services for early childhood development. Item number two, on page 2 is actually funding for the parks department for urban forestry. But we also talked earlier about the urban forestry division also needing equipment in place of FTEs IN ORDER TO OPERATE THE Program. So I'm requesting that the funds for $154,159 be taken from budget stabilization reserves and that money actually be transferred to health and human services for early childhood development. that is kind of like an entire new item. >>Cole: that is an amendment. >>Mayor leffingwell: ok. So one option is to vote on these and if it is voted down, you can -- >>cole: I can withdraw it. you want to withdraw this set of items? 2, 6, 11. >>Cole: I tell you what. Let's just leave it as is. Then when we finish, I can amend. >>Mayor leffingwell: all right. We're voting on that set of items. Councilmember tovo. I would like to better understand what your alternative is. Right now, we would be voting to ADD TWO FTEs FOR URBAN FORESTRY? what we are voting on now is what you see written on the page. I have a lot written on the page. printed on the page. voting on 2 and 6 on page 2, 11 on page 3, which I as SEE IT WE VOTE TO ADD TWO FTEs In urban forestry and allocating $76,000 for permanent support housing? >>Cole: yes. The confusing part is itemly item 4 an 11 go together and 2 and 6 -- 4 is -- let's try to speak in order, here. >>Cole: I'm sorry, cathy. this is confusing enough. Councilmember spelman. do you want two fte in urban forestry? to go to early childhood development. she said she wanted to vote on the item as is. I'm asking about the amendment forthcoming. >>Tovo: I am as well. I'm still not clear on what's to come. I would like to be clear on what's to come. We're photovote for the taxing ON ADDING TWO FTEs IN URBAN Forestry and allocating $76,000 for permanent housing. Mayor pro tem, I think I heard you say you are going to make a subsequent motion or maybe you are withdrawing this one now, I'm not clear. You are no longer advocating for two fte for urban forestry, instead you are going to advocate for adding equipment for parks through the one-time FUND, NO URBAN FORESTRY FTEs AND Instead allocating $154,159 to early childhood. yes, but I have to do it later. if we vote up or down on this, will you propose your next motion as an alternative or in addition to? If we vote on this and then we would rather have the monies available for that. the original plan, councilmember, was to vote on all amendments. Vote them up or down. And not amend the amendments. But apparently, there is not a clear understanding of what the process is. If you would like to suggest another course of action, please be my guest. not suggesting another course of action. I'm trying to understand what my colleague is proposing. [One moment please for change in captioners] >> okay. Thank you, mayor, that's the course of action, and so mayor pro tem withdraws item 2 and the rest remains the same. So, curt, call the role. >> Pro tem leffingwell. >> Mayor leffingwell: no. >> Council member cole. >> Cole: Aye. >> Council member riley, council member martinez. >> Council member tovo, council member spelman. >> Aye. >> That passes on a vote of 6-1 with myself voting no. So that brings us to item number 3 on page 2, I will see if that's associated -- that's associated with items 1 on page 4. >> That was withdrawn by council member martinez. >> Mayor leffingwell: oh. Three on page 2 is withdrawn. >> Yes. >> Mayor leffingwell: okay. We will go to item 4, and 4 and 5 associated on page 2? >> Only those page 2. We were running out of colors here. running out of colors. >> We have light yellow and dark yellow. and that's reduce over $290,000 and use it for at risk youth. Call the role. Mayor leffingwell. >> Mayor leffingwell: no. >> Cole. >> Aye. >> Council member riley, council member martinez, council member tovo. >> Tovo: My. >> Council member spelman. >> Aye. passes on a vote of 6-1 with myself voting no. Okay. That brings us to item 7. Texas standalone on page 2, standalone. >> Yes. All right. $73,000 For refer city youth foundation in the existing contracts and directing the city manager to identify funding options for additional 73,000. Discussion? Clerk call the role. >> Mayor leffingwell. >> Mayor leffingwell: no. >> Mayor pro tem cole. >> Cole: Aye. >> Council member riley? Council member martinez? Council member tovo? Council member morrison? Council member spelman. >> Spelman: Aye. passes on a vote of 6-1 and I voted no. This page is already done. Have we done 10 on page 3? No? >> We will have to do that one again. >> We deferred that, or that failed 3-4. the rover program. Are you ready address that one, council member spelman? >> Spelman: If the raw material I needed is available, I will happily address it now or we can address it later. all right. We will go ahead and go to the next item, then. Item 11, has that been addressed? Eleven on page 3? >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Spelman: We did that one, and 12. >> Mayor leffingwell: and 12. >> Spelman: Yes. Right. >> Morrison: Mayor, if we perhaps could skip 12. council member morrison. >> Morrison: I think we can skip 12 until we have an opportunity to loo revised amendment that council member spelman is preparing. >> Mayor leffingwell: okay. -- >> Tovo: Mayor. Mayor? council member tovo. >> Tovo: I have a question about the -- so after saying it was 32, I see you have distributed q and a, 32 to us but it doesn't have dollar figures attach todd the staff positions. I am happy to make another motion regarding the items i have proposed. Maybe council member spelman, you can give me a sense of what we are talking -- would you like to see that reduced by 150,000, 100,000, whether -- what sort of scale are you talking about? Terms of the reduction from the austin water utility? >> Spelman: I was thinking in terms of approximately half, so instead of 557,000, something like 275,000, which of course would be probably splitting an and that's why I wanted to know where the sweet spot s or three s, to continue to be supported by the housing trust fund and we would reduce the transfer from the water utility to the sustainability fund accordingly because that would not be necessary to support the rest of the amendment. >> Tovo: Mayor, I would like to ask if I may. council member tovo. >> Tovo: Could we ask the housing staff what the impact would have on the other programs that are traditionally funded through this housing trust fund? Can you quantify that through the number of tenants that would not get tenant counseling, the number of renters that might have other why gotten rental assistance, the residents of a place like wood ridge that need emergency assistance, how will that kind of reduction impact their -- >> betsy spencer director of neighborhood housing. Our services range from roughly $700 per individual to $100,000 per unit and so it is a wide range that we can have. So like the go repair program, the average investment is between 5 and 10,000, all the way up to a rental housing development unit which could be as much as $100,000 per unit. So our general average investment per unit and/or person is about 122-25,000, because it's -- 22-25,000, because it is a wide range. That's how I do the math. I would have to look at the individual service programs. Services tend to be a much smaller per unit investment, versus actual capital expenditure, which could be as much as $100,000 per unit so it's hard to give you -- >> Tovo: I appreciate that. So if we are talking about rental assistance or other kinds of emergency assistance that get, say, a homeless family into stable, safe housing, $250,000, we could be talking about, what is that, 2500 people? >> So, on -- emergency situation, if we were doing tenant based rental assistance, that will probably be $750 a month per person. That program tends to help them from 12-18 months. >> So it's not one month commitment, a year to year. >> You are right. It's usually 12 months for someone to get stabilize before they can move on to more permanent settings, in that particular service. >> Tovo: Right, and of course if we are doing, as you said, some of the costlier things, we are talking about a fewer number of individuals but $250,000, it wouldn't be -- we may be talking about 100 -- 100 people, 100 individuals impacted by that? >> If it were a service like the tenants rights council where they actually do counseling, yes, it could be a much larger number. >> Tovo: Okay. Thanks. Having -- given that the prior motion failed, I appreciate the creativity in figuring out a way we can agree to move forward with this plan. I would just suggest that if we could get to a point where it's a little lower, that would be ideal. >> Spelman: One of the reasons why I suggested it in the first place is because of the historic use of this program, which has been on the order of a half -- between 500 and $700,000 a year, and I might -- my understanding of our conversation from yesterday was that the demands on this program are going to be higher this year than they usually are. Think they they estimated 800,000 in those three big chunks and I don't believe I am going to be able to read my handwriting well enough. Life works, juniper and anderson will be the three big chunks you are talking about and that's about $800,000, and there are also smaller chunks that would also be -- other demands would be put upon the program which you may be able to fund if the money is available add to go around $1 million, but if we s out of the current housing trust fund and put some money into it from the sustainability fund, we would still leave you with $1 million or more to be able to cover those three big chunks, plus smaller pieces, consistent with our previous usage but also consist went the demands on the program will be higher than previous years. It was my understanding, right, betsy, or did I misunderstand? >> That's a correct statement. >> Spelman: Okay. If we, instead of funded five s out of that program, we only funded three, would you still have sufficient money to be able to do all of the thing that is you want to do in that fund? >> We would meet our current obligations as we -- as the -- the three that you just listed are previous commitments. >> Spelman: Right. >> It doesn't allow for additional commitments. We basically committed with the s in the programs you listed, the bulk of the 1.7 million. >> Spelman: Right. >> So if we were -- if there s funded out of the trust fund -- or three out of -- >> Spelman: Yeah. >> Any additional funds that the trust fund had, we could then put into an additional eligible expense, so we would put it wherever -- I mean, if it was tenants rights counseling, if it was acquisition and development, rental housing, tbra, any one of those we could put it in. >> Spelman: Okay. So I am thinking in terms of 300,000, rather than 557,000, which would free up some money, which would free up sufficient money that should be able to hit the 1 million-dollar mark that you were talking about yet yesterday? >> We would still have the 1 million-dollar mark but just add add $300,000, is that correct? We have not changed the million -- no, the original three projects would remain by offsetting some sustainability funds for staff. That increases for other projects, so, yes, you have not taken anything away from what we talked about. Is that the question. >> Spelman: Yes. That was my issue. Okay. Does that make any sense to you at all? >> Well, we are prepared to -- we passed out the positions -- the five positions that are being talked about and we are now printing out the costs of the five positions so council solvency some direction with regards -- council could give us some decision with regards to -- if you aren't ready to vote on this, go on to something else. >> Tovo: I can also is another -- mayor. council member tovo. >> Tovo: spencer, sorry, i didn't get the mic before you left it. I want to be clear on the numbers you are talking about. The numbers -- the figures that you discussed are, as you said, previous commitments. >> Yes. >> So that's not allowing you to -- I mean, you are going to have a fairly limited budget to respond to any kind of new situation, like another wood bridge or -- not that I think the city should be responsible -- like another wood ridge -- when we have a private landlord that is available but in situations where we have people in our community that need emergency assistance, how much money -- how much money will you have available to responding to those kinds of situations? >> We would -- as the way it is right now, if we used all of the s and the three projects we have discussed about, about $150,000. >> Tovo: You would have 150,000 left for an entire year left of worth of community development -- I forget the components -- >> yes, downpayment assistance and other things, yes, ma'am. >> Tovo: And that's with the five positions housed through the house trust fund? >> Yes, ma'am. >> Tovo: that is can be transferred to the sustainability fund is additional money that is opened up for getting people out of homelessness into stable, secure housing or providing assistance to renters or things like that? >> That's correct. >> Tovo: Council member spelman, can I be clear on, were you spencer three positions or two to be funded out of the housing trust fund? >> Spelman: My rough cut idea was somewhere between 2 and 3. Obviously it ought to be a whole number. It is cleaner that way. But with the effect of taking that 557 and cutting italy in half. >> Tovo: Okay. >> Spelman: Which would leave about 275,000 more than you had before. >> I -- if it's okay, if you can give me a number, we can offer back a suggestion, or a recommendation to that. >> Spelman: Okay, well, I can't give you a number until I know s is, unfortunately. couldn't you just say this is what we are allowing for the cost of the s and -- >> Spelman: I think it's cleaner , mayor and it requires us to know what s are going to cost. >> They are printing up the salaries. I apologize I didn't bring the salaries with me this morning. They are printing that now. >> Tovo: Mayor. council member tovo. >> Tovo: May I just -- I have one in front of me. I am assuming we all got them. May I propose that we fund the contract compliance specialist senior and the research analyst senior out of the housing trust fund for a total of about 175? can you tell us what you are talking about? >> Tovo: I will be glad to. I am proposing that we shift the contract -- well, that we fund the contract compliance specialist senior and the research analyst senior out of the housing trust fund moneys and transfer the other three to the sustainability fund, not quite half, but it is two even numbers. s still within the housing trust s shift to go the sustainability fund. Total of 92,584 plus 82,239. does everyone have that information? >> Spelman: Mayor, if I could amend that. >> Mayor leffingwell: Mr. spelman. >> Spelman: I think it is almost exactly consistent with my original approach, would be to incorporate council member tovo's suggestion, but to also add the financial consultant, the contract compliance specialist senior of 92, research analyst senior of 82 8 add up to almost exactly the same amount as a manager for housing policy and planning and assistance director, they are a little bit smaller, so that would transfer approximately 300 -- see, 287 -- 288 to the sustainability fund and keep the other three positions, which are a littleless than 288, I haven't been able to add them all up, but the first three add up to a little less than that, about half of the total. Half of the total would stay in the housing trust fund, the other half total would go in the sustainability fund freeing up $280,000 for the housing trust fund to use on all of their projects. So basically split the baby in half 50/50 and that would be my proposal. >> Tovo: If that's the best we can do, yes, I prefer to see it under 200,000, but -- >> Spelman: Try to get that last 94815 but I prefer that to go back to the water utility. okay, so I am just going to ask staff to lay this out for us when they are ready. >> Tovo: And all other -- >> Spelman: And all of the roving leader stuff stays intact without any changes at all, if i could reiterate. >> Mayor leffingwell: okay. >> Spelman: Sausage. [ Silence] [ silence] [ silence] . [ Silence] [ silence] are you ready to lay it out for us? >> I am going to do my best. Starting with number 12 on page 7, I think we would like to change the language for the transfer -- the transfer in amount from the austin water utility $485,150, it would be. >> Mayor leffingwell: okay. >> Number 13, the transfers in from the water utility to the sustainability fund that, number likewise changes to 45,$150, which in essence, what that is doing is reducing transfer from the water utility to the sustainability fund, the difference had been 659203, it is now 485150. >> Mayor leffingwell: okay. >> Number, 14, 15, 16, all of .. The new amount is. >> Spelman: numbers don't exactly run into what I am doing. Is that what it is? >> We are working on council member spelman's numbers. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Let's do that. Let's work on council member spelman's numbers until we get some numbers and then we will talk about whether they need to be changed or not. >> Spelman: All right. Mayor, I suggest, then, we pay for the last two. >> The housing policy and planning director out of the sustainability fund and my account is that that adds up to 288019, so that 557518 would change to 288019. >> Mayor leffingwell: okay. Do you agree with that -- >> that's where the manager and the assistance director positions? >> Spelman: That's my idea. Yes. Those fy don't add up to 518 but they are close. >> We are getting close, we are getting 587290.30. >> It has to be 288. >> Council member, go ahead. >> Tovo: Thank you. If I may, I don't know if this clarifies confusion, the original 1% transfer after you subtracted out 557,000, there was about 101,000 left and the roving leader position is 95,000, so if there are some discrepancy in numbers, that may be why. The roving leader didn't equate to exactly 101 but we only had funding in there of the actual cost of the one team of the roving leader so that may be the number situation. >> Well, my suggestion would be, I think staff understands the direction but we are getting different sets of numbers so i think we could crunch these numbers and come back to this item and there is still plenty of items for council to take action on as we carefully go through the numbers and make sheverything reconciles. all right. We will put that one on the table. And I think go to page 4 item 2 that related to anything -- that related -- is that related to item 1 on page 6? Yes? >> Yes. and i think that's it. So council member morrison. >> Morrison: Thank you. I just want to comment that i think it's really greet that we have the conversation about a the 1115 waiver program like this one is that yesterday, and I look forward to working on sort of an overall program, financial program corporate wide. I know that parks is even working with health and human services because I think we have a lot of great opportunities here and I look forward to this one kicking off. is there any question about the legitimacy of taking this money out of the critical one-time fund for this purpose? >> I don't believe so. This would be one-time funding for a contract. It's something we have done in the past. For example, atcic comes to mind where council wanted to extend the funding to that agency. It was a contract. They wanted to extend the funding for an additional 6 months so it was a one-time commitment and this as well would be a one-time commitment to provide additional $250,000 for fiscal year '13 only and after that the contractual amount will go back to what it had previously been. I believe this to be consistent with council's policy for the use of these funds. s this the item yesterday we had the discussion on, where we talked about it would be a good thing to fund if we could find the money for it. There is no money within the department to do this, and so the suggestion was we find it from where else. We couldn't find it -- there is no place else to be found, so it's coming out basically the reserve fund. Is that correct? >> Morrison: That's my understanding and the additional element here is that it can basically act as this money so we can get a return for the 1115 waiver program that can then fund it in the future. >> Mayor leffingwell: Ultimately it's coming out not budget stabilization fund. >> Morrison: Correct. >> Cole: Mayor. mayor pro tem. >> Cole: I would like to speak up in support of this program. I know the county has it and it has been very successful and because it's is part of the 1115 money, we will, I think, more than double our return on it by making it, and it is also serving many people in the minority community. >> Mayor leffingwell: I agree. I think it's a good program and I would like to be able to support it but it's coming out of the stabilization fund and i won't be. Is there any further discussion? Clerk can call the role. >> Mayor leffingwell. >> Mayor leffingwell: no. >> Mayor pro tem cole. >> Yes. >> Council member riley? Council member martinez? Council member tovo? Council member morrison? Council member spelman? that passes on 6-1 and I voted no. And item -- on page 4, item number 3, again -- precinct transfers into the critical one time fund of 84057 for early childhood services that related to item 3 on page 6. >> Correct. >> Morrison: Mayor. council member morrison. >> Morrison: If I could just take a moment to remind folks, because we earlier had talked about critical one time funding for the different program and the police department that turned out to be not quite so pragmatic and I withdrew that motion and suggested instead that the funding, it be critical one-time funding from budget stabilization. And dedicate that to early childhood. The idea being that this still allows us to stay at 12% of our reserves, a good healthy reserve, but to address the unfortunate situation that we found ourselves in, in significant defunding of early childhood to our last social service contract. So it's not -- it's not a solution that's a permanent solution but it is bog to help some folks -- it's going to help some folks out in some grants that we already have going. any further discussion? Again, I am going to continue with what I have said before. It's a good program. I would like to see it funded but not out of the reserve fund. Clerk call the role. >> Mayor leffingwell. >> No. >> Mayor pro tem cole. >> Cole: Yes. >> Council member riley? Council member martinez? Council member tovo? Council member morrison? Council member spelman? passes on 6-1 with I voted no. So -- so -- oh, yes, item number 5, which is, again, going to budget stabilization reserve fund, transferring that $248,000 to the critical fund for one-time mitigation efforts with the community wild fire protection plan. That's associated with item 4 on page 6. Discussion? Council member spelman. >> Spelman: Any chance we can get you to vote for this one, mayor? actually, I am going to vote for this one because it is a public safety emergency associated with the critical need and mitigation for wild fires, I am going to vote on this. This meets the criteria for going into the budget stabilization fund. And a you would have found that out in just a second. So there is no further discussion? Clerk call the role. >> Mayor leffingwell. >> Aye. >> Mayor pro tem cole. >> Aye. >> Council member specialist, council member riley, council member morrison, council member spelman? , Council member leffingwell. passes 7-0. It takes us to, I believe, item number 9 which is to amend the s, reallocate 250,000 within communications and technology by reducing the budget for the city-wide it strategy assessment from $1 million to $750,000. This is simply a reallocation of funding. Is there any discussion of this item? " aye. Opposed say no? Passes on a vote of 7-0. Item number 10, transportation fund, amend the transportation fund budget to increase appropriations by 571,000 for more equitable programs related to the transportation that supports the imagine austin plan. And I would just like to ask a question once again, I know we have discussed this once. About what are we losing by transferring this money? Are we losing fixing x number of potholes or -- or preventive maintenance on x number of streets or what is the cost of? >> Given, howard lazarus public works. This balance brings down the year end balance, it is money that we would have used to address future year requirements that to make sure the funds stay positive as well as trying to build a reserve in the funds to handle any emergency that may have occurred. so there is no project that is you have planned that would go wanting because of of this reallocation? >> Not in the current fiscal year. not in the current fiscal year. >> In the -- not in next fiscal year. >> Mayor leffingwell: okay. Anything further? >> Morrison: Mayor. council member morrison. >> Morrison: I would like to note that allocating these funds to this -- to this special bucket of money is what I am thinking. Give us the opportunity to go after programs as they arise and it doesn't actually dictate that we spend this money although it may roll-over. Although if there is programs that need to exceed money or special priorities that arise, especially as they relate to -- as we work through implementing imagine austin, I think it gives us the flexibility. all in favor of that amendment say aye. Aye. Opposed say no. Passes on a vote of 7-0. And item number 11, amending the austin energy budget to increase appropriations in the amount of 3 and a half dollars for the solar program. Austin energy -- anybody from austin energy here? I don't see anybody from austin energy here. The question is, is this also coming from -- from the remaining balance or -- >> it would be the '13 budgets that projects a surplus of revenues over expenses in the current fiscal year of $15 million, so this would lower that amount by 3 and a half million dollars, wouldn't change their programs or their fee structure. is does that have an effect on the -- does that have an effect on the required observes? Observes -- on the require reserves? >> Ann little, cfo for austin energy. Could you repeat the question, please? I just wanted to ask what the effect of increasing appropriations for the solar program by 3 and a half million dollars would be. >> Well have in excess of $15 million, including the transfer from the strategic reserve fund, so that would be adequate to cover that. so it doesn't require any transfers from any reserve funds? It's already transferred? >> We already have a transfer of 11 million, and it is included in that 15 million-dollar excess. included in the excess. >> Yes. and this is money that's available for solar rebates, rebate programs? >> Yes. and if it's not spent, it will remain in the fund. Is that correct? >> That's correct. if rebates aren't issued? >> That's correct. any discussion? >> Spelman: Mayor. council member spelman. >> Spelman: We haven't had an opportunity to have a substantive discussion about this question. And you may not be the right person to answer this question, but if you can answer it partly, it will be helpful to me, ms. little. How much is currently in the solar rebate program? Is it 4 million? >> Yes, there is 4 million currently in there. >> So this would be more or less doubling the size of the program? >> That's correct. >> Spelman: I am concerned about two things. One of them is that when we double the size of the program, it may be simply difficult for the -- given the current staff we have of the program we have for us to spend that much money, spend twice as much money. I am also concerned about distortions in the market, in that if we double the amount as a rebate, would this have the effect of doubling the number of up stalllations, or will it have the affect of doubling the cost per installation, because the installer community will take advantage of the increase in the rebate amount and double their prices, or somewhere in between? And if it's -- I do not believe that the installer committee will be doubling their prices but I suspect that there may be some effect on the price for installation and that we will not necessarily get a doubling of the total number of solar installations as a result of almost doubling the total amount, and I wonder if there is somebody from the solar program who could speak to the extent to which there may be market distortion in the program and the capacity of the current staff to be able to handle almost twice as many requests. S are. >> I don't think there is anyone else available, but we have had a few meetings on that and we would have to increase the staff level, probably. The cost of solar is actually going down, so the number of installations could increase, regardless of the increase in the solar rebates. But you are correct, in we would have to develop some programs in order to -- to utilize that money efficiently. >> Spelman: All a of that makes good sense to me. It doesn't quite answer my question, unfortunately, and i can't blame you for not being able to completely answer my question because it was a very technical question and probably could only be answered by somebody who actually operated this program. We would -- there would be more s but it would be included 5 million available, 5 is not only for rebates, it is for accommodation of rebates plus operate or only rebates? >> No, it's only just for rebates. >> Spelman: Okay. Do we have a sense for how much -- how much our administrative costs would increase in order to spend twice as much rebate money? >> No. I think we are looking at adding maybe two employees, but I don't know the dollar amount exactly. >> Spelman: So something like a couple of hundred thousand dollars? >> Correct. >> Spelman: Which is not included in this item but it is another cost you would have to bear. Is there somebody that could persuade me there will not be a significant market distortion by doubling the amount of rebate money available? >> I am sorry, I can't really answer that. >> I didn't figure you could. Is there somebody who would be available on call who would be able to speak to that issue, ann? >> I can bring someone over later today. I could -- I could probably make a call and get back with you in a few minutes. >> Spelman: I would like it if you could do that. It would make me feel a lot better. >> Okay. Okay. Thank you. before you leave, I would like to -- if we are asking for more information, I would like to know exactly what end of this number, of 3 and a half million dollars, when did we come up with 3 and a half million as opposed to 2 and a half or 4 and a half? It has to be based on some measure of demand out there, of historic, unmet demand. Is it just a number? >> I don't have the answer to that. to maybe when you bring back -- council member riley has the answer. [One moment, please, for change in captioners] >> it would be upwardly significant. 2009 Has been generally to discuss, the lower threshold of where we need to start from, as we think about the future of this program. So this would be a modest but significant step insofar as it would be moving upward from the 2009 level, and would position our program for further growth as we continue to work with the local solar advisory committee on their recommendations, and that is consistent with our often-stated intent that will often maintain and build upon a historic position as a leader in the solar industry. I think it is a worthy amendment and I strongly support it. I guess similar to councilmember spelman I would like to be assured it will not adversely impact our goals. That council adopted the goals for 2%. Bottom 50%. >> I will get back to you with an answer. is the idea we want to put this on the table until we get answers, or are you ready to vote? Ok. All right. We'll put that on the table for now. And go to more. Number 18, drainage utility fund. Increasing appropriations in the amount of $648,000 for drainage and erosion control purposes. I believe we had considerable discussion on this. This was to allocate that money. Is that correct councilmember tovo? yeah, I would be happy to recap. With the sustainability fund. What this motion would do is allocate up to 1%, which the total is there. Up to $648,293 for tree irrigation and tree preventive maintenance, as it benefits storm water benefits. So the other piece of this is that it will direct the city manager to direct staff to come back to council with a report indicating to the extent to which you are applicable for the storm water benefit. The extent to which the existing activities have storm water benefits and have the impact of reducing flooding and reducing erosion control or increasing erosion control. I see mr. kelly here. I wonder if I might prevail on him to just come speak for a minute about this. I'm the director for the event. I want to speak about our infrastructure program. City of austin has been viewed as a leader for the nation with the green infrastructure, epa, selected with the city for the green infrastructure and also picked the water park with the national green initiative structure. We're proud of our program. We established a cross functional green infrastructure team within the department to further integrate this technology into the storm water management of the water quality and erosion control. And we have the team here that can address that more. I appreciate you both being here both days all day. green, if you could discuss the infrastructure and how this will enhance the great work you are doing in terms of using green infrastructure for storm water benefits for reducing flooding. >> Mayor, councilmembers, mark kelly with the water department. Traditionally watershed protection, looking at green infrastructure looking at engineered approaches where we consciously divert water off of streets and rooftops and detain that and put it into the ground. We use certain quantitative methods to give out how much benefit that gives us for reducing flooding and erosion. I believe the proposal deals more with the existing natural green infrastructure with the parks, green belts, things like that, which we realize have a function. What we have been unable to do is quantify those, at this point, unincidental benefits of the natural green infrastructure. So I think what the study that is proposed would do is allow us to use the current tools we use in terms of numbers of gallons diverted from the storm water system, which reduces flooding. It allows a one-to-one comparison, with the loss of x amount of trees you lose x amount of benefit to the storm water system. That gives us the ability to do a one-to-one accounting of what it is worth to maintain. I think that would be helpful. And thank you for nicely articulating kind of what the study would do in terms of assessing what the existing green infrastructure is and how to care for it and what the real economic benefits are and what the real storm water benefits are of caring for it in a way that is appropriate. So it sounds like this proposal, in many ways, ties in nicely with some of the work you're already doing within watershed? >> It does. Would you like me to expand. sure, if you have more to say, absolutely. >> We're working with staff to locate some of the green structures, because it is open public land that benefit the creeks that flow through the parks. We're able to locate these and capture the runoff that was up until that point going through storm drains or pipes and use it on the landscape, we clean the water before it gets to the creeks but also use it on-site for irrigation. So, that is one of the initiatives we're working on is instead of using potable water or hand trucks, we're looking to capture that runoff off the street systems into parks by curb cuts or diverting pipes to actually use that athe irrigation system for trees. We are confident we can achieve great gains in that 91-year sickle of irrigating trees by harvesting water off the street and putting it on to the land directly. And not necessarily just taking over potable water supplies. So that is currently underway with staff. We believe that any report we make would be able to further quantify of where it is available. >>Tovo: that is great. We would like to see that number come down a bit. Thanks for all the work you are doing already. With that, I think that is my last question on that. I've just got a concern about, you know, reallocating a dedicated enterprise fund for another purpose. Without going through this exercise that you just described before we do that, especially. Right now, we're making the allocation first. We will do the study later. And being as how this particular fund is one that is literally a million dollars behind schedule. A million dollars of projects that are waiting if for funds. It is something I can't support at this time. I could maybe in the future, if we come back with, you know, more information on how and where this will work, for that purpose, for the intended purpose, maybe I can. But I can't right now. >>Tovo: mayor? >>Mayor leffingwell: Councilmember tovo. storm water benefits, are clearly within the state statute that enabled this fund. It is by no means are we going to be able to allocate that money to a purpose that is not squarely -- that doesn't fit squarely within the purposes and missions laid out by the drainage utility fund in the city ordinance and in the state statute. So the staff will come back to us with a report. All we're doing, as I understand it, reserving up to 1% for any project that might be eligibility within -- and we'll know better what those are and what that amount is when the staff come back to us in 90 days. We can make a determination then. >>Mayor leffingwell: yeah. I hear what you're saying. It could be a good program. I'm not ready to do that right now, until we have done a thorough evaluation. Diverting needed funds for something not -- mayor pro tem. >>Tovo: go ahead. >> We will use all the funds we collect from the drainage fee, and we will prioritize all the fees to our project. We will include the green infrastructure tied with the project in our priority list. We appreciate this opportunity to highlight the need of all the existing trees and vegetation and the needs that are mentioned. We will use our formal process to prioritize the fund, up to 1%. If we see the priority is a cost benefit ratio is high enough, we will allocate more funds in the infrastructure program. Basically, we're following our normal process to prioritize. mayor pro tem. this is a quick question for councilmember tovo. I noticed that the amendment uses the specific language that it is for drainage and erosion control. I think that is consistent with what professional staff has said. You earlier used a term "tree mitigation" and I was not sure if I heard you right or what you meant by that. >> I think I might have said tree irrigation. >>Cole: oh, irrigation. >>Tovo: I meant tree irrigation. >>Cole: ok. Thank you. in the original discussion, there was talk about making the money that originally used for the irrigation purposes reimbursing them for the money they use so they can use the money for some other purpose, relieving them of an expense. Is that still the intent of this? Is that still the net effect of this? >> We hope that we will be able to use this fund we will allocate, so we can produce bigger bang for the buck. I heard that. I'm concerned about the cost shifting, enterprise, essentially shifting those costs into a general fund. And that was what we had discussed the recall day. I want to see if that is still the case? I think the assistant city manager is right behind you and wants to add a comment? No? That is not how I would interpret the language. That is what you have to ask the council member about intent. >> Mayor, you are correct. When we talked about this yesterday, there is -- we will have to talk about how to handle this. I was suggesting that in addition to enhancing the amount of money we spend maintaining and preserving our trees here in austin, that that might be a very appropriate -- there is work that they're doing that fits squarely within the drainage utility fund purpose, yes, it would offset some of the money hart is spending on the activities and there may be some costs that are more appropriately handled through the drainage utility fund. do we have a later opportunity to address that at a later date? >>Tovo: as I understand it, yes. What I understood, if savings exist, council shall direct as needed to allocate the funds to use in senior programs and senior forestry programs. It is to enhance the money spent on tree maintenance, prevention, and address other needs. But again, it is my understanding of that is have to happen through a budget amendment, at which point, we can talk about whether that money needs to remain in watershed or can properly offset some of the pard money, right now pard is bearing the full responsibility for caring for irrigating our public parks and public spaces. To the extent that there are storm water benefits, those might be better handled in part by the drainage utility fund. with the assurance that there is nothing in the current amendment that shifts enterprise money out of the drainage fee and interest the general fund department, parks department, that will only be done through a later budget amendment, not being done here. Is that the case? >> That is the case. with some degree of trepidation, I can support it. I am concerned that staff down the path will be prepared to deal with that later. All in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed, no. That passes 7-0. That brings us to item 19. This is to reappropriate the originally budgeted amount, take one million out of that, divert that to funds. The purpose of the fund out of which it is funded. Fund treat cleaning code compliance, and I'll just repeat what I said the other day. I think $750,000 over two years is adequate for public education, given the fact that we have engaged over five years of public education. Any further discussion? Councilmember morrison. I wanted to provide comment after hearing from the director yesterday, understanding more, and understanding this number was not picked out of the air by our staff. They did talk with other cities, and all of that. I think we have a real commitment to making this successful work that we have in front of us. That is why I am going to be voting against this. >>Mayor leffingwell: ok. Clerk, call the roll. >> Mayor leffingwell. >>Mayor leffingwell: aye. >> Cole, tovo, morrison, spelman. that fails on vote of 4-3. Councilmember riley, tovo, morrison, spelman, voting no. I believe the last item we have, you have a sheet that has been passed out. Items 12, 13, 14, 15, 17. Which has to do with water utility sustainability transfers. All one motion. >> It includes the other peach-colored items earlier in the document. Item 4 on page 1, item 10, page 3. 4, 10, page 3. >> 4 On 4. >>Mayor leffingwell: 4 on 4. These items. Thanks for the correction. >> I would say, if you look at what we handed out, there is no longer a 16. So by our understanding, item 16 would not need to be on here any longer. After we make all of the changes to see the appropriations of the housing trust fund. It firms up $297,000 in the trust fund, that would stay in the fund to do projects with. We don't need item 16 any long per. 12-17 Are replaced with what you see on the black and white handout, with there is no item 16 any longer. >>Mayor leffingwell: ok. Any questions about this item? Councilmember tovo? >>Tovo: a quick one. I think you said 4 on page 4 and 10 on page 3. So basically, this will accomplish -- this motion would accomplish the transfer from the water utility to the sustainability fund, from the sustainability fund out to neighborhood housing. It would assure the critical one- -- the purchase of the capital expenditure leaders through the roving fund and create the fte necessary through the sustainability funding. >> Yes, it also funds $20,000 for the temps in the roving leader program and the supplies and equipment. >>Tovo: thank you. any further discussion? We'll take a vote on all of the items together. Call the roll. >> Mayor leffingwell? >>Mayor leffingwell: no. >> Mayor pro tem cole. >>Cole: aye. >> Councilman martinez, morrison, spelman. >>Spelman: aye. >>Mayor leffingwell: passes 6-1. I voted no. >> There are two items which are the financial policy which need to be approved. >>Mayor leffingwell: correct. mayor, I have one other amendment that we talked about to put on the table. If you want to take the financial policies. financial policy item 1 is an amendment to the general fund financial policy. Number 3. You can all read it there. Any discussion on this item? All in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed, no. Passes 7-0. Item 2. To amend the proposed budget by adding back the existing language in the water utility, related to voter approval of revenue debt. Any discussion on that? All in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed no. No. That passes 6-1. I voted no. Councilmember -- mayor pro tem cole has the floor. >>Cole: yes, I have the floor. I would like to make an additional amendment that we discussed earlier, which would basically amend the budget stabilization reserve fund for $154,159 for the parks department for equipment. AND WHAT WAS PREVIOUSLY TWO FTEs For the urban forestry, a sum of $154,159 would go to the health and human service department for early childhood department. That would be a revenue-neutral motion. >>Mayor leffingwell: ok. Transfer $154,159 from early childhood to parks department equipment. >>Cole: right? What was the question, mayor? say it again, please. we had an item withdrawn, which is page 2, item 2. Which amended the proposed BUDGET FOR FTEs FOR URBAN Forestry. I AM DELETING THE TWO FTEs FOR Urban forestry and making a request that the parks department have $154,159 from the budget stabilization reserve fund. >>Mayor leffingwell: ok. then I'm also asking that health and human services receive $154,159 to go to health and human services for early childhood development. >>Mayor leffingwell: ok. Everyone understand that? >> Ed, are you clear? >>Mayor leffingwell: Councilmember morrison and councilmember spelman. >>Morrison: I'm confused. It feels like we had a surplus. It sounds like we're spending it twice, with that motion. >> The budget, after all the changes would have the surplus of $154,159 in the general fund operating budget. The motion is to amend one more amendment to appropriate that $154,159 to the operating budget of the health and human services for early child services. General fund is now in balance with no change to the tax rate. The second part is go to the stabilization reserve, second pot of money, appropriate $154,159 out of the budget stabilization reserves to fund capital equipment in the parks and recreation department. >> For urban forestry. >> To round that out, we need a third amendment -- that amendment to transfer money to the critical one-time fund. That is a third amendment to appropriate the money out of the critical one-time fund for the equipment needed for the urban forestry. >> So moved. one follow-up question. Why does that take us in terms of reserve? It sounds like it is an additional 154 from budget stabilization. >> Um, it is. Currently, with all the amendments, council has appropriated about $970,000 -- actually about $955,000 out of our budget stabilization reserves. This would be an additional 154 thousand. We have to calculate the change. >> With the 955? That is essentially where we started this morning, I think? >> I'm sorry. Because we took -- if you go back to the budget stabilization reserve list, it starts on page 4. Number one was withdrawn. Number 6, no action taken on it. I think that has been -- just go away. >> I plan to withdraw that. >> The new numbers would be the total reserve changes $860,891. That percentage changes to 11.95. Little higher than where we started a couple hours ago. Because of the fact that we're removing item 1. Which was for 248. >> Last night it was right at 12. >> Last night, it was right at 12. what did we do today that took it below 12? >>Mayor leffingwell: Councilmember, can I make a suggestion? It is 1:15. We have a lot more to do today. Perhaps we can figure this out what the projections are for the remaining budget stabilization fund and percentage, take a 30-minute break. >>Morrison: fine with me. >>Mayor leffingwell: ok. >> How many decimals did you go to? >> We're out of recess. We will pick up where we left off. The question that had been asked was about with the proposal on the table, what would be the amount of the budget stabilization fund, in terms of percentages. >> Now, as we speak, but I can read the numbers to you that um, including, which in conversation with councilmember cole after the fact will be an amendment from her, which would be to appropriate an additional $100,000 from budget stabilization reserves for a one-time fund for equipment for parks and urban forestry. in essence, I would reduce it from 154 down to 100. . Where we were talking before we left at 154. What I will hand out, when they get down here, one for $1,000. The total changes from what staff recommended from budget stabilization reserves. $86,742 More money coming out. That would put the reserve percentages exactly 12%. You can see that on page 5. so you have the number, the actual -- i think we have all the amendments on the table. How much in extraexpenditures that resulted over and above the original proposal with staff amendments? If you don't that's ok. >> I'm taking it through the new handout we just gave you. First of all, I should say, if you see on page 3 number 13, we put a black square around it. Not been council action on that yet. >>Mayor leffingwell: right. >> It is on the table. The sum total at $117,266 in the general fund. Some are coming down, some are going up. The whole list is there. The net increase in expenditures is $117,266 which is offset by the additional transfer from the sustainability fund and the additional fee for the plaza saltillo. So the general fund remains balanced with no change in the tax rate. Flipping over to page 5, you can see the additional $806,742 coming out of the stabilization reserve fund. We have somebody working on tallying what the sum total of the other changes to the other operating funds would be. But looking on page 7, one of the largest changes to the operating funds would be the 5 million related to austin energy. I think after council takes action on that, we can give you what that sum total of all the other operating changes are. >>Mayor leffingwell: ok. Let me know when you're ready. We'll go ahead and address the item that's on the table from mayor pro tem cole. >> We just got that. The other operating funds is 6 million of additional expenses. 5 Million change from austin energy approved it will go up additional expenses for the other operating funds. mayor pro tem. I wanted to ask you a question on item 13, I intend for that to go into early childhood development and you have youth services, if that is properly characterized to include that? >> I would change the language to your specific language instead of youth services, if that is your desire. early childhood development. >> Early childhood services. you just passed out an additional piece of paper. Could I have that? I have so many different copies of this, I have to make sure I'm on the right one. Where are we now? We need to vote on the proposed amendment from mayor pro tem cole. >> Number 13 on the bottom of page 3, we need to take action on. this says $154,159. >> Correct. any discussion on this item? Call the roll. >> Excuse me. Mayor leffingwell. >>Mayor leffingwell: no. >> Mayor pro tem cole. >>Cole: yes. >> Councilmember riley, martinez, tovo. >>Tovo: aye. >> Councilmember morrison, and councilmember spelman. >>Mayor leffingwell: passes 6-1. I voted no. I think that takes us to the solar item from austin energy. >> Actually, there is still two operating changes. There is number 7 on page 5. And that is connected with number 6 on page 7. So you can take action on those together. 5 And 7. Ok. Any questions on that item? Again, $100,000 out of the budget stabilization reserve fund. Councilmember riley. we were talking about the amount before, 136. It didn't have much meaning in this context because it was the COST OF TWO FTEs, WHICH WE WERE No longer funding. In the discussions with the parks department about what capital we have, that should be funded out of the budget stabilization reserve, being mindful of the need to keep our drawings -- our drawing from that fund to a minimum. We did identify a need within the forestry division for some handheld devices that will actually make that division much more efficient. Right now, some of the workers are having to go back to the office repeatedly to do paperwork when with the devices they could actually stay out in the field and be much more efficient. So this is -- this $100,000 would be enough to support the capital investment as a one-time necessary expense. It seems like a very appropriate use of the budget stabilization reserve and will have the effect of making the forestry staff more efficient. I strongly support it. >>Cole: mayor? mayor pro tem. ed or elaine, can you briefly comment on the budget stabilization reserve amount? I mean, I think it is important to all of us that we stay fairly within a certain range. Can you give us an indication of what it has been the past few years? >> In terms of percentages, hovering around 12% for the last several years. >>Cole: ok. Thank you. the motion is on item 7 on page 5 and item 6 on page 7, together. Further discussion? Call the roll. >> Mayor leffingwell. >>Mayor leffingwell: no. >> Mayor pro tem. >>Cole: aye. it passes 6-1, I voted no. Now, I believe it takes us to the solar rebate item, item number 11 on page 7. Had a couple of outstanding questions. Are you ready to answer those? >> Yes, chief operating officer, austin energy. ok councilmember spelman, you want to restate your question? >>Spelman: two questions. First, what, if any, additional administrative expenses will be required to support an increase in the rebate amount for four million to 7.5 million? Second, what, if anything, need to be done by the people operating the program to prevent market distortions from inhibiting something like doubling the actual amount of megawatts installed. >> I think on the first one, the program to grow will certainly require additional administration. We have vacant positions that would be rededicated to making sure the program dollars can be processed. So that is not an additional cost to the austin energy budget, which is to reallocation. I think that with regard to the program expenses, I certainly think austin energy does keep on top of how our costs compare to others in the country. We're competitive. We believe our program is the lowest cost in the country. $3.78 Per watt install period. Compared to national average of $5.48 a watt. We don't have a way to control that, per se, we do monitor that regularly. We will watch that throughout this program. Again, the additional funds won't go toward increasing incentives but will extend and make available additional funds to accomplish more solar. >> The best guess is moving from 5 we should get something like twice as many watts installed? >> If we are doubling the program dollars. That would strictly in our expectation be that we double the installed solar in the community. >> Ok. Will this help -- never mind. Stop talking once the sale is made. I'm done. [Laughter] my question what is going to be the effect on our portability goals? That is the bottom line customer bills, by taking this action? >> Certainly this in itself will not prevent austin energy from meeting the affordability targets and goals. We'll be monitoring everything, of course. Based on the current financial forecast, this will not impact our affordability. it will stay in the limits. What is the impact on the bill that goes to the customer's bill. >> I will ask ann to step up in helping answer that question. It is not a direct hit to the current bill, but it will eventually get to the customer bill. >> Ann little with austin energy. I can't tell you the exact dollar amount, but it would probably not impact the customers until next year, when we reconcile and we'll see if we need to increase the rates at that time. would it be less than 1%? >> Yes. well, i trust we're keeping a running total of all these incremental increases. We may need to touch base after the budget has passed and after we have time to assimilate the information you have gotten over the new billing procedure, which is whatever they may need to get an update on that. Ok? Any further questions? All in favor of the motion aye, opposed, no. Passes 7-0. MR. McADAY, HAVE WE PROCESSED All the amendments at this point? Mr. van eno. I have always been hung up on McANO, I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS. >> As long as it has "no" in the name. [Chuckling] >> yes, we have processed all of the amendments council has brought forward. >> Mayor? >>Mayor leffingwell: yes. >> Just for the record, I want to state that I'm withdrawing the plan b emotions -- emotions? Plan b motions, since we talked about not having contingent motions or contingent votes. I'm withdrawing on page 3, motion 12. On page 5, motion 6. On page 6, motion 5. You had already crossed those out. I saw it, I wanted to get it on the record that I was withdrawing those because we were able to take care of the roving leader program a different way. so it is on the record. Those are all the proposed amendments have been processed? >> Yes. we're ready to proceed on the motion to approve the general fund budget as amended? >> Yes. and before we proceed to that, are there any comments anyone would like to make about the general fund budget that haven't been made in the last day and a half? The motion is already on. I object because I want to say something. Calling the question. Is there a second to calling the question? >> I would halfway second to call the question. Since you want to say something anyway, just say it. I will be brief. I am disappointed in the way this turned out. We set out originally, as I said yesterday, with a hope that we could reduce the property tax 29 to a little bit less than that. 5% increase over this year's rate, approximately. What I had proposed was about half that. Still an increase, but less. And I think that is the way we've always got to approach dealing with budget matter, not only at this level, but at every level. It has to be a combination of spending cuts, spending restraint and taxes. I didn't go into this with the idea of no new taxes. That was not my goal. My goal was to restrain the increase. I put a suggestion on the table. Early yesterday. It didn't pass. I understand that. I understand a lot of my colleagues had some trepidation about the unknowns involved in the process. I totally understand. At that time, I say I look forward, during the next day and a half to seeing what other suggestions are offered to cut expenditures. So far, I haven't seen any. What I have seen is, I think, van eno, an increase in expenditures of about a million dollars. Somewhere in there. Is that about correct? >> About a million dollars from the general fund resources and about $5 million from the other operating funds. so -- in large part, funded from various sources but in large part from our reserve fund. And that is not what I wanted to see. The bottom line is, I have no illusion about what is about to happen here. We're going to pass the budget. We have to pass the budget. But my intention is to vote no as a symbol, an acknowledgment, hopefully, that we could have done better. I'm not going to let this be a unanimous vote of the entire council approve this budget with a large spending increase. So with that, the clerk can call the roll. Councilmember martinez. in light of the comments, I certainly appreciate your offering a suggestion yesterday, but I can't let it go without saying. If your offer was meaningful, you should have taken up at offer from many of us on this council to continue the conversation to get to the budget proposal you proposed in making the $4 million in cuts. You specifically said yesterday, I don't want to prolong this, I'm just making this across the board cut. And let's let staff engage in that and come back and tell us what they cut. What we said is we're not necessarily opposed to it. What councilmember spelman said, I would like another week or so, which we have the time until the end of the month, we would be willing to have the conversations. I don't appreciate the portrayal that the rest of us on this body just out and out rejected your proposal. We were -- I think we're still, at this point, I'm willing to extend this conversation, if you would like to do that. If you would like to engage with us about where these cuts come from and how they impact each and every department. well, the vote has not been taken. So a substitute motion would still be in order, if you wish to make one. Well, I'm not going to get into an argument on the dais. But it is not my proposal. Clerk call the roll. Councilmember spelman. I won't make a substitute, but I will make an observation. We have only be talking about want detailed changes weave e been talking about over the last 24 hours or so. I think what happens is budget gets made over a long period of time by many hundreds, maybe thousands of people throughout the entire city, including us, and by the time it gets to the last two or three days when we were actually going to take a vote, there is not a whole lot of room left for fooling around. 7 million in changes in $3.2 million total budget. I think the decisions being made in the last couple of days are quite good. I think we are moving the ball in small ways but forward in all directions. But we think it needs to go. I'm happy with all the decisions we made. But by the time we've got a budget, which is printed in two volumes, of this size, with this level of detail, it will not be possible for us to completely rethink that budget and come up with reductions of 2%, 3%, 5%. Too much water has passed under the bridge. We're too far gone for that. If we want a reduction the size the city is making, we have to get started earlier. We had an opportunity to do that, didn't take advantage. Have an opportunity for the next fiscal year if we want to, to do this differently. We get information on the utman deeds -- when is the report? In april? >> April. economic out outlook in march or april. >> April as well. and an early look at what some of the general fund agencies and enterprise funds are expecting to have in their budget, what new programs they believe they're going to need, what the bottom line needs to look like starting in april and may, before the book is printed. I think what we're really interested in is having a budget which is different from this year's budget that is either small in some respect or totally different since it is spending more money on early childhood, spending money on roving leaders and something else that is in this budget. What we need to do is take advantage of the fact that we have an opportunity to weigh and not listen to the reports only from city staff but respond to those, give a better sense of what we are looking for early on, so when this is printed and most of the budget is largely set in stone, it is the right budget. I have one more thing to say about that. It is my best guess this is a much better budget because we did get these reports in april. We did get the economic outlook, we engaged with the city staff in april and may in the early-morning system and continue is hard to describe how this budget is different because we were engaged in that process as early as april than we would have been. The fact that we are engaging earlier than we did when I was IN THE COUNCIL IN LATE 1990s, This is a much better budget than otherwise would be and that we had fewer things to do over the last couple of days than we otherwise have had. Our budget process is working better than it has. If we want a substantively different budget, we have the tools to make it different than we have made. We can do it better next year, if we want to. We have to start it earlier, like in april, not earlier than we want to pass it and make a change. Thank you. >>Cole: mayor. mayor pro tem. I would like to respond to your comment. I have heard you give speeches ever since I have been on this dais about us having a great city and it has become an even greater city on your watch, with many initiatives that you have championed, some that we have brought to conclusion, some that we haven't. Undoubtedly one day will, such as urban rail, plastic bags, clean water. And we have broad constituencies that have come behind us as a council and you in support of those. And those constituencies recognize that those things making us a great city is on every -- I think you say every -- if there is a list, we're number one on it in a ranking of a city, costs money. We can't have it both ways in providing the services, these needs, these major initiatives and at the same time cut taxes. So it is always a careful balancing act. I feel like this time, and every time that we have sat here and sat here together, we have tried to do that. In good faith. And I don't think today is any different. I'm not going to make a motion to substitute, but I certainly appreciate your desire at this time for us to take a more careful look at that process. And I respect the fact that you have brought us this far with balancing that, sometimes voting for a tax increase or no tax increase or a slighter one. But that always is carefully done and has been done many times that exceeds our current list on this dais. I believe all of us are struggling this time to do that again. Thank you. thank you mayor pro tem. I appreciate those comments. If there were a list of cities that appeared on the list, we would be on that list. [Chuckling] mr. van eno. >> To clarify the motion, maybe when you ask the motion you ask for it regarding the general fund to be clear, item 1 aprovens -- approves all funds. item 1 on all three readings. Call the roll. >> Mayor leffingwell. >>Mayor leffingwell: no. >> Mayor pro tem cole. >>Cole: aye. >> Councilmember morrison, spelman, tovo, martinez. >>Mayor leffingwell: passes 6-1. I voted no. Now we go to agenda item number two. Ordinance adopting the city's capital budget for the next fiscal year. Staff presentation. >> All right mayor, just bringing up a presentation. You should have the presentation in front of you from what we handed out yesterday. Staff has just three amendments to offer to the capital budget, the first one is an amendment in the transfers in to the austin research recovery capital program in the amount of $861,000. And increase appropriations by the same amount for the rosewood cip project. I think you will recall me talking about this. Early yesterday, we had amendments on the operating a -- sides as well. This gets it into the capital fund. The next amendment, number 16 on our list, would be to amend the proposed budget by increasing appropriations for the parks and recreation barnas springs pool in the amount of $671,089. We're just appropriating funds here. This is from austin foundation. Item 18 is related to the great streets cip and reducing appropriatings by $783,019 to sync that program funding up with the program ordinance where you decided to have the green streets program only apply to the kind of previous hours for parking meters, to not apply to the extended hours or extended geographic area. Those are the three amendments to the capital budget. so with that, I guess we entertain a motion to approve the capital budget as approved by staff. Councilmember morrison moves approval. This is all three readings. Councilmember riley seconds. Are there any additional amendments to be proposed by council members? No additional amendments? No additional discussion? Let's just say clerk, call the roll. >> Mayor leffingwell. >>Mayor leffingwell: aye. >> Mayor pro tem. >>Cole: aye. passes on vote 7-0. Item number 3. >> Mayor, item 3 on the agenda is to approve the city's fees, fines other charges. Staff has a small number of changes to offer there. The first one being in the austin water utility, which we would amend the proposed fee schedule to approve a separate fee section to provide for a water volumetric fee discount for the discount on the presentation in front of you. This offers lower volumetric rates to the customer program. The second amendment is code compliance related to the short-term rental program, which is offering a fee of $235 per year for homes that register for that program. The next amendment is in the austin energy department. I believe austin energy, the representative will come down and help us with those amendments. is this beginning with item 1, thermal energy? >> Item 1. under these. Go ahead with your presentation. I will try to figure out where we are after you get started. >> Ann little for austin energies. Since june 7, 2012, council approval of austin energy rates, we have detected minor changes and corrections. And these are all included in the handouts. I think they're in exhibit b, it is called the proposed rates from austin energy. These are all included. Would you like me to go through each of these and explain them? >>Mayor leffingwell: yes. >> You would? Ok. The first one, secondary voltage less than 10-k w changed from demand rate to nondemand time of use. This is a change to the time of use rate schedule. You may remember from the rate work sessions that each customer has an option of time of use within the class. And the small -- the very smallest commercial class is secondary voltage under 10-k w. And that class is a nondemand class. We did not change the time of use complementary rate to nondemand, so the proposal or the change is to change it from demand to nondemand. So it complements the existing nondemand rate. These are very small retail customers. And they're accustomed to the nondemand rate. The second one, secondary voltage rate clarified for public school and housing. This is to change the wording 5% cap that was applied to the houses of worship and school discount. And we wanted this to be clear. As we were developing the rates, some of the wording was not as clear as we wanted it to be. We wanted to make sure that the discount and the cap applied to all of the rate components within the schedule. The next two are power factor examples corrected and primary voltage under or greater than 20 megawatt rates schedules. They were modified to correct the rate. Both of those were just error corrections that we found after the ordinance was approved. The next one is the green choice rate schedule. Option language modified to ensure consistency. Here, we wanted to clarify this that a green choice option is available to all customers. So all customer classes have the option of applying for the green choice rate. The next ones on that particular slide are applied to the closed rates. You may remember that we have some large contract customers and those rates are closed now. But we wanted to clarify those rates to apply only to the contract customer. So we made minor wording changes on those. On the next -- one more slide. Ok. The customer owned nonmeter lighting, estimated use for each fixture was added to the schedule. The schedule now shows the bill type for each fixture. The writer time of use on thermal energy storage was closed rates for the contract customers. This was eliminated prematurely. We found out that we still needed to give this option to the large contract customers to continue allowing them to benefit from thermal energy storage. Power supply adjust clarification, this we just wanted to clarify this wording to make sure that it was clear that green choice revenue would be offset in the power supply adjustment. Because the expense is in there, we wanted to offset it so we clarified the wording. The last one is the regulatory charge. And we found out that there may be some credits that would apply if this would be additional revenue. It would reduce the regulatory charge. We changed the wording to include credit. Are there any questions? questions of staff? Councilmember riley? Thank you. ther-- >> there is one more, mayor, i passed out for you the fee changes proposed by councilmember riley as part of adopting the operating budget. This is what they would look like. That would be part of the motion before you. any questions about that? I would like to hear from the austin water utility. There is a schedule change here and I would like for you to go over that with us. In particular, we have it before us, but I would like you to point out how it is different from the past. >> Yes, the proposed change as it showed up on the screen, is only for customer assistance program customers. Historically our customer assistance programs, those that meet the low-next eligibility had their fixed fees waived, but a part of the restructuring of the water rates with the joint financial subcommittee recommendations this year, we significantly changed the block intervals for water. And there is a group of customers, clustered in kind of the middle blocks, say 7,000 to 10,000 that were experiencing a fairly significant increase as a result of that interval restructuring. And for cap customers, we were sensitive to that. And wanted to provide a broader range for rate relief for cap customers. Low-next customers that are not irrigating, have a little larger family, use a little more water. The fixed fee relief alone wasn't providing them enough relief in terms of the vulnerable class of customers. So we proposed this new rate schedule that would apply to the volumetric component of water for cap customers. It is the first time we are extending cap customer subsidies to the volumetrics. That is what this particular recommendation is to the council. so this fee schedule you have before us on the slide there, that is just reflective of the volumetric change in the stability fee and the fixed fee? >> This one is just for cap customers, though. Just for cap. What you see here is a reduction just for cap customers. customer assistance program? >> Yes, I'm sorry. Customer assistance program. do you have many that use over 20,000? >> Approximately 5,500 customers, we're expecting that in our budget to increase throughout fiscal year 2013 as we go to automatic enrollment and extending cap benefits to customers that don't have a meter in multifamily residentials, working with ae on extending it into that. The regular rate schedule, mayor, that would apply to everyday customers, all other customers is a different rate schedule than what this one is. >>Mayor leffingwell: ok. So we'll go away from that for a moment. We hear all the time that the average use is about 7,700 gallons average for customers. >> That is about right. under the new fees what is the charge for a customer that used 7700 gallons? >> You mean noncap, a regular customer? >>Mayor leffingwell: right. A regular customer. >> Hang on just a second. what I'm getting at, we hear all the time down here that austin water utility has the highest water rates in the world. I want to dig into that a little bit here today. Councilmember morrison. while we're waiting, I wanted to make a comment to greg and his staff. What we have in the proposed budget is recommendation for the change in our water rated based on the change from the joint subcommittee from the resource management, wastewater and impact advisory. All of you came together to find a bit of a different approach to things to try to balance, if I'm correct, conservation, affordability, volatility. So that is what we're looking at here. Somewhat different than what we had before. I just wanted to mention that that -- that we do have the product of your work there and your recommendations and i appreciate that, because I think it really takes us a step forward trying to balance all of those, what can be conflicting goals. >> Ok. For an average customer. Average is not usually typical. We did analysis. About 52% of the customers are going to see no increase or decrease this year, particularly if you are lower use. We have a lot of low-water users. High water users and very high water users. The average customer from the highs and lows average out to about 7,727 gallons of water used per month. In terms of the water component of the bill. The current customer that uses that much water would spend $28.82 -- excuse me. This is just water. These two here. That is just for water. Ok. Mayor, did you want just water or combined water and wastewater? we'll start off with just water. Currently 7,727 water user, the monthly bill is $32.82. After our revisions in the fy .. $36.74. I think i said highest in the world. Is this the highest in the state of texas. The highest water rate? >> No. It depends on, again, you know, some of your definitions. First, we provide very high value to customers. We have been conserving water. Particularly the water advance falling through the conservation program. That is putting rate pressure on us. We prepurchased our water. Invested in things like austin clean water program. Many value-added steps we have taken. We track higher comparatively to other large texas utilities, when you compare our rate structure to more central texas communities. We're right in the competitive, even to the lower end. Your water bill, and our rate structure depends on how much water you use. Unlike almost any other utility in the state of texas -- that is what I was going to get at. Maybe I should be more direct. To say, if you are an average water user, your water bill is maybe not average, maybe above average, but not the highest in the state. I think that is what I heard you say. But if you are very low water user, especially if you are a low water user and a cap customer, I think prior to this year, they were the lowest in the state. The water rates were the absolute lowest in the state. On the other hand, if you are in a higher use category. Say up around 25,000 gallons or so, then it's maybe a little bit different picture. Where would we be at 25,000 in relation to other water utilities around the state, with the usage of 25,000 and you're not in the customer assistance program? >> We do the high cost. Our rate -- block rates, by design for pricing for conservation. We the aggressive block rate as surge any large utility in the nation. in fact, a thousand percent higher? >> The lowest over $1. It is 12 to 11 times the amount from the -- that is 1,100% higher in the first year if you're in the fifth tier, which is substantial. I assume it was designed that way as -- I was going to say a carrot toward conserving water. It may be a little bit of a carrot in that we have a thousand percent more, but that was the idea, right? >> It was. the idea was to put a premium on higher water usage. Agree or disagree that that was the idea. So I think we have the picture here, if you are a low water user, your bill is low. Perhaps the lowest. Average water user, it is somewhere near the middle, not the highest, not the lowest, if you are a high volume user, it is extremely high. Maybe higher than everyone else. We have the most aggressive tier structure in the state of texas. And the other component of the bill is wastewater. So wastewater, as we know, depends on use during the cold-weather months. Which reflects outdoor irrigation. How do those rates compare with other rates around the state? >> We are in the upper middle of the wastewater rates. upper middle. I'm assuming -- you can confirm this if I'm wrong. I'm assuming in large part it is due to the extensive program we had over the last two years, that is now in debt. The reason we did that was we administrative order, facing stiff, daily fines if we cannot comply. Nobody is complaining about that. This is correcting sewer overflows in the streams of austin, texas. That is what this is about. So I'm thinking that a large part of this wastewater bill has to do with that debt service. >> That is a good assumption. that is a good assumption? If you are an average customer, 7,727 gallons, water and wastewater combined, how does your water and wastewater bill compare to other utilities around the state? >> I would characterize upper middle. Central texas, smaller water utilities, middle utilities competitive. how about major cities. >> We are a higher cost provider relative to them with the average uses. are we the highest? >> We could be the highest. Again, it depends on some of your analysis of that. you know, if you could at some point, i would like to have an analysis of all of the things that we discussed, maybe in memo form. You don't have to especially do a briefing on it. Since there has been so much discussion on a daily, weekly basis around this place, it would be good to lay out the facts and see what the facts are. >> When you consider those things you need to look at the programs we provide for the community, that is a part of the whole value equation. Not just what you pay but what you get for what you pay. that is another part. I mentioned it earlier in the budget deliberations, one of the things I want to do on an ongoing basis is take a look at the services and functions of where the water utility performs. Maybe we should follow the same pattern like we did with austin energy, take a look, see if austin water utility paying too much on a pro rata basis? Whatever that may be. Just take for one example, wild lands division, which arguably has absolutely nothing to do with water. At least not with the water service that your department performs. That includes water quality protection lands, which are basically aquifer protection lands in the balcones preserve. I'm all in favor of the programs, always in favor, in fact, I share the balcones canyon land, conservation coordinating committee. I think maybe other city departments might have a stake in this also. So, this is just to say that going forward, I want to look at the programs that the water utility funds with the same lands that we looked at the programs of austin energy to see if those benefits are pro rata, if we need to spread those out. That is just going forward. Now, finally, I know you have got a big new briefing coming up in a couple months, what is it next month, resource management commission briefing? >> Yes, we have been planning update the council on work we have been doing with resource management commission on the conservation-related programs. yeah, I -- if you are already planning to bring it to council, great. I think the soaper the better. If we can do that in october, that would be better. But I would like for council to see -- and the rest of the city to see what a great job we have actually done around the state and in fact around the nation. Conservation programs and have been for a very long time. I look forward to that presentation. Thank you. [One moment please for change in captioners] >> any other questions? All right. >> Mayor, I have a question. >> All right. Council member spelman. >> It was actually of mr. mac inu. How do we pronounce your name? >> I've got you! [Laughter] macinu. >> Ed, I have a hypothetical question of you. And I understand hypothetical questions often get hypothetical answers. But that's okay. It's better than what I've got right now. I'm mindful of the fact that we have just passed a budget which calls for three new FTEs IN THE CODE Compliance department to cover additional expenditures to support the short-term rental program. And that would be paid for out of what's before us now, which is approving a licensing fee for a short-term rental properties of $235 a year. I'm not going to propose any alternatives or substitutes to this, but I do want to know what was going to happen if the following. $235 A year, would apply to both commercial short-term rentals, who can expect to make a lot more than $235 in the course of the year if they are actually renting their property for many days or weeks or months over the course of a year. But also to what we have been calling type 1, our residential short-term rentals only renting for a couple of weeks probably. If the take-up rate is not 100%, if we do not have all 1,500 people who engage in short-term rental of their property either on a part-time or full-time basis on only if 1500 pay the license and the fee, what effect will have that on the code compliance department and the ability to hire those three people? >> Well, my belief is the code compliance department is going to hire those three people out of the gate in order to run the program. And I mean that's certainly always a risk we take in any fee that we set. We are in the land of hypotheticalness when we say we think there will be 1500 registrants in that they will cover the staff at that 1500 becomes 3,000. We'd obviously have more funds than we need. And, you know, we need to keep our fees in line with a nexus between what we're charging for the service and how much revenue it brings in. So I don't know enough about the program. For example, if it were 3,000 registrants we actually got and if it didn't require more staff to administer the program, then we would be required to lower the fee. And we would do that as part of our next budget. So I think the answer to your question is after we get some experience with this program, we may need to come back and revise the fee. Now, in terms of immediately in regards to fiscal year 13, if we just don't have the registrations, and the revenues aren't coming in to support this program, you know, the department would have to make some decisions about how to manage its overall resources to stay within the appropriation levels that council have authorized. >> Sure. In addition to the supply side of a licensing fees coming in, we have also got the demand side of complaints coming in and work for those inspectors or code compliance officers to be doing. And what we know from or so far as we can tell based on the historical record is that there is no important difference between residential single family properties which engage in short-term rental activity and those that don't in terms of 311 and 911 calls. But that commercial short-term rental properties have significantly fewer 311 calls and significantly fewer 911 calls than other single family properties. So based on the historical record that we have been collecting over the last year or two, we can be pretty sure there will be fewer there will probably be fewer code compliance cases in the commercial short-term rentals than there will be in other single family houses and in the residential short-term rentals. The value in this program is not that there will be more work for the code compliance officers to be doing particularly in the short-term rental properties. There will be less work. But that work is so politically charged, it's vital it be done immediately and well. And the great value in this program from point of view of the public is that people who are concerned about the party house down the street will have less reason to be concerned. The code compliance will take care of the property and make sure that somebody out of compliance will get back into compliance much more quickly than otherwise they would. I felt the need to say that because I'm not sure that came out in our discussion yesterday. So far as we can tell, there will be fewer cases for your people to take care of in the short-term rental world than in the rest of the single-family world but those cases will be a lot more important from a political point of view or social point of view that they be taken care of properly and quickly. I'm concerned that we may not be able to pay for that increase in efficiency and speed, purely from licensing fees. smart, I urge you if you could keep track of what the take-up rate is among short-term rental owners, operators and keep us apprized of the percentage of those 1500 who are actually participating in the licensing fee, who are actually paying the licensing fee, I think that might help us make a mid-course correction if any were necessary to alters the fee and adjusting the type 1 users and people only renting their property for a small, couple or three weeks out of the year, presumably, who would be making fewer demands of your people than the commercial short-term rental folks would. And also, to ensure that as many short-term rental operators got into this program and, therefore, we could be fairly sure we're paying hotel taxes as possible. And my primary concern here is that if the take-up rate is not close to 100%, then the hotel tax rate is going to be a lot less than 100%. And that's where the real money is from the point of view of the entire city's -- the point of view of the entire city. So if you could keep track of that, sir, and keep us apprized of how we're doing on that and if there's a mid-course correction that needs to be taken, I'd very much appreciate it. >> Carl smart, director of the code compliance department. spelman to answer your many questions there, we will be closely monitoring and tracking the activities associated with the short-term rentals. Right now, we don't really have a track record because it's a new program. So it and see if there is any difference in activity between type 1 and type 2, commercial versus single-family residential. Also looking at the differences in registration of short-term rental versus the hotel occupancy taxes, those kinds of things. So be glad to come back to council at the appropriate time and keep you informed of how that program is going. And see if we need any adjustments. >> Thank you, sir. I'd very much appreciate that. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. And I would just like to concur with that discussion that we need to come back and reevaluate the fees. I think it was council member morrison's original idea that maybe we need to talk about a difference for type 1 and type 2. I'm not so much worried about the cost of administering the fee. Maybe I should be concerned. Maybe that's a legal concern. But to the extent that we could, I think that there might be a type 1 customer that would only want to rent their house once a year for two or three days. And $235 enrollment fee might be a deterrent. And I think one thing we want to do in every legal way possible, encourage participation and make it easy for people to go ahead and sign up. Okay. Council member morrison. >> If the folks are through commenting on this topic, i wanted to bring up another topic in our fees in our parks department I had a question about. And we touched on this briefly. Essentially, if you don't mind, what we have in the staff recommendation is a new approach. We shifted to a standardized approach to after-school fees. If anyone is looking at the question, we got an answer from staff to question number 68 to ask about how they were changing. And I understand, you know, you put together an approach to, first of all, get a standard for how much it cost to run the program, divided by the number of kids and all that. But also to basically be subsidizing because that is a community value. Those that are serving athletics and youth and those that are developmental programs as opposed to I'm not sure just nice to have, less core programs. My concern about that is in the attachment and the answer that you all provided -- and I appreciate the answer because I think it was nice and clear. Made a lot of sense to me. The upshot of it is that we are going to have some substantial increases in some places where we used to have a much lower fee and some of the different areas and lower income areas of town. But, for instance, at givens, a couple of examples, at givens and park sargossa, we will see fees from $100 to $125. I'm concerned about the bears that's going to create to folks being able to participate in the programs. So I just wanted to get your thoughts on the matter and how we might address that. I appreciate there was feedback that things needed to be standardized. Now we're going to have this other consequence and I'm really concerned about that. >> Sarah hencely, director of parks and recommendation. Council member morrison, that's exactly correct. The issue that we've been facing for some time now that we have basically torn down all of the programs that we offer and started looking at equity, quality and, of course, fee. I gave the example previously in a discussion that where we were having an area of maybe a gymnastics class on one side of town and we would hire somebody for $10 an hour to teach it and the person wasn't really qualified and wasn't a really quality program. On another side of town, we would hire an instructor at $25 an hour who had a degree and had the background in teaching gymnastics but it was because that area could afford that program and the quality of that instructor. We began to look at basic level of services. What does it cost or should it even cost anything for a young person or an adult to come into a recreation center and use some basic-level services? The game room, play games in the gym when it's open for gym hours. And the answer is not to charge. That's a free fee. Then to have programs more enhancement beyond the basic level of programs, where there would be a fee, but it would be a smaller fee. And then, of course, a fee which was more a self-fulfillment, more of adult programs, which would be a cost recovery. This is the first year we have begun to look at this. And it is a true testament of how out of whack, quite frankly, our fees were. What it does mean, though, and what you're pointing out is that when we look across the board and try to offer the quality services that the citizens as a whole deserve in the city, it meant an enhancement of those fees because we did not have honestly the general fund dollars to waive it. I can't waive fees but dint have the -- didn't have the general fund dollars to say we'll offer this program at no cost. The good news about this, if there is a good news, is that with the efforts led by council in the youth summit and looking at priorities, then we have the opportunity to take from a holistic point of view, looking at priorities of council and citizens from a youth perspective and then take those dollars that we have and put them where they need to be according to the highest level of need and the highest number of youth to be served. Have we done that yet? No. Because we haven't done the summit. But this is a leveling out and it is a higher fee. But by looking and going and doing the youth summit, we should be able to hopefully put more allocation of existing funds in areas where there's a highest level of need, but it will still mean we'll be charging fees in some areas where it is affordable. >> Yeah, I guess you're really touching on some very difficult policy issues. Because when you talk about equity, we want to make sure equity in terms of quality programs and all, but also equity means for me and includes the consideration of accessibility. And if it's a financial barrier and it's not accessible, then how do you balance all of that out? So it's really a difficult issue. It's such a huge shift all at once for some programs. Did you think about phasing these in at all for some areas of town? >> In some areas, we have actually done a little phased in where we slowly went from a smaller fee of $25 up to the $50 fee or higher. The problem is when we do that, the ones being charged the rate already, why are they getting a phased in approach. So we are looking at ways to set up and we are looking at partners to set up what we call the scholarship funds and looking at ways to provide services for those who cannot afford this fee at a different amount. But that again, too, is a policy decision and something that we need to bring back to council. And the other thing is we don't want to -- we want to be able to fulfill our revenue obligations. That's the other part of it. We are held to a revenue obligation when we offer certain programs. And we have to strike a balance here of where we can charge a reasonable fee that we believe can be made, where a scholarship is applicable. And then how we balance that with other classes where we're charging the full fee and we're generating the revenue to cover the cost. >> We need to keep in mind the parks department is not an enterprise fund. You don't need to be revenue neutral. People think they pay their taxes to have some parks and some programs like this. In terms of the big changes that are going to be happening, have you taken a look at any estimates on expected impacts on enrollments? Because if you used to be -- if it used to be free and now it's $125, I wouldn't be surprised to see a shift and decrease in the number of people signing up. >> There's two reasons. Yes, that is true. And we do see sometimes that happen. The other thing we're also trying to do is offer other programs at no cost. So, for instance, where we may have a day camp program at a site for $125 for a session, we will offer a playground program that if that proximity as a complete free program. As you recall, one of the things we wanted to work on from this last budget was improving the quality of our playground programs. Which we needed to make sure those were quality and not just a drop-in baby-sitting service. We have done that. And actually, it's a more organized and more of a program, but it's outdoors. So there are some options. It is not always right there on site, to be quite honest. I don't want to mislead. But there are options where we can have a playground program that can be accessed by families and used at a site where it's free. And then there's a choice for a day camp program that is -- has a cost associated. >> What about in terms of after-school? Here's what I'm thinking. When we start getting hundreds of calls from parents this fall that say i can't possibly afford this program, am I going to have some alternatives to suggest to them? >> Yes, we are. I'll let patrick answer that. >> Good afternoon, mayor and council. I'm the acting assistant director. Community recreation centers is my primary hat I wear for the department. To answer your question, yes, there are alternative services available to the community that's an alternative to the paid after-school program. We have what we called this past summer a structured drop-in program to give children the opportunity to come into the recreation center and participate in activities we have in the paid program. The difference being is that the kids want to show up, they stay for an hour or two and leave. If not, they are there for the entire time. The paid program, they are there from the moment we pick up until the parents sign them out of the program. So yes, we do have opportunities there. >> Okay. So I guess it would be helpful if you all can make that available to my office. I'm sure other folks might because I'm expecting to hear. And I wonder, also, if you can maybe give us, as you gather -- I exposure in fall signups now or maybe since school already started. >> That's correct. We are interested in the information to see how these new fees are impacting registration. So I have started a process of collecting the data so i compare this year's figures to last year's. >> Great. I do agree that hopefully we can get some better conversation and priorities set with the youth summit that will hopefully be at the end of this fall. But let me just say I don't know what to suggest. I'm saying I'm very concerned about what impact this is going to have on some folks. >> Mayor. The other thing I might just mention is that we are looking at some other opportunities, including we have this program he's talking about, but we are looking at two other options. One is setting up a scholarship program through -- it's worked and been very successful in other cities where people add actually money on to their registration fee to pay for someone who may not be able to participate at the fee. The second thing is we are looking at some community partnerships to support youth in other programs. By them paying for that. And I have a pretty good lead on that as well. >> Thank you. >> Mayor pro tem. >> Thank you. Thank you. And I appreciate all the information that you have provided thus far about the park fees because that's something that I too am very, very interested in and concerned about. Council member tovo and i brought forward a resolution in early march implementing by policy some of the recommendations of the urban parks working group. And we have not seen any of those in this budget. Can you tell me the status or how you're considering those, especially with respect to fees in lieu -- i mean maintenance in lieu fees and graduated fees? >> I'll have to -- mayor pro tem, I'll have to get back with you. I know we're doing a lot of things in regard to the urban stakeholder direction. And actually, staff, I asked them to put a work plan together and start ticking off the different items we were responsible of doing. Most of those we have been working on diligently have been partnership with aisd and we making sure we don't recommend purchase of property when we have an amenity that can be used for parkland or playground purposes. We have 10 sites we are redeveloping playgrounds to be more of a natural self-developed playground through public engagement where they are more of a natural environment. And a new trend when it comes to playgrounds. When it comes to maintenance, the maintenance fe the other thing we're doing is working with the parks and recreation board to come forward with a recommendation to you as a council and body about how parkland dedication fees are spent towards sort of an area that may not be adequate or may not cover and may not be enough needs, looking at maybe a first priority as a recommendation, a acquisition of property where needed as spending those dollars and widening that scope. Instead of a mile radius, it may need to be larger. That's going through the parks and recreation board. There's a long laundry list of things we're ticking through. The one you mentioned, off the top of my head, I can't grasp it. >> Let's do it this way. I don't think that right here now, as we're considering the budget, is the place to and niez all the park fees and the graduated nature of them and the maintenance fees. I have heard a lot from turner roberts and I'm concerned about the cost of givens and the whole cost allocation method. Let me ask you to do this, not in any opposition from my colleagues. I know council member morrison and tovo have been interested in this. We both sit on the audit and finance committee, otherwise I would send it to comprehensive planning and transportation. If you would, I'm going to put you on the agenda to give us an update and we can monitor that progress so we're not looking seven months later for a resolution and it's not in the budget and we haven't made progress and we haven't given direction. Because we know it's a difficult process. >> I'll be happy to do that. >> Okay. >> Mayor. >> Council member tovo. >> Thanks. I appreciate this discussion. Many amendments ago yesterday morning, one of my motions would have offered some opportunity to perhaps defray some of the fees and in the end, we needed that money for the roving leaders program. So I just want to also express that this is a grave concern for me. And I hope that we can -- thank you, mayor pro tem, for suggesting it come back to audit and finance. I hope we can do whatever we need to do as a council to encourage you to blast on forward with setting up the scholarship program or doing something. Let's continue to think creatively about how the fee situation might be resolved. I appreciate the community engagement process. Yet I'm not sure if we really -- I mean did we really hear from people that they want to pay the same fees that other people are paying? Or were they really talking about a quality of programming that they wanted and the opportunities they wanted at their recreation centers? I understand you need to spread the cost, but from the public's perspective, they wanted quality programs. >> Quality programs was the number one. The quality program was number one. Obviously, the ability to pay is important. And we can't -- the idea is we're not going to turn people away because they cannot do it. We have to figure out a way to make it work. This is one level of a process that we're trying to go through to make sure that we know who we're serving, what their needs are, what their ability to pay, how we structure it so that they can enjoy it and it's a quality program and not just something based on quantity or trying to offer the same thing at one area that we have in another. We're trying to look at the pulse of the community in all the different areas. And then base the programs on their needs and then structure what we believe to be a tiered approach. Basic level of service, people being able to be served. Then if it's something that's beyond what we believe to be that growth program for youth or for our underserved population, then looking at the fee that may be associated. We're just not completely there yet, but we have started with the different tiered program where you don't have to get turned away, period. You do have options. >> I guess, you know, I saw a much earlier draft of this, I think, earlier this spring. And it talked about -- i thought it had a line in there about offering some scholarships. So I guess I wish that had made progress at the same rate that the fee schedule had because it really does seem a shame. One of the immediate impacts is that people who had an option for their children after school no longer have an optionf it's gone from zero dollars to $125 and in one case I think one went from zero to $225. Where are those kids going after school right now? And I appreciate what you did with the playground program in making a drop-in program available at different places. But I just want clarity on the answer you provided to council member morrison. At the centers where there is now a paid program in place of what had been a free one, is there any kind of drop-in free program available to those families? How are you publicizing it? >> There are several options. If we're looking specifically to the turner roberts recreation center community, we not only have a paid program that's housed out of barbara jordan elementary, but we have drop-in programs available there on-site at overton elementary offering -- we just received 24 spaces to provide a free drop-in program after school to complement the 150 spaces that the boys and girls clubs offer. For the middle school and high schoolers, we are providing programs at the middle school as well as providing transportation to brown recreation center and dotty jordan, wherever we can get a foothold until such time as the multi-purpose building oppose. Givens recreation center has other programs that are there available on a drop-in basis. We have the luxury of having a gymnasium there and staff working with kids in the program. Staff does have good relationships with the children dropping in where they notice they may need some additional homework assistance. Staff are making attempts to provide some resources and opportunities for the youth there, not just the paid programs. >> Would you say that's consistent at rosewood and the other centers where it has gone from a zero charge to some level of charge? All of those have some kind of free -- >> very much, ma'am. >> Great. I look forward to continuing this conversation. I am really looking forward as the sponsor of the youth summit, along with my colleagues. I'm really looking forward to that. Some of these decisions really can't wait on that, so I look forward to having a more immediate conversation, especially about fees through the audit and finance. >> And just one point, council member, so you know. The extra programs they are offering at no cost are of the highest quality as well. And that is why it's taken us a little longer. This is not just a typical you drop in and it's a baby-sitting service. These are programs that are quality and they are based on the pulse of that community and the needs that have been expressed by the citizens and the kids that are there. >> That's great. I think that's a very really valuable resource you're providing. >> We'll provide all of that in the update. >> Super, thank you. >> I was going to say something about the entrepreneurial activities of the parks and recreation department. But last time I did that, i got accused incorrectly of wanting to charge admission to mount monel, so I'm going to forego that discussion. [Laughter] >> we're still going to try, mayor. Not charging. [Laughter] >> I will entertain a motion to approve on all three readings item number 3, adoption of an ordinance for fees, fines and other charges. >> So moved. >> Mayor pro tem cole so moves. >> Second. >> Second by council member spelman. And that would be with the proposed staff amendments. And are there any other amendments to the proposed ordinance? All in faith of the motion say aye. [Chorus of ayes] opposed say no. Passes on vote of 7-0. So if there is no objection, we can take agenda items 4 and 5 together on consent. And unless some council member wants to pull those off of consent, I'll entertain a motion to approve that consent agenda, items 4 and 5. Council member tovo so moves. Second by council member martinez. Those are on all three readings, of course. All in favor say aye. [Chorus of ayes] opposed say no. Passes on a vote of 7-0. Likewise, items 6, 7 and 8 may be taken on consent. If nobody wants to pull them off consent, I'll entertain a motion to approve that consent agenda of items 6, 7 and 8. Council member martinez moves approval on all three readings. Second by the mayor pro tem. Is there any discussion? All in favor say aye. [Chorus of ayes] opposed say no. That passes on a vote of 7-0. Next is agenda item 9, which is a vote to ratify the tax increase in the budget. The vote is in addition to and separate from the vote to adopt the budget. And this vote sets the tax rate. Motion must be made in the form shown below in the texas code. It's an action to ratify the property tax increase reflected in the budget. It's required by state law. And we have to make this vote separately to make clear that we know it will take more property taxes than the city raised last year to pay for the budget that was approved and we approved for this year. Note, this is not a vote on the tax rate. Separate vote on that will take place later. Again, it's just a vote to reflect that we know that this tax increase is required. So I'll entertain a motion to ratify the property tax increase reflected in the fy 2012-2013 budget that was adopted by council earlier today. And the motion would be i move to ratify the property tax increase reflected in the fy 2012-2013 budget. >> Mayor. >> Mayor pro tem. >> I move to ratify the property tax increase reflected in the fiscal year 2012-2013 budget. >> Second. >> Second by council member spelman. Is there any discussion? We have a motion by council member cole, a second by council member spelman. All in favor say aye. [Chorus of ayes] opposed say no. That passes on a vote of 7-0. Now, we'll take up a vote to adopt the property tax rate. A motion has to be made exactly as it's shown below. And staff is going to provide some numbers. We'll now take up item number 10 to approve the ordinance adopting and levying a property or ad valorem tax rate for the city of austin for fy 2012-2013. Motion must be made using words required by the property tax code and it's also required that this be on a roll call vote. >> And, mayor, lela fireside on behalf of the law department, I just wanted to let you know before you take this vote, that the ordinance that you're approving is a little bit different than in prior years. This year we have in accordance with prior council actions, added a finding and a new attachment. And the finding sets out that the historic properties that are receiving the exemption this year meet the requirements of texas tax 24 and that is that they are either appropriately designated historic landmarks or that they are in need of the tax relief to encourage their preservation. The attachment is to exhibit b is also the listing of those properties. So I just wanted to let you know that's a little bit different than in your prior years. And it's consistent with the actions that you have taken to date. >> So with that extra information, the motion would still be I move that the property tax rate be increased by the adoption of 29 cents per $100 valuation which is 1% increase in the tax rate. >> Yes, sir. >> And that is based on the effective rate, not the current tax rate. >> Correct. >> So is there any council member that would like to so move? >> Would you like us -- do we need to repeat it? >> I don't think it's necessary. I have just read it. >> So moved. >> So moved by council member spelman. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Second by mayor pro tem cole. We have a motion and a second that the property tax rate be increased by the 29 cents per $100 valuation. And the clerk will now call the roll. >> Mayor leffingwell. >> No. >> Mayor pro tem cole. >> Yes. >> Council member martinez. >> Yes. >> Council member riley. >> Yes. >> Council member morrison. >> Yes. >> Council member spelman. >> Yes. >> Council member tovo. >> Passes on a vote 6-1. I voted no. We do have two board meetings to convene. So without objection, we'll recess this meeting of the austin city council and call to order a meeting of the austin housing finance corporation. And I guess we will get a presentation from staff. >> Good afternoon, board of directors, betsy spencer, treasury of the austin housing finance corporation. I offer one item for you today on consent. This is the budget for the finance corporation. This does not include the roughly $287,000 increase of sustainability funds to the finance corporation. I will bring that back in the form of an amendment on SEPTEMBER 27th. And I'm available for questions. >> Questions for staff? Is there a motion to approve the agenda items for the austin housing finance corporation? Council member morrison so moves. Second by council member spelman. Discussion? All in favor say aye. [Chorus of ayes] opposed say no. Passes on a vote of 7-0. Without objection, we'll adjourn this meeting of the austin housing and finance corporation and call to order a meeting of the mueller local government corporation. >> Good afternoon, chair. Greg canally of the mueller local government corporation. Today we put forward three items on consent for your approval. One are the minutes from our august 23rd board meeting. Two other items, one for the capital and the operating budget for the upcoming fiscal year all related to the debt service on the bonds that we have previously issued. >> Any questions from staff on these items? If not, I'll entertain a motion to approve the agenda items for the mueller local government corporation. Council member spelman so moves. Second by mayor pro tem cole. Discussion? All in favor say aye. [Chorus of ayes] opposed say no. Passes on a vote of 7-0. Without objection, we'll adjourn this meeting of the mueller local government corporation and call back to order the meeting of the austin city council. And I believe we have no more items on our agenda. >> Mayor, before you wrap up, I just -- >> city manager. >> Thank you. I'll take this opportunity first on behalf of myself and the staff to thank the council for all of your hard work throughout this budget season that you just wrapped up today. Obviously, the past year have entailed a whole bunch of big issues and this was just one of them. I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge all of your hard work and leadership you provided us in terms of putting together a new budget for 2013. Of course, I want to acknowledge my financial team that is sitting right in front of you, whom you know so well. And I have forgotten the nickname you have gotten today. I'm not sure I got that. >> I think that's maccadoo. We want to thank lee and the team that supports them. Obviously, my executive team and all the department heads and their staffs that are involved over a long period of time as you heard earlier today in putting together our recommendation for your consideration. And then, of course, there are just lots of other people. Boards and commissions and just austinites from all over the city who engage and participate. So we want to thank everybody that was involved in bringing us to a point that we were able to provide and you adopted I think a very responsible fiscal plan for 2013. So thank you for that. Mayor, I think that you had one final matter that you wanted to -- >> before we adjourn, yes. I almost forgot. Thanks for reminding me. This is a non-agenda item, but a personal privilege. I believe we have a slide to show on the screen. >> Ahhh. [Applause] >> who is that? I think we all offer our congratulations to council member martinez and his wife in the new arrival. He likes pretty happy to me. >> Thanks, mayor. We're all happy. >> Mayor. >> And before we adjourn, I'll call on you in just a second, I just wanted to second the city manager's comments with regard to the hard and very professional work done by our staff. As I think everybody who has watched these proceedings today, it's not easy to follow, much less actually do. So my congratulations and express my great appreciation for what you do for our city and your professional work. It's of the absolute highest caliber and I appreciate it. Mayor pro tem. >> This is my 7th year on the dais and my 7th budget. And I have not ever seen a professional staff who had to work so hard. So my congratulations go to the city manager and his professional staff. And with that, just like we did for council member martinez's addition, I would like to ask the council to extend a round of applause to our financial staff. [Applause] >> with that, regrettably, there are no more items on our agenda. [Laughter] without objection, we stand adjourned at 3:44 p.m.