City Council Budget Work Session Meeting Transcript – 3/22/2017 Title: ATXN 24/7 Recording Channel: 6 - ATXN Recorded On: 3/22/2017 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 3/22/2017 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== [9:05:29 AM] >> Mayor Adler: It is March 22nd, 2017. We have a quorum present for the budget work session here today in the works room. It is 9:05. Thank you very much for joining us today. Does anybody want to say anything before we get going? Mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: Thank you for that opportunity. I will have to step out for a little bit to attend an event at Austin high. I really just wanted to come to make sure we had a quorum. I will see you in a bit and then catch up via channel 6 rerun on this presentation. So I apologize to miss it. >> Mayor Adler:>> Mayor Adler: Great. Thank you. Good morning. >> Good morning. I'm Sarah Hensley, interim city manager. That's interesting to say. Somebody who doesn't need my introduction. I'm introduce Kim neck Neely, the acting direct E as well as Leeann in a kolecka and Angela means, assistant director. And then we have some backup staff here who can also answer questions so you get all your questions answered. I'll turn over to Kim. >> I'm just waiting for the budget presentation to be pulled up. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Okay. This slide is about who we are. This slide summarizes all the amenities, facilities and park spaces that create the Austin parks system. It is the department's goal to maintain the spaces that allow for both quality self-directed activity and quality direct programming opportunities Nan effort to enhance the community's quality of life N some cases the quality of life of our tourists and visitors. Today I hope to celebrate some of the accomplishments associated with the amenities, share some of the key statistical information and discuss how policy and in some [9:07:30 AM] cases our historical operational practices related to the maintenance and the program delivery impact the department's ability to be effective and efficient with precious tax dollars. This was or is the video that hopefully you've had an opportunity to take a look at. As I understand, it was sent to you via a link and that hopefully you've had an opportunity to view it on your own time. The parks and recreation team personifies public service and we continually strive to meet the growing community demands through community engagement. Please know that in the first quarter of the new year 30 engagement meetings have been conducted. 15 were specifically with our program areas and the other were -- the other 15 were to discuss capital projects or master planning. In 2016 the resource allocation audit also noted that we have excellent customer service and that we're obviously connected to the community. And that is part of what our mission and role is. We establish collaborations. In the past seven years we've established 13 separate partnerships with conservancies. We have 85 different friends of parks relationships when we had just 64 approximately five years ago. We connect to the community through recreational opportunities. You are all familiar with the connecting -- the communities to nature and that the department has had a great focus on this thanks to our partnerships and the grants program that we've received. Artists in residency programs connect our artists to spaces and then we connect the community to the art that those resident artists produce. And also the stronger Austin initiative with connect individuals to free fitness and wellness programs and the opportunity. And all this is none effort tocometer all of your growing community [9:09:31 AM] demands and they're quite widespread in the things that I just read off to you. This particular slide helps you see what our budget is, $94.6 million. We have approximately 6 -- we don't have approximately. I would say we have approximately 700 full-time employees, but we have exactly 695.75 full-time employees. We have over 1600 temporary staff that help us run the after school programs, the summer programs, the playground programs. And you all know about our awe evacuate ticks program, -- aquatics program. We are 70% tax supported. We gain part of our revenue or gain all of our revenue from fees which are charges for programs or special events opportunities. And then we have about 4.3% of our revenue that comes in is from grants. I'd like to just highlight in our programs that the department regularly seeks innovative partnerships that align with our mission to help deliver services to the Austin community. In some cases these are wraparound services, like youth meals and weekend backpack program that provide substantial food opportunities for families to take home if they aren't able to afford that. And some of the services with our local partners are to provide specialized recreational opportunities. In an expanded form this is an established successful practice that might be used to address the needs of our growing population. And it's a departure from our direct service model, but it's something that I think we need to think about as we're being strategic in how we're going to meet the growing demands of our population in the future. And it has been something historically that's been met with resistance so we'll talk about some of our ideas about how to provide for the growing needs and that's just a key point that hopefully you will [9:11:31 AM] be able to keep in mind during our discussion. The department is one of three local agencies that has received an award from the E 3 reliance for our quality work in after school programming and we've also received an award from the urban land institute because of the multi-use and diverse space that we create at auditorium shores for individuals to be able to enjoy. One statistic that is on this page says we have an program enrollment increase by 999. That enrollment was just in aquatics and nature-based programs. It doesn't include our increased enrollment in all of our other programming, but we do have a backup page that we'll show you an increase in enrollment in the backup that we'll show -- will show you the full increase in enrollment. But we thought that was significant because we do have the connecting communities to natures grant and that was one of the points that we were trying to hit. This particular page helps to draw your attention -- I'd like to draw your attention to the bullet points and then to the graph that's diagonal to the bullet points. And despite what you see here, that there's been a growth in ftes as shown in the bullets and then displayed on the chart, the 2016 resource allocation audit that some of you may have seen, states that pard may be unable to continue to provide services at the level expected by the community and decisions about curtailing the services or expanding funding will need to be made to ensure our long-term sustainability. The bar graph shows you that -- it shows you our budget increases. A small percentage of the funding that was received, 23% or less over the course of 2015, 2016 and 2017 allowed the department to address operational issues. All the rest of the money that was received in our budget, while it seems like it was a [9:13:34 AM] large amount, addressed the cost drivers that the city had. So we're talking about insurance, we're talking about the living wage so that allows us to address some of the operational issues. Some of it was added -- we added a safety position that was on a safety audit in order for us to keep both of ornates safe and both our employees safe. In other cases it was contractuals and commodities to try to address A.D.A. Compliance issues. In some cases it was funding to address auditorium shores. We also received some staffing at our recreation centers, but as you will see by our waiting list numbers in the backup. The pie chart addresses by category and so you will see the majority of our expenditures are in salaries and then we have contractuals and commodities. With the exception of the waller creek district park and the republic square, which stands separate from these projects that are listed in our capitol projects for this year, because those two have special partnerships and in some cases -- in both cases citywide goals, all of the other capital projects listed on this list are associated with restoring, repairing or improving existing assets. The maintenance has become a practice nationwide. I think I just heard on TV that there was [9:15:34 AM] 487 trillion dollars' worth of deferred maintenance at the U.S. Level, at the national level. So it's not something that this city is -- is unique to this city, but it speaks to the practice of deferring that maintenance, which means that it becomes more and more problematic or more and more challenging for us to meet the maintenance -- the maintenance needs. And instead of using our capital project to address new amenities for our growing population, we're using our capital money to be able to make sure that we're repairing, restoring or adding to what's already existing. These are some noteworthy council actions that happened prior to -- most of them, many of them prior to this council, being in the place that they are now. The first one guides our acquisition of land and it talks about where our park deficiency areas are. And that in the core of the city we should have the purchasing land so that every individual can be about a quarter mile from the park. And every individual outside the core can be about a half mile from a park. So it's guiding our acquisition. Interesting in 2016 and -- 2006 and in 2012 our bond money we purchased approximately 19 different pieces of land. Of those pieces of land, nine of them will not be developed because they're part of a greenbelt system. So we're adding to the greenbelt system so of the 10 that were left over we've only been able to develop approximately five of those. And so we're purchasing land, but it's being land banked because we don't have the funding to develop them. The second resolution states that if there's no master plan for a park then any development must be approved by council. And what -- I think in trying to encourage our department to do was try to move forward with [9:17:35 AM] master planning processes so that folks had an opportunity to be engaged in what a park would look like in the future. So of the 136 pieces of property that are eligible for master plans, the department only has 42 master plans or funding for 42 -- that will be funded in the future for a total of 42, which is only 30% of the number of parks that are eligible for a master plan. So that speaks to our struggles with being able to plan for the development because we don't have the funding necessarily to do that. The cemetery action just obligates us to maintain cemeteries. The youth sports organization resolution, it's a resolution that dictates a business model where the yso, the youth sports organizations, maintain the fields in exchange for utility funding. And it's part of an existing ordinance, but it unintentionally creates some inequities because the smaller organizations struggle to be able to afford the costs associated with maintenance. So you'll see across the city while we've been working very closely with our youth sports organizations, not all the fields are maintained to a level that would be expected. So we need to change this business model. There's a total of $257,000 that we give to our youth sports organizations for utilities. And we could maybe flip the switch on this, but right now it's written in ordinance and it's written in this resolution for us to do something different. But we could maybe flip the switch and make sure that we get rid of those inequities of changing for the business model and not paying for utilities, but instead paying for maintenance. The living wage established the minimum hourly rates, but unintentionally created issues that were not funded and the department had to absorb those. The impacts of that is most seen in our gulf fund where the increases [9:19:35 AM] for us to be able to maintain the golf courses increased exponentially without general fund support so those had to be absorbed by the enterprise fund and the only way to make that up is either to reduce expenses or increase fees, neither of which are necessarily agreeable to the community who wants to go and golf in that space. For the lifeguard living wage it's proven to be very much an operational support. The living wage in combination with some recruitment and hiring process improvements have resulted in, this is good news for us, resulted in over 300 lifeguards that are ready to work right now, where this time last year we had less than 150. So that's good news for us. There's a resolution that talks to us about the aquatics master plan and that dictates to us in this master plan that moving forward we should be keeping all neighborhood pools open and we should be keeping them free. This is a little bit of a challenge because that's unreasonable and virtually impossible without significant -- some significant investment. And we're going to spend a little more time at the end of this presentation talking about that. And this last resolution, it authorizes the department to provide $82,000 to the west Austin youth south Texas for the annual operation of a recreation center that's in a part of the city that does not currently have a recreation center that's operated by the department. And that money is used to be able to provide programming and the operations of the building. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Houston? >> Houston: [Inaudible]. >> Mayor Adler: I would say generally wait until they get through it that way if someone wants to come back and look at the presentation they can see it quickly. We'll come right back to you. >> Okay. So this graph is some key indicators. The two graphs on the top, these graphs are about the industry standards or the health of the organization. So they talk about the trust for public [9:21:38 AM] lands -- I'm sorry, the two graphs on the top are -- they're about our local survey. So it's about our local community survey. So what you will see is that the respondents have overall satisfaction for the parks and recreation department. The national average is approximately 67% and we're in the 74%, so we're pretty proud of that. For kids who actually participate in our programs, we're closer in the 90th percentile. So good news for us. The graphs on the bottom half of the page speak to the industry standards and the health of our department. And so we use something that's produced by the trust for public lands. It's the nation's largest national non-profit that produces an annual parks score. And the parks score is -- measures the park excellence within a community by evaluating the park system within the 75 most populous cities and it's based on three characteristics. So the system's acreage, our facility investments and our access. So we received a 54 out of 100 and that ranks us 31 out of 75 cities. So we're in the lower percentile, the lower half of the ranking. And the reason why that is likely why that happened is because the percentage of the population that is within a 10-mile -- within a 10-minute walk of the parks was rated low. And the other cities had a higher rate -- a higher -- there was more individuals who lived within a 10-minute walk to a park. So that speaks to access. Austin's spending per capita is the second lowest in comparison to other entities. So that speaks to investment. And then Austin's playgrounds per 10,000 individuals was the lowest in comparison to our cities and so again that speaks to access. However, we did do very well in the amount of acreage that we have. So our goal of acreage is at least 21 acres. What you'll see on the graph at the very -- where it says park acres per 1,000 population you will see that we were [9:23:39 AM] higher where we had more acreage, but as the population grows, right, we have less acreage, which means we just have less space for people to play, however we're within the goal. So we still scored very well there. One thing that we might mention, it's not a direct correlation, but something that we might want to talk about is that the cost to maintaining the space has increased. You can see by that red line. Which means that the more people that you have, the more use that our parks get, which means that there's more maintenance. And again, that's not a direct correlation, but it's -- if an a equals B and B equals C, then a equals C, which is something to think about as we talk about our horizon issues. The park deferred maintenance, which I said before is a practice that was -- is nationwide, not unique to Austin, has created a situation where some amenities require significant investment to keep the facilities operational. I want to run through some facts and figures for you so that you know that I come with that statement with some fiscal information that proves what I'm saying. Facility budgets are currently for -- we have 472 -- 472 buildings and we have a facility maintenance budget of 3.8 million. 1.5 million of that is for the stuff that you need to take care of the building or the contracts that you need, the plumbing contracts or the hvac contracts for 472 buildings. That's like $3,000 apiece annually. Currently we rely upon bond funding to repair and replace aging infrastructure. And I had talked about that in slide 7. For swimming pools, what ultimate see is outlined on the activity sheets. We had $700,000 for swimming pools in the contractuals and commodities areas that [9:25:39 AM] allows us to maintain the swimming pool. To do regular repairs like replace valves or be able to, you know, fix a pump real quick for chemicals, for all of the equipment needed to keep the pool safe for ads, that's 35 swimming pools that have $700,000 to maintain them and keep them safe. We use our capital money to do major projects like deck refurbish meant, like replacing the leaky pipes, which just for consideration, I ran some numbers. We did two leak tests. One leak test talked about when the pump is on, which would indicate certain leakage happening when the pump is on, as the water is being forced through the pipes, it's probably leaking through the pipes. And we did one with the leak -- with the pump off, which means that maybe the structure itself that's holding the water is having leaking. We have in upwards of 300,000 gallons of water that are being leaked in our swimming pool system right now and that equates to, depending upon whether the pump's on or the pump's off, anywhere from 700 to 887 households. The water that those households would use each day. So 300,000 -- upwards of 300,000 gallons of water is being leaked in our aquatics system each day, whether the pump is on or off, depending on what is happening in the system. And that equates to 700 to 887 households, the water that would be used by those individuals. Our -- we have a rolling needs assessment so for all of our facilities of a $700 million for us to get all of our infrastructure in the proper order. And of that approximately 40 million of that has to do specifically with swimming pools and over 100 million of that over the next 10 years has to do with A.D.A. Issues. [9:27:40 AM] So the department is also struggling with taking care of these sort of infrastructure issues. We're also struggling to be in compliance with some of the -- with our sister departments' mandates that are really important to us, for example, recycling. We're having difficulty keeping up with that. And in some cases our code department is gently reminding us that we need to take care of some code issues. We all need to really consider how we're taking care of our historical assets. And because the historical asset is historical, it's old, it needs to have some very specific attention. It needs to have very specific standards. And often -- not often, it costs us more to be able to maintain those, but we would jeopardize something like the main museum if we didn't take care of it historically, if we didn't take care of it and spend the money that was needed, then we would jeopardize those artifacts and pieces that are so important to the history of a a name. They would revert back to the university of Texas and we would no longer be able to have them on display. Our population growth, as it continues to grow, we have some backup that shows you a map that the population continues to go to the outskirts of Austin, to the outer edge of Austin, creating -- this is not my term, but I think it's demographer term, a donut hole in the center. So with our facilities most of our facilities are in the core part of the city, but the population is moving to the outskirts, which means that we are having difficulty making sure that the services are being provided to where the individuals are actually living. So our waiting lists have grown, the pickup documentation shows you that. We know that E 3 alliance conducted research and they indicated only 10% of the youth living in areas of need, where there's the highest incidence of poverty are actually able to [9:29:40 AM] participate with quality after school programs and we have some of our centers in those areas, but they're at capacity and those centers are Gus Garcia, turner Roberts and dove strings. For those councilmembers that fiscal cliff those districts, you may have heard some concerns from our citizens about us not being able to meet the demands of those communities. Internal analysis of our programs done by the office of youth and families under the direction of Dr. Chiquita Eugene shows we have gaps in services for teens and precoolers. It is in a critical point when it comes to service demands. We must consider partnership opportunities which I talked about a little bit before. In order for us to reallocate existing funds to meet those growing demands. So we need to think about strategically transferring facility operations to our partners. We need to strategically think about eliminating duplication of services, and I've been working very closely with health and human services with regards to that particular issue. And we need to strategically die vest in some of our programs and refer services to our partners, but historically these strategies have not been supported. And they've been met with opposition. We're also struggling to provide funding for programs associated with technology or stem or steam. We're also struggling to provide and accommodate individuals with disabilities. As I pointed out earlier, our land acquisition, we have challenges in developing the space that we're able to acquire. And when we talk about greenbelt management, we know that the more people that are using our parks, the more trash that's being created, the more concerns that are coming into 311 and coming in to our department about behaviors that are happening on the greenbelt, but we don't have necessarily the resources to be able to manage that. When we talk about the golf fund, I'm not going to go into that too much because it's part of our [9:31:41 AM] discussion topics, which I think Sarah would like to introduce. >> Well, now that we've thoroughly probably depressed you so early in the morning, there are some things that I think for you as councilmembers you might want to -- these are just to throw them out to you. Obviously the sustainability of the golf enterprise fund. This is something that I think there needs to be some policy discussion around. The other is underutilized pools, there are some that are underutilized, but the bigger issue is the number of pools and of course the council action that we need to keep the neighborhood pools open. And the question that Kim raised is being able to renovate them so that we can operate them. And then we have areas of pockets that have no pools, particularly in the area of colony park. And then the other one is, and Kim talked about this, not just cost recovery, but in a department, not only in parks and recreation, I've asked Tony and Stephanie and Kim to get together to look at completely looking at getting rid of any duplication of programs from the youth programs. And to look at how we can possibly -- if someone else outside the city is offering these services, how we can support them, but not necessarily do them ourselves. But we've also looked at, and Kim can talk about it if you're interested, the 110% model, which really tells us -- it was a long process, but it went through looking at every single program the parks and recreation department offered and what we charged. Was there competition outside the city? Was there competition inside the city? What do they charge? How do they perform their job? And basically it tells us whether we need to invest in that program because there's a gap in services. We need to divest and get a partner or it says get out of the business. And I think that is something that we as a department are ready to look at and to try to say there are ways for us to focus on key core [9:33:41 AM] services and let other individuals or groups that have the ability and the ability to do it on an ongoing basis to offer those programs, and we provide support, but not actually be the direct provider. So those are just some things that we throw out as topics for discussion. And then we're ready for questioning. >> [Inaudible]. Ms. Houston thank you so much for your presentation. I did in fact watch video and was very impressed with all the work that you do. On slide 4 under connections, what does end of life services mean? That kind of depressed me. >> That is our cemetery operations. >> Houston: Oh, okay. [Laughter]. >> Cradle to grave. [Laughter]. >> Houston: I thought, wow, we're planning for me to ride a bicycle right into oak wood. >> Oh no [laughter]. Although you could. >> Houston: I could. I really could. Okay. That was confusing one to me. And then on -- just a minute. This may be in the backup, but I haven't gotten through all the backup yet. I understand that in 2008-2009 when were we were trying to not go into the recession, some of the programming dollars from the cultural centers were removed from the budget, the mac and the asian-american and the carver. And those programming costs have been put back into the metropolitan [9:35:43 AM] mexican-american cultural center and the asian-american, but it's my understanding that the programming dollars have not been returned to the carver. So if you all could look into that -- >> We'll need to research that. >> Houston: We've got a new manager there and I was over there touring the other day and they're short of programming funds, so that's what happened. And then at some point I'll need to talk with you all about the seats in the Roy Vance theater. >> If I may. The purchase order is complete. We're scheduling the actual time frame in which they will be replaced based upon things that are happening in the carver. So that should be happening in the next month. And you are correct that the carver does struggle specifically with some of their summer camp programming to be able to support that financially and through the generosity of the Austin parks foundation they have helped us for the last three Summers with the Broadway bound camp. But that's not necessarily a sustainable way for us to continue business. But you're absolutely correct. >> Houston: If that was not replaced, in this budget session I would be interested in putting that money back into the carver so we could provide some programming. >> We'll do the research so we have some total amount instead of something anecdotal. >> Houston: Thank you so much. And the last thing is you mentioned the west Austin youth association. And I can't -- oh, on slide 7, where is that park that we provide -- >> It's right off of expedition. It's on the corner of expedition and 15th? >> Exposition. >> Oh, exposition. >> That's okay. >> Close, it was close. It's on the corner of that street and 15th. You would have to -- actually, you can see Detroit, but you can't actually see the facility. You have to drive in to because it's covered with trees, but it's right on the corner. >> Houston: And it serves who? [9:37:43 AM] >> It serves district 10. There are no facilities in district 10. It's right on the edge of -- kind of on the edge of 9 and 10, but there are no recreation facilities in district 10-- no recreation centers in district 10. >> Houston: Is that the one that's on -- that they have a long-term lease with the university of Texas? >> Yes, ma'am. It's adjacent to the lion's golf course. >> Houston: And last year with the menu league of cities I went to Pittsburgh and how they use solar at their parks and recreation to cut down on the use of electricity. You have all thought about using solar arrays to -- they had them on their parking lot. They did water capture, rainwater capture. They did a lot of environmental things that I was very impressed with. Have we thought about doing some of that on our -- >> We are actually exploring some of this, having conversations with Austin energy and we are trying to see if we can put more solar in parks. >> Houston: Do we have solar in parks now and which ones? >> We have very limited in some of our rec centers, but not the parks. >> And we have some low -- some solar type lighting on a couple of paths because there's the old debate about trails and whether you light them or not. But we could do a lot more. And I will say Leeann in a comes to us from Austin energy and she's a Leed fellow so she's very capable and very interested in helping us move to the 21st century when it comes to solar. >> Houston: Good. I was just aamazed with the solar array on top of the parking structures and there was zero neutral, whatever the word, with electricity. So hopefully we can move that way. These are all the questions I had right now. Thanks. >> Flannigan: A couple of things to start with. I think you were reading from some speakers' [9:39:44 AM] notes during the presentation. The same thing happened during animal services. If we can make sure those notes were also available because there were numbers cited that I would like to see laid out for me. That happened in the last budget presentation as well. On the slide number 5 where you have the expense in fte history, 2015, saying certain administrative cost centers were allocated from the general fund. Did that just happen in pard and libraries because the other presentations we received so far have not noted that? And I don't know if that's a city manager question. Maybe it's an Ed question? >> Ed can answer it or I can. That happened across the board for all departments. We had some transfers from support services departments to the general fund that were report the at the fund level and they seemed more appropriate to reflect them as a departmental cost -- as a support cost -- >> Flannigan: The presentations we've received so far have not noted that, which is why I'm bringing it up now. And I'm sure it's a perfectly good practice. It's just it's an inconsistency with the budget presentations we've received so far. Just make sure -- >> Mayor Adler: Which item were you pointing at? >> Flannigan: This is on slide 5 in the expense and fte history graph there's a star next to 2015. >> Mayor Adler: Got it. >> Flannigan: That's not on the presentations we received previously. My main question, I have a long list of questions, but my main one is about how we're measuring access to parks when there are parts of town, especially in my district, that have a lot of hoa parks or -- that are not gated. The Anderson mill neighborhood is a great example where they have a separate property tax in a limited district and their parks and trails are very well maintained and they're all open. And in fact, community numbers from other neighborhoods come into the parks and I've spoken to the limited district board and it's part of their mission to [9:41:44 AM] provide a quality of life for the community. So when we're looking at access to parks or this park score or a all of this thing where it makes it look like my district is underparked, I think in many ways we're pretty good. There are some tricky parts where you talk about apartment complexes and what type of access they have, but the flip side is most of the apartment complexes in my district also have swimming pools. So I may only have one public pool in my district, but there are pools everywhere. So how are we -- how are we making sure that we're measuring quality of life and not just what literally the city is providing? >>Ry card dough Solis with -- Ricardo Solis with the parks department. One way we're measuring access is through trails, for instance. Because we know if we can -- if we have trails that are developed that you can go from your neighborhood to a developed park, even though it may be further than a quarter mile or a half mile, but as long as there is some access, we're at least looking at that -- looking at that to provide access. We do have a lot of undeveloped parks that it is open to the public. They can go in if they need to, but there's no facilities there to invite them in there, like parking or trail access or it just looks like a vacant piece of property. So those are the ones that we're trying to at least provide some type of access to through signage, through trails that we're focusing in on, because that's lower costs and development. But those are the types of things that we're looking at. Another way is just through development agreements that we have, when we're doing development and we're negotiating, giving developers credit for parkland dedication that would be privately [9:43:44 AM] maintained, but open to the public. And those are the types of agreements that we go and get into. >> If I could add to Ricardo, in our most recent quality master plan, which has not come to council yet, but it will in the near future, we mapped all of the -- all of the hoa pools and all of the city pools or all of the pools that the public would have access to. We did include -- didn't include country clubs, but we have them coded differently so you could see the difference between hoas or the city provided pools or public access pools. We did not map, although it was suggested that we go on Google and count the number of individual family pools, we did not map family pools. So we have an idea of at least in that very specific instance, we have an idea of who has access, whether it's provided by us or whether it's provided by an hoa or another entity that allows the public to utilize that space. So there's a very specific example of how we're measuring access. >> Flannigan: Okay. I'm glad to hear that on the aquatics side and I'm looking forward to seeing that master plan. I have a separate plan about aquatic, like the splash pads and other aquatic resources we provide. And maybe it's somewhat of a policy question for us about which at what point is the swimming pool the resource and at what point is the splash pad a resource. And there are obviously implications too, saving money here, more there, more of a policy question, I would argue. But more so on the -- I hear a lot of reporting and I see charts and I see data, and innervebly district 6 is at the bottom of the list when it comes to parkland, but it's excluding all of the hoa parks, it's excluding county parks, it's excluding lake access, resources that my community has access to that other parts of [9:45:46 AM] town -- most other parts of town do not. And I want to make sure that -- maybe this is an indicator's question to strategic outcomes that we are not just measuring the parks the city is providing, but we are measuring the quality of life that people have. And I think -- my community I'm sure would love to have all their parks paid for by the citizens of Austin, but they have decided -- most of the neighborhoods have decided they want a quality of park higher than we're willing to provide so they do so, but that doesn't mean that we need to go then and fill in some parks provided by the city near those neighborhoods. So I want to make sure that that analysis is included because I also don't like to see reports put out that shows district 6 only has six acres of park when in fact we have many, many, many acres of parkland, including county parks, that are actually in district 6, serving district 6 neighborhoods, but you never see them on the maps. And about the maps, and then I'll let someone else go because I have more -- >> Councilmember Flannigan, on that page 8 where it talks about the parks score and the quality rating, that does not just take into account city amenities, it takes into account all amenities, so county parks are part of that parks score. I would hesitate to say whether hoa parks are, but public amenities that are available. So that might be closer to what it is that you're looking for with regards to us mapping everything. >> Flannigan: More so it's the hoa parks because like I said, I could list off all the neighborhoods in my district and nearly every single one has a park that the hoa pays for or a pool that the hoa pays for that's not gated, that's available to the apartment complex that lives next door that people can use as a resource. So I want to make sure that we're including those had when we talk to the community about [9:47:46 AM] how many parks we have or don't have. And then separately, this is more of a data thing. The maps that you have at the back of the presentation, three, four, five, six, seven and eight, I don't like this map because the tracts that are used to measure population are not equal in size. And so it doesn't really communicate effectively the density of population. It makes it look like the population is more dense in the outside, in the edges, when in fact it's not as dense. It's much more dense in the center of town. And many of the tracts are only slivers of the city of Austin. Steiner ranch is a great example when you look down on the tract closest to Mansfield dam. Almost none of that is city of Austin. So for it to be that red color, it makes it seem like there's a lot of austinites, Austin taxpayers living out there, when in fact I think that's even limited annexation. It's not even purpose. So that's -- not even full purpose. So that's more a data accuracy than a community thing. But I'll let someone else talk now. >> Mayor Adler: I didn't understand your last point about size. >> Flannigan: So the tracts, the size of the areas that are being colored, they're smaller as you go into central Austin. And this is about the number of people that live in a tract so it makes central Austin looks less populous than the outer areas, when really it's creating -- it's collecting up more acreage to count the people. >> Mayor Adler: Gotcha. Thank you. Ms. Kitchen? >> Kitchen: I wanted to follow-up on councilmember Flannigan's point. It seems to me that this might be an equity related issue. We've got an equity office and we have talked about a citywide equity analysis. I'm not sure where that is in the process. We had talked with acm Lumbreras about that, that we would be looking at our city for various [9:49:47 AM] factors from an equity perspective. And the idea behind that kind of mapping, that kind of geographic mapping, was to help us understand where we had resource needs and where we were spending our money. So that kind of analysis should be taking into account much more than what the city resources are. So to your point, I hope that we're proceeding with that mapping. I know it was discussed to proceed with that. I don't know where we're at with it right now. So this would be an example of how our departments relate to that -- how we connect what our departments are doing with that -- with that equity analysis. Do we know anything at the moment about where we're at with that? Maybe -- y'all can get back with me later if you're not sure where we're at with that? >> I also think, councilmember, not only that is something we need to do, but we need to look at it in the scale of programs as well. >> Kitchen: Yes. >> As you heard us say, there are many entities out there offering certain programs, whether it be in parks and recreation or educational tutoring or whatever, health related services, and those need to be mapped and we're doing that on our end to say, well, if we're offering an after school program it and there's three other entities offering after school programs in the same area, we need to think about that. >> Kitchen: Yeah. Programs are a little different because they can come and go as opposed to something on the ground, but -- I wouldn't want to make the assumption that we didn't need to do it if something else was done. But yeah, I agree that programs should be considered that way. Do we have any information at the moment about the equity analysis? It's a mapping exercise. [9:51:48 AM] >> Councilmember kitchen, Burt recommend breast cancer as, assistant city manager. I know that Brian is working closely with a work group and they're also working through the toolkit and one of the things that we had instructed him after visits with a number of folks and with you is to proceed with that piece, but I think what they wanted to do is to start working on the baseline data in terms of where the toolkit was. But we'll be more than happy to get you a status on that. I know I've been involved in those meetings, but that's not directly under what I oversee, but I'll make sure we get you a status on that. >> Kitchen: Yeah. That would be fine. I don't want to lose the idea -- I think they call them economic opportunity analysis. The thing that's different about it is the mapping. >> Exactly. >> Because then you can see from a geography standpoint what's happening in different parts of the city. So I don't want to lose that idea. So -- and if we need -- if you will just let me know what the status is and if there's some lack of clarity on what we're talking about, I'm happy to put together a resolution to make that clearer. >> I don't think there was lack of clarity. I think it was just what was -- the sequence of what the work that they were involved in and what needed to happen. And make sure that we got as much work done because one of the critical factors of getting them in place and even his staffing in place was to try to do as much work as we can in anticipation of the budget. So I think we were very clear about the initiative. It was just a matter of when we needed to get it done. >> Kitchen: Okay. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Yes, Mr. Renteria. >> Renteria: I want to go to the golf fund. Can you explain to me why -- it seemed like it happens every year on the golf revenue that we're always running into a deficit. Why is that happening? >> Kevin devein, division manager for the [9:53:49 AM] golf enterprise fund. Really the last five years have probably been the most challenging from the golf fund standpoint. We were covering operating expenses for the most part. Significant challenges detailed would be the two major floods that happened in 2013 and '15. It happened twice at the Blake houser complex where that facility was closed for several months to recover. We had a fire at Morris Williams maintenance barn that the golf maintenance fund was responsible for covering a part of the recovery costs until the insurance proceeds came in, including deductibles. Living wage has probably been the biggest impact on the golf fund over the the last several years. And really while it's great for our staff, it's -- from a standard that we compete as a golf fund, as a business, we compete against other like golf courses, and they're paying 7.50 to 8.50 an hour where we went to 13.50. So a five dollar increase that was approved, had a significant impact to about a 475,000-dollar impact for 2016. That was an unfunded mandate that took place that had to be covered through golf fees and unfortunately in October of that year we had several other increases associated with reclaimed water and utility costs that we had already done a fee increase in October of that year for the golfers. So putting a secondary fee increase associated with the living wage didn't seem like a good idea, especially when the fact that any time you increase fees three or four dollars, your rounds of golf decline so therefore you will bring in less revenue. We try to maintain affordable golf operations, and in that way it would have placed us above competing golf courses, which could have resulted in even less revenue. >> Renteria: So how many golf courses are there that the city is operating? >> We have six menu golf courses. >> Renteria: Six. And are all of them losing money? >> No, sir. Really in the grand scheme of things there's only two that -- with the exception of when [9:55:49 AM] you take into account some of the years that we've had flooding and golf course colors, we've had two major golf course construction as well. Morris Williams was closed for renovation and in 2015 we had to renovate Jimmy clay so it didn't bring in revenue during those times. Hancock golf course has been losing money for probably the last 15 years. We're getting closer. It's in better condition. We have reclaimed water there now. So the conditions of the facility are better. But it's a nine hole golf course. It's a very old golf course construction. It doesn't compete against confidential course golf courses in the areas. And lions golf course is kind of on the cusp of covering its direct expenditures. When you add in the percentage of responsibilities for the administrative costs or debt retirement that's been taken on for improvements, equipment and things like that, it does not cover the complete cost of operations. >> Renteria: It almost sounds like we should just go ahead and let the golf association or someone manage that without the city's involvement. It seems like it's just been a drain on our parks budget for years. And I can't understand why we keep on, you know, keeping golf courses that are losing money constantly every year. I think we really should look into this and maybe making one of these -- one of the enterprise that we should really be looking at partnership with -- we've got the PGA here this weekend and it seems like we still constantly are losing money. And are we making this money up through the general fund? >> So the ending fund balance that is that number that's been accumulated over numerous years would [9:57:50 AM] technically be covered by the general fund. And this is the first year we have the 500,000-dollar transfer. And that largely is covering the living wage increase. It's not reducing the ending fund balance that that debt is associated. Councilmember, cities across the country do things very differently and some are very similar to us. Most cities do do a general fund transfer support. Golf does bring in almost $7 million in revenue. And so we -- the problem is we spend $7.2 million in revenue. So I think while many cities support golf just like tennis, just like aquatics, just like athletics, softball, those operations don't bring in more money than they spend. So it does become a question in each city how are you going to cover those different types of operations or needs that your citizens are looking for? >> Renteria: It sounds like the competition is -- I'm sure that the newer golf courses that people are flocking to are -- and then we hear a turnaround saying we need more golf course. And I'm going why do we need to be buying? I had a conversation with ACC in Riverside there, some of the ACC board was trying to convince us to buy that golf course. And I said, sounds great, I would love to buy that thing and we could build affordable housing on it and it would make a great housing project. And they said oh, no, we can't do that. They said I can try it because of the lobbyists are so fierce and I'm wondering if that's the reason why we're still in the golf business is because of the lobbyists there constantly lobbying us or the staff and everything about keeping these golf courses while we're losing money. >> I would say if I could add to the story [9:59:50 AM] of Hancock, Kevin and I were working closely together several years ago and we had suggested considering the closing of Hancock and repurposing that space or open park space or considering a modified golf course business model where it became more of a learning center and we were met with great opposition from the community and great opposition from the golfers. And so we implemented a plan to try to recover the costs by getting reclaimed water, making that investment and doing some different operational changes. And three years later, four years later we're still not successful. It's encouraging to hear at least one of the councilmembers say it's time to revisit a different business model or revisit some other ideas, but I wanted you to know it wasn't due to lack of trying in the past. It was due to trying to serve the community in the way that they felt was the most appropriate for them, what was relevant to them. >> Renteria: Thank you. I have other questions on a different subject in case y'all want to continue that conversation. >> Alter: As I understand it for golf, part of this is the accumulated balance for the enterprise fund so you're capturing in that view sort of accumulation that we may not be looking at when we're looking at other parts of the budget because it's the enterprise fund. It's remained in the enterprise fund. But that was reported back in September I think to the parks board that the 2016 revenue was estimated that we were going to be in the black at 263,000 so now that you've gotten through some of these renovations and things, we still have the losses happening at Hancock, but that golf [10:01:51 AM] administration, I'm not sure what that is, is more in the revenue side. Lions was more on the revenue side. Williams was more, as was Jimmy clay, so you were actually in the black if you just looked for the one year without considering all of those capital costs, which is part and parcel of the broader problem that parks has of its broader infrastructure and not necessarily unique to golf, is that correct? >> That is correct. I will say that those -- some of those were estimates at the time before it closed too. So 2016 did end up as a negative total outcome. However, that was mostly due to the wage impact that was an unfunded mandate that we need to institute in January of that year. In the grand scheme of things, it looks like if you had to ask me today. >> Alter: I have other questions but I wanted to ask that. >> Mayor Adler: On the golf is there a place to go to to see what the profit and loss is for what the cash flow is for each of those facilities. >> There's not a place that we have published, but we can provide that of course. >> Mayor Adler: Let's get as much data as we can get. >> Absolutely, yes, sir. >> Pool: I really appreciate the items that you're talking about and I know that it's something you and the staff are working [10:03:52 AM] on. You mentioned eliminating duplicate programming and looking for strategic partnerships in the community on programming as well as facilities. And we also have opportunities to prioritize funding to really serve the populations with the greatest need. And those for me -- and I think probably generally would be our children, our seniors, people with disabilities. And director Hensley mentioned the 110 model. Is that model -- is that the same issue that you were talking about on prioritizing for vulnerable communities, people with the greatest needs and also eliminating done locative programming. >> They're related, yes. We went through a process of finding the true costs of -- the true cost of service. What does it really cost us to offer a program? And it considered all direct and indirect costs for each of our -- for each of our programs. And there were over 400 -- 400 different programs which of and of itself told us something about whether there should be 4,000 programs. In any case, what that model did for us, there's a -- you put data in and then it spits information out to you. What it did for us is it said there were some basic programs that we should be divesting in because we have partners that are doing that. So we're in the process now of looking at how should we be divesting, how should we transition from the business model that we currently have to finding the right partners to be able to take that on. It also helped us understand that we may be able to charge more for some of the programs that we offer and so that goes to the affordability question, and the resource allocation audit said you had room to go ahead and charge more money. [10:05:55 AM] The consultants from 110% said you're really only covering 15% of your costs associated with programs. You really have room to recover. In your backup you will see that there is a continuum that helped in how we have -- how we're subsidizing programs on a continuum. So programs that are for the greater good of the community are subsidized at a greater rate. Programs that are for greater good of the individual, rentals, private opportunities to have a party in a park, are more on the full cost recovery side. They're not more. They are on the full cost recovery side of things. So basically to your question, what this has spit out -- we're still analyzing all of the information, is that there are certain things like sports that we're providing that we may consider getting out of the business of. And the sport that would be something that we want to . >> The sport we want to stay in is basketball. Because we don't have any competitors. But a sport like baseball, where we're funding youth organizations and have established partnerships to provide that. Maybe that's not a place for us to continue the program. In some cases we met opposition, where we said we're not going to have that program but if we could -- for every $25,000, that we can recover, either save or if we choose to increase fee, and we elect to augment our budget by that amount of money that we increased our fees. Amount of revenue, for every $25,000, we can 12 more children in some program. So, it's about where our greatest needs -- when we take a look at our waiting lists, they've increased since 2013 into 2016 and we have upwards -- I have to look at the numbers but I think it's close to 1,000 individuals that are on waiting [10:07:55 AM] lists that don't get served. We know that if we had -- and we know that we have physical capacity in our space, right, our recreation centers can accommodate more kids, but we don't financially have the money in our general fund budget to provide that program, so this 110 percent asks us to philosophically look at what do we want to divest in and invest resources in because did you want to charge more money because if you charge more money and the budget is augmented by that much. That's the number of children you can serve more. We are whoafully underserving teens and we know those teenagers are the greatest populations at risk because they got a lot of free time on hand and if they're not engaged in something positive that's when they make risky decisions that can be life- changing for them. We're doing a great job in the youth area. We're seeing some duplication of services. I'm working very closely with health and human services because we're offering out-of-school programs they're funding through prime time and we're offering through our recreation centers. If they have the capacity to serve the children we're serving we can take that money and create a bridge program for the teenager, once they graduate from elementary after school, they can come into the rec center and we'll be keeping more children safe. That's what Sarah started to describe and that's the information that we're really combing through right now. Pp we also have facilities that are underutilized and if we know that we're underserving preschoolers and we know we're underserving teenagers and we can get with a partner, they might be able to utilize a facility and we can transfer all of the program activities with little disruption to a nearby facility, maybe a partner could utilize that facility to fill a gap that we're not able to fill and I'm thinking specifically, if I could say this out loud without anyone getting too [10:09:56 AM] upset, I'm thinking about the Alamo recreation center which is a neighborhood recreation center very close to Dolores duff if recreation group and Connelly Guerrero recreation center, those are serving teens. Maybe a partner could run that facility and provide a preschool program. That's much needed in the area. Those are things we're looking at, trying to be very, very strategic. The key here is finding the right partner that's going to meet the needs of the community that the community can get behind but those are the kinds of things that 110 is looking at. When we come to inclusion services or individuals with disabilities, we believe that Macbeth absolutely has an important role to play, but the model is for individuals with disabilities to participate in any program, anywhere in our system, with the ability to have the reasonable accommodation and in some cases, that means an inclusion aide or an individual that helps them be successful, helps a person with individuals be successful in a program with their peers, so what we're locking in services is not -- although we have a waiting list with Macbeth. We are lacking the opportunity because we don't have enough funding or resources to really provide inclusion services that we think would benefit communities with individuals with disabilities throughout our entire system and those individuals are making different choices, maybe utilizing our partners at the ymca, or saying it would be great if you can provide a program in my neighborhood so I don't have to go all of the way to the Macbeth recreation center. If we were able to reduce. We can solve some of our problems. It's not like coming to council [10:11:57 AM] and saying, give us some more money. In the past, when we presented it, it's been met with opposition. What I'm pleaing for is some consideration with hard decisions that if it makes sense that we could all be on the same page and perhaps we can serve more instead of continuing down the same path we're moving. >> May I just add one thing and that is, I think recreation plays a huge role in affordability issue we're facing here in Austin and that is when making tough decisions about looking at maybe not doing certain programs, when you look at areas that have high needs for child -- not so much child care but child development. We have facilities that are located, for not only the families but particularly Thor those young people and then for those older, the chronologically gifted that I like to say or those with special needs, it's about choices. But we have those opportunities then we can help with that whole issue of, I need help but most of it is with the kids that I have that don't have a safe place to go for programming while I'm working a second job or third job. So I think we play a huge role in that but to do that, we have to look at what do we stop doing. >> And so when you talk about shifting your programming or stopping the programming, you're -- and let me just ask this question. You can tell me if this is close or not. You're not saying that you would -- that the city would cease to have that program, it's just that a different organization would provide it, is that what you mean by the business model? >> Yes. So, for example -- and the thing that's important to me, people want to make sure they're getting a quality program, and so I've been work very closely with learn all of the timely is a not for profit advocacy group for out-of-school programming. And they are advocating for people to be on a continuum of constant improvement. That means they are assessing [10:13:58 AM] their programs through some system. The department uses youth program quality assessment and so there's lots of agencies that use an assessment tool that tells you that you're on a continuum of quality. It's finding the right partner to be able to do that but it's always scary when you say, hey, why don't you all try this program if you've been used to a particular quality but we want to make sure we can guarantee quality. I think this goes to the council directive, how do we guarantee that we're funding quality youth programs, which is a whole drive conversation that we've been working on. But it's finding the right -- the key partner that has a similar quality that we know that individuals who participate in their program are going to get the same kind of service that we feel as though we would provide or better. If they can do it better, that would be great, too. >> Let me ask, shifting gears a little bit. I want to talk about the aquatics master plan. So, I would like you to maybe talk about the recommendations and what we might need to consider for the coming fiscal year. You have on the fact sheet some additional operational models. I think splash bads versus conventional swimming pools have also been mentioned. Could you talk about that a little bit? >> When we talk about swimming pools versus splash pads that's really philosophical. If part of our responsibility is to make sure that children are as safe as possible around water, that has to do with swimming lessons so a splash bad is not going to increase our opportunities to provide for swimming lessons, so that's very philosophical. That doesn't mean that youth can't go to swimming pools that exist, but we're talking about access. So, I just want to make that distinction. If we're talking about individuals that need to have access to a space to cool off. Splash pads are beautiful. They're wonderful because anybody can go there and cool off and be able to have an [10:15:59 AM] enjoyable amount of time. We have to make sure we balance the decision of splash pads versus swimming pools to make sure we're meeting the demand. There's a decision that says children that participated in swimming lessons are 80% more likely to be able to help themselves should they get in a dangerous situation in water so it's important to us, right? The master plan is putting together a matrix that consider S demographic figures. It considers social determinants, it considers environmental determinants. It takes a look at infrastructure determinants and will give each of our swimming pools a score and what it will say, there's some pools that we may need to decommission. That will be in opposition to the resolution that says keep all swimming pools open and keep them free, but the concern that the department has with that -- with that logic thinking, is that we're already $40,000, in 2013 dollars, behind the 8-ball with regards to infrastructure. 40 million. We're $22 million in the whole in our gap services in places that may need a swimming pool. For example, the colony park area. So, if you just add that up, we're looking at $62 million and $62 million could be a single bond program over five years. Knowing that we have $700 million in deferred maintenance issues that are related to other structures in our system, within our facilities. What is the likelihood that in the next 20 years, we're really going to be able to resolve our program and it's not likely. Even if the council was very generous and over the next bond programs, if they were every five years apart and you gave us $20 million every year, as [10:18:01 AM] increases, we still wouldn't get everything done, because as things increase, we would still. So we're looking at another 20 years to 25 years in which we would be able to really resolve our system, on top of the fact that we're already overspending which is being absorbed by the department, $400,000 of maintenance costs every year since 2013, and it's being absorbed at the extense pens of being able to provide more programs, or being able to fix our trails or take care of our "A" "D" "A" issues, and so, I think it's unreasonable so believe that this system that we currently have with the number of pools, is a reasonable way -- is sustainable. Now, I do want to mention that it has been told -- or it has been mentioned that that's one from the things that makes Austin unique, is that per capita, we have the most number of pools percent capita, and do we really want to eliminate something that makes us as unique, but when we're talking about wasting, you know, water every day, for, you know, 800 households, I would say, you know, we have to really start balancing our uniqueness with our responsibility, with our fiscal responsibility, our environmental responsibility and then also, what's really relevant to our -- to our community. If you come to our aquatics meetings that are specifically about pool, you'll hear very loud and clear, individuals that come to those meetings are very passionate about pools. If you read the community survey, 50% of people are neutral and the rest -- about 20 percent say divest in swimming pools and 19% say invest. And so, I think it's time for us to really look at it philosophically, and really look at it as a policy matter, as to what's really best for and if we [10:20:07 AM] can put together an assessment, that shows swimming pools can be built, swimming pools can be decommissioned and we can still have access, people can still get to those spaces, using reasonable means of transportation, bus lines, walking or using the trail system, is that better for the overall health of our community, than to continue down this unsustainable path. I'm sorry that was a die atribe. >> There was a report. When does this report come out? >> We should be seeing it in may or June. Tlfrnts was an earlier report. When did that come out? >> It was 47 million, I reduced that to 30 million. We replaced go valley and Shipe >> We talked about programming needs and a little about facilities, specifically the pools. I want to talk a little bit about funding and I want to talk specifically about the funding that is collected in the vicinity of the parks through the parking meters. I seem to remember there was some discussion years and years Agatha funds from those parking meters would go to benefit the parks adjacent to where those meters are, so that operations and maintenance primarily maintenance would be sustained, so, we do charge for parking at some larger parks either through the parking meters, which I think we've instituted parking meters throughout. We don't have a gate attendant anymore. So where are we with the funding that spins off close collections. What is the percentage of dollars that is helping with the maintenance of the parks and could you maybe fill in history of the expectations of that [10:22:10 AM] funding? >> I'll start it. This was actually an attempt several years ago, because I kept going and watched what was happening at the park and the traffic nightmares and we were standing out there collecting money with temp seasonal staff. Two things were happen. People were upset because traffic was backing up. The second thing was, having worked with Corey on a number of these issues, we're seeing money not being collected as it should be. It was three for the city and one for them. You know, it happens. We worked with our friend in transportation, rob spiller and we started the issue of putting in the meters which is taking on, and worked wonderfully, so that people can get in and out easier and it even worked on different traffic patterns. The money that generated from those meters, two things, one we have to have a certain amount of overhead for monitoring the meters but also they do the actual ticketing if necessary. We don't have to do that. It's also a technology system that people can do on their own, and somebody may complain. We're doing the same hours and had not increased it. The other part is the money that's generated from those meters. Zilker, Walsh. The Mexican American culture center and butler equates to $1.2 million a year. Per legal, those dollars must be spent within the close proximity of the area which it's generated. We, today, receive about $212,000 of that money to spend in those areas. The rest of that money, as I understand, and I believe, it can confirm goes into the general fund so that's kind of where we are today and it came about from really issues related to traffic and parking. >> So, there's probably some history, maybe some resolutions or ordinance inge chas or something, or some discussion at council about how that money [10:24:11 AM] would be -- that fed the expectation at parks department would have a larger portion of that money. So that's what I'm -- that's where I'm that's where I'm going with that. I recognize some of it goes back into the fund, and goes back to parks. If you had 1 additional million for maintenance for the larger parks to track and respect the requirements of where those moneys should be spent, how would that change things for those major parks? >> Leona, you can probably answer that. >> There's so many needs that we have. There's no question that that will be very positive. >> Okay. That's what I would think, too. So, I would like to look at that, maybe miss hard, if you could help me with that during budget, I would like to see if we can't identify the money that comes from those parking meters, and review its use, and if that would have beneficial effect on the maintenance, and the clear need that we have for a parks department. It's a tiny bit of money but it's one stream that would be sustainable and could potentially grow over time that would be put to good use and then I just want to have one more question, if I can, you mentioned Dr. Hensley, technology and technology on the meters. I understand technology improvements are a big issue for the department and we don't really have enough money. You don't have enough money for your customer service needs or to improve your internal functioning. Can you talk about that a little bit more? >> Yeah. So, both our resource allocation audit and then a soon-to-be released cash handling audit will outline some deficiencies, [10:26:15 AM] so, we are looking the ability to collect data at our recreation centers because we don't have the appropriate technology. We are lacking ability to provide individual was wi-fi individuals within our park system and in some cases within our facilities and that has to deal with our own infrastructure and infrastructure of our "C" "T" "M" system. We lack the ability to be able to do certain kinds of roll-out of data, so, for example, each time you ask us, how much money do you spend on summer camp program, we have to figure out how to do that manually because we don't have an opportunity to take care of that. We are also lacking the ability to have point of sale systems or track our registration systems at all of our facilities because we lack infrastructure, in some cases. 14 facilities. In some cases we are still -- what's the -- we are still on dial-up, which is, I think an older -- >> I didn't know that still existed. >> We are still on dial-up in some facilities, so, all of those things combined -- >> Oh, we don't have an asset management system that provides us the data that we would -- we are doing it manually. We don't have a technology system to help us be able to do that. So, all of those things combined make us less data driven than we want to be. We spent a lot of time on data but are doing a lot of it manually to a system that can spit it out like that. >> I will say we're not the only department that has that issue. There's the whole issue of doing time sheets that's hard on all staff that may say hundreds of thousands of dollars if we had a technology Cal opportunity to fix that. I will stay our staff is very creative. Knowing that we didn't have 14 [10:28:17 AM] sites we can do cash collection, we went back to our friends in transportation. Where we don't have the ability because it takes so much money to retrofit technology, we're putting parking meters out front and let those serve as a way to collect cash to pool entrants. I thought that was created. >> To get an actual system which spits out a ticket and a company helps us do that we're asking for transportation to help us short term. Long term, we'll hopefully have a system that we have to pay a fee for or that comes out much the fees we're collecting. >> Wasn't the manual collection of fees a subject of an audit and there was a follow-up audit? So you were also vulnerable. You would be hard pressed to prove that it wasn't. Just like the whole issue about the parking meters and collecting that by hand. We saw a huge jump in revenue. That's why the money is 1.5 million. And nod individuals collecting those dollars. >> Mayor, thank you for giving me the time to answer these questions. I'll have some ideas that I'll bring forward to kind of help out. >>> Sounds good. Ailson? >> Alter: Thank you. As you know, I'm very partial to parks and I feel strongly what you're doing it terms of parks and the programming that we've seen in surveys from the city that citizens value our parks. It's one of the things that I think is best run in the city. [10:30:19 AM] It's what is cited as the best use of our tax dollars, I think what you're seeing this morning, there's a lot of needs and that status and care for our parks is at risk if we're not careful how we plan with our resources. I've talked at length with miss Neely about the programming side. I want to focus a little more on the environment, the parks stuff, because I think it's been mentioned but I think we really need to underscore how challenge ING the aging infrastructure is and our inability to maintain our parks and the safety and environmental consequences are not doing that. We've mentioned the pool leaks, and that water issue, which is scary, frankly. We have not talked about playground safety. We have not talked about our trees in our parks. That are, you know, only maintained when somebody calls, because there's a problem, but we have tree limbs that fall on park scapes, and there's lots of dangers that come with that, tree can perks not to mention it affects the health of that canopy. First if you can elaborate on the challenges of what are involved. When it comes to pool. What are some other issues and how is this playing out in realtime? I think it's easy to say we have these great parks and they are fine but I think there's really very serious issues that you have to look closely at to understand. >> I appreciate you asking about them. I would mention just a few, and I will start with -- the [10:32:23 AM] department last year completed a comprehensive assessment of the facilities with regard to Ada compliance. The result was a transition plan that allows the department within the next three years to come into compliance with regard to program services, and buildingful disability at the very basic level. The department wants to also come into complete compliance within the next ten years. There is an associated cost with that, and that is in close to the $100 million over the next ten years. So, that is definitely a need that we need to fulfill. With regard to our facilities, our buildings, we seem to me pretty active in the way that we do maintenance, rather than proactive, rather than doing the maintenance that the buildings need. We know we have different maintenance in the hundreds of millions of dollars. These are scary numbers. And we understand very well. But both personal and budget, to be able to do these maintenance, is not there. We have -- miss Mcneilly mentioned, 400 plus buildings, more than 450 buildings that we need to maintain every year. And we don't have the funding to replace the roofs when they are at the end of their life expectancy, or maintain or replace their hvac system, and even lighting and everything else. And the same goes for our grounds facilities. We have play grounds way past [10:34:26 AM] their life expectancy that we are not able to replace as we need. >> I think some of that maintenance stuff should be factored into any equity analyses that we are doing. There are playgrounds where the equipment is unsafe. It depends on the neighborhoods being able to call in the problem, and that can happen anywhere in the city, and there are some real issue was that. Is one from the things that I would like to be discussing, maybe it's this season, or the budget season, there are alternative models for funding parks that are used all over the country. Some of which are constrained from using because it's ruled at the state level but there are other opportunity, and even within the state of Texas, San Antonio has a totally different model of funding their parks and we need to be looking comparatively at these options. Council member pool brought up the parking and the fact that the parking wasn't going to parks. One of the problems we have, there's no incentive for parks to do certain innovative things because the money doesn't go back to parks if they succeed, so we're creating incentives that don't work. To accomplish the goals we want. Wherein if you're trying to do something successful and can't plow back into what you're doing. It's less likely you can spend time and resources on that. Even though for the overall benchity it would be good I think we see that several times. It could be bringing revenue without decreasing access, but the amount of resources into that goes into making that happen, if the money is not coming back to parks makes it prohibitive to do that. [10:36:27 AM] I would like to bring that back to parks in terms of funding models and in terms of aligning the budget. If you have comments on that, I would welcome those now, or we can continue the conversation. >> I will just say real quickly that we do have the creek park district, which is a good model. It's something that might not be so positively accepted, but that's where those individuals who are buying homes right now in the onion creek area tore that new development, the good night properties, they know they are paying an extra fee when they have their house built that goes directly into a park district fund that will help the maintenance and operation of those park communities in that area, so, and Angela serves on that board, that's one model. Park district is another model which is done primarily in Illinois, which I worked in the park district, which is direct taxing authority for parks. It's museum tax, parks fun, that's another model and of course the model San Antonio has, we've had those kind of discusses, they use that's helped them come out of the issues that they faced with not enough funding that's helped them some significantly. I need to do a little more research on that one. >> The last thing I want to talk about today are bonds and how much of of the 2012 bond has not been spent and war the plans for doing so as we look ahead sort of putting together bonds maybe in 2018 that would include parks. I'm curious to know how we effectively spend that money. >> I don't have the specific number in front of me. I can tell you that we are at [10:38:27 AM] the later stage of the bond package, so actually we expect that within this year and next year, it's going to be extremely active in terms of construction. The first part of the bond, the first few years is spent in design and getting ready to have the project built, but now we are in many of them in active construction stages, so we expect that this -- most of the money will be spent within the next two to three years and we are preparing for the possibility of having an upcoming bond package within the next few year. >> Okay. Thank you. One last thing that I did just remember about was for parkland dedication, do you have any updates on how the new ordinance is playing out? >> Councilman, I don't have any specific dollars or amounts to share with you, but because of the change, we definitely can, you know, we are getting more land. There is the requirement for land, so, in many cases, we are getting that land per case, that we didn't before. So, there are some significant changes that we are, you know, we're seeing. And we are happy to share with you what those -- what that data is. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Miss Houston then miss kitchen. >> Houston: Thank you. Thank you, mayor. Back to the end of life services, do we get any revenue from the cemeteries? >> Yes, we do, for every plot that we sell, there is a fee that is charged. We make sure that we maintain [10:40:28 AM] affordability standards for those, but, yes, we do get the revenue. >> Houston: Is the amount of revenue somewhere in the pack-up? >> Don't believe we have indicated that, but I can find the information and provide that you to. >> Houston: Would you send it to everybody? >> Yes. I guess I need to know whether that's breaking even, or -- >> It is not. I can tell you that. >> Houston: So that's another shortfall? >> Yes. And it is probably one of the conversations that we could have on how we can make our cemeteries more self sufficient. >> Houston: Sustainability, I mean, even at end of life, is something that we need to pay attention to. And then the other one was -- you said we're getting land, with the parkland dedication, but we're getting land. We can't do anything with it because we don't have any money, is that -- >> With the park land dedication ordinance, we were very successful in getting the two- step component passed, which is the first is -- the first part is that land dedication piece, and then the second part are dollars for development. You know, I mean, it's not -- the acreage that we're getting for the density, doesn't -- the -- we get that component, but it's not that we're getting the dollars, the complete dollars to develop that piece of the property, but we are saving it for the development of that piece of property as the next project comes in, and come in. So, yes, we do get the land. In areas where we're not park deficient, then we have a fee in lieu of, so we have a fee in lieu of the land and then we have the development fee. So, dollars are being generated. [10:42:31 AM] >> Houston: For the development of the -- >> For the development of either the land that we're getting, because we are park deficient, or, land that we already have, and the project will be delivering fee in lieu of land and the development fee, so, in order to develop the parcels that we don't have. Any money for development. >> Houston: So, is it too early to see how that's working? >>? A positive way. Particularly areas where we have multiple discussions with developers that, you know, land is very, very critical for them. And -- but yet it was very park deficient for us. So, with the ordinance change, it's much easier to get that land. >> Get the land but again we've got to develop the land so I'm asking about the following fees, the revenue following fee developing. >> Exactly. Since our fees have increased almost double, the money is coming in, and is accumulating, so we can start addressing that -- those vacant lands that we have. >> Okay. Because we've got a lot. >> Oh, yes. Absolutely. >> And then there was -- I think that's it. Thank you. >> Sure. >>> Miss kitchen. >> Kitchen: A couple of points. I appreciate the discussion about the needs with regard to the use of technology. You have a very good understanding and list of the areas in which there's deficiencies and there needs to be improvement. I wanted to ask if you're participating in the smart cities strategic plan process. The -- perhaps acm is familiar with that, but we passed a [10:44:34 AM] resolution a few months ago to create a smart cities strategic plan that's happening internally now and that plan is due back to -- that plan is due back to council, soon. I can't remember the exact date. Maybe April or may. But the purpose of that smart cities strategic plan is to list all of those technology needs that each of our departments have, so that we are identifying, and can make a decision, as a board, you know, as a council, on how we need to look at our resources to make sure that we are efficiently using technology, and so I am really hoping that you guys have been engaged as part of that process, because the smart cities strategic planning process is supposed to engage all of our departments. >> So, I will absolutely find out about our formal participation, but what I can tell you, I personally had multiple meetings with our friends in ctm to specifically talk about this so I personally have not attended a smart cities meeting, but I've had personal conversations trying to brain storm how can we resolve some of these issues. >> Kitchen: Well, Steve Elkins is leading the smart cities strategic plan effort, so you might want to circle back with him. But I'm certain he is including the needs you identified in the document that should come back to the council. >> Absolutely. I'll find out our formal participation to you. >> Kitchen: Okay. And just for my colleague, when that comes back to us, that should help us identify the places throughout the city where we're having issues like manual processes and things like that, that are really inefficient, and that we need to make some changes too. Okay. On the -- just by way of information for my colleagues, on the bond package, the next bond package, I just learned [10:46:36 AM] from Mr. Cannelly, that we'll get an update on April 2nd on the time line for that process. And then he let me know that sometime in mid-may. They would bring to us the bond needs assessment. So basically, the way that process works, the bond committee that we appointed will be looking at a needs assessment that our staff puts together, but that will also be presented to the council, and we have some opportunity to provide some guidance to the bond committee if we choose to do so. So, that should be coming up. And we'll get an update on April 2nd which will give us more of a time line, and we'll actually see the draft need as sesment in may. Let's see. So, I also wanted to ask specifically about - - we had conversation about safety in the mark parks, but I wanted to ask about lighting. Because this is a discussion that we had during our last budget cycle, and I'm wanting to make sure that we identify the park lighting needs, as part of the information that comes back to us. Because that -- you know, we had some discussion about what sources of revenue we could perhaps tap to pay for that. So, what is our process for understanding what those needs are? Or, you can just point me to a document, because I know we've had discussions before. >> We are evaluating our needs in the different parks, and amenity areas. We have been working with Austin energy. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> And we are proceeding in two different -- in two directions, one as Austin energy as the partner for the night watchman lights, >> Kitchen: Okay. >> And the other one is independently when Austin energy cannot participate, to come up with a plan, and estimated budget on how to provide lighting in parks. [10:48:37 AM] We have completed the process, in one part of the city, primarily, the gava area, and we are working now our way to the rest of the parks. >> Kitchen: Okay, so, that will produce for us a document that will tell us what the needs are? Is that what I'm hearing? >> That's what we are expecting, yes. >> Kitchen: Okay. What's the time line for that? Actually, my larger question is, will we have that information available in time for us to consider during this budget cycle? >> We will make every effort to have that over to you. >> Kitchen: Yeah. I would just say that we need it during -- as part of our budget, and I would also suggest as city manager, obviously you know this is a priority, but safety lighting in the parks is a top priority. >> We will have it to you. >> Kitchen: Thank you. Let's see. So, we had some good discussion about the parking meter situation. I want to make sure that I'm understanding it. So, did I hear correctly that the -- and I hey have not just heard this correctly but the funds that are coming into parking, are they coming into an enterprise fund or did I hear that wrong? >> Those funds do come into the general fund just like our other revenue that we generate from our department. >> Kitchen: Okay. All right. So, what I heard, they come in in general funds, certain amount is allocated to you, certain amount stays in the general fund. >> Transportation does receive a fee for their services, and so that's how the funds are split out. There's various fees. There's credit card fees. There's the administrative oversight fees, and of course we -- the parks and recreation department has received around $200,000 for our parking related [10:50:39 AM] maintenance at those facilities that we collect funds. >> Kitchen: Okay. So, technically spaking, you received the entire amount except for the fees, and the fees relate to -- no? >> No. The money comes in and a certain percentage goes to transportation because of their oversight and ticketing. We get about $212,000 a year that could be allocated to those areas. The rest of that money -- the most recent number I had was 1.5 million that was generated. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> The rest of that stays in the general fund. Not saying we don't get some of that money because we only generate 23% of the money we spend, but it doesn't come in to parks and recreation to be used by other areas. >> Kitchen: I just want to make sure I understood that. Those are all my questions. >>> We have an hour and three quarters. We have the rest of the time left for library. My suggestion is we ask questions quickly. Let's daylight some questions but let's then get to the library issue. >> Two quick questions. One is that, you know, in my district, I have some of the older pools, I think we should look at consolidating these pools. Martin is one of the areas that we really need to look to build a big, larger pool to accommodate the rest of the pools. So, it's -- it's about time we look into really building something that could serve the whole area in the east Austin park, because I just -- there's some nearby. If you look at my other district here, in battle Ben area, they have to go all of the way to [10:52:40 AM] garrison. I believe it's garrison, and so that's what we really need to look at, start building a bigger, larger pool to be able to accommodate the residents. And the other one, I would really like to know the percentage of the money that's getting collected. How much are we really, you know, we using that money for their areas around the parking area there looks pretty warn out, so I just want to make sure that we're doing something with that money. >> I can get you the percentage, and then what it's been spent on. >> Okay. And thank you for everything. You all have done a great job. >> Mr. Flanagan? >> Flannigan: I'll be fast. There are some missing park resources that I can help with my district. But opens up ideas that there are other areas that are missing and areas along golf courses don't need more parks I don't think. There are areas that are shaded and also areas highly special are shaded. You don't need to serve commercial areas with parkland. That's a detail level. Don't just look at this map on a surface. You really got to dig in. I want to reiterate my colleges comments about golf courses. I really struggle subsidizing golf course was tax dollars but there's a slide, back-unone, which is, I guess, slide 13, this chart of sustainability and viability where you got goal subsidy levels and actual subsidy levels. Is that a policy, or is that an internal -- >> That is our internal. And it does -- it includes -- we have not done. What I talked about, where we did the cost of service, we did for all of our programs but we have not yet done that for golf. It will be our second tier. >> Flannigan: I was going ask you where golf fit on this. I think it's a phenomenal chart. [10:54:42 AM] We should look at in a policy level to say parks and services should be sub dieszed at another level. >> What are you looking at? >> Flannigan: It's park back-up 1 but it's the 14th page of the presentation. It's a really good one. The cemetery maintenance cost had a big jump. If it's a short answer, now is fine. If it's a long answer, back up later. >> Short answer we have serious irrigation issues, leakage there as well, not only pools and infrastructure issues related to, as you all know, from the chapel and other sites that are quite old and need attention. >> Flannigan: As you probably know I have some very passionate cemetery advocates in my district. >> I do. >> Flannigan: I'm interested to what is going on in the cemeteries to council member Houston's part I'll have that later. On the last page of activities you excluded the aging center for counting senior meals? >> The senior meals are provided via a grant that we get from the area on aging and capital area food bank much the meals that are provided to the asian-american resource center are provided through the generosity of council who have allocated money specifically to them. >> Flannigan: Thank you. You work together with the transportation department on trails? >> We work with public works. >> The trails division works with us in many cases. >> Flannigan: What's the difference between a trail that serves a transportation purpose and trail that serves a park purpose? >> Okay. So, what we have done, we spent an enormous time with our friends in public works looking at transportation. Where you look at it as multi modal. Meaning you can get to work, [10:56:42 AM] those kind of places. Ours are more recreational in nature but connect sometimes to those multi modal trails. So, walnut creek is a comfort example of multi modal transport taths network. So transportation dollars can be spent on that because it's considered a way to get from one place to the next for work. Ours are sometimes not concrete. They are decomposed granite or otherwise. We can give you a whole briefing on that. >> Aren't they in pa,s? >> Yes, along green belts. >> And council member Houston, you brought up two points. On the park land dedication. Sounded like the land can be provided and money to build the park initially is I provided but ongoing operations and maintenance fees are not provided. Is that right? >> Two things. Usually from parkland dedication, depending how many residential units, motel, hotels are built, the amount of money is not sufficient to do the actual development of those parks. Number two there is no money unless it's allocated through the fund process for maintenance and staffing. >> Flannigan: That's from a policy matter, even though there's very few of us left here. I am concerned adding more park land. >> It is a concern for us as well. We can't take care of what we have. >> Flannigan: And secondly under the revenue streams under cemetery, I think it's a very dicey conversation, certainly worth exploring but something that I think is going to have some very spiritual balancing required. >>> To that end, if we're going to be taking a look at golf and aquatics, and cemeteries, maybe there's a form that we can take a look at that would tell us within each area what the [10:58:42 AM] subsidy is in each of those areas, I guess. And I just didn't mean just to limit it to that. Whatever the things are amenable to that, and I would urge you to surface to us the questions that may have been hard to discuss in the past, that's part of the budget, so that we make sure that we surface those. >> We can certainly do that and we can actually use the model that we're using now with areas of golf to show you where we are in the market. Maybe we need to divest or invest or get out of the business. >>> That would be helpful in all of those areas. Miss Houston? >> Houston: This is two quick things. One I would like to have some information regarding what are the opportunities for private partnerships, so that some of these could be long-term ground lease to somebody else to do all of that stuff and the other thing is, I would be happy to facilitate a conversation in blackland, regarding Alamo park and trying to get the seniors >> Frankly, the seniors have willingly been going. They're actually going over to Conley Guerrero, and we're actually -- there's a slow transition, but it's working pretty well. >> Good; and we can repurpose the smaller building and keep the basketball court going. >> Yeah. >> Anything else before we go to libraries? >> Thank you. Since we're talking about the congregate senior meals, I just wanted to ask for a clarification that was given to the answer to council member Flanagan. The funding was re-allocated, is that now funded through a grant rather than the general fund or is that also general fund? >> It is general fund. I had forgot. >> Thank you. I'm so glad the programs exist. [11:00:44 AM] Thank you for all the work you do. >> Thank you. Good presentation. Elaborate. Don't do that again. So mayor council, I would introduce Tony lambert. The acting director for the libraries and the rest of her staff are here to answer questions. >> Good morning, mayored a Luhr, protem tovo and council members. With me today is Dana Mcbee and Victoria Reager. I have other staff here today so we can answer your questions as best as possible. I'm here to introduce who we are, what we do and the impact we have on the Austin community. We have locations throughout the Austin community. Our collection size as grown to over 8.1 million items. A 29% increase over a five-year period. In fy16, we circulated 5.9 million items, representing a 27% increase over the same time period. We're a vital source of trusted information this the community. The Austin history center, the local history center of the Austin public library provides public access to information about the history, current [11:02:44 AM] events, and activities of Austin and Travis county. Over 19,000 reference questions were asked of the history center staff and fy16. We have over 600 public computers available across all 23 library locations. In fy16, slightly over 635,000 visitors utilized our public computers. Access to digital resources for those who may be unable to afford them or who need basic training remains a priority. Access to technology has a positive impact on the lives of our citizens. We offered 8845 library programs last year. For example, we expand opportunities for individuals of all ages through programs such as early childhood literacy, computer training, and workforce development. Community outreach raises awareness about the library and engages with Austin's diverse population at non-traditional venues. To this end, we participated in over 1,200 community outreach events across the city. For example, we have had great success conducting outreach at local farmer's markets. The Austin public library's fy17 budget stand at 47.4 million. We're authorized for 433.30 full-time equivalents. The general fund makes up 99.9% of our budget with the majority going to our primary services, providing and circulating materials and information. The primary public service activities circulation in reference, materials management, youth services, and the history center employ 314 fte or 70% of the library's workforce. As you can see by the budget [11:04:45 AM] category and fte history charts, our largest expenditure item is related to personnel. As that increases, so does our budget. Fy16 and fy17 saw the biggest increases due to the new central library. Fy15 branch hours were partially restored and then fully restored in fy16. Renovations all funded by means of the 2012 bond program or the Austin history center exterior and interior improvement projects were contracted. The remainder of the project progresses through design development. Construction on the primary scope of work is expected to begin in March of 2018. Construction of the William branch project includes replacement of the existing roof, interior remodeling, and a heating ventilation and air conditioning upgrade. Construction is anticipated to start in the fall of this year. The Yarborough branch library renovation, the 100% complete construction documents are now being reviewed by the quality management division of public works. This project will include replacement of all worn finishes, furniture, fixtures, and equipment in the building, and will bring the site within compliance to current Ada standards. Construction is likely to start in late summer. The Windsor park branch library renovation, 90% complete construction documents are now being reviewed by the quality management division. This project will restore this popular library to like new condition throughout the facility, and an invitation for contractor bid process is anticipated to occur this fall. The za pay da branch library, a [11:06:46 AM] consultant architect has been hired and it's in schematic design. Repairs which are funded in large part but not exclusively by the 2012 bond program are the university hills branch library parking lot expansion. This project will essentially double the number of parking places at this busy branch library. At the moment, it remains in the land acquisition phase by means of imminent domain. Pleasant hill branch library roof replacement and hvav, 90% complete construction documents have been achieved for this extensive retrow fit projectment construction is likely to start next summer. The Austin community branch library foundation repairs, the construction contract for this site work is currently being executed and a notice to proceed is expected to be issued to the contractor in may. The Willie may Kirk branch library foundation repairs, 60% complete construction drawings and specifications are currently under review by quality management. The Faulk central library roof, contract has been initiated. >> Spicewood springs landscaping, the design work is now under way. Zaragoza warehouse fire sprinkler upgrade. The engineering report has been completed and design development has been initiated. The little walnut creek branch Ada improvements, design development is in progress. The new central library project, following substantial completion of the building, the library department will begin furnishing and equipping this building to be the library of the future. The first task that must be done after substantial completion is the installation of all shelving and furniture for this six-floor [11:08:47 AM] building. And this is expected to take at least three months from staff taking possession of the building. These installations are the cornerstone for other task library staff must perform before opening and must be completed prior to most other work beginning. The installation of it equipment is the next significant task and includes installation of all phone handsets as well as staff desktop environments, which includes hardware and software, imaging, communications, networking, deployment, testing, and training. All 12 of the shared learning rooms will also require significant it work to ensure that all technology is installed and working properly for the public upon opening. We're also installing a new system which will allow the public to reserve computers or print from their own electronic devices, including smart phones and tablets and pay for those prints and scan and save information to the cloud. That particular system will be installed systemwide at all branches as well. The system will interface with our integrated library system, allowing for improved cash handling, reporting, and reconciliation. These it tasks will take several months to complete. Finally, the collection currently housed at the Faulk central library as well as new materials in storage will move to the new central library. The physical move is expected to take approximately six weeks. The grand opening date will be determined after substantial completion the building has been achieved. I would like to highlight some of the demographic and operational factors affecting the library today. Population growth and demographic shifts are two areas that greatly impact the library. The demand for services such as helping people learn digital skills, providing job-search assistance, bilingual story [11:10:48 AM] times, health education, and programs for seniors is on the rise. The library's commitment is to respect and celebrate diversity within the community. To achieve that, we offer materials, programs, and services which are representative of the community we serve. Borrowing printed books is still by far the most popular activity at the public library, representing approximately 82% of total circulation in fy16. This emphasizes our continued need to meet the ever increasing demand for physical materials while also meeting the growing demand for digital materials. The citizens of Austin deserve a safe, trusted place to spend time, pursue opportunities, and have a sense of community. Some of our branch libraries are in dire need of repair and renovation. This is an area that we'll continue to focus on. Other service challenges including meeting the needs of our growing community of mentally and physically challenged persons. The visually impaired and deaf communities are active members of our community, and we need to find ways to meet their special needs. Safety incidents are on the rise across the library system over the last five years. Eleven branch locations have experienced more than a 50% increase in the number of security incidents since fiscal year 2011. We've experienced a very significant increase, more than double, in theft of library property. Incidents of disturbing others and harassment have remained consistently high over the last five years. We're seeing an increasing number of drug-related incidents, especially k2. Our largest increases are with smoking in the library from only two in fiscal year 2011 to 23 in fiscal year 2016. And indie sent ex-- indecent [11:12:48 AM] exposure. 26 in 2016. These are the trend in the library's key indicators. I would like you to take a look at the result on this slide. The standard industry measure telling us how much funding per capita is spend on library materials. As the graph shows, the Austin public library is way below the average level of materials funding in comparison with our peer libraries. Full purpose population is projected to continue to outpace materials funding, resulting in downward pressure on this key measure in fiscal year 2017- 18. Funding for the new central library materials collection will continue in fiscal year 2018-19 as a continued investigationment in the budget for the library is critical. In order to meet the needs of the entire community, the library will need to grow and sustain a significant materials collection for the remaining 20 branches of libraries as well. I'm happy to report that program attendance per capita is on the rise. This statistic demonstrates the Austin community's desire for their libraries to offer programs that inspire lifelong learning and explore new ideas, personal interests, and careers. As we look to the future, the following horizon issues remain relevant to the library. I covered a few of these in slide seven, so I won't go over all of them. The Austin public library is presently responsible for the maintenance of 23 city-owned buildings and one leased-space facility. The recycled book store. Inventory of 382,328 square feet. Maintenance of an aging infrastructure at several of our branch libraries will continue to be our focus as we move into the new central library. We're faced with the renovation of the John Henry Faulk building [11:14:53 AM] [audio difficulties] The history center plays a vital role in the history of city records as the repository of records as some records are considered [audio difficulties] Electronic records, analog converted to digital formats present a unique challenge for archival repositories to preserve and make accessible. Over the last five years, the city of Austin has created more and more electronic records that are being identified as having historic or archival rail you, and it's vital that the resources are in place to manage these records. The history center manager is frequently called upon to evaluate city departmental records. Many city records are stored off-site at iron mountain because there's no place to store the physical records in the current history center building. Similarly, there is no real solution in place for digital storage. Digital storage, as well as the expansion into the Falk central library for the storage of records and additional space for staff to work with these records is a pressing need as is the need for digital record tar can I psychiatrists on the city's staff. Maintaining adequate staffing levels remains an issue on the horizon issues. Our teen centers are at risk for closure. This grant supported program will lose complete grant funding in 2018. It will be reduced by 50%. Additional funding will be required to continue operating this important digital literacy stem and steam initiative for at-risk youth throughout Austin. The recycle reads book store operation was established in twin through city council approval to house the book sell program of the Austin public [11:16:54 AM] library. The store is stocked with books and materials withdrawn from the library's collection and items received from the community's donations. The store sells these books and is an active participant in the city's zero waste plan by ensuring obsolete materials are kept out of land fills. They're unable to sell to third party recyclers that fund and support it ra city programs. Books are repurposed as building materials. Each month recycled reads handles over 20 tons of obsolete materials donated from the public. We offer a number of programs for youth, teens, and families. For children, our sessions are full to the brim. Frequently reaching or exceeding room capacity. Our school-age youth, our summer reading program is quite popular with nearly 4,000 youth completing the program and summer reading program 2016. Then we have our connected youth labs working with over 30,000 teens on stem and steam projects. Most of our branch locations offer talk time, computer classes, book clubs, and movies for adults and families. Our book clubs tend to draw and maintain a consistent following with themes such as graphic novels, mysteries. Movies, especially Saturday matinees and week-night cinema do well in most locations with our most well known film program, the bad film festival at the carver branch. Nearly all locations off series such as landscaping. Recycle reads offers fix-it clinics. Community outreach programs may be held anywhere in the community. We reach people where they are. Outreach enables us to bring the library to the public and show them what the library has to offer. Staff issued library cards offer [11:18:56 AM] materials for checkout and share information about library programs and services. Some of the places that we've visited include the Springdale farmer's market and Facebook's headquarters in Austin where we were asked to come back and offer our services again. Other groups have asked for us to attend their monthly get togethers. Our youth outreach engages with the community throughout Austin. Youth services librarians participate by attending back to school nights, literacy fairs, health fairs, and other events to inform parents and students of what is available at the library. Our outreach team regularly conducts visits to schools by attending principal and parent coffees to inform parents and school staff about library programs and to maintain current knowledge about the needs of youth in various regions of Austin. It has been my pleasure to present to you today, and with that, I will be happy to answer any questions you may have. >> I have a general question. We've had a lot of departments that come to us, and we know that we're spending less per capita on library than peer cities. We know that we're not providing the same park levels that peer cities provide. As we go through the departments, it's almost like we don't -- we're not providing the social services that other cities provide. We don't seem to be doing anything at the level that other cities are doing them, which makes me wonder whether we're doing anything beyond what other cities are doing. I'm just trying to figure out the puzzle of where it seems like we're behind in everything that we do. Think about that, but it's a recurring theme. I don't know how that happens. We have to be doing something more than anybody else is doing. >> I was about to say we're number one, so we must be doing [11:20:56 AM] something right, but it's not in the things that I'm concerned about. >> Right. All right. So let's now talk about the libraries. Ms. Pool will start. >> I think the partial answer to that question is we're growing so fast, it's really, as you know, just really hard to stay apace. I think that the library department has done excellent work with straightened means for a very, very long time. I just have two questions for you, and then I want to talk about a budget item. I wanted to talk about libraries are really community spaces, and I think this presentation did a really good job of demonstrating that. Are there ways we can build on or develop partnerships with other private or public entities to provide not only more programming and services but also with some cost sharing? This question goes to trying to fill the gap where we're behind with our resources with a need, but we may be able through creatively looking at other organizations and partnerships in the city. >> Absolutely. And we do partner with quite a few organizations already. We are constantly looking for new and potential partnerships and Sara Hensley has arranged for a meeting among those of us, the departments working under her looking for ways we with partner where we're overlapping and who can provide services. As you know, we have the free meeting room spaces for non-profits in all of our branches. So frequently we are providing space for programs, and our partners in the community are actually providing those programs. [11:22:57 AM] One example would be the partnership that we have with catholic charities where they're teaching citizenship classes in one of our branch libraries. We don't teach those classes, but they're being offered in partnership between the library and that organization. So we will continue looking for partnership opportunities, absolutely. >> You know, just a quick side question. I had an e-mail from a resident who was interested in financial literacy. Does the library provide space for non-profits to come in and provide those kinds of classes? >> We do. And we have offered quite a few financial literacy classes at locations around the city, and we do those in partnership with local organizations. >> Great. So if somebody wanted to tap into that or find out which programs are coming in to give those classes, who would they contact? >> They can always just call library administration, and we'll make certain that they are connected with our office of programs and partnerships. >> That's terrific. >> So my second question goes to the digital side of libraries. You touched on that as far as the archives are concerned and staffing. So as you mentioned, we have a lot of historically important digital records, and every day we generate even more. I know there's been an effort for several years to bring on a digital tarkyist. I had a budget item last year in order to try to find -- I think we were looking for $85,000 for funding for an fte. We need to be processing the records, preserve them as best we can for future generations. I'm assuming this is still an unmet need. >> That's correct. >> And have we explored the grant funding or joint funding? >> We have been exploring grant funding. We have not identified any. On a short-term basis, we're [11:24:58 AM] looking at bringing in a temporary digital archivist and using some of our funds for hiring temporary employees to at least address this on a short-term basis and deal with some of our more critical records. >> So that makes me think there is a master's degree, maybe, in library science or maybe they call it now up at UT? >> There is. UT not only offers the traditional degree in library and informational sciences, but they do offer a specialization in archives. So there are people in the field with the training, and these days it's not unusual to find them with the it background as well as the specific training in information science and archives. >> Do we maybe have a partnership with that specialization at UT to make an offer? >> We work very closely with UT, absolutely. >> Like internships or use that -- >> There have been interns, and we do sometimes hire those students as part-time as well, but they also frequently volunteer in our libraries. >> Okay. Great. And then I would just mention the digital records archivist that I brought last year for a budget item, I will bring that forth again to see -- we'll need to update the cost factors. It was to invest $85,414 in salary and 1,000 in one-time support needs to fund an Austin public library for a digital archivist position. We can get those numbers updated. Colleagues, you may remember that last year we got a number of e-mails of support. The initiative was being [11:26:59 AM] forwarded by a cohort of former mayors because they were recommending that we were losing the history that they had specifically been involved in, and so they came together. I think there's a fairly robust support for historical record retention, not just at the city level but at the state and county level. Some of it is because we're required to do that, but people recognize the value in tracking how did we get here. And how did we get here seems pretty evanescent of late because so many of it is handled online and we lose track of it. It's literally gone. You can't find a piece of paper somewhere that was misfiled. If an online record is accidentally purged, it's real hard to bring them back. >> Okay. >> I will just mention that the initiative was supported by former Austin mayors Lee cook, Carol Kate on the, Bruce Todd and will Wynn. It was also a unanimous recommendation from the citizens commission, the library commission where we have appointees. >> Let's go ahead and have everything ask two or three questions and we'll circulate that way and keep going and give everybody some time. We're going to try to cut this off at noon. Ms. Houston? >> Thank you, mayor. Thank you all for being here today and waiting this long and for your presentation. I started looking at the video, and I didn't see much diversity, and so then I kind of stopped. I went back and picked it up. Somewhere down toward the end, there was some. So it's always good to lead with the diversity when we say that's what we're about in the inclusion. I just wanted to make that as a comment. I've got several questions. It seems like we started on the university branch library parking lot several years ago. And so is it something that you can tell me later about what's taking it so long? [11:29:01 AM] That library is bursting at the seams. There's no place to park. If you can tell me, that's fine. Just grab me on the way out. When is the central library going to be finished? I say five minutes after -- [audio difficulties] >> You know, this is one of those things, it's like groundhog day. When is it going to be completed? I'm serious about that one. >> I understand. One of the reasons that when I say I can tell you how long it will take from substantial completion, I think you're aware of the fact that over the last year or so, the date for substantial completion has moved more than once. So I think they're getting extremely close to substantial completion, but the library department cannot start the five to six months worth of work that we have to do until that building is substantially complete. I don't know exactly when that date will fall. I do think it's getting close, but I don't have a specific date that I can give you quite yet. >> That's unfortunate. I've only been on the council two years and a month, and that's the response I get every time. It's soon. It's soon. And every year it's soon, and it's costing us a lot more money. So at some point, I'm going to need to know the cost overrun for the project. >> I'm not aware of any cost overruns other than what has been approved by council to date. >> And can you remind us with that is? >> I don't have the exact dollar. >> $125 million? [Away from mic] >> The total value of the project was 125 million. And the original? [Away from mic] >> The bond was 90 million. [11:31:02 AM] The city had then found another 30 on top of that. So that would have brought it to 120. And then there was the additional 5 that was approved more recently. And that brought it to 125. >> And we started on the project when? 2000 and -- >> The actual construction? 2013. >> Thank you. And then recycle reads, there was a conversation last year about moving recycled reads because of the lease. Can you remind me how much we paid for that lease? >> We can get that. I don't have that on top of my head. >> Okay. Because there was conversation about moving it to another location where it was a city -- >> We're still looking into those alternatives. At the time when we were first talking about it, we were looking at partnering with Austin resource recovery, and it was going to be included in a facility that at that point in time was planned, I believe, on Johnny Morris road, but that facility did not transpire. We are now looking at other opportunities to relocate into city-owned property. And I have been discussing that with Sara. >> That would be helpful because that was a pretty good chunk of money that we were spending for recycle reads. I know everybody loves where it is, but, you know, if you look at where we are in a state and the federal government, we're going to have to start looking for ways to make our budget more -- the budget I work at home is going to be lean, so I will have to look at ways -- >> Absolutely. >> And the city employees there at recycled reads, are they employees of the city? >> We have a large number of [11:33:03 AM] volunteers there. Although we do have city employees there, there are, I think, three -- we have three full-time city employees that work there, and we have a huge number of volunteers that work there. >> I was thinking about the ftes and benefit packages, but if that's it -- >> We don't have a large paid staff there. We try to do as much as we can can volunteers. >> Thank you. As far as other departments that Ms. Hensley has been working with, talking about duplication of services, as I heard about the teenage programs and some of the youth programs, that needs to be something you need to be looking at as well. >> We plan to. >> Thank you. >> Mr. Flanagan, do you have a couple two or three questions? >> Yes. And city manager, speaker notes were read out but not provided. Let me just go through some of the slides really quickly. Can you help me understand on slide two the difference between visits, attentees, and people reached? >> Okay. Customer visits has to do with the number of people that comes through the doors of our facilities, for whatever reason, borrowing materials, coming in for a program, whatever. People reached has to do with outreach. The people we connect with when we're at farmer's markets and schools and places other than library buildings. >> Okay. >> And attendees is just at the libraries? >> Yes. >> Can I ask on that one question if that's attentees at library-sponsored or does it include the non-profits that are hosting? >> Only library sponsored. [11:35:04 AM] We don't count attentees at the non-profits that are holding things in the library that we are not co- sponsoring. We only count attendees if we're doing the work, the publicity. If a homeowner's association is meeting there, we don't count those people. >> Thank you. Sorry for the interruption. >> No problem. >> Is there a reason for program attendance jump? >> We have a great staff. >> You didn't have a great staff two years ago? It's a big jump. >> We always have. There's a big interest in our programs in our community. What we're finding is people are turning out, and people are telling us the kinds of programs we want. We're collecting next from customers online and people who do attend programs and come into our libraries. As we're trying to offer things that they're telling us they want, yes, the attendance is climbing. >> What does result mean? This .26, what does that mean? Like, what does that number represent? >> That's a per capita measurement. That's .26 people per thousand who were attending programs. 26 per thousands. >> 26 per thousands. Well, that seems kind of high. That's pretty good. Slide 14, I know this is something that council member kitchen and I often bring up. When you show a style map of the city, please show all of the city. Spicewood springs library is the only library in my district. It's also the highest circulation. >> Yes. >> Because it serves the greatest population. [11:37:05 AM] That's why it's the greatest circulation. It has a huge area for which that's the only library people have access to. >> Absolutely. Point taken. >> On the activity pages, there's a pretty dramatic drop in attendance at the history center. And then it starts to climb back up again. Something changed in 13 and what do we think it's going to look like after we move the central library and the history center expands? Are we expecting greater attendance, greater programming? >> We are expecting greater attendance, greater programming. As far as that drop -- >> I can speak to that. Financial manager. In fiscal year 2012, that number is really inflated because of the -- where I think the door count counters were placed -- is that correct? We had a lot of homeless population that was coming in and tripping that door counter. >> Interesting. >> Part of the reason also was the renovation of the park nearby. It closed for a period of time, and a lot of the homeless population was in that area. >> That makes sense. >> On activity page seven, we're talking about -- where do I have this? We talk about Spanish language. Here we go. Spanish speaking customers have a wide selection of materials. Do we have other languages that we provide materials for? >> Absolutely. We have a number of materials in Asian languages. Our French materials are actually quite popular. German. We have quite a world language collection. We really try to stay in touch with the changing demographics of our community and interest in other languages, and we buy the materials accordingly. >> Phenomenal. It would be good to note that. >> Absolutely. >> Materials moving forward. I want to reiterate what council member Houston had to say about the central library. I'm really interested in a postmortem analysis. [11:39:05 AM] I mean, the money is spent. You start the project, you want to finish the project. I get that. But we cannot repeat this. To the extent that we lost trust from the community to build the next project is where I get frustrated because there's other stuff we want to do, but if we can't clearly and definitively answer how a $90 million project turned into $120 million project, how can I go back to the community to build the next thing? I've asked this question before, and I have not gotten a sufficient answer. In fact, I don't even think it was taken seriously. So I'm going to keep bringing this up until it's so clear what happened that we can prevent it from happening again in the future. >> I think on that one, it has become something discussed in the community, and we're going to be opening up [audio difficulties] >> My understanding was it was a $90 million and there was a request for the scope to change that turned it into -- it wasn't a cost overrun. It was a change in scope that the council considered whether or not to do that. The decision was made to go ahead and do that. And then there was a $5 million at the end which, I think, included some scope but also some cost issues. But if we could have a definitive statement to that, that really does explain that, I think that would be really helpful. >> I think it's important because the first time I asked that question, I was given kind of a wave of the hand. Oh, the architect did something and the cost went up. I wasn't given that answer. And it's certainly not clear to the community that that number is what it is for whatever reason it is. >> [Audio difficulties] >> Let's see what it is. >> There was actually after the initial bond proposal, there was a revisioning, is how I would describe it, of the library so that we could become the library of the future and be a model for the country. And so once that was done, there was another cost estimate, and [11:41:06 AM] it was higher, but we can certainly get a written statement out. >> I think it's really telling that this is the first time I've heard that. I was on the campaign trail for four years, and no one told me that the cost went up because of a policy decision to make it better. >> It came up several times over the last two years, and everyone on the council over those two years heard that but yet that was not the conversation. No one on the council seemed to appreciate that. >> Duly noted, Mr. Mayor. >> The other fact is the revisioning of the scope and the policy decision to move forward happened at an earlier point with a different council. That's the other reason it hasn't been -- but it's certainly been part of the conversations that have transpired since. >> But if we could get a definitive statement of that that we could post or circulate since that question is occurring, that would be helpful. >> And my last question, I think on Austin energy bills there's a line where people can make donations. Can you talk about that? I think parks are the same thing. I'm glad you're here, Ms. Hensley so you can answer both questions at the same time. >> I know from the park's perspective, I think last year we were able to have between the half of a year before and it was about $40,000, which, I mean, it's better than nothing. I don't know where we were on libraries. >> Do you recall the number? >> No, I don't have that number with me, but I can certainly get it. >> What role do you see the library foundation? Ms. Hensley, if you could answer that for the park side too. What roles they play in helping fill gaps or whatever? >> The library foundation certainly does work to raise money to help fund library programs. They partner with us, and we [11:43:07 AM] provide the physical space and the publicity, but they pay the cost associated with bringing in the speakers, providing the refreshments, which is wonderful. They have been raising money for enhancements to the new central library. And we also really value them as a partner in that there are many foundations that will give grants and funding to a 501c3, but they will not give money directly to a city. >> Right. >> And so those funds come to us through the library foundation, which actually spends a fair amount of time visiting with local foundations and encouraging support for the library. So there have been programs such as the connected youth program that has been funded for many years by the Susan and Michael Dell foundation through the library foundation. >> All right. >> I probably need to take that back. It may not be 40,000. It may be something else. I will get you the number, though. It may be much less than that. The Austin parks foundation, we work side by side with them when they look at allocating the dollars that they see through, obviously, the biggest amount is Austin city limits. Right now, Kimberly Emily is working with Collin to come up with a better system on how that money is allocated with the input from other stakeholders, other non-profits that the recreation department works with. Peace park conservancy, all those different ones to start looking at how that money can be allocated but not forgetting that I specifically give the parks foundation a list every year where we have been woefully underfunded in some areas, and there's not enough money. Ie, carver. One of them this year is the recommendation of $10,000 to [11:45:07 AM] help with those neighborhood groups who cannot afford to raise money to create community gardens. So that money, then, will go for those programs primarily in areas that are not able to -- citizens don't have that ability to have the fre-time to raise money. So for their connections, the tapping, permitting, and the water taps. So those kind of things are funded through that board. They, then, write grants. We support the letters for those grants, and in some cases they will -- like the St. David's foundation where we received $750,000 to renovate a playground in the area of health. So it's a huge benefit. We continue to partner with them to write grants and other things so we can do much more for us as a community. >> Great. >> Let me just jump in right here. The npp program, doesn't the parks foundation provide matching funds? >> They do. That's a trifecta. The neighborhood program funds wonderful neighborhood projects that are created from the neighborhood, ground up. And then we try to match that through the parks foundation, but we've also then added, if there's parkland dedication money in that area to try to boost it as well. One of them was the Ramsey park project where we had parkland dedication money. We had Austin parks come in to play and the neighborhood park program. So we were able to get more bang for the buck by partnering with that effort. >> Two other things. I use the spicewood -- 30 seconds. I use spicewood a lot and the resources it's a huge resource to the community. It's been wonderful there. When we see maps of rec centers, it ma I may -- it may be nice to see libraries on there. Windows are boarded up, but everyone is going to the library for programming. Council member pool, the digital archivist, I want to help you make that happen. I think it's a phenomenal idea. I've already told my staff that we should work with you to find [11:47:08 AM] a place to make that work. >> Just one more thing on the parks foundation. One of the other I think thises they do is serve as a physical agent for those able to raise the fund. So without that role, those communities wouldn't have that opportunity as well. So on libraries, my family is a frequent patron. I think my son's favorite place in Austin is recycled reads. I'm there just about every week. We go there all the time. My kids have participated in badger dog, and we use the library. They use the databases. I think it's a very important service for our entire community. So I appreciate all that you're doing in that regard, and my family definitely enjoys and values your services. I was a little concerned -- and we keep seeing this over and over again in a lot of departments. You have a lot of ftes that are unfilled. I was wondering what is the reason for that? It looks like from what I'm reading of you 422ftes, but 359 of those are filled on page five of the presentation. >> I think the majority of our unfilled ftes are related to the central library. As the project is delayed, we have delayed hiring. So that has been the majority. I'm not sure we have that many positions that are not related to the new central library project that are vacant. >> And so what happens to that money if it's allocated for that? >> Well, if we don't spend the money this fiscal year, itm cos back to the budget office for determination. We don't move the money. Those are monies that the library department will not be spending. And we're actually working right now to pull together the numbers for the budget office on the funds that we anticipate will be unspent because of the delay in opening the new central library. >> City manager, I love this [11:49:08 AM] answer compared to ones we've heard for other departments, but I think generally across the departments, we are seeing this pattern and somehow in our discussions for the budget, if we can capture the data by department on these ftes and see if there's some sort of answer that's a more global policy question that we need to be looking at because I think that's a sign of something that needs to be addressed. >> We monitor the positions on a monthly basis. Actually it's every two weeks. We get those reports out to management on a regular basis and report back to council twice a year. Once mid year and then right before budget. It's something we monitor very closely. When they do have savings because of a delay like this, those savings will fall to the general fund bottom line so they can -- it goes back into the general funding balance. >> I'm glad to hear about that data. I just still wonder if there's a more general issue with recruitment or retention that we need to look at from a global perspective that affects our ability to hire. >> We'll get you that information after we look at it. >> At some point I need to talk to you about old quarry. We definitely want to see that repair and renovation happen. >> We talked about the capital expenditure to build the library. Can you talk about the costs going forward to run it and move forward and keep the materials up to date? >> Let me get to that tab. So we projected additional budgeted funds for this project, or for this building, in a phase over three fiscal years, [11:51:09 AM] starting in 15-16, but because of the delays, you know, we've realized some savings which we have applied towards some of the cip projects, but in terms of maintaining the building, we have projected 2.9 million additional funds that we're going to be needing for the central library. That's on top of the 7.2 that it really takes to run the current central library. So in total we're projecting maintenance costs of 11.2 million. >> And is that for the materials and the building and staff and everything? >> That includes the materials, the maintenance, the technology, equipment, and staffing. >> Okay. And then the last question I had -- actually two more questions. For the Austin history center, where is the sort of iconic museum that's mentioned in here? Where is the planning on that? Where is that going? And my second question, which may be related to that is: How are you using the venues in the libraries for music that's cited in one of the pages here? >> We actually have musical programs at a number of our libraries. The central library as well as branches. We hold those usually in meeting rooms at the current central library. Musical performances are held out on the open floor, frequently on the first floor of the building, and we simply make certain we pub size it well to -- publicize it well to people and let them know the third floor, that's not accessible by the stairs, is the place to go if you don't want to listen to the music, but we really don't get a lot of complaints about the music in our libraries. [11:53:09 AM] Austinites seem to love their music. Local musicians love to play in our libraries, at the branch at twin oaks, south of here, we have an amphitheater area, and we do a lot of musical programs there. We also, during the summer, have a lot of musicians that are recruited with the help of the city's music division to come and provide music for children at branches throughout the city. The mention of the iconic museum piece with the Austin history center would be tied directly into the expansion of the history center into the Faulk central library. And then turning that current facility where they are right now into more of a museum facility and having the programs and more of the storage of the archival materials in the Faulk building. >> On that note with the museum and also thinking about parks as well, I just want to say that I would be supportive of using some of the hot packs for libraries and parks that, you know, can be used by our visitors but also by our residents. Thank you. >> Thanks. Is it really true that we can only have two questions? That's going to -- I'm going to have to combine some and state some as an observation. I will try to make them really quick. Could you talk a little bit about whether there are any plans in the works -- I'm sorry I can't remember this -- to have some mobile libraries? I thought there was a couple -- [audio difficulties] >> We've actually purchased a book mobile. The lack has been a book mobile librarian. That's kind of key to using that much. We use the book mobile when we were renovating the Millwood branch because we could just park it there and use the branch staff, but we actually needed a book mobile librarian that had a commercial driver's license as [11:55:10 AM] well as a library degree and background and a prerequisite was that we actually had to get a city job description altered so that it was possible to hire such person. That has now been done, and we're in the hiring process right now. One of the areas that we're planning to target first is our senior centers. We want to use that book mobile to provide more service to our senior community which is frequently not terrible mobile. So we would like to bring the library to them as well as using it in more of our outreach events. We also have a bicycle book mobile, and we use that in central Austin. We have various librarians who have been through the training on bicycle safety and who take it to farmer's markets and similar outreach events. >> That's great. >> We have a wi-fi hot spot so they can issue library cards, and they actually bring books along so they can check out books along from that bike mobile. >> That's good. I haven't run into any of those yet. And just another suggestion. It would be great in some of our other city resources, like the Asian American resource centers, they have a lovely collection of books, but they don't circulate. We've looked at bringing that into the capacity but it was higher than I anticipated. It would still be a great goal. And since we've been talking about parks and libraries, I would just say I would still love to see a network of little free libraries throughout our parks, and they could be seeded with books that would ordinarily go to recycled reads. So I hope that we can get an update. I know director assistant city manager Hensley has been working on that for a while. [11:57:11 AM] So we would love to hear an update about that. The security guards, I know, has been an issue other the last several years. The crime stats you presented us with are quite shocking. I guess I will follow up with budget questions. In particular, I'm interested to know whether the need for security guards is being met at our facilities, or is that an unmet need for some of those facilities that may have not had security issues in the past? I believe when we approved the security guard contract a few weeks ago, we did that through a contract rather than through permanent employees. With are also to the conversations we're asking, this is going to be an ongoing need and we should take on that as we take on that question of which employees should be city employees rather than contract employees. With regard to the decrease in attendance at the Austin history center, I wonder if any of that has to do with parking. I asked the question. I think it's a relatively recent change that the main library now has meters in their parking with the parking lot. The other change is as the park got renovated, a lot of street parking became reserved for court officials. So there's really limited parking around the main library. I wonder if you hear feedback from patrons. >> That is an issue. And part of the greater issue over the last couple of years has been the construction of a large building immediately behind us and the construction workers taking up not only street parking but parking within our parking lot, which has dramatically reduced the amount of parking in the area. So, yes, parking is an issue. >> Thank you for that. You have one line item -- and I think this is my last question, and I just wanted to make a [11:59:12 AM] quick comment. You have a line item of rental vehicles and buses. I found that just a curious inclusion. If it's easier, I can just submit that through the Q and a. It was not an insignificant amount. It was 50,000. I was just interested to know. I understand the need for vehicles because you have the wonderful policy of allowing patrons to return books to any location and they get back to the library where they started. I think that's a terrific service to provide to Austin residents, but the rental vehicles was a surprise. >> I think the line item might pertain to some of the actual vehicles that we rent from fleet services. For instance, our technology department has a van that they use to serve as all of our library branches located throughout Austin and as well as the security guard uses a rental vehicle to >> Tovo:so in essence that line is your vehicle? >> It is. That's actually a line item for the security guards and the I.T. Staff that have to visit every facility. Those vehicles are rented from the city's fleet services. >> Tovo: Thank you for that clarification. I appreciate it. And I made this comment yesterday, so I apologize for repeating myself but I don't know that we had y'all here during our work session. We were reviewing the affordability inventory that had been done in several of the libraries programs were highlighted and I'm just -- I expressed to the auditor how pleased I was that they are regarding the library's programs for what they are, which are important, important strategies in our -- in our working to reduce costs for Austin families, and I also, you know, think that the book collection and the digital resources and all of the other -- the other many, many resources that are within the library are also an important affordability action that the city takes when we invest in [12:01:13 PM] our libraries and resources so thank you. And, you know, like -- as with councilmember alter, I think our families use of the library is great and we have all kinds of resources out right now. We listen to books on tape as we drive around to try to help the -- help us all get through the Austin traffic for reading things on kindles and others. Thank you. You have a lot of great resources and, again, I think it's one of the ways that Austin families can can reduce the personal costs because you offer so many materials that are useful for people's school work and employment and other kinds of ordinary needs. >> Houston: Thank you again. I've got two things, two concerns, is that I've had some concerns from constituents that the story time opportunities in east Austin are -- this may -- anecdotal, I don't go to story time, I don't have any little children, I don't want to catch a cold. [ Laughter ] That's not something I go to but I've heard that the story time options at the Kirk library and I think they have them at carver but I think the concern I got was that Willie Mae Kirk library. So I don't know, and I don't know about Windsor park so if y'all would just talk to me about that offline that would help but I wanted you to know that people have said they're not there as frequently. Then the other thing that I'm really concerned about is something you talked about, is the safety issue and the increase in safety. Even with the host team because I come by the central library every day coming down here to work. There's still people sleeping there, and so what are the plans to -- when we -- ever we open the new library, what is the plan not to transition those people to the new library? I mean, we need to be thinking about that because it's not working here and it seems as [12:03:13 PM] though the incidents inside the library have increased. >> They have indeed increased, and it is an ongoing concern. We certainly are in regular communication with the Austin police department about ways to address it. We've been working through a grant with a partnership with Texas state to bring in social work interns to also assist us with this issue. So we'll continue to explore options, but certainly some of the challenges that are brought about with providing services to our large homeless population in our city persist, and we, like every other major urban library in the country, are trying to find ways to address it. >> Houston: Have you talked with other major -- >> Absolutely. >> Houston: And do they have any suggestions to kind of guide us? >> They're all struggling through the same issues that we are, and we're all trying to a lot of the same things. Does anyone have the perfect answer? Not to my knowledge. >> Houston: And I don't think there is a perfect answer, but I was at the history center on the panel last night, and when I came out it -- people were beginning to roll out their bags and go to sleep. And so, you know, even though there were security guards around there's a perception of if I'm catching the bussing to home -- >> Yeah. >> Houston: Rather than getting in my car and having -- one of the ladies that used to work here is now over at the library. So she was right there and got me safely in the parking lot, but those are just some things that we need to be appraised of and aware of and be planning for. >> Absolutely. >> Houston: Thank you for checking in with the other folks. >> Yes. >> Houston: Okay. >> Mayor Adler: Just couple things real fast. With respect to the homeless issue, I know that there are conversations in the community about trying to do something significant as part of what we're doing downtown while [12:05:13 PM] we're having conversations about some bill capital projects -- big capital projects and I know mayor pro tem you've been working with some of the stakeholder groups to present options back to us, and I wonder if this ought to be some component of that or weigh in to that or maybe we can make that part of that. >> Tovo: I certainly think the situation at the library is definitely part of -- you know, part of the grant -- the broader plan. I know the homelessness outreach street teams spend some time over there so it is definitely -- it is definitely part of the -- on the radar. >> Mayor Adler: My hope is we can do something real significant on the homelessness deal while we have all these other things in play. With respect to just as an aside and it may have been mentioned, it was mentioned both in parks, we have different city departments that are doing work with youth and with teens, we have different departments that are doing different things with internships. I know in past budgets we've talked about is there a way to look at that? I don't know if the 30,000 youth here are the same 30,000 youth or a different 30,000 youth that are in the parks programs, but some way to check that population. The same way our social service organizations do as they go out into the community. I think it really helped them to create kind of data base where they could see holistically the people involved. So I would urge us that cross-departmental work would be helpful, in all three areas. >> Mayor, we're doing that actually. There's a group meeting right now with health, libraries, parks and recreation, and looking at -- and that goes to the point of duplication of services and then who is being served. We're even looking at the outside external stakeholders as well and there's another meeting coming up this Thursday to talk about that. We can look at internships as [12:07:15 PM] well. I know our department has a large internship program so we can tie that in as well but we are currently working on that. >> Mayor Adler: Good. I should have known you're already doing it. It's noon. Does anybody else have anything else? >> Alter: This is actually more on parks but has to do with the mayor's comment. With the lifeguard situation, that was a major turn around and I think it's a great program that you have going with aid, and, you know, to the extent that we are trying to do job promoton and we can combine, you know, what we're accomplishing with multithings at once, you know, let's think about what we can learn from that lifeguard situation, which started off in a really bad place and has now gotten to much more of a resolution in a positive way, and it seems like that could be replicated in other ways while also accomplishing our workforce training goals and meeting our temporary seasonal needs so I'd love to see, you know, sort of cross-departmental what can we learn and if we immediate to put some resources to make that -- need to put some resources to make that happen going forward for our youth and to meet these employment needs I would be interested in exploring that. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Anything else? Then we stand adjourned. It is 12:08. Thank you very much. [ Adjourned ]