City Council Budget Work Session Transcript – 7/30/2024 Title: ATXN-1 (24hr) Channel: 1 - ATXN-1 Recorded On: 7/30/2024 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 7/30/2024 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. [9:59:32 AM] We are a-t-x-n the City of Austin's Government Access Channel . You know what I mean? Like you know. I don't want. To folks. Y'all ready? Here we go. >> Good morning everybody. It is Tuesday, July 30th at 10:00 in [10:00:32 AM] Tuesday, July 30th at 10:00 in the morning. And I am calling to order, this city council budget work session for the Austin city council, we are meeting in the city council chambers, which is located in our city hall at 301 west second street in Austin, Texas. Members, this is a work session where we are going to concentrate on enterprise funds and cip, again, what we will do is we will have a staff presentation followed by a council discussion. And, council members have submitted questions so that there's a more focused. And I'm going to turn it over in just a second. Before I do that, though, I want to run through the calendar, and I'm going to do that here now, and I'm going to do it again at the end of the meeting, so that the public is aware of how we're we're going, and just for the record, we do have a quorum of the council present, on Thursday, this coming Thursday, August 1st at on that Thursday, we will [10:01:33 AM] on that Thursday, we will conduct a public hearing on the budget, and we will hear public comment on the maximum tax rate. And that will begin at 10:00 in the morning, we will also set the maximum tax rate at that meeting. And what I want to do is I want to again, note that setting the maximum tax rate is a requirement of the state's truth in taxation process, in which the city's governing body publicly declares what maximum property tax rate it will consider for the upcoming budget process and that's done by a vote of the governing body. Historically, the city has set this maximum tax rate at the voter approval rate, which is the highest property tax rate the city can adopt without triggering an election. On the following Monday, August 5th, 2024. We will. We're using that as a date where we will try to have filed all of our proposed budget amendments and budget [10:02:34 AM] budget amendments and budget ifcs by 6:00 on that date. All of the budget amendments and budget iocs on that date. And I want to emphasize and the council gets this, but I want to emphasize for the public that part of the reason we want to do this, and we're utilizing that date is because especially this cycle, even more so, I think, than last year's budget cycle, because of the difficulty of balancing the budget and a more difficult budget year, we're dealing with less money in some instances. So we want to make sure those proposed amendments and budget amendments are are what will impact appropriation, will make a difference in in the money aspect. I f-keys are more policy direction that because those budget amendments have such an impact, it's going to be important for all of the council members to know what people are thinking and for our professional budget staff to [10:03:35 AM] professional budget staff to know what everybody's thinking, so that we can make sure that the numbers add up. Tuesday, August sixth is currently a scheduled date, but we may not utilize that date for a meeting. That decision will be made a little bit later, in part, it might give staff more time to look at our our proposed amendments, work on, fiscal notes, that sort of thing. Thursday August 8th will be another work session. And the purpose of that work session will be to have each council member publicly lay out any proposed budget amendments and or budget items from council. This will allow members of the council to ask other members questions, provide some comments and in some cases determine if we have redundant proposals or proposals that could be consolidated, the plan is also to have as many fiscal notes as possible at that point to assist [10:04:36 AM] possible at that point to assist in our analysis and discussion. And then Wednesday, August 14th through Friday, August 16th of 2024 will be when we vote on the budget we have set aside three days. We may not need three days, but that's the that's what we've currently set aside, I just want to get that out for everybody. What I would also encourage council is, as you know, where you are on budget ideas and budget priorities, go ahead and put those up on the message board, which of course allows us to have that have a an open, transparent discussion about where we are on certain things. But that will also, particularly in this budget cycle, give us more time as a group to see what people are thinking and where people are on different things. So with that, unless there's something else, I will turn it over to miss Lang. Unless you want to say something. All right. It's all yours, miss Lang. [10:05:37 AM] yours, miss Lang. >> Good morning, mayor and council, Kerri Lang budget officer. And I'll go ahead and get started with our presentation, we'll talk about the enterprise departments. We'll have discussions on several topics on the enterprise departments. Then we'll go through a facilities updates and have a quick discussion on next steps. So the first conversation will be on Austin waters go purple program. This program was approved by council in March of 2024. It focuses on increasing the use of reclaimed water in and around Austin to make water usage more sustainable. The program is funded through the new community benefit charge. The typical customer began seeing will begin or began seeing the $1.1 $0.47 per month increase in June of this year, the incentives and grants program is up to $500,000 for large developments for a total investment of $4 million [10:06:38 AM] investment of $4 million annually. And then, the $6.5 million investment is to expand the Austin waters capital program, to expand their reclaimed system. And, I'll ask director Shea to come down to address any questions. If the council has questions. >> Yes. Council member Fuentes. >> Thank you. Can you elaborate on the capital program for us to expand the reclaimed system? Is that do you mean the downtown area? Is this a different type? If you can. >> Good morning. Shea roalson director Austin water, the capital program for the reclaimed water system includes expansion of the system as well as additional investments in the resiliency and operation of the system. So, you know, this system is, is parts of it or are, you know, 10 to 20 years old. So we're reinvesting in the resiliency of those parts of the system as well. But yes, it does include expansion through the [10:07:40 AM] include expansion through the downtown area as well as in other parts of our system. >> Thank you. Councilmember. Councilmember Allison alter is now time for a vacancy. >> Questions or we'll talk through vacancies. >> We have some slides that kind of walk through vacancies a little bit later. If you want to. >> Okay, I'll wait then on on that, director, I was wondering if there are any recommendations from the Austin water audit that are not funded. >> No. No, we have, we have closed out or operationalized all of the recommendations from the external review. Okay. >> I imagine there's some capital expenses that are over a period of time. But in terms of the funding plan to accomplish, what was laid out in the audit and in your plan for response, all of that is, is accounted for. [10:08:40 AM] for. >> That is correct. Both the operational improvements, staffing and capital investments that were part of the recommendations for the external review are built into our budget. >> Thank you. And I'll return to ask some questions about vacancies later. Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you councilmember. Other questions. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate you. Director. >> Next we'll discuss Austin resource recovery transfer station update, a transfer station is the facility where trash, recycling and organics are temporarily held and consolidated to hall or transfer before it is moved to the larger, facility, the department is right now doing an economic feasibility study and is expecting that completion in the fall of 2024. Once that is completed, that will determine [10:09:40 AM] completed, that will determine future funding needs. And then in regards to the household hazardous waste collection program, two additional positions were added in the fiscal year 25 budget to support a citywide household hazardous waste collection services that will begin in January of 2025. >> Councilmember Allison alter thank you, >> Actually wanted to just, ask Mr. Mchale if you could speak about, not only the household hazardous waste program, which is going to go citywide. This is a program that we piloted in district ten and district four, where constituents, can go on their app or, or call in and schedule, you know, an on demand pickup of hazardous waste, but I understand there's also because of what we learned through that pilot and other work that rr is doing that we're going to be able to roll out on demand bulk and brush. And so I wanted to give, the director a little bit of time to share that with [10:10:40 AM] of time to share that with council. I think it's a big win in this budget and a big win for rr and the community. And I think we need to highlight, that. >> Sure. Good morning, mayor. And council, Richard Mchale director for Austin resource recovery. It's great to be able to talk about this. This has been a long time coming, but we do plan to roll out these on call services in January of 2025. This will be a on call system for our household hazardous waste, where we'll actually come to the person's door to collect that material. But we're also going to be doing this for our bulky collection and our brush collection. So we're going to see some savings currently for, just for our brush and bulk alone. We have mailings that we send out twice a year currently, which costs us about $250,000 per year. So we are going to be eliminating that cost with this new system. Plus, we'll be able to actually provide more service. Currently, residents get two times per year brush and bulk collection, this new program will allow three times. Be able to collect material. So for the household hazardous waste collection, not [10:11:41 AM] hazardous waste collection, not only will we still have the location at our Kenneth Gardner area on Todd lane, the business center drive the, resource recovery drop off center, but we'll also be collecting that material also three times per year. So even if you use up your three opportunities, you still have unlimited use to be able to bring that material to our facility down on business center drive. >> Right. And you and my constituents found you also can share with a neighbor or, you know, there's a lot of ways to make sure that you can help us to achieve our zero waste goals, we've gotten really, really positive feedback, in district ten, for the household hazardous waste, I think it's, you know, helped, reduce what's going into to our landfills and appropriately, and I think when you go out and you tell your constituents this like it's really, really popular. So I'm very excited that, you know, the work that we did with the pilot and the other work that you have been doing to think about how we can make it easier for the [10:12:41 AM] can make it easier for the community to help us with our zero waste goals is really important. So I want to thank you and your staff for making this happen, and I'm looking forward to the rollout in January. >> Yeah. One of the other benefits, if I can mention too, is, you know, previously with our brush and bulk programs, we basically had to drive every street looking for materials. So with this new system, we'll be able to do point to point routing and be able to we should be able to see some savings in both our fuel and a reduction in our carbon footprint over the time frame. So really excited to move these things. We're all about customer service, and we think these excuse me, these programs really move, move the bar. >> It's okay to get choked up with that about this. >> Yeah, I get excited when we talk about trash. So very important stuff. >> And it's good to see your passion. >> All right. Thank you. >> Councilmember alter councilmember Vila thank you mayor. >> And just to, clarify. So we're going to shift to a on demand three times per year, customer driven request for bulk pickup. And, brush pickup. But [10:13:44 AM] pickup. And, brush pickup. But we're not going to do the cards. And the in other words, this is an we're going to do the pickup instead of the neighborhood sweep. That's correct. Okay. I just wanted to clarify. Thank you. >> Thank you. Councilmember. Any more questions on yes, mayor pro tem, I had a quick question. >> Just occurred to me the other day, a couple well, maybe it was pre-pandemic, during budget, we talked about trash pickup in our parks and the importance of having recycling bins there, and we moved forward, pardon? Move forward and R move forward at the time to establish that service part has been responsible, I believe, for continuing to service those, that trash removal and recycling removal. Is that an arena that may be more appropriately would fall to R. And if so what could you report back to us and tell us what that might look like? I [10:14:48 AM] us what that might look like? I think at the time when we were talking about it again, this was probably 2019 or 2018, I don't think we had the staffing and the resources as in trucks and so forth, to actually embrace that expansion of service. But pard thought that they did so over, over the last few years, I imagine things have changed and maybe R is now poised to be able to take on that responsibility. >> Councilmember, we can certainly look at that. But the issue is we would utilize our clean community fee to do that type of thing. And we are pretty restricted in how we can use that fee. So that was something that we would have to well, so if you could lay out what the restrictions on that are so that we have a sense of what that is. >> And also if we could get a kind of a broader picture of what might be involved. Sure. >> We can get you that information. >> Thank you. So much. Thank you mayor. >> Thank you, mayor pro tem, anything else? Yes. >> Councilmember Ellis, did you say for the hazmat pickup, there were only three on call pickups [10:15:48 AM] were only three on call pickups per address, >> There will be three available. Yes. >> Okay. And is that the same? You said bulky and brush pickups are twice a year. >> So currently. Yeah. With our the way it is currently with brush and bulk. It's twice a year with the with the new on call for the door to door basically collection per household has its way. So it'll be three times that they'll be able to do that. So there's no limit right now of for people bringing material to our drop off facility. But for our on call system it will be three times per year. >> Okay. And if for some reason someone uses theirs up as they're moving and a new person moves into that home, is there a way to say, hey, there's a new person living here? And we would also like to have access to those those three times per year. >> Sure. As customer accounts change, we will be able to go through the billing system, be able to determine that, and we'll be able to provide those services to that new resident. >> Okay. Wonderful. Thank you. >> Thank you, councilmember Bella. >> I'm sorry. One more. Any news on the transfer station, the location and, of land in north [10:16:49 AM] location and, of land in north Austin, presumably for the transfer station, so we can have that a drop off, option as well for bulk pickup and brush and tree limbs and those kinds of things, >> Not a location at this point. So we're still working with the consultants to do that work, we actually have two consultants engaged right now. One is doing work looking at our property on tod lane, the existing property we have, and looking at the cost effectiveness of that property to see if that can also, from a civil engineering standpoint, if that property can can handle that type of traffic and operation. But we also have another consultant that's looking for a property, in generally in the northern areas, as well as the cost effectiveness of tod lane, to helping us determine the best location and where that should be. So at this point, we haven't determined a specific site yet. >> Got it. And assuming that a property is located or the tod lane is found to be sufficient, any sense of a timeline for a transfer station? I know I've [10:17:50 AM] transfer station? I know I've seen planning documents that we're looking at, maybe a 28 time frame, something in that area. Is that realistic? >> Well, you know, we're working on the public facility corporation, and I don't know that this project would go that same route, but that method is much quicker than a typical construction project. So I think once we were able to determine the site and the cost and moving forward, I think we could look at for years now, do you know, I mean, being a the type of facility it is, there could be some opposition to it and delays due to, legal issues. And, so there could be those type of delays, but strictly from building facility, I would imagine about four years from when we are there any licensing required by the state for a transfer station? So for the existing facility right here, it's more of a permit or a registration, so it's not as onerous as a landfill would be. So it's, it's really more of a registration, especially if there's recycling occurring at it. The state gives much less of a much lower bar that you have [10:18:51 AM] a much lower bar that you have to cross if you're recycling at that facility. >> Got it. Thank you, director Maggio. >> Thank you. Council member. Thank you very much. Thank you, miss Lang. >> Austin energy, the general fund transfer. So some of the key considerations in the 2022 rate case, we set the general fund transfer at $115 million, which established the 11.6% transfer rate into the general fund, the, so right now the 11.6% for fiscal year 24 is 115 million for fiscal year 25. Proposed is 125 million. If we look at 12% for fiscal year 25, that's 129 million, increasing the general fund transfer would, result in a potential further [10:19:52 AM] result in a potential further downgrade for the utility, it would impact the key metrics of the financial metrics of the utility. And so you see here the slide the days cash on hand, the goal of the utility is to get back to 150 days cash on hand within this financial forecast period. And with the 11.6%, they reach that by fiscal year 29 going to the 12% they don't quite reach the, 150 days in this financial forecast. And that is a concern of the of the utilities at this moment. Also, one of the concerns of the utility is that increasing the transfer will result in a increase in their expenditures, of course, that they are worried that they can't absorb in the, in the proposed fiscal year, under this current financial conditions. >> Questions? Members. Yes. Councilmember Ryan alter, can you tell us and I think this was submitted by councilmember [10:20:56 AM] submitted by councilmember Fuentes, what the difference in this fiscal year budget would be between 11.6 and 12% for fiscal year 24, correct? That you're talking about just raw numbers dollars. >> Correct. So it's 115 million. Would it be like 119 million? >> I'm how many how many millions does it give you if you go to 12? I'm not sure what the fy 24 number is, but for 25 it'd be a $4 million increase, right, >> Okay. Well, I don't know if Bob Bob is halfway up, but yeah. >> Thanks, Bob Kahn, general manager, Ross energy. Yeah, I'd be a $4 million increase in the general fund transfer. >> And I understand that as we look at our financial policy, you know, we want that 150 days cash on hand. Does that policy come from the credit ratings or where did that number come from. Is that a ga ga whatever the that is the city policy, >> I know you know, we we're always in discussions with the rating agencies. If you talk to [10:21:57 AM] rating agencies. If you talk to them, most utilities have about a 200 day reserve, but 150 is minimum. So that that is the city policy. We've been in violation of that since 21. Okay. >> And as you know, I'm looking at fiscal year 24 here. I'm sure there's a decimal that we're not seeing, but the difference between 11.6% and 12%, it's still 126 days cash on hand, regardless of 11.6 or 12%, based on the chart that Kerri put up, I know it's we you know, looking in the out years, if you had some combination thereof, you might be able to get to 150. But I think it's hard to understand the practical implication, like looking at fiscal year 25, for instance, 133 days versus 132 days. You know that that's to someone sitting right here. You know what? What is the real difference between 100 and 33 days and 132 days? Both are obviously not 150 days, just trying to understand about $4 million. And as we are reviewed [10:22:59 AM] million. And as we are reviewed through, whether it's S&P or the whatever credit agency are they, you know, are they going to say, well, you're are they looking at your current financial position or are they looking at your trajectory. >> They're looking at both, we met with them in December and they're looking at the five year forecast. And my opinion, based on my experience in this industry and hearing from them, I think if we don't hit 150 minimum in the next five years, I think, you know, we risk a downgrade and they're watching this obviously. >> And I know everything everything has some impact. But our, oh, I just blanked on the ratio. It's supposed to be 2.2.0, but we're 4.1. Our, debt coverage ratio, >> We're at a little over two, right now. A little over two. >> For some reason. I thought I [10:24:01 AM] >> For some reason. I thought I saw in one of the slides somewhere for, where how does that metric way, in terms of the days cash on hand in terms of is, is one more important than the other? Is have we been cited for one more than the other? >> In my opinion, the most important thing is cash reserves. Okay. If I can give an example, we've had two events where there was no extreme weather or anything like that, and we had the pandemic, revenues were down because we reduced rates. But expenses were up and we had to use our cash reserves to help us through that. That was $95 million that came out of our cash reserves last September. You know, we've talked to you about, not having our generation inside our load zone. We've talked to you about congestion. There are a few days there, nothing out of the ordinary going on in ercot. But for us, it costs us $250 million in a few days, which took half our cash reserves, so my biggest concern is cash reserves right now. >> Okay. >> All right, I appreciate it. >> Thank you. Councilmember, [10:25:03 AM] >> Thank you. Councilmember, mayor pro tem, I think, general manager Condit, it can be easy to kind of get lost in the minutia of all the numbers and the percentages and so forth, but I think the reality is the reserves are the savings account for Austin energy. >> That we tap into quickly because it's liquid when we need to make large purchases in order to deal with either, a disaster or congestion or something along those lines, am I am I going at this correctly? Is that accurate? >> That's correct. >> And when the ratings agencies downgrade us, that has a clear actual dollar impact on how much it costs the city of Austin to repay any loans or bonds which are loans. Can you talk about that? A little bit? >> Yeah, we've we've talked to pfm because it's hard to figure. That's a good question. It's [10:26:03 AM] That's a good question. It's hard to figure out like what is real impact if interest rates are higher to borrow. And so we looked at a reduction from aa to triple B, which would be a pretty big drop for somebody. But over 30 years, if you issued $300 million in bonds, it he, our ratepayers about $43.7 million. >> And, I was going to ask you about the 150 days of cash on hand, and you have answered that. How long has the city is that a new, best practice or is this a goal and a best practice for the city of Austin since for how long? >> That's been the policy. If it was up to me, I'd want more than 150 days minimum. >> So again, this is our savings account that provides us the buffer and the margin in order to be able to operate appropriately when our residents are screaming at us, saying we don't have electricity, we can't turn on our lights and all the [10:27:06 AM] turn on our lights and all the food and our refrigerator and freezer is spoiling. >> Yeah, you know, the biggest concern is extreme weather events. You saw Yuri. I don't know if we'll have something like two and a half days without power, but you know, even a day. I mean, we saw from Yuri, San Antonio CPS, they got hit for $850 million, brazos went bankrupt. And that's what keeps me awake at night, that something will blow through, and we're going to have to come up with a bunch of money for that. >> And Austin energy is in the crosshairs. When we have a disaster, and we look to you for your after action report and we say, why did this happen? Why were our residents affected negatively? Right. >> And we see what's happening with centerpoint right now. So yeah, colleagues, it is really important that we understand fully the value of our reserves across the board. >> It's a savings account. We rely on it, but not only us, the [10:28:07 AM] rely on it, but not only us, the consumers, the residents in our city rely on us to be mindful and responsible in how we are managing these monies to make sure that they are taken care of when we are in these extreme situations. >> And if I could, I'd like to make one more observation. So the 2% base rate increase gives us about $13.7 million more, as you know, the going, with the increase would be about a $10 million more to general fund transfer. If we go to 12%, it's 4 million more, which is 14 million, which basically eats up the 2% base rate increase. >> And it may even keep us from having to expand on the time that we have that base rate increase happening. >> Is that right? >> Yeah. >> And we'll have to figure out where we get the 4 million from. >> We still have to solve for balancing the budget and paying off the debt. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, mayor pro-tem. >> Councilmember Fuentes, thank you. [10:29:07 AM] you. >> I have a clarifying question. Mayor pro tem mentioned that in case of a disaster, we would dip into reserves within Austin energy. Is that right? Yes. Is there from our financial team? Are there reserves through our general fund or account that we could also that would also be available in times of disaster? >> Yes. My understanding is that last year when we took that $250 million hit, and Stuart can come up here and correct me if I say this wrong, but I think we borrowed $70 million from other reserves in the city from the bssf. >> Thank you. I just want to underscore that colleague that there are, there you know, I would hate for us to be in that scenario, but that there are additional reserve funding available should we find ourselves in a disaster. >> Did you want to add something you were. >> Yeah, I was from one of our. >> Okay, apparently that was one from one of our other reserves. [10:30:08 AM] from one of our other reserves. Yeah, the $70 million. >> Let's get clear on. Because if there's a discussion about this, let's be clear on what reserve funds we're talking about, okay? So that and not just in a general sense, because this is a serious conversation. So make sure that we're clear both with regard to what the mayor pro tem was saying, but also councilmember Fuentes question, so that we know what it is we're referring to. >> Stuart, why don't you come up and talk about what reserve that was from, or do you know Ed? >> Okay, talk about it. The city you put first. >> So I was just clarifying, good morning, Stuart Riley Austin energy deputy general manager. I was just, making a clarification that that, when that market event happened and we needed to move money out of our power supply stabilization reserve to go into our working capital to be able to pay our ercot bill, that power supply stabilization reserve is part of when we talk about days cash, [10:31:08 AM] when we talk about days cash, and we're talking about the need to get to the policy minimum of 150 days. All of that, all of these different funds that we have at Austin energy, whether it's working capital or a power supply stabilization reserve, that is all lumped together as part of our days cash, I don't know the answer to the question about whether, city reserves can I say this back to you? >> Yes. >> And see if I'm understanding. And I apologize if this is a simple question, but what you're saying is that for purposes of utilizing reserves in disaster type situations, there may be more than one pool of money, one bucket of dough that you end up using to pay. But when it comes to calculating the 150 day goal, they're all they might as well all be one bucket. >> That's exactly right. >> Yeah, yeah, mayor pro tem. And then I'll come to council. >> And ultimately, no matter where we borrow from which pot of reserves, we still have to [10:32:10 AM] of reserves, we still have to pay it back. So the money doesn't magically like no longer need to be accounted for. Right. Thank you. >> Council member and council member Ellis, if there is a natural disaster type situation, to what extent would, FEMA ultimately be able to reimburse, assist whatnot down the line? >> How much would that benefit, Austin energy or how much funding would be available from FEMA to Austin energy in these situations, we can recover or be reimbursed from FEMA. >> I know for the ice storm, we have asked for a $20 million, reimbursement. And as you know, that does take time to get back years many times. But but we would be eligible for reimbursement just depending on how much we spend and how much they feel is appropriate to reimburse us and would that reimbursement also cover and my [10:33:10 AM] reimbursement also cover and my sense would be no. >> But, market based costs that Austin energy faced related to a weather emergency? Or is this are we just talking about like fixing the wires and poles and whatnot? >> I think if we have to bring in, like, you know, centerpoint brought in 12,000 linemen to help things. They spent money on trucks, gas, food, hotels. Those are the types of things you can get reimbursed on. I think if the market goes to $5,000, that is not something that we're going to get reimbursed by FEMA from. >> So ultimately, I guess from a financial perspective, that's the killer, right? >> If you bet wrong or, you know, are caught really needing power, when power is critically expensive, would you say that that is among the biggest risks that Austin energy faces? >> I'd be more concerned if some of our units go down. And instead of spending 40 or $50 a megawatt hour for power, we have to spend 5000 and buying it from [10:34:11 AM] to spend 5000 and buying it from ercot. >> Yeah. And is that essentially what happened to our lord? It's not bluebonnet, but the co-op that went brazos. >> Brazos electric. >> Yeah. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. >> Council member Ellis and council member Alison alter. >> Thank you. This has been a good conversation because I think we may still have further questions moving forward about some of these, I've heard some warnings in the years that I've been on the dais to make sure that we have strong financials, that we make sure that we're looking out for rainy days, that we know come our way, I'm very concerned with tapping into reserves to fund initiatives that should be ongoing funds. I know it's not an easy conversation to have to figure out where our priorities lie, but I'm worried that, you know, $4 million to me is not worth risking lowering a credit rating. I want to make sure that the people who are fronting money for us to do our initiatives are very confident that that we're listening to our financial staff and making sure [10:35:13 AM] financial staff and making sure that we're on sound financial footing. I know we just had a conversation a couple weeks ago about how long it takes for FEMA to reimburse us, and we don't know if the next disaster is going to be electric wires with ice on them. We don't know if it's going to be fire related, flood related, we have to make sure that as an entity that we're not chipping away at too many of these different conversations for reserve funds to make sure that we can afford our, our programs. And so I know that there's at least 4 or 5 years backlog of FEMA reimbursing us for things that we have already out of pocketed as the city of Austin and I know that FEMA also will contest things, you know, a bunch of us sat in an emergency operations training together and staff taught us how much you have to document when each person showed up to work when they left, they have to document everything along the way. Because when you submit to the federal government, they're going to go through that with a fine tooth comb and they're going to say, hey, this number doesn't add up, or we think this person may have clocked out at 3 P.M. Instead of [10:36:14 AM] clocked out at 3 P.M. Instead of 2 P.M. Or 4 P.M. We need to make sure that we have those numbers straight. So it's not just a year over year conversation about how long our reserves need to be able to float us, it can end up going into five or more years to make sure that we get our money back. So the question that I do have on this particular chart is in fiscal year 26, both of those projections between 11.6% and 12%, they they dip down as far as how much cash you have in reserves. Can you tell me what is being accounted for there? Are there any, expectations for that cash reserve that are preallocated in that year? Because it, it goes from 126 to 133 down to 130, and then it goes up to hit that 154 at the end. Can you tell me what fiscal year 26 is holding there? >> Yeah, I really don't know the detail on that one, >> We can turn that into a budget q&a. I don't know the specific project, but that would be when we do our forecast, [10:37:14 AM] be when we do our forecast, we're looking at our cip projects that we have, and we're forecasting out any of those major projects. So something could be occurring in a certain year that would affect the net number that you're seeing there. Okay. >> We'll submit that through the portal. So we have time for staff to tell us all the information. Thanks. Thank you. >> Thank you, councilmember Ellis, councilmember Allison alter and then councilmember Fuentes. >> Thank you, just so that we're all clear, can you walk through the example that you gave with the 250 million? >> I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you. >> You gave an example of $250 million hit that was market based. Can you walk us through that? >> Sure, back in September, there was congestion on the grid, so let me back up a little. Ercot likes to send a signal if you're not. If they don't think you're doing what you're supposed to be doing, and it costs money because we don't have the special generation inside our load zone, they don't like that. And so our cost increase, we sell it into ercot [10:38:15 AM] increase, we sell it into ercot and it costs us more to buy it back because we can't use the special generation, our load zone. We have to bring it in from the grid, which creates congestion. And that is why it cost us $250 million over several days. I think we also had a unit down in June that might have been part of it. >> This was in September or in June, >> Well, it started then, and then it was out for a while. >> No, no, but the big hit was in September or was in June. >> It was over several months. Okay. Yeah. It wasn't instantly over several months. Okay. Thank you. >> Councilmember Fuentes. >> Yes. Thank you. Just in, just wanted to add my commentary on the conversation on the general fund transfer amount. I think we're all supportive of us increasing the number of days of cash reserves we have on hand. But, colleagues, we will be at risk of any type of bond rating until fy 29. So that's a risk we will carry for the next 4 or 5 [10:39:17 AM] will carry for the next 4 or 5 years. I think the difference is if we went to a 12% general fund transfer, that would get us 4 million to help us fund much needed, absolutely critical initiatives that are related to the resiliency of our community. So I just ask that we maintain that in consideration as we have this conversation, because the risk to our bond rating is one that we will maintain as a city for the next four years. >> Councilmember Allison alter and councilmember Ryan alter, I just want to clarify, though, if we were to raise that transfer at this point, you'd have to raise rates on our ratepayers, correct? >> Okay. Because we can change. We can change that for the general fund and not have a tax impact. But for Austin energy, there's a ratepayer impact. >> We would prefer to reduce some of our expenditures in other areas. I would prefer not to. We would prefer not to raise rates. I think the 2% that we have going that we'd like to do going out is a better look, from the PUC and the ledge, as far as [10:40:18 AM] the PUC and the ledge, as far as that issue goes. >> Okay. >> And if I might, I was going to say this at the end, but this is one of the true areas where the state of Texas and the city of Austin spend a lot of time together, and, just yesterday for example, in the senate, there was a hearing, conducted related to centerpoint and what just recently happened, and as the council and others remember, during the last session of the legislature, there was quite a bit of discussion about Austin energy, there's typically discussion about transfer. There's typically discussion about all of those sorts of things. And because of what has recently happened in Houston with centerpoint, I anticipate that the next session of the legislature will once again be a [10:41:18 AM] legislature will once again be a legislative session that talks about, power and energy. And we are always going to be a part of that discussion and how we manage will always be a part of that discussion. It's just part of why what we ought to be considering as we as we take all of this into account. Councilmember Ryan alter. >> On that note, where and I, I couldn't find the chart if I could remember in here, where does Austin kind of fit into the state in terms of where our rates are as it compares to whether it is centerpoint or or other utilities? >> So there's two issues. One rates, the second one is bill what the bills look like. And our rates are our policy is to be in the lower 50%, which we are, as far as billing goes, we have other than El Paso, we have the lowest bills in Texas, mainly I would argue because of the efforts we've made in energy [10:42:19 AM] the efforts we've made in energy efficiency over the many years. >> And I think you know, that's that shouldn't be lost on our, our that, that that is a priority of the council is to keep it affordable for our customers as a benefit of having a publicly owned utility. And we talk about the general transfer, a lot both here and as the mayor mentioned at the legislature. And when you're looking at a private utility, what typically, if you have any knowledge, is their rate of return to their investors or that that they are profiting on an annual basis. >> It used to be in the old days, I guess I'm dating myself where people went in for rate cases and you'd see what the rate of return was that doesn't happen now other than in transmission costs of service cases. But I knew I know this morning I heard on NPR, on the way in, they were talking about centerpoint, and apparently their profits were $6.7 billion. Last year. >> I'd love a $6.7 billion [10:43:22 AM] >> I'd love a $6.7 billion transfer. >> So would I, >> And so when we think about this general fund transfer that is essentially us returning some of those profits to the city, which is the owner, right? Instead of the shareholders, the city is kind of benefiting from being the owner. Is that a fair characterization? Yeah. >> I don't know that. I okay. Sorry. Oh I don't know that I want to call it a profit, I think our, our financial people would argue that it's an expense, but, you know, the city has taken on a risk by having this utility. And I think that's payment for the risk that you're taking. >> Okay. >> And on the discussion that councilmember Allison alter was having about that overage that is outside of the psa that was a separate charge, or is that something that we're covering through the psa, the $250 million. >> >> That's psa. Yeah that was psa. >> So even if it came if it was [10:44:23 AM] >> So even if it came if it was a hit to our cash on hand, we have a mechanism through the psa to fully recover that. And I think we have seen some of those increases to get us there. I know we're still behind. We get that every month. We're we're getting closer and closer and closer. But that was through the psa that we were covering that. >> Yes. >> You eventually you recover it over the psa. But that's why you have cash reserves because in the meantime you have to fund it out of your reserves and it may take you like in this case, it's taken us two years to get back. So in that two year period you have to have reserves. There's a lot of seasonality in our in our business as well. So you get through sort of these lean periods like fall, winter, spring and then you make you know, you have a lot more billing that happens over the summer. So there's a whole lot of seasonality that you have to be able to weather there as well. So just from a normal practical business standpoint, I know we're talking a lot about rating agencies and what they may or may not do, but really, it's important for us just to be [10:45:24 AM] it's important for us just to be able to do business to weather any storm, to weather any volatile ercot market conditions. It's not just about the rating agencies, you know, we do anticipate going back to the bond market here in the next 6 to 9 months. And so if we if the rating agencies don't see that we're on the trajectory to, you know, they think that five years is far too long, especially since it's been since 2021. But really, it's not all about that. I mean, this it could be costing our customers a lot more money if we did get downgraded and have to go to the bond market. But it's really for a host of reasons of, of storms, ercot, market volatility. And so forth. Yeah. So, I also council member Ellis did get an answer to your question so we can save the budget q&a. And that's a $34 million jump in and debt service that we see that year. And so debt service payments perfect. >> I won't have to submit it now. All right I appreciate that. >> And my last question is do we utilize commercial paper like [10:46:25 AM] utilize commercial paper like Austin water does to as our kind of intermediate partial pay commercial paper. >> Commercial paper, yes. >> We do. >> I figured I just wanted to be clear. Yes. >> Thank you, councilmember Allison alter. >> So, this might need to be I don't know if this would be stored, but when we did the rate case, as I recall, we very deliberately set the general fund transfer to be 11.6 instead of 12%, for at least the next five years. In order to signal and to actually make an investment in addressing, these financial levers that were not where they needed to be. Is that am I recollecting that correctly? >> I wasn't here, but gone. >> Yeah, that's correct. >> Actually, my recollection is that council opted to freeze the general fund transfer at 115 million. And what we did not necessarily know how what how to treat that going forward. So instead of keeping it frozen at 115 million, we imputed that [10:47:28 AM] 115 million, we imputed that percentage. It came out to 11.6. If you back into a percentage. And so by doing that, we're already seeing this this year over year $10 million increase in general fund transfer, which is the largest year over year increase we've ever had, and so that, you know, it's because there really weren't other levers to pull to be able to rebuild that financial health. And I'll just back up and say, you know, part of the benefit, a great benefit to having public power utility is we want to we take pride in not only having, you know, top reliability numbers for the state, you know, the affordability, the best environmental portfolio in the state. But we also take pride in the general fund transfer, being able to give back to the community. And we've always been consistent that once we can get our days cash back to the policy minimum and get into compliance, we would we would go back to the maximum that we can provide in terms of those community benefits, and we look forward to that. And we would if, if we can get to that number sooner, we [10:48:28 AM] get to that number sooner, we will get back to the 12% sooner as well. >> Yeah. So I think I mean, I see this as an investment for us moving forward and that we, we, we need to have more restraint now, you know, we went through a lot of information when we did the, the rate case, through all the details, which I don't have at my fingertips right now, but but I think it was a very compelling case that we really do need to be watching these things. And I just want to reiterate the comment that it's not just the rate makers that we are the, the rating agencies that we are concerned about here. There's a lot of different options, I'm already not happy that we're raising rates 2% every year relative to what we decided during the rate case. And so to prolong that process even further, I think really undermines the process that we went through, with very a lot of deliberation with the community, to determine how we move forward and set Austin energy up for [10:49:28 AM] and set Austin energy up for success. >> Thank you. Councilmember. Thank you, gentlemen. Miss Lang. >> Development services. So as we look at the development services department, they became an enterprise in 2019. With that, we added 52 positions. This slide really talks about the change in positions as well as the ebbs and flow of the development functions and activity that we've seen. And so we see that in 2020, we reduce their positions by two, but then added a number of positions in 21. In fiscal year 22, because of the increased activity that we saw, we begin to see slowdowns in fiscal year 23. And so, we did add positions in 23, but then reduced them in 24 and [10:50:30 AM] but then reduced them in 24 and are proposing a further decrease in in positions in fiscal year 25. The department is currently working on adjusting those positions to rightsize the department to be able to adjust to development activity and to create a department that is, nimble and using a mix of temporary and contractual staff to help reflect the, the resources that's needed to, to, respond to development activity, and then the department also does an ongoing cost, an annual cost of service analysis to review the cost of service in determining how they're going to set fees for the next fiscal year. >> Once you come forward. >> I do I have a second slide. I'm sorry, I was waiting for it. >> Thank you. >> Then I think there were [10:51:31 AM] >> Then I think there were questions about the general fund transfer, and what was all included in that general fund transfer into development services, and it supports costs that are not or that cannot be passed on to other customers. And this just breaks down some of the costs related to that. So a city council sponsored fee waivers 4.8 million. The urban forestry program 2 million. Telecom, small cell and alarm permitting 2.1 and notifications to residents about $800,000 totals. The general fund transfer councilmember villa. >> I understand that there is a fee increase planned as part of the budget as well. Where are we in comparison to our sister cities San Antonio, Dallas, Houston in particular, in terms of, development fees? Good morning, mayor and council Roig, [10:52:33 AM] morning, mayor and council Roig, >> Director for dsd. I don't I don't think we have done that analysis. I know there was a study at one time, that looked at the cost of development, in the city of Austin, so we will have to get back to you on that one. We can we can look into that and research that. Yeah I understand obviously, that we can't charge on our fees have to be based on the cost of service. >> Correct. So if it costs us $900 to issue a permit, the permit cannot be more than $900. For example, correct, but I'm just curious because again, this is anecdotally. And again, that's why I asked the question because you hear people say, oh, well, fees are much less in this city or that city or whatever the case may be. And I just don't know that. And I think it would be very helpful to be able to compare development fees, you know, again, across a major, cities, a larger cities in Texas, just to have some kind of sense of where our fees are. And if they are higher, that's something that I think we need to, to think about and to look at. But if they're in line, well, then you know that that [10:53:34 AM] well, then you know that that would seem to be fine. >> So we have to we have to compare apples to apples, though. >> Exactly, apples to apples. And I'll throw in. I'll just I'll talk to my staff and we'll, shoot a budget question your way. I know that might be a little bit more complex, and might require a little bit of digging, but I think it would be great to have that comparison. Sure. Thank you, director. >> Counselor. >> Ryan, thank you very much. I, I understand that the need to scale down when we have less demand. It perfectly makes sense. My concern is that it feels like we're always not only reactive, but just behind. Right. When we got to the surge in development, we were behind. And then we had to take time to staff up. And by the time we staffed up, there was a big backlog. And now we have those individuals and we're trying to clear some of that backlog, and now we're going to get rid of a bunch of people, and it feels like we're going to end up just right back there again, right in a few years, I'm sure we're [10:54:34 AM] a few years, I'm sure we're going to see an increase in demand and so I'm trying to understand the balance between using this time right now when we don't have the demand we've had over the past few years to really clear through everybody who is kind of in the pipeline and set us up for success. So when we do see that increase, we are able to not get such a long backlog while we're trying to staff up again. So how do you how do you balance those two things that that is an interesting question. >> Council member, right now working with my executive team, we actually do an exercise not only looking at the fees very in-depth, you know, on the on the cost of service, but also looking at the volume versus personnel that we have right now and analyzing the historic, you know, volume that we have for the past. You know, up to ten years, actually, the decrease in volume and revenue has been exponential. I mean, we're talking about maybe 45% in residential, there's a way to and sometimes you don't get the vacancies in the right places. [10:55:34 AM] vacancies in the right places. Right. So you have you have the staff in there. Right now they're they're pretty busy doing consultations and appointments. So we have the work, but not as much as we had. And the revenue that we had in the past few years. So we had to get to the point that we can adjust to the right level. And then, as a department, we have to find a way to when we get the uptick in volume, there's actually ways to actually deal with that. And that could be done by third party contracts with companies that actually do plan review inspections that, you know, they can supplement the work that we actually do in the department, as well as temporary employees. So that's that's the plan that we have. Okay. >> And when we think about what is typically one of the main choke points in the site plan process, what is our current timeline to completion and how does that compare to what our goals are for that time to completion? Let me call assistant director Keith Mars to speak about that, because we have done a lot of work on that. >> And so at this point, I don't [10:56:36 AM] >> And so at this point, I don't think we have any backlogs anyway. >> This is a chance to brag, so do it. >> After mayor, after new mayor council Keith Mario, assistant director of development services department, in may of. I'm sorry, in March of 2023, I think we were averaging 100 days on on reviews. For comparison, 28 day is the benchmark that we try to achieve from March until the end of the year, we were able to go from about 100, roughly 100 days late. Some cases were extreme of 200 days late, but the average was about 100. And we are we brought it down to around 32, and we've stabilized around that number. And we are actually on time for update to site plan cases. And we're just on the cusp of being on time for plan review site plan does take time. So we're now seeing that data being born out in the overall lifespan of a site plan. And just as important, we're actually tracking that now as part of the site plan improvement initiative, as part [10:57:37 AM] improvement initiative, as part of our key performance indicators, so that we can look at overall timeline and those incremental steps that get to permit issuance. >> So what is can I interrupt real quick and can I say, don't don't run off. >> This is time to brag. And I, but I want to be clear, what you said is that around March of, of 23 before the implementation of the programs that have been put into place, we were over three months with a goal of 28 days. So just under a month. And by the end of the year, you were just a little bit over a month. And we've now dropped that to where it's basically the goal that's correct. >> That's great. I that's that's really encouraging. And I'm glad that we've seemed to have gotten the process right. And I think that's the most important thing right now is to get the process really fundamentally strong. So [10:58:38 AM] really fundamentally strong. So that once again, we know development is going to happen again in this city. And if we don't have the process right, we're going to end up right back where we were. So I appreciate the work you all are doing. I do have one last question as it relates to the fee waivers, the general fund transfer, the city council sponsored fee waivers, that is separate from, let's say, like a smart fee waiver or something that's in code. These are the waivers that that's the smart fee waivers are included in that calculation. >> That is as well. Yes. >> Okay. And then why for the telecom small cell alarm permitting. Why do they why are those fees not put on whatever telecom small cell alarm companies. Why are we the council member Ed Benigno chief financial officer those franchises are are set by state law. >> And so the permitting has to be covered under the franchise. We can't charge additional on top of what we're already collecting for a franchise. Got [10:59:39 AM] collecting for a franchise. Got it. >> That makes sense. Okay. >> Thank you very much, >> Mayor, on the on the point on the, upgrades that we've been doing, we're going to be working on a memo for mayor and council that is going to detail everything that we have done with the with the data and the initiatives that we have put in place. We have enhanced the system. So we'll we'll provide that. >> Mayor pro tem, I'm sorry. >> Thank you for that. Mayor pro tem followed by councilmember Allison alter. >> So dsd's work is kind of cyclical. There's lots of ebbs and flows. So it's important for your workforce because of the rules and the protocols surrounding human resources, to make sure that we have a flexible workforce that we can shift from one kind of, activity to another. Yeah, do you can you talk a little bit about the ftes being more temporary? They were categorized as temporary hires in the past. And then I think it was in 2022 during budget, we shifted. There was an initiative to shift, those positions to [11:00:39 AM] to shift, those positions to permanent slash full time ftes. And the impact that had on your work. >> Well, there was there was some decisions made on the on those years. And as you can see, the increase in ftes that was actually done in response to the volume, in terms of transferring, I mean, once you got the ftes, those temporary positions can actually apply for those positions and they're successful. They can convert to ftes. Of course, when you get ftes, you have a permanent decision. You know, you have you have a full time employee and you don't have the capacity of dial up and down when volume goes up and down. So those decisions are, including the increase in ftes and also the decision on fees to actually reduce them and keep them flat. It actually impacted the department at this point. >> Would it be helpful to dsd for us because that was a council change? Would it be helpful to you if the council were to reevaluate that and maybe look at loosening that up or allowing that additional flexibility that the temporary versus the permanent positions [11:01:40 AM] versus the permanent positions had given you? >> I believe we have the flexibility now with the with the vacancies that we actually holding on and the plan that we have for the future, we have the flexibility if we get temporary positions, then we'll be able to dial up and down depending on the volume. And we are evaluating now based on the vacancies that we have. Where do we need the staffing and if we need to realign and reorganize we can do that now. >> So and then my last question on that is when you work with human resources on crafting the job vacancy notices, do you include language that allows that position to flex among the different activities that are within dsd? Is that even possible? >> I believe the policy on hrt and I confirmed this with the, with, hr, corporate. You can also you can you can reassign other duties to the employees. As long as you don't, you don't go higher than what is in the, in the job description. So it isn't it isn't there. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Mayor pro tem council member Alison alter. >> Thank you, so I appreciate all the work that's gone into [11:02:40 AM] all the work that's gone into reducing these times, at the same time the volume dropped. How do I know that these improvements are improvements that actually improve the process versus just we had a huge drop in demand, the improvements that we talk about, the work that we did from March this year, was actually on the site plan side on that on the land development side, the department never overstaffed that team, and that's why they had a huge backlog when the volume was up. >> Now the volume is actually at the level that we needed. And it doesn't it didn't. It didn't reduce. We still have activity in the site plan as we have before. So the improvements that we have done and the collaboration that we have done with the departments is not based on it's not because of the volume, it's actually because of the enhancements that we have done that, that the site plan, the commercial side hasn't seen the decrease that we have seen on the residential side. >> Okay. Yeah. So those were commercial? Yes. Those were the commercial numbers, not the site plan. >> You know, land development. Yes. >> Okay. And then, in the budget it says that there are ten new [11:03:42 AM] it says that there are ten new positions and development services to increase code inspection, investigation and compliance issues. Can you speak to those positions? >> Yes. So the dynamic now that we have, since the consolidation with the, you know, the code department, we have two different funding sources. We have the clean community fee that actually funds the code compliance side of it. That's a very stable fund. And in the in the ask for the budget on that side of the business, on the code compliance division, we are, asking to, to enhance and establish an illegal dumping response team with three new ftes. We also, by bringing that the code department into the department, we've been able to move some enforcement activities into that funding. So that actually helps. The development side. And we also are looking into enhancing the repeat offender program by, you know, with two employees, there and the code connect site. So that's on the development on the code side, can you say the last piece one more time? That will be the three new ftes for the for the [11:04:42 AM] three new ftes for the for the coconut. That's actually, customer service that we do for the, for the code enforcement. Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. Councilmember thank you sir. >> All right. >> Appreciate it, miss lane. >> Aviation. The ausmat program, this program was created as a pilot in 2023 to provide emergency services during peak hours at the airport. They've maintained the funding for three paramedic positions in fiscal year 24. And they are proposing to continue those positions in fiscal year 25, some key considerations for this program is that FAA standards require the aircraft rescue firefighting, program to be a part of the airport, the amount [11:05:45 AM] part of the airport, the amount of calls or the priority calls that they're seeing at the airport are primarily priority 4 or 5 calls. They they are receiving a high number of transport refusals, when they receive these calls and based on data that that they've received through June of 2024, the ems has received an average of 4.7 calls per day, with 75% of those calls being during the peak hours of 9 A.M. To 9 P.M. And, aviation is here to talk through, their experience with that program. Rajeev and I believe, the director, ghislain, is on, available on screen as well. >> Yes. >> Good morning. Council members. Mayor and the city manager. My name is rajiv Thomas. I'm the cfo of the aviation department, so regarding the ems [11:06:46 AM] department, so regarding the ems program, what we have at the airport is also in conjunction with the ems program. The firefighting department that has a staff of ten people, per shift. That is also ems bees, certified. They have the basic ems training, and they were the ones before ems. Came into the airport that were responding to all the, the calls regarding the emergency responses, so if you have any questions, I know, there is I mean, we presented the data that we got from the cad system, and I think I was told that there might be some discrepancy on that data. So we might have to go and evaluate it further. And reconcile where the differences are with the ems system, so if you have any questions, I can answer further. >> Councilmember Fuentes, thank [11:07:47 AM] >> Councilmember Fuentes, thank you. >> Can you remind us the hours of operations that we have for the ems unit that is at the airport right now? >> Yeah, 9 A.M. To 9 P.M, 9 A.M. To 9 P.M. >> Okay. And if we my understanding there's a need for us to add two additional ems paramedics as part of this unit to provide 24 over seven, response, can you walk us through the funding mechanism for that? And how those paramedics are paid for? >> Yes. So we would have to pass that along to the airlines through our rates and charges, I mean, that's the funding mechanism that we have. We built it into the rates and charges for the airlines to recover that cost. For example, the firefighting unit is 100% paid through our landing fees. The ems, to some extent, because they serve not just the passengers they would be serving some employees, maybe two, that allocation would differ that way. >> Thank you. Colleagues yes. >> Robert. Good, assistant city [11:08:49 AM] >> Robert. Good, assistant city manager. I just wanted you to know that we're working with the ems to look at an operational plan going forward, and we continue that conversation because we understand your question and it's a valid question is what do we really need in ems staffing at the airport, especially during high travel days. And so we're in conversations with the ems, and we'll be coming back with a proposal on how we how we really staff this now and going in the future. So I wanted you all to know that we're still talking with them. >> Thank you. But the conversations with the airlines, as far as establishing, you know, with their fees and funding structure, that conversation is taking place in August, correct? >> Yeah, we're ongoing with all the discussions. When everything about the budget for the aviation department is being scrubbed. This by the airlines this time around because of our expansion program is already hitting them. And so they're really scrutinizing our budget. So that's why aviation staff is being very careful about what we're proposing to pass on to the airlines, because they're [11:09:50 AM] the airlines, because they're more sensitive than usual. And so we're working we're trying to find a happy medium that the airlines would support, and it would provide better service for ems there as well. >> Yes. Thank you. And I appreciate the conversations are still ongoing. Colleagues just want to highlight that we have an airport that runs 24 hours. And we've seen great success with the ems unit that we have on site. Certainly would love to expand that unit to ensure that we have coverage 24 hours, and we'll continue conversations with our airport and look forward to our budget deliberations in the coming weeks. >> Thank you. Councilmember. Councilmember Ryan alter followed by councilmember mayor pro tem pool, then councilmember Allison alter, then councilmember Ellis. >> All right. Just a quick question related to your the significant changes Paige the facilities management operations, airport security. It's a $1.9 million item. Included in that is some new fire positions, some new police positions. Do you by [11:10:52 AM] new police positions. Do you by any chance have that broken out into those four police positions? How much that amount is of the 1.9, >> I mean, we do, but we can provide it. I don't have that handy with me. The positions. I think with the firefighting department, I believe it was a change in the, the title of the position. But on the, on the police side, I don't know exactly all the titles that were involved. >> And are these positions for new officers at the airport or officers who are already there kind of being dedicated to the airport? What's what are those positions? >> They are they are officers. They do shift between, where the locations that they work, but they would be additional officers to, to help us with the checkpoints and, and, and any type of expansion that we have, will need the officers at that [11:11:53 AM] will need the officers at that point. So if checkpoint three, you know, comes into play in 2025, you will need additional officers there to. >> Okay. >> Well, if we can submit a formal question just to get that subset of what those four new police officers are within. >> Yeah, we'll get that to you I appreciate it. Yeah. >> Thank you. Councilmember. Councilmember Allison alter followed by council member Ellis, >> Thank you. I was wondering if you can tell us, how many ambulance trips having the ems medics at the airport has saved for our, stations that are nearby? >> I don't have that data. We were. Yeah, we weren't provided that data. >> Okay, if you could maybe provide us. And I just want us that. I just want to remind folks as we think about this that, yes, this is about serving people who are at the airport, but it is also about making sure that the ambulances that are in service, that are at the stations that we're funding with our tax dollars, are able to serve the residents of Austin, primarily in district two, where they get pulled. But when they [11:12:54 AM] they get pulled. But when they get pulled from district two to the airport, there's a knock on effect, you know, elsewhere and so, you know, we're measuring this impact. We need to understand that if it's not being done at the airport, it's on us and our taxpayers, not on the airlines. And, that has a big, big impact, for our system and for our residents. Thank you. >> Thank you. Councilmember. Councilmember Ellis, just a couple of questions. >> We talked about expanding for the need for 24 over seven availability. Are the shifts that the airport medics work right now? Are those in line with the regular shifts that medics outside the airport work? Is that why, we need that extra headcount? Or can can the airport be flexible with hours and staffing? Can you walk me through that? >> I think that's what we are trying to work through. That's what assistant city manager kind of mentioned. But I don't know the shift how the ems structures their shifts. We just know the hours that they serve at the airport, which is I wonder who [11:13:54 AM] airport, which is I wonder who would know. What is that? >> I wonder who would know? >> Our chief is behind you. >> The chiefs behind you making his way up. >> I'm teasing you. I mean, chief, why don't you step up? Yes, sir, >> The shifts that we staff at the airport are slightly different than the shifts that we traditionally staff in two ways. One, the majority of our shifts are 24 hour shifts. And so this is a 12 hour shift, and so we do staff that slightly differently. We do have some 12 hour shifts, but it's about one hour off. Normally we run from 10 A.M. To 10 P.M, with a 10 A.M. Change out for our 24 hour shifts. This is a9a to £0.09 to match with the demand in the airport. >> Okay, well, I'm certainly supportive of us having that coverage at the airport. I know before this initiative was brought by council member Fuentes in a budget cycle, it was you know, pulling, pulling medics out of rotation like council member alter said. And so I think it's important that people who are at the airport do have that service. I'm glad to hear there could be some more flexibility and trying to make [11:14:54 AM] flexibility and trying to make sure that coverage is done, to make sure that people are taken care of. I know, in district eight, when I did my ems ride along, the thing is, once people are in an ambulance, they're going to a hospital and then they get stuck in the hospital vortex where it's hard for them to get back out to the extremities of town. So, if that's happening in district eight, I'm sure it's happening in district two. As well, and trying to make sure that we have coverage for people to get quick response when they need it. So I appreciate that. >> Yeah. The premise for the program is that, by utilizing paramedics who have a higher level of training and integrate with physician and telehealth, we can solve their problem on site. In fact, in times we will actually call in prescriptions and things to their destination. Our goal is to get them on the plane to not disrupt their travel days, and, and identify the fact that we can do a lot of those things without the use of an ambulance, which has a much longer response time than having someone on site. >> That's great. I appreciate that, because my next question was going to be about the refusal rate. I know there may [11:15:55 AM] refusal rate. I know there may be information that you can't share, but could you tell us a bit about, you know, are people refusing because they say, I'm fine and I'm here and I'm ready to go on the airplane to wherever I'm headed and saying, you know, I'm good. I'm good. I don't I don't need to go to the hospital. What can you tell me any more information about those instances? >> Sure. It's a combination of both. We did see a high refusal rate prior to implementation of the program, and that was part of why we did this. Because if we can have folks on scenes that can identify that and can find alternative solutions for them, rather than send an ambulance with an extended delay. Prior to the program, we had about a 15 minute response time for ambulances to get into the airport, which is if someone is going to wait for the ambulance that's disrupting potentially their ability to get on their flight, not to mention all of the clinical implications, and so that was part of it. Now, I think what we're seeing is a lot of that ability to assess someone who may be anxious, who may have issues with flying. There's a lot of reasons why someone might, have ems requested by an airline by by someone in the air or that [11:16:56 AM] someone in the air or that doesn't have that medical training. And we're able to kind of assess that and find them with other solutions. We do a lot of those things. We've even had instances where someone has fallen at the airport. We've been able to stitch them up and get them on a plane and get them home, and so those are the types of programs that we implement. >> And are there any instances where they're not allowed to refuse? Are there certain medical conditions where someone is not allowed on a plane for whatever reason? >> From a from our perspective, there are we have to assess someone's cognitive ability to refuse, right? So we have to see what their level of mentation is generally speaking, individuals have a right to refuse medical care and so we use the same standard at the airport that we would anywhere else in the community to determine their their cognitive ability to make that personal decision as to whether or not they want to get care or not, as to who is allowed on the plane or not allowed on the plane, that would be probably a question for aviation aviation, and I don't know that I need to go into that kind of detail today. >> I'm curious about medical issues that may start in our airport and then end up becoming [11:17:58 AM] airport and then end up becoming more of an issue, either on the plane or at that landing destination. But that's a conversation we can have offline, I'm just curious kind of how these play out in real time. But thank you for the information. >> Absolutely. >> Thanks. Council member. Thank you, chief. Appreciate you being here. >> Yeah, I can answer, councilmember alter's question on the APD. So we had three officers and one detective that were added. And on the firefighting side, we have one engineer, and this is for the for the expansion program. And then there were three ftes that were reclassed to lieutenants and do you have the cost of those? >> The breakout for the APD portion is $619,416. >> But because it's offset by aviation, the impact to APD's budget is zero. >> Right. Thank you. >> Great. Thank you sir. Thank you. Appreciate it. It's all yours. >> So next, we're going to just [11:19:03 AM] >> So next, we're going to just show the changes in the major rates and fees. And this is a slide we showed during the proposed budget presentation where we talked through the changes for all the major rates and fees for each of the enterprise funds and as you will see, looking at 2024 monthly rate compared to the 2025 proposed rates, I won't read through each one, but, it shows each, department and or and or fee that will be changing and the percent that each will change to get to the 5.4 overall change for the rates and fees for fiscal year 25 members. >> Any questions on those items? Very good. Thank you. Let's go to the next item. That's vacancies. >> So talking through the [11:20:05 AM] >> So talking through the vacancy rates, we are seeing a downward trend on our vacancy rates. When we compare to, what we saw beginning of fiscal year 24. So we are down to, 10% citywide for civilian vacancies. We were we started at 14%. The citywide rate is seven. The citywide turnover rate is 7.5%, which was, 9.9 in fiscal year 23, when we look at our enterprise departments, at their vacancy rates, based on the last report, convention center is at 11.4%, and they, of course, we're preparing for their closure, next fiscal year. Austin energy is at 8.8%. Austin resource recovery is at 10.2. Austin water is at 9.6%, aviation is 19.3%. Development services is at 12%. Transportation. Public works is [11:21:05 AM] Transportation. Public works is at 8.2%, watershed protection is at 9.2%. When we look at the compensation study implementation, aviation completed with with the human resources department and compensation study, 43 job titles were reviewed, which impacts approximately approximately 237 employees. Human resources also completed a citywide compensation study with 364 titles reviewed. Nearly 1900 employees impacted. Councilmember Allison alter, followed by councilmember Fuentes. >> Good morning, I have a couple different questions. Let me start with, for Austin water. So we've been working for a long time to address vacancies, at Ulrich, can you tell us what those vacancies are to start, [11:22:07 AM] those vacancies are to start, please? >> I can, as of, the current pay period. Pay period 16, the vacancy at the Ulrich water treatment plant is 11%. >> Okay, >> And how many people is that? >> That's for. That's for vacant ftes and ftes, >> And then when we last spoke, you mentioned that there were some other spots that had, like, you'd been working on the Ulrich and then there were some other spots that had high vacancies. Are there are there other areas that are of focus at this point, >> We, a main area of focus for us is all of our plants. And, and also our electricians and, and instrumentation and control technicians, those are areas of focus for us. >> And so are there other plants that have higher vacancy rates in our, our highest vacancy rate right now is at the Hornsby bend biosolids management plant, which is a five positions for [11:23:08 AM] which is a five positions for 19%. >> Obviously, with that number of positions, we can influence the vacancy rate pretty significantly just through 1 or 2 hires. >> Sure. >> And what steps are you taking to further address these vacancies? I know you've done a lot of things already, but we have and we are, you know, actively promoting and recruiting these, these vacancies and implementing training programs, which helps us with our retention, >> And, and so we're, I think we're seeing, you know, particularly across the plants that these strategies are working. So we have a point in time right now where we have five vacancies at Hornsby. But, we feel that with the strategies and processes that we have in place that we'll be able to reduce that. >> Thank you. Well, it's really good news for the plants that, we are down from. I think it was above 30% at one point. So, thank you, and then I had some [11:24:11 AM] thank you, and then I had some questions for aviation, but I don't know if other people wanted to ask councilmember Fuentes. >> Yes, I think we're probably going to be asking along the same lines here, if we can have representatives from the aviation department colleagues, I'm very concerned about a 19% vacancy rate at our airport, especially in this crucial period that we're in with the airport expansion program, so I wanted to ask about we've had a retention stipend in place these last few years. Is will that retention stipend continue with this budget proposal? >> It's currently not in the budget. It's not in the budget. Yeah, it is not in the budget. The retention stipend. >> How many employees go ahead? >> It was replaced by a market study that we had, put in. And the implementing the market study was what was supposed to replace the retention. >> Okay. And when was this market study completed? >> I don't have the exact date, but it was just completed about a couple of months ago. >> Somebody coming down to help you? >> Thank you. Okay. Air is. >> Hi. Rebecca Kennedy with the% [11:25:11 AM] >> Hi. Rebecca Kennedy with the% human resources department. We completed the market study, and it was implemented this pay period. >> Okay. And so how many and so can you fill us in how that 10% retention stipend was in place and how it compared to the market, the compensation study that was conducted? >> Sure. The average increase that, of the employees that were impacted was a minimum of 5%. >> And to base pay with an average of around 7%. And so paired with that and looking at our across the board, that would put those employees looking at around 11% for fiscal year, 25, 11% increase to their base salary. >> Correct. And how many employees did that impact at where we saw 144 employees were entitled that saw a grade increase, I don't know, 44. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thanks. >> Councilmember. Councilmember Allison alter, thank you, >> So for the employees, who are [11:26:11 AM] >> So for the employees, who are part of the, market study and also were receiving the 10%, how many did not receive a pay increase because of the sorry of the people who were receiving the 10% retention amount, how many of them did not receive a 10% or more adjustment in their pay due to the compensation study? >> So the market study wasn't done for all the titles at the airport, so there is going to be quite a few, titles that would not be affected by the market study. So once the 10% goes away, I mean, it will affect a lot of operational staff. And you know, the, the, the titles. I don't have all the titles, but we still the market study was supposed to help us with the hard to hire positions like the technicians, the electricians, the carpenters, the plumbers, the engineering, the planners, [11:27:12 AM] the engineering, the planners, and it was really targeted towards that, that that segment of hard to hire positions to and but, you know, when we looked at the market study and we compared it to 11 different airports, what we found is that the airport pay was 10 to 30% below what the other airports were, paying, so and the concern that, you know, we have right now is the 10% stipend does definitely help retain staff. So just to kind of give you some numbers here, our turnover in 2022 was about 3.8%. And after the stipend in 23 it dropped to 2.36. And year to date it is at about 2.07%, we were able to with the retention hire fairly quickly. So in January of 2023, our vacancy rate was 38%. And by December we had reduced it to [11:28:15 AM] December we had reduced it to 23%. But since January, we've been able to only reduce it by 19%. So you can see as we are getting to all the hard to fill positions, we are having a hard time now, hiring for those positions and we are hoping that, you know, the full implementation of that market study will help us, right now, the implementation that is happening currently is happening with existing airport titles and not new airport titles. And that the percentile that the market study is being implemented, implemented at is roughly the 50th percentile. So we will have difficulty hiring, positions from other airports, which we already currently do, we've been, posting positions for airport aps, etc. At all the airport related, sites. And we do not get candidates, especially when they understand where the pay rate is and also [11:29:17 AM] where the pay rate is and also the cost of living, in here in Austin. So that's the status that we are in right now. And I think, you know, looking at, you know, a lot of our, our workers, like our facility services workers who are cleaning facilities that, you know, you have 50 to 60,000 passengers on a daily basis, pass through. And the frequency of work that they have to do is much greater at the airport. The workload is a lot higher, electricians have to be on 24 over seven, call because you cannot let you know. A boarding bridge go down or some critical systems come down. If this is going to delay the flights, etc. So all this kind of has to be taken into account when we look at that market study and you know, where those airport employees need to be at. >> So, I may go a little bit around this for a minute here, one of the things that has always struck me as we try to [11:30:18 AM] always struck me as we try to have our enterprise funds have the same titles and same job descriptions as we do. If you're an electrician, and in a general fund, position, or if you're an electrician who's working at the airport or particular kind of maintenance worker who's working at the airport out on the tarmac, you know, with planes that you have to deal with, and it's the same job description. It's the same title, what are we doing to address the need for airport specific titles and job descriptions? And where is that process? >> Yeah. >> Hi. Rebecca Kennedy with human resources department. We're working on. You'll see at later in August on your agenda. We're hiring compensation consultants with the intent to look at the compensation structures across the city with our city wide structure and then looking at our enterprises and putting them into different compensation structures because it has been recognized exactly what you said, council member, [11:31:18 AM] what you said, council member, that we have different industries working for the city, and we've used common titles for a very long time. And so when we look and we do the market study, I wanted to mention we implemented the citywide market study and aviation employees did receive, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but some of them did receive impacted their salaries based on that citywide market study. But now what we did is we looked at a very targeted market study to just aviation and so, as Mr. Patel mentioned, we are looking at those aviation specific titles. This is going to be phased in as we look at the trade specifically to have those airport, electricians or airport plumbers or something that, touches them because it's not just based on the job duties that they're doing. It's also based on, the access and the security needs that the airport requires that we don't require on those other positions across the city. So as we get that, contract approved in August, that's one of the first things we're looking at is really the compensation structure across [11:32:19 AM] compensation structure across the city. And then also with those targeted enterprises. >> So, city manager, this is really reminiscent of what we experienced with 911. And I think it was in 2021. We asked for a compensation study. It took nine months to do the compensation study. We had the results of compensation study. And it was like, we're going to do it at market at 50%, but then we're competing with a market where I don't know which surrounding folks are hiring at a higher rate. It's more expensive to live in Austin. And so we have this policy of you do the market study at 50%, and then you have, very niche positions that are very specific and you can't hire for them because you're trying to do it at 50%, which is just a policy that we have. And in the case of the airport, they can charge the airlines for it, not us. And we can be able to assure that we can make sure that our expansion, which is very complicated, can be done under the most conducive circumstances. So I'm very concerned. I, you know, there's it sounds like there's pieces [11:33:21 AM] it sounds like there's pieces that are working, I don't know the exact, I don't know the exact solution to address the 10% retention because obviously there's some employees that we have addressed the 10% for. There's some employees that haven't gotten that are now getting a reduced pay. We're already at a 19% vacancy rate, this is not a new problem for us, but I think it's one that you as city manager leaning in, working with our new hr director, together with the with the directors of the various enterprises who may be experiencing this, we need you to, to address this because we can't have an airport facility that can't recruit from other airports when was how many have you recruited for all these positions from other airports, as opposed to hiring? >> I don't have that. I mean, I know, for example, for our planner, we posted five times and we haven't been successful. And just maybe, I would say maybe 1 or 2 people that I know [11:34:24 AM] maybe 1 or 2 people that I know at the airport probably came from another airport, but a lot of the other positions, like engineering, you know, structural engineers, or, you know, mechanical engineers that we need, that we need with probably with airport experience, we have been so far unsuccessful in getting those folks. I mean, and right now with the electricians and plumbers, we are using contract labor, and it is costing us a lot of money with it. I mean, the rates that we pay for that contract labor is very high, but we have no other choice. You know, we need people 24 over seven and available at the airport. And this is the way we are doing it currently with a lot of staff augmentation. >> So I mean, this project and getting to work on this journey project, you know, this major, major expansion should be like the lifetime project for folks in this field. And if we can't attract them to come here, you know, we really do. You look at the pay and I just I'm really uncomfortable with this sort of [11:35:24 AM] uncomfortable with this sort of 50% market study. I'm really uncomfortable with staff losing a 10% retention bonus when we have this high of a vacancy for a critical operation, especially if it's not coming from taxes or rates from from our from our our residents, so would you know, I'm not I'm not exactly sure how we, you know, if it's what what the process is, but we've heard over and over again that we need the new titles, we need the job descriptions, we need the pay, and that the compensation studies being at 50%, don't don't work, so city manager, I look like you were gonna. >> So one thing I would like to just comment on here, too. Right now, our vacancy rate is at 19%. And you know, when we go through this expansion, you know, in five years time, we are going to double our facilities in terms of square footage. But right now we have about 960,000 square footage in the terminal. We are going to be roughly at about 2.5 million square footage at that time. And in the full build out of a concourse B actually takes [11:36:26 AM] of a concourse B actually takes us to almost 3 million square footage. So it is concerning, you know, when you go into this kind of expansion program with a very high vacancy rate and your ability to staff and cover all those areas that we need to cover the Gates, all the surface area that we need to cover at the terminal and the new Gates. I mean, that is concerning especially we will need a lot more airside ops, you know, personnel that can handle the planes coming in and the gating, etc. So it is something we have to fix. Otherwise having the facilities without the having the personnel, you know, that's not a good recipe right there. >> So manager thank you. >> Council member, and so you are exactly correct when it comes to I think how we approach our pay philosophy, particularly for hard to fill positions. And I know market studies one take time. So I know I appreciate hr and their team working on that. But as indicated, you know, sometimes when they finally arrive they're dated and [11:37:26 AM] arrive they're dated and sometimes not keeping up with where we are. And so I will work with the hr director and their compensation team to have that discussion. I will say, you know, in theory, you get what you pay for. I know it, it's very competitive. I know the airlines as mentioned by the cfo, are quite sensitive as well as our hcm around the cost of their overall, impacts on them and ticket prices, particularly with this large expansion. I've heard from a few of them directly, but, you can't have a high functioning operation if you don't have the people. And so I will work with the team and hopefully over the next several weeks. One, we can share with council kind of how we will approach it, but also going forward, you know, understanding what our pay philosophy is and not have it be static, but probably much more, amenable to dealing with specific instances and the various enterprise funds as well, quite honestly, as the general fund when it comes to hard to fill positions. So I appreciate the comment. And, glad to see that council [11:38:26 AM] glad to see that council understands and supports, having to make sure that we can meet the demands based on the market because it is highly competitive across all classifications in some cases, particularly if you're competing to try to attract people from other airports. So it's much more than just pay sometimes. But pay is one of the first things people start with. So I appreciate the comment. >> Thank you. And manager, if you could just pay particular attention in the short run, as we go into the budget for those, the 10% retention for the employees who didn't get the compensation bump, we've heard from several employees this was something we had to address last year. We've heard from folks again, in hard to fill positions who, you know, are worried that in the absence of this, that they will need to find a different job and they have the skills to be able to do that, I do have a question for the convention center. I don't know if anyone here know if somebody from the convention center specifically asked for a [11:39:27 AM] specifically asked for a convention center, >> Did we tell them we were going to do that? >> Well, let me throw out the question and maybe, on Thursday, we can maybe have an answer. This is a little this is not a super for this budget. So if they could maybe get back to us on it, I understand that the convention center is planning to retain employees, which is great, and there was discussion at some point that those employees could be redeployed to other departments. And I wanted to get a sense of an update on what those plans might be looking at as we're trying to understand how we address, needs in various departments. Having a better idea, you know, come March or so, when the convention center is closed, how those employees would be deployed, could be really helpful for us. >> The convention center director is on her way down so we can move forward with the [11:40:28 AM] we can move forward with the next presentation. And oh, here she is right now. >> Thank you, mayor. >> And council bronin assistant city manager. And the convention center is going to join me. Director is going to join me here shortly. But as a preface, she has been working closely with our hr department and with departments that have similarly titled positions to ensure that that transition is smooth. So I will turn it over to Trish, >> Good morning Tricia Tatro, director of the convention center. I'm sorry, could you repeat your question? I'm happy to answer. >> So, we've had previous conversations where, you know, the plan is to retain the employees at the convention center as much as possible, and to redeploy them to other departments with the convention center paying for that, and so I wanted to get a better sense of where those employees might be deployed, as we're trying to understand, you know, various needs of departments. >> Sure. Thank you very much for the question, so we have been working with corporate hr. We are developing the staffing reallocation plan for the [11:41:29 AM] reallocation plan for the overall convention center. We have identified job titles that we believe will be available for reallocation to other city departments. We are pairing those job titles with departments like, acm, Briseno said, with departments that have similar job titles to us, we're also taking a look at what the vacancy rates are in those departments, because we will not be reallocating staff until the closure of the convention center, which would be, post April. We're looking at, you know, April, may time frame, the needs of those departments in the future are slightly different than what they are right now. So it's kind of a fluid conversation. And fluid discussions that we're having with the other city departments. So we've identified departments that have similar job titles as us. We have not made determinations yet on where which departments were going to be partnering with and utilizing, because we're still doing that work currently. We're happy to give you an update as we finish, working with corporate hr and those department directors, to [11:42:29 AM] department directors, to identify. But, it's a it's a broad, they're our job titles. Very many of our job titles are broad and can be utilized across Pritchard building services. For example, Austin energy, you know, we've got ctm job titles. So I think that there I think it will be, multiple departments and not confined to just a few. >> Okay. >> I think that's great. There are a number of the ones that you mentioned, and the library also has correct them where there there were positions that reading through the unmet needs, it felt like there were some opportunity at some point to, to have, your personnel assist, at least in a short run. Correct, for these other needs. >> So that's correct. Library has been identified, additionally, like many of our security positions, planning, security positions, custodial positions, building maintenance positions, you know, are kind of across the enterprise. So between building services and or some of Pritchard directly or library directly for example, [11:43:30 AM] library directly for example, our staff could be placed. >> Great. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Thanks for the sprint to mayor. >> I would like to point out, as we're talking about vacancy savings, the even though the airport is currently at a 19% vacancy rate, they've had a lot of success this year. At the beginning of the fiscal year, they were at a 36% vacancy rate. So they've gone down from 36% at the beginning of fiscal year 24 to 19%. And so they've had huge successes with their vacancy rate, and they've done a lot of work to get to that point. I recognize that there's still a way to go, but this market study should help with that. But I want to just make us bring that to our attention, that they've come a long way from where they were in fiscal year 23 when and recognize that we know we have work to do, but they've come a long way from the time that we were this time last year. Thank you. >> Thank you. And that's a good thing to point out. I remember [11:44:31 AM] thing to point out. I remember that discussion this time last year, okay. If you want to go to the next item. So we're going, we'll go to a facilities update and I'm going to turn it over to cfo, deputy cfo kymberley Olivares. >> Good morning. Council Campbell Alvarez deputy cfo, for this facilities update, I'm going to tag team a bit between myself and Donald Baldwin. So right behind me. Great, from building services, so to kind of just give a little bit of an overview on, on things relative to our strategic facility planning, we actually cbre, which is a commercial real estate firm, we've had them on board with the city for a number of years now as to serve as our real estate advisor. So similar to how we have financial advisors with pfm, we also have a real estate advisor, and they have been an incredible asset and partner in our work. One of the deliverables that they had [11:45:31 AM] the deliverables that they had for us was in 2019, and they completed this strategic administrative office plan, and they had seven takeaways of recommendations from that plan, I think are important for us to be thinking about as we think about our facilities going forward. So first, moving toward a primarily owned versus a leased portfolio, they they found that there are millions of dollars of savings possible when you're looking at cost to own versus cost to lease for example, when we are leasing property, we are also paying property taxes, so if we are owning the property, there's a cost savings right out the gate, it also gives us an opportunity to have far better control over how we're managing those facilities, how we're utilizing them long term, they also noted a recommendation for organizing for greater efficiency. So one of the biggest drivers, for that organization was the creation of strategic facilities governance team, which is made up of myself, Daryl Alexander, our building services director, and Michael Goetz, our real estate officer, [11:46:32 AM] Goetz, our real estate officer, and so we are constantly meeting to discuss our various facility needs acquisitions, leases, renovations, things of that sort, to working together as a team. But we also just recently consolidated all of our real estate functions under financial services. So now the real estate team, that Michael Gates leads, he they've been with fsg for a number of years now. Not only are we handling all of the transactional, nitty gritty work, within the department, we're also able to work about with that long term kind of strategic aspect around redevelopment and really think about things more holistically. So that meant the redevelopment division of economic development department moved over, the third was for making a commitment to the long term, so you see, in our budget and you have for a number of years, a significant transfer to our, our capital budget to support investments in our, our facilities, also increased commitment to our building maintenance so that we [11:47:34 AM] building maintenance so that we can just maintain the assets we have, but it also part of that making a commitment to the long term means that we need to make better and more strategic decisions around our acquisitions and our dispositions of assets. Historically, it was handled very one off, now we are trying to achieve a larger vision for acquisitions to meet our needs not only for now, but going into the future also create opportunities for revenue generating capabilities. So looking at things a little bit differently, the next step was making strategic decisions about key assets. So this is where we are having much bigger conversations about what assets make sense for us to retain, which we should redevelop or repurpose, particularly with obsolete assets. And when Donald comes up here to speak, he'll be able to talk a little bit more about that when it comes to, when are there, when do we get to a point where a facility is not worth further investment from a maintenance standpoint, next was the implementing and enforcing workplace strategies. [11:48:36 AM] enforcing workplace strategies. So we've actually created workplace design standards. So that we can really address equity amongst all of our office spaces across the organization, but also enhance our ability to be more flexible with the use of that space. Then there's performing departmental adjacency and programing analysis so that we can be looking at how we place departments, how we pair departments up. To be more effective in utilization of space as well as as the partnerships that might exist between those functions. And then finally, is scaling our process up for development of new buildings. So we've had great success with permitting and development center, as well as Austin energy headquarters. And we're thankful to council for approving the creation of the Austin public facilities corporation, which just adds another really significant tool to our toolbox when it comes to facility delivery. Richard Mchale mentioned earlier the northeast service center, that's one of our biggest projects coming out of the psc right now. But we have a number of different efforts, that allows us to deliver these major facilities in a, in a just in a [11:49:36 AM] facilities in a, in a just in a different way. So then when it comes to implementation of this strategic facilities plan, like I noted, one of the big recommendations was to move away from the lease space and more towards owned space. So since the pandemic, we have eliminated multiple leases, we've been able to be more efficient in how we're utilizing our existing space with owned facilities, but also with some new acquisitions, some of those terminated leases, things like, we had a west Riverside drive, 811 Barton springs, Brodie oaks center, silicon labs, a variety of different lease spaces that generated approximately $8 million in savings. And we have some other leases that are coming up, for expiration that could generate even another 3 to $4 million in savings, we've also been utilizing favorable market conditions for acquisition, council approved the acquisition of east Ben white. That was one of our leases. But we had invested so much in that facility, it really [11:50:38 AM] much in that facility, it really made sense for us to actually own it long term. So and then we can actually instead of it being very segmented with suites, we're able to make it a more, efficient use of space. We're able to make it a more, a comprehensive, more holistic space for our employees, also, acquisition of Tokyo electron property, the facility, as well as the raw land, which gives us a lot of great opportunities for development of that. And we're looking forward to beginning conversations around that very soon, and also infinity public safety warehouse, because of the sfg perspective, we're able to look at our overall, storage needs when it comes to all of our departments. And with that warehouse, we're able to address current and needs probably going 20 years forward for our all of our public safety departments. And because that warehouse is nearly 250,000ft S, and then finally, we're looking at creating opportunities for reuse and redevelopment. Town lake center, for example, Austin energy previously occupied that [11:51:38 AM] energy previously occupied that building when they moved into their new headquarters. We are able to look at that, do a complete renovation, and then again, continue to move folks around in the organization to have more efficient use of space. And but more particularly exciting is as we look at these, reuse these redevelopment opportunities, it creates opportunities for downtown properties. The city of Austin has a number of downtown properties, so now we can be thinking about things more. What would we like to do and not do we what do we have to do, we're in a much different state of affairs than we were even just a year ago, the real estate market recognizes that the city of Austin is a real player in that market, and it's made things, a lot more exciting for how we, approach our facility needs, but, and creating opportunities down the road. And so now I'm going to pass it over to Donald to speak more to, when it what it means to, to maintain those facilities just morning mayor, council manager Donald Baldwin, [11:52:40 AM] council manager Donald Baldwin, assistant director for the building services department. >> So as Kim mentioned, I just wanted to give a real quick, high level overview of an assessment we currently had of some of our city facilities and what it means for some deferred maintenance. So, as you can see, we had an assessment done. It looked at about 175 buildings, a little over 3,000,000ft S, and of that, a little over half of it is in a fair and good condition, and the other half being in poor to critical. So when we look at this, it really, feeds into what Kim's talking about on the plans we make for our facilities. Because as we purchase, buildings are determined different uses for buildings, it will affect how we invest our capital dollars into these assets, or if we don't invest capital and we, we do something different with that, that that section of the portfolio. The, measurement that we really use is the FCI. It's one of the measures that we have in our strategic plan, that we all [11:53:41 AM] strategic plan, that we all agreed to look at city facilities with. And it's really a really good indicator of the condition and, and how we can determine future use of it, and when we're talking about investing in our portfolio, what we're really talking about is risk mitigation and resiliency. Wright the, the, the better condition our facilities are in, the more resilient they are to failure and the better they can support the mission of whatever aspect of the city is in those facilities, whether it's this building so council can meet for these types of meetings or if it's a fire station where the garage goes down, the garage door goes down or hvac system goes down, that affects response time, to our citizens. So really investing in our portfolio to make sure that the, the equipment and assets are operating as they should is a critical aspect of, of, mitigating risk. This is just an example. I wanted to highlight a couple of the buildings that that we've talked about and were part of this assessment. So the old municipal building, right. The building was built in 1929. It's a historical building, but [11:54:42 AM] It's a historical building, but what are we going to use that for in the future? There's a lot of deferred maintenance needs there that also tie in with sustainability and climate equity initiatives, several of the hvac units need to be replaced, and those are old units that have our 22 and aren't efficient. So as we address some of these deferred maintenance needs, we're also looking at how we support those climate equity and sustainability goals that the city has, so, we're using those dollars the best we can to support all of those initiatives, another site I just wanted to highlight real quick is the old APD headquarters again, another opportunity to where, we can invest in that. These these facilities are safe. They're usable, we just need to really look at a greater investment of capital dollars to make sure we're we're keeping them in the, the best condition we can. So again, just a high level and we'll be able to answer any questions after this. But we looked at 174 facilities, [11:55:43 AM] But we looked at 174 facilities, a little over 3.5 million square feet. Identified a total current deferred maintenance backlog of a little over $130 million, with almost half of that being at some of the key locations that that Kim and sfg are looking at. So, again, as we make those decisions, we'll be able to move some of that around to determine how we really want to invest in those sites, or if we want to do something different, and determine if we're going to refurbish or replace and also how we prioritize the capital dollars that that we're getting in the budget cycle to, to use them to the best, benefit of the city. That's all I have. >> Thank you, Mr. Baldwin. Okay, that was it for facilities. Is that right? >> There was one more item, there was, interest, expressed around the police substation at canyon creek. So we did want to provide a little bit of an update, the this for the northwest Austin police [11:56:43 AM] northwest Austin police substation, the 2012 bond program, provided the funding for the land acquisition and the initial design of what is estimated to be approximately 20,000 square foot facility. We closed on the land acquisition approximately just under 17 acres in December of 2018, and since then staff has been working on, initial design work, utilizing remaining 12 2012 funding as well as some Rainey remaining 2006 funding. The intent is for staff to bring back a request for the construction dollars as part of a future bond program. So the timing of that station is dependent on the bond program, but, that it's staff has definitely been working on it to make it shovel ready, to for lack of a better term, but there is also a fire and ems station in the canyon creek area that's under construction right now and is scheduled to open at the first of the calendar year. So any questions about the facilities or the related councilmember qadri, followed by [11:57:44 AM] councilmember qadri, followed by councilmember Ryan alter? >> Yeah, I appreciate the presentation. Just out of curiosity, when it comes to facilities that are either poor or critical, is there a geographic distribution where those might be located, or is it kind of just scattered throughout the city? >> It's scattered. We're still we just got the finalized, finalized report from the vendor we worked with. We're still looking at that internally, but it's across the portfolio that we maintain. And is it is it a maybe a certain type of facility that it's all types. We looked at, you know, city hall, we looked fire, ems, all the health facilities, kind of anything that building services touches was included in that. >> And when it comes to like contributing factors that that cause them to get into poor critical is it just age? Is it is it just lack of or poor maintenance? It's just it's random prioritization of funding. >> Okay, right. We're all working with limited funding. So where we invest those and how we invest those and again getting better at some of the stuff Ken talked about with making strategic decisions about facilities to know that this is [11:58:46 AM] facilities to know that this is a facility we're keeping, we need to make sure we're investing in it and keeping it to that state, or if it's a facility that we plan on doing something else with, reallocating those funds to the greatest need. >> I, I don't know if the example I'm about to give relates to this, but, I think it was fire station one in downtown, I'd done, you know, many, ride alongs with them. And it was a great historical station, but it needed a lot of love and care and I think at times when I was, when I was there, I was concerned about just folks running in and out of that building. And I, you know, I, you know, I thought if it got too windy, the building might just fall down, so was that was that a situation that it was just such a critical shape that it was safer for, for it to be closed down than to try to try to repair it, >> So there's still layers that we're working on here. So some of this we're going to address with deferred maintenance dollars, some of it may be handled through bonds. Yeah, depending on if it's if it's [11:59:46 AM] depending on if it's if it's really just deferred maintenance or if the station use needs to change. And so those are still some of those conversations that we're having on what's the appropriate, appropriate mechanism to address the overall need of the station. Right. It's a really old station. So it may be that it needs to be, added onto or the bays need to be enlarged. So that they can support the, the larger trucks of today, and so when it comes into that, really what we're looking at was the deferred maintenance related to the current use of facilities and how we can maintain them, but we are having those conversations and partnering with, AFD, ems, police and also, staying involved in the, the bond planning program to make sure that we're, we're looking at it through all those lenses. >> Great. So, council member, you know, one commonality on these these, facilities that are listed as being in, you know, critical facility condition index, again, is Donald said these these facilities are safe. We're addressing public safety needs, but we've not done a good job historically with keeping up [12:00:47 PM] job historically with keeping up with our maintenance needs. We've been very reactive as a as a city as opposed to being proactive. And so we're making aggressive strides to get to a thoughtful, proactive approach to maintaining our facilities, which is really important because these are expensive assets and squeezing the most useful, you know, life out of these assets, which, you know, requires us to do the maintain maintenance needed, to keep them in good, good working order, it's also been mentioned, though, as we look at these facilities, some of them may have reached a point. You know, it's kind of like your old car, right? You can put you put money into it. You fix things as they break, but you reach a point where you're where you think, yeah, this car is just time for me to get something new. And we may be at a point where some, some facilities where it just doesn't make sense for us to invest more money in trying to maintain them. One site that comes to mind would be Hargraves. You know, Kim mentioned the fact that we're developing a new northeast service center. Well, the [12:01:47 PM] service center. Well, the current service center at Hargraves is very old. It would take an extreme amount of money to really bring it up to the standard. We would want it to be at, and there's great development potential for that site. So that would be one where we'd say we're not going to invest money in addressing that deferred maintenance. We're going to repurpose that site and move to a new facility and to provide a little bit of additional context around station one, >> That that facility is definitely was definitely in need of a is that me? >> Apparently when you start speaking, we declare an emergency. Okay >> Yeah, >> That that station is it's clearly. Yes. An historic, space and was in need of some serious love, in the immediate term, so we're having to invest a number of dollars into that facility. But long term, we want to be looking at a new fire ems station, downtown area command, that sort of thing for the area. And that's where if you think [12:02:47 PM] And that's where if you think back to one of my comments on my slides, where, because of our downtown property ownership, at this point in time, it gives us more options for us to be thinking about, potential for a new station and things or a placement station or if it's an add on, whatever the case may be, we're just in a much better spot to make those decisions now than we were, say, a year or two years ago. >> Thank you. >> And I and whatever Mr. Benigno thinks, I think your your car is fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah, council member Ryan alder followed by councilmember Allison alter. >> Thank you very much. I was curious how we look at the FCI in terms of, I imagine since the denominator is the replacement value and our, office space market has dramatically changed over the past couple of years, I can imagine something that was in one category has changed to a different category over a couple [12:03:49 PM] different category over a couple of years, simply by the value of replacing that building is now very different. Do we, I guess how often do we update our assessment of the buildings and where they fall, given the market? >> So I'll speak to the FCI a little bit. And then if Kim wants to add anything from the market standpoint. So we recently, had this assessment done. And part of that was implementing a system that we're loading all of our assets in and the, the, the value so that we can continually monitor that and built within that system. It has a aspect that will track the crv, for this, this geographic area, we're still working through, do we want to use kind of the industry standard or do we want to more partner with our in-house real estate office as we're assessing that as a more real time? But at a minimum, we'll be able to use kind of an industry standard to keep up [12:04:49 PM] industry standard to keep up with the crv and how it calculates the FCI, I will say, though, that the majority of our locations are not office type buildings, right? We're talking health centers and fire stations, ems stations, police stations. Right. And so that's a little bit of a different nuance that maybe isn't 100% addressed by the market conditions. When you're talking about purchasing locations, because it's the cost of construction is still different than, than maybe buying a the building that's already constructed that makes sense. >> And when we're talking about a fire police station to build one of those, does that require voter approved bonds, >> So with public safety, that is one of the allowable uses of non voter approved bonds, but historically we have utilized voter approved bonds. But we have had a several instances. Most recently, where we used nonvoter and how has and donal mentioned it a little bit. >> How has this holistic review played into the bond or, bond [12:05:49 PM] played into the bond or, bond development process we're kind of undertaking here? Do we have any sense of what how much of this need is going to need to fall within that category versus what we can do outside of voter approved bonds, >> So I as opposed to I don't want to lead with the, the financing mechanism. First I I'll look at what are the just the overall needs from a facility perspective. So as, as James snow and cds starts the planning efforts for a future bond program, I'll be working in partnership with them to make sure that we're looking at our, our facility portfolio, across the board, but also looking at the land components of it to make sure that we're not just saying, well, I need to build a fire station, so I'm going to buy land only for a fire station. Where what other, needs can we meet on that? On a similar piece of property? What kind of property do we already [12:06:49 PM] kind of property do we already have in our portfolio that might be able to meet those needs? But maybe it's associated with a different department. So just trying to have that more strategic, holistic look at our real estate portfolio, because land is not getting any cheaper, so we just we need to make sure that we're using our existing, property as efficiently as possible, but also looking at any acquisitions in a more strategic manner, to try and, get as many birds with, one piece of property. >> I'd like to just add on to that answer in regards to future bonds and what we're looking at as we transition to a, a proactive approach to managing the maintenance of our facilities. We want to get away from some of the things you've seen in prior bond programs, which have largely been maintenance focused. We have a facility. It hasn't been maintained, and we're asking the voters for approval to essentially fix it up. We need to get to a point where we're going to the voters. It's for a new library, a new fire station, a new police substation. And then once we have those in place, we have the mechanisms in [12:07:51 PM] place, we have the mechanisms in place and the tools in place to proactively manage and maintain those facilities so they don't fall into a state of repair, where we're going back to the voters and asking for money. And so that's what we're driving. Towards. And we're going to get there and, you know, I'm, I'm very short order. >> I'm very encouraged that that's the approach we're taking. I think that is right on and is what I think voters expect when they invest in an asset that we're going to maintain it. And continue its use. When we think about just the office need, where are we in? And I don't not an exact number, but are we more towards owning our office space or are we still heavily leasing. Where's that current balance? I don't have the exact numbers right in front of me, but we are. >> We have the pendulum has swung significantly towards owned, where we will always have a lease component. There's, there are certain functions that an owned situation just isn't [12:08:53 PM] an owned situation just isn't possible for whatever reason, but, I just, I named off a smattering of different leases that, we've been able to let expire in recent years, and that made up a pretty large square footage. So we are majority owned, at this point, but again, I just don't have the exact numbers. >> And how has our plan from 2019 either been updated or impacted by the work from home change that we've seen over the past few years, >> It's absolutely changed, it's improved, to be quite frank, because there's, there are folks that are able to do remote work, we're able to shrink our footprint just slightly, but we also have to recognize that we can't just be looking at now. We need to be looking at long term, based on the number of ftes that we add, in any given year for amongst our departments, we need to make sure that we're, we're able to provide space for them to work, whether it's a dedicated space or a hoteling space. But we're, we're [12:09:53 PM] space. But we're, we're constantly looking at our overall space needs across all the organization. >> Okay. >> My last question is about our combined fire police, ems, stations, the wrong word, kind of the campus that we had talked about. And I forget the name where it's supposed to be up north, but where where are we in that kind of combined facility replacing the, police headquarters at eighth street, what's the current thinking on that, >> We're continuing to look at the market to see what opportunities might exist right now, so that we can have a good comparison of cost to build versus cost to buy, and to make sure that we're making the smartest decision especially it does impact the taxpayers, with, with bonds that would have to be utilized. So we're just we're continuing to just to dig into what our options are to make the best decision. >> Is there a timeline or like a we need to have a decision by such and such date or is it more open ended? >> It's honestly it's a top priority for me because I mean, [12:10:54 PM] priority for me because I mean, just Donald went over the condition of the APD headquarters. So we're we're definitely wanting to make that, be able to make that decision as soon as humanly possible. >> Great. I appreciate all this information. It's very helpful. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Council member. Alter, council member Alison alter. >> Thank you, I've had the opportunity to work with the strategic facilities governance group as a member of that and finance, and then as chair of audit and finance since 2019. And I want to give a big shout out for Kimberly's leadership on this. And Daryl and Michael and everyone who's been involved, over the years, making this transition, when I first came on council, we were leasing a tremendous number of our properties. And as we had the state imposed tax caps, the process of moving to owned has really created whatever flexibility we have had, in a, in a number of our, of our budgets, because we're moving, [12:11:54 PM] budgets, because we're moving, you know, lease payments, which are o&m to, to debt, it is, you know, that alone is helpful. It is also, you know, seen we've also seen a marked improvement for our employees where they're working, the conditions that they're working in, which is helping with retention and recruitment, it is just makes a lot of, financial sense for now and over the long term. And so I think the work that you guys put in as the governance team for this, you know, working with our committee, I think has been extremely important and impactful. It's not always the sexiest thing that we do, but it is really, really important, I want to acknowledge I really welcome the new the additional emphasis on the maintenance piece, and having, you know, sort of a dashboard that we can look at and understand, early in my tenure, we had we had it we had a policy on, on the books for facility maintenance, but we weren't following it. And we have since been following it year after year. I think it's 6% [12:12:55 PM] year after year. I think it's 6% of the maintenance needs. And that may be something that we want to look at. You know, revising and upgrading the amount. If we can afford it, to be able to address things, things will shift now that we'll have a bunch of new buildings, in terms of how that's calculated, and we want to make sure we're not reducing kind of the, the, the amount there. So, so kudos to you and the team who worked on that. I think it's really important, I did want to clarify that, you know, when we talk about these facilities numbers, we're talking about buildings. So if it's our parks and our pools and our playgrounds, none of those assets are included in this, is that correct? >> That's correct, >> So there's, you know, there is a gap here, you know, as we talk about a bond, as we talk about these other things, you know, we have a lot of other assets that are not covered by this that require, you know, regular maintenance, both of the kind of, as we talked about for [12:13:57 PM] kind of, as we talked about for litter and restroom, but also kind of upgrading place Gates, etc. And so I hope that we will be able to further incorporate those in there. >> So I wanted to add two things before we wrap this up. >> But, one is that this study, the building services department does not maintain all of the facilities across the city. This initial phase of the study focused on the 174 facilities under building services management, our second phase will be then to extend it and do a facility condition index on those facilities not managed by the building services department, which does include our libraries and our, parks. Rec centers. And so we those are not in the numbers you've seen today, they will be part of the second phase, the other thing I just wanted to mention, because it hasn't come up yet, and maybe it makes the topic a little sexier, but as we go through this process of addressing deferred maintenance needs, there is a sustainability [12:14:59 PM] there is a sustainability benefit as well. And so as we're looking to upgrade our facilities, we're working closely with the sustainability office to make sure we're using the most energy efficient, options possible. So we have a lot of old past useful life hvac systems. And so as we replace those hvac systems, not only do we extend the useful life of the facility, but we lower our energy consumption and save money there. And also reduce our carbon footprint. That's all just going to add briefly to what Ed said as part of the strategic planning process, working with, Kerry and her team, we have a cross departmental team working on standards for FCI. >> So that library convention center, all of the other departments that have a facility function can report out or report that information to us so that we can provide a report to council that covers the whole breadth of the portfolio. >> Great. Thank you. I appreciate all of that, >> Just want to flag that in terms of building facilities [12:16:00 PM] terms of building facilities again. Kymberley, you and I have talked about this before and the land management team over at pard still needs space. It's not accounted for in the Oracle swap. So if we can keep that going, and then the last question I had has to do with, the northwest, police station, so I understand that it's they've done some design. We have the property fire, ems stations opening in January. And that the construction costs would come in a bond, but there didn't look like there was any cip for further design at this point, is that because it's not needed or, you know, is there a design further design at this point in time, going into getting ready for the bond that needs to be there for this substation, which we already have the land for? And some design, >> Good morning, James snow, capital deliver services director, we took advantage. Is what Kim said as far as trying to purchase land and co-locate. As you said, the fire station [12:17:01 PM] As you said, the fire station will be opening up in January. What we were able to do with funds that we had in 2012 is actually moved the design as far as we could, which is about 60% right now. So we reconfirmed the numbers with the design builder to make sure we had that good for the bond. And the main thing is right now we're at that trigger point of permits. If we go forward with the permits and right now and then we don't have the rest of the funding, then there's a lag. But we have done everything we could to include extending utilities out to the site so that we're prepped to do. I hate to use the word shovel ready, but as much as possible, we also confirm that once we get the funding, would be about a 3 to 4 year construction finished. Design and construction for that site. >> Okay. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Thanks. Council miss Lang. All right. That takes us to the time frame, I'm going to repeat much of what I said earlier. For the public and for the council. Before I do that, I want to point out something. I [12:18:04 PM] want to point out something. I think the council all will agree with me on this. It's it for me, really. During the budget process when we're going through all these different items and all these different departments and all these different functions of our city, this is a time where I end up always coming away with a lot of pride in the folks that are doing the work on behalf of the citizens every day, because you see, the not not just what's being done, but you see the level of expertise of the professional staff that comes and answers our questions and provides the data that includes the budget and financial department, but it also includes all the different groups. And now we've been through the work session on the general fund, and we've been through a work session on our enterprise funds and cip. And so I just want to, on behalf of the council, say at this point in time, to all the folks that do the work every day to make this city the great place that that we all want to serve, thank you [12:19:06 PM] we all want to serve, thank you very much for that. This is a good opportunity. So and I think I speak on behalf of all the council members when I say that. So thank you. Now, with regard to the time schedule, Thursday, we will be meeting again, we will convene at 10:00 in the morning and we will have a public hearing on the budget and public comment on the maximum tax rate beginning at 10 A.M. I want to again emphasize what the maximum tax rate is. We set the maximum tax rate as a requirement of the state's truth and taxation process, in which, as a governing body, we declare what the maximum property tax rate is that we will consider for the upcoming budget process. And we do that by way of a vote. So we will also vote on on the maximum tax rate this coming Thursday, as a matter of history, historically, what happens and generally is we set the maximum tax rate at what is [12:20:08 PM] the maximum tax rate at what is referred to as the voter approval rate. And that is the highest property tax rate that the city may adopt without triggering an election. So we set it at that amount so that the public will know what is the maximum we can go to the following Monday, August fifth, we are have that is a date that we as a council are setting for providing to each other and to the public. Our proposed budget amendments and budget ifc or ifc, meaning items from council by 6:00 pm on August 5th. So just a little shy of a week, put those out there. A budget amendment is something that impacts an appropriation. In other words, it adds money or takes away money. You know, that that sort of thing. A budget ifc is related to policy. It worked pretty well last year. And so I [12:21:08 PM] pretty well last year. And so I think we'll probably follow the same routine as, as we did last year, where at the time we take up the budget, we will take up amendments first, and then we'll come back to ifc's, members. I'll post back again on the, on the message board where you can send budget amendments, but it's to Katy dot Stewart at Austin, texas.gov. And then proposed ifc's should go to Katy spelled with a C. First one was Katy with a K, this is Katy Katy dot powers at Austin, texas.gov. So that that is Monday, August 5th at 6:00 is the time for proposed budgets and budget amendments. We have scheduled for August sixth. We have scheduled that as a date that we might have, a meeting if we don't need it, we won't have it. But we've held [12:22:10 PM] won't have it. But we've held that date, and we'll, wait and see how things go on that, if we may, it may be best used to allow the professional staff having seen the budget amendments and ifc's a little extra time to be able to address those. Thursday, August eighth, we will have another work session. And the purpose of that session will be for all of us to lay out publicly, those proposed budget amendments and or budget items from council. It will allow for a discussion amongst us, about where where all that goes and then Wednesday, August 14th will be the first day when we will vote on the budget. We have set aside the 15th and the 16th, as additional days for voting. And I'll repost all of that, as well. Is there anything else members. Yes. >> Councilmember Allison alter, [12:23:12 PM] >> Councilmember Allison alter, I had asked, staff if we could, hear, hear a little bit more about unmet needs for the economic development department and for the emergency management department. >> And they had suggested, since we weren't sure about whether we were having a meeting on the sixth and amendments were due on the fifth, that it might be appropriate to figure out a way to do that on on Thursday of this week. This coming Thursday, enormously long. But there are an extensive amount of, of unmet needs. And I wanted to get a better clarity of how that fit into the visions for those departments. >> It was told somebody mentioned to me that you had asked to do that. Let me work with them and see what we can do to make make sure that meeting moves efficiently. And if you don't mind, because I agree with you. We need to make sure that that's discussed publicly. Sure, so I'll and I'll work on that. So thank you and thanks for reminding me of that. Anything else? Okay, that being the case, without objection, we will adjourn this work session of the [12:24:14 PM] adjourn this work session of the Austin city council on Tuesday, July 30th at 12:23 P.M. Thank you