Audit and Finance Committee (AFC) meeting Transcript – 9/27/2023 Title: ATXN-1 (24hr) Channel: 1 - ATXN-1 Recorded On: 9/27/2023 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 9/27/2023 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== Please note that the following transcript is for reference purposes and does not constitute the official record of actions taken during the meeting. For the official record of actions of the meeting, please refer to the Approved Minutes. [9:31:58 AM] >> I'm Alison alter. I'm chair of the audit and finance committee. It's 931. On September 26, we're in chambers and we are going to begin our meeting. We have a full Dyess of the committee with vice chair pool council member Ryan alter, council member Kelly and council member Fuentes. Good morning, everyone. We have three speakers that signed up in advance of the 9 A.M. And then we have three speakers that came. At 905, which is technically after the time because we don't often have a lot of speakers and audit and finance. I'm going to let those three speakers speak as well. But just so you know, technically you're supposed to have signed up by nine. We're going to go ahead and let you speak today. We are going to start with our virtual speakers. Mr. Robbins, you're on the list. But we're going to do virtual speakers before we do in person . So if you're ready for the [9:33:00 AM] . So if you're ready for the virtual speakers, we have of Beverly Luna. Beverly, can you unmute on your end and you have three minutes. >> Okay. Can you hear me now? >> Yes, we can go ahead. >> Okay. Hi my name is Beverly Luna. I'm with Austin. Lost and found pets. I find both the audit and the evaluation disturbing because neither one addresses two primary issues. Number one is that that historically the shelter has been able to handle and still maintaining no kill a volume that is 40 to 50% higher. So [9:34:01 AM] that is 40 to 50% higher. So each year don bland has been in charge of the shelter intake has been down 40 to 50, pushing the burden on people in the public like me and members of my group to find places for these animals that have no place to go because the shelter turns them away. For example, a woman from Sacramento was in town this weekend. She picked up a dog at bull creek and looked all over for the owner had gone knocking on doors . Nothing goes to the Austin animal center and is apparently told to go take the dog back to bull creek. She she won't do that. So she tells me that she is going to cancel her airplane reservation and drive the dog all the way to Sacramento, California. Who wants to visit a city with street dogs all over the place? We are finding dogs starving to death. We are finding loose dogs running in packs. He's leaving. 4400 additional dogs on the streets [9:35:04 AM] additional dogs on the streets each year and in additional 3000 cats on the streets each year. And neither report addresses this. And the independent evaluator wonders. Why he has why there's such a negative view from the public. It's because we're getting dumped with response ability for these animals that this man is not taking in. And neither report addresses this. Neither report addresses this. You know, the evaluator says, oh, he did the right thing by shutting down intake. What about the thousands of animals left on the streets to suffer and die? And the burden pushed on the public while the budget of the Austin animal center continues to increase? Yes, it was built to small, but other shelters. Directors managed to handle it. Mr. Valenti's in Georgetown has a $3.4 million budget. She has managed to never close intake. She took in 99 dogs just in a single day. This week, and she managed to handle it and get them adopted. He's not moving [9:36:05 AM] them adopted. He's not moving animals. He's not doing anything substantial to get them adopted. He's not doing any training for the behavior dogs. He's not doing any formal training. I think that both these reports are just really insulting to the members of the public. No one ever called me. No one ever called the members of the animal advisory commission who voted that, you know, that this vote of no confidence, no one ever called and talked to them. So who is he listening to? He's listening to, I assume, Stephanie hayden-howard. I'm assuming he's listening to don bland. He's listening to some volunteers, some staff members. He's not listening to the people who are bearing the brunt of the burden that has been placed upon them by this man doing 60% of his job, yet drawing a full salary for it. I think the both of the reports are really outrageous, at least the auditor told me they were limiting. The report to the buzzer went off. The animals are treated once. >> If you could please wrap up, you have your time is up. Wrap [9:37:06 AM] you have your time is up. Wrap your sentence, please. Okay. Thank you. Our next virtual speaker is Eileen Mcfall. >> Eileen, can you please unmute on your end. Good morning. >> My name is Eileen Mcfall and my experience with Austin animal center goes back to 2016. I've been a volunteer and then the founder of a rescue that saves dogs in danger of being killed by ac. I also have experience with both conventional and no-kill sheltering dating back to 2009, and I was the initial developer of the shelter management certificate program at university of the pacific. So that's the background for my comments. On the audit of animal services is the consultant's [9:38:07 AM] services is the consultant's observation about the disarray and neglect of facilities policy and procedures all match my experience and I share his conclusion that these are the fault of don bland and his management team. However, I think the report comes to an illogical conclusion and its claim that no kill sheltering is to blame. Just as don bland and his top management team have created a mess of the shelter, facilities and policies and procedures. So too have they undermined no kill sheltering, but just as we need to correct the physical state of the shelter and the chaotic state of the department, so too do we need to correct? No kill, not abandon it. The audit of animal services contains a fatal flaw. The audit department ignored city council's resolution and direction to conduct an audit leading to a successful, sustainable no kill shelter. Instead, they narrowed the scope and hired a conventional consultant who does not understand or believe in the no [9:39:07 AM] understand or believe in the no kill policy direction that has been adopted and repeated, reaffirmed by city council. The audit report ignores the decade of progress from two 2010 to 2019 gives the false impression that intake is up and ignores the thousands of animals left on the streets under don bland's management team, who have been refusing to run ac as a no kill shelter since 2019. The audit department's noncompliance with the council resolution follows former city manager Spencer cronk defiance of council policy in appointing don bland as chief animal services officer. And it is concurrent with assisting city manager hayden-howard and interim city manager Jesus Garza disregard for council's role in setting policy as they continue to employ, protect and allow don bland and his team to defy council's no kill policy. The audit department and animal services cannot be the only two departments that are disregarding city council policy [9:40:08 AM] disregarding city council policy and direction in Austin. City council you have a problem and the unnecessary controversy over no kill is one skirmish in a much larger battle. I hope you will reassert your authority and hold the city manager and animal services office accountable for implementing council's no kill policy goal. Thank you. >> Thank you. I think those are all of our virtual speakers, is Mr. Robbins, you have three minutes. Good morning. >> Council. I'm Paul Robbins. I may be the most watchful consumer advocate in Austin on natural gas utilities in large part because the city staff in charge of regulating them is not doing it well. So I am asking you to take up long standing problems with the company at an audit committee meeting in the near future to address long standing problems. Let me name [9:41:10 AM] standing problems. Let me name some of the most important slide. First, beginning October first, our natural gas utility bills will rise about 8, about $51 a year because because of the outrageous fuel costs paid during winter storm uri. We will be paying this cost for as long as 16 years as part of an arrangement to mortgage the piracy that took place in three days. Texas gas service was not directly involved with the piracy. However the company did not secure enough reasonably priced fuel for the freeze, nor , to my knowledge, have they filed lawsuits against pipeline firms and traders who are responsible. Second slide Texas gas service franchise. Their license to operate ends in 2026 and negotiations should have already started issues such as [9:42:12 AM] already started issues such as huge rate increases, questionable energy conservation programs, lack of renewable energy and lack of assistance to the poor have been festering for years. This franchise is the best chance we have for a generation in obtaining the long overdue reforms. Third slide Texas gas service is operating ratepayer funded energy conservation conservation programs that are no more than glorified marketing. In one case, the gas company will give rebates to buy glass gas, gas, clothes dryers with a 248 year payback. I recently conducted a survey of gas utility programs around the country. I found that Austin's rebates for certain programs were double and triple the national average. Next slide. And finally, it has come [9:43:12 AM] slide. And finally, it has come to my attention that conservation funding, which is written in the current franchise as a purview of city council, has now been shifted to state oversight. Wright the franchise is city policy. I question why the city staff did not defend this at the legislature and why Texas gas service did not defend it at the legislature. Archer after all, the company signed a binding agreement. Austin needs to ask the railroad commission to exempt us from this council. All. Please post this so that the city can begin to devise policy to rein in these abuses. >> Thank you, Mr. Robbins. Courtney Rosenthal, you. Next up . >> Thank you, chair, for allowing me to speak. And good [9:44:13 AM] allowing me to speak. And good morning, members. My name is Courtney Rosenthal. My pronouns are she her hers. I am speaking on behalf of open Austin. We are a local nonprofit that addresses civic and social challenges through creative uses of technology. I'm the project lead for our open data initiative. For over a decade, open, Austin has worked closely with the city on a number of issues, including the city's open data effort. Back in 2011, the city council adopted an open data resolution , Ann, that called for the establish of an open data portal . It was a bold new idea that government would aggregate and publish its data directly to the public. Mok open Austin worked closely with staff to encourage city departments to embrace this initiative and publish their data as much as they can on on the portal. In July of this year, the city completed an [9:45:14 AM] year, the city completed an audit of the open data portal. It counted over 4600 published assets, nearly a thousand more than any other city surveyed. Thanks to the work of many city departments. The original open data vision has been realized on . Fortunately, the audit identified some concerns with the data being published. Although we are publishing a large quantity of data, not all may be of value to the public. Also, the audit identified issues relating to the quality of data such as data missing data, dirty published data, not matching internal data, formatting and presentation issues. The audit also found that Austin does not have a designated executive, such as a chief data officer responsible for the content in the data portal open. Austin supports two key actions to address these concerns. First, we support an [9:46:16 AM] concerns. First, we support an update of the city's 2013 open data policy to include objectives for the value and quality of data assets. Also, we support the appointment of a chief data officer to oversee this work. Austin has successfully developed a leading open data portal. It is a significant resource to the community. Now let us take the next step to deliver increased transparency and value to the public. Thank you. Thank you very much. >> Our next speaker will be Malcolm Yates. >> My name is Malcolm Yates. I'm a professional electrical engineer. Texas license. Number 85158. I worked for the city of [9:47:16 AM] 85158. I worked for the city of Austin for 20 years in the communications and technology management department. I'm retired now. I've been a resident of Austin for 38 years. I'm here to speak on item number four, the Austin electric utility audit. When I saw the instructions for the electric Austin electric utility audit given by city council to the city auditor, I knew that the root cause of the power outage would be ignored. It was obvious that the outage was caused by inadequate vegetation management. The real question is why we could not conduct the required level of tree trimming the Texas public utility commission has standard for vegetation management for electric utilities. The professional engineers that [9:48:18 AM] professional engineers that operate I are legally required to conform to these standards. What prevented the engineers from providing an adequate schedule for tree trimming? The audit report says that in 2006, city council directed me to ignore industry standards for vegetation management. Why did city council tell me to defer critical maintenance here is a clue. The bond rating for Austin electric utility has been downgraded by a major credit rating agency. City council is sucking so much money out of the electric utility that credit agencies are beginning to be concerned to maintain solvency. Austin electric has deferred maintenance on critical structure. The reason city [9:49:19 AM] structure. The reason city council is transferring so much money out of I is to cover decades of fiscal mismanagement by council knell council may be able to fool the citizens of Austin, but they cannot fool the accountants of the national credit rating agencies. These agencies have downgraded the city of Austin credit rating. The solution to the problem of inadequate tree trimming is to stop transferring so much money out of I and to allow the engineers to do their job replacing the money transferred from I to the general fund is going to require council to stop giving tax breaks to develop tirz and companies. Please act on these recommendations. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Yates. Our next speaker is Neil. Hey. And good morning. [9:50:25 AM] good morning. >> My name is Neil. Hey. I'm a resident of the city of Austin, a passionate advocate for the welfare of animals in the city and beyond, and to ensure that any conflict or bias might be recognized. I'm the senior director of operations at Austin pets alive. Despite that, I want to stress that this is my opinion and not that of Apa. I also want to acknowledge that I'm about to assign opinions to the writers of the audit report that they may not hold, but I believe they're reasonable interpretations of what was stated in the report. The conclusions drawn in the city audit of the animal service operations are desperately disappointing to read. While there are elements that recognize and support the need for more productive relations with all rescue partners and the need for high quality data, among them, the opening statement in the report is presented as simple and uncontroversial and yet is simply not true to meet the council mandated live release goal, the city has compromised parts of the Austin animal center's mission. The parts of the mission, which have been compromised are the result of [9:51:26 AM] compromised are the result of intentional choices the writers of the report appear to believe that the conclusions present a choice the city can mandate a live release rate. The city can mandate conditions of care. The city can mandate the animal services mission. But apparently it should not ask for these together, the city's choices do not present a dilemma. We should strive to have the highest possible live release rate. We should strive to provide all animals in our care with a high quality life experience. And we should strive to provide the citizens of our city with the animal services they need and deserve. These are not mutually exclusive of if choice is made at the center, make these appear that way. Then we should focus on examining the choices that the center has made. And if management at the center believes they do not have the resources, they require to meet all aspects of the city's needs, we should focus on the presumed request for additional support. I genuinely and perhaps naively believe that this wonderful city [9:52:27 AM] believe that this wonderful city had moved beyond the idea that killing animals for no reason other than space was worthwhile of debate. It appears from the report and the comments of citizens that the report relies on that if we dress up that comment to say we are killing them to be humane, then we're somehow having a better debate. If we want to argue that the animals in our care deserve better treatment, I'm here to listen and to support it. But I cannot idly accept the statement that killing an animal because it's difficult to meet the city's mandate is in any way humane. Thank you for recognizing the concerns of the community that led to this report being committed and having taken that step, I would ask you to fully consider whether the evidence supports the conclusions or whether other alternatives should be available to you as you consider the next steps required. Thank you. >> Thank you. Our last speaker will be pat Valdez. >> Thank you. Council member and [9:53:33 AM] >> Thank you. Council member and all council members for the opportunity to speak. My name is pat Valdez. Yes, I am a longtime Austin resident, longtime animal advocate, and I am here in support of the seven Ann recommendations made by the city auditor. I thought all seven of them were a good recommendations, but but my issue with them is they don't go far enough. But I do think there's some good information there. Recommendation one says the city manager should balance no-kill goals, communication needs and I'm sorry, community intake needs and humane treatment of animals. Unlike the prior speakers, I do believe this is the crux of the problem. You have set up an animal shelter that should be open intake. It should not be killing animals and it should be providing adequate standards of care. But you haven't said up performance measures for all of [9:54:35 AM] performance measures for all of those and you haven't adequately funded all of those. So. Right now, when an animal shelter director is hired, whether it be dumb, bland, whether it be Abigail Smith, Tony Hammond, anybody that has come before us and anybody that will come in the future, they're being told one thing and one thing is the be all and end all. And that is a 95% live outcome rate. You should establish adequate performance measures and monitor them to make sure that the animals that are in the shelter are getting adequate care and right now, you don't have that. I'm now going to move over to the console report, the consultant's report also doesn't go far enough. Highlights. Very good and points out good problem and points out issues that should be pointed out. I'm sorry I didn't say that. Right. Points out the issues that should be pointed out, but then doesn't address the underfunding of animal care at one point. It does touch on if every animal care worker was going to do [9:55:36 AM] care worker was going to do their job they're supposed to do, they would need ten hours a day. But then it doesn't calculate how much would it cost to fund the hours that are needed to do adequate animal care. And that's what I think this report is missing. So I think the most important thing you need to do is adequately fund open intake, adequately fund animal care, and you are used Singh the 95% live outcome rate is the only measure right now and that's not right. Thank you. Thank you, miss Valdez. >> Okay. So that I believe, is all our speakers. We have one additional person would like to speak about our director of. You guys. >> Okay with that? Okay >> For future reference, if you are in after the 930, we are not going to be allowing you to speak. [9:56:37 AM] speak. >> I apologize. Something said 10:00 and I made three phone calls this morning to try to find out. Thank you for accepting my message. My name is Diana proctor, a member of the current parks board asked me to research the data from the zilker park vision plan called survey number six, separate. A previous parks board member explained to me the biased reporting in 2021 of a survey regarding beer and wine at the zilker cafe. I assert that in both cases pard has intentionally mismanaged the survey process and misreported survey results. I have requested an audit to be performed by the city auditor's office of the vision plan. Survey number six. I've been advised by a council member that this committee would be a logical way to have my audit request placed into the queue of projects for 2024. My survey number six report details poor, open ended questions that generated lengthy text answers which were nearly impossible to analyze. A poor. Attempt at analysis of those text based [9:57:38 AM] analysis of those text based survey answers and refusing to report the highly negative results of the survey in the final draft of the zilker park vision plan. After my report was printed and delivered to your office and the city auditor, I discovered one more thing 1173 participants of the survey only answered demographic questions. No question related to the zilker park vision plan was answered. I assert that for this reason and several others, the data of survey number six was corrupted by pades mismatch judgment of the design execution analysis and reporting of results. You of a small. I will make sure you have a small packet of supporting materials in your mailbox. As Sarah Foust , a previous member of the parks board, has eloquently explained why an official audit of the surveys is needed in her recent email to council member Ryan alter. You I will make sure you have a printed copy of that email. In summary, Ms. Foust says, I don't take this kind of request lightly, and I believe in this case there is [9:58:39 AM] in this case there is justification that the survey engagement process needs to be reviewed and revised. Diana prechter has done some very involved research and data analysis of the surveys developed by the contract and their processing of the results . I believe her research should be evaluated by the auditor. Thank you very much. >> Thank you, miss proctor, and thank you to all of our speakers. We appreciate you engaging deeply with issues in our city and that you took the time to come and speak with us today. So the first item of business on the agenda will be our minutes. Do I have a motion to approve our minutes? Council member Kelly makes that motion. Council member Ryan alter seconds. If there are no objections, we will adopt the minutes. Thank you. Item number two on our agenda is discussion and possible action regarding proposed amendments to city code. Chapter four eight. Invite our city auditor, miss stokes, to speak with us. [9:59:40 AM] to speak with us. >> Great. >> So you should have in front of you a red line version. The ethics review commission. The law department and I work together to propose a version of revisions to the ethics review commission that incorporated prior audits that we'd done. There are two things that that should be apparent in those changes. One is to include virtual meetings when we're talking about meetings with lobbyists, the virtual meetings should be captured. And that really we didn't know that was a thing until early 2020. And then we were like, wait, this might should be a thing. So that's that's one piece. And then the second piece is really a request from my office to transition from, doing audits of the people who are voluntarily complying to see if we can identify any issues there to more of a kind of broader picture approach to looking at whether or not there are people we can identify that are not complying with the ordinance. So that's really the two changes, the ethics review commission specifically suggested we do those that larger audit every three years. [10:00:41 AM] larger audit every three years. So that is what is in front of you today. And we're looking for a recommendation to the full council to make that change to code. >> Thank you. Just to clarify, in our backup, we have a recommendation from the ethics review commission that attached to it has ordinance number and ordinance amending chapter four eight of the city code relating to lobbying underlined is the word directly for part C and then for part four 810. That's where it says shall review the recorded information described. That is the that is those are the changes that you're referring to. I just wanted to make sure there wasn't an additional. That's it that what they had is yes what we agreed to. Great thank you. Council member pool. I appreciate the changes that are being recommended and I support them. >> Colleagues, I think it's I was here when these changes were initially put in place and the auditor has, as had been asked [10:01:42 AM] auditor has, as had been asked to do, a review of compliance. I think it has been helpful to note that the compliance has been for many years at a really high level and that the variations from that have been a small number. And those folks, when they have been advised that they have been out of compliance, have been fairly quick to get into compliance. Is that a pretty good summary? That's a very good summary, yes. >> Okay. >> Excellent. Well, and I am really glad to see that. And it feels to me like these rules are working the way they're supposed to. I I do support making these changes. I think that it would be more efficient and effective to focus on where there may be shortcomings as opposed to doing the comprehensive review each year and would support moving forward with the recommendations that the auditor is bringing to us and that have been offered to us and recommended by the ethics [10:02:42 AM] us and recommended by the ethics review commission. Yeah. >> Thank you. Councilmember Kelly. >> Thank you. I too am supportive of these changes, but I know that I'm going to get questions from the community on how these people disclose in writing, because it could be various different methods. So could you please explain generally how someone would do that for a council office? >> So I would say that that does vary and there's nothing in the code that says you specifically have to do it in X, Y, Z manner . But, but each council office is handling that to capture that information. And in the past, when we've audited that, we've seen different methods. A sign in sheet we've seen using a calendar to track that information. But we have been able to collect information about who is meeting with council offices and it goes beyond council offices. It also applies to people meeting in a lobbying capacity, for example, with development services or with the planning department. So there's various ways you can kind of lobby the city. And we want to capture that. We don't have a kind of comprehensive or [10:03:43 AM] have a kind of comprehensive or we don't have a comprehensive system to capture that for everybody. But at least what we've seen historically is that each office has come up with a way to handle that. Right. >> And I know my office uses the calendar way to track that. So it's good to hear that there are other offices doing the same. Thank you very much. >> I do need a motion. Okay. Councilmember pool moves passage of the ordinance changes as as recommended in the in the backup councilmember Kelly seconds that I will just add that I want to make sure that we will then have once this is adopted by council, that we will have clear communication to the lobbyists and to the council staffs of the change so that we can adjust procedures accordingly and so that the lobbyists know that they will be responsible for all communication directly. >> And we can coordinate with the city clerk to make sure [10:04:46 AM] the city clerk to make sure those communications occur. Yeah. Thank you very much. >> We will take a vote all those in favor. It's unanimous on the dice. Thank you. >> All right, I'm gonna stand out. I stand up here for a second longer because I think the next items are mine as well. Okay. Sounds good. >> All right, so item number three is our animal services audit and the external report. This was initiated by council resolution sponsored by council member pool. I was a co sponsor and I imagine there were several other folks on here who were as well. And I believe it passed unanimously. So miss stokes, if you'd like to introduce the item. >> So today, Henry kaituma was the lead on this audit and Keith Solis is going to present to us on this. >> All right. Good morning. My name is Keith Solis, and I'm an assistant city auditor in the office of the city auditor. And [10:05:46 AM] office of the city auditor. And I want to thank you today for inviting me to speak about this audit. I also want to take a moment to thank don bland, Jason Garza and the rest of the staff over at the Austin animal center. This has been a long and involved audit and they were very cooperative throughout the whole experience. All right. The Austin animal center's mission is to serve as a safety net for lost and homeless animals in the community. And they have a goal of finding forever homes for all of their adoptable animals. Since 2011, they've had a no kill status, which means at least at the time that they were saving 90% or more of their cats and dogs are entering the shelter. A few years ago, council raised that goal to be 95% or greater, and since that time, the animal center has also met or exceeded that live release rate goal. As you're all aware, this audit came about because of a resolution from council. As a part of that resolution, council asked us to hire an independent outside expert in no-kill practices and shelter operations. For that purpose, we hired Tim Crum with the national center for animal shelter evaluations, and he [10:06:47 AM] shelter evaluations, and he produced the report that you see here, which will also be available on our website later today. I want to stress that that was an independent report in his own language. And we produce our own audit that will also be available on our website. And I want to highlight a couple of steps that we took for our work that we don't always take in every one of our audits. So knowing how important the community is to the animal center's mission and how important animals are to our community, we hosted multiple community engagement sessions. We hosted two that were in person as well as one that was virtual and had about 100 people attend those collectively. We also hosted a community engagement survey that had over 400 responses and we hosted or conducted multiple announced and unannounced site visits of the shelter. Throughout this process . The objective of our audit was to determine whether the city was effectively managing its animal population and providing animals in its shelter with necessary and humane care. We broke that down into three specific questions. One on why are there space issues at the shelter? Two, are our animals [10:07:48 AM] shelter? Two, are our animals being treated properly? And three is a 95% live release rate sustained. Given current conditions and resources. And the first thing that we found is that the city of Austin's animal welfare priorities conflict with each other, contributing, contributing to the animal center's inability to achieve its stated goals. So the way that we looked at their operations were kind of in three buckets or three stages. The first one was the animals coming into the shelter. The animal shelters goal is to serve as an open intake shelter and they had a specific goal of sheltering 16,000 animals last year. Of course, while the animals are at the shelter, they have a goal of providing quality care to those animals. And then on the outcome side of things, they have a goal of finding forever homes for all their animals and maintaining that 95% live release rate as long as operations are. What you see in this diagram where you have capacity at. Your shelter and you have roughly the same number of animals coming into the shelter as you have leaving the shelter, that's sustainable. However as soon as you start [10:08:51 AM] However as soon as you start having more animals coming into the shelter than you have leaving the shelter space begins to fill up. And if this goes on for too long, you get into a situation in which you have more animals at the shelter than you have the capacity to care for properly. Unfortunate this is a situation that our shelters currently in. And what we found is that the animal center does not have a strategy or a clear direction for how to operate when they are unable to meet all of these goals. So what's wound up happening is they are not currently operating as an open intake shelter and they did not meet that 16,000 goal that they had. They are not currently providing the level of care that I think we'd like to see at the shelter. However, they are maintaining that 95% live release rate goal and I'm going to speak in more detail about each of these, but I want to start with the outcomes. So as long as you're able to move animals out of the shelter at the rate that you're getting, animals coming in, like I said, that would be sustainable. However, we're not meeting our goals for the ways animals can leave the shelter. Broadly speaking, there are only five ways an animal can leave the shelter. They can either get adopted into a forever home or [10:09:53 AM] adopted into a forever home or they can get transferred to a partner organization or a rescue group that has capacity. They can be returned to their owner if they had one. They can be placed into foster care, which of course is a temporary solution, but it does remove the animal from the shelter and frees up space, or they can die at the shelter either through natural causes like old age illness or injury or through euthanasia. And what we found is that the animal center missed their goal for the number of adoptions, number of transfers, the number of return to owners last year, and they didn't have a specific goal for how many animals they would placed into foster care. However, they did have a goal of euthanizing less than 2% of their animals and they met that goal, euthanizing only 1.98% of them. I'm not going to talk in detail about each of these, but I do want to highlight the transfer years because that's the outcome where we missed the number by the largest number of animals. One of the things we found is that last year the city changed its agreement with Austin pets alive and decreased the number of transfers transfers that they would take from us each year. This is important because Austin [10:10:53 AM] This is important because Austin pets alive is the shelter's largest partner and Austin pets alive operates on city owned land as a part of the agreement that allows them to operate on this land. There expected to take a certain number and certain types of animals from us . Prior to that change, they had a minimum expectation of taking at least 3000 animals per year. The city removed that minimum and now it's just a fraction of the animals which for the past couple years has worked out to be about half the number that they were previously taking. Even with that, we found that there were just shy of that expectation. However, the bigger picture that we're trying to emphasize is that 15 or 1600 animal difference, because of the change in the agreement. And what we found is that there are a lot of costs associated with low turnover and low euthanasia rates. So animals with prolonged stays at the shelter may develop mental and physical problems. This is something that the external expert noted in his report, and he observed several animals that were exhibiting symptoms of these kind of problems associated with long [10:11:53 AM] problems associated with long stays. Also, when you have very low euthanasia rates, you may be encouraged to adopt or transfer dangerous animals to partner organizations or to community members. This was a concern that we heard in our community engagement sessions and we looked at the numbers for our animals that had bite histories , specifically moderate or severe bite histories. We found that over the past several years, the shelter has adopted several hundred animals that had moderate bite histories, as well as a few dozen animals that had severe bite histories. Now, I want to emphasize, we didn't look at any specific case, so I can't say whether or not any one of those animals poses a greater risk to the community than an animal without that history. But I do want to highlight this as one potential incentive that may be created with these very low euthanasia rates. Also when you have low turnover, you have less room for new animals in need and Ed as you have more animals at the shelter, each animal gets less space and less attention, which is what I want to focus on next. So the guidelines for standards of care in animal shelters says that operating beyond an organization's capacity of care is an [10:12:54 AM] capacity of care is an unacceptable practice. However, we found multiple instances where this was happening at our shelter, the guideline says that the use of cages or crates intended for short term temporary confinement or travel is unacceptable as a primary enclosure. However, as you can see here, the shelter does this routinely. This picture, I want to emphasize, was taken in November. This is in their outdoor loading dock. So it was not taken in the heat of summer. And when we did our site visits in the summer, we did not see animals out here where it would have been unbearably hot. But we did see them in other areas of the shelter. So this was a picture taken in their multimedia room. The guidelines say that enclosures need to be large enough to accommodate the necessary setup without impeding the animals ability to move or stretch. And I think it's pretty clear that in this picture, this animal would not be able to properly stand or move and stretch. The guidelines say the primary enclosure must allow animals to sit, sleep and eat away from areas of their enclosures where they defecate and urinate and to maintain distance from roommates when they choose to do so. As you can see in this picture, we have [10:13:55 AM] see in this picture, we have three dogs that are in enclosure that was originally intended for a cat. These three dogs are essentially sleeping on top of each other. Their food and their waste and then we identified several other issues. These pictures were taken by the outside expert. He identified algae and outdoor play pools of water bowls. And he also identified several structural issues. So he found and I should say that this his site visits were in July of this year. So it was the heat of summer. But he found that temperatures exceeded the recommended range of 60 to 80 degrees and many of the kennels he also found the temperature of an artificial play lawn was 176 degrees and I should say this was a shocking number to me. But he actually invited myself and another another one of our teammates out to do a site visit with him where he could show us what he was seeing. He took this temperature in front of us. So I can say that I actually saw this recording at 176 degrees, and I saw that they were placing towels like staff was placing towels on the ground for animals to walk on so they didn't have to step on the artificial turf. [10:14:55 AM] to step on the artificial turf. He also found inadequate drainage for outdoor kennels damaged baseboards that had accumulated animal waste and inadequate sound buffering and outdoor kennels. So, of course, all of these conditions that we just highlighted can affect animal comfort, but it can also lead to the spread of disease. And in fact, one of the things that we saw on their website, this screenshot was taken last week is that they were experiencing a distemper outbreak and had to restrict their intake, which brings me to my last point or last part of that equation, which is the intake of animals. The goal of course, was to be an open intake shelter. However, throughout the entire time that we were conducting this audit, intake had either been restricted or closed. As you can see in this cap meter that doesn't necessarily mean they won't take any animals. There are some emergency situations in which they would accept an animal, but by and large, if you had an animal that you can no longer care for or if you found a stray animal that you were trying to surrender to the shelter or you're being asked to wait 4 to 6 weeks before you're able to do so. And that can create hardship for both residents and for animals, of course, for residents during that time, you have to shelter, feed and care [10:15:55 AM] have to shelter, feed and care for the animal. This can be a financial burden. And then for animals, this can lead to more strays, homeless or abandoned animals in our community. That's dangerous for them. They're exposed to our extreme weather, also to cars and other predators as. But they can also be a danger to other people and pets. This is something that we heard repeatedly about people encountering loose animals in their day to their day to day lives, some of whom had either been attacked or even bitten by these animals. All right. So I'm going to move on to our next finding, which is that relationships between key stakeholders and within the animal center are strained. The animal center is somewhat unique in the city in how much they rely on partners and community members in order to achieve their mission. For example, Austin pets alive takes all of our bottle fed kittens and all of our dogs or puppies experiencing parvovirus, which are groups of animals that we wouldn't be able to properly care for ourselves. Likewise Austin humane society conducts spay and neuter operations for some of our trap neuter and release programs. Last year they [10:16:56 AM] release programs. Last year they recorded having over 2500 of those operations conducted by the Austin humane society. Similarly, community members and foster animals, which, as we've already noted, brings them out of the shelter and they also volunteer at the shelter. I think somebody in citizen communication brought this up, but we don't have of at least according to our external expert , we don't have enough staff to give the recommended minimum amount of time for cleaning, feeding and attention to all of our animals. Volunteers donated over 50,000 hours of service to the shelter last year. So they're a very important resource for us. There's also the animal advisory commission, which is part of their mission, is to promote collaboration between the city and interested parties. And of course, staff and management at the shelter are key stakeholders as well. And what we heard time and time again is that relationships between and within each of these groups was strained. You know, we've talked about this community engagement survey that we conducted. I want to highlight a few responses just to give you a sense of what we're hearing. These are verbatim responses that we received. The commission meetings have recently witnessed [10:17:57 AM] meetings have recently witnessed have been upsetting, and I don't believe all the representatives have the best interests of the animal center in mind. The relationship between the animal center and Austin pets alive is the definition of toxic. The shelter has been very unwilling or unable to provide key data, measurable stats, operational insights and in general has been uncooperative with the animal advisory commission. And the animal center is expected to be everything to everyone, but with no support. Burt. And of course I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the vote of no confidence that the animal commission took last year, which they found no confidence or had no confidence in the leadership of the animal center. All of this creates a negative work environment and low morale. This is something that we heard from staff, but it's also something that I want to highlight for management. This is a table that the external expert created, which he found that over the past 13 years, since the shelter went to no kill, we've had eight permanent or no or permanent or temporary chief animal services officers only the current one [10:18:59 AM] officers only the current one has been in this role for over four years. When we spoke with some of these people, we heard that they received personal attacks, threats, and often felt that they didn't have the support of city leadership or community members. And what we found is that this is a situation that's been going on for a while since even before the vote of no confidence. However the city has not assigned anybody the responsibility of rebuilding these relationships or addressing common concerns. And that's something that we're going to recommend in just a second. Our last finding is that the animal center does not have complete and accurate data and not all data is tracked in a way that will allow management to access it in a user friendly format. So one of the things that we were trying to determine was whether or not animals were consistently getting necessary enrichment, such as walks play sessions or treats. The animal center tracks this information on magnetic boards like the one you see in this picture here. So on any given day, you can go in and see whether or not a specific animal has gotten their walks, treats, you know, [10:20:01 AM] walks, treats, you know, whatever it may be. But if you're trying to determine whether or not an animal is consistently over the past week, month, however long they've been in the shelter, that's not something you'd be able to do. We also found that depending on where you look, the data may vary significantly. Spay and neuter operations are a key component of our no kill plan. It helps reduce the number of animals that are out there in our community. Depending on where you look, you're going to see very different numbers. So that first column of raw data, that's the number that we calculated based on the raw data we received from the animal center. The next column, the external dashboard, that's information that's on the animal center's website for the public to see. And the last column is what we found in the city's e-performance website, which is a citywide performance measure tracking system, also publicly available. So as you can see, the numbers sometimes vary by thousands. That said, we recognize how important the city's live release rate goal is to community members to council , to the shelter itself and we [10:21:01 AM] , to the shelter itself and we looked at those numbers and we found that they consist recently met or exceeded the 95% live release rate goal. Even when we calculated ourselves, we found some very, very minor differences, usually within a fraction of a percent. And we never found a situation which it did below that 95% goal. So I do want to highlight, though, that the code tells you how to calculate that rate and they say for animals, that's important because our animal shelter does accept animals beyond cats and dogs. In fact, they accept animals regardless of breed or species. So we have chickens like the one that you see in this picture, bunnies, reptiles, livestock, wildlife, you know, just the whole gamut. And some of those animals, like bats, for instance, the shelter is not even allowed to adopt out, even if it wanted to. So if you were to include all of those animals, there were months in which that live outcome rate dipped below 95. However, I think the important number that people care about is for cats and dogs. And my understanding is that the shelter is working to change code to better clarify that. All right. So that brings me to our [10:22:03 AM] right. So that brings me to our recommendations. We had two for the city manager and we're first recommending that he work with council, with shelter and with other key stakeholders to establish a policy that balances our no kill goals, the community's intake needs and the humane treatment of its animals . And we're also asking that he work with an independent third party to facilitate engagement sessions with key shelter stakeholders to help rebuild those relationships that were so strained for the chief animal services officer, we recommend that he develop a strategic plan for the shelter, that he create a plan to keep both indoor and outdoor areas clean and sanitary. That he identify resources needed to address structural issues and address these concerns, if possible, so that he ensures staff and volunteers are trained and monitored, and that he periodically verify data to ensure that it's accurate, complete and consistent. And with that, I welcome whatever discussion you'd like to have. >> Thank you very much. Is there a response from staff that you want to make at this time. From [10:23:03 AM] want to make at this time. From city manager's office or from the chief animal services office? If you'd like to. Good morning. >> Good morning. Council members . Don bland chief animal services officer we are pleased with the auditors and the dep that they went into and we look forward to working with the city manager or the council office and the commissioner and the public to balance our needs and determine Ann what we as a city need to do to go forward. You know, we're very fortunate that we. Value animals and we want to save every life we possibly can, and we continued to do that where other cities in our in our in our state have lost their no-kill status. They're in the 70 percentiles and so one of the [10:24:03 AM] 70 percentiles and so one of the things that we have challenges that we have is, is getting animals adoptions nationwide since the pandemic have have dramatically reduced. But one of the things we have experienced is our our rescue partners, they they used to pull from us regularly are not pulling from us because of our high live exit rate. They're pulling from other cities that have lost their no-kill status. So that has really impacted us significantly . So we look forward to working with everyone to find ways that we can keep our live exit rate and balance the needs of the community. >> Thank you. Mr. Colleagues. I'm going to open it up for questions. Is there just so I know, is there a person who did the external report here? If somebody has questions for them or not? >> Oh, I apologize. I should have said that earlier. The external expert is not here to answer questions today. However, we can feel or hopefully can [10:25:04 AM] we can feel or hopefully can feel all of them. Okay. >> Thank you. Want to recognize council member pool. You you can have a seat if you like. >> Yeah. Thanks. >> Oh, thanks. >> Have some thoughts and I'm going to start with the fundamentals. And they're fundamental. They're basic. That are included in the audit recommendation options that are on the last page of the summary says the chief animal services officer should have a strategic plan. Keep indoor and outdoor areas clean and sanitary, identify resources that are necessary to address structural issues and address them, if [10:26:06 AM] issues and address them, if possible. Ensure staff and volunteers are trained and monitored periodically. Verified data to ensure that it's accurate, complete and consistent across different systems. These are the responsibilities of the animal services office and the officer and these are the recommendations in the audit. I am extremely disappointed Eid that we find ourselves in such a fundamental discussions checked between the responsibilities of this office and the fact that these are the recommendations coming out of an audit, which means that these responsibilities have not been fulfilled. The council has over many years, and that predates my time on this dais for many years , continuously and consistent, fully supported her main [10:27:09 AM] fully supported her main management and live outcomes for the city of Austin. Ann with our animal population. I'm concerned over the lack of action in a number of areas to do, for example, the dashboard data which a few years ago we directed the animal services office to work with ctm to establish that data collection and the portal and to have it be accurate. But that hasn't happened. The basic maintenance of the facilities and the health safety of the animals there, the conditions at the shelter are unconscionable. For if confusion exists over conflicting priorities or legal requirements in the code. And then that confusion action should have been should have been raised with city executives. So the staff would secure the necessary [10:28:09 AM] staff would secure the necessary and needed guidance. These questions shouldn't linger unaddressed and unanswered. It's deeply concerning that that's an excuse being made that policies are in conflict and regulations Luz are in conflict and that those conflicts have not been chased down and resolved and. So the bottom line for me, this audit affirms my lack of confidence in the animal services officer Shaw and his leadership of animal services. The city has an important role to play in caring for its animal population. And the aso has fallen Ann short. Thank you, chair. [10:29:17 AM] chair. >> Thank you. Councilmember pool. Councilmember Kelly. >> Thank you. I'm not sure who the right person to answer this question is, but what guarantees does the council have that the animal center is taking steps actively to handle capacity, work with community partners and keep current and future animal populations safe. Is there somebody from the city who could possibly answer that. Would you please repeat that? What guarantees are they? Do we have from the animal center that you're taking steps to handle capacity work with community partners and to keep our current and future animal populations safe? >> We are working. We will be working with the city manager's office and our animal commission and our partners to try to have [10:30:18 AM] and our partners to try to have the best outcomes we can. And we continue to this is one of the things that's going to be beneficial is this coming fiscal year in 2024, we get a four additional animal care workers. We'll put us in to have the right number of animal care staff for the kennels that we have. So that's going to make a huge difference because when you're over capacity, it stretches everyone very thin. And we just been doing the best we can to keep the animals are cared for. And so some of these other things get put by the side. So we're going to actually have enough kennel staff to care for the kennels that we have. And hopefully, you know, we have the plan that got us to 90. And we need to work on that plan to get us from where we're at now and maintain where we're at and have the best outcomes we possibly can. >> Thank you, colleague. I would [10:31:18 AM] >> Thank you, colleague. I would like to request that we get regular updates about their progress related to implementing these results because as we've seen time and time again related to the animal center and tobacco , but councilmember pool stated these conditions continue to happen regardless of the concerns that we raise. And I believe that we need increased accountability to ensure that the issues are being effectively addressed at this audit and the results. Colleagues, I'm just taken aback by how unacceptable the conditions are. I have worked very hard with my colleagues and I appreciate council member Poole's leadership here to investigate some of the concerns that were brought to us with myself, with boots on the ground, talking to employees and volunteers at the center, I visited the center myself and viewed animals in the truck port the weekend before. We had triple digit heat here in the city of Austin. It was entirely unacceptable in my eyes. I moved forward writing a memo to the city manager regarding my concerns and they were prompt to respond between the time I got a response from [10:32:19 AM] the time I got a response from the animal center and from the city manager's office, I did not once get a phone call from anyone at the city manager's office or the animal center. In fact, the assistant city manager told me that I would get a phone call from the director over there. It was deeply disappointing not to have contact. After revealing my concerns. I like my colleagues, continue to have concerns burns related to the treatment and welfare of the animals. There the animals are entrusted with the care of the city. This is a core function of our city government. Those animals have no voice and so we have to be the voice for them. And it is unfortunate that it has come down to this. We have to advocate for them. Those conditions described are nothing less than abhorrent, sickening and entirely unacceptable. And unfortunately, I have nothing kind to say right now except that I am dedicated to continuing to work with my colleagues to ensure the conditions are improved. Those animals cannot wait any longer for changes to be made to ensure their welfare. Thank you, colleagues. >> Thank you, councilmember [10:33:21 AM] >> Thank you, councilmember Kelly. Councilmember councilmember alter, did you have any comment? Okay I have a couple of questions here. And I think these may be for the city manager over animal service cases. You might join us hayden-howard. So I have a couple specific questions and some comments. So in this past budget, we added at least four animal care staff. One of the things that we've seen over and over again is council has thought that we have an authorized positions and then they take ten months sometimes to get on the ground. What are you as the assistant city manager over this department where we have this report going to do to make sure that those for animal care staff are on the [10:34:22 AM] for animal care staff are on the ground as expeditiously as possible? >> Stephanie hayden-howard, assistant city manager what I have done with all of my directors is, is I look at the vacancy report and I have a conversation with them about their vacancies in particular with this area. One of the things that I did notice is when I moved into the acm role is that I noticed that animal services is had not been funded as other departments had been funded. And so as I'm looking at all of the investments across all of the departments and we also had a couple of audits that had already been done by the auditor's office. And so working closely with them to identify over the last couple of years positions that are critical to operations as well as ensuring [10:35:25 AM] operations as well as ensuring that we did have a full time person that was not sharing their time with Austin public health and animal services to work on on the reports for the data, the dashboard. And so as Donna and I have had conversations, nations, they will be able to move pretty quickly to go ahead and post those positions as and they have support not only from from our office, but also from human resources as well, to be able to fill those positions as quickly as possible. Some of the positions are individual that are in temporary positions. And so being able to post those if they have an interest for city of Austin only will allow you to move pretty quickly and then let those folks go through that process and be hired pretty [10:36:26 AM] process and be hired pretty quickly. So there are some some strategies that Donna and I have already talked about in order to move very fast to get those positions in place and are those positions funded for the full year or for only partial funding ? They are funded for nine months. However for each department has a vacancy savings goal and that vacancy savings goal is for the year. So as long as the department is working very closely with the financial manager, they should be able to fill those positions because that vacancy savings will kind of go by quarter. And so they should be able he should be able to fill those positions even if he fills them before the nine month budget allocation is given. >> The environment that was described, what is the vacancy rate at the animal services center? >> The last time I looked, I think it was probably about 12. >> Okay. And what is being done to fill those positions? [10:37:28 AM] to fill those positions? >> So actually out of all the departments that I manage between animal services and APL, they typically keep their vacancy rate the lowest because what we tend to track is, is that we track new positions that have never been filled. We track positions that have been vacant for six months and we track positions that have been vacant for a year. And so in my conversations that I have on my one on one meetings as well as my outcome team meetings, is we go over specific positions and talk about if you're having any difficulty filling those positions. Et cetera. So those are conversations that happen very often. >> Thank you. One of the things that I've talked with the city manager about the past budget process is that we were not shared the unmet needs beyond what was raised to be the high priority at the director and [10:38:31 AM] priority at the director and city manager level. What is your understand funding in terms of the unmet needs for animal services and how much that would cost? You know, we don't have a sense of how much money it would take to adequately fund. I think we heard from the speakers that that this trade off may in part be a function of the resources that we're providing that are not allowing us to accomplish all three of the goals of the of the intake, the animal care and the live release. Those don't have to be in conflict, but it is a function in part of the resources. I don't believe and colleagues, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe we as a council have a sense of what it would take to adequately fund animal services so that we could accomplish all of the goals with the right management team in place. Well I think one of the things we did have the report from, I'm [10:39:34 AM] have the report from, I'm guessing the year qadri, I think it was maybe 2018, 2015, around that time frame when we actually looked at our animal protection officers and kind of the ratio for that. >> I think one of the things that's really going to be really important is, is we are the 10th largest city in the united States. And so we when we look at other cities our size, they typically do have other locations, other satellite sites where even if they're only doing adopt Ann in those other sites. And we don't have that. And so I think that we really need to start to have those conversations about what that looks like, because if even if we did the adoptions at satellite sites or had locations where folks could potentially bring their animals in for intake, that would be helpful. [10:40:34 AM] intake, that would be helpful. But it's various strategies that we can really look at as a city because we have to always keep in mind that as a city is growing, we have to start to kind of fork out how we're going to be able to keep up with the trends and how we're going to be able to meet the performance measures. >> Okay. And how are you going to shell share this process of plan that is going to help balance out the choices and provide us with the information also on the resources needed so currently we brought a consultant on on communication, went out to the full council from the manager about a consultant, Devin desai, that we have brought on board. >> Devin has been in his position consulting for us for a couple of months. My understanding is that he has met with the majority of, of you all on council. And then one of the [10:41:35 AM] on council. And then one of the things that he's going to do at this point pretty quickly is, is that he's going to take the recommendations and then have us to be able to kind of move forward with with the recommendations and how we would move forward with those. One of the other things that my office did last year is, is that worked with animal services officer. There is a consultant that has worked with with the animal services officer. They have worked with all of the staff at the center. And so now we have a retreat with with the animal commission commissioners to be able to retreat will have in November that particular retreat will work on community action and allowing us to be able to work a little bit better between [10:42:38 AM] work a little bit better between on the animal services office leadership and the commission. Ann so those things were going on prior to the audit and they will continue and we are open to coming back to this forum or if there's another commission that we need to bring that to, to provide those updates as needed . >> Thank you. Council member pool. >> And I noticed that the city manager is here in case he wants to step to Mike and have anything to say. But what I would also say to our assistant city manager and our staff, we've been having these conversations about concerns with the animal services office and officer for a long time, and it it worries me that we're only just now talking about having these conversations with stakeholders and we haven't moved in the direction that was so clearly necessary even a year [10:43:38 AM] so clearly necessary even a year ago. And I would challenge you to. Address the fact that we are talking about management failures and we're pivoting to the financials. I would I would offer that money doesn't make good management necessarily you there are they work together. In a really good way but you don't just pour in money into a system doesn't make it a better managed system. But that's what I'm hearing here. And I recognize that there are limits to what the council is responsible for approving and directing. Lang but we have laid the predicate for what we expect and the values that we expect for the city, for the care of our animal population. For years, for decades, as long as I've lived in this city, it has never wavered and we have fallen so short. And it is this is not new information. So I challenge you to look at the management [10:44:39 AM] to look at the management situation and don't simply default to pouring more money into it because that isn't necessarily the answer. I first, thank you for being here. >> Yeah, no, no, I'd first say I'm the first to say you should never pour money into an issue until you understand exactly what it is. Your objectives are. And. And in my for in my short 6 or 7 months here as I've seen numerous of those examples because money the input has been the measuring stick of success and I know the council agrees with me that that is not the measure for success. It is what are the objectives that we're trying to achieve with respect to the animal services is this is an issue that we're in the process of addressing. Lang it's not an old issue in Austin, Texas. I remember when animal services used to be managed by a different organization, Ann because of the of the demand needs of the public. We brought [10:45:41 AM] needs of the public. We brought it in-house and some of those same issues that we were concerned with with the private sector began to manifest themselves with the city operating. It when we asked Devon to go in and start looking at all the different aspects of the animal shelter and then to lay out the cards on the table that need to be considered by us. I think he's in the process of doing that and we'll get that report and we'll obviously obviously incorporate the suggestions or some of the work that's done through the audit as well. What I also would say, because I know it was a comment that was made earlier, which is different than animal services, is about unmet needs. It is our intent during the course of this review that we will have at mid-year or later in terms of not just animal services, but other key city services, is we do want to start talking about some of the investments that need to get made in core city services. And I think that's an important component of what the budget deliberations are going to need to be about. And for fiscal year 25. And we're committed to doing that. So you have that in front of you along with the community needs [10:46:41 AM] with the community needs assessment that comes in from different organizations that are in need of basically making a request of council to fund. So just to say that we're evaluating it, I understand the frustration. Ann and what I need to do is do the evaluation. But we did ask we've asked some of the folks that are passionate about this to provide us input and we'll and we'll get that input. I don't think it's altogether fair to lay it lay this at the at manager. Moment. I think there are some issues that we need to sort through that are really basically politically charged. We'll have to work through that with whatever Devon comes back because I think it's how you manage and work as a team. And I think that at least, at least my little information I've gotten is that those efforts have not been seamless between our, the, the advisory commissions and our management staffs. We need to work to fix that. I have read the emails that have been sent by the advocates. I've also had emails that have given a counterweight to what those [10:47:42 AM] counterweight to what those advocates have said. So I think we need to listen to both sides of that story to get to what we think is the basic truth. Thank you for that. >> And we absolutely have to solve this. Thank you. Thank you, chair. >> Thank you. >> City manager and assistant city manager for your comments. You know, I, you know, asked at acm hayden-howard to come up because I think that this is a problem that requires city leadership to lean into to help us to resolve. I do think that it is feasible under the right conditions with the right approach include looking at all of the pieces that govern how animal services work to accomplish the intake, the animal care and the live release goals. Obviously. We need to have a strategy when there are particular situations where they're in conflict and choices [10:48:44 AM] they're in conflict and choices need to be made rather than be default to. But I hope that when you move the plan forward that we will be able to see that. Earlier, council member Kelly asked for kind of regular updates. So if you can plan and think about what the right cadence is for that in terms of memos and then I will I will work with the vice chair and we can figure out what the right cadence will be for coming back to audit and finance so that we can have a more public discussion on as well. You know, maybe in six months or something like that at I think quarterly might be might not be the right cadence, but we'll discuss that . So thank you. If there are no other comments on this item, we will move on to item number four. The vegetation management audit and miss stokes, if you'd like to introduce the item. Thank you, everyone. Yeah yeah. >> So this audit also required [10:49:45 AM] >> So this audit also required by or also requested via council resolution relates to our tree trimming program or vegetation management as we call it. Kathie Harrison is going to be making the presentation today and Kelsey Thompson was the manager of this perfect. Good morning. >> Committee members. My name is Kathie Harrison and I'm the audit lead and I'll be giving this presentation Ann. Next slide please. Wrong slide polgar problem with this is that. A little bit of technical difficulty. >> Sure. Okay thank you. [10:50:58 AM] Okay thank you. >> In February 2023, the council passed a resolution directing the city auditor to conduct an audit of Austin energy's vegetation management program. In response to the prolonged outages and damages caused by winter storm Mara Austin energy's forestry division is responsible for managing vegetation or trimming trees near power lines has a current goal to trim on a seven year cycle with consideration. Ann for when a circuit was last trimmed. Circuit performance environmental risks or wildfire risks and growth patterns, and Austin energy hires contractors to plan on schedule and trim trees. Next slide please. In this audit, we found that Austin energy is behind on its current goal to trim trees on a seven year cycle because of several factors, including council direction. In 2006 to trim trees less than industry standards and we also found that Austin energy [10:51:59 AM] we also found that Austin energy can do more to develop a long term maintenance plan and improve data reliability. Next slide, please. The chart on this slide shows Austin energy's tree trimming cycle goal compared to other peer utilities reviewed. We found that Austin energy's current seven year trim cycle goal is longer than other peer utilities and longer than the five year industry standard. Next slide, please. We compared Austin energy's tree trimming performance to their current trim cycle goal. Then projected those numbers over seven years. We found. That Austin energy is trimming trees on a cycle more than double their seven year goal. Next slide, please. So we asked why Austin energy's trim cycle is longer and we worked with Austin energy to identify several reasons, including difficulty hiring qualified contractors. The lengthy tree trimming process where some work may take several weeks or months to complete due to avoiding oak, [10:53:00 AM] to complete due to avoiding oak, wilt and bird habitats in certain months or multiple interactions with customers and trimming trees less than industry standards based on council direction. In 2006, which caused a backlog. We'll talk more about this on the next slide. Next slide, please. The graphic on this slide shows Austin energy's tree trimming guidelines from 2006 to present in Orange Austin. Energy trimmed trees less than industry standard shown in yellow based on council direction in 2006. This contributed to overgrowth, increased workloads and has made it harder for Austin energy to meet their trim goals in blue, you'll see that Austin energy increased tree trimming clearances in 2019 to better align with industry standard ids in 2021. The council approved an increase to Austin energy's budget to help trim overgrown trees to the new standards and approved additional funding in 2023 to hire for more tree [10:54:02 AM] 2023 to hire for more tree trimming contractors. Next slide, please. The graphic on this slide shows Austin energy's tree trimming efforts compared to best practices. Based on our review, we concluded that Austin energy meets most tree trimming best practice elements noted in green. This includes developing short term plans, communicating with stakeholders, scheduling and performing work and hosting meetings to discuss continuous improvement. We also found that Austin energy can improve on the two elements in yellow that we will discuss more on the next slide. Next slide, please. For the first improvement area, Austin energy should develop a long term maintenance plan and goals for distribution lines, not having this plan makes it hard for Austin energy to assess trimming progress across circuits, assess historic information such as timelines to make future estimates and develop a way forward to meet their goals. For the second improvement area, Austin energy [10:55:03 AM] improvement area, Austin energy should keep complete, accurate and reliable data for program evaluation. We found inconsistencies between the dates and the hard copy work plans and the dates recorded in Austin energy's tree trimming database. We also noted when a customer calls to request tree trimming services, then this information is entered track it and kept in multiple systems. These data issues make it hard for Austin energy to do accurate, reliable, reliable reporting at an aggregate level to assess overall progress. During this audit, we noted an additional observation related to telecoms that attached their wires to Austin energy's utility poles. So thank AT&T, Google fiber spectrum. We found that telecoms are responsible for trimming trees around their lines. In Austin, energy has limited ability to hold telecoms accountable, while Austin energy only trims around these lines in [10:56:04 AM] only trims around these lines in in emergencies, which is similar to most pure utilities. We contacted this is important because, as you can see on the picture, it's possible for the tree to take down both the power line on top and the telecom line below. We issued two recommendations. The first one is to ensure Austin energy can effectively and accurately determine the progress of their overall tree trimming efforts. And the second one is to improve the accuracy and reliable Katy of tree trimming data management agreed with our recommendations. This concludes my presentation and I'm happy to answer any questions. >> Thank you, miss Harrison. Is there a representative from Austin energy that would like to respond? And then we'll take questions. Morning, Mr. Khan. >> Good morning, Bob Kahn general manager, Austin energy. Yeah, we agree with the recommendations. As you know, we're playing catch up 13 years [10:57:06 AM] we're playing catch up 13 years at not meeting industry standards is kind of difficult to catch up on, but by 28 we will be fully caught up and then we'll go on our five year cycle . We are trimming trees as we stand here today. We have about 50 or 60 crews out there as far as tracking what's getting done individually. Our people know what's going on, but we need to do a better job of collecting it at a higher level so we get the big picture. But we're going to be doing everything they recommend it and of course we'll we'll let the auditors know how we're doing. >> Thank you. Mr. Khan, council member. Kelly, this was your item that you sponsored? >> It was my item. And thank you, colleagues for supporting that. Following the latest winter storm. And thank you, Austin energy for everything that you did to provide the community with information during that winter storm. I know you weren't quite here yet, but your team did a fantastic job of letting us know what was going on, which kind of led me to [10:58:06 AM] on, which kind of led me to connect the dots that this might be something that could be an area of opportunity. And I also want to thank your team, Mr. Khan, for the tour of the energy market operations that I did this week, learned quite a bit about that. I've been really immersing myself in more Austin energy related things so I can understand them more. I was surprised to hear that this goes all the way back to 2006, and you're absolutely right. That's a long time to try to play catch up. But I am glad that you have a plan. On page four, though, it's said that Austin energy said it's not realistic to trim 44 circuits per year with the current resource. Liz, I'm curious what additional resources you all might need. Well while we're having trouble knell with the contractors being able to hire the crews, they need and we are hiring as many crews as we can get, but right now we're just playing catch up in getting enough crews out there to do the work. >> That's a big problem. And if you read my management response , just for example, and this this kind of blew my mind, apparently the pay scale is [10:59:07 AM] apparently the pay scale is about $15 an hour for people that do this. And we know that one contractor had told people they're trying to hire. If you come in for six months, we'll give you a $5,000 bonus. And if you come in for a year, we'll give you a $10,000 bonus. These are people that are making $15 an hour and they were still having trouble hiring people. I guess it gets back to the affordability in Austin and I guess driving long distance into work. So what we're doing the best we can to bring on on more crews. I think Elton's told me that we think we're going to be getting a few more crews soon. So we're on that. >> Okay. I'm glad to hear that update. Thank you. And then on page five, you talk about, well, the audit talks about a lengthy communication process. Could you go into a little bit more detail about what that looks like and if there are any additional areas of opportunity where we might be able to shorten that process or make it less lengthy? >> Maybe I should have Elton respond to that one. >> Thank you. Sorry to put you on the spot. [11:00:08 AM] on the spot. >> That's okay. >> I like to him on the spot. It's all right. Chair. Council members, good to see you guys again. I'm Elton Richards, vice president of electric systems operations. So this is something that I've spoken to the council about before. The notification process is as our contract is planning and as they're walking the lines down, they'll go out and do hangers or knock on doors to let people notify them. So the individual could say, I don't want you to trim my trees. So what happens then is we'll contact that person individually, try to talk to them over the phone. They can still say, hey, I don't want you to cut my trees. Then we'll actually have a trained arborist go out, meet with the individual, show them using a laser pointer. What's actually going to be cut, what's being removed, and the reason why the individual can still say, I don't want my tree cut at that point, they're sent a notification letter, certified mail, saying we're cutting your tree. So the process this could take 3 to 6 months on that. So it could be lengthy. The people [11:01:10 AM] it could be lengthy. The people that call back and say, I don't want a tree trimmed the first time is about 25 to 30. The ones that we go out to actually visit on the site use laser on drops down to about 10. I think the last six months we only sent out three notification letters. So it's a small population. Now, why it angst me internally on that process? Yes, I understand . In Austin, the beautiful trees and the heritage that we got with them. So while it is laborers, yes, I believe it's a decent process. We're taking the consumer and customers thoughts and feelings and emotions into the process, and I think we can still do it within the timeline that we need with the small population that we go to. So even though it bothers me overall, I think it's a good process for our customers. >> Thank you for explaining that so that the community could know . I think it's important that they understand the lengths that [11:02:11 AM] they understand the lengths that we go through to ensure that the trees are cut and how much communication we have with the community regarding that and the education component as well. And thank you for everything that you and your team do at Austin energy. >> Yes, ma'am. Thank you. And chair, if I could, I just want to make one statement clear to the gentleman came up and spoke during the open speaker and he had some good points on there. But I want to be on public record stating this. You are not the council all that held us back. You are the council that has supported me since I've been here, doubled my budget, gave me the contractors, gave me an additional budget and additional contractors to get this done. So I appreciate your support and if we plan to work and work to plan and you continue to support, we will get this back on track. Thank you. >> Thank you. Mr. Richards. And as you know, I worked with Austin energy in 2018 for some reliability issues that we were experiencing in my district in high wildfire risk areas. And we [11:03:12 AM] high wildfire risk areas. And we identified the vegetation management as one of the issues to address and that was when the policy changed in 2019. And I've been working with you to double those budgets and do all those things. So I appreciate the acknowledgment that this was a past council and that we have been working to change things. I do have a couple of questions and I'll try to be brief. If in June we authorized for new contractors, are they in the field and so no chair the reason why is you'll remember during that same time frame, we also authorized contract for distribution crews to come in because of the backlog of work and then the onboarding process. >> We could only pick one group or the other. So because of the backlog of the distribution crews and we had vegetation crews working, we chose to onboard the distribution crews, the vegetation crews have been onboarding for about the last [11:04:13 AM] onboarding for about the last two weeks and we expect them to be on system and working by the end of October. >> Okay. And that corresponds with the season when you can do much of that much of the cutting. Okay it's unfortunate that we have that that constraint. One of the things that I was surprised not to see mentioned in the auditor's report is, was that is my understanding that we are doing some of the hardest circuits first in terms of the level of vegetation and vegetation that needs to be addressed and also the conditions under which those circuits need to be addressed, where there's a lot of canyons and a lot of deep backyards, etcetera. So I'm just wondering if that's accurate and accurate observation Ann that may be contributing to some of the some of the backlog there. Is that there was a very you know, as I understood it, when we approached the vegetation management starting in 2019, there were priorities that were [11:05:13 AM] there were priorities that were set very particular sets of circuits were identified in particular orders, and that was adjusted based on changes in reliability. But is it is it accurate that those were some of the harder circuits to address that? We started with? >> That's a great point. Chair. But the point is, every circuit we have out there is the hardest circuit because it's had 13 years of overgrowth on it. So even if it's our shortest, which is a third of a mile, that's still a beast. To get back to standard to our 39 mile, which is also a beast. But you are correct, the way that we work these and prioritize them and you know it. And I appreciate the support and help that you gave with the homeowners when we started these, because you've got a lot of the wildfire circuits in your area. We take a look at the reliable Katy of the circuit who has the most outages on the circuit. Then we also work with the Austin fire department on the highest wildfire risk. We put those two together, merged them, and those are the ones that we work. So [11:06:14 AM] are the ones that we work. So for the last two years, we've been working off that list and our short term plan, which is a 12 to 24 month, is based upon what the next 15 underperformance circuits are and the next 15 wildfire circuits are, and then the rest we do based upon the last time they were trimmed. >> Thank you and colleagues, I'll just mention that if you do experience situations in your district where they are trying to do the tree trimming, you have connections with neighborhood associations, burns and others. It has been very helpful to connect a up with those groups to help facilitate the process for the tree trimming so people can be informed and more likely to accept the first time when they're when they're approached . One of the things that was mentioned in there is that that this audit directly follows from the storm. Mara but that Austin energy emphasizes that more aggressive tree trimming would not have prevented much of the extensive damage from the ice storm. I did want to give you a [11:07:15 AM] storm. I did want to give you a chance to speak to that. >> Yes, ma'am. I'll actually talk to that. And the hail storm that we had on this week, the pictures that we sent in for our Pio was not tree limbs coming down. These were 30, 40 foot trees that came down because of the high winds and the weakened root system. And the same thing with the ice storm, Mara, as I presented during the press conference, the pictures were complete trees coming down. So when one reporter asked me could we prevented this and I was like, well, yes, if you let me clear cut 45ft on either side of the line, but I don't think any of us want to do that to our beautiful trees here. So I think the vegetation management plan is a solid plan, but it will never take away the risk because you still have large trees or even the ones that are outside the trim cycle that come back in. >> Thank you. And I appreciated that the auditor emphasized. Miss Harrison emphasized the long term plan and if you read through the audit, you know, the short and the medium term are exactly what you've been saying all along that you're doing Lang [11:08:16 AM] all along that you're doing Lang I think where where we're falling short is we don't have the data. We don't have the information to be able to say how we're doing on that long term plan of getting there within the seven years. Now, you you had the plan for seven years then to switch to five. But if we're tremendously off on our goal for the seven years, then we need to be relooking at what we're doing and adjusting, you know, how how it is that that we are we are handling things and so I think that long term plan is really important. Vice chair pool, you also chair the Austin energy oversight committee. So I would ask that when we have this long range plan determined and the data fixed at the appropriate time that that come back to the Austin energy oversight, which I think is a more appropriate location for that to come back. To you know, to make sure that we are on we [11:09:18 AM] to make sure that we are on we are on track. Yeah >> And there are twofold when you talk about long range plan, I mean, the long range plan is to have all the circuits in standard by 2028. That's the long range plan. Our detailed plan will show when the circuits are in that plan and then they'll be adjusted each year based upon reliability and underperforming jockey them around. So one of the recommendations from the audit team and I'll pause here and just say for Kathie Chelsea and Corey here, what a great audit team. They were respectful, great communication. My team and very questioning attitude. And I thought it was a very solid audit. But one of the recommendations was exactly what you're talking about, chair, is not only for you, but also the public. So one of the things that we're going to do is on our vegetation management website, which is customer facing, is starting to put the total circuits that are being trimmed up to that point and the remaining ones and how many are planned for next year that way, if you're just a basic customer with a question about it, you can take a look at it. >> Thank you. I do not want to [11:10:19 AM] >> Thank you. I do not want to let the point be lost that we have a long range plan to be done with this in the seven years and we are not on track to meet that goal. And so I think the management challenge for you and the general manager is to get us back on track. And I understand that we have put in place the other contracts, etcetera. But we have to try to keep to that goal. Knell and you need to be coming to us if there needs to be additional resources at this point. Those resources aren't able to be deployed, so that may not be the solution. But if we need to, if we don't make the 2028 goal, that's a problem. And so we need to be able to see how far we are from that. And adjust accordingly. And I think that was the core, as I understood it, of the auditor's recommendation for that longer range look. And the combination with the data. So that's what we really need to be able to see and some of that may need to be, you know, just the [11:11:20 AM] need to be, you know, just the council and executive session for reasons of not showing where circuits are. But but that that needs that plan needs to be in place, not just the goal for sure. >> I think you know me by now. If I. I think I need something else, I'll be come seeing you. >> Okay. Great. Thank you very much. If there are no other comments, we'll move on. Thank thank you so our next item is item number five, which is the northeast service center project. And I believe Ms. Olivares will be presenting. >> Good morning, council members. Our committee members. Thank you for the opportunity to be here. I'm Kim Olivares. I'm deputy cfo for the city. I also have with us spread around in the audience some fellow strategic facilities, governance team members, particularly Daryl Alexander, our building services director. Mike Gates, our real estate officer. As well as staff [11:12:21 AM] estate officer. As well as staff from Austin resource recovery and fleet mobility services, as this project is, is a huge step forward for them. So I'm very excited to be here to talk about this project. This is the first facility delivery that will happen through the public facility corporation Ann that council created this last spring . So I will spend some time delving into the delivery method a little bit more than I would typically with any other project, because it is very different than what you're potentially used to seeing. So what is the northeast service center? It's located on Johnny Morris road. Back in 2012, there was a feasibility study done for a multitude of department S about a service center need and ultimately Austin resource recovery purchased two tracts of land on Johnny Morris that totals 132 acres. Ultimately it was determined that the site will support a joint service center for R and fleet services . It's this is an important facility as it really helps us [11:13:22 AM] facility as it really helps us relieve some very severe overcrowding and deteriorated facility conditions that employees from both those departments are currently having to operate in. In addition to just pure service center will also include some office and warehouse space on this site. But it also it's kind of in many of our facility discussions, it's there's a domino effect and in this case, by building this service center, it facilitates future reuse of the Hargrave site where fleet currently has one of its service centers. And that has been a significant topic of conversation for the surrounding community as well as councilmember harper-madison. So just to give you an idea, when I talk about overcrowding, deteriorated facilities, this gives you a little insight into what those facilities look like , making due the best that they can. Still doing excellent work, but not giving them facilities that they really deserve to be able to operate in. This gives you a better idea of the location. You can see Johnny [11:14:22 AM] location. You can see Johnny Morris on the west side of the site. You have colony park sustainable community site, just southeast south of it, and then a variety of other neighborhoods. Decker lake over on the east eastern portion of the map. I'm not going to spend a lot of time here. This is more of a reference point for you all in the public to understand. And generally what we're looking at in terms of a site plan. So there's a north and a south site, mostly due to a creek and water situation that runs through the middle of the property. But but we'll have combined administrative buildings for rr and fleet and then a variety of service centers, space for both fleet and rr, but also allowing for future expansion. So we're we're building for current needs, but also thinking about the future. And similarly, here's additional fleet service center sites on the south side. So this is a pretty significant project. There's a number of [11:15:24 AM] There's a number of neighborhoods in the surrounding area. So community outreach was important in those early stages during the planning phases. We did have outreach and particularly with the colony park community, one of the outcomes of that community outreach was the idea of creating an automotive training and mentorship program. So the feedback was that we should be working with used to develop a program for students at lbj high school, which currently does not have an automotive training opportunity like many schools do. So we would be partnering with the and direct students in arrested in that field to be able to utilize this brand new facility to help develop those skills. But as we continue on this project, we will absolutely continue engaging with surrounding communities to make sure they're fully aware of the project scope and its status. So the delivery method and the Austin public facilities corporation. So this was created this past spring by council and then later approved by the state . The purpose of the PFC is it allows us to utilize a developer [11:16:27 AM] allows us to utilize a developer assisted approach for the project delivery for the permitting and development center as well as Austin energy headquarters. We have another Austin energy service center under way. We have an Austin water project in the works. We're able to utilize a developer assisted approach where we're able to go out to that development community, say, here's generally what we're looking for, here's the scope, and they're able to bring back either they have a facility ready to go or they have land where they can build a facility and they take care of everything. We don't have to deal with the nitty gritty as much. Like we're still very involved, of course. But there able to move at a very, really fast pace and deliver an end product much quicker than if we were trying to manage the entire process. So with the PFC, we're able to do that on city owned land because of state procurement law using such a developer assisted project approach would not otherwise be possible on city owned land. But through the PFC, we can do that [11:17:29 AM] through the PFC, we can do that and I'll explain more how that works in a moment. There's a board of directors for this PFC. That council did approve. It includes acm Briseno, myself, Daryl Alexander, Michael Gates, through our roles, were also the strategic facilities governance team. And then we also have various utility enterprise representation through Stuart Riley and Brian Borja and Jason Alexander. So here's what a typical deal structure would look like for utilizing PFC. So first, the city of Austin grants the PFC a ground lease for the property that is going to eventually have a contract associated for making improvements. So for this northeast service center site counts will, will, will bring forward recommendation for action where you would be approving a ground lease from the city to the PFC for us to proceed on the various contracts. PFC signs, the sub then signs a sublease with a selected developer. That's going to bring forward all the [11:18:30 AM] to bring forward all the improvements that sublease gives that developer the ability to secure the financing they need for those improvements. At that point, the developer is able to move forward on various approvals and entitlements, additional financing needs and also hire their design firm, engineering, general contractor and begin construction once they finish construction of the project. We would the PFC would be issuing bonds. The PFC, not the city, would be issuing bonds to purchase that completed facility back from the developer . Once that that purchase is done, the sublease with the developer is terminated. There they're no longer an interested party because we have the PFC has bought that that facility back then. The city leases that facility from the PFC from a predetermined period of time and makes lease payments to the PFC in an amount equal to the debt service on those bonds that the PFC issued. And then the city [11:19:31 AM] PFC issued. And then the city continues to maintain pay, the operating cost facility and then has the option to buy it back from the PFC at a later date. The reason why we have those last two spots where it's a lease and eventual purchase is because we have to go to the attorney general's office for approval on those bonds in a prior project that happened in the area where they worked it out, where all the transactions took place in one day, where the PFC issued the or they they paid the developer for the completed improved payments. And then the government entity had a transaction at the exact same time and everything. And when it came to the ag's office approving those bonds, there was some significant concern about how that transaction all took place. We don't want to create a situation where there's concern like that. So this is where and the solution to that is for the city to lease that facility back from the PFC for some number of years and then eventually purchase or how that option to do so. So the timeline for this project, particularly we're here [11:20:33 AM] project, particularly we're here today giving you this briefing tomorrow. The PFC board will be meeting to approve the rfp to go out on the streets for welcoming folks to make their proposals. We'll release that rfp in October timeframe. We'll also need to come back to council for a zoning change. The reason being is the property that the Johnny Moore's property right now is not zoned in the way that it needs to ultimately build the service center and we weren't going to move forward on a rezoning until we were really, truly ready to begin the project. So we were at that point. So we'll come back for that action in January, February timeframe, the PFC will review those developer responses, make a selection, then we'll come back to council for approval of the exclusive negotiating agreement and an associated budget amendment to begin moving forward. And at that point, design begins from there, we move into a development agreement, any other budget amendments that might be required, the ground lease to the PFC design should be completed by fall of next year. [11:21:35 AM] completed by fall of next year. Site plan is submitted. Construction begins in may June, time of 25, and we are fully operational by fall of 27. So in four years time, from the minute the rfp is released to we are having a ribbon cutting and y'all are cheering on the completion of this and rr and fleet is in there doing continue to do amazing work for years time a project of this scale if we were doing it fully internally I would easily add another two years plus to that timeline. So this allows us to move much quicker and also be far more cost effective because that developer approach is just it lends itself to significant cost savings. So cost savings, let's go on to financing. So the current cost estimate is $250 million. Not a small project by any means. Rr accounts for 26% of that fleet, 74% of that. This $250 million. This includes significant contingency escalation amounts. I would [11:22:35 AM] escalation amounts. I would wholly expect for that number to be much lower when we actually receive the developer proposals. Now in the typical deal structure I described previously, it noted that the PFC would issue bonds at the end of the project when we're ready to take ownership from the developer in this case, we're recommending that we actually do three issuances over the life of bringing this project forward over the next four years. The reason to do so is because the cost of construction loans, the cost of capital in the private sector is much more expensive right now because of interest rates. We as as a government entity have the ability to achieve much lower interest rates if we are doing progress payments during time, it lowers the risk that the developer is taking and it translates into cost savings. So we're estimating at least 3 to $4 million in in cost savings for the project by us issuing in three tranches the other benefit of doing three tranches as opposed to a single sale at the end is that then the impact on various rates, fees operating [11:23:36 AM] various rates, fees operating transfers can be spread out over three years as opposed to having a single significant hit all in one year. So the fleet costs will be allocated among departments according to the cost allocation model they have in place already for the servicing, for maintenance of vehicles for Irr. The rate impact that we're looking at would be $1.50 over three years for the typical customer, which is a 64 gallon cart and you can see $0.45 each in fy 26 and 27 and then the final $0.60 in fy 28. So I noted previously the PFC will issue this initial debt, not the city, because of that, that lease relationship. We the we because I'm on the board. That's why I'm saying we the PFC will issue that debt and then the city will make lease payments in an amount equal to that. The debt service payments, the PFC is making. So there's no markup or anything like that. So initially it will require operating budget transfers from [11:24:36 AM] operating budget transfers from the impacted departments. So I've noted here the various utility enterprise operating. Options, Austin energy, water capital, livery, convention center, so on. And then there are a smattering of general fund and a small sliver of support services departments. So this will create a small impact to the general fund until we're able to issue the or handle it later. When city takes ownership . So for approximately five years after project, approximately five years after we complete the project, PFC would have the option to call its debt. And at that point, the city would then have the ability to issue new debt to pay off any outstanding remaining PFC debt. Once that occurs, that allows the city to shift a portion of those those costs to the debt service tax rate. My mainly I'm talking about the public public safety. So it's the general fund support services related departments that we'd be able to shift those costs out of the [11:25:38 AM] shift those costs out of the general fund and to the debt service portion of the tax rate , the enterprise utility type folks, it would still be impacting their fees and rates. But we at least be able to shift a portion over to the debt service rate. So key takeaways today. The northeast service center is going to address really significant facility and operational challenges. It will be the first project the PFC delivers and it allows for significant cost and time savings. That financing structure. PFC will issue the debt initially and lease back to the city and we have an estimated opening in fall of 2027. So I know that's a lot of information. So any questions you may have? And again, I have all of my colleagues here. If I'm not able to answer to hopefully cover everything. >> So thank you, miss Olivares. And I'll be happy to say that you anticipate all my questions. So just my questions at least. That was a very thorough presentation and very clear on on the financing piece. And thanks for everyone for being here. Colleagues, do you have [11:26:38 AM] here. Colleagues, do you have any questions? Okay thank you. I was actually very, very, very thorough. So we appreciate that. And this is an exciting project . And I know for the departments that are involved, this is going to provide much needed relief and some some good improvements. >> Absolutely. I genuinely like the you all know me. I the facility condition is a very important issue for me. And the message that it sends to our employees. The facilities are working. And so it is incredibly exciting for us to be on that path to bring this facility forward and be able to make an investment in our R and fleet staff in such a significant way. I'm genuinely excited for this. So great. >> Well, thank you and thank you to the whole team for your work work on this. I'm excited to see it move forward. Thank you. Thank you. Our next item is item six, which is an Austin transit partnership budget update. Late that vice chair pool is a member [11:27:39 AM] that vice chair pool is a member of metro, asked us to do as part of audit and finance. Good morning. >> Good morning. Chair committee members. I'm Brian Rivera, atp treasurer and interim cfo, drawn by Darren Lozano as well. Sure. Hi. Good morning, chair. >> Members of council Darren Lozano, senior vice president of environment and project development. >> So the presentation we have before you today is going to walk through what our next year looks like really from a work plan perspective and then thinking through the project over the course of the next couple of years as well. And then I'll touch on at the end sort of what we funded in this year's budget that our board previously approved or approved last week. So >> All right. Thank you, Brian. Thank you, everybody. We really appreciate the time here to come and talk to you today, especially since as we had a historic moment on June 6th where the Austin light rail project was defined and approved . And so now the question becomes, where do we go from here? We have a lot of [11:28:40 AM] here? We have a lot of concurrent work that we're doing, which we did a great attempt here to kind of show it visually so you can see all the different work tasks are going to be in place. One other piece of my role that I fail to mention earlier is because we have all these different items at this point in time. I'm working as atp's project manager, working with several task leads that represent each of these individual pieces. But overall, our work for kind of zo, we're taking two big processes. One is you see there is the design piece and the second side is the federal piece . When it comes to design, what we're talking about is defining the project in a way that we actually can assess through the environmental process. So the design is going to take into account how is the light rail going to actually be designed and implemented within the community itself. When we talk about what right of way utilities, street scape, all that information is going to be defined. There is a very strong tie before between the engineering itself and also the architecture as it shows. And [11:29:40 AM] architecture as it shows. And there are many, many touch points. So it's not just a one and done in between the two. You see community engagement. Community engagement has been a key and important piece in our plan to date and it's going to be continue to be so. So there's going to be several touch points throughout the process. Yes. And finally, on the federal side, of course, we're seeking federal dollars to support the project. And so there's some very rigorous processes we need to go to one there, if you're not familiar with it, is Nepa or the national environmental policy act. And essentially what that is, is a really detailed analysis that actually end with a very detailed document following guidance, basically talking about how do we seamlessly integrate the project into our community and into our environment. And when you hear the term capital investment grant, that's actually actual mechanism we're going to work through through the federal government to secure those funds . So again, a very rigorous process there. And you see here some of the major takeaways from the capital investment grant [11:30:40 AM] the capital investment grant process, product development, engineering and construction and digging a little deeper into the basically the three main buckets that I spoke of earlier, design designs, where we're at, we're at currently, of course, again, we identified where our project and what our projects going to be and now we're doing the work to define that project in a some form of design here. And as you can see, as part of that process, we have it lined up to take us through early 2024 Shaw and that really feeds our Nepa, our environmental analysis piece. So you can see there our draft Eis, which is circulated, circulated to the public falls right after the design process. Another key piece of the federal grant process is what's called project development. That's an established two year timeframe, that we need to get through to, to make sure we satisfy that capital investment grant process. And as you can see here, we have a start showing in winter of early next year and that two year window ending in 2026. And we give ourselves [11:31:42 AM] 2026. And we give ourselves enough time to finish the level of design and the level of Nepa necessary to fall within that project development timeframe. So summarizing the look ahead, breaking it down again, the federal process, because we're going to look to receive federal funds, we'll be going through the grant eligibility process basically meaning that atp is working with the federal transit administration to become a designated recipient of funds, will be preparing the notice of intent, which essentially kicks off the Nepa process in January time frame and releasing the draft environmental impact statement for public review in the September ish fall time frame of 2024. And then we'll initiate, as I mentioned, the new starts application process when it comes to community dialog that's happening throughout, there's no one set time frame. We're always going to take community dialog. And so part of that is this fall we're actually going to go out with some targeted meetings focused on what we're calling the user [11:32:43 AM] on what we're calling the user experience and design principles . And then finally, when it comes to design and delivery, I spoke about our engineering efforts that are taking us through early next year. And that last bullet where we address advancing procurements to support project delivery. We know that the complexities and as big of this project is, we're going to be looking to secure some early procurements when it comes to advancing design, when it comes to look at utilities. So that's something we'll be doing over the next year as well. So a lot of work kind of summarized in three slides here. I'll turn it over to Brian. >> Yeah. Thank you, Darren. So throughout last week we presented our budget to the atp board and it was approved within the budget itself. It encompassed $53 million in new capital appropriations, 33 of which was dedicated to the light rail capital fund. Within that fund itself, we're anticipating a spend plan of $115 million is broken up into these three major buckets. Really, we have professional services and [11:33:44 AM] professional services and administrative expenses, which are also being captured in the capital fund as well, which is new with this year's budget. And then some some pre pre acquisition activity that's happening on the real estate side with site surveys. And again, tying into the environmental work that needs to happen to 30 million of the 53 million that was appropriated in the fy 24 budget was for the anti-displacement fund. So we have an interlocal agreement in place with the city that has an appropriation schedule tied to it. So again, just appropriating funds in line with that schedule and we work closely with the housing department to determine what the spend plan was for fy 24 Shaw and then lastly, within the metro component bucket, which encompasses all of the bus related projects, I think the expo center and pleasant valley metro rapid lines that are currently underway and the Mccalla station, those projects were fully appropriated in fy 23 and they're anticipating to complete their spending in fy [11:34:46 AM] complete their spending in fy 24. So we're working with metro staff currently right now to put together a funding framework that would set aside the funds for the rest of the metro related components as broken out in the jpa supplement that was also approved on June 6th with the updated implementation plan. Ann and that summarizes the spend plan essentially across the three main buckets that we have for atp throughout fiscal year 24. As mentioned, our three main priorities as as Darren mentioned earlier, are getting through the federal process and establishing that relationship with the fta, maintaining community dialog and advancing the design and environmental work that needs to be completed over the next year to advance the project. So with that, we're open to any questions that you guys may have. >> Thank you, colleagues. Any questions or comments? Vice chair pool I wanted to thank Darren and Brian and our other [11:35:47 AM] Darren and Brian and our other staff from atp for coming over here today and giving us this really good, succinct update on the financials for atp. >> Atp is formally in its. Third year, third year, yes. Yeah. And you guys have made great strides in establishing the foundations for strong reporting, transparency and good communications and I know the council really appreciates that. I think the public probably does as well. We are all avidly interested in the success of project connect and the work that atp is doing. So thank you guys for being here today and I appreciate the cadence that we will have with these reports. I did during the metro board meeting on on Monday, let everybody know at that end that you guys would be here today to [11:36:47 AM] you guys would be here today to make this presentation and encourage folks to dial in. Maybe they're listening through Ann or we're able to come and sit in the audience here today. But this is good information and I appreciate you guys coming and offering it to us. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. >> And just while we have you here, I don't know if this is your purview. You on October first, we're going to be launching our small business local preference pilot program for the city. We had earlier been talking with atp about that. I know there's interest. Just want to flag for you that we are actually launching that October 1st. And I know I'm hoping that you guys will be looking to that as you move forward, as an option for you as well. If there are no other comments on this. Thank you, gentlemen, for being here for our last item is future items. Miss stokes, did you want to. >> I believe we have several [11:37:56 AM] >> I believe we have several items lined up for the October meeting, and I think that would be our at least the cadence for disaster preparedness discussions would be coming back in October. I have not spoken with management to ensure that that's on their radar. And then we also from my office, we have our integrity unit update. We try to do that twice a year to give you all a sense of what we're doing in the fraud, waste and abuse investigation world. And then we're also going to have a briefing on the status of prior audit recommendations. So we're trying to pull together. It's been a long time since we've talked about not just this audit or that audit or this topic or that topic, but really talked about our our recommendations overall. So we're going to do that at the October meeting. I believe management will also be talking about their process for how they're going to track and move those recommendations going forward. Thank you. >> And I will also add that council member Reynolds and I have requested a discussion of the strategic planning process, as was hinted at in the budget [11:38:56 AM] as was hinted at in the budget document, but we have not had an opportunity as a council to discuss that. Right. And then I trust auditor that you will connect with staff about the disaster preparedness preparation. Yeah so that'll be another pretty full agenda. But I think it's very important topics. I'm pleased that we are going to have a more regular cadence and a better city system for mapping out kind of recommendations that have been made by the auditor and what has been fulfilled or not. That has been a source of frustration. So I'm pleased that we'll be moving forward with that. Thank you. Me too. Colleagues, are there any other audit items that you want us to be planning for? And I'll just remind you, it is very helpful to know those ideas sooner rather than later, just because we have a pretty packed schedule and we try to make sure that we're done in two, 2.5 hours to the extent possible. [11:39:57 AM] hours to the extent possible. Well, thank you, miss stokes. With that. It is. 1139. And I will adjourn this meeting and it is 927.