##VIDEO ID:urB6rTVZHuc## [Music] [Music] [Music] good evening everyone I will call this Bloomington city council meeting to order this is a special meeting Monday November 25th 2024 thanks everybody for being here on the council I know we are a short one I know council member Don s it will be remote this evening but we do have the rest of the council here with us and thanks to the staff for being with us as well we have only a couple of items on our agenda tonight we have uh item 2.1 which is a discussion about the final 2025 tax levy and budget and then item 2.2 which is uh a discussion on the rating analysis for future Capital plans and item 2.3 will finish up as well always do with our city council policy and issue update so that will be our uh our agenda for this evening Council unless you can think of anything else to add we will charge forward with that and uh I am going to turn it over to our budget extraordinaire budget staff member extraordinary Ki Carlson to lead us through our item 2.1 the final 2025 tax levy and budget discussion uh thank you uh thank you mayor and Council good evening tonight I'll review our budget process review our community engagement efforts and highlight key Investments that are in this budget we'll also highlight efforts to enhance revenue and organizational efficiencies as well as discuss Staffing requests in the budget and impacts on the median value home with a proposed tax levy and also proposed changes from the preliminary tax levy that was set in September the 2025 proposed budget aligns with our key strategic priorities of a connected and welcoming Community a healthy community and a community with Equitable economic growth as a review of our budget process every year City staff engage in comprehensive budget process to determine the cost of the services that we provide and requests from departments include adjustments for anticipated expenses and revenue projections and the department budgets are reviewed with the city manager and assistant city managers and they ensure alignment with City goals our financial constraints and our long-term plans the collaborative process ensures that the budget reflects Bloomington as both a remarkable community and workplace where people want to be and it aligns Resources with the city's vision for the future so we are nearing the end of this budget calendar that you've seen many times and I have tonight's uh date highlighted in a red box um so this is a meeting to discuss uh where you want to bring the final budget and tax levy for 2025 and of course um the truth and Taxation public hearing is going to take place in a couple weeks on December 16th and that is the date where the final 2025 tax levy will be set and I have some updated results from the last time I shared this with you from our public engagement around the budget and so um as a reminder from June to October we actively engaged with the community to discuss budget and City spending and we were at the juneth celebration a Wednesday Farmers Market the learning linkup that we did in combination with the school district the on the one music festival and the South Loop the Saturday farmers market in September we um were at the pride festival also in September and the uh fire department um open house and then also uh included in this evening's agenda materials there is feedback that we gathered from those community inperson events and um also responses from the let's talk Bloomington online survey so also as a review these are the updated numbers though um at those budget tables at community events we've had um the activity that we've had the last couple years where it features an activity where participants use chips that represent their property taxes and they allocate those across six categories based on their priorities they have the option to put them all in one category or they can split them however they think that um this the city spending should be prioritized and so from the data collected from all seven events Parks Arts Recreation and natural resources that category received the most chips from those um in-person events when with 23% of the total and then uh second was Public Safety so that would be police and fire also uh legal that had the second most at 19% and uh this is something that I haven't shared before the just the detail um with all of those events so examining the seven events individually it becomes clear that the first and second highest rated categories does vary across the different events so this year our marked the first time we hosted tables at juneth the learning linkup and the pride festival we had not attended those events in the past and just notably looking at this all the spending all six of those spending priorities were represented in this chart on the slides at least once so they were either the first or second choice or came up as first or second for the highest um number and so this underscores the value of engaging with residents across multiple events and locations just toensure a comprehensive understanding of their priorities and we we also have a similar activity online on the let's talk Bloomington budget page um online uh participants can rank those same priorities that are at the tables in the budget activity game um but they they rank them on a scale from 1 to six with one being the highest priority um and so the Investments we are making both um historically and into the future align with these priorities and on the survey uh facilities and infrastructure were ranked as the highest priority and Then followed by Public Safety also as a reminder um we uh also maintain a comprehensive budget website where we share budget presentations detailed information and the recorded Council discussions like this one will be posted on our budget page tomorrow um throughout the budget process and we also have everything from last year as well that is up there y absolutely counc member Mo thank you mayor um thank you for being here Ki um for the public engagement um over the last couple months we got an email from a resident um this is our second year doing it and I I think it's been fantastic and it's been um really insightful um but I do wonder and it triggered some thoughts in my head how can we better reach different populations in Bloomington um and so as we're looking into next year and Beyond wondering if we have opportunity to partner with um different events that we have with our local Partners maybe like vep rotary toddpod to get into um different spaces with different populations within our community to really get a grasps of like what different demographics are really feeling because that did trigger in my head like a lot of these are fun events and so it's not exactly the it's a different mindset when you're talking about budget so um I wonder if we we can partner with our local um organizations to really drive that continued Community engagement and see do those results line up with what we're seeing at different events or are we missing something somewhere that we can better tailor and get a better understanding of so that's kind of where I've been thinking with our community engagement as we continue to move this forward uh yes thank you uh mayor council members council member Mo I appreciate that feedback I think um we really started with pretty uh robust Community engagement uh back in 20 uh uh 2020 with the community budget advisory committee and it's grown from that so I I think we continue to look and see how we can improve that and get out into the community and and get good feedback so yes I think we can definitely look into doing something like that next year thank you so just talking about some of Investments um we talked about those priorities Public Safety and Parks uh residents have highlighted that importance um through those budget engagement events and online and uh just wanted to point out that the city H city council has prioritized these Community needs um just some examples are improving the use of the one-time Public Safety state aid um to fund temporary um overstaffing of police officers this is helping prepare for Planned retirements reducing overtime and maintaining Full Force Staffing levels and then also the proposed 2025 tax levy does include funding for debt service related to uh Bryant Park project which will feature bloomington's first fully inclusive playground along with a redesigned Park uh shelter and additionally lovey supports the development of treb park or Redevelopment with uh which will include a bike Skills Park with an all-wheel track and gravel course designed for mountain biking and I want to touch also on the fire department um long-term strategy which has been a big part of of our budgets in recent years so uh as a review our fire department is advancing the long-term transformation initiated by the city council in 2022 transitioning from a paidon call model to a combination Department with both full-time and part-time firefighters and this shift is aimed at enhancing fire response times and improving Community safety each year we are um adding additional firefighters to reach the goal of 75 full-time firefighters 65 part-time firefighters and 15 Command Staff and fire inspectors and to support this uh combination model we are also um updating six fire stations all six um addressing critical needs and Facilities that were originally built in the 1960s two stations have already been built rebuilt with plans to complete the remaining updates by 2030 and um as you know this effort is supported um help is being helped by federal funding we did uh receive a second safer Grant through a Federal grant through FEMA and that safer acronym stands for Staffing for adequate fire and emergency response I'm going to highlight the several Revenue enhancements also budget efficiencies uh first as I just said we successfully secured an addition safer grant that does fund 18 new firefighter positions for the next 3 years we also leveraged grant funding to add nine new Public Health positions and these roles are instrumental in meeting foundational Public Health responsibilities in addition we eliminated the property tax subsidy for the dwan golf course in 2025 Over The Last 5 Years the course has experienced an 80% increase in Revenue allowing it to operate sustainably without additional taxpayers support our legislative action team has been working diligently on state and federal grant opportunities to support initiatives we've restructured the city's um contributions to health insurance premiums uh to improve Financial sustain sustainability while continuing to invest in our employees and we've uh also recently executed a Cooperative agreement with the Three Rivers Park District to take over the operation and management of city-owned port of the Metropolitan Regional Park system and there's also been or reorganizations uh in the city with the city's executive leadership team City Clerk Division and the IT department and those changes have streamlined operations and um will continue to improve collaboration across teams um want to take some time just to talk about there are some new position requests in the 2020 budget these are the ones that are in the general fund and uh these new full-time Staffing requests address service needs across four different departments I'm just going to talk a little bit about each one of these the positions were discussed during the individual Department budget presentations over the past couple months but um just as a little bit of a review so for the Parks and Recreation Department they've identified the need for a new recreation manager for the Community Health and Wellness Center facility and by by hiring this Recreation manager position in 2025 they can participate on the planning team and collaborate with the community center manager during the design and construction of phases and um the legal department emphasized the importance of another crime victim lay on position that would be dedicated to providing support and advocacy for indiv uals impacted by crime and that position would help ensure victims have access to necessary resources and guidance throughout the legal process in order to meet our statutory obligations to victims and then in finance the requests for a target market program coordinator for next year focuses on advancing Equitable economic growth and would require a dedicated staff member to manage the the work and ensure compliance with which would require new purchasing policies and guidelines with the departments and then uh the fire department is receiving 18 full-time firefighters that is being funded uh in 2025 2025 budget with the safer Grant um also in the budget though is the Department's requesting two new assistant Fire Chiefs whose leadership would play a key role in managing operations and supporting the transition to that combination Staffing model and then this next slide these are positions new positions that are requested in the 25 budget that are not in the general fund and they reflect um needs and three other funds which are the Center for the Arts the ice garden and the facilities fund so during the Center for the Arts presentation the immediate need for an assistant manager was emphasized to address the growing operational demands and ensuring the facility continues to deliver high quality services to the community Additionally the reclassification of a part-time maintenance and production superintendent for the art center to a full-time role is essential for ensuring consistent management and oversight of the production needs and facility maintenance for the ice Garden the request for a full-time Arena specialist to start um in September of 2005 was discussed as vital to maintaining operational efficiency and addressing the growing demands of managing ice operations and events and then the need for an additional service technician within the facilities fund was highlighted to maintain the level of service required across city-owned facility facilities ensuring the safety and functionality of buildings on November 14th uh the Minnesota Department of Revenue released the combined combined uh preliminary 2025 tax levy increases for the um entire State and so combined the cities increased by 88.8% counties 6.4% townships 6.3% schools 4.4% and special taxing districts 5.7% the the Bloomington preliminary tax levy was set in September and that was an increase of 11.5% uh from the 2024 tax levy and what we're going to go over next is the recommended um tax levy to decrease to 99.97% compared to the 2024 tax levy so this is a revised uh proposed final 2020 25 tax levy so it would be an increase of just over $8 million from 2024 the majority of that increase is in the general fund additionally there are increases in the communications special Revenue fund the Art Center Enterprise fund and the ice Garden Enterprise fund um in contrast the aquatics and the golf Enterprise funds reflect decreases from the 2024 tax levy and then the the levy increase at the bottom required for uh Debt Service for 2025 is an increase of just over $451,000 here is a comparison of bloomington's this is this is the updated 99.97% but we're comparing this to all of these cities preliminary um percentages so these could come down of course um but just to show where we're where we are where Bloomington is falling compared compared to uh these other cities and then this is the impact of a 99.97% increase on the median value home and so um a 99.97% increase to the tax levy would equate to a 7.68% increase for the median value home and um that is due to a few different factors including the median value home you can see has remained um relatively flat compared to the previous year and while commercial and Industrial values did have some gains so there's some shifting there and then also there was an in um an increase in that Homestead market value exclusions that did impact the median value home to bring down that taxable value but that equates out to so a 7.68% increase that translates to a $210 increase per week for the median value median value home or $910 a month or $127.68 ation at a 99.97% increase and it's in order of the most impactful so those numbers in red coming down are bringing down the tax levy the ones at the bottom are putting it back up um so I'll start with at the top so the biggest one was that we that we did receive the safer grant that we applied for so that did bring down the tax that we buy around $565,000 we are increasing what we had originally forecasted in the 25 budget for lodging and admission um tax revenue um we are seeing trends of back to where we were before the pandemic for lodging tax revenue and emission tax revenues has far exceeded where we were so that is very healthy um and so we're really glad to see that back coming back or that it's come back we have an increase if you recall the council approved um environmental health rental inspection fees there are some different options and the one that you approved um has an increase for the 25 budget of $290,000 we do have some uh remaining American Rescue plan uh money that can be used um for continuing a little bit for uh the three Battalion Chiefs that were brought on initially with the American Rescue plan funds um so that that total increase of those three positions don't have to hit entirely in the general fund um um for 2025 the agreement with three rivers to take over the management of Bush Lake Beach and Normandale reduced the tax levy by $165,000 uh we have a decrease in the Parks and Recreation budget um that used to go to Galaxy middle school program of almost $150,000 with the election and since uh we still have rank Choice voting there's not a change that means we do not need to to have a primary next year so that was had been budgeted in case we did need to have a primary next year so that came down 85,000 Parks and Recreation had some fee increases in their programs so increased Revenue by 75,000 there were a lot of smaller reductions here and there that we were able to bring down um to almost a little over $19,000 and then um on the last two uh so for the health Insurance adj health insurance adjustment compared to what I originally had in the preliminary I was a bit more aggressive on what um we were trying to get it down to at least 11 and a half percent of what we could um um change our contributions for employees of what they were uh putting towards their health insurance premiums um we the city did if you recall with our human resource manager Steve Barrett um went through our process of how we did change uh what the contribution structure is for our health insurance um the planned increase uh it wasn't as much as we initially had uh had planned in the preliminary but wanted to uh work with employees work with the employee benefit committee and wanted to balance those riseing costs just uh with employees um well-being and the feedback from the employee uh benefits committee so that um does bring that back up and then um earlier when I was talking about the different positions that are in the general fund um those the two assistant fire chief positions uh we already had that in the preliminary budget so that was that's not an ad and those two positions won't be starting till April but what we did not have in the preliminary budget were this those three positions the Community Health and Wellness Center Recreation manager the crime victim lison and the target market program coordinator uh we did add think I went too far so this is uh an updated uh preliminary 2025 general fund Revenue breakdown with those changes I just went through and I mean again for the general fund property taxes make up the largest portion they make up 70% of the total revenue budget the next largest source is local lodging and emission taxes totaling $1 million about 10% of revenues and as I said those lodging tax revenues have reached our preed pre pandemic levels and admission taxes have um more than exceeded the 2019 levels and comparing to last year intergovernmental like Grant Revenue we do have a significant increase and 24 that's primarily due to that higher base Public Health grant funding from the state has kind of an opposite um expense increase in the public health Budget on the other side um and uh we did look we always at this time of year are looking to see like for our forecasted revenues if we want to make any changes we did make changes um for um the lodging and emission tax revenue looking at that permit Revenue it is lower than in previous years but the recent analysis by Community Development they uh do not believe that that warrants um increasing those permit revenues um we have been able to do that in past years but that is not the case for this budget and then the expenditure side the total amount is the exact same amount as the revenue side we have to have a completely balanced budget um here's the breakdown again as we talk about police departments by far the largest portion of the general fund budget um it's about uh 35% of the general fied budget and combined uh police and fire Public Safety it's a big part it's almost uh it's about $49.5 million and we do have a contingency that we we put in our general fund budget it's 2 and a half% of expenditures um it is offset somewhat because we also do budget an estimated vacancy rate um because we know we are not going to be fully staffed all year so that we don't want to um have property taxes that are in the budget when we know that we are going to have a vacancy rate so that bottom number there is the contingency um offset with that vacancy rate but it's still over a million dollars and if things go according to plan and we don't need to have the contingency then um chances are we would have a you know a million dollars or more in positive budget variants unless there's unexpected things that happen so this slide I just want to um this is not what it's for sure going to be but just the way things look at like right now when we project it out and on the left is different options for a 2025 tax levy increase and on the right is 2026 and that 2026 number does right now include just for debt a 3.35% increase so that is bringing those numbers up 3.35% and so um that's a a placeholder right now but it what the purpose of this slide is is just showing the inverse relationship between tax levy increases in 25 and 26 for keeping all of the services everything that's in there the same um so at 9.97% increase with that placeholder for Debt Service that equates to a 15.49% potentially next in 2026 and then all the way down to the where we are right now with that 11 and a half% increase could be a 13.91% this is very high level projection but I just wanted to give a sense of what the impact would be on the next year and then uh finally I just I wanted to give an update on this we talked about this earlier in the budget process um so the government Finance Officers Association uh gfoa um we are working with them so they are under contract to they're doing a risk-based reserve analysis project that we had talked about it was launched last month and there's a team of eight of us um eight U Bloomington employees that were interested in helping with this and learning and collaborating with uh the gfoa staff on this initiative and um that Bloomington team we recently um did some training so uh we completed calibrated probability assessment training as part of this project that we can all um use our new skills to to work on this and then keep that for future as well so um as a reminder this initiative it includes uh several key steps to ensure a very thorough and a datadriven analysis of the city's reserves so we're in the process of obtaining loss run information from the league of Minnesota cities Insurance trust um the Minnesota GF or the the national GFA had recently done some work with the league of Minnesota cities so it has some contexts there um but just to understand that just for Bloomington but but uh in the region different claims um Trends and losses and uh gfoa will be working on a comprehensive financial analysis of um evaluating our past Capital spending the city's Hazard mitigation plan workers compensation loss run history Capital Improvement plans cash flow history and debt information and they'll be assessing the impact of also uh recent you know City contribution changes on what we changed recently with health insurance and our employee benefits fund also we're going to be looking at um we're currently looking at reviewing potential changes uh to paid time off benefits for new employees and that would affect the acred benefits fund so they're going to do some um analysis for us on that and how that could affect that those liabilities and um and then and those changes we've recently uh started reviewing that as well changes possibly to new employees and the for paid time off with the also using the employee benefits uh committee to review that and get feedback but this uh Reserve analysis project as we said before it's going to provide very valuable insights to aligning reserves and identifying those risks while maintaining our financial stability and so the gfoa is scheduled to present the results to you um in the first quarter of 2025 I'm going to interrupt you for just a moment uh council member dandro uh thank you Mr Mayor can you guys hear me okay yes okay thanks um yeah thank you on the previous slide I just thought to wanted to understand a little bit more about the um the uh debt increase that you're projecting for 2016 if you could Define for us um what projects are are contributing to that increase um at the moment I izing they're not like actual numbers they're estimates but I'm curious as to what in particular we're planning to start next year that will that will be um involved in in increasing the depth there what brond projects are they referring to and Lori economy Scher makes an appearance good evening and welcome good evening mayor council member dandro the projects next summer will include um projects for the garage uh remod replacement um utilizing that building that the city purchased a couple years back um it it uh dead issues for um the sales tax bonds for the Community Health and Wellness Center uh it includes um up to right now in um uh the parking ramp garage should a parking ramp garage needed be needed for the um Community Health and Wellness Center and includes our normal fall uh Road reconstruction bonds very good okay um thank you that's helpful um so some of them are speculative meaning um they may or may not be required that's helpful the other question I have then related to specifically the sales tax bonds um I'm curious about the The Debt Service there as it relates to the sales tax revenues that we're currently incurring so I guess the maybe the question I would ask is are we are we are we not on track to be able to kind of keep Pace if you will with sales tax revenues Against The Debt Service for those projects um maybe said another way it's just too big so we can't we can't stay ahead of it in that regard so we have to issue at least in the short term and then if that's true then the next question I would have is how do we how do we use sales tax revenue that does come in to repay that debt so that it's it's not debt that we use property tax or general fund dollars for for very long I mean is it is it essentially a bridge of sorts mayor and council member delandro currently for the sales tax bonds all of those are repaid back with sales tax we currently have no uh City debt Levy piece in regards to those I was just mentioning the type of bonds that we would be issuing this summer um for the three and a half% those are the three big pieces would be the garage um the parking ramp and um the Reconstruction those play a part in The Debt Service Levy um revenues coming in on the sales tax are um if we receive a million one every month and we have um we are making the 12 A5 million that we have projected for Debt Service so year to date that we have received we are doing very well on our sales tax revenues understood okay that's helpful thanks for the clarification Mr thanks Mr May and council members uh and just following up on uh comment from the CFO in terms of what's included next year the the parking ramp uh project that uh Miss conomy Scher referenced uh is not at the same amount that we had talked about earlier we've lowered that amount um so uh if we do have to have a structure um that we have a placeholder there it's not our intent and I just want to be clear about forecasting this that's not what we're proposing right now we have it in there as a placeholder just in case it becomes impractical uh uh from a site uh design perspective that we have to look at some options council member lman so um how much of the uh that 3.35% does that represent um it right now we're at the $10 million Mark in that projection and so and and I would have to say same with um the garage right now that is 26 27 Mill um we're budgeting 28.6 with cost of issuance on that one so if we can bring any of that down um and on the December 2nd you'll have a presentation on the garage um and then we'll have the CIP coming up on December 16th so and then also on the PMP um we have the roads going forward it will depend on the bids that come in in May so hopefully it all comes down but we won't know on the cost of all those and even the cost of issuance and what bonds we're issuing until next October so the whole debt piece and how we bring down the tax levy it gets us to preliminary and then to the final next year so essentially it's all I get it's all an estimate but just trying to figure out kind of what you're thinking you know for that so it sounds like a third a thirdd a little more than a third and if I could ask a question about this slide in particular uh as we as we go through budgets and we look at the the the capital funds that they have and and and those large numbers that we see is this what we're talking about in terms of this is I mean I always I've always seen them as rainy day funds or saving up for a future project or that kind of thing does it go with that deep into cash flow debt information workers compensation does all all of that come out of those specific funds for those specific departments am I understanding that correctly yes yes mayor that that is correct so this is what we were talking about when we say okay all right mrgi yeah thank you Mr Mayor and council members uh you know the the mildly complicating factor is that all of these different funds um have different uh needs attached to them so some of them to your point Mr meor ones where we have large Capital expenditures in the future and so we know we have to carry a larger balance in anticipation of that um some of them are uh balances that we have to carry according to our financial policies or um based on um government accounting uh uh best practices so the work that that the gfoa team is be doing with our staff is going through and understanding exactly what are the needs in all of those different funds what are the requirements um and then you know we'll look at whether some of those funds uh potentially are Blended or over resourced or whatever it is that you know that's what we'll come back and talk to the council about so right thank you thanks and this was my last slide I was there's just one more I couldn't Advance it but just says discussion so that that was the end of my presentation and so at at this point we're just looking for more of your questions or city council feedback on this proposal and the direction that you would like us to take in preparing for that December 16th public hearing thank you Council M Nelson yeah thank you thank you mayor sorry um I am just uh wondering on this gfoa well if I understood what I just heard will this also include all of the working capital accounts or is it just the ones that are listed here because we have working capital for water sewer all of those we have working capital for Park maintenance for facilities for Fleet all of those things is that all included or is it just these items uh mayor council members council member Nelson we're looking at all of the funds just um want to highlight some of the different things that um changes that might impact that we're doing that they're going to be analyzing but all of the funds okay thank you additional discussion Council I I I will chime in a couple of different things uh first of all the number for next year and then the the number for next year concerns me like it I'm sure it does everybody and and also the the fact that it's um this this is in the context of things we can control and there will be a number of things I think over the next year that we cannot control and my my concern is that that number is going to be uh it could be higher and it could be in the context of some pretty significant increases at the state level as well and and some fairly big disruptions at the federal level in terms of Workforce and and federal funding and so on so a that I mean that concerns me and so we're going to need to be creative in a lot of different ways and I would encourage staff start thinking creatively and aggressively now and I mean the uh the reserve analysis project I think is a good start uh I think any of our um any of our Capital Investments within the Departments I think just need to be looked at it we've got to look at this all different ways council member dandro could you mute please I think we're picking up some chatter in the background thank you very much um my my second thought and again along those lines I'll admit you you've heard the council talk about the that that this year's number and the concern about the the size of this year's number so uh frankly I'm a little disappointed I was happy to see the numbers come down and the showing all the numbers come down but then the willingness to jump right back in with $300,000 worth of new Staffing frankly is a little disappointing as I as I know what the council is thinking here in terms of trying to get that number low and trying to uh to control the spending as much as we possibly can so uh it might be something to consider and look at and I don't know what the rest of the council is thinking as well but it's just one thing that jumped out at me uh all in all I think it's as I as as I discussed last week a question that we had um I think this is a budget that meets the needs and the demands of what we hear from our residents um it it's logical it's practical it it does what we're what's expecting to do and it's still a tough number to swallow it's still a tough number to swallow so those are my thoughts others council member Carter and then council member mua oh I'm sorry council member D Sandro I didn't mean to leave you we'll start with you council member delandro oh okay thank you Mr Mayor I appreciate it um yeah so I I have two comments one is in line with your comments which is I actually really understand the the especially as it relates to the um Recreation manager the desire to get them on the ground hit the ground running be a part of the process Etc um it's just it's just really hard to consider doing that in light of the bir we're placing on taxpayers right now so I would as much as I love the concept and I understand it completely it's difficult for me to support adding that person in you know almost two years before we have the the place actually built um so that would be my first comment um secondly I had an open question about our fire department um I obviously we are trying we are trying to ramp up to a full-time fire department and I totally appreciate that I'm just wondering if do 18 and then another 18 meaning that by the time this whole safer Grant thing rolls off we'll have to support 36 people in a budget is is like biting off more than we can Feud um I'm not saying we shouldn't do it but there's an open question in my mind about like do we do we hire only 12 with this current safer Grant and extend the support of the safer grant for for six of the people we've already brought on for another three years or we do something a little bit more in Al there um those are two ideas that came up to me as I was thinking about this just as a means to try to take another point or so off the off the of the levy here um I I'm nervous not only about the size of this budget but like next year just makes me very very nervous and what I don't want to be doing is I don't want us to have to stop doing like completely put a hold on something that we've promised to our constituents um and to the residents here who have said they desperately wanted but you know it can take a little longer to maybe get there than what we're proposing in some of these cases and I'm wondering if that's potentially an option just to to keep the burden as low as possible thanks Mr Veri thank you Mr Mayor and council members council member dallesandro uh regarding the fire positions and the safer Grant uh we do not have the flexibility to apply those uh differently than how they have been um progr prr so the application that we made was for the hiring of 18 firefighters so we have to use it for 18 new positions we can't reallocate a portion of it uh related to other positions that um uh maybe were already on staff uh and just a reminder to council that with the first safer grant that we received uh which is uh coming on to the tax rules beginning in 26 uh Cari thank you um is that we do have a plan to uh ease the impact of those coming in utilizing fire pension fund um so that we do buy down the uh property tax impact associated with those and then the the impact of this most recent 18 would then be three years after that so I I think utilizing a similar approach for the second batch of 18 that what we're doing for the first batch of 18 makes the management of of um the impact of those positions to our tax levy uh reasonable so I'm pretty confident we have a pretty good plan there um understand uh the position uh concern regarding the Community Health and Wellness Center coordinator um in recognizing the importance of that role that's that'll be putting together the programming as the facility is uh in construction um but certainly appreciate the council's concern on that the other position I'd point out again that targeted Market program coordinator uh is uh following through on a council priority uh for um uh the inclusive uh purchasing uh transition that we're in the process of we are in the midst of a study right now uh with several other cities it's a study that has to be done to determine um the the market basis for that program um and and we have paid to participate in that study currently so having somebody on board to administer that program uh as soon as possible um uh is a strategic initiative from the council and one that we need to follow through on if we're going to continue to do that you is discretion of the council if you don't wish to do that that we could stop but I would recommend that you don't tell us to keep doing it if you're not interested in funding that position because we need a body to administer that program council member Carter um thank you mayor so uh first I just want to acknowledge that for several years we have um made a dedicated effort to fund Public Safety right um and I think we have all been very supportive of that and it's been the right thing to do at the same time we've kind of asked or the rest of the Departments of the the city to kind of Hold Steady right and I think we've kind of just come to a point where that's no longer possible um we have to continue to make the investments in public safety but we also know that there are other areas of the city that also need investment and so I guess I just want to say that because I acknowledge the challenge um that staff are facing as um needs continue to to be there um and I also want to appr I do appreciate the places where you have found efficiencies um that's really important it's what we asked for um I would be curious to know um what is kind of the list of things that we could consider cutting if we want if we wanted to get lower so um you just talked about one of them and there are trade-offs right there are consequences to that decision but I think it would be helpful to understand kind of what are those options and what are those tradeoffs or Consequences um because I think for me at least it would be easier to make the decision then um right now to me it's like we kind of naturally go to the the new staff that are being requested ested but maybe there are some other options um and one thing that comes to mind for me as we talked about in the past and I forgive me I can't remember where we've landed on it you are we still going to do Residential snow plowing of sidewalks sure is that a place that we can find cost savings if we decide we wouldn't want to do that anymore since our policy is not to do it do we want to actually align our budget with the policy so I guess that's kind of my where I'm at right now Mr rugi thank you Mr May and council members council member Carter uh make sure I hit all of the points in there um I'll start in reverse order so regarding the sidewalk snow plowing issue uh our staff is actually meeting in just a couple weeks to uh develop the engagement process um because we recognize that there are a great number of stakeholders in that consideration uh given how many people have um properties with sidewalks that will be impacted by the decision uh and we want to make sure that um we engage them during the season when it's most relevant right if we had done the engagement process in the summer uh we probably wouldn't have got uh relevant feedback or as much feedback so we want to make sure we're doing it in proper context uh that even whatever decision the council makes is not going to have what I would say is a significant uh monetary impact that's going to have real Levy implications it would probably be maybe in the order of 40 to $60,000 a year what you know if we do um uh make a change in how we do our sidewalk snow plowing uh the impact is that we'll be able to reallocate staff uh during those events uh and we'll also mean we'll probably get some priority uh snow routes completed even faster uh and we'll be able to get through the sidewalk snow plowing faster because as you're aware sometimes it can take us as long as 3 days to clean up one event uh and then if we get back toback events then it's a lot of going back and even when we're doing it that late after it's been trod on for 48 or 72 hours the conditions aren't ideal anyway right so there's there's a lot to consider there not a huge impact for the levy um in terms of the services that um or the things that we can do to potentially gain reduction I do want to be uh very straightforward for folks who are watching that what we've presented to the council is uh largely a continuation of service budget um so the we did not get feedback from the council that there were specific services that you were interested in dialing back on or uh considering for reduction or elimination um what we did do uh uh Ki and I and and some others we went back into the budgets especially uh the larger budgets the police department uh public Public Works and Parks and Recreation primarily uh and we did uh an analysis of actuals versus budget over the last several years to see if there's any sort of uh Trend where maybe we were underspending the budget that was allocated uh or um you know and that could maybe lead us to believe that we're over resourced in the non-people um parts of the operations and we didn't see any pattern there so the Departments are working with the budgets that they're being given for um their operations uh because if there had been some sort of a trend we'd probably look at whether we could draw that down a little bit um the final thing that I would say is that uh the you're right about the you know the trade-offs or the implications of some of the decisions and I I think Council understands what those are um but if there is something that you'd still like us to take a look at uh we don't have final adoption scheduled until December 16th so that kind of feedback today would would be good but I just I just want to be clear this is uh largely a status quo budget with the exception of those uh positions that Cari walked through um and those are directly tied to uh specific initiatives which the council has been supportive of council member mu and council member lomman council member or council member lomman do you have something specific to that point or okay council member mu then council member lman thank you mayor um this this the budget conversation continues to be the most difficult conversation that we have every year right it's it's the question of how do we balance future needs versus what people are looking at immediately in the near future right when people can't see past NE pay next paycheck and we're talking about these projects of supporting the community like how how do we communicate the value and the drive and the ass that people have asked while balancing their need to also balance their checkbooks at the end of the month and so it's very difficult for us to to address and properly do this not everyone's going to be happy and then that's ultimately what's going to happen um but I I firmly believe that given the the fact that we know moving into the future um that we're going to be continue to have challenges with our budget like we have to be very diligent and when we have forc scarcity that that's when we come up with better efficiencies more cost Effectiveness more ideas and the reorganization that we've had over the last year that is Ultimate My Hope and my dream is that we're able to get those efficiencies because we've reorganized because we're giving our staff the support that they need that's going to drive the reduction um in a in a relevant and impactful way um and all that to say that you know everything is cheaper yesterday as we continue to KI Kick the Can down the road and we continue to look at this like it would have been cheaper to do things yesterday it would have been cheaper to have a full-time fire department last year um 20 years ago 30 years ago um but that's where we're at now and this is the reality that we're facing is that to make Bloomington continued to be a place where people want to be we have to invest and continue to invest and ensure that Bloomington meets the needs of people today but in that same breath we do have to make sure that the impacts of the levy every year allow people to live here because it is cheaper for you to go across the river move down to Farmington you have a bigger house and you pay less taxes and it's a newer community so you get all the stuff you want but you're 40 minutes out of town um and so that brings me up to my qu my second point of thinking about using our strategic priorities fund I can't remember if that ran out this year in 24 if we're going to continue to do it in 25 um mayor and council members council member MUA the the the Strategic priority um tax levy stabilization amount is going to continue it's it's in 2025 it's not in 2026 right now which is also making that increase in that projection for 2026 okay so what I I would love to see is how can we use the Strategic priorities fund are we going to use more of it this year compared to what we've traditionally done I think it's a million that we've done trally maybe it's a million five can we be creative with our headcount I know staff need needs more support and so can we make sure that we don't hire till the fourth quarter or the second quarter or whatever it is to to move to allow staff to have the support they need but to move that budget item to move that those dollar amounts to allow us to support the investment that we have to do um and then at the end of the day we as council members ultimately are salespeople it's up to us to ensure that people recognize and understand the value of what their property taxes are going to and so continuing to make sure that we have good communication that we're sharing with people that we're not just spending money to spend money these are things that residents have asked for because they see the value of it and what it's going to continue to do for this the city into the future because I I work in account management and I don't get every sale but when I have relationships when I create and share the value of the story they might not pay today but they'll understand the value tomorrow and that's when we continue to build and move in those relationships forward and so um I would encourage all of our city council members to continue to stay engaged with our residents as they come forward to make sure that we can communicate that story and make sure that staff is sharing that story in the Bloomington weekly and everything that we do to ensure that residents understand where their money is going they can tangibly see uh that it's making their City better place every day thank you thank you council member Mr Veri thank you Mr May and council members council member mua thank thank you for the questions uh regarding the Strategic priorities fund you're correct about the amount uh thank you k for the clarification so it's about $1.1 million for 2025 uh so thinking ahead to 2026 if you're looking for a place where you could potentially reduce it you could continue the Strategic funds uh transfer into the budget um that would be a little more than a percent of reduction um it we we we have uh planned for phasing that out uh just because from a budgeting perspective maintaining a structural imbalance isn't ideal right but the reason we set that up in the first place was coming out of covid understanding that we are trying to minimize the tax levy impact to Residents and felt that that was a reasonable approach uh three years ago Council can determine that that's a reasonable uh approach to continue uh I wouldn't recommend that you increase it for 2025 but that certainly is something that the council could consider um there's there's funds available uh I think we're at about $4 to5 million is where we'll land here in a couple months with that fund um so so there are funds available it just means you've got a a bigger nut down the road that you have to resolve for um and if I can go backward uh just for a second uh to the comments about the uh Recreation uh coordinator or manager position uh I neglected to say that we do have an offset in the budget for that amount um there's a program that we had been uh funding through Recreation through the school district as part of a u Master agreement that has been expired for many many years and as we're renegotiating a master agreement with them uh we've indicated that we're going to um stop funding that particular program because there isn't any um real benefit to the City by doing it um so it is a place where we made a reduction in the budget and we've um filled that with the um position so um there is a tradeoff it's not totally it's not new spending it's a new position but it's not necessarily new spending if you still want to eliminate that position though that that's an option to the council council member lman uh thank you mayor um mayor I do appreciate your uh comments that you made about uh next year here um uh we don't know what the federal government will look like and what we will face with that and I guess that's kind of the question I kind of ask myself here as I look at this now I know I've you know certainly have a different differing point of view in terms of how we should do this and I'm not going to go over that I promise that um but I guess my question is we look at the overall tax levy uh for the annual year of $127 and the question I ask myself is what amount are we comfortable passing on uh you know this next year uh to those residents you know is it you know is it you know is it 100 is it $50 you know that's that's the piece that I'm trying to trying to have a better understanding in terms of what we're what our goal is if we're trying to cut things back and cut things down into that's really where I'm trying to understand where what what number are we trying to be comfortable with in terms of trying to get that number uh where we wanted it to be at um and then you know as I look at that um and I want I want to be careful about how I say this I know that you know certainly you know we have seen uh some changes here uh we've had some inflationary things that have taken place uh over the last couple of years uh uh and and and folks are we know folks are struggling in terms of trying to uh trying to pay things off but it just seems to me that the what we have here what we're what we're proposing and what we we have as an option here is um relatively a pretty good deal in terms of what what we're looking at here in terms of what we're offering in terms of that amount and the things you get for that in terms of Public Safety um and you know certainly I won't go down my thing we should go a little higher but um but I just I I just I I not not understanding kind of where where it is we're trying to get this down to are we are we trying to you know do something you know to to get it as low as possible possible um and I I get the whole point in terms of trying to put the pressure on that in terms of trying to get that but I I I do I do get concerned each each year we kind of we kind of do this this thing we're trying to get under 10 but where do we want to be underneath 10 and that and and I'm more than willing to to to help with that in terms of trying to get us down to that number but I just like to know what that number is that we're trying to achieve each year and how do we do that to achieve uh that that that number that folks can can can rely upon that's underneath 10% and it looks like next year is going to be a real challenge to get underneath that 10% and so that's that's kind of where I I'm sitting at today that if we want to consistently provide under 10 um then there's some things we probably need to do this year to achieve that next year if that's if that's going to be our goal so we got to start eliminating stuff this year if that's what we plan on doing I have one other question um in terms of the tals when it comes to the uh the safer Grant and those what do those look like and I know we've got the the uh the fire pension piece um you know barring nothing catastrophic happens there um which is always my fav I know we got a ton saved up there but uh but what does that look like after that year what is that that that hit look like Mr Veri thank you Mr mayor council members car do you want to walk through the transition for for bringing the first batch of 18 on yes so in April of 2026 um the funding will stop for the the first grant the first safer Grant so we'll have 34s of the year that we'll have to bring into the budget and as um city manager had mentioned uh we have a plan to soften that hit by using funds in the fire pension fund for a a few years so that we instead of taking all of that in one year we'll use those fire Pension funds to kind of bring those in a little bit more slowly because it's around $6 million um that we're getting over um well that's over three years though it's a a third like it's more like $2 million that we have to work in for one year and so um and this next safer Grant is going to start in um is going to start in April of next year so then we'll have three years it'll end um when will that end uh April 202 8728 so um we plan to do the same approach where we do have quite a buildup in our fire pension fund and the reserve because we've had good years of Investments so um rather than taking that hit in one year we should be able to bring that in a little bit slower but at some point all of those um 36 firefighters are going to be part of the general fund budget so we'll look a little so I look at the I think it's page 25 with the the police and fire that that number will MH increase and so that percentage of the overall police and fire will make up a larger percentage of our overall budget yes uh mayor council members council member loan that is correct that's uh around um a little over $2 million um for each eight so more like four or5 million will be added to the fire budget thank eventually thank you council member dallesandro then council member Nelson council member dallesandro thank you Mr Mayor um yeah just two two thoughts on that first off one of the thing so if the question is between now and the 16th of December what can you give Council to make a better or more informed uh decision I'm going to ask for this again I'm hoping that it's something that we can do but to the question that council member Roman just asked I don't know why we can't get a view that says here's the project the program to convert to a full-time fire department it means that instead of the co the operating cost of the fire department being X it means that the operating you know in today's dollars right the operating the operating budget of the of the police of the fire department will be why and as such between now and why whenever that happens um we have three things that we need to fund number one we need to fund the onboarding of those people number two we need to fund the construction of the places to house them IE our or other fire departments our fireh houses and three we need to uh plan the a levy or whatever else right or a new grant program whatever it is to to support the operating of that that thing when it is complete why can't we get that because I feel like I can't keep only looking at this from a year-to-year perspective when we know it's something that's going to take us through 2020 2030 2035 whatever it is similarly with our Parks master plan you'd think we'd be able to say like here's what we've agreed to here are the three parts that are underway and they're not going to be done until 20 whatever and it's going to cost a difference of x to Y to maintain them under our under our new service levels once they're complete like this just feels like something we should be able to get and so and I and the reason I say that is because to to council member mua's point about telling this story I am making it up as I go if I don't have that information but I can have a very Pro a very comfortable datadriven conversation with the public about these strategic Investments if we have that laid out the other thing that it will do is it will give people an understanding of when it will end because right now I feel like we're just going to keep adding to the pile potentially in some people's minds and it will never end and at some point we will end our these major Investments now it doesn't mean we won't will end all Investments but these major Investments are once in 50y year type Investments and and we will end doing them so why can't we just help people understand when that is going to be so my ask if possible between now and the 2016 1216 date is that we try to put some of these narratives together for pen benefit and also for the Public's benefit thank you thank you council member uh response to that counc Mr Mr Maron council members council member dallesandro we can certainly do that uh and I I apologize if it hasn't been clear for Council what I'm understanding what you're looking for is a simple one pager that um sort of shows the six to sevene plan of when we're going to have increases as part of the um stated uh uh plan to grow the the um fire department uh with different Investments and that includes the staff it includes the stations it includes uh you know an amount for Levy increases or or costs associated with that and we can put that together pretty quickly uh regarding the park system master plan is uh as um Miss economy Scher said uh CIP is coming through those are identified within the CIP and if there's a one pager that we can show that a little bit more succinctly we'll take a look at how we can do that better as well yeah thank you Mr Fugi my point simply being that I think telling the story of these strategic Investments um and and how long how long it's going to take to get them over the line number one how much it's going to cost to get them over the line and why they're important I mean I think everybody's bought into why they're important I don't think that that's the hard part here it's just to say like there is an end there isn't a light at the end of the tunnel whether that tunnel is a fiveyear tunnel or a nine-year tunnel it's a little less relevant it it's more so that we have a beat on it that we feel comfortable that we know what it's going to look like um ultimately what I understand is when you add 75 full-time people to a budget you're adding your you're asking for an operating budget increase that is significant and while we can keep going going and getting safer grant money and this that and the other thing for it which I'm all for the fact is if we don't get any of that stuff we have to find a way to pay 75 full-time staff so if we already know what that number is and we can project when we're going to start having to pay it assuming we don't get any help um it seems like we could just tell people that now as opposed to waiting until the year before it happens thanks thank you council member May Nelson y thank you mayor um I'd like to thank you uh in particular mayor for your previous comments about um your concerns about this budget but also looking at uh next year's budget which will be uh significant as well potentially um I'd also like to say that you and the city manager and frankly the council have been very clear to the public about the challenges we're going to face and we started talking about this four years years ago and letting people know that these things were coming most of this budget uh the increase is due to Public Safety and our police officers are amazing they got a big raise because police officers are getting a big raise cuz it's a tough profession and that impacts us um you know we've talked about the fire department for years about what it's going to take to get there and yeah we had safer Grant but we knew that was going to come online to our budget we've been projecting all of this to the public for a number of years so this is not it should not be a surprise to those who are paying attention that doesn't mean it's not impactful that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt many people but it should not be a surprise um the one thing that and and I've brought this up a number of times during a bug of conversations is I wish we had started two years ago looking at ways we could prioritize I guess for like for a better term cut things that aren't as high of a priority um because I think Public Safety is a top priority public works as a top priority uh you know our park and wreck clearly the uh community supports that um and that sort of thing but where else could we do it and so I have a few specific questions in terms of the the budget here um and I never got an answer to this one previously but we had talked about a a assistant chief building inspector is that in this budget or not council member Nelson you were correct that I didn't get an answer back to I apologize for that um Ari do you recall the answer to then um I uh mayor and council members uh council member Nelson I um I can I can get that I do have that response back I just didn't make it okay we we'll have it back the end of the week okay yeah yeah because again I'll just repeat my mind that was temporary so if it's in there then then we'll talk about it um we uh previously um hired an individual as a grants coordinator largely because we had a lot of Grants because of the federal stuff and that was a lot driven by the need to facilitate those grants for a lack of a better term but we hired someone to my understanding that also had when there was capacity the ability to get new grants could we get some type of update on are we seeing an increase in our ability to get grants has that stalled out has that not happened um I just I'd be interested in that because we funded that position and candidly based on the amount of money that was coming in for the federal government I don't think we had an option but that money is dried up now and so I think now we have an option of if it is adding to our budget or or not um based I mean because other people obviously applied for grants in the past for that and and got grants so is this adding to it versus other stuff um I asked this recently about police overtime I appreciate I think it was K that got me information on that I was concerned because there was a 25% markup on it but 21% of that went to what I would consider employee benefits so we're basically getting 4% we're not covering any indirect costs on that and by indirect costs I mean we have to go out and hire people we have to retain those people we have to equip those people and if I understand correctly when they're doing overtime they're wearing a uniform they have the equipment that the city is providing I think all of those indirect costs should be TR measured in some way and added into that fee that we're charging businesses that need that service um plus I you know candidly I don't have a problem in that area making a little bit of extra um to the extent that I do want our police officers I know that they they some of them utilize that to get extra money and and support their families and things like that so I don't want to do it in a way that would take away from them but I I think realistically we should cover not just our direct fix cost but all of our indirect costs and our management costs of implementation of that and that sort of thing um we talked about this before the dwan remodel uh sorry I call it a remodel it's not a remodel so I'm I don't know if that design is still in this budget I'm very concerned about that and I know the city manager and I had a nice conversation about this I I don't have the extent of the information about um what has happened with water infiltration and things like that if that can be remedied or not I you know just in my private life I run into significant amounts of uh people have water intrusion and I've never torn a house down because of it before um and I understand that this place had a a I mean it had a restaurant in it is very nice at one point and why can't just be brought up to that without having to spend hundreds of thousands to design it and then whatever it's going to cost to rebuild it I'm not sure um another area that I've talked about before redundant Services you know we we continue to have an individual that does um the essl and other things um that the state does now and I mean I get it but does it is it really a priority for us to be redundant with the state services or could we save money in that this does raise a question about the crime victim liaison position because the county provides crime victim liaison Services as well are we being redundant with that said that is actually one of the new positions that I would probably likely support um given the impact on people I mean uh people that are impacted by crime it is a very difficult period for them and and it's a system that makes absolutely no sense and nobody knows how to navigate it except for people that do it every day and so if we have uh the ability to support people that are going through probably one of the most awful times of their life and we could support them I I can probably support that I just want to make sure it's not redundant like if the count is doing it and we could better utilize that relationship so um the park department is doing extraordinary work huge amount of work largely because of the local OPP opport the local sales tax uh projects does it make any sense to slow down any of the other projects is there any potential savings from doing that I know that that's just moving it forward but in my mind moving something forward yes it will cost more in the future but that is an inflationary cost there's time value of money it is not a cost that adds up because it wasn't necessarily done on time so all of a sudden everything breaks and you have to do way more the project is approximately the same two years from now as it would be now um there would be inflationary costs of course um but um I have concerns about the position the new positions um when they're coming on as well uh that has already been uh um documented or discussed so those are some of the things that that I want to bring forward because I do think there is there are ways to save money within this budget that just by focusing our priorities and you know not necessarily having to do everything all at once at this time so um that's what I've got to say thank you Council thank you council member Nelson we'll get you just second council member us Mr Veri response um Mr mayor council memb council member Nelson that was a lot um so uh did I what no I didn't actually thank you um let me go back to one of the things you said at the very beginning which is uh focusing on the priorities um because we we actually uh agree with you ki do you want to talk about uh what we're thinking about it's not necessarily for 2025 but uh as we as we move forward everybody's cognizant of what the next few years are like so um car you want to talk about it uh sure so um one thing that we are going to be looking at we have a demo coming up is on priority based budgeting you're probably uh familiar with this so the software that we have our Erp system is owned by Tyler Technologies and they have recently fairly recently acquired um the software that does priority based budgeting and so actually icma is um going to be doing a demonstration I think on December 10th the international um what's icma uh City Managers Association um so it's something that a lot of communities have looking at have that have had these exact um difficulties with their budget that that we're looking at so um it is something that we can explore looking at with our current um Tyler Technologies um Erp platform and so we'll be looking at this and um so it's very timely um and consider we'll bring that to the council to see if that's something we want to look at but it would be a different way of budgeting I'm guessing if you've gone to any types of conferences you've probably seen demonstrations um on this but um it's um just a shift where your making tough budget decisions and um funding your priorities and looking at other ones that maybe not as high priority that would would come down so um I don't have a lot of details about that but um just something that um you know it's about Revolution revolutionizing budgeting and um I know the city of duth did this uh fairly recently I think they might have just presented on that I know the CFO there very well um and uh she's very passionate about about this and we're both on a national budget committee together so um if there's anything more you want to say about that nope that's that's good um the other comment I would make two other comments council member Nelson uh one is um that we are looking at things that we we can um push back in the schedule dwan is one of those things that's on the list uh and it's uh both the uh Financial impact looking at our debt uh schedules over the next couple years but it's also just a work capacity issue um and the fact that we would likely have to bring somebody on to specifically manage that project whether it's a consultant or something else because uh currently with the projects that we have we have really limited um staff capacity to manage that project right now so that one's likely to get deferred um in terms of the uh redundancies where I think we have those kinds of redundancies uh we continue to see a value ad so you mentioned like the compliance uh person in our legal department um earned sick and safe time uh at the state um is uh is frankly you wouldn't probably see the enforcement that the council directed staff at least in terms of an expectation for what you'd like to see in enforcement if the state were doing it um and we talked about this last year I think too that um they uh they um told us how many staff they're going to have in their office and based on that number the likelihood that there would be any real impact uh here in Bloomington um is probably pretty minimal right not criticizing the state I just don't think you're going to see the same level of uh concern or consideration based on the state program uh as compared to our local ordinance it's always going to be an option for the council if if you feel that you want to change your posture on that um but that's you know the feeling that I have on that we'll look at the police thing uh I don't know if any other departments are uh charging uh a vig on on their uh overtime contracts but we can certainly do some research in that regard I think um the you know the approach here has always been just recover the costs Associated um but you're right we don't do an extensive uh uh calculation of the indirect costs that that maybe can be loaded in there so that's an area that we can look at too on the grants um we'll get you some more information on the grants uh our we do have a a great person uh Janet is doing fantastic work uh and the vast majority of her work is still on um monitoring compliance and Reporting related to the grants she is um helping staff as as we identify potential grants to take a look at what the requirements are um but it hasn't started to yield like more grants than what we were seeing previously just based on um you know the work that she's doing currently so uh the other the other thing I wanted to say council member and all the council members um we have made decisions through this budgeting um uh time this year uh to not move forward on some things that the council uh has said are are are important so uh the facilities uh Service uh evaluation that we did two years ago identified that we needed to add probably five people in that area if we were going to achieve the level of service that we thought was appropriate and the council directed uh they'd like us to uh move move towards uh We've added one person over the last two years okay so we're behind on on what we identified there if we're going to maintain our facilities optimally uh we did the um Parks maintenance and operations plan um which again was uh extremely thorough and exhaustive walkth through of all 97 parks and the different levels of service in every one of them uh that were not even close to meeting Cur ly and um Council gave us Direction uh that they were supportive of the plan that was presented uh that would have required probably eight staff to be added we've added one staff there in the last year and a half so you know we're making decisions uh um to try and manage where we're at uh and there are places where we're not making Investments that we think that we should be because we have really hard choices so thank you mrgi council member Ras just a quick couple of comments um I would suggest that we freeze any hiring at this point but that's just me don't give me looks please uh that's what I would suggest with the exection of a fire department and Poli and the police department um it is a very difficult thing to support I mean at least from my point of view I haven't been part of any of these discussions in the previous years I'm just learning as I go uh but I do believe that the impact as little as it seems has an impact I I've been talking to people over the phone on the weekend a lot and all I hear was again and again um and I will ask this question again it's this is only the levy the 9% for the property taxes correct it is right so what about the other increases in the other areas in water and sug and all of that that's you know it comes to mind uh and I am GNA say this I'm very good at math okay and it's one of the simplest things to understand uh and as much as we want to paint it to the public that the increas is minimal all these additions come up to a very very very high increase and they're real regardless of how we painted to them everyone 3% here 2% there 5% The Other Place 9% here it all add to it all adds to regardless of anywhere like I said I'm very good understanding at math uh and people understand that part the simplest part of it is very understandable it is an increase that is a lot more Su substantial than what we are telling them it is um I tried already uh and I I tell you I have fallen my face for the most part because uh the understanding is there the increase is a lot more than what we stating it is um so I would suggest that we just freeze any hiring with the exception of of of emergencies and police and Public Works and and again I would also ask I I I don't have all the facts with me but there could be from what I see superficially there could be a lot of other things that we could cut stop spending any money on those projects or things that the city is doing at the moment um I don't I don't want to elaborate into that because I don't want to drag and I again I don't have the ability to express myself with a lot of experience that the rest of the conso does but I'm I'm making it as simple as possible there are a lot of things that in my opinion we could cut completely and alleviate the problem um so I just suggest no hiring and perhaps eliminate some of the expenses that we have that are not necessary I prioritize uh budget I was reading on the information I got at the this last trip to Florida and the way they put it there is it's amazing spend on what you want you really need to spend instead of having expenses that don't really qualify for priorities we do it at home thank you mayor thank you council member uh council member delandro and then council member lman council member dallesandro thanks Mr Mayor um uh appreciate what you're saying I I will challenge council member revas at the end of his first year in office here to please bring those ideas absolutely to the council um to say that there's lots of places but then not to say examples of what they are make it hard for us to know what it is you're referring to so i' I'd appreciate um and I'd love to have that conversation because I I think we all want to minimize the impact of this Budget on people uh to your point uh about uh Mr Mayor about you know the the challenge that we have here we're at the end of a very long line of individuals who are taking for La better way to put it their pound of Flesh from residents and I remind everyone of course that we are also those people right every one of us here is a property owner and pays these taxes so yes there's the increases in the operating dollars for uh for for water and sewer and things of that nature there's also you know State Inc income tax changes there's also hopen County Income Tax changes there's also Bri Rivers Park District income tax changes uh or property tax changes there's also the school board's property tax changes we are the last people in a long line of people who have made their budgets known and so to the extent it is it is not it is not something that we can control that all of those other things are also on our property tax roles right um anyone who is upset with our property tax levy here would have the opportunity to talk to henan County about that exact same problem would have that opportunity to talk to um the school board about that same problem and you know it that we're at the end here and we're trying to be really transparent doesn't mean that we're the only ones that those you know our residents can have those conversations with because I certainly had that conversation with my canaban county commissioner right I as a resident I have the right to to to say what I like and don't like about what the budget is for anabin County um and so I encourage everybody to do that not just with the city but with all the other places where there are taxing entities um I I I want to I want to make a comment about priority based budgeting budgeting as you all might be able to say tell by the way that I asked for things and I think that that council member Nelson did also tonight um I actually participated in the priority based budgeting conference agend uh item that was at the National League of cities this past week and spent about another 20 minutes talking to one of the uh directors um from Tyler about what they're doing because I asked a very specific question I I asked a question about how how folks make these decisions um and how how one of the big things that I think is going to be important for us to understand is that the data that will come from that priority based budgeting process um to us will be much larger than just the areas that we have surrounding us so you see us like comparing ourselves to Woodbury and Adina and people like that all the time um they're pulling data from hundreds and hundreds of communities around the nation that are um that are you know working through this process and I am looking forward to seeing what that might do to help us understand what truly is uh uh you know a priority for folks um but I I I can't think when 85% of this budget is for Public Safety infrastructure in public works and for Parks and Recreation and when you go very back back to the very beginning of this exercise and you talk about the priorities of this city through six months of Engagement and those three are the top three I I'm having a hard time understanding what it is that we would be what do we want to do different that would truly move the needle I do believe we can find another percentage off this Levy uh potentially by some of the ideas that have been presented tonight but to to to think that we might be able to get more um when we when we have this information directly from our residents that say they want us to continue to invest is a is a challenge thanks thank you council member Mr Veri thank you Mr Maron council members uh council member revas I'm I'm just following up on your comments and just seeking Clarity when you say hiring freeze do you mean for uh no staff additions or do you mean for the city operations as a whole as as somebody leaves the organization not to refill that position counc member no uh additions I mean if you lose a manager or or somebody essential I I that would need require to be replaced I I just mean for the time being a freeze on new hires new positions okay okay thank you I appreciate the clarity and then uh council member Nelson coming back to your question uh about the assistant building official uh we did have a temporary increase for that position um and uh we went up to 66 staff we're back down to 65 staff the assistant position is still there we eliminated a different BNI supervisor position in the budget um so it's still the same head count quickly council member can I assume there's just a modest impact there was if there like yeah slight pay differential but that's it yeah there was and if you recall the Community Development Department had one of the smallest increases in the entire City operation okay I just want to thank you for getting back to me on that uh council member lman council member Carter council member Nelson all right thank you mayor um so uh just going back to council member rases um so is is it possible to to see what that might look like um manager mayor uh if we had that that freeze what that what that budget would look like um if we were to have the the with no additional Mr rugi yeah Mr Maron council members for the uh and council member lman uh I think Ki has the number ready to go but it's in the neighborhood of $380,000 is the savings associated with those three positions the targeted marketed program coordinator the crime victim liaison and the um well theoretically by the spirit of that I don't think you meant the you don't mean the firefighters either because we got the budget for that right okay right so you know is it's three people within the uh those those are the three positions and like I said there's an offset for the recreation position um there's the crime victim liaison is is not redundant um I think during the legal presentation you might recall that uh City attorney and our our Deputy City attorney for prosecution talked about um the need and the demand for those services and the the real limitations on schedule that allows our current liaison to effectively deliver those services so um we're actually going to be um uh moving away from a contract to provide some of those Services by a third party because the level of service just hasn't been there um so we get just a little bit of savings and the reduction of associated with that contract but it's not close to the full position that's being saved uh and then I already talked about the targeted marketing one so so 350 that really does 380 it's about half percent half a percent so it really just brings us down to that point there and then I think this other point that he brought up which you know a former mayor used to bring this up this idea that uh you know you have the the taxes then you have the fees is there a way for us to to kind of see that you know as one picture not necessarily at the tax and you know but just have something sent out so we could see a whole picture of both the fees and the uh and the taxes all together and uh yeah Mr Mayor if I'm understanding you council member lman C did you go through the revenues uh there's a slide here right and see if this is just cuz I know we had the solid waste uh yeah the preliminary general fund budget stuff we just passed last week which was I think it was was it wait water and waste and all that yeah if you go back about I Mr I don't think council member lman is looking for an aggregate I think he's looking to to break it down individually that yeah and I I think that was council member revis's point as well and it goes back to I think uh many years ago the notion of the price of government you know what what's the cost of of oh I see of of all the things put together for individual households sure we've had it before yeah and and not sure looking for it today but oh I oh I get it I'm sorry we don't need to do it right yeah I definitely don't want to do that today because that's not the purpose of this we got to be focused on the on the levy here and not not that but I do think that's it's a good point it's been raised before um uh so uh thanks for that just wanted to be sure that you know uh council member of us understand other folks have have said that before up here too and and and understand that uh um uh that that that is an important point and uh that we should should look at that and just to be clear serious and and we have showed this before in the past I don't remember the last time we did it but it's like if you own the median value home and you use the average amount of water and right this is sort of what your we sorted did the last meeting actually it was in that in that in that slide deck but you know could you you know could we put that together with what we finally end up recommending with this and just send it out to us think it's pretty complicated um but there's something that council member Carter brought up earlier that I wanted to uh bring up as well is this idea of uh you know we spent a lot of focus on this idea of of fire and uh and Public Safety but there's also a need uh to make sure that we're taking care of the rest of our departments uh that are out there and I think that that's a very important thing and as we as we look to you know dice this thing back um I I'm I'm wondering about that you know what what that means uh I think that's a very important Point are we balancing and taking that 1% if we want to you know so I appreciate you know my colleagues who kind of tried to help us get to a point where we want to get below that that 10% um what does that what does that mean uh for those those other sta that are not in that public safety realm and I know we have priorities that we've talked about in terms of equity and that type of thing and so I think we've got to think about that you know former council member used to talk about you know these are you know these are value decisions here um and I I certainly get the value of trying to reduce and know council member delandro really laid it on right you know he had you know all those different organizations that are laying on the additional taxes you know and then you add this additional 100 uh you know at the end here you know what does that mean for somebody who's struggling you know how can we make that a better experience uh for that that person so I'm certainly with that being said so um I I just I am I'm finding this very difficult uh to try to manage down that that additional 1% because I know what that means in terms of the other staff members that are there um you know we just uh provided a an increase uh for some of our our Public Safety uh workers um that's a question of equity and we've all talked about and we've had our committee Community come together and talk about the idea of equity so I just uh you know as we kind of make these decisions I think we just we need to be careful about you know how we go about doing that and I and trying to slow any of those other things that we're talking about I don't know how we do that so um thanks mayor Mr Brew you want to end on this one or uh thank you Mr mayor council member uh I always want it on of course you which is why it's now quar to8 but well I I believe more information on the front end is better uh so uh here's here's what I would uh maybe suggest as we look forward because I appreciate all those comments um is that uh thinking ahead to 2026 and in the information that Ki showed for what our preliminary working number is going into that year um even though four years sounds like it's a long time ago we went through an exercise four years ago of looking at basically every service that the city provides right and so one of the things that we could probably do uh early next year is share that information with the council and I think it would be good if the council uh maybe refreshed on on uh that information but then also to give some direction to staff if they're are specific services that you'd like us to evaluate um and uh do the service assessments again uh and and start that early in the year um so that those are at least significantly progressed by the time you get to uh having to make some decisions later in the summer about the budget uh I think is certainly one option that could be on the table the last fight just say that uh it's funny that the priority based uh budgeting thing has come around again I remember talking with you about that a number of years back um about doing that and there's now more more interest in that in the council but uh I think you're going to find it very interesting when we get ready to if we eventually do that priority based budgeting it's going to be uh and and I I see the wisdom of those comments that uh that staff have said to me before about uh going down that road of the priorities based on budgeting so council member Carter thank you mayor I actually was just going to make the point that in past uh years we had done the cumulative cost for a household with all of the different fees and so um was going to request that as as well I am very interested in the priority based budgeting sounds very exciting um but otherwise I don't think I have any additional actually I do have one question um I was just sitting here thinking about like what I know about the city and where there could be some more efficiencies and um and it came to mind did we ever have we gotten the results from the co-ed assessment uh Mr May and council members council member Carter they are uh they're just finish well we are launching their strategic plan so yeah we had that uh quite a while ago we've incorporated into the Strategic plan for them moving forward okay I would be curious to hear the results of just because in my head I was like gosh I wonder if there's some efficiencies there and could we have like one Department that's like coed and or you know what I mean I just so even from the C perspective I could see where there could potentially be some overlap and some synergies and efficiencies there but at the same time um I think that they probably did kind of do an assessment of the the or or of ced's role in the context of everything else going on and so um again we just be interested in seeing the results of that but um yeah thank you thank you Council M Nelson yeah thank you mayor I appreciate all of the conversation here I had a specific question about lodging and Admissions and it's just only related to the fact that I I serve on the Bloomington Minnesota travel and tourism board what used to be known as convention and visitors bureau um and they actually had to and they they were proactive about it and they saw it early so nobody is scared or anything uh they were on top of that but they had to adjust their budget kind of downward based on what they were seeing we've adjusted our to what my understanding maybe upward for next year can you explain sort of the difference for people yeah Mr Mayor and council members council member Nelson it's an excellent question uh I had the same conversation with Bonnie Carlson last Monday as a matter of fact I assume you did um so we did increase our uh lodging revenue forecast um we have a team in uh finance and port and assessing who else is at that meeting this primarily those three right um they started meeting during covid and and back then it was every week they were meeting now they meet about once a month right but we're always going through the data um that's relevant on on these um non-property tax revenues um and and on property tax revenues too but uh primarily looking at the other areas um where we have a little bit more vulnerability exposure uh so two things we're tracking well on what we had budgeted for this year uh in terms of our um budgeted and actuals and the presentation in October early October um with the 2025 uh Outlook and forecast from Str which is where we get our data showed uh they anticipate it's going to be level and they said what you can expect is that the the room rate will increase by the 3% cost of living or so and so after staff looked at it we were comfortable taking that additional 3% over what we budgeted this year okay thank you for the clarification and just if people don't know they're funded by the same source of taxes that this account is funded so um just slightly different ways of looking at it I guess so but both of them are on top of it it sounds like and making the uh appropriate adjustments um and then so may I have a question for you because I have like three things maybe but they won't impact this year's budget do you mind if I bring them up now or do you want me to just hold off on them I can be very quick and succinct on them I why don't you do that if you you could bring them up now that'd be great yes so um the three things I have uh St Paul looked at uh going to eveny year elections to save some money that has school district issues related to it it also has obviously uh rank Choice voting uh with supported by the community again I have no idea how you get all that onto one ballot but St Paul thinks they can do it so um there would be potentially a savings if we did that but it's a huge lift and probably a charter commission question and school board question and state question so I don't need an answer now I'm just throwing it out there as something to potentially consider I also have concerns about it frankly I don't want to go door knock and have people ask me who I'm voting for for president especially in this last election um if I Mr council member Nelson let me just jump in say we've already started to look at the uh transition that St Paul's making because there is the RCV and then the impact of the ballot so um we already have a decent sense and we can report back to the council at some point in the future here um the other thing I'd say is that the school district um U pays us for the cost of their election so you know even if we were to go to an even year and they stayed on the odd year they would still continue to pay for administering the election okay so we were getting a free ride for council elections no you still pay for them still pay for them okay um the second thing was Aquatics um mentioned this a few times before with the Community Health and Wellness Center you know what impact would that have on the existing Aquatics facility does it make sense to have two of them I think that should be part of the design consideration for that facility and and taking a look at the the future um of that uh area and then um the other one that I've uh had concerns or questions about recently is the prosecutors given the um increased cost of having to go to Minneapolis and things of that nature I know we did an analysis um not too long ago but I think that maybe some of the environment has changed in that regard and I'm just curious if it if it changes the balance of the cost or anything like that um so but I I appreciate the good work they do obviously they're they're working to to make sure people are victims of crime are supported and that people who commit crimes are held accountable and uh to the extent that they're interested hopefully get a different path in life than than doing that so those are just the three things I want to put out there um again not going to impact this budget way not close to enough time in a couple weeks but just wanted to get him on the radar thank you for that council member Mr vugi uh Mr mayor council members council member Nelson I was uh simply going to sum up by saying I think it's good if if you uh if there's a a list that the council's interested in looking at in terms of service assessments it's good to have that information and we can come back and have that conversation early in the year so Council what I I I've heard a lot of good discussion and a lot of possible uh options as we're moving forward and I think what I would ask of staff as we look to make this final decision and talk about this uh you've heard some of the recurring themes perhaps uh and and as uh council member Carter brought up to make these decisions to have the complete information what the pros the cons what the total would be what what the impact would be that kind of thing and uh on the on the main themes that we that have been that have been brought up if we could see an analysis of that and at our next meeting use that to make you know to decide what yes no stay at this level reduce this level uh I think we need more information is better and impact information is also important and necessary and I I know that in our budget presentations I appreciate there's always that one slide you know impact of budget reductions and it was interesting I think kind of to hear staff when they by the time they got to it it was usually late at night a lot of times and they kind of zip through the bullet points very quickly and I think to really stop and consider what these impacts would be if uh if if we talked about a hiring freeze if we talked about reducing Services if we talked about trying to squeeze another two one 5% whatever it is out of this budget what those impacts would be that we can be able to to make decisions based on that with full information or at least as full as you're able to provide in just a couple of weeks time which I know is a is a big lift but I think for this Council to be comfortable with this and for then to be able to to council member mu's point to be able to to explain and tell the story and and make the sale I think that would it would be very helpful and necessary so uh Council I appreciate the discussion staff I appreciate the work so far and I think we're uh we're all headed in the right direction I think it's just a matter of how we end up getting there so thank you for that so thank you all right our second item on our agenda is a rating analysis for future Capital plans just one moment we're going to stand by for just a moment and M economy shoulders is going to return and Elizabeth Bergman our representative from Baker till is here good evening this doesn't work car said it wasn't working we'll try it good evening mayor and councel uh to reintroduce this is Elizabeth Bergman she is our Municipal adviser with Baker Tilly and she has um been with me talking with City Council on debt issues in June and in August and then we had a little brief conversation in in October on Capital Improvement plans um and just to um call back one of the items you had mentioned in the budget discussion um when you see the information from for the December CIP we did move dwan from 2026 to 2028 we have pushed it back and then there's a few other changes that we've made in the CIP that you will see but today um we are talking about um the debt that is being issued including the sales tax debt what it might have on our credit rating so I am turning it over to Elizabeth to give you her thoughts and Analysis thank you excuse me thank you mayor and councel um this is a great topic to follow the conversation that you all just had with regard to budget um and Miss KY Scher and I have been talking about the debt plans over the next couple years and the a potential impact on the ratings and obviously that's part of the discussion with the rating agencies as well so we undertook this process to um look at what the fundamentals of the city of bloomington's credit rating were and what the additional debt would mean for the rating so that's really what we're going to present to you today and please ask me questions as I go along okay so just laying the foundation of the work that we did the first thing we did is take the capital borrowing plan and you can see here um the uh the the various uh projects that are on top the timing the size the security and the repayment source so I think there was a conversation earlier about sales tax bonds some of them have the security of General obligation but they're all repaid by sales tax and that had to do with the presentation that we gave in August okay I was thinking it was August had to think about that about um the way we ructure the sales tax bonds to make them most marketable in the in in the market marketable in the market and at the lowest interest cost but you can see we've got the fleet garage parking facility Community Health and Wellness Center and P bonds this year um the majority of those are Geo bonds with the exception of a portion of the Community Health and Wellness Center and then in the subsequent year Charter bonds for Parks uh fire station 9M Creek and P bonds the 9M Creek will depend on how sales tax revenues come in and where we are with interest rates as to whether those will be goo or sales tax but this is the um Capital borrowing plan we used when we did our analysis for the ratings all right well I think probably everybody in the council knows that uh the city of Bloomington is a proud owner of three AAA ratings so that's a tripa rating that's the highest rating possible from SNP Moody's and fit and you can see here here just a very highlevel overview of what each of those has said about the city um each rating agency publishes a methodology about how they assign ratings so they determine what the factors are what the weights are and then have measures on those all three rating agencies fundamentally are looking at the same thing they want to know about your financial position they want to know about the health the wealth and the prospects of your tax base they want to know about your management and they want to know about your long-term liabilities and a couple of years ago I might not have said long-term liabilities I might have said debt but increasingly the rating agencies are looking at uh pensions and other long-term liabilities so uh AAA from each of those they all uh speak to the strength of bloomington's economy the wealth and the growth with uh noting the slight concentration of the tax base given that the Mall of America represents a a relatively High portion of the tax base um all are very complimentary of policies procedures staff governance all those things that are in your control you're hitting it out of the park on um and then typically they've seen the debt profile is very strong um one of the things that we're here to talk about is what that how that goes in the future so we'll we'll look at that a little further um one thing worth noting is all three uh rating agencies have recently updated their rating methodology standard and por is just uh released their is I think three months ago and so the most recent review that um standard cores did of the city included the new rating methodology and there has been no change to the AAA with the new rating methodologies again they all really look at fundamentally the same issues but they measure them in each in a little different way just just enough to put their own stamp on it and make it so that uh Lori and I have to calculate many ratios so um all right so moving on maybe oh yeah okay so what we did was we took those rating methodologies and prepared scorecards that's what's embedded in the in the methodologies for uh the next several years and we're going to get to those just to uh give you some under standing of the underlying assumptions was that we took the 2023 metrics and used those for everything not related to debt so we assumed your financial position stays the same we assumed the rating agencies continued to see your management practices as very strong um you know continued growth or continued the tax base still remaining strong and with some concentration from all of America we don't know what those are going to be and that's something that we can talk about a little bit too but all things being equal we just kept those uh as they were and then we looked forward with the um with the with the borrowing plans the one thing that is a little um unique that we had some particular assumptions on is because in 2023 there was no sales tax in the city we needed to put that on as a piece of the forward moving plan plan because the uh metrics on some of the debt reflect revenues to debt so as you're taking on debt with sales tax we also need to recognize the revenues associated with sales tax so we assumed some growth at 3% of the sales tax so that's just kind of the Baseline I I'm going to not bury the lead I'm going to do the opposite which is give you the the outcome and then we can talk about each of the scorecards so what we did was we did the analysis of end 25 26 27 28 and then we did some debt sensitivities at some higher levels of debt and we've created this grid trying to shade to give you some idea of what the um what what the different outcomes are where it's green it means that your rating outcome is consistent with where you are now we don't see any rating pressure whatsoever we think that it's a pretty easy slam dunk you will remain at the AAA where it's yellow we're starting to see some pressure from the additional debt and where it's red that's an area where we believe that there would be a downgrade so you can see that S&P all through your 28 Capital plan has a AAA with no pressure on it whereas Moody's in 20206 starts to feel some credit pressure and Fitch in uh at the end of 25 and how we Define rating pressure is the rating scorecard outcome and if it's more than one Notch from where you are now so you'll notice Moody on there for instance you can see it says Moody's a A1 and you might think to yourself well wait a second I thought we were AAA for Moody's yes you are a AAA for Moody's their scorecard outcome is a double a one and then they have some adjustment factors and judgment that they put above that frankly Moody's uh rarely has an outcome from their scorecard of AAA I'm not sure I've not sure if I've ever seen one maybe I have but it's very rare so that shouldn't be alarming to you in any way and it's the same with with Fitch so you can see there with Moody once the scorecard changes to 82 that's when we say oh there's some rating pressure again there's a lot of latitude from rating analysts and rating committees about what rating is ultimately assigned compared to the scorecard and we'll talk a little bit about that in a few slides but once you start getting two notches off your final rating that's where we see some yellow for lack of a better so uh I I think fundamentally here what we're seeing is through 28 eight very strong with S&P and then there starts to be some question marks with fit and modies and I'll just put in in our modeling of debt including um the the big numbers include the $155 million dollar of the sales tax bonds and so um with all of that um we're not passing that 375 Mark in any of the modeling that I've had um and and those are at high numbers because we want to model High so and thank you for bringing up the sales tax um because the sales tax does have a different security you might think that that's a separate analysis but the rating agencies really have moved um as they've moved to these new methodologies to an idea of saying all the debt you have and all the revenues you have so it it it comes in both the numerator and the denominator so uh the sales tax is separate in a part in security but is part of their analysis so I've got can I ask a quick question absolutely uh so just based on the cost of borrowing yes what what what's that impact what what does that cost us it's my last slide shall I skip there or do you want to wait I I'll wait okay now now the suspense will be killing you all right um it's a great question so these are scorecards we can talk about the details of each of these to the extent to which you would like to or you can ponder them you know at at your leisure at a different point but you can see S&P here in 2023 you have an estimated individual score uh credit profile score of 1.2 that's in the sort of reddish color there at the bottom with the scorecard outcome of AAA you can see all across the bottom there those numbers are the numbers that kind of are the math Behind These scorecards and then result in a rating and uh for S&P it's it's a scorecard outcome of one to two gets you a AAA so you can see S&P very solid the red numbers are the things that we changing so you can see net direct debt per capita so that's the amount of debt you have as compared to the people in the city of Bloomington and then current cost for Debt Service and liabilities as a percentage of Revenue so that's looking again at Debt Service Plus your pension costs and I should say pension costs were also Frozen because we don't know you know what what direction those might go on in the next couple of years um and that's where as a percentage of revenues again we put those sales tax revenues in because that's a new Revenue stream that wouldn't be captured by freezing in 2023 next scorecard is Moody and for Moody's the breaking point to go from uh it's for for Moody's it's 0.5 to 1.5 is AAA and then 0.5 to 2.5 is able A1 which is where the city sits now um you can see that you go along for a couple years here through 2025 of the a A1 and then 2026 is the year that you go over the 2.5 again everything held constants except for the long-term uh long-term liabilities ratio and the fixed cost ratio which again are the um overall debt and and pension liabilities and then what the percentage of the budget that you're spending on those each year so um again uh strong for a couple years and then get into what we'll I'll call the yellow zone and then as she's moving to fit um as the sales tax revenue comes in and if it's stronger than what um what are liability is that will look favorably on how they one of their objective areas that they have to um look at us with that's right that's right yeah 3% growth seems MH we thought it was fair and reasonable but it could be stronger than that for sure um and then here's Fitch uh and they've got a Fitch always has to do things a little different to keep everybody on their toe so their system is um I think it's 10 it it goes so so if you're between 11 and 10 you're at AAA and then when you go 10 9 to 10 you're at Double A Plus and so you can see here again everything except for the long-term liabilities is is black because we froze those at the 2023 levels but they measure your liabilities meaning pensions essentially OPB and debt to personal income to government revenues and then that final metric there that caring costs as a percentage of governmental revenues is again the percentage of your budget each year that's used um in their in their estimation for long-term liabilities y just to um as she's mention in pension um they go out to perah and grab the perah information as they apply to us it's not something the city can control on those um pension numbers I mean they'll look at the fire pension but it covers just a small group of people for the fire pension compared to all of us at perah that's right exactly so I mentioned that there are things outside the scorecard that um adjust up and down so for S&P one of the things that can make an adjustment to their ratings are if you have significant medium-term debt plans and I thought it was interesting to note that while we um had our conversation with S&P in these recent months there was no adjustment made for significant medium term debt plans despite the city council's you know what you might think of as significant debt plans they didn't seem to think so so no real adjustments from S&P Moody does make some adjustments to your scorecard one is that taxpayer concentration associated with the mall gets up some negative adjustment down but uh favorably your financial reporting and controls and management and governance gives you uh pressure upwards and that's how you get to the AAA so everybody can give themselves a pat on the back for that one um Fitch also has some adjustments economic strength and then they really um Fitch had puts a lot of weight on participation in a broader um Municipal statistical area so the fact that you're part of a very vibrant Twin Cities that gives you some um forward momentum uh but then some adjustment downward for that economic concentration all nutting out to the triaa those are the things that have been identified in the methodology are identified in your past ratings but like I say and and I should you know for full disclosure tell you I used to be a Moody's rating analyst so I've I've been through these conversations there is a lot of conversation about things that are off the scorecard that have um an impact either positively or negatively so um these are just the jumping off points there's been a huge emphasis on transparency from the rating agencies about why they're assigned the ratings they are and so these are our our best insight into what we can know about your ratings all right so here Mr Mayor here's your here's your question so um we we tried to model just a a sample to try to put some context around the impact of a downgrade and so I would say I know Bloomington really values the aaa's and it is one thing for financial and it's another thing just as pride of place and understanding that it does reflect strong management and government you cannot be a AAA without having strong management and governance so there's there's certainly um a benefit Beyond Financial to having the AAA but just putting the numbers together if the city were downgraded to aa1 AA plus and you did a $10 million borrowing that repaid in 10 years the overall cost of that would be $282,000 more over those 10 years if you were downgraded two notches to the doublea flat or the a A2 from Moody and from Moody and S&P it would be about 566,000 000 more in 10 years for that that 10 million borrowing and that doesn't sound like too much money but I think the thing that you have to remember is that's not just one debt issuance that's impacted it compounds because once you're downgraded every borrowing you have subsequently has at higher interest cost so if you assumed 10 years you borrowed 10 years every year for the next 10 Mill sorry if you borrowed $10 million for the next 10 years over that time period you'd have $1.5 million more in interest expense or 3.1 if you were downgraded the two notches and that's only if you just borrow 1010 million each year for the next 10 10 years and you're talking about a a higher U percent as that so that's just to give you some context we certainly can make some further calculations it makes of obviously some assumptions about interest rates that they're at today's levels um and um you know a lot of assumptions embedded there but trying to give you that guidance that you that you so wisely asked for I think so yeah so a summary slide here um these are just you know our our best guests using the methodology and and try to look forward I think the thing that is important to remember is we've held everything constant so strong financial position is embedded in this analysis ratings always are a a you know a teeter totter if you will if one thing goes up and one thing goes down and it's a it's a balancing act so if debt is going up and financial position is getting weaker then that means that your rating could be harmed more quickly if debt goes up and financial position is getting stronger that's a counterbalance to the uh to the increased debt so parly as you all are thinking about your budget something to to put in the mix in in another way um and I'm going to give it to you Lori y so just a few more comments on what we've just talked about with Elizabeth is that um when you looked at the financial report that just came out on Friday we're still looking very well how we're going to landine in the year very similar to a year ago so hopefully um as we finish the last two months out that um on reporting to the council um we're going to still be consistent and and very positively for that so as that plays into our 2024 audit which the next round of credit ratings will be on um we should land pretty well on our financials uh the next time that we will have all three credit rating agencies um view one of our bonds will be next fall for our payment management P bonds during the summer we um generally stick with just one of them and that is S&P they as you saw there they have the most favorable ratings and they generally be in price um the most reasonable so we stick with one rating on um if we're doing multiple issues during the year which is one rating agency and then we do all three once a year so on P of that so uh on this particular side um the debt that we're modeling here is based off of where we were um probably in August and just updated it so as you look at 2025 going into that from what we issued in um 2024 uh it is just a0 56% increase in the tax levy for 25 that um the debt paid apart in from um what you're seeing in the total 9.97% um when we look at the next year area for 2026 if we were to issue all those bonds um that played a part in the tax levy that we mentioned earlier with council member delsandro if we did the garage at 28.6 million if we did the $2 million of the parking ramp if we did um all I'll call it rounding up $9 million of um rotary Rec construction um our debt percentage depending on where we land on tax levy this year and um how we're looking at our general revenues in 2026 um we could be a three to 5% increase in debt for 26 depending on what we issue in the coming year what all those pieces are so um as each project comes up and as the they come before the council um we can give you an estimate of what that impact could be and then um it goes down in the future years as we're spacing out more and more more um pieces of this a high point is um when you think about the Public Works garage it is like almost like two fire stations so it is a big leap and then compared to fire stations um and then I know we're also pushing yeah we already mentioned that we're already pushing D out but just wanted to make sure on transparency and disclosure as we're bringing debt forward we want to make sure council is aware of maybe the impact so um Elizabeth and I are here for questions or discussion that you have on thank you for the information and and it's it's appreciated and it's honestly not surprising obviously we we know we've been borrowing a lot of money and and look to in the future based on what we're planning on doing uh I've always thought the best part about uh taking out a mortgage or or a car loan is the day you pay it off do we have uh an idea is there anything beyond this what we're looking at here do we have any debt coming off the books in the next three five 10 years or so mayor and Council when I look at the payment Management program all of those have been 10e Cycles um for example we issued sufficient debt in 2022 for the payment Management program that and that we also issued for 23 but it also paid for 24's um payment Management program too we had sufficient there so we haven't had to issue um PR bonds since 22 each year because of 10 years back that Debt Service piece is falling off so a couple hundred thousand is always falling off each year as we're adding more on um the charter bonds for our first park has started um I think in 26 is the first year that falls off because we issued some in 2017 so um they're always following F adding and and subtracting as they're come out okay Council comments questions on this Mr Veri anything to add here thank you Mr Mayor and council members uh I just want to resmar something Miss Bergman um if you go back to the grid that shows the all three of the agencies couple more and we'll be in good shape you mean the stuff like colors right so uh just to make sure we're I'm interpreting this properly and everybody else is too uh based on the standard and poor criteria moving into the future the likelihood is we will maintain AAA Bond rating yes the consequence of the analysis is that we may lose the talking point of all three uh AAA ratings right so the Triple AAA rating uh talking point may go by the wayside at some point um so I just wanted to come back to the last slide that you had shown with the um you know the cost implication of a a rating um uh reduction y uh that we're not anticipating that based on the SNP criteria well there's a couple things I would say to that first of all is it is yellow on purpose right it's not it's not red so there are a couple things one is that you have a very skilled team who is delivering the rating uh messaging so um we never get off with the rating agencies where they don't thank Lori and her team for doing such an excellent job and getting them all the information they need those are the kinds of things um when you have strong messaging and strong Messengers that can keep those yellow squares from being anything negative so um the yellow is it starts to be a question it's not a downgrade and the other thing I meant to say actually on that summary slide that I forgot is um aaa's are very sticky rating agencies don't like to downgrade a AAA when they put a AAA they're saying it's it's a stamp of approval and saying we have the utmost confidence it's not that they won't downgrade you but they will give you a lot of opportunity to um well to to mess up so that they can downgrade you they give you a little rope right um so um the most likely outcome would be first you would get a negative outlook and when a negative outlook is is a ass signed that says that they believe in the next two years there's a one in three chance that a downgrade will happen so you'd have sort of a a warning shot across the bow um so that would happen before a downgrade so just to give the context that yellow really is yellow I'm not going to tell you you're going get downgraded I'm not going to tell you you're not because it's a subjective decision and you're rating analyst frankly would say the same thing to you I'm sure you've heard that a million in one times I can't tell you what the answer is I have to go to my rating committee but just to try to create some you know boundaries for you all the second thing is when you have what's called a split rating so S&P has you at a AAA and Moody has you at a double one or Fitch has you at a double A plus uh the market tends to price you in between the two ratings or maybe towards the lower of the two uh so you could have the S&P rating and have one of the other ones go down and you would have some impact on the pricing of your bonds um then you might say to yourself well then let's get rid of Moody and you can do that except for that when the rating agencies rate an issue they're committed to maintaining a rating on that issue until the Bonds mature so if you didn't like Moody's rating anymore and starting in 2025 no longer ask them to rate your your current borrowing that would be fine we would publish an official statement that would have an S&P AAA on there but in the background the market would know that Moody's had a double A1 on you and that would have an impact on pricing a little less than if you had it on the front cover maybe um but it is something that that sticks around for a while so it's not so easy as I don't like it go away that's that's one of the tricky things so that's I wanted to make that point as well sounds like Junior High well they call it surveillance so Fitch just did a surveillance on us so we just answered all their questions and sent them thank you for Council anything on this all right well now we know so I appreciate it thank you thank for the information Council our final item tonight is 2.3 our city council policy and issue update I have nothing this evening Mr vergy do you have anything to bring forward uh mayor and council members I've talked enough this evening others we've all talked enough this evening right very good that wraps up that wraps up our agenda we will I will entertain a motion to adjourn our meeting tonight so moved motion by council member mu second by council member Ras to adjourn tonight's meeting no further discussion on this Safa thank you mayor delandro Happy Thanksgiving I Rivas Nelson lman Happy Thanksgiving hi mua hi Carter hi and mayor busy hi motion carries 7-0 we are adjourned everybody yes have a Happy Thanksgiving have a great long weekend uh stay warm it's getting cold out there thank you all for tuning in thanks to the staff for your great work tonight have a good one thanks [Music]