City Council Special Called Meeting Transcript –9/7/2017 Title: ATXN 24/7 Recording Channel: 6 - ATXN Recorded On: 9/7/2017 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 9/7/2017 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== [1:14:09 PM] September 7, 2017 >> Mayor adler:all right, council. How are we doing? We have a quorum. I'm going to call to order our special called meeting. Today is Thursday, September 7. 2017. We're in the boards and commissions room here at 301 west second street, Austin, Texas. The time is 1:14. Today's council meeting has two items on it. One is Harvey, and then the budget concept menu. We also have a 4:00 hard stop today imposing from 1:00 to 4:00. Let's call up first the Harvey item. >> Good afternoon, mayor, councilmembers, my name is ray Arellano, assistant city manager, and before you, again, is an item that we've had on here just in case that beneeded to discuss and take appropriate action related to the effects of hurricane Harvey, and in particular then staff is requesting council take action to authorize staff to negotiate and execute a mutual aid agreement with the city of rockport to furnish aid in response including but not limited to hurricane Harvey, specifically city of rockport's water and wastewater system sustained significant damage and to [1:16:09 PM] this point the San Antonio water systems department has been assisting the city with trying to restore their systems. In this particular case Austin water utility has been requested to go down and we leave saws in order to do that restoration work and it will involve 10 to 15 crew members going down to provide assistance, and so request has come through the state system but, again, in order to make sure that we have coverage for the expenses that we may have in this particular effort to support the community, we have requested the ability to negotiate and execute a mutual aid agreement. Water department staff is here to answer any specific questions you may have, and that concludes my presentation. Available to answer any questions you may have. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. So the authority that you're looking for, council, is to approve the city entering into a interlocal agreement with city of rockport as concerns water services. >> Yes, sir, negotiate and execute a mutual aid agreement specifically. >> Mayor Adler: Anyone wants to make that motion? Councilmember Garza makes that motion. Is there a second to that? Mr. Renteria seconds that. Is there any discussion? Let's take a vote. Those in favor please raise your hand. Those opposed. It's unanimous with everyone here -- among those that are here, with Ms. Pool, Mr. Casar, and Ms. Troxclair off the dice. The others voting aye. >> Thank you, council. >> Mayor Adler: Again, thank you and please, again, thank everybody involved. This is a herculean effort and I hear some of the folks that work on these things at a national level have said the experience and the team in Austin is among the best in the operations that they have ever seen. So well earned and thank you for that representation of the city. All right, councilmembers, [1:18:10 PM] now that gets us to the concept menu. Ed, do you want to tell us anything before we get started? >> Just maybe the menu continues to evolve since we last talked to you on Tuesday, we've had six additional items added to the menu so I'm prepared to maybe just point those out to you so you might want to focus in on those a little bit since they're brand-new. >> Mayor Adler: That would be good. >> Y'all have a concept of the concept menu I believe in front of you. The first item can be found on page 8. That is e47 from councilmember Garza, which would provide an additional funding of $1 million of one-time funds for immigrant legal services. That was a new item we received. On the very next page, page 9, item e49 from councilmember troxclair would look into a new pilot program related to homelessness and that's still listed as to be determined. We don't have a dollar figure for that, and we have not had the opportunity to check in with councilmember troxclair's office to see what we might be able to do to help come to a number for that item. The next new item would be -- >> B48 is also. >> E48 is also new? You're correct. E48. >> Alter: E48 on page 9. >> From councilmember alter, additional funding to equalize the chamber of commerce allocations funding amounts. The next one is on page 23. It was an item from councilmembers pool and alter. Item c29, $240,000 of total funding to expand the hours and capacity of four city-owned cultural-owned [1:20:11 PM] centers. It's c29 on page 23. Everybody got that one? Okay. Just three more. The next one is on page 28. It's item h27 from councilmember Casar, $250,000. This would be an increase in funding from our clean community fee for resident advocacy project. This is something that befirst implemented in 2016 at the current level it's $350,000. This concept would increase it by 250,000 to a total of 600,000. The next item is on page 32. At the bottom it's g18. From councilmember troxclair. This is an item -- this one and the final item are both related to the resolution that council passed last week. This would be an idea to take $500,000 of hotel occupancy tax funds and locate it to local business marketing and programming. And then the final new item is on the very next page, page 33, item g102, has to do with using hotel occupancy taxes or the convention budget to fund security during the spring festival weekend or the two weeks of the spring festival and that would be $1,574,000. The idea there is to use existing hotel convention center funding to provide that security. And, again, we have not -- these all came in since Tuesday so the budget office [1:22:12 PM] hasn't had an opportunity to fully go back and forth with councilmembers and vet all these items but these are the new items that were added. Just one more change I would highlight. It's not a new item but if you were to flip over to the very last page, page 38, down at the bottom item h3, this was $300,000 of one-time funds for a snap program outreach included in the fiscal year '17 budget, a one- time item. Like a number of the one-time items from fiscal year '17 we included them. We carried them forward into this concept menu. We have heard recently, in the last couple days, we've heard from our sustainability office saying, no, no, that was truly 1-time funding that these $300 is not needed in fiscal year '18. There are other food access items on the concept menu that they support but this specific item is not something that's needed. It was truly a one-time item meed in fiscal year '17 and not currently so we've moved it over to the removed items, but of course if council wants to move it back you could, but we moved it over to the removed item just based on input we received from our sustainability office. I also wanted to point out to council that we had a number of budget questions last Tuesday that we weren't prepared to respond, and we've posted responses to a number of those. I don't have hard copies but they're available through the council budget question process. So we just posted those last night. We had a question from councilmember pool last Tuesday about the quality of life initiatives, what were all the various initiatives we funded in fiscal year '17, didn't have an off the curriculum vitae answer but we posted that as budget question 167. Councilmember alter, you had a question about the $3.9 million reduction in reserves from fiscal year '17 projected ending reserves to fiscal year '18. I kind of gave a higher picture explanation but promised you the accounting [1:24:13 PM] of it. That's been posted as item 170. Then we had a question about what was the fire department's overtime budget in fiscal year '18, proposed budget, and we posted that as question number 172. So those are things you brought up on Tuesday I didn't have ready responses to them, but we've been busy and have all those responses posted. The other area where we had some questions where we didn't have ready responses was in regards to development service department so I would suggest that we start there. Director Gonzalez from development services and some of his staff are here to respond to questions you have. There were three that I recall, one specifically about the fact that these positions are being funded only for seven months. The 51 positions they're adding are being funded only for seven months in fiscal year '18, so that creates a budgetary consequence for fiscal year '19 and potential fee consequence. So there was a question about what kind of impact does that have in our fiscal year '19 budget. Another one had to do in regards to the impact of the fee increases on our accessory dwelling units, ads and finally a come from councilmember Houston about would it be possible to phase these 51 positions in, phase them in paragraphs over two years. My answer was yes, we could, but the consequences of that we would need to have dsd respond to. So they're here to answer those questions and any others you may have about their budget. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Let's go ahead and call staff up. >> Alter: I just wanted to clarify on item e29 with respect to expanded hours of capacity for the cultural centers, page 23, that councilmember pool and I separately submitted this and we agreed to combine it just so that people are aware of that. This would allow for more creative venues to be open using city- owned facilities. [1:26:15 PM] >> Mayor Adler: Yes. >> Kitchen: I just want to point out to you all what I passed out. I'm not going to go over it in detail. We can discuss it later if we get to it. But basically it's a list, and I apologize, I didn't put my name on the top of it. That's another reason I wanted to explain it. It's called budget savings menu list. This is a list that my office has put together of dollars that potentially can be reallocated or shifted to other -- shifted to other purposes or that could savings but could be identified as dollars that we might want to use for some other purposes. So this is -- this document has not been -- we just got it to Ed's office so he has not had a chance to review it. We vetted it as much as western -- we were able so there may be items on here for reasons we're not aware of are spoken for and we cannot bring them forward as potential dollars to use for other purposes. But it's here. So I wanted -- since today we were meeting I wanted everyone to see this and to let you know that we'll be continuing to work with -- you know, with our budget office to nail down these numbers and determine if these numbers are really as they appeared to be to us. So I just wanted to let you know what this was. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. That's helpful. I think different councilmembers have handed out handouts. Let's hear from staff and then let's go to each of those councilmembers to kind of explain what they handed out and then we can talk about process for the day and now we narrow it down. Yes? >> Tovo: I also have some questions about some -- informational questions about the items that were added so I'm not sure what the appropriate time is to talk about that. A couple of questions were for staff and a couple were for the councilmembers who added them. So. . . >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Tovo: Want me to do that now? [1:28:15 PM] >> Mayor Adler: Let's hold off. Let's let them go and then let's come back. >> Tovo: Mayor may I say one more thing? I thought I asked, possibly I didn't, during our last conversation about department services I had asked for an organizational chart indicating where the current staffing and current management falls and then where the proposed new staff would be in that organizational chart. I actually don't believe I have seen that in the q&a. I asked during the course of the meeting, I think, so -- >> We're in the process of -- mature, council, Rodney Gonzalez, director for department services department. Yes, there was a question asked formally through the budget office but we're in the process of completing that and anticipate finishing either today or tomorrow. >> Tovo: Thank you. I think it was asked in the course of the conversation and it just didn't carry over so thanks. [1:33:47 PM] Austin, Dallas, and Texas account for 10% of permitting within the nation. Additionally adding these positions now puts the department in a much better place with the advent of codenext. We can facilitate the training as we on-board those positions in January and February and then of course with existing staff levels, if they were to remain the same, training would be very difficult to achieve in relationship to the demand that I just mentioned. So the question then -- that was related to that is can the fees increase. Of course fees are actually based on cost drivers, not all of the cost drivers that are in the dsd budget are related to the ftes that we've mentioned. There are cost drivers with eliminating the duf transfer, drainage utility fund transfer, new city-wide cost drivers, rent increases that we've also got proposed in fiscal year 17-18 budget and of course the one-time funding for codenext implementation. With regard to ads, there was a question how does codenext affect ads. We anticipate we probably will see a higher increase with Adu with an additional requirement in the first draft of codenext. There will not be any reduction of current regulations with regard to ads. Adus will be allowed in more zoning districts so we anticipate more volume coming from adus. The additional requirement that was in draft one is that a restrictive covenant will be required regarding occupancy and short-term rental which will necessitate more coordination with the legal department. With regard to the fees for ads, there is going to be a fee increase. There is no specific tier for ads. Adus fall in the residential plan review tier. So they don't have their own category. There are two fees that would apply to ads, and that includes the residential plan review fee [1:35:48 PM] as well as the inspection fee, and the residential plan review fee is based on square footage and the inspection see if based on time. So we did a computation of an 1100 square foot Adu. The plan review fee itself would increase from $342 to $748. And the inspection fee would increase from $550 to $1,091. The total difference between '17 -- fiscal year 16-17 and fiscal year 17-18 is $948. Those were the questions, council. We certainly can answer additional questions that you might have. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Garza. >> Garza: My questions were spurred by some of the speakers that came and spoke to us last budget hearing, and what resonated with me is when she said this hits ads the most. I had a meeting with these -- with these folks yesterday, and it is their -- they thought that many of these fees -- not just the ones that you pointed out. I'm going to pass out what they shared. I don't remember if they shared this at the public hearing, the difference in fees. The fact that there is no tier difference for ads versus a residential is a problem. If we have -- we have stated that -- this is more for my discussion for my colleagues than staff at this point. We have said that we were going to use ads as a affordability tool. This is anecdotal information that I received yesterday, obviously, but she has stated where she has had clients in zilker, clients in allandale, she has clients who are people trying to stay in place and they have moved to the Adu that they built so their children can move in the front house or be audible to rent the front house for affordability reasons. Another thing that was [1:37:48 PM] interesting yesterday during the codenext discussion was the gentleman said, by right, many neighborhoods right now have the ability to build ads and he said they're not being built. I think they're not being built because we have these fees and these institutional barriers that are preventing families like in my district from building these. They're being built in zilker and allandale and other areas because those are families that have more weather than other areas, so D more wealth than other areas so I'm really concerned and think we need to think hard about raising these fees and adding 51 more ftes without understanding the consequences of the tool of Adu that we have approved because I'd hate to raise the fees, add more ftes, and then we have a deeper discussion. When we have time to have a deeper discussion about this and see that we -- you know, director Gonzalez mentioned we have a volume problem. But as I dig more into this, I feel like we have created that volume -- we have created this problem by requiring these different kinds of inspections. We require them so now we have a volume problem, and now we need more people to address the volume problem because we created the problem of requiring these different fees and these different inspections. The codenext gentleman also said that in Portland they did about 60 a year and when they were able to figure out what some of the institutional barriers were, they were able to add 600 this last year. And this exact issue is I think part of the issue that if we were to go back and see where the issues are and where the barriers are, we would be taking away. So I'm very concerned that we're -- we will be implementing something that we might have to go back and take away and now we've hired 51 ftes. So what I passed out -- and I don't know if you have one, director, the fee thing I passed out. >> Yes. [1:39:49 PM] >> Garza: What I was told is that the first one, predevelopment review, is not by -- you said they were by square feet. This says it's per hour. So that is almost being tripled. The hourly rate from 67 to 243. That and, again, this is just information -- I don't know the process myself. But I was told that that is a process where they go in, they ask, is this, you know -- is this going to -- this is my plan for the Adu, and they're kind of given answers. They're saying, well, you need to look out for this, you need to look out for this. But they're not really given anything in writing because it changes sometimes, because requirements change so often. So that is almost being tripled. The permit review, that's going up twice as much. Again, you stated it was per square foot but these say per hour. Again, this might be wrong information. This is coming from a designer, a person who does these adus, but, again, I stress to my colleagues, I'm glad this was brought to our attention. I really think this is something that we need to dig into. Because I'm concerned that there is no tier for -- if ads are a tool for affordability, a tool for people staying in place, a tool for our seniors to age in place, we're not doing -- we're not doing this the right way is my concern. >> Sure. If I may, the example which is before you -- if I might add, the example that is before you, I've seen this example. It's a very specific example for a very specific site. So, for example, the predevelopment review fee, that's optional point customer can come in for that if they feel it's needed. With regard to the tree reviews that's only if there's a heritage tree on-site that according to code needs to be reviewed as well. Same thing goes for the tree inspection. [1:41:49 PM] With regard to the Adu [indiscernible], again, that is whether or not that's required or not. The fees I presented to you with regard to plan review and inspections are the standard fees that apply regardless of the site. These are more site-specific in this example. Every site differs based on what is on the site itself. With regard to the fees, do I want to remind council that the fees are based on the review. And the review -- the reviews are based on the regulations. That are in code. So in front of you is a slide that shows the different types of regulations that we review for that are in the land development code. And that's what we're charging for. Is for reviewing these to make sure that they comply with the land development code. So you've got setback requirements, lot size requirements, height requirements, gross floor area requirements, impervious cover requirements, sidewalk requirements, visibility that's not also including if any of these sites are in mcmansion areas because then they require an architect or certified building designer and if they're brand-new there's compliance with visibility. So the fees are based on the reviews of these regulations. So to your point, if the regulations are reduced, then it takes less time to do the review and you'll see the fee decrease. But right now we need the 51 positions, because not all of them are tied to this, but we need positions because of the regulations that are in place. It takes time to review those. >> Garza: And if I could just add that's -- I know these work hand in hand, but that's part of the problem. When you're trying to fix a problem, it touches so much different departments. So if -- my hope and goal would be to reduce the regulations for ads because what -- all these things, you could not -- it would be very hard for somebody in my district, in some of the other low-income districts to do this on [1:43:50 PM] their own. They have to hire a consultant. When you're dealing with -- when you're a big developer and you have a giant budget and you can somehow absorb those costs, that's one thing. But when you are somebody who is using a 401(k), you have a finite budget, and $900 I think you said the difference in this is $900. A thousand dollar difference could be a deal breaker for such a small budget and a small project. And so I am trying to understand what is tied to us approving these fees and codenext and the regulations? Because what I'm concerned about is that these new fees apply to ads as now the regulation and I don't think that's what we want for ads. They should be a tool to help small budgets, people trying to stay in place, all that kind of thing. So what could we do with this, with that? I don't want to approve something that we regret approving later. >> I mean it gets into the codenext discussion because currently in draft one of codenext, all of those regulations stay in place so all of those you see at the top stay in place with codenext. With regard to codenext, we will see more volume in terms of ads because they're going to flee more of the zoning districts so more volume means more work, more reviewing of the regulations. In draft one there is another requirement now with regard to ads. And that's restrictive covenant with regard to occupancy and short-term rental. Instead of backing away from the regulations we're actually adding on one more. So you had talked about barriers, you know, the fee itself, as I mentioned the fee increase is going to be approximately $950. Obviously, any cost increase is goofing paid for, but the regulations themselves we find often provide barriers. When we require sidewalks as the method or -- as a [1:45:51 PM] reimbursement for constructing a new Adu, the construction of the sidewalk is more costly than the fee itself. The visibility compliance, which is not going away, sometimes that's more costly. When there's heritage trees on-site that have to be complied with, that's more costly. When they're in areas such as mcmansion, which does require a consultant such as an architect, that can easily be $3,000 that a customer has to pay. That's more costly than the fee increase. So the fee increases, yes, is $940 but the fees themselves are tied to the review which are tied to the regulations in place. >> Garza: So there would be a period -- I'm sorry. There would be a period of time where people just building an Adu are having to pay the exact same fees somebody building a 2,000 square foot home and until we -- it's, like, well, codenext has to fix that. I mean, I think -- I don't know -- there seems to be -- I feel like we have an opportunity right now without creating more fte positions to solve this problem. The advocates that I spoke to did not -- thought it was way beyond $950 difference in an Adu. I'm not saying that you're not telling the truth. I'm just saying they had the impression that it was significantly more. These fees are creating a significant barrier for a homeowner just trying to build an Adu to be able to stay there. They feel like this is going to affect their clients significantly, and I cannot be on board with something that I don't feel like is going to help that tool that we were trying to use to keep families in place. >> Once again, the example that they provided is site-specific. The fees I quote ready standard review and inspection fees. These are based on a site of course that has a heritage tree that they came and also did a preliminary plan review where water tap was needed. So there are differences here that we acknowledge but [1:47:52 PM] not every site is like this. So what we provided to you was the standard review fee and the standard inspection fee that if there are no heritage trees [1:51:34 PM] >> We can't give a gift so we'd have to have a city purpose for doing this, and then the question becomes from a financial standpoint of if you have planned on using that fee to fund part of the budget and you're choosing to reduce the fee, then you would have to figure out where the funding would come from for that unfunded portion of the budget. >> Alter: Can we charge fees that are different based on the use? So as I understand it, we're standard fees regardless of what you're building. Can we differentiate those fees based on what you're building? >> The fee needs to be for -- not to exceed the cost to provide the service or regulate the activity. If I heard Rodney correctly, what he's saying is these are the typical fees for all of these different services, but only if you are using the services would you be charged for it. So if I live in an area that's not subject to mcmansion, then the fees that would be applicable to that type of review wouldn't apply to my building. I'm not sure that I understand your question as being different than that. >> If I might -- >> -- Distinction. >> If I might add the fees this year are based on square footage. So a larger square footage home or residential unit is going to incur a greater fee. Fee. >> Alter: Did you calculate the fee based on 1100 square foot? How much of a difference is there if you did, say, an 800 square foot Adu? >> We can bring that computation back to council. >> Alter: I appreciate councilmember Garza questioning on this. I would like to understand better how we juggle some of these priorities with also having the requirement that [1:53:34 PM] we have to have the fees be covering what we need to have paid for and not subsidizing one group with the other so I think that's a constraint we would have to figure out how to move forward with because otherwise we're going to be -- we still have to review these units in some way so that money would have to come from outside of development services if we wanted to do it, if I'm understanding the interconnections of these correctly. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Mr. Casar and then Ms. Kitchen. >> Casar:did you turn off your light? Ms. Kitchen -- I'm sorry, go ahead. >> Casar: I am -- I think you'll have generally covered those points. I think that they're -- we should be looking in codenext places where we can make this process easier but then also if there are -- I'm interested in whether it's in the budget or afterwards, figuring out which ways we can waive fees. My question for legal is are we able to -- I understand we can waive fees based on -- it sounds like potentially based on income if it's not against the constitution, if you're creating an income-restricted unit. Is it something we can differentiate on whether or not the applicant -- it's the applicant's homestead or not? >> I think what we need to do is look at the different options and review them. I don't -- I can't just sort of brainstorm -- >> Casar: I'm so used to you always knowing everything. >> I mean, one of the constitutional issues is, you know, do you end up creating some issue regarding that? It may be that there's a way to frame it so that that's perfectly fine, but I wouldn't know without talking to some of the other folks in my department about that. >> Casar: Okay. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Kitchen. >> Kitchen: A related question. So first off, I want to make sure we think about seniors. [1:55:36 PM] I think councilmember Garza mentioned that to you in exploring the options. But you have a question related to expedited permitting. Don't we use a different -- or do we? That's really -- I'm not sure. How is that impacted from a legal perspective? I mean, don't we use -- isn't that a group or type of building that we treat differently from a fee process? >> It's my understanding that the fees on that do not exceed the cost to provide the service, that there are additional services that are provided and so the fees cover those additional services. Is there something I'm missing. >> Kitchen: Will well, the fee is lower. And this may not be the only thing, but if you look at expedited permit review per hour, it costs less for an expedited permit review now than it did before. Now, I don't have in front of me -- I don't know what the comparison is if you're not doing expedited so I guess that's a question, but I know we had talked about setting up some mechanisms to actually encourage and support expedited review. So I'm making an assumption that may not be correct, that that process of supporting expedited review does involve a difference in the fees. And, again, I may not be correct about that. So if we can do -- so my question really is, if we can do that for expedited review, could we not do something similar to that for other classes or types of development? Does that make sense? What I'm asking? >> Yes. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> I think it depends on how do you it. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> And the way in which you do it. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> Then just sort of recognizing if there are costs that are not being recovered from the fees, then where is the money coming from? >> Kitchen: So that's the bottom line? The bottom line is cost recovery from the fees? Is that -- >> Well, yes. If you're not exceeding the [1:57:37 PM] cost, it's fine to charge less. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> We do that in a number of departments. Those departments end up not being considered to be the type of department -- >> Kitchen: Right. >> -- For which the fees cover all of our costs, parks department, animal services. There are a number of departments where we have policy reasons for charging less than the cost to provide the service. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> If I might add. >> Kitchen: Sure. >> Just some clarification. So the expedited permit review is a different process. So the numbers I gave you earlier are the standard process which would go through cycles. I believe the review time is 15 days, not including any updates. If a customer decided to go through the expedited review process, they could do that and you're absolutely right, there is a decrease next year for that process. The total for that would be $889 per hour. >> Kitchen: Mm-hmm. >> So if a review took one hour then it would be $889. Of course with expedited review, you get your permit the next day in most cases. So there's a lot of time saving with regard to the -- there's a lot of cost savings with regard to the time. But the numbers I provided to you earlier are based on the standard review process. This line as I mentioned right here, similar to the other line items, are kind of, like, I wouldn't -- that one definitely would be an optional type, if a customer wanted to go through expedited review, that's the cost that they would incur. They would not occur the standard review dollar amount that I had quoted earlier. >> Kitchen: Okay. I was just using that as an example earlier. It looks like we were using a different type of process and we were dropping our fees for that particular process, if I'm reading this correctly. >> Mayor Adler: So I think the expedited review costs more than a regular process, but it will cost less more next year than it costs more this year. >> Kitchen: So maybe I'm [1:59:37 PM] reading it wrong. Where were we able to drop that fee for next year? >> Just like with all of our fees and the time that it takes and based on the assessment this year they determined it took less time in that regard so it was less cost than expedited. >> Kitchen: So it looks like it will be helpful and it looks like you may have sent it and I just missed it. You put up the slide that lists the elements I guess of Adu review. Do you have a document that looks next to those document? >> No. We don't have specific fees and if you bring that document back up, we don't have specific fees for those amounts -- >> Kitchen: For that type of review. >> No, we don't get to that level of detail in terms of like a setback costs this much, a lot costs this much. What the staff does during cost service analysis is they look at all of this type of review and says here's the amount of time that it takes to perform this review. >> Kitchen: So that's what you said when you said the standard list of fees. >> Yes, because the fees were based on the time for review and the time for review is based on all the regulations that you see in front of you. >> Kitchen: Okay. Then you can point me to the document that shows me the list of standard fees. I assume that's somewhere that I could reference. >> Yes. In the proposed budget there's the fee schedule and what we can do is highlight those line items pertaining to those fees. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> Councilmember alter, your earlier question of how many ads we did this year, [2:01:38 PM] it's 305. >> Kitchen: The other question I have relates to what you mentioned earlier in terms of ftes and employees. Shall I go ahead with that question now? >> Mayor Adler: As we move off adus, just to book end that, what I would be interested in. You can incentive ads generally or incenting particular kinds of ads to incent. And whether that is something we can do in codenext or if that's something we wanted to do that we could be handling outside of the codenext process or importantly is there something that we should be doing now in the budget process. But if we wanted to incent ads, where would would be and how would be the place for us to do that I think would be helpful. To make sure that we're not missing an opportunity in the budget process that we should be taking advantage of. Ms. Garza and then Mr. Renteria? >> Renteria: I just had a quick comment and it's also based on the type of meter. You want to piggyback off your existing electric line and water line, those are the two most expensive items that you have when you're building one of those besides the building itself because those meters cost so much money. I think what's a water meet cost you now, about 20,000 or something? >> I don't know. We'd have to defer to Austin water utility. >> Renteria: It's very expensive. When I did mine I just piggybacked off the existing meters. You just don't know what your Adu is going to cost you when it comes to utilities because it only comes through one meter and you share the line, electric and water. So that's where you're going to face a huge cost. [2:03:39 PM] >> Garza: I'd also like to know the 305 you said, I'd like to know where those are located because I think it will show that the only people that can build ads right now are people that live in our wealthier neighborhoods. I'm confused at the fees are based on square footage, but then this was presented to say they're based on square footage and they're based on the regulations that you have in place, but then councilmember kitchen asked for this to come back up and it was stated fees are based on time for review. So is it square footage, is it time form review? Which one of those is the answer? >> So there are variables that go into the fee-setting process. The time that it takes to do the review, the cost of the staff that are providing that type of review. And this year, which is different from any other year that we've done, is we've looked at it from a square footage range. So now we're charging on square footage whereas before you as a customer, you were unfairly penalized for putting any type -- it used to be based on valuation. So if you as a customer put in some high end finishes within your residential unit, you had to pay more regardless of if it was the same square footage, regardless of whether you had the same number of it electrical outlets, regardless of whether you had the same number of plumbing fixtures. If you told us it cost more, we would charge you more even though it was the same amount of review time and same amount of inspection time. So now we're basing it on square footage. So it's the basis for which we charge that fee. So it's square footage as opposed to valuation. So what goes into the computation is the review time measured against of course the staff cost. The basis for charging that is now based off of square footage as opposed to [2:05:40 PM] valuation. >> Garza: But your response to councilmember kitchen was fees on based on time for review. >> Yes. We probably would have to -- we could probably elaborate on that in a budget question so the time to review times the staff cost for performing that review. Now, how we charge that fee, we used to charge it based on valuation. We charging it now on square footage. >> Mayor Adler: So if I understand it clearly, in setting the amount of the fee, you take into account how much staff time is involved. Once you've set the fee, then it gets applied regardless of how much time it takes in any particular case. Once you've set the fee, you can charge a little bit more or a little bit less based on the square footage but the initial setting of the fee is where the time gets taken into account, not how much time any particular applicant's project costs. Mayor pro tem? >> Thanks very much. I think the information you're going to provide us with will be really useful to see how the construction of adus has changed in the last couple of years. In addition to the last five years and where those are, it would be interesting to me to know the size, the typical size and also if there's any way to determine how many of those were accompanied by a demolition on the site as well. You're frowning so I don't know if that means you can't, but I'm beginning to hear about sites where the existing property is demolished in addition to the Adu being constructed, there's another unit on that site. So that would help us measure that. And I haven't had an opportunity to see -- I think Dr. Wegman came and spoke at a housing committee meeting possibly about this subject and I was just forwarded by my staff what looks like a very interesting project that one of his graduate seminars did [2:07:40 PM] on this very question of strategies to help homeowners finance accessory dwelling units. And it was a report on findings from a student-led research project, may 20th, 2016. And one of their finds, and I'm looking at it for the first time here on the dais, but they talk about construction costs being a major impediment, especially for low income property owners. And I'll just read a little bit. It's likely that the increase in Adu construction is driven not by homeowners, but rather by developers who have easier access to financing because the construction costs for an 850 square foot detached Adu are approximately 150,000. Financing remains a major barrier to low and middle income homeowners wishing to build an Adu and they talk about the difficulties of seeking private financing. But I think the real-- I think the reason we should look at this is they've made suggestions on other cities not just of community tools that could be of help, but also ways that the city of Austin might look to its own programs to help with that financing. One example -- and I'm not sure I can flip to it, but it's about how we might adjust our rental housing assistance fund to make possible financing to those low or low to moderate homeowners who want to do that and could benefit from that. So it looks like an interesting -- it set some -- the rental housing development assistance program was one that they suggested potentially for low to moderate income homeowners. And also the affordable housing trust fund is another side. So the committee may have had a chance to hear his presentation, but we also in the context of this discussion can take aim at one of those major barriers to Adu construction. [2:09:49 PM] >> Mayor Adler: Any other questions? Ms. Kitchen? >> Kitchen: This builds around earlier what you said about staffing. So I had identified -- and I apologize if you can't answer this right now. It's fine because this is something that we just looked at and you may want to give it some thought. But we had noticed an item that we thought perhaps could be reduced or perhaps you could pilot and try it right now to see what you could find at a reduced rate. That is increase for funding for temporary employees to meet customer demand and maintain service levels. So my thought is since we're talking about raising the ftes by 51 that perhaps the amount of the temporary funding, which is budgeted at 1.369 million, perhaps that could be dropped down to a million. You could see how that works. And we could consider that. It just and that -- it is an increase if I read it right. It's a line item increase for funding for temporary employees that given the fact that we were raising the number of ftes by 51 it just seemed a bit high to me. So that's really my question to you is it possible for you -- I'm sure you wanted to make sure you had enough dollars there for whatever you might encounter in terms of temporary employees, but my suggestion would be perhaps that's a dollar amount that we could drop down. So you could respond to it now if you want or give it some more thought. >> I would like to give it more thought. The reason we put a temporary budget at that amount was because we forewent adding any more permanent positions. So the strategy that is before you is a blended approach of not investing totally in permanent resources that if we faced [2:11:50 PM] an economic downturn we want to make sure that we've got some other levers that we could pull back on, mainly temporaries, and overtime and third-party services. And so that's why you saw the level at 1.4 million. It wasn't necessarily -- well, it was a blended approach of permanent and other resources that are needed. >> Kitchen: So your thinking was you needed actually more than 51 additional ftes. And so instead of asking for all of those you put some of it into temperature. >> Yes. >> Kitchen: Is that because you're not sure exactly what the demand would be so you felt like it might make sense to split that some between permanent and some between temporary or you are certain is it fluctuates. >> We are certain that it will increase demand year over year. What is uncertain and what happens surprisingly on the last two recessions ask you don't know when the next economic recession will hit. So you at least have to have a funding strategy whereby when it does hit that you have some levers that you can pull back on. >> Kitchen: Okay. So then the other question, and you can provide this, is I want to understand -- that's quite a bit of additional demand. So 1.4 million I'm thinking now -- I haven't done the math, but would appear to me to represent a lot of ftes. So it looks to me like 51 plus 1.4 is a lot of additional time and ftes. So perhaps you could just provide that information to me about what that represents in terms of additional staffing and then gives more thought to whether you could live with -- what I'm proposing is a pretty small adjustment relatively speaking. [2:13:50 PM] >> Casar: As a brief follow-up to the committee, I think last year we received the presentation, took some votes and gave some direction on looking at what preapproved designs might look like for ads, to look at what our funding might look like to have income restricted ones. I hope and trust that is chugging along and moving along as dsd does their updates and as we go through the codenext process, but that's stuff that we have acted on and I think that councilmember Garza brings up a really good point. And that research project brought up a good point that there are some barriers, significant barriers for everyday folks that own their homes to get this done right, but we should just keep on heading in the better direction. >> And if I might add, preapproved certainly helps us because on the technical side then it's a standard that we've already reviewed for. Kind of almost like a master set for a subdivision. However the regulations and requirements I had mentioned before, those have nothing to do with any type of preapproved housing. Those are more just what is currently in play for an Adu to be in an area of town. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Alter: I just wanted to flag -- I don't think we're ready to talk about it, but building out of your planning and housing committee, councilmember Casar and I are looking into whether there's a way to expedite permitting for some of our affordable housing builders. I think it's both the site plan review and the permitting. We don't yet have the numbers that we need to share that, but if we manage to get that together for the budget, it's something that we're looking at. The idea is that there's actually a small number of cases each year where you have affordable housing being built at about 35% of the units, and when -- we've been having conversations in our committee with some of the builders and this is one of the thanks they highlight. So this would be providing this expedited review for [2:15:56 PM] habitat for humanity or for other conversations and allows them to get through the process quicker and allows them to build more housing. We just don't have the numbers yet on what that involves but this would be a case where you would either be providing a service that they don't have access to and/or possibly reducing the amount of fees that they would have to be paying. And that would have to come out of some other housing pot, but we don't have our numbers yet to put that forward today. >> Garza: Mayor, to the mayor pro tem's point, there's no doubt that construction costs are high. That's obvious. I don't want to frame this as low income families because there are families in my district that are at the median mfi or higher for the city, not just for my district, which is significantly lower than the city. The city is like 77. My district is about 44, but there are families in my district that are close to 77 or higher. But with the construction cost of $150,000, an additional 100,000 K, 2,000, 3,000 can make the difference in affording the construction costs. When we're adding costs on what is already a problem. Aside from that, some of these positions, these 51 positions were positions that were asked for last year, but you did not get. So I feel like now we've -- you know, a department will come back and say -- they were asked from the general fund and -- or maybe they weren't, but council did not approve those additional positions. And it was the mayor pro tem that pushed that issue. So now I feel like we're getting some of those again and saying, well, don't worry about it. It's not coming from the general fund. We're just going to raise fees and we're going to get those positions that you didn't get last year and then some. [2:17:59 PM] But everything I've heard from development services was we've decreased the backlog, we're on a good path, things are getting better, and so what is the backlog now that we are fixing with 51? >> Well, fortunately with the use temporaries and the use of a lot of overtime that staff is putting in, some of our staff works upwards of 20 hours per week overtime. We're keeping the backlog at bay, but we're only limited in those two resources with the volume increases that we continue to see, we're not exposing that we can keep backlog at bay much further. Staff has been working really hard and diligently to accommodate the volume that we've been getting, but I don't think we can see that much longer without an addition of resources. >> Garza: So as a budget question aimed like to know how many employees are working 20 plus hours of overtime and what the overtime budget has been for your department? >> Sure. We can give you the overtime and we can give you the total hours. So you're asking only for anyone who has worked over 20 hours? >> Garza: No. Everything. What has -- you said there were some people working over 20 hours so I would like to know of those -- what are you paying in overtime per employee average, everything. Employee a has worked five, employee B has worked seven, employee C, none. >> And we can give you that in relation to the current budget as well to give you a good indication of what we're spending in temporaries and overtime. >> Garza: Thanks. >> Mayor Adler: Anything else? Great. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: So we had talked about last week kind of sharing how each of us might be thinking about the budget to try to daylight [2:19:59 PM] what are pierts or -- priorities or things that people were thinking about. I see that some councilmembers have handed something out. I suggest that we let people talk about those real quickly so we can get a feel for where some people are. Comal handed one out. She's -- councilmember pool handed one out. She's not here right now. Councilmember Houston, do you want to talk about your page? >> Houston: Thank you, mayor. And I have my page to several sections. The George Washington carver. And the page item and the item number, unless they've changed, Mr. Van eenoo -- have they changed? The numbers haven't changed, but I don't know about the page numbers? >> Exactly right. The item numbers haven't changed, but the page numbers might have shifted plus or minus depending on what's been added or removed. >> Houston: I see 20 and it used to be on page 18. It's the George Washington carver museum, the cultural and genealogy senior program enhancement. Several years ago during the downturn the parks and recreation department asked all the cultural centers to reduce their programming budget. And they were reduced. And some of them went -- were increased to the level where they had been prior than the downturn, and the George Washington carver museum programming budget was never increased. So that's what that amount is. We've talked about the millennium center in the past. The African-American advisory resource commission has about a 3.5 million dollars' worth of items, specifically the largest one is 1.5 million related to job training that includes technical stem and health [2:21:59 PM] jobs. Mainly those are to do culturally specific opportunities for people who are part of the community to provide training, going deeper into the community of color to get those young people and people who have criminal histories trained to take some of the jobs that are available. 750,000 is for health care outreach, specifically in the African-American community. Cultural learning is a million and it's for a variety of after-school kinds of programs to help young people get of kinds of skills they know and from people who understand the kinds of microaggressions that they experience in their daily lives. And the safety program is more about -- 250,000 is more about not -- helping kids be safe. Not policing. Although people are still concerned about the lack of body cameras, we're still waiting for those to be -- all of those to be implemented and used. So that's about 3.5 million. And I've added some from the asian- american resource center and that's in structure 1 and they need for a master plan. Their master plan is very old, it's about 10 years old now, and they're asking for about $200,000 for that master planning process. They've requested the health equity contract again and then the translation documents are something that we've been talking about since this new council [2:24:00 PM] started. Then on the concept menu they talked about bringing the Asian chamber is not at the level of the other chambers, the other minority chambers. Aready cognitive to the concept menu that is about $60,000 to bring that up to par with the hispanic chamber and the African-American chamber and I'm not sure what the gay and lesbians chamber is. They are way below the other minority chambers. And then so that he total is about 4.5 million. And then under safety that the manager brought forth, I think it's important that we look at funding, and I've said this before, the 12 unfunded offices that we put in place. I understand the issues that the community talks about policing and I understand we're still in negotiation with our police union. But the city of Austin is still growing and there are parts of my community that are farther away from the central city and they never hardly see a police officer. And I know those 12 officers probably won't help, but I think it says to the public that we realize that we are short of officers and until we get some out of the academy and on the streets, I think that 12 is saying to them that we're going to try to fulfill this promise. And under government that works, it's still my request to not use all the money until we see what's going on in January of 2018 and hold off on that. And I think that last one was -- I have to ask Mr. Van eenoo, that one fte for the neighborhood assistance program, that's been zeroed out, is that correct? From development services? No, not development services. Is it development services? G 14? >> It says the costs will be recovered through fees. [2:26:00 PM] >> Houston: Okay. I just want to make sure. >> There's a cost associated with it listed over in the notes, but it would be paid for three funds, not a general fund impact. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. >> Houston: And before we go, I have one other question. I got really confused yesterday or the day before because we're doing so many days in a row now. Can you talk to me just briefly about the one center Texas parking. Did we say that we're not doing that anymore? >> The validation that -- $400,000 in development services budget to provide additional validation, longer validation for the expedited plan review process and they're not doing it anymore. That will not be part of the proposed budget. >> Houston: Okay. Because I went back to the 8-28 budget and I got confused. That's good. >> Alter: Do we have to take any action for that since we have the proposed budget? >> No. It's staff's intent on September 11th that we would bring forward the necessary amendment to have that not be part of our proposal. >> Alter: Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: >> Alter:, do you want to walk us through your list? >> Alter: So I have two lists. The first list is this one which has my budget adjustments with no cost to the general fund and then there's a second sheet that has general fund spending priorities. I'm generally focused on trying to make our government work better and items that I believe have a longer term impact, so investing in children, workforce development and the health benefits, both parks. Let me start with the budget amendments that do not have a cost to the general fund. So the first item -- these are not in order of priority. They're just in order of the strategic items as they went through in terms of the order they've been presented [2:28:00 PM] to us. So the first item is updating the Amanda system. This is for development services to their system to be updated so we can begin to better track our foul. That was a -- our affordable housing. That was be in the fees for the development services that have been reduced by the 400,000. 1-7 is converting the nobody permanent divisions in Austin fire from temporary to permanent. This is something they can do without having any additional cost to the general fund. It will require them to reorganize, but this is something that they are in favor of doing, allowing them to move forward with the next stage of the wildfire divisions evolution. And two would be using funding in existence at the Austin transportation department to expand the capacities of parking enforcement officers as mobility officers and they would be able to expand team capacity. You will recall that rob spillar came and spoke about their desire to do this as a 10-person pilot. This would be coming out of the parking fee. S 104 is essentially a budget cut. This would be for the showing 18 months until vacancies at Austin fire department stabilize to 40 vacancies. It would implement an out of time rule at Austin fire department that provides priority for mandatory Kelly out of time followed by volunteers, late volunteers and compensatory added time. And that's about $250,000. G 2 is the part about the $400,000 for the parking validations, taking that ag 3 is the ombuds persons being able to have a single point of contact within dsd. This comes out of the other fees for dsd. Additional funding to [2:30:01 PM] purchase two 14 passenger buses for pard to transport participants to and from school and during super camps. Pard has indicated that could come out of the cip budget for pard, but we would have to ask for that. M 1 two replace three vehicles used by pard for senior transportation using the cip budget. Again, we would still have to take action to allow them to do that. C 27 is the city arborist pilot program using the tree mitigation fund. That I may be doing as a budget rider. We've been advised that that might be a better way to do that one. I'm sorry, that one is the one that pool had proposed. I'm sorry. H 11, this is the youth job core with tree folks. And that would be using the tree mitigation fund and that's the one that we may use the budget rider for. So those are the ones that I have that do not cost money from the general fund. That's on this vertical sheet. Then in terms of the general funding priorities and again these are not in order of priority, but rather just the order that they appear in the concept menu, and I don't know exactly what all this adds up to, but I do not believe that we are limited to five million, so I'm going to put these out there as is. E-5 is the long-term housing to pay for success. E-13, additional funding for home repair. And I will add I also didn't just repeat what I already put up there. I added some that other people have put up there. Additional stop for the -- additional staff for the equity office, providing funding for childcare to serve the children of adults participating in education and career advance meant programs. Support for the scaling of capital idea's work. And some of that funding comes from enterprise organizations. E 201 is dressing the senior homestead exemption. And I do have some information that we got back from the budget office on [2:32:01 PM] the homestead exemption, and I originally had taken it so they would be made whole but I would like to propose perhaps having it at 6,000-dollar exemption increase, which would be about $1 million of relief, and I'd love to get some sense from people on where they think they are on with that. The hotel tax reallocation is important to me. The sexual assault counselor training. A lot of these are smaller amounts, recreational security lighting for parks, the parent support specialists, prime time after school, additional funding for senior specific programs, a bunch of parks and recreation and maintenance funding, aquatics, maintenance,. Most of these are parks. Youth sports, pard infrastructure improvements. For cities connecting children to nature, a portion of that part has said that they would fund out of their own budget for the staff person, but then there's still the item that councilmember pool put up for the eastern crescent that's on there. I would support the food pantry capacity. I don't know how much that is, that hasn't been put on there. As I mentioned, I support increasing the general fund reserves by 1.5 million to cover some of the losses we may face from state and federal grants. I support the waiver of the fire inspection fee for kinship placements and then E 48 and C 29 are two new items that I put on the concept menu. The E 48 equalizes the funding of the minority chambers so the greater Austin hispanic chamber, the greater Austin Asian chamber, the black chamber and the Austin gay and lesbians chamber of commerce would all have the same amount and we would be creating a pathway in the future for outcomes to be more oriented towards metrics in the future. [2:34:02 PM] I believe that there's a fund that we can draw that from that is not the general fund on page 657 of volume 1. There's economic incentives reserve fund. Looking at what the details of this fund is allocated for, it looks like we could take some money out of that to equalize those amounts. And then finally C 29 would be to fund existing city owned cultural venues to be opened for rehearsals, productions, every evening and weekend. And this is a recommendation that comes out of the arts task force group before and that we have gotten down to about $140,000 would love to us have a lot more venues who have been using city-owned places. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. Councilmember Casar? >> Casar: As I had laid out earlier, for me there is the five million dollars which there is what we would want to defer to spending if we found other reductions. And then there is what we might want to defer for discussion until after the public safety contract negotiations are done. So for that first five million dollars I've handed out, it's a very draft proposal, but I've been trying to listen to everybody and include things that I think are important. What I've included in this that I've handed out are, one, just basically standing commitments that this council has been driving towards in increasing health and human services funding and increasing funding to the housing trust fund and trying to keep up with paying our employees a decent wage. So those just seem to be our standing commitment work. And also keeping existing [2:36:09 PM] really important programs going like at aisd schools, the affordable grant enrollment and immigrant services that we've provided. From that five million I've tried to see what are our existing commitments by council resolution -- and passages of council resolution. What are existing commitments by council resolution that we can do the best to fund, and what are the things that could end if we don't continue to fund them. And many of those overlap with the quality of life recommendations. And then once you get to that point, that is -- that could be over $10 million, but in scaling some of that back that adds up to about $4.7 million and so for the last little bit I've added funding to continue to expand our commitment to having an equity office and the trading for -- the training for sexual assaults counselors for survivors of sexual assaults. That adds up to that five million. I've listed out how that breaks down here, but it basically is $3.8 million for social services and quality of life services in keeping our programs going. Half a million dollars to the trust fund, $600,000 that could help our lowest paid employees or help bring the pay period up depending on what people think is most important there. The training for the sexual assault counselors and the equity office, that comes out to five million. And then of course there's lots of priorities that are high priorities of mine and of everyone else's that I think if we found some reductions could then be funded after that five million, and of course when the public safety contract negotiations wrap up there could be -- if there are savings we could have some discussion then. There are some things in other funds that I would want to do. Most of those were already described by councilmember alter. The only one that hadn't been brought up was the residents' advocacy project work that Mr. Van eenoo brought up, which is within the clean community fee and [2:38:09 PM] not the general fund. So I'm happy to take questions, but what I'm interested in too is how we're going to proceed on Mondays sort of through Wednesday and what we can get done today because I think one option is for us to figure out what we're going to do with that five million, figure out what reductions we have. I mean, we could figure out what reductions we have first, figure out how much more than 5 million we have, but as far as setting aside that first five million dollars, very happy to have a conversation about it. But this is my best attempt at hitting some of those key things. What are critical programs that are serving people in the most need and what are the things that we are -- we have committed through resolution that we want to push more towards. >> Mayor Adler: Okay, thank you. Councilmember Garza? >> Garza: I passed mine out. It either says Garza or D 2. I don't know what it says at this point. And I'm sure that-- I rarely say this, but I know I speak for all of us. These are incredibly hard decisions to make. So I of course have -- I came from a place of where have we as a council approved resolutions where our priorities would be and for me I think some of the ongoing concerns have been public health and affordable housing. So health and human services contracts increase by 2 million. Quality of life funds -- that was a question for Ed. There's a concept item and I don't remember right now, but it's 1.7. Is that all the current -- the 1.7 bucket is what we funded last year? >> Yes. >> Garza: That was all one time? >> That is a one-time piece, yes. >> Garza: Because I've also heard 1.2 million and is that because it was the snap, and that 1.7 and 3 [2:40:11 PM] adds up to 2.1. >> The snap was a separate item so that must be it. >> Garza: So this could change. I was meaning to fund it at the same level as last year. So one million ongoing and 700,000 one-time I put two million for the support for aid because just yesterday I received a request from del valle ISD so it's like picking between your children basically because I have aid and there's del valle in other councilmembers have different ones. Soy just put a bucket there for -- we would have to decide where that money goes to prime time, some of the del valle initiatives and I've forgotten what the other is. The childcare needs assessments, what we had our budget overview one of the biggest costs for the average family was childcare costs. And so this goes off of the discussion that highland mall and whether we really need to push for a childcare facility or not. So this would just be a study that determines what the need is throughout the city and where I think it would show that we don't have an equal amount of facilities throughout the city. So it's just a study to determine what a needs assessment. Half a million towards housing trust fund. Our priority is affordable housing and so that's what that's there for. Immigrant legal services, I added a million dollars. That was, you know, after hearing about the decision on DACA I'm very concerned for folks that could be affected by that if congress doesn't act. So I would say we could put that in a reserve to see what happens, whether congress action or not. And if not we should significantly increase our [2:42:11 PM] budget for immigrant services to help our fellow concerns be able to stay in this country that they were - - that they call their home. Workforce developments, the 700,000, that's important for our working families. And supporting them. Many of these programs have wrap around services to help people stay in school and achieve whatever career path their looking for. The last one is new and I have questions about this. I haven't added it as a budget concept item because we just -- we just kind of discovered this the day before yesterday and I don't know if this is even something that we can do at this point, but my understanding is in March we approved through arr a contract for -- I have it here. It is -- it came to us. I went through the backup again. We pulled it off consent. It was not put on consent. It was March 2nd meeting, we approved it on consent. It says to provide vehicle fleet technical update and an estimated amount of 2.7 million. And the explanation is a fully integrated data management system to include onboard global positioning system, automatic vehicle location systems. The more I read into this and tried to find out about it, it really seems like a great thing, but it seems like a luxury item. Nowhere in the backup that we approved it in March -- it's my understanding that this money hadn't been expended yet. I'm still trying to figure out how that works or see if we can recoup it or cancel the contract. I'm not sure. From my understanding it's basically six cameras on [2:44:11 PM] every single one of our trash trucks. And it says -- it talks about safety and decreasing vehicle incidents. So I have a lot of questions to still ask about this one, but I think we have an opportunity to save some money here on an item that doesn't seem to be an absolute necessity and with the very state budget, from what I know thus mar it's six cameras on one trash trucks seems a little big brotherish. I'm not sure what happens. I have questions about what happens with all that footage that we're taking throughout the city. Do we have a liability problem or are citizens suing us all the time about trash trucks hitting them? I am not aware of any kind of big issue like that. So that is what that last item is on mine. I have some other questions, but I'll let other people give their concept menu and we can go back to that if anyone is interested in deviling more into that -- delving more into that. >> Casar: Mayor, I had a question. And it seems like your list is not that different from my list, which is -- it seems like we have some alignment that's really helpful, but do we know -- do you know if the arr funding decrease year is general fund funding or if it's through the fee? >> Garza: I'm trying to remember. There was some capital funding involved. And I believe -- from the rca it did say pending budget. It was like pending budget proposal. Again, I'm still asking questions about that, but my assumption is that it was from the general fund if it was pending, but we also approved the cip budget so it could be through that as well. I'm still trying to understand if it is general fund. I believe it is because there's some ongoing costs, but maybe that -- I thought [2:46:12 PM] cip was just capital and then it's ongoing cost. And Robert good is shaking his head no. >> I don't have the rca in front of me, but I can tell you it would be a one time expenditure through Austin resource recovery's capital budget. To eliminate this would be to restore the funds to Austin resource recovery to be used for some other Austin resource recovery purpose or to lower the Austin resource recovery rates, but that's probably not even viable since it's a one-time -- it's a one-time expense. >> Garza: I also had information from that item for last year's budget for arr that was 1.5 million for upgrades. And I don't -- and staff hasn't been able to answer a question where that 1.5 million went to or came from. >> A different 1.5 million for vehicle upgrades? >> Yes. >> We can dig on that for you. >> Casar: I think what's helpful with that is whether or not this is the decrease we could make or not. I think one of the -- just one of the small -- I think a lot of differences between what you've handed out and what I have here is just that you have $2.7 million more to allocate. So I just want to take this moment to indicate that it doesn't seem like -- at a quick glance it may look like yours and mine are different, but actually, I don't think they're all that different if there were two and a half million dollars more that could be put into different sections of what I've handed out. So I just want to mark that because these are the two that are actually sort of trying to add up to five million and there doesn't seem to be actually that -- for people quickly skimming over them, doesn't seem to be that much different. >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: And I too would point out that on E 20, I think it would be just 230,349 from the general [2:48:12 PM] fund rather than the 700,000. So that may help with the numbers as well because the rest of it would be allocated out to the different enterprise funds. Is that right? >> That was the way that budget office put the item on the concept menu and we submitted. >> Tovo: E 20. >> So the capital idea workforce item, E 20 from the general fund is not the full 700,000 that the budget office allocated funds across. >> Casar: I also got text that had in my listing of things when I said passages immigrant legal services, et cetera, I missed mentioning that prep is on mine is what I see as a baseline thing that we should be doing. So that's -- so on my list right now I have social services that includes passages immigrant legal services, prep, the parent support specialist and prime time after school and I would be interested in how we can serve other schools outside of aid, ACA enrollment, the general health and human services stuff with homelessness, housing trust fund, wages, sexual assault counselors and equity office. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Kitchen: I have a question. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Garza, okay -- [laughter]. >> Kitchen: I wanted to go back to something that councilmember alter had mentioned if I could go ahead and ask her about one of hers. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Kitchen: And that's the one with the senior exemption. So you had passed out a document suggesting that we look at it with the exemption increase of 6,000. Did I understand that correctly. So that would be about a-million-dollar -- so just so I can understand, how would that relate to -- well, first off was there a particular thinking in terms of marketing it at that rate and I would like to understand what that is? And how would that relate to [2:50:15 PM] he owe I forget the terms we're using, making them whole. And the reason I ask those questions is because last year we put forward initially an item that would have kept them up, but then we weren't able to fully fund that. And I think we funded it at maybe something like half of it. So I'm just wanting to get an indication of if we do that this time at the 6,000 where that does put us in terms of they're almost -- they're half the way, a third of the way, a quarter of the way towards what it would be, the impact on them, that's what I'm trying to understand. Do we know that? >> Thank you, councilmember kitchen. I appreciate the opportunity to elaborate. >> Alter: So originally as placed on the concept menu we asked what would be the amount the exemption needed to be to make seniors whole so that they didn't experience any change between last year and this year. And that amount was increasing the exemption to $25,000 which had a total revenue loss of $4 million. So that is why we go from 1 to 25,000, so 25,000 would be -- I got the sense that the last time we discussed this that there was not an appetite to go all the way too that 25,000-dollar exemption level. And I highlighted the 6,000 that we could pick anywhere along this continuum because that was an even million dollars which was where I put that. And I think it was larger than the increase we had last year if I'm remembering correctly in terms of the number of thousands of dollars. So that was why I suggested that the rationale for the senior homestead is we have a lot of elderly people who are being priced out of their homes and as we increase it impact their ability to age in place and stay in place. >> Kitchen: Okay. The piece of information that would be helpful would be I'd like to understand how this compares to last [2:52:18 PM] year's. So last year what we ended up doing, even with what we ended up doing there was still an increase in the typical senior's property tax bill. So maybe you can just remind us of how much did we end up increasing last year and then to my mind that will help me think about, you know, where we should fall for this year? So you may not have that right now, but if you could look that up for us, that would be helpful because I know we had a similar kind of scale last year and we weren't able to get -- we didn't get to the point where it was no impact to them. But I don't remember where along the line we were in terms of what the impact was. Do you understand? Is that clear what I'm asking? >> Yeah. And I think you've increased it in fiscal year 16 and in fiscal year San Antonio -- >> Kitchen: It would be good to know. >> I can't recall offhand what we did. I thought we did a significant increase in fiscal year 16, but I can't remember exactly. In fiscal year '17 it increased from 80,000 to 82,500. So it was a fairly small increase in the fiscal year we're in and we reported it would need to go to 92,000 to hold that typical senior household harmless. So I guess we fell about $9,500 short of that mark. And then this year it would need to increase by $25,000. And some of the big difference in numbers is of course last year we also did a general homestead exemption which helped bring down the cost for everybody. >> Kitchen: We wouldn't have had to raise it that much. >> Right. >> Kitchen: Do you have the number that in terms of this column that says increase in typical senior's property tax bill, do you know at the 82.5, is there a way to know what that number ended up being? For last year? [2:54:21 PM] >> I could find that out for you. I don't remember. >> Kitchen: Yeah. I'm talking about that last column. If we ended up at 82.5, what does that end up in the typical senior's property tax bill. >> Sure. >> Kitchen: You don't have that number, do you, councilmember alter? Okay. I wanted to know that. I have a list also that is being printed and when it gets down here I'll share it. I'll turn it over to someone else at this point. >> Houston: Mayor, could I just say something about a typical senior homeowner? I'm passing around something that I just got. And I'm by no means typical because I have two retirement checks plus I work for the city of Austin. But that's what my property is evaluated at. And my home was built in 1954. And I have both a homestead and a senior exemption. So I don't have any idea what I'm going to have to pay, but I can appreciate, which people who don't have but social security are having to go through. So that's something that we need to address because that's a lot of money, a 61-year-old property and it's being evaluated at 400 -- >> Renteria: And homestead is only 10%. That's what it is. And my value on my property is $417,000, and I'm paying taxes on $256,000 because of my homestead exemption. It would have to increase -- over the years it will finally get to -- by that time the value will be even higher. >> Houston: But I thought it was telling that the real estate market in your area supports a value greater than the current government value. So even they recognize that we're being priced -- >> Renteria: Still, it's just a 10% increase. [2:56:21 PM] >> Houston: That's the cap every time,. >> Mayor Adler: Let's not point out to the appraisal district that they're under-- shhh... [Laughter] Do you have any questions for Ms. Garza on her? >> Flannigan: I didn't print anything out but I can lay out my thoughts. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Why don't you lay out your thoughts. >> Flannigan: So my proposal is far simpler so I didn't feel I needed to print it O I'm concerned with how much we're spending here given the instability in outside funds, the instability of federal programs. I think it's fairly obvious to me that if the federal government pulls back its financial support that our community is going to want us to fill that gap. And I'm concerned about adding new ongoing commitments. I'm concerned about funding new programming. I'm concerned about being at a minimum 12 percent in our reserves. I think from a prudent perspective I'm willing to fund a few one- time things, things that can generate revenue, like the millennium youth center which with the result of those funds can have more events and generate some revenues for themselves. The asian-american resource center master plan, which as I've spoken to them about it would facilitate private monies to implement that master plan. I'm willing to explore the living wage for all the temporary employees. I think that's as a matter of principle, the right thing to do. I also think it's important for us to answer fully and strongly the fallout from the DNA lab, which is all the sexual assault counselor training and the new ftes for sexual assault. I think these are obvious [2:58:22 PM] and straightforward things that need to be funded. I can also make a case for A.D.A. Improvements in the parks and there's a much larger bill attached to that than just what we're going to fund this year, but it is a clear, straightforward mandate that these are things that we have to do. And the translation services -- the translation services for boards and commissions meetings in terms of government that works and government being accessible to the entire community. But these are fairly small numbers in the large picture and it is my preference that as much of that be put into reserves or maybe even split in part with the senior exemption so that we can be in a place over the next fiscal year to respond as fully and appropriately to changes at the federal government. I feel like our community will demand from us that we do it. And we need to make sure we have the fiscal resources to keep hold of the programs that we have. And I'm concerned with spending down these reserves in a way that will make it more difficult, that might threaten our reserves balance and maybe in a one-time situation it's okay, but I don't think we're in a one-time fiscal challenge. I think this is over the next three or four years -- let's just hope it's other going to be facing this instability. And I want to be able to fulfill the promises as a city we've made in the past and I think that requires that we not make a bunch of new promises to the community. It is not easy and it is it is not easy, it's not going to be fun, it's not necessarily going to be fair, but I don't want to be in a place where we're having, next year or the year after, having to scale a bunch of stuff back because of instability changes elsewhere in government. I know that some of you have expressed previously a willingness to entertain expanding the reserves in this way. I don't know that the full support is there to do it, and that's -- that's my concern. [3:00:24 PM] On some of the things that I'm seeing laid out, the prep funding, the pilot program, we've spoken to public health, they have said they will do that with existing funds. That's what my office has been told, so I'm not sure that it needs to be a concept menu item, and the quality of life study from the commission, I've been talking to at least the chair of that commission about that being something that can be done next year as the commission gets -- kind of gets its feet under itself. But I don't know that what I'm saying is necessarily supported by enough councilmembers to do it, but I implore you that we have to be restrained, if in no other year than in this year, because we cannot predict what horrible, terrible cuts are going to come for programs that are necessary, that are important, that our community relies upon, that will hurt the most vulnerable and most at risk, and I want to make sure that our city is prepared to fulfill that need, and at least keep our community out of harm's way as much as we can. >> Mayor Adler: Mr. Flannigan, the last three you had were sexual assault, Ada, parks, boards and commissions, what were the first -- >> The millennium youth center and Asian center. Those two will be able to generate more revenues, the resource center is going to use private money, is what I've been told, to implement that master plan. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Ms. Kitchen, you want to take us through your list? I'm sorry, yes. >> Casar: I just wanted to respond to his so that I wouldn't respond to his after you spoke, if that's okay. >> Mayor Adler: Yes. Go ahead. >> Casar: Councilmember Flannigan, I think that what you've laid out is not as -- perhaps the items -- I don't think it's as different from what I said because the challenge is that so many of these programs will end now because of the council budget, not necessarily because of the federal budget next year. So I know that you have spoken [3:02:26 PM] eloquently as to why we need to be paying attention to what's happening in other ISDs, and I am interested in ways of adding programs to other ISDs, title 1 schools, we will by our choices be ending after-school programs that people rely on in this year by not funding them in this year's budget, which part of what you've said I think makes sense, we should try to keep things going that we have going now, which are things like passages child care and immigrant legal services that are happening now. The aid programs happening now, the affordable care act work that is happening now. There's some things on my list that are admittedly new, and then that might be a different -- and that's a different conversation, but I just wanted to mark that while your list may be different, I don't know if some of your criteria are that different from what some of us have laid out as well. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Thank you. Ms. Tovo. >> Tovo: If I could just note, I think we need to get some information from health and human services from -- from public health, water, about the prep funding because we were also in conversation with them, and got back an e-mail about -- that they do find it -- they would support this item, and they do believe it's -- the funding is necessary. And so I think we need to sort out -- I think we need to sort that out with them, together. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Ms. Kitchen. >> Kitchen: Okay. Well, first, I'd just comment, councilmember Flannigan, I think that -- I think that many of us are in the same position you are, in terms of what you're pointing out. But to me, that doesn't mean that we just look at $5 million. To me, it's -- you know, I'm trying to look at the entire budget to the extent that I can. And so much of what I'm talking about is changes to what's [3:04:27 PM] presented to us. That's why I passed out the budget savings menu list, which, again, you know, takes some more vetting, but there's several million dollars on here, maybe. So that's what I have to find out. But the point is that I think that part of what I'm trying to do is again say, you know, five million dollars is a drop in the bucket on our bucket, you know. And so to my -- and I really, really appreciate what our staff has done with the budget. I'm not criticizing what they have brought us forward by any means, I'm just saying in terms of our priorities, in the kinds of environment that you laid out for us, which I share that concern about that environment, that kind of environment, what I'm trying to do is look at our whole budget. And so -- because there are things that many people have laid out that are high priorities for me. And they're higher priorities than some of the things that are in the budget that was presented to us. So I'm looking at it through that -- through that lens. So I just say that. And I can't say that I have finished that work. I can just say that at first glance, I brought as much as I could in terms of other areas that I think, from my -- just from my personal perspective and my priorities, there may be some -- I would think there's potential for moving around, or cutting, or not doing this year, or phasing in for next year, or those kinds of things. So with that said, the list -- and also, the list that I passed out does not include what some of the others -- some of my colleagues have on their list. That doesn't mean that I don't support them; it just means that I tried to think about what I was bringing forward and put that in some kind of priority order. There are a number of things that others have mentioned, like the parent support specialist, [3:06:31 PM] like the senior exemption that we talked about a minute ago, like the -- like the dollars for health and human services, those are priorities for me also, and the rest of my homework after this will be to go back and do something more refined, like some of the rest of you have done. So with that said, let me just tick through some of the -- what was on the list that I put out there. So first off, with regard to issues around homeless, I think it is absolutely critical that we address these issues, and we've talked about it to some extent. Because if nothing -- well, first off, you know, it is a dollar savor. We are costing huge amounts of dollars because of the way that we work with homeless individuals. So -- and the easiest way to see that is cost to ems, cost to the health care system, cost to our public safety. It's not efficient to not address the needs of folks that are homeless. So with that said, I included on this list the two that I had brought forward, but my other note here is that I support the entire package that mayor pro tem brought forward, and so I'll let her speak to that. I didn't include all of those items on this list, but I do support them. And we have a number of ways to look at funding for those. So -- not just in this budget process, but E 16 related to funding for navigation centers, I had talked about that one before. That's critical, I think, for connecting folks to services. S4 which relates to the polarized directed lighting for safety purposes under the overpass. [3:08:31 PM] I'm working with Austin energy and atd to consider what our options are in terms of locating the resources for that item. Then as I note here, there's a whole homeless package that the mayor pro tem has brought forward, and I'll let her speak to those. With regard to seniors, the increase in the senior homestead exemption, as we just discussed, is critical from my perspective, supporting our goals as a city to help seniors age in place, which again, is another way that's less costly for our whole society. So that's important. I've got on here the interlocal agreement with UT to study gentrification and displacement, which we have talked about and councilmember pool is lead on that. Additional funding for home repair, relatively small amount, and again, this is critical for seniors staying in place and living in their homes, much more cost effective. E 14, I want to have a discussion with -- and I should have asked Rodney when he was here on DFD, there may be a way to -- to incorporate this in the additional ftes that are being requested from dsd, but this just recognizes, if we're going -- as a package, if we're going to be thinking about -- which is our policy, an important policy, that we support seniors living at home and staying in place, we also need to think about how we're building and how that -- how that relates to what we're building and that we're doing that in a way that is age friendly. The retiree health contribution, I think that's important, this is for over 65. I think the mayor may have a proposal that might -- I don't remember exactly how you put it, but it had to do with maybe a one-time dollar amount. That might be -- that might work also. So I'd like to talk further [3:10:32 PM] about that. My point being that we Teed to look at the contribution for retirees, although I think your proposal may have related to, instead of a cost of living increase. My point was simply that the costs are continuing to go up for these retirees over 65, and we need to address them in some way. So there may be a way to combine this particular point with the one that the mayor had brought forward. Historic and preservation, I list these two items because they're potential items that I think could be handled through hot tax, but I'm going to continue them on here for now, depending on what we end up doing with with hot tax. S 15 was simply bringing forward the unmet safety needs at Umlauf garden. As I mentioned before, this was a carry-over from last year. Theoretically, it shouldn't take any additional dollars because it's something we didn't get to in last year's budget. Zilker botanical garden is another item I brought forward as a potential item for hot tax. Public safety, on the back I've highlighted the victim services funding related to sexual assault survivors, so I think that that's an area that's critical. I've already talked about the ems service delivery model, and I have been working on a scope of work which I will post on the message board. I don't have that ready yet. But a proposed scope of work for that study, which I'll post on the message board. And then I've got also additional funding for senior-specific programs. The quality of life, I support quality of life. I had -- what's listed here on my sheet is simply the ones I had brought forward, and so I just highlighted them here. I'm not trying to say that these carry any more importance than the other ones that are brought forward. And I know we're going to have to have a discussion because [3:12:33 PM] every one is interested in doing something with regard to quality of life. And so I'm open to discussing however we end up thinking is important to address those issues. Going back to public safety, we do have some items, the unfunded -- I think it was the 12 ftes. I think that that's going to be important to address. That may be an item that we address later, after we work through the contracting process. So I don't know if this is helpful to folks. I am going to do further work in terms of looking at what others have identified as priorities, and will continue to look for identifying additional dollars that I think are not as high a priority, and to propose to the council to consider changing in the existing budget that came forward, and then will post on the message board what's a more refined list of what my priorities are. >> Mayor Adler: Council, I think that leaves -- I'm sorry, councilmember alter. >> Alter: I just wanted to mention and remind people that councilmember pool had passed out some information on her priorities, which focus on the items that she put forward, and I think she presented them the last session, I think, but I just want to make sure that everyone saw that. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. So with those, you want to go next? >> Tovo: It doesn't matter, mayor. Easterly way. Either way.I have a verbal list and then I'll follow up with a print. >> Mayor Adler: If you want me to go first, I'd be happy to. >> Tovo: Either way. >> Mayor Adler: You go first. >> Tovo: Okay. So I indicated -- apologies for [3:14:34 PM] not having this in writing. I'll try to distribute it here this afternoon before we break or up on the message board. You know, I think one of the challenges that we're all facing is there's almost nothing on this list that I wouldn't support if we had the funding, so that's -- that's a pretty major challenge. -- At the moment, I can't get my priorities within five million dollars, and I haven't identified any savings. But I'll just read to you the things that, you know, as I look over, that I see as really critical needs. A lot of which overlap with y'all's list. The after school programs, as councilmember Casar said, it's my understanding that the students who are enrolled in those would not have an after school program if we can't identify that funding. And so that is a really critical -- I regard that as a really critical need. >> Mayor Adler: Do you have the numbers with these two? Or no? >> Tovo: Yes. Aisd after school, if I haven't mixed them up, is -- again, I'll distribute this and I've linked it to the concept menu codes, is $950,000, and I will go back and confirm with the school district that those -- that these numbers are exactly what they need. >> Mayor Adler: Do you have the item number? >> Tovo: Yes. C1. I'll read all that out, if that's helpful. >> Mayor Adler: That had be good. What number? E.1? >> Tovo: I'm sorry, c1. The aid after school program is $950,000, and that's concept menu 1. And, again, it's my understanding that those programs will cease, and so for all the parents who depend on that I think it's really critical. Yeah. Aisd parent teacher support specialists, 1,292,676, item c2. Passages -- do you want me to read all the details? >> Mayor Adler: The one I'm most concerned about is the item number. >> Tovo: Got you. E.2, passages. Prep -- >> Mayor Adler: If you don't have them, that's fine. >> Tovo: I'll have to get you that one. >> Mayor Adler: That's fine. >> Tovo: Housing fund transfer, [3:16:35 PM] 500,000. Increasing permanent supportive housing capacity, of $1.2 million, Mr. Vaneenoo, do you know whether we can accomplish that by identifying it within the reserves? >> I don't. We've been talking with people that have been involved in that, with the county and the other partners, and I've not gotten an answer back yet. >> Tovo: So I don't think the county and the other partners are as far along as I hope we are on that one, so I'm not sure that they'll have the answers. I think really the question is probably one for our financial staff and our city management. We would need to be able to -- it's my understanding that to raise those private funds, we need, as a city, to make a commitment to spend that 1.2 million -- not to spend it but to have it in a savings account so that at the time we're -- if the program demonstrates results, we are then responsible for reimbursing at a cost of $1.2 million per year. And so I don't know that it's necessary to actually allocate the money. We wouldn't ever be spending it during this fiscal year, but we would need to be able to say we have this amount identified for repayment of that. I guess it's much like we do our economic incentives in that we have that money in the bank in case we -- in case in the event -- in the very likely event we will need to repay it. >> We do that one, though -- we do set up a reserve. >> Tovo: Right. >> Set up a reserve fund, we set those funds aside. >> Tovo: In a separate -- >> The moneys we collect this year we hold in reserves for the subsequent year. >> Tovo: It's my understanding it would be a while till we need to call on those dollars. So whether we can -- again, I guess the question really is, do we need to allocate general funding, general fund revenue of $1.2 million to be able to put it aside, knowing that we won't need to spend it this year, or can we just have that be considered as part of the 12% stabilization reserve. It would seem to me the latter [3:18:36 PM] would be sufficient, but it's just -- this is really critical for our making progress on this program, and so one way or another, I would strongly urge that we come up with -- that we identify $1.2 million, either within our stability reserves fund or actually transfer it to a reserve fund, that there may be a way that we have to handle it for it to work within the context of the pay for success. If we can get an answer to that really quickly, that would be helpful. >> Mayor Adler: Council -- >> One concern that I have is that, basically, as I understand the pay for success model, there are investors who are investing in certain programs, and then getting some sort of dividend paid out this them later. It would be helpful to see the proposal and review it with bond council to make sure it's can go we're authorized to do in the way in which they're envisioning it. >> Tovo: We passed a revolution early last year, asking our staff to do what was necessary to set up this framework, and so it's my understanding that our staff have been working on setting up that framework, but without identifying the funding, we can't continue to make progress. So I can't tell you the structure of the program or any of that, but I would hope that by now, our staff could do that, because we directed them to do so. >> Kitchen: I would also -- my question would also be -- it's not a bond, so I'm not sure how it relates to a bond program and why we would have to get approval of it. >> Well, it depends on how it's structured because if it's considered to be public financing under the broad definition of public finance in the -- in state law, then it may be something that is considered to be the type of financing for which the attorney general needs to approve it, and without [3:20:36 PM] seeing the structure, I can't get that review done. >> Kitchen: Okay. Well, I would just echo the mayor pro tem's concerns, I mean, this is something that we passed as a council quite a while back, and so all those questions about how it would be financed, we should know the response to now. And it's not -- it's not -- we're not financing, we're simply saying that -- we're simply saying that the private sector is putting dollars in. If they show results, then we're simply saying that we're going to be a partner and pay for part of it. We're not paying them back. We're paying for part of it. So it's -- but we're -- our payment is contingent upon results. So it's like entering into -- well, I don't want to use the word partnership because it's in the a legal partnership, I don't mean that, it's more like -- it's more like, you know, here's all the parties sitting at the table that say, well, I'll put in some money for this, I'll put in some money for this, I'll putting in some money for this, we're saying that, but we're saying ours is contingent upon showing some results. >> Mayor if I may just pipe up, I just got a text message indicating that I'm not sure who the attorney is, but somebody within city legal has been talking with some other cities about how to accomplish this. I know we did just get a memo back. So I completely understand that there is more of the framework, and that partnerships to negotiate and whatnot, but I think we have probably made more progress on this than I'm able to indicate at the moment. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Tovo: I just want to secure the funding and move forward. But I appreciate our staff who have been working on this. >> Sarah Hensley, interim city manager. You should have just received a memo that was drafted by the health department that talks about the process that they've been working through, looking at the city of Denver, and then we they were able to get information from Maine because they have not completed their [3:22:37 PM] process they are working with the city attorney's office and Travis county, and other entities, and they needed a little more time. So we said we'd have a full report become the you by February of 2018. But it does look like what we'd have to do is solicit, and part of that would be the evaluation tool as well, to find someone who would help us with the measure. So it is -- we are working on it, and they're doing their due diligence. >> Alter: May I ask a question on -- >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember alter. >> Alter: I'm just wondering if an option might be to set aside that within the reserve, but earmark it, assuming we get all of the ducks in a row, so it would be, in essence, an appropriation, but it would sit in the reserves until that point, but not count towards our 12%. So just like we were talking about reserving 1.5 million for the neighborhood centers, we could reserve 1.2 million for the pay for success, and then as we get all of those details resolved, we would have that money to put in a special fund where it could be there in five years when they succeed. >> Tovo: So if I understand what you're describing, that was precisely the question I was asking Ed, except maybe -- I guess I was identifying it within the 12%, and are you identifying it outside the 12%? >> Alter: I'm identifying it outside of the 12% because when whenthey succeed at the end of five years, we have to pay them that money and we'd be obligating future councils to pay that. I support doing it but it seems to me it shouldn't be within the 12%. >> Tovo: Okay. >> Alter: But what I was trying to suggest is that in order to have that money set aside so we can proceed with this through the course of the year as everything is resolved, we can -- we can set aside that money without having all of those legal questions. >> Tovo: Yes. >> Alter: Resolved, is what I was trying to point out. [3:24:37 PM] >> I'd just say part of the challenge -- >> Tovo: I'm in agreement. I think what I was trying to do, if we didn't need to set that aside as a direct allocation right now, that would make it slightly financially easier. But in any case, I hope we can identify it. >> The delay I've had on this is -- you know, I've not been involved in trying to figure all this out, but what I've seen is that the 1.2 million would be the city's part of a broader collaboration between the county, central health, and these -- these outside partners who would be doing this. But, you know, it's kind of hard to -- you know, we don't know when that would actually be in place. So if 1.2 million is the annual amount, we're probably not going we probably wouldn't need 1.2 million next year. You mentioned, councilmember alter, that at the end of the five years, I don't know that it would work that way. There may be quarterly payments based upon success, or annual payments. I've not seen anything that would give me that information to really be able to advise you, here's how we should set it up in this budge. I know acting Ms. Hensley just said public staff have been working on it. I know there's been financial people as part of that team. What I've been getting back, what I've seen, isn't detailed enough for me to say this is how we should do it. >> Tovo: Okay. Thanks. I guess at this point, since it seems like we may not be able to resolve that particular question before budget adoption, I'll just request that it -- I'll just continue to advocate for it as a direct allocation. >> And setting aside the money in the reserve instead of having just exactly 12%, have 12% plus 1.2 million, or maybe 12% blues 600,000, because realistically, I can't see how this would get off the ground super, super fast there. Has to be negotiation, some kind of contractual agreement about how all this would work. But, you know, you could set that money aside so that it's there, if we -- you know, for when we do get it worked out. It's kind of like it would just be a bit of a guess at this point in time. [3:26:37 PM] >> Tovo: Right. I'll have to think about the -- halving it, because I think part of our putting the money forward is, that's our commitment, and it enables the other partners to come into it. So I'm not sure -- I understand the reasons why that would be suggested, but I have to think whether that would accomplish our aims of really getting the commitment from other partners. In any case, there's that one. And then there are the several -- then there's the package of services that councilmember kitchen referred to, related to individuals experiencing homelessness. These are E 7, E 8, E 9, and e.1 1, I've removed 1, and these range from temporary shelter to increasing our capacity for rapid housing. We do have money in our budget for rapid rehousing, but this would increase those funds significantly. I think it would serve an additional 180 families, as councilmember kitchen mentioned. There's a significant cost to providing services and resources to individuals experiencing homelessness, and the faster we can get people rehoused, really, the better for them, for all kinds of reasons, and it, I think, makes economic good sense. Home repair, E 13, navigators, councilmember kitchen's item, at E 16, child care, E 19, I apologize, I've forgotten who brought that up. I think it was maybe councilmember alter and some others. Immigrant legal services, which combined E 28 and E 47, in the amount of 250, I think the ranges have been 200,000 to a million. Capital idea, 230,000, E 20. As we've talked about, I'm proposing that we allocate $300,000 to the quality of life mini grants, to outside organizations, as -- and some of those organizations that have been identified, but I would [3:28:38 PM] suggest we do it through an rfp or a very -- you know, a very low barrier grant program. And that kind of captures the essence of -- well, it doesn't, really, because those were specificallal cases, but let me just say the city up at 25,000, sadly, E 36, I don't think we can fund the whole thing this year, sexual assault, counselor training, eviction, intervention, E 35, the Asian American resource master plan at c3, millennium youth entertainment complex upgrades, c2 1, 24, and 25, shuttle drivers at aarc at M 3, and respite services at H 4. As I said, it comes in a bit over. Over the five million. But we have a few more days. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you for that. Let me walk you through what I had done. I have the page is actually two pages that are stapled together. And I broke it into three different pieces. Let me go through the first piece. I tried to build to approximately five million dollars, and I first had a quality of life/health and human services component bucket because I think a lot of the quality of life items that people have listed are in fact health and human services contracts. So I gave that nod to them both, a million and a half. I then had quality of life proposals that were made by those groups. On the hispanic I put the pan am cultural center, the [3:30:39 PM] restore rundberg fte and the mac capacity building. I've listed all those in general fund ongoing, but it could be that the first and third of those are really one-time expenditures. As we look at the budget I'm mindful of what councilmember Houston raised and councilmember Flannigan. And it might be that we take a look at funding some things this year that we know are one-time expenditures so that they were not adding an expectation to the budget. It's kind of a halfway point between making a reserve and not making a reserve. On the Asian quality of life, the first item there was the fte for the translation. There were a couple of different items on translation, and I think we need to address that. So I think I would probably put that more broadly and just say translation. And then take a look at what the highest priority in that would be. I also have the master plan phase 2 and 3. It really is probably one of the most utilized spaces in the city, and I think that the demand and the growing population really does point that that's something that we ought to take a look at. On the African-American quality of life I put $225,000 toward the millennial -- millennium youth center. Thinking that if we gave that chunk of money the city could take a look at the three different requests that they have and figure out whether or not they could do all three in that budgeting. That's in excess of any one of individual items. On the lgbtq I have the quality of life study because I think it's important for us to initiate that. It took a lock time for some of these studies to come back. Prep is real important to me, but it seems to me that [3:32:40 PM] could be included under the quality of life health and human services bucket. I will tell you, councilmembers, that several of these items I think could be moved over to the one-time -- the millennium youth center as a one-time expenditure, the quality of life as a one-time expenditure. And I think again that might be a kind of halfway point between just a reserve and an expense. There's about a million dollars in that -- actually less than that, 300, 500, -6z hundred, about 700, $800,000. So the total quality of life health and human services is somewhere between 2 and 2 and a half million dollars, which begins to make it look kind of like what councilmember Casar did and councilmember Garza did on those elements. I also thought that it was important for us to spend money on things that could leverage either decisions that we would make or policies that we would bring that would have a long time effect in the city. I put in money for both the mapping project as well as consultant to help with the displacement task force because I think, again, as I go around the city, that seems to be the question I'm being asked more than anything else. And I would really like us at this point to come up with answers for that or things that we could try to do as a community. And right now there are widely divergent views on displacement and I think that this task force could help drive us to a commonplace as well as identify tools that we could try taking a look at what we've already done in the past, not reinventing the wheel, but looking at some some of the things suggested didn't happen so we could get value out of the earlier work that was done. I've included a line item for the diversity training that councilmember alter had, having gone through that program and that task force, I know that they're [3:34:41 PM] recruiting people all over the city at C level and organizations to go through this program. I think if we take influencers and people in our community and take them through that, that's our best chance at actually making a systemic and cultural change in the city. And I think if we as a council invested the -- councilmembers invested the time to do that, I think that would send a really strong message. I've suggested this to some leaders around the city and they look at me and they smile and they say are you going to spend two days doing that? And my answer to that is yes, and I think a lot of my colleagues are going to do that as well. And I think that becomes a really powerful statement. The managers said, as I understand from councilmember alter, that the executive team is going to put aside the time to do much of that and I think that's a really important message for us to send as well as to encourage people to do it because I think if we're actually going to do something about institutional racism and systemic inequities we actually have to make a culture change and that's one of the hardest things to do. I put in $860,000 for workforce development. I included in that budget childcare and training. And also the passages program. So trying to decide where that money would go. I know we have the regional task force plan that's been launched and I would like to see us invest in that, but that could easily be at this point with the way that that's listed, if it could be 860,000 could come down to a quarter of a million number because of the departmental indications for that element. You're looking confused. >> Tovo: Yeah. There wouldn't be any reason why it wouldn't, right? [3:36:44 PM] So 700 of the 860 was the initial figure that came down to 236 or something like that, right? Or was there something else in here? >> Mayor Adler: I haven't really unpacked that. What I was trying to do was have kind of the budget reflect what I thought the priorities are and I thought that workforce development and training should be something that we invest in so I would like really to be able to touch back with those groups and our economic development and the city manager to see if there were things we could be doing in workforce development or training. I would include in this if one of the things we could do would be the childcare assessment around the city, if that would really demonstrate a marked increase in service to the folks in the city and that's a bucket that could take that. I'm defining that budget. There were other things listed more than just that one workforce development group. I was trying to hit it at a higher level and saying that was something that was particularly important to me? >> Tovo: So you would suggest funding it at that level and if it if it gets allocated out and comes in less than we can either expand that program or pick of another thing, but this is the amount that -- >> Mayor Adler: Somewhere between the 250 and the 860. >> Tovo: Can I ask a question? You said some of these would move to one-time. >> Mayor Adler: Yes. >> Tovo: And so that would be kind of all the ones above, I think, other than the ftes. >> Mayor Adler: Other than the ftes. I just need to better understand what the capacity building is and what the cultural center sand I'm unclear as to that. But many of these I think could be that way. That's why I was trying at one level to deal with the reserve question. Yes, Ms. Houston? >> Houston: Is there any reason -- are these -- this 860 thousand, is that [3:38:45 PM] specifically for groups or organizations or could E 31 are put into that pot and then we have grants that are available other than those that you've identified such as passage, like workforce development and training. >> Mayor Adler: Workforce development, training and childcare I was creating a bucket. >> Houston: But E 31 is that on my list. I'm just wondering if that's something that could be put in there and well or they could partner with each other to make -- >> Mayor Adler: The answer is yes, yes. Trying to stay out of it, I think generally the trend -- and I agree with what the mayor pro tem said last week. I think to every degree we can try to get up to buckets and say this is the policy or the program we want to invest in, and not picking particular executions of that, I think the better off we'll be and the more effective we'll be. >> Houston: I also think that if programs who have been getting funding have tried to get funding, that may be a good synergy that's not happened before. >> Mayor Adler: I think that's a good point too. I also put in here the Houston housing tracking. That's at 125. I think the more important piece of that is the app piece and getting people in the same room to define the system. If we could actually define and execute it this year, that would get us to the 125. If we're really going to spend the year figurig out the elements of the system, then that number might not be that high, but that also is a one-time expense. I put in here the housing summit program that councilmember Renteria had put on the list. I also thought we should put money into the housing trust fund. We should try to discipline ourselves and do that every [3:40:46 PM] year to follow up on the earlier council action we had taken. I put in increasing the capacity of the equity office because I think that's important. Did you have something, Ms. Houston? >> Houston: Back to the housing summit, E 29, that means I don't have to give you any money out of my budget? [Laughter]. Because I was prepared to do that. >> Renteria: That's not me. >> Houston: Okay. I think it's a great idea, but I was prepared to give you money out of my budget. >> Renteria: I'm sure that committee would love for you giving them money. >> Mayor Adler: And I also identified that I thought that the victim services, any number we put in there is going to be woefully insufficient, but I think it's important for us to message that. That is top of mind for us as a council as we're working through figuring out what is the pathways and the most efficient ways to do that work. I put in money for the small area planning in talking to staff it looked like that could be cfp money. And the small area planning area in answer to some of the questions that you had asked earlier, mayor pro tem, is not intended to operate outside of the systems we have and it's not to displace the neighborhood planning that's going on, it's to increase the capacity. Several of the small area plans that we have done have been consultant led in the past. East Riverside, plaza saltillo, the north burnet gateway, the airport boulevard, the colony park master plan. And I think as we come out of this codenext discussion that we're on that it's going to be really important for us as a city to really focus on small area plans on the corridors where we're going to potentially spend money or to -- and/or to focus on activity centers so that we create more downtown areas than just downtown, as seems to be something that everybody wants. [3:42:46 PM] And also to focus on place-based planning in the eastern crescent in particular in order to maximize the opportunities that exist in that part of town. So this was money to increase that planning capacity. My understanding is that our staff really only has the capacity to do one or two of these at a time and to be able to increase the speed from which we can plan our city I think would be important. When you add up -- then I put an element for title 1 school support. As I was looking at the budget it was just looking really, really difficult to get to the 3-million-dollar number for the aid program. My hope is to try to figure out alternate funding streams, but I think that some of these programs are real important, but I didn't tie it to aisd schools, I tied it to title I schools, wherever they might be, which would basically be other school districts, not including eanes, but we got a letter today -- and it wouldn't necessarily be money to schools. It could be money to programs that are taking place in those schools. And Dr. Crook sent us a letter today saying, hey, if you were able to help us or help my community, here are the organizations that are in my schools that I know could use support on their mission. So I just put in a block of funds to address those kinds of school-related programs. And when I say school-related programs, it might just be that there are programs that take place in schools because that's where children and families gather. So it's just a good place to be able to catch them. That took us so somewhere between four and five million dollars and I was trying to do the exercise to say what would you do if you only had $5 million to [3:44:48 PM] spend. I then created on the back of that page something I'm calling the first budget amendment because it's anticipated, I think, that mid month in September we're going to be back talking to each other after we hear what happens in the public safety contracts and we'll be revisiting again whether there's additional money, it looks like there would be. We don't know how much. So I would anticipate that we're going to be back doing yet another little mini budget session either toward the end of September or thereafter at some point over the course of the year to look at those funds. And I made a list here of some things that would be on that list and I'm there to. The first was taking a look at community policing and the level of officers. I watched a little bit of the negotiations that are going on and it appears as if, for example, in the police, it appears to me that what they may be telegraphing is that they are willing to take less in pay in order to increase the number of officers that are available for the work to be done. We should have that conversation about increasing officers. I'd still like to see what a plan looks like in five years to do the community policing. But I come back again, manager, to the question that I think councilmember kitchen has asked, councilmember Casar has asked. In last year's budget we identified some reporting that we needed to help us understand what that investment means and community policing and the like. And I hope we get that. But this -- if we were going to address that question here that gives us a little bit more time to be able to get that, not having to decide that question next week. I put on here the ems fire [3:46:50 PM] study. I would still like us to do that. It's a recurrent question that keeps coming back to us and every time it comes back to us we look at each other and say we don't have the capacity to be able to decide this question and we kind of go around in circles. So I liked what we had talked about earlier about having an efficient expert or someone to take a look at that and help us. I also added in here the city manager's salary and benefits because I think that's something that we're going to be considering here shortly and I think we should indicate that we're prepared to pay more for that position. And then I put on here the general fund reserves. That question I think we could consider when we found out how much more money we had in the contract as well as the senior homestead exemption. I thought that might be a timely place to consider that as well. The two things that I would add to this first budget conversation would be the pay for success model because I too would like to figure out how it is that we could enable that to move forward. As well -- as that relates toes the homeless programs. So those are the kind of issues that I think we might say we address at that first budget. And then the last one, if you would indulge me, is just in case we end up doing the puzzle and we have access the additional money, there's some additional things that I hope that we're going to be -- we would be able to fund. If we did that I put the pay for success also in that section along with as many homeless initiatives as we can do. I really think that there's a leveraging impact on that. It has an impact on what's [3:48:51 PM] happening with our emergency expenses and our police, public safety time. And if we're able to find additional funding sources for homelessness beyond this I think that's great because those funding sources plus this funding source collectively together would really give us the greatest opportunity to be able to do things. I would say that one of the questions that came up last week was about whether or not we could -- as one of the alternate funding sources or additional funding sources, money that came from tif in order to be able to fund permanent supportive housing for homelessness. What we know is that you can't use non-voter approved property tax generated funds in order to be able to bond, finance economic development activities. We know that affordable housing has been indicated to be an affordable housing -- an economic development activity. But I think a lot of the permanent supportive housing that we're talking about doing here is not intended for workers that are looking for jobs that we're trying to get necessarily into jobs. There's a large cohort of the homeless population where that is true, but we also have a significant part of the mental illness population that the real metric that we're trying to solve for are the metrics in the pay for success model, which is decreasing the number of people that are in hospitals and the people that get arrested and are spending time in jail. Those are safety and health concerns. So the question that I've asked legal staff to take a look at, and my understanding is legal staff is not ready to opine yet, but I don't want to speak for legal staff. I don't think there's an answer yet. If there is, we can get it. But I've asked them to look [3:50:51 PM] at and to talk to bond counsel about whether or not we could use that money to fund housing for a population where our goal is not economic development but rather health and safety. We do know we can use tpid money for affordable housing because that's one of the identified uses for tpid money. So I've listed some things there. We don't have to go through this list now, but I just identify it as the third list. So in terms of operating the way we -- when we talk and we have a few minutes left to talk about kind of the processes that we might want to use as we come up, one way to look at it -- well, that's one way that I would propose is that we break -- if it worked for people, things we needed to focus on right now as part of this budget process as things we thought we might be able to talk about in two weeks or three weeks or thereafter on the other one. And then the last comment I would makecy really want us to come up with whatever the system or direction is that we have with respect to the quality of life funding. If we want staff to set up something like the cultural arts program where people come in, there's peer review and there are experts involved in that. But to really decide what that is so that process can be set up so that next year that process happens very differently than it has in the past. Ms. Troxclair? >> Troxclair: I just had a different topic. So if anybody is wanting to respond to anything that the mayor said -- >> Alter: I was just going to point out that I would love to hear from the councilmembers that we haven't heard from yet. >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: I just had a couple of quick things. I know at the conclusion of Thursday's meeting we talked about maybe starting to get some of the questions out there that we were wanting to get from staff with regard to the different financing models. [3:52:52 PM] So I wanted to mention super quickly that I have also asked staff -- asked our legal counsel to on provide us with information about the different ways that we could fund the mac expansion, both the expansion and programming and rather -- and what the requirements would be for each of those, if it's funded through venue taxes versus through the hot tax and to what extent it would potentially come out of the 15% cultural arts funding, if it were programming -- anyway, there are a whole range of questions that I've been asked around that I've asked about funding with regard to the mac in relationship to the questions we talked about last week. And I've also asked our legal counsel and our financial staff for more information about the tpid. It wasn't clear to me with the explanation last week about the 20% that would come through a concession and the other 20% that would get funneled through the convention center and back out and incentives or something like that. I think especially if we're going to have a conversation at the end of the month there are a whole range of questions that I have and that others have raised that I think we would need to sort out, and I don't know that we would get there by the end of the month, frontally, just based on every question seems to generate a new set of questions, at least for me. The tif is one you mentioned and I think that's one we really need to sort out. Again, since you had asked for communication on -- >> Mayor Adler: That's helpful. >> Tovo: I just want to let my colleagues know those are some of the questions that I've been pursuing in my emails to staff. >> Mayor Adler: And I'm in favor of every funding stream we can find. Councilmember troxclair. >> Tovo: But more specifically about the funding streams that have been suggested I think there are questions. These aren't suggesting new funding streams, these are asking for information about how the ones that you've proposed would work. >> Mayor Adler: Yeah. Ms. Troxclair? A question for staff. But last year I think that the council is awaiting a [3:54:54 PM] memo on the Austin crime lab. I know last year during the budget councilmember Casar passed a rider to basically ask staff to look at I believe chains that could be made or potential -- changes that could be made with the crime lab. And at least as of earlier today I hadn't seen -- and apparently it's now been like a year and we -- I went ahead and added a note, like a place holder to the concept menu in S 22, based on the results of that memo, but I know we're getting obviously close to budget adoption and it would be really helpful to know what information we have so far. For example, I know that Houston when they had some issues they decided to change their model and have a board of directors to oversee the model that we're not connected to the Houston police department and I understand that model has been really successful and I would be interested in pursuing that, but I think there might be a cost associated with it. And I want to make sure that we had the ability to earmark whatever money we might need to in this budget cycle to make structural changes to our crime lab to address the issues that we've seen. >> Are you referring to the DNA lab problems? >> Troxclair: Yes. >> Council has already approved an Ila with the university of north Texas to help us look at the materiality on the legal side. We have yet to bring forward the Ila -- the rca that would be approving the consultant to help us do the look forward, which is how we would work with Travis county and what we might do in the future with our DNA lab, whether we would have our own separate lab, we would have one that was controlled by a third-party where we had a joint board like the sobriety center. [3:56:55 PM] So that work has not been done. But we are bringing that rca forward in the next 30 days. So that is a consulting study to look at how we might structure the governance for the DNA lab. And we have been working on it for quite awhile. Part of it was on materiality side, which was the most important to get done first because that relates to who may be in jail based on our DNA evidence and testimony. We needed to get that done first and if you'll recall we had an individual identified outside the country that we were looking at doing some consulting for us. That did not come through. So in working with the Travis county, the group of folks that we've been working with, we've identified this individual from the university of north Texas that's very familiar with this process. >> Troxclair: That person is going to help us look at the different options for governance structures? >> No. It's the second contract that has not been brought to you yet. They're looking at the individual DNA cases to identify the materiality of our problems so that we can get to the public defenders the cases that need to be looked at first that may have someone who has been jailed because of DNA evidence that we tested in our lab. >> Troxclair: Okay. >> So it's a two prong. They'll look back and then look forward to see what we would do, which is what you were talking about. >> Troxclair: So help me understand. So when is the look forward happening? >> Ray can talk to it more, but we have worked on it. We're not ready to bring the rca forward, but within 30 days I believe we will be ready to bring it forward. >> Ray Arrellano, assistant city manager. And the city manager has [3:58:57 PM] accurately portrayed kind of the process at this point. Whether about 30 days we should have a contract for an rca for council to consider in terms of the look forward scope of work, which was originally contemplated to be done by one consultant. So the look back and look forward. But there were some challenges in terms of getting that done so we split it apart. The actual timeline to do the look forward is yet to be determined. We're in the process of actually negotiating that aspect of the look forward and what the capability went for analyzing DNA here locally might look like. >> Troxclair: Okay. I guess I'll follow up with questions. This is a big priority for me and I guess a lot of people on the council. So it makes me uncomfortable that we know that there's an issue. I understand that the priority is kind of doing the first prong that you talked about, but at the same time I don't think that that preclues us from moving forward on talking about or from whatever we need to do to investigate what other management structures might be more appropriate. And so it sounds like you don't need -- I don't know if you need additional direction or a budget or if there's anything that we can do in this budget cycle to set aside money for that, but my strong preference would be to the extent that we can -- that we can go ahead and proceed with second prong at the same time so that we -- to be honest, I was interested in pursuing a resolution to just say that we want to go ahead and do what Houston is doing since we know that they've been through the process and it seems like that's been successful. But I also want to be cognizant of the fact that y'all are working for it and there might be other options. I feel like it's been an ongoing -- it's been a long [4:00:57 PM] time now. So I know it's a priority for you too, but not having -- it just doesn't feel like as concrete of a timeline or as concrete of an action plan that I would really hope to have. So anything that we can do to help you get there would be appreciated. >> I would also mention a third option that we have is just outsourcing which currently that's what we're doing. We have several contracts where we send our DNA samples and we have them done. Ray meets weekly with Travis county representatives both from the judge's office and the DNA's office and the legal defenders organization. So they have been actively working on it. It is very complicated issue on the legal side. And then we did have to find someone who was qualified to do the materiality reviews. And that was the most critical first step for us to do in tandem with outsourcing our current DNA samples. Our staff are not doing that work. We've outsourced some to Texas dps and I think there are two other labs, one in Dallas and another one that I can't remember where they're at. So we've kind of -- kind of addressed in priority things that we need to address. My understanding when I looked nine months ago at what Houston it done, it took them three years to work on the organization. That is not an immediate fix. If you think about our sobriety center, we've worked a number of years on that and we're just now getting to the stage where we're advertising an executive director. So it would be a multi-agency governance and it would not happen overnight. I did not want you to think that we needed to put money in this budget to be setting up a new organization. I think it will take a lot longer than that. >> Troxclair: Am I understanding correctly that we're not even to the point [4:02:57 PM] yet where we've hired the person -- somebody that we're going to hire in order to look at the different options? >> We're bringing that back to council within the next 30 days. >> Troxclair: Okay. To the extent that there's anything else that we can do to help you in your efforts, please just let me know. >> We will external do that. And I will take it along with the rest of the team with the importance of moving forward particularly in that realm, we do believe that we're addressing the immediate priorities as well as putting in place at least as a stopgap measure the ability to process the samples and get rid of the backlog. So we'll certainly move as quickly and as timely as possible. >> Troxclair: Thanks. And I guess -- I must have missed the memo that everybody was going to come with a plan for how they were going to spend the money, but I can say that my plan would be relative easy because my priority is going to be to lower property taxes. Especially the hope -- I know the one thing that I added to the concept menu that have an impact on revenue is the south by southwest send capture. And I would -- expenditure. And I would ask the council to think. I know there are a lot of priorities and needs that you have outlined, especially within the 5-million-dollar discretionary funds that the city manager has left in the budget, but that $1.5 million would be above and beyond that. I would just say that that is money that I don't think should have been coming out of the pocket of the taxpayers this whole time and I really that I the right thing to do with at least that portion is applying it to lower the tax rate. The taxpayers have been making that payment for the public safety services for the spring festival season. And I'm glad that we were [4:04:58 PM] able to fund it through the convention center, but to the extent that there would be council support to take that $1.5 million and gives it back to the taxpayers, I would really appreciate it. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. So it would take sense to me when we gather together on Monday -- did you want to speak? >> Renteria: Yeah. I wanted to say a few things that I really wanted to thank the hispanic quality of life committee for. And I know that I just want to let them know that we did put some of the items into our recommendation. It was really a tough year this year. And we lucked out and we were unfortunate enough to have -- we were furnish enough to have some money left over in the quality of life. I know they spent hours and hours in here with requests and some of these we're not going to be able to fund this year. And next year I hope we're in a better financial situation, but it does happen when we don't have enough funding to go around to fund everything that we would really like, especially this year was one of the hardest. That's why I went to the mayor and asked him if he could at least put these items on, and I would support his budget too on having these quality of life items put in. And one of those that we've been working very hard for a whole year planning this is going to be a great opportunity for us to show the nation we're behind housing, especially affordable housing, by having this summit. We're going to highlight what our past presidents [4:07:00 PM] have done to support affordable housing, especially lbj with his projects here that he has with Robert reefer. 10 houses that were bought in east Austin where he experimented with five African-American families and white and black and mexican-american families could live together. And each house had a black brown, black brown. And there were 10 houses and I challenged these corporations to build affordable units and he went out and got companies like lockheed, which you wouldn't believe, but they built a house that they're going -- the camper company that built insulation, they built a house there. There were other different corporations that participated. There was 10 of them. And we wanted to highlight that and tell the nation that we can do these kind of things. We can come back together. And there are still two original families that live there. Three really that live there still. And this has been -- next year will be the 50th anniversary. It's something that we really want to highlight in Austin that all the work that we have done for affordable housing and to house our low income population, and why we need to. And we're going to have some great speakers there. So it's going to be a great opportunity. And to send a message to Washington that we want them to keep our hud money and to not cut it. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. Councilmember Garza. >> Garza: I just wanted to respond to -- I know that there's a lot of competing interests. I totally understand that. But this putting the public health and human services in [4:09:00 PM] the same bucket as quality of life is a direction that we seemed to go in last year as well. And I want to be very clear that the funding for public health and the initiatives that the resolution -- past council passed several times, this council and last time, was simply for capacity building for our current public health contracts. So if -- I just don't like us adding that into the same bucket. Best case scenario that would have sent a policy message to have this included, to have any increases included in the city manager's budget, but we're at the same place we were for years, which has been public health does not get the increases that it deserves. So here we are trying again to squeeze it into what limited funds that we have. And main of these equity issues when we talk about equity and services, those are things that are helped through our public health contracts. So there's a lot of new initiatives that are being discussed, many of them have not been vetted. And so I hope that we're going to use the limited dollars that we have on programs that have been vetted and have been -- have had wide support from this council and past councils: >> Mayor Adler: Real quickly because I think I was the one that put them in the same bucket. It seems what I intended by that is that was health and human services spending and I thought that a lot of that spending was aimed at equity issues. So that's the indication I was trying to make. There were several things on the quality of life that spoke directly to health and human services and I didn't want us to -- I wasn't recommending that we tie into any specific program on those, but that we fund the health and human services and that we ask health and [4:11:01 PM] human services to be able to spend that money with a very deliberate equity eye. I'm concerned that when we did that a year ago we didn't have the control in place to be able to ensure that the money that was spent was actually spent in an equity direction. And I think as part of the budget this year we should include a budget direction that specifically says we would like to see in six months how this money is being spent. So it was intended to be health and human services with a focus on equity issues. That's what I meant by that. Yes, mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: I want to jump back to the summit, the housing summit just for a minute. Councilmember, as I understand the summit, and I don't think I have enough information about it, but it's people coming from all over the country for the summit, right? >> Renteria: Yes. That's our goal, but also it's going to be the people that are coming in for the regional training on top of that that they have every two years. And so there is a good possibility that we might not need all that whole 75,000, but we would like to make sure it's there and if we don't use it in April next year -- which we probably will end up using it, but it's -- there's a committee that's been meeting and it's identified the need and the -- the need for that funding. >> Tovo: I guess I would just raise this to our city attorney, if it is a conference that is bringing in people from all over the country, I wonder if it is eligible. I know that number 60 that we passed last week talked about historic preservation, but if this is a conference that is drawing people from [4:13:01 PM] all over perhaps it's eligible for hot tax funding and it will put people in beds. I remember last year both visit Austin and the convention center had quite a few expenditures that were connected with pma. Am I remembering the name? I'm sorry to all listening, I cannot remember what it stands for. All I remember is pma. We had quite a few expenditures related to that convention and this may be a similar -- >> Renteria: Some of this funding is also for the local non-profit people that will not be able to pay these kind of fees. We're going to offer it. Hopefully we can offer them scholarships to attend our summit. >> Tovo: So maybe not that part. >> I would just recommend that the councilmember visit with the folks at the convention center to see what assistance they might be able to provide. >> Renteria: They're on our committee also. We've been meeting with university of Texas and with the convention center people, they're going to provide bus services for our attendees. So -- but they still came back and identified that need. It's going to run up to about $200,000 for the summit. And they were asking for a contribution of 75,000. >> Tovo: What's our plan for addressing which general fund -- which things are in the current budget and which things are on the concept menu like Umlauf and others may be eligible for hotel- motel tax? >> I would say that at the direction of the city manager we're working together with staff to report back prior to Monday regarding the response on item 60. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Kitchen? >> Kitchen: I just wanted to suggest that we all [4:15:01 PM] understand what the approach and order of business will be on Monday. And I had a suggestion just for conversation purposes. My thought is that there's a couple of items that we may have questions about and may not be ready to act on. Or maybe there's just one. And that's the hot tax. I would like for -- my thinking is that we need to have a conversation on Monday about the hot tax, so that would be one thing. And then I think that there are some things that we could probably dispose of with votes pretty quickly and those might be the items that don't require funds. And for example, councilmember alter had identified some items that were reallocation. There may be some other items that are those kinds of items that we might be able to dispose of and vote on and what we could do is go through them and if we're all in agreement on certain of them we could vote on them and dispose of those. And if we weren't in agreement then we could put them out in the list to consider later. So that might be a possibility too. I think it also might be good if we go through the revenue items and make some decisions about which ones we're comfortable with because then that will help us understand the dollars we have to work with. So that might be an item also. And then, mayor, I think that breaking up sort of what we can do now versus what we can do for a later budget amendment, that makes good sense to me. I don't know if that's -- that one might be a little harder and take more time to talk about so I'm not sure if that's one that we'll be able to just agree on, but it might be worth having that conversation to think about it. And then finally, doing [4:17:04 PM] our -- I think as part of that we could at least perhaps agree on what we might want to tackle with regard to public safety as part of the budget amendment. So even if we weren't all in agreement on the other kinds of items that we might want to address later. And then finally, point I'm leading up to is I think we should get to our votes on spending items or budget items last. So the order in which I would suggest is three things in no particular order. Go through the revenue items, go through the items that are allocations and don't require additional funds. Have the conversation about -- with the information coming back to us about hot texarkana so we do that. Then we see if we can talk about what could be done as an amendment later, public safety or other things as an amendment later. And then we get finally to the spending. Now, if we do all that, that might mean that we're on the spending items on Tuesday, but it would at least give us a chance to sort of go through the things that are the easy ones that we can all agree on. Do the assessment of what we really have to work with in terms of what we're all willing to agree on. And then get some information that we all need in terms of the hot tax. It's just a thought. >> Mayor Adler: I think it's a good thought. I had a list that looked very much like that. I think you had maybe one or two elements that I did not have, that I have no problem with doing as well. I think we get to the spending items last. I think starting with the hot tax is a really good thing to start with. I think talking about the revenue items early would be a really important thing for us to do as well. I think that when we get into those conversations, maybe we have a conversation about the now budget versus the end of September budget because if people are inclined to look at the world that way, that might [4:19:05 PM] narrow the issues for us. So let me think about the exact order, but generally I would-- that sounds real good to me. I think we should get to the spending items last as well. >> Kitchen: Okay. How do you feel about -- I had mentioned the items -- I forget the terms. They're like the terms that councilmember alter had laid out, the items that don't require funding. >> Mayor Adler: That was one that I didn't have, but that makes sense to me too, as long as -- the danger in that -- I need to look at the list and it's the a for B component of that that I need to think through. But if they're related things and they make sense to do and there's a consensus around them and we can just knock them out, that's great. If either a or B consists of something that we need to debate or discuss as a spending item then we can just put that down to the spending item section, but with that then I think, yeah, that makes perfect sense. >> Kitchen: I think that makes sense. It will be a range of gray. Some of the things we'll fine with. Some of them we might need more time. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Yes? >> Alter: I wanted to reiterate my request on a public safety briefing on Monday or Tuesday. We are not going to be in a position to make full decisions of unless we have a sense of those. Not a public leaving, but a safety discussion briefing to see where those are at. Those decisions we're going to make a public safety are going to have a big impact on whether we have a budget amendment to look at later on and what our budgets look like in the future. I would ask that -- >> Mayor Adler: When we talked about that on Tuesday -- >> Alter: I understand that. I wanted to reiterate that I think we might have to notice that in some way and so I wanted to just make sure that that didn't get lost in the shuffle that everyone's trying to juggle. >> So my sense was -- I [4:21:06 PM] think we can go into executive session for legal items related to anything that's related to the budget items. So when I was sitting next to Ann we said we gave her notice be prepared that we're going to want to go to executive session so that remains my expectation as well. >> Alter: Okay, I appreciate that. Ms. Kitchen -- mayor pro tem first. >> Tovo: I want to concur. I don't think we've done kind of the revenue items first, but I think it makes excellent sense. I think we actually had a discussion about doing it last year and we didn't, but I think that makes good sense and because it could and I hope will be a revenue item I think it makes very good sense to start with the hot briefing and with particular consideration too for some of the specific concept elements that we've suggested and have asked whether or not they would be eligible for funding because then we know we don't need to make space for them within the general fund. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Kitchen and then Ms. Alter. >> Kitchen: I wassed to talk about the budget concept, and I wanted to plan on doing that again. Just as a reminder, last year what we did with the budget rider concept is there are some things that we passed that we had direction in. And I don't remember how many of them that we had, but I really felt like that was helpful because it sort of established what our intention was in passing certain things like we did that with the community policing and stuff. So I just wanted to -- I assume that we're still doing that. I assume that everybody is okay with that. And. >> I think it's great practice to do. Remember to keep those thoughts really high and at a policy level and not at an execution level. Councilmember Garza, then to councilmember alter. >> Garza: I just meant to get in line. >> Alter: Thank you. I wanted to suggest that if we're going to do that stuff that we may get the presentation and have a little bit of time to absorb [4:23:08 PM] the presentation and then do some of that easy stuff so that -- and we have three days to do this. I think it's important that we were have information from the briefing but maybe we can get some of the items that are on the agenda -- and get some easy stuff out of the way and then come back for more discussion on the hot tax and then our staff will have an opportunity to digest it and we don't have to think about every little thing up on the dais with respect to that. I'm not saying to push it off until Wednesday, but I do think that we have a lot to do next week. I very much want to have the hot conversation, but I'm just wondering if we could perhaps think about splitting it up that way so that we get through more of our agenda. >> Mayor Adler: How is that looking? >> We're still working on it. We intend to get a written memo to council and we will have a briefing as well on Monday. But we will get the information to you over the weekend. We're not clear yet when it's going to be complete. We had a meeting this morning and sent them back with more questions that I need answered. >> Mayor Adler: And I don't know whether it's going to be appropriate given whatever the report is or whatever the will of the council is, but last year we had an idea of potentially taking two million dollars out of that fund and we took that conversation and said let's hold the final part of that conversation when that budget came to us, which would be in two or three weeks. I don't know if that's going to be appropriate to do given the conversations we have, but one option for us would be to take dollars and then just say we're not -- we're not designating these. We're not allocating these. And we're holding that pending the later conversation. I just throw that out. Don't know that that would be an appropriate thing to [4:25:09 PM] do because I don't know what the issues are going to be. Anyone want to say anything else before we break? Yes, councilmember Garza. >> Garza: I was just going to suggest if possible, I know that -- I just don't know exactly how we're going to start putting forward our concept items. So maybe if staff could create like a Venn diagram that shows like these things were in common, these things were a big proportion of different council -- because I think there's a lot of common things throughout the different suggestions. So maybe staff could help guide us in that direction of what was common and what was not. And I know it would be difficult as well, but if it's possible for staff to provide some options if we are beyond our five million allotment, if, you know, there's some kind of one-time funding or something that could allow us to go beyond what's allocated. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember Casar? >> Casar: I like the Venn diagram idea. I think that's what we were trying to figure out just now ourselves a little bit. I would be for that if we could have some -- we can't vote on things, but if we could have some informal agreement as to how much to send in because obviously I'm going to pick on the mayor pro tem because she was picking on herself a lot -- >> Tovo: I've already reduced it, just to be clear. [Laughter]. I had already made some budget reductions on my sheet. >> Casar: Right. Clearly if you send in 11 or $12 million then you're getting more -- your Venn diagram is bigger. >> Tovo: Maybe I will! [Laughter]. >> Casar: So if that is something that we could send out for the staff to figure out this is generally the starting place where a lot of people seem to have agreement, I would want us to send in similar size circles. >> Mayor Adler: That would be good. [4:27:10 PM] >> Garza: I wasn't suggesting that we send anything more to staff. What we've presented and what the conversations have been based on, if they could give a non-biased Venn diagram. >> Casar: I agree, we could turn this in, the difference is if we turn in versus you turn in five million -- >> Mayor Adler: Let's pause here for one second. Mayor pro tem, did you say you went through your list and were able to identify some that were priorities? >> Tovo: Yes, but I think it would be -- how about if I work on that a little bit and update the staff. >> Mayor Adler: And if you could post it or something so we could all see it. >> Tovo: Let me say I'm not the only one over the five-million-dollar budget. But yeah, I will work on refining them. I need to have a couple of conversations in the meantime so I'm reluctant to kind of list them out here publicly. >> Mayor Adler: If you could post that so we could have the weekend to work on it. Ms. Kitchen? >> Kitchen: Can I say -- I'm not sure what we mean by a Venn diagram and I'm not sure it's going to be helpful and I'm concerned about it. Some of us -- I didn't realize that we were coming with priorities and that's just my problem, not anybody else's. But I -- I don't know that -- I'm concerned about a Venn diagram. I'm concerned that that -- what that looks like. I'm not sure that -- I don't want that to become the construct within which we must work because I think it is limiting. First off, as I said before, I don't think that we should-- I think it's our responsibility to look at the entire budget and not just the five million. And I'm concerned that I want spoke spend more time doing that and I don't think the Venn diagram is going to be that helpful. >> Mayor Adler: What we said was when we kind of [4:29:11 PM] laid this out eight weeks ago or six weeks ago is that we would invite people to come to Monday's meeting with what they thought the consensus items were. >> Kitchen: Yeah. >> Mayor Adler: In the past budget years, the last two that we had, I did that, I came with what I thought were the consensus items. I know I didn't get it exactly right, but the attempt was to try to save us time. I would anticipate going through and making my own list of what I think those things are. What we said when we did this eight weeks ago, it's not necessarily that I'm the only one that does that. So if other people with come with what they thought those consensus items were that would be help. I plan to do it myself. If other people want to do and if staff want to weigh in, that would be fine to, but I plan to do something like that. >> Kitchen: Here's what I'm trying to get to. I think it's very of helpful and I would invite everybody to come with the kinds of things that several people did this time in terms of what's the budget and we talk back and forth about that. I think that's our role, not the staff's role with all due respect. I think at this point in time we have to talk about what our priorities are. And I think there's a fair amount of flexibility in them -- there's both flexibility and detail that I just don't think that we'll capture unless we sit down and go okay, we've had this conversation today, we've heard from each other. What would we do? So I just think that that's a better approach. That's just me, but I don't want to be constrained and think that I have to work within a diagram like that. >> Mayor Adler: Everybody is welcome to come with their feel initially as to where they think the consensus elements are. Ms. Houston, did you have something else? >> Houston: I'll be meeting with some of my folks and hopefully this weekend I'll be able to come [4:31:12 PM] back with a reduced amount, but I don't know where that would be. Because I just need to say that every year we get to this point with the quality life commissions and I know you've said some of that before, just like we get to health and human services. There are people who have the skills and the abilities to provide services to their community and we never give them the opportunity because we already give funding to others in the community. And we've got to be able to break that cycle. And if not now, when? >> Mayor Adler: I hear that. Ms. Kitchen, did you have something else? >> Kitchen: I'm sorry. We haven't talked about cip at all really. So I'd ask staff to look at items that are eligible for cip and I think we should all take a look at that too. >> Garza: I meant to say earlier, sorry, because we weren't able to get Mr. Good or whoever was going to come speak about the Austin -- my question, but I know we're about to adjourn. I was hoping if maybe on Monday we could address for those of us who are going to be looking for more opportunities where we can make cuts in the budget, if Monday we'd just agree that we're maybe just going to listen to hot and talk about cuts and agree that we're not going to be making any budget amendments on Monday because I think we're for sure going Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. It seems like that's the direction we're heading in. But reserve a good portion of Monday for those of us who still have questions about what's in the budget, I would appreciate it. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. We can do that to. Okay. It is 4:33. We're going to adjourn this meeting. Everyone have a great weekend. Check the bull lien board. Thank you, we're adjourned.