all right it is 6:32 i will call this official city council business meeting to order Monday April 21st 2025 it's officially a study meeting we won't be taking votes tonight we'll be hearing a couple of presentations but officially it is an official city council business meeting so we've got to
follow the same protocols as we would do otherwise so we will start our meeting as we always do if you would stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one
nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you everybody who is joining us online and thanks to everybody here in the college staff thank you for being here our first order of business council is to approve tonight's agenda uh under
our agenda we have nothing under item two introductory or under three consent or four hearings resolutions and ordinances only we get to number five our organizational business we've got two items item 5.1 is a discussion on franchise fees and item 5.2 is an update
on federal grants and what that impact might mean for the city of Bloomington and once we wrap that up we will adjourn so unless there are any additions or corrections to the agenda tonight I would move the agenda as stated second motion and a second by council member
Carter to accept tonight's agenda as stated no further council discussion on this all those in favor please signify by saying I opposed the motion carries 70 and we have an agenda we will jump to item 5.1 franchise fees discussion we have the gang of four in front of us
we've got Julie Long our city engineer Bob Simons senior civil engineer Alice Dross our sustainability coordinator economy shoulder our CFO to present this item for us so long you're taking it away yes it's all yours thank you um our goal tonight
is twofold one is to answer the questions that you all asked us at the last organizational business when this meeting was presented and then second to get some direction from you so we don't have to prepare eight different ordinances um so we're going to do a discussion on
our two new categories um which is retaining walls and sustainability so this first graphic shows you the retaining walls all with around the city within the city right away um uh retaining wall work has been
funded using the general fund and then council is aware that we often do carryovers mainly because the $45,000 that's in the budget doesn't really put a dent into our retaining wall needs um for instance there's a retaining wall project coming before you next Monday
and that engineers estimate somewhere between $800 and $900,000 as you can imagine it takes a really long time to be able to fund that um because we like to pay as our go as we go so that will be coming forward 90th Street along with in future years we have West Bush Lake
Road and then some retaining walls on the Normandale Lake um Boulevard project so we were looking for some additional funding so this is a picture of the condition of some examples of some failing retaining walls you can see that
they have visible deterioration um and a lot of retaining wall actual structure is behind the wall and so the one that I mentioned on 90th Street was a beautiful looking wall and it still managed to fall over so isn't
always our best judgment of the tiebacks and their health so I will turn over to Emma now so now we'll dive into the newly proposed sustainability franchise fee section and last time we discussed
one of the staff recommendations to use funding to fund um energy efficiency residential projects um this comes more context this comes from our energy action plan um we completed under the
after 2020 goals for residential of having um energy disclosure but then there was a followup um initiative to finance um energy efficiency improvements similar to what was already begun in the um housing and
redevelopment authority so those programs so that is where this is coming from for some context left side here i don't know here i'll for you they're not moving here we go
um last time thank you u last time also there were questions about beyond the direct homeowner what are community benefits of saving energy being able to explain that to residents so overall the community is benefiting from
less pollution from generating energy also less pressure on the energy grid especially during peak demand where we have power outages and um build we have expensive power plants money saved on energy bills can be reinvested in the
local economy and also overall boosting community resilience especially during extreme temperatures so the city has invested in the past few years in energy education and disclosure a reminder with the home energy squad the HA has been buying down
visits for residents since 2013 and then time of sale energy disclosure both of these programs are helping residents understand how their home is currently functioning what are recommended upgrades and how to finance those so we
have all those pieces but we have heard feedback that still u financing projects can be difficult um to talk about some of these energy upgrades obviously some of them like LED lighting switching a light bulb doesn't have a huge cost to it um but then there
are larger initiatives that are being recommended in these disclosure reports like attic insulation wall insulation high efficiency appliances so those are things that folks are looking for potential
financing for do I still have okay perfect so we have uh over a hundred years as we talked about last time to complete all of the um of Bloomington's housing stock and the estimated need for attic
insulation for wall insulation we're on track with our current pace for 300 years um to meet those goals as two examples so one of the questions is always what are our neighbors doing and how are those programs structured so
staff did some investigation we have we're aware of 20 cities that similar to us buy down home energy squad visits that are provided through the utilities um also similar to us um there are about 15 cities that have home improvement
loans so one of the questions from last time was how is our current home improvement loan through the HA doing we found um that over the past two and a half years that uh it was one or two
that were added for insulation and then we saw windows and um um siding which aren't our top recommended energy efficiency um actions to do first but they could be tied into that um
something to note with our current program is it goes to 80% AMI and something that looking at how other cities have structured loans and what staff would recommend is that we actually raise that to be higher um recognizing that there would be more
conversations of what that specifically would mean but open that up so that um more residents would have access to that lending opportunity and then something during our research that we also found is more and more cities are looking into climate grants cost share and rebate
programs so here's a list of the different cities that in addition to loans have also decided to set up specific financing um for for example Fidley specifically for installation other communities have looked at having a broader scope of what those funds
could be used for um but having energy be a theme for all of them so as an example there were also questions about the role of the energy utilities in this so um this is just looking at one of the energy score
reports for wall insulation what we do is we call out the incentives so you'll see a $1,500 rebate for wall insulation so that's um coming from Centerpoint Energy both Centerpoint and Excel Energy are required by the state through the
Eco Act of 2021 to for electric utilities to spend up to 1.75% of their sales each year and then natural gas 1% of their sales towards um
energy saving and climate um saving actions so that totals for Excel for their Minnesota territories about $600 million um over the course of three years and then for um I believe is
around 60 um million for um on the natural gas side for Centerpoint Energy so that's where the rebates that we're seeing in our community are coming from um there's also uh tax credits that federally are available um one thing to
note is that for both the rebates and tax credits you have to wait for them so if you don't have the upfront financing it's hard to go forward with projects because you're waiting between for two months for a rebate or you know up to a
year almost if you work to complete a project today and then file for next year's taxes struggling here okay feedback from other communities so one of the questions was "How do we know this is going to be successful what have we learned from
others?" Talking around um to different cities um definitely more interested in doing follow-ups of seeing what has been the impact edina shared their recent staff report that they shared with their council um this is from their climate
action fund so this wasn't a loan this was um a cost share program but they found that $96,000 of public investment has led to almost a million dollars of private investment in the community and then St louis Park they did a survey
about a year ago and they found about three4s of the respondents said that the cost share program motivated them to complete an energy project that essentially they wouldn't have done 8% said no I would have completed the project but you know they they got it
you know benefited from saving more money but they would have done it otherwise so those were two um points that we were able to find from talking with other communities existing programs then funding administration going back to conversations about could
we be doing this with Bloomington's HR combining programs um initial conversations with staff definitely seeing um pathways forward and opportunity in that um knowing that you would have to be going through details and do a cost analysis what it looks
like to do internal versus um hiring out the service we also had an initial conversation with Center for Energy Environment they do lending for um 19 Minnesota communities and so we talked
to them about what their services would be and if council was interested in moving forward there would be further conversation of what would be the best structure to go um doing this internally or hiring out for a financing
program and along with that with program development recognizing that with any new program we want to make sure that there's community engagement so next steps would be allowing time for staff to listen to the community get more feedback on what those income
qualifications would be what are the exact you know energy actions is broader than that um also racial equity impact assessment um we would also want to make sure since franchise fees are paid from homeowners and renters that multifamily
um buildings were thought about um in the process of financing and how we can benefit those um buildings as well and those residents and then ultimately coming back to council with an approval of a financing structure for a program now another question that we had
was why energy are there interests in other areas of sustainability so um Bob will get to that with the survey question that we put out but other cities have definitely looked at um their plans around climate or urban for
forestry we have two plans on the horizon that are being worked out so recognizing that um although we've talked about a first step responding to the energy action plan that in the future this could be a way that other cities have financed um their climate
work as well with that I will pass it to Bob right thank you i'll give a little bit of information on the public engagement that we've done um since we met with you guys back in March we had an open house held uh last
Thursday the 17th at the rehearsal hall fortunately during a thunderstorm so we didn't get the best turnout but we did have two attendees attend and historically we haven't had the greatest turnout for the open houses for this franchise fees event but um we had two people attend uh the two that attended
both of those were um along the mindset where they prefer to see something other than franchise fees be the funding mechanism for these these components um for example but they were not in favor of franchise fees one individual did mention that um they uh were not in
favor of road diets or decreasing the roadway with in order to accommodate uh peds and bikes users in the area so they got into a little bit of a conversation on trails and peds and bikes um we we've used our franchise fee website which we've had in place for a few years now um to get the word out and also through
esubscribe and social media we did a post a couple of weeks ago about the event and then also last week just prior to the event to get the word out there and with that we also had a let's talk Bloomington page that's still open right now um and on that page we have all the information that have on our website as
well frequently asked questions all the information that we brought to the open house but we also posted a question on there if city council were to approve an increase in franchise fees how should the funds be used and we put five different categories on there one of course and the sixth one being all of
the above but they could check all that apply all that they were interested in um as of this afternoon we had 38 responses um so as you can see we had well five different categories we had financing home energy projects to lower utility bills financing business energy projects to lower utility bills
sustainability projects to reduce air pollution and then retaining wall improvements and additional trail and sidewalk improvements um the top vote getters were additional trail and sidewalk improvements as you can see and then financing home energy um to lower utility bills and then also um retaining
wall improvements we will have that page up and open here through May 2nd but that's the response we see received thus far i'll pass it over to Lori with wrap up so our first slide you've seen pretty
much all of these slides the last time we presented but we'll go through them again um in 2023 when we went through our last model increase um to bring it to the $5.95 um per residential per utility um we
were estimating that for 2026 we would come in and be asking for $6.70 which was a 75cent increase with that and then um and it was across the board uh the same percentage increase for all of the um
energy users there at 13% and then we had the three graphs um and I'll go from the increase percentage wise what we found over the last few years is that the users in each of the categories had changed significantly since 2020 so to bring up their
percentage of um actual usage in each area their percentage it increases changed based on the number of new users in each one so um with a million dollar for sustainability and retaining walls um it would be a 16% increase for the
residential at a total of 93 cents or $186 a month um and then we looked at sustainability at a half a million dollars and retaining walls that is at the 58 cents um for the at 10% and again
I'm just focusing on the residential piece and then if we just um did nothing for sustainability but did the retaining walls it's 23 cents um and that would be what% increase on the residential piece on that grouping
so the recommendation that we brought before the council before was the $1 million for sustainability efforts $250,000 for retaining walls and then normal inflation on the existing categories that we have
branch would bring it um to $13.76 for both combined um utilities again that's a change of $186 a month from what we have at the
595 so these were the options that we put in both the memo and then in the presentation and we are looking to see if we can have some direction of um any interest on council to at least bring us
down to one or two options or give not moving forward on option A we would look to bring come back again um again next year this time um and instead of a fixed rate we'd be looking at a percentage because several of the cities around us are going to a percentage rate
increase um in their rates option B is the 23 cents for the retaining walls c is just a half million for sustainability and no retaining walls d is half a million and retaining
walls and E is the million dollars and retains we have a variety if we absolutely what kind of discussion you'd like but I'd like to start with council's questions and then we can get into discussion about uh the direction but if you have any questions that need answered I've got a couple um
the the first slide that you put up that seems like a lot of retaining walls in a city of this size it it am I imagining that or it just seems like an inordinate amount of state of retaining walls it is a large number of retaining walls and one of the issues
that we have is they're built in the public right of way we don't have records back in the 50s and 60s that say who built them and therefore who owns them so we have to assume that because they're in the public rightway that they're ours because we don't have any data that
shows anything else do we have data how many are there mr mayor I don't know that answer um all right well that that that's one question that I had the other question when we first had this conversation about uh franchise fees one of the draws
was that whereas property taxes are for residential commercial industrial and so on property taxes include a larger group including schools churches any nonprofit anybody that typically wouldn't pay property taxes has to pay a franchise fee do we know what that delta is the
the folks who typically wouldn't pay property taxes what are they now making or what what would they be paying uh in these franchise fee scenarios is there any idea give me a ballpark here um certain I fully understand what where
I could find those those numbers for you um so you're looking to see if we had not put franchisee in how many how many properties do we have in the city that don't pay property taxes because of schools public buildings nonprofit
status and so on so then they would be paying franchise fees because they wouldn't be exempted because they if they get electricity and gas they're paying franchise fees i I would need to check on that council additional questions or just clarifications here before we start
our discussion on the on the direction council member Rebos and then council member Dallasro council member Rebos oh I'm sorry that sold the danger council member Rivas I might have missed it when I went through the agenda but I I'm curious um what is
the total if there is anything available for us to look at how much we collect in franchise fees from residents as compared to businesses and the three types of businesses that we have the on demand non on
demand large CIS yes so you have any other breakdown mayor and council um we on average on an annual basis for him 8.6 million and 60% of that is residential 40% is commercial and that's the breakout generally on the energy
window and we've had conversations with the utilities of where usage is is that 60% is residential 40% commercial questions council member Nelson yeah um if we didn't increase the
um funding for the retaining walls what is the risk if we already have funding for them and we just draw that out and take longer to repair those or are we just in a situation where that's not feasible so if we don't do
this would we then have to essentially increase property taxes to do that mayor and council right now as Bob indicated earlier we're putting $45,000 a year in that budget and we're doing some carryovers and we're going to spend pretty much everything they have on this one project
to get it done and then we need to accumulate more or have carryovers and carryovers is not a certainty at any point so it's either property tax is really slow the retaining walls and and so I think it's kind of critical
situation at some of these Thank you Mayor so when we look at the retaining walls they're all all the way across here it seems like the retaining walls seem to impact kind of more similar to like we have been using our
our franchise fees around roads and sidewalks and trails but is that true that it would impact schools churches and that type of thing the retaining walls are in the public right of way so yeah they are more closely related to trails and roads um
they probably do impact some schools like we have sidewalks and walking routes to this those schools but there are there are other retaining walls that aren't adjacent to sidewalks as well um that is just more of a curiosity in
terms of that then um uh with the HA component of it um I'm not sure if anybody can answer this one i think it was 40 to 50 loans the packet uh that are eligible
each year my understanding is is that once those dollars kind of return uh to the uh city we have a little more freedom with what those dollars can be used with am I am I understanding that correctly
we have the expert good well I can just shout from the back um actually please join us join us got it so that program is funded through CDBG dollars and actually when they come back they are still considered CDBG CDBG
dollars so we can use them in any way that CDBG is eligible to be used but we still have those restrictions we don't necessarily have to use them for the loan program so the restriction if you decided to do another loan with it would still be at the 80% AMI
yes that's correct doesn't want to kind of wash that that out when you when you kind of do that and then um so if we were to you know do that top option of the uh where we got all the money for sustainability what would that equate to
in terms of loans would it be 40 to 50 or is it just depend on how we cut that out for the installation it depends on Mayor C um it depends on how we would structure that so for installation for
example you're looking $6,000 so um again one house could want to do a high efficiency water heater put in an air source heat pump replacing their AC so it could be multiple things but
um typically what cities have done is cap you know 10,000 $20,000 half so then it would essentially be dividing that out whatever that threshold and then one last question here if we were to take
out um could we levy through the H restricted if we levied to create a loan program with with those dollars right we'd be okay doing that right if we we levied it out we wouldn't have that 80%
uh yes mayor commissioners that's correct the H so the the council approves the H levy amount and then within that the H can kind of dictate like how those dollars are spent exactly but yes generally that is correct the H levy can be used for a wider variety of things than the CDBG dollars at this
point we pretty much have that all spoken for right though in terms of how we we all yes the budget for this year at least is set um I know for next year because of the recent split between the port and the HA and you know the ins and outs of what happened there the H is
levying below the max so um there is opportunity to for the H to increase levy and that impact for that that tax though would be across across the city right thank
you Dallas um are all the retaining walls actually necessary like has anybody done a any kind of surveying to understand i mean you know they the retaining walls they look nice and everything but you know are they required was there some
structural requirement for them and and that's why they they exist and we do we have the option of like something else that wouldn't require the ongoing maintenance we have um we have essentially assigned them a score similar to our pavement condition index from zero to 100 we graded them all and
if they're short small walls we normally work with the property owner to grade them out so nobody has to have a infrastructure replacement fund in the future um but the ones like on 90th that are really tall that isn't really a possibility so we have looked at a variety of different solutions so all
the ones on here would be the ones that you didn't find an alternative for those are all the walls we're not we're not judging we didn't grade them and just bring you like the ones that are we think are failing because we have only done um a visual look at it we have not
done any training radar to see if those tiebacks are failing sure so it's not as sophisticated as that so and because we had the one on 90th that fell and it looked beautiful um we didn't want to mislead you and say "Oh this one's not is going to be fine." Sure because we
we're not competent sure okay all right i just was trying to assess whether or not what amount of money was actually needed to to to for lack of a better way to put it to shore up the walls literally um because maybe not all of
them are actually going to need that if they if we have other alternatives like or something like that we've worked with our maintenance division and their estimate was another $200,000 a year plus some of some of the walls are on state aid routes and then they're
eligible to use state aid funding so we're thinking if we can combine that with what's already in the budget of so about $250,000 a year plus the state aid funds would address the program the problem as we see it right now hopefully
it stays that way and what's the what is the um what is the timeline for let's say we do that funding what's the timeline then for getting all the walls up to code if you will um it it will be a rolling asset management
program so it I don't think we'll ever be done i think as we catch up other walls will age and get on to the list so it'll kind of just be a rolling program okay um how long do they generally last
it really depends are you timber are you um the concrete block if you've ever seen some of the concrete spall that's because older walls didn't have the salt requirement that they now have to pass with the testing so I don't know that I can actually answer that question the
newer walls that we're putting in the big block walls they have like a 75 to 100 year design life okay the older ones the smaller modular block walls the timber walls i'd say broad venture to guess probably more like the 35 to 50 year but that's that it all depends on the the soils and stuff around them too
as well so and you're planning to change change out all of the walls that exist to this new format wall that lasts 75 years or so if possible not nec Yes if possible yes if possible some might be sheet pile walls some might be the big block walls so it it all depends on the
area yeah definitely an upgrade to what they are current thanks hey mayor have we looked at what would happen if we reduce PMP from this instead of raising the rates if we just said hey my favorite
topic ever i know one year we're going to take a pause with PMP use all the funds to shore up a sustainability fund so we can get that million dollars take the rest of the money get the retaining walls that need to get done done and whatever left we have for PMP use that
to finish out two roads or whatever we have to do before we get back to the site have we looked at that we have looked at that um when you pause the PMP it does degrade the roads it also creates an issue with staffing and
engineering because we pay for our staff using the PMP capital funds so a lot of not everyone um in the engineering division is paid through our capital funds so we would have to elim figure out how to eliminate that staff or
reassign that staff um in order to achieve that savings so we have not figured out how to solve that issue um we did look at reducing the overlay which is why we were able to
not have as high of an increase um that you're seeing with the franchise fees um but we couldn't figure out how to pause it the entire year without doing some staff layoffs so if that's council's direction we can pursue that
carter thank you so if we were to move forward with the sustainability projects are we set on the home energy program and um within that are we set on it being loans or would the next step to be to determine if it was loan cost share
grant or at this price or at this like the million dollar level is it pretty much like it needs to be a loan program mr mayor council councel charter nothing is set at this point um hearing direction from the last meeting that
there's an interest in loans over cost share um we've also seen that other communities have success with cost share um so at least from staff's perspective there's flexibility within that and having more community
engagement and looking at those different thresholds and coming up with a finalized program for council to consider would be the recommendation that would be like the next step yes okay yeah because I would before determining which one would love to understand the you know the pros and
cons of the programs staff just doesn't want to get into that level of detail and investigation if we don't have the budget to work okay other questions council so just quick math here by uh just and tell me this is right for
option D i just want to set some context here so so option D where we would add retaining walls and sustainability projects at half a million dollars uh 58% or 58 increase and that's per month correct so 58 per month is $6.96
and it's for both utilities so it'll be a total of it'll be $14 a year increase per payer of franchise fee it's not just households but it's the perayer the franch Well this would be the uh the single family homes but it would be commensurate increases elsewhere so
it'll be an extra $14 a year for those specific projects of retaining laws and sustainability projects funded at a half million dollars a year so just just to put the the whole cost together in the context for example for option D
what's the number again 14 bucks a year nelson yeah thank you mayor I'm just wondering if we know how much the um school district has to pay for the entire program because frankly that's also just paid by
property taxes if I assume correctly so do we know how much they have to pay because that is one of my challenges with the franchise fees in general part of it goes to the school district which then they just property
taxes to pay it and they have it's my understanding fairly significant budget problem already so mayor and council member Nelson it gets back to the mayor's earlier question i need to go back and research um how many
properties are tax except we'll figure out how how many of those are schools and we'll see if I can see if we can swag whatever commercial rate that they might have i don't know their utilization and um
energy companies can share that so we'll see if the school district finance people can break out if they can find hopefully they account for it our bills have a question yeah I'm switching to sustainability questions
now sorry I was down the road of others for that second um uh do we how how confident do we feel given given our track record so far with the number of families that need advantage of the improvement programs
that do exist today that if if we said okay we need $2.64 million if we did this franchise fee at 500,000 that would take us five years to get the two and a.5 million that we need we could get 440 houses a year up and running we'd
have to that way we would get those um they would get all of those buildings up and by then we would get that 2050 goal right that's kind of the math I'm doing in my head how confident do we feel like we are that 440 homes will actually sign up to do the work like I mean I know you
can't you can leave the meal with water you can't make a drink i get that part but like given our track record of of success in terms of getting folks to use the programs we do today how how how confident do you feel like we are mr council members council member Dellesandro I would say if we know
there's a need we've dedicated a staff member to do outreach we know that other funding sources are being cut um so I would say I mean again we haven't done this program but looking at what other cities are seeing uptake in the program
I would say pretty confident that we can get the money out yeah okay um right on okay and if if if you only had the money for attic insulation versus wall insulation um would you would you do one program
over the other would you give the customer the choice like what what is your thought on that for that I would leave it open because every home is different um I would actually recommend to have a suite of any of the recommendations that are done through
our energy disclosure programs um to be able to finance those so definitely know insulation is a big thing that we want to hit but there's also some homes that have done that but they would really benefit from a high
efficiency you know furnace so um having that flexibility based upon what the resident needs I think that's the route to go okay i'm asking that question because we have some pretty good data around attic and wall installation but we insulation but we don't necessarily
have in here uh much on you know the number of homes that have converted to hot water heater you know uh electric water heaters or you know um other electric um ranges or you know other electric choices i'm just kind of
curious if we were we'd want to focus our energy no pun intended on on actually doing a program for which we know if we like could tick off these houses on this box we would get the benefit that we were looking for um so I I throw that out there just as something
to think about um not that we would necessarily I understand your point but maybe we give priority to those because we can track them more efficiently or we can we can we can be more certain that it it will move the needle towards our climate goals um I mean you know for me
for example I I don't know that I don't know that insulation is the best choice for me i would you know certainly could get my water heater updated and that would be great um but do I do I apply for this program um before somebody who truly can move people by because of
attic and wall insulation being such a big powerful way of of solving energy problems so that's I'm just thinking through that particular piece of it um can I please clarification
just for ease of examples I provided more detail of the cancellation but through Excel and Centerpoint we do get annual data on the rebates that are associated with a larger suite of programs so we do know about water
heaters and furnaces and um air source heat pumps that is data that we'll be able to track okay all right great thanks just follow up with some questions how
do we know as a city if um for instance um a group of homes are in need of updating their appliances how do you get the facts that um you know a given home or a given block in the city is being
affected by not having up to-ate appliances or water heater all that you mayor council members council member Rivas so how we're getting that information is through the energy audits that the city buys down and that's the
home energy squad so when someone has a visit we uh get data each year that kind of shows what the need is in our community and then also through um our energy disclosure program anyone who's
selling a home we get information on that home and what the need is so that's how we're tracking overall where to target efforts so so I know the worries of if let's say I have updated everything at home we have wash your
dryer the water heater or the furnace also it's brand new um but we haven't told anybody that we've done that uh so how would you find out that a home has done that if there's no out nobody has shown up to ask me have you guys outdated this how do we know if all the
homes are doing any improvements at all not so if they apply so for um if someone applies for an Excel Energy or Centerpoint Energy rebate for an upgrade
that they did that's how we're tracking so if people want that rebate then that's filed with the utilities and then they give us that data of how many counts and we can get that data by census block and be able to track that
but if someone does it and doesn't apply for that rebate we don't have a we don't have an exact uh number of homes that that need improvements or that don't need improvements right um it is we have an estimate based upon
our housing stock what we see on average with these disclosure reports and we're then applying that citywide based upon how old the homes are what we see when we go in and do the audits and so it is an estimate of what that need is but
we're getting more and more data each year through disclosure with homes being sold so that number is getting more and more accurate council member Nelson yeah thank you Mayor just quick follow up on Council Reus uh this question is would it be
possible to work with building inspections to get permit records particularly for water heaters and furnaces i don't think you need a permit to do a washer and dryer but the other ones you should need a permit on so you should be able to get that information
um and then the other thing just for clarification um when you talk about walls and attic you also talk about rim joist is the rim joist is typically in a lot of the houses built in the 50s and 60s has zero insulation the walls are actually
insulated minimally but there's a tremendous amount of heat loss in the rim joist and that's actually one of the primary places you can easily go after to improve efficiency of a house chelsea mayor council members council member Nelson for your first question
yes building inspections is great partner they are already pulling data for example around the age of AC units so we're able to do more targeted messaging this summer on switching to a heat pump if your AC unit is older so um
definitely that permit data comes in handy um so staff we're looking into that and how we can leverage that information that the city already has um as far as the rim choice yes I believe that was part of the conversation that comes up in that energy visit
oh before we get too far down the rim joist rabbit hole here do you want more information u so staff right now is looking for they've got five options in front of us they're looking for to narrow it down i'm hearing a lot of questions from staff that I think we could get answers to and it might help shape our
decisions what I might suggest and tell me what you all think about this if we perhaps ask staff to uh examine or or bring forward at a public hearing that's our next step correct the public hearing if we looked at uh two options and I
would say I mean if we wanted to do for example option A no increase or option B the the increase that I the $14 a year that I kind of outlined earlier just as our two options kind of our as our end markers have staff answer some of our questions for us that we brought up and
and brought forward have the public hearing and then figure out where we want to be uh from there does that seem to make sense or should we set the goal post somewhere else or other thoughts on that council member Lohan I guess the
question that I have as we're looking at picking those for you to go with two options forward is question I kind of ask myself is does it I mean the retaining wall makes sense because that kind of fits with what we've traditionally utilizes for but I'm having questions in my my mind about uh
the sustainability component of it and whether or not that really fits with that if there should be another funding mechanism that we ought to go after to get those those dollars so that's kind of in those options it wouldn't give me the the opportunity to So are you are
you suggesting we throw C in that as well or uh we continue the discussion about what other possible sustainability yeah I mean I wouldn't want I wouldn't want to go with C without walking out of here with a good understanding of what we would want to do to fund the sustainability so I mean yeah I'm
interested in that but I want to know you know for example what would that if we went down the H thing is there enough money to to fund at this level or higher those would be other questions I would have respect to that
thought to set the goal post as we would council member Carter um so I I understand where Council Member Lemon is coming from because and when we had our first conversation around this I kind of was feeling the same way like does it make a lot of sense to me but as we had that conversation and as I've been
thinking about it um improvements to the energy grid make a lot of sense to me um and so uh two council members kind of questions earlier around the HA funding i mean I guess I'd be curious if there were any other options other than the
tax levy or the H levy i personally would not feel comfortable going down the route of the HL H levy right now because we don't know what kind of federal cuts are going to come down the road and I would want to reserve as much of that as possible if we have to like for example cover section 8 vouchers and
make sure people don't lose their homes like we don't know if that's ever going to happen but um with the unpredictability of what's happening with federal funding um I just I don't know if I would want that to be an option on the table and so I don't know if there would the other funding options
for the sustainability work beyond the tax money that I'm aware of i was say I would have assumed that over since 2017 or whatever when this work started that we would have been overturning every rock to try to figure out something
council member a question council member yeah so thank you for that i appreciate because that was one of the concerns I was wondering about that but one of the questions I have is when we look at you know do the sustainability piece you know yes I can make the you know the
church kind of makes sense or a synagogue and that kind of things so that kind of fits in there with the energy grid piece but some of the other nonprofits that you know would be be hit by this and I'm just kind of a little more reluctant about that and I wanted to know what your thinking was around some of that and some of these other I
mean certainly schools kind of makes sense but and I just kind of as we kind of go down that that pathway that's where I'm running into problems um so I guess my thinking is you know if those entities were they pay a little extra in the franchise fee but then they
take advantage of program if they were allowed to um then they would see energy cost savings too right like down the road right they could take advantage of this program too or not it seems like there's more residential they can I we
put in the let's talk for businesses to also participate currently we're piloting we're competing on anou that will be going towards council later um in May um to work with interchange which
is a energy audit service that is funded through the state and the utilities for nonprofits and then being able to do some bonus rebates which we're doing a bonus rebate pilot on the small medium business side so definitely I think
there's opportunity looking at models that we are piloting and then also other cities have done to be able to help with energy efficiency improvements in nonprofit spaces as well uh so uh to answer your question Mr
mayor um I'm fine with proposing um to to me it feels like um it feels like uh B or E potentially because we we're saying that the retaining walls are kind of a
necessary we're going to put it into a program similar to the other infrastructure we have around our program to me it feels like it's B or E but I I could live with A or E if that's what your preference is to bring back b is the according to this is just the retaining
walls so increase it just for the retaining walls or increase it for everything and we could talk about that number um that would be my opinion at the moment i did have a question i last time we talked about this I did ask if anybody would be willing to go back to
the utilities and ask them not to pass this along to consumers but I'm just wondering if that conversation happened um I still I mean again they don't have to pass it along they don't have to and we I just don't know if anybody bothers to even ask them it's just whether or not they're I mean especially when it
comes to these sustainability initiatives it feels to me like something that would not cost them much to get a lot of benefit uh as they are trying very very hard to figure out how to deal with a grid that will become overloaded by magnitudes in the coming
years so I'm just wondering did anybody anybody do that or are we have do we have a plan maybe to do that to just say "Hey guys we're going to increase these rates but we're not expecting you to pass all of this along to consumers because this is right within your wheelhouse when it comes to sustainability." Thoughts on that mr mayor council members council member
Dellesandro so I meet with utilities monthly i have not brought this up um I definitely have the contacts that we could have that conversation uh again with ECO being so prevalent and the utilities investing money which is
already required um it's to my knowledge we cities don't really get additional funding it would it would be unprecedented but if that question is something that council wants you to ask then it be I think to the council
member's point you never know until you ask i for one would be shocked beyond words if they said you're right let's not pass this on to consumers but it's I mean we could certainly it feels to me fiduciarily responsible for us to just say like hey guys you don't have to pass
this along you know could you could you not and see if they say that I mean you know but and I'll say this for for public knowledge as well they can call their PUC and ask that not be passed along too right that they don't have to i know we get blamed for all of this um
but what we're doing is charging the energy companies for them to use our city and its infrastructure to do their business that's what our franchise fees are for and we're leveraging those franchise fees to do the other projects that we need to to maintain that infrastructure
that they then get to use that's the point of a franchise fee if I understand it they don't have to pass that along to consumers and I all sound arguments council member i'd be shocked beyond words you know stranger things have happened so I'll
just throw out throw it out there thank you i appreciate you being willing to at least ask the question happy to join you if you prefers not to be the one asking that question so is that clear direction from council wants staff to follow up with both of
the utilities what do you think council we want to bring this i think it doesn't hurt to ask right yes the worst thing they can do is say no and they likely will so um I'm comfortable with B and then either D and E um I guess like quick
question i assume that if we did D if we were to pass it through this year and then the next time this was up we could decide to increase funding for sustainability at that time mayor Council Member C yeah and when was the next time this would We're looking at
every other year every other year okay so we'd have 500 for two years 26 and 27 okay council member mayor um for the piece on the energy companies I think it
depends on how we frame it i would love how we frame it maybe as a pilot program or something like that instead of just saying hey you can't just not pass this on i don't think that would go over well but if we frame it as a program hey you want to be a pilot to do this for energy and start conservation that might be
something they might be interested in so how we frame it I think to me is very important uh secondly pretty frank here I'm leaning heavily towards option A um and would like to have that as an option not purely just uh all options
that are increasing um so if it's A and D A and B whatever uh I want to make sure option A is still on the table well I I do think I mean to your point council member I appreciate that and I don't disagree uh I think we could say I mean option A requires no more work for
on behalf of the uh of staff uh but to to so that's always an option for us to say no we're not going to do any of these things uh so I think we could do I mean if we were going to do three if we included A it's really only two because third is you know a limited amount of work for staff so we could do you know A
and pick your letters in folks B or E or C or E or C or D however you want to do it but I I do think there's always that option for us to say no to to anything so yeah and and I would for option A from what I've heard it's not impossible it just takes a lot of
creativity to figure out if we pause P2P or if we reduce it what do we have to do to reallocate um and I want to see realistic options of this was what could happen if we choose to pause part of this reallocate or what do we have to do to to get the funding to do that without
increasing the franchise fee um so I want to see that work um and the creative options we can come up with because I think this is just the start of the conversations that we have to have right i'm picking looking at it 15 bucks a year 14 bucks a year that's a a
dinner for a family so it's a dinner here a lunch there and I'm not just looking at it in dollars because it's easy to just pass off the dollars but if I'm looking at it as I can't feed my family afford because I have to pay this increase uh and then I can't do it again because there's another increase
somewhere else that's where I'm really starting to look at what are the necessities that we have to do with the short term to get us to the long term because we can't get to the long term everything we do to try to get to the long term doesn't matter c let's try to drive to consensus here
on on how we I think a gives us the option of anything very quickly council members on my side yeah so I guess what I I'd say is I want to join the the camp of the of the A's um that's part of the rationale with
with the H portion I've brought forward i'm very concerned by making this decision we're not making a decision today we're giving direction for this what what I would like to see mayor have this is I need to know more so what that end levy looks like because this I I add
this on to to what we're going to charge our taxpayers and so that's why I'm kind of in the A camp I understand the importance from sustainability we need to kind of move forward with this uh so that's why I I think to answer your question directly mayor A is one of the options I look at i think D makes sense
and I think that council member deandre makes sense we we should go with E because that is the one that funds all of it it also funds the uh sustainability piece if there was an F1 where it was just sustainability without the retaining walls I would probably look at that one as well but that's not
an option mayor to start to address council member Bowman's question this is our timeline um and because we need time at the PUC and time for our utilities to get it
into place we would not have um our final levy or through prior based budget that type of information before we would need to start the process through PUC and um utilities to get it in because they need 90 days needs period of time so
that's why we start this time of year i I certainly appreciate that and thank you for including that i do remember that now looking at that as I as I look at that that's another reason why I'm looking at looking at a because I know we're kind of coming into some we've got a lot of questions from the federal uh
piece mayor and a number of other items that are going to that we're going to have to look at and I'm just concerned if we make this decision this year we may not be able to properly fund this so for example if we got further into the budgeting process you know rather than doing you know this this amount you know
the you know the this amount here we could you know triple that or double that uh to get quicker down the road on the sustainability piece so I'd like to let leverage as much as we possibly can uh if that's possible so I think we heard we want to include option A is a
possibility uh any other thoughts on B CD or E i mean I've heard a couple just um B just the retaining walls i think council member Dallas brought that up that's kind of bare bones stuff council member Rivos what are you thinking a&b i don't want to elaborate too much but I
lean on AMB pmp is very important i don't think it should stop in any form uh so I'm going to tell me if if people are okay with this if we do pay B and then we go to the option E as well which would fund the all all that we've been
talking about and then that gives staff something as you answer some of the questions that we brought forward and it gives uh council the discussion to have and publicly at our open house and and the council an opportunity or the uh excuse me the community the opportunity to weigh in on this as well so is
everybody comfortable with that a B and E is that enough direction for you staff a B and E e like an economy or D like a David we're spelling
a fair look at that that worked too well thank you very much thank you thanks for that conversation council staff as well our second and final item on our agenda tonight is item 5.2 it's
an update on our federal grants and again a lot of folks coming forward for this conversation uh Carlson our deputy finance officer uh Sarah A I think will be sticking around as well uh Dr nick Kelly with public health and our fire chief good luck
are we getting close i don't want my first problem thank you so much my eyes appreciate you carlson welcome thank you thank you i need to plug in my laptop
um if you join the WebEx and share your screen It's dinner Monday don't they all right okay so um good evening council um so tonight um as you know we are seeing a lot of uncert uncertainty with uh
federal grants and changing federal priorities so just tonight um I did hand out a large spreadsheet with um this is our schedule of federal awards our official schedule and we have the
audited 2023 on there as well as um we have an audited 2024 and some estimated 2025 just for reference but tonight we'll be um we'll have an overview of the city's major federal grants and in
the areas of housing public health fire services and then I'm um also the American Rescue Plan funds and those projects and so um our goal is just to share where where we stand today and just highlight some potential risks that
we're monitoring and outline some strategies some potential strategies if federal funding changes so you're going to hear from H administrator Sarah Abe and then public health administrator Dr nick Kelly and also our fire chief seal
then at the end it'll come back to me i'll just walk you through the status of our pending um our remaining American Rescue Plan funding um grant funded projects and just an overall wrapup um and then also I believe we have our yes
our federal lobbyist um online joining us tonight so she's available to help answer any questions related to federal funding or um grant programs thank you Miss Carlson good evening Emily welcome
hi everybody thank you for being here all right so um that I'm going to turn it over to Sarah A good evening again good evening
Mayor council members can we go to the next slide yes yes um so I'll just go through the two largest HA programs that are funded by federal dollars are the HCV program housing choice voucher program also known as section 8 yes um so this is kind of a summary of
what that program is i think if everyone is familiar with it it is a really significant portion of the HA's total annual budget it's around $6.5 million that we get a year to administer this program it is purely a federal program so there's a very tiny amount of HA
dollars that go into this mostly for cash flow purposes um it's not it involves no city city spending the administration of it and the costs of vouchers are fully paid for by uh through the federal government um the idea behind this is to cover the gap between what is considered affordable
housing for a family and um what the the cost of rent is and so we get around um $500 to $600,000 a month from HUD um that is then paid to pay rent for households essentially and so um this program supports around 600 households
which equals around 17,700 people um all of the money flows directly through the HR the HR is directly designated as a public housing authority through the federal government so doesn't come through city accounts it comes through the HR um and then the
last bit on this is staffing so around three and a half staff FDES work on this it's there are about six or seven positions that work on this program and then funded through a variety of different sources next slide um so some some strategies that
the HR I would say the HR and the council could investigate um there's a couple that are already in motion so the state has um started a new program or allocated funding for a program called Bring It Home so that is basically it's a a state funded voucher program it
follows the framework of the federal voucher program in fact in order to be eligible to apply you have to have a be administering the voucher program already um so we have applied for a fairly significant amount of funding through that program and will now await
um an award or not award in fall of 2025 um some other opportunities the HR could consider using some of its levy for um a program to fill the gap as I know came up during the last discussion but the council approves the the total levy
amount but then within that the HR decides and and has control over the programming um what that looks like within it um other potential funding sources so the council just considered I think was last month LAAHA funds uh an eligible use of those dollars is rental
assistance and currently that is being allocated to the HR also for administration of those funds but if the council would like to reconsider um where those are being allocated then that is another potential route that they could explore um and then um just a note here that there are other programs
that offer um rent assistance emergency rent assistance however we would anticipate funds in this area to be severely stretched if um funding for this program disappeared not only does this fund the HR significantly but there
are seven um different public housing authorities in the Twin Cities region and so it would have a huge um impact uh regionally and nationally the other major program is community development block grants i won't spend a lot of time on this i know
the council just discussed this at your meeting last week um we just had the public hearing for the allocation of those dollars but we get an annual allocation of I mean it varies a little bit but it's usually a little under half a million and then we have the program income that also varies widely depending
on the year um and so most of that funding goes into the loan program but again this is a city grant so we could make um decisions to allocate that in different areas based on need um and then go to the next slide
please some strategies again I know this was a topic of discussion just last week so I won't spend too much time on it but there are opportunities to um look at reallocating some funds in order to address changes or reductions at the
federal level and that is the H council um I'll talk a little bit about uh some of our public health grants if we go to the next slide we did have uh one grant that was terminated and
then in the court system now but uh we've now started to work on it uh there's about 700,000 in funding between the three cities of Bloomington Dfield thanks to the great work of legal we had some uh good language in our agreement that had just started we were
able to cancel almost immediately um and then we did with hiring for temporary staff uh that were going to do vaccine education work on the next slide we have uh some of our other grants uh so our home
visiting it's 5 FTEES emergency preparedness it's about 1.2 FTEEs and we have a CDC infrastructure grant for building and developing the public health workforce our early hearing detection and birth effects funding uh supported about 35 individuals to be
screened and supported last year and we have a handful of cases of paranal hep that we follow up that's on a reimbursement basis next slide so our biggest federal grant is our wick grant and so on the
next slide you'll see this is a substantial it's a $2.6 6 million uh highlight of that 73% of that is our uh the vouchers that go out for food purchase so Walmart uh the Cub and
Lindale and Target are the three largest recipients of those vouchers uh when we look at who gets those vouchers in their community um we served about 3,239 individuals primarily across
Wington and Richfield last year so this supports uh several staff on our team to do this work um a lot of education and support navigating making sure that kids are not food insecure go to the next slide so as far
as strategies we can evaluate and look at uh WIC has been a cornerstone of public health programming for over 50 years um most people have come into the public health workforce understanding wick and navigating that process um and so our first strategy would be to work
really closely with the state uh this is directly linked to SNAP funding and processes that occur at the state with food support we can look at policy changes for food insecurity um most of the people that are on WIC have some job or employment yet they
still need food uh support and so we can look at policy options to navigate that so that people are not uh underpaid on that sense and don't have the food insecurity additional supports to support breastfeeding um our team does an incredible job supporting moms
navigating breastfeeding in the community we would like to be able to keep doing that if we see changes is um because that has huge positive public health impacts for the life of that young kid partner with food shelves um
in conversations with be they are we wait right now to get an appointment um and so anticipating that would be even a bigger challenge but working with our food shell partners to make sure we have food supply we could also work with our employers um as I
said most of our with clients have a job um or are working and we can be working with the different business groups to try and make sure that we have better resources to support their workforce um in addition to work with our healthcare partners to navigate the challenges of
food insecurity and health good evening council and homeland security and this line share this isn't safer you want to go to the next slide so the most recent three-year grants a little over $7 million um and
you'll look in your column there um our way down shows 3.98 for 20.5 and that is uh the 18 that we have just hired as of
April 1st plus the 18 that um we hired two years ago that 18 comes off uh April of 2026 so the 3.9 wouldn't happen in 2026 it'd be somewhat less than that and then
you get closer to that 2.5 to 27 and then a smaller number for part of 28 when the second group of 18 comes off say for that um we've submitted the first quarter um reimbursement request for
25 um have not received it uh yet and I did get an email tonight where um we had been notified that FEMA was putting a a pause on reimbursements that that pause has been removed
um and that they're going to continue reimbursing at the same schedule rate that they were prior to that however I would counsel you to remember that this changes very quickly from moment to moment and so who
knows what tomorrow will bring it is our hope that we continue to get reimbursements um as we as we as we apply for them we got the last quarter of 2024 without any problem and so we just submitted for the first quarter of 25 which does not
include um the the latest 18 that we just hired right so from my perspective if um if something happens to affect those grant funds um the staffing is our top
priority um the trucks and the stations aren't much good without people and um so we're looking at several different potential solutions um with some other funds that we have with some fund balances built up in them that we might
have to uh use to offset that um part of that also would come with perhaps changes in the uh capital improvement program that we have planned um as well as deferring vehicle replacements so which is two
places or one place where we take take some of that money from is from our vehicle replacement fund so um the fire pension special revenue fund is the other place so we're looking at that to be able to offset um fairly significant part of the
increase that we get um not necessarily all of it uh we might have to do some more uh for lack of a better term gold digging to find some find something else out there because it's a fair amount of money as you can well see all right and then I will give an update
on the American Rescue Plan ARP grant funds this is part of the coronairus state local funds a lot of cities had some major revenue losses during the pandemic including Boomington with our tax and
emission tax um which took quite a while to come back oh am I going to be a little bit louder y okay sorry um so uh American Rescue Plan Grant so as a a review this was passed in 2021 to help
communities recover from the pandemic and um provided funding to cities counties states and tribal governments and so this funding could be used for public health efforts um helping residents and businesses that were affected by the pandemic also helped uh maintain essential government services
as I said uh we did have quite a bit of government of revenue loss to fund our government services and also towards infrastructure and so the rules were that the funds had to be obligated by the end of 2024 and then spent by
2026 and so we received in two different tranches in 21 and 22 in total um up front we have the money $1.4 million and so to date we have spent $9 million of that or I should say as of the end of um
2024 and so the way that that was allocated out um if you remember back when we received the money it was 5.7 million for government services 1.7 million for public health emergency and then 4 million for water infrastructure
projects and so now we have about 2.37 million that has not been spent but it has been fully obligated um according to the rules of the grant and there's a lot of requirements for these grants and they are um audited um they're
scrutinized by our external auditors and so um we have we have everything um is under compliance and um we have everything documented um with the grant compliance and then we
submit everything quarterly on the federal ARP grant portal we are confident that we've met all of the requirements how they stand right now um we did have um an alert from the Treasury that there was going to be increased review um of our obligations
but we as I said were not concerned that we feel that we have met everything that's been sent out and um but they did say that there would be a potential to recoup the funds that they already gave us if they were not properly obligated so we just continue to monitor for future guidance um and if they want
additional documentation we're ready to submit that and then just wanted to um go over these remaining projects where they're at so as of the end of 24 there is a temporary position um that's helping out public
health with the project there's um a small um portion just a an upgrade for the public health mobile health hub uh we have with the H um is administering some homelessness response eviction prevention that was all fully contracted
and obligated we were using or we are using some of the ARP funds for the battalion chiefs that were added on and um that is going to finish up this year there were some natural resource management projects and parks and recreation with the park improvements there's a project that's we have a small
portion left for it that we're working on um there's the civic plaza restroom project that's happening right now um that was a um infrastructure project that was allowed under ARP um grant funds and then uh one um remaining water
utility project that's there so just in summary we just uh we went over the the main um am the large grant amounts in this $20 million um I also had the handout that has everything there and just that the focus for um
this study session wasn't to have a specific you know conversation on reductions or anything like that we just want to make awareness i'm sure you've seen in the news that heard things and we just wanted you to be aware of how this could impact our federally funded
programs um so we're you know as you know we're and to share with the public and with the council that we're actively prioritizing or planning for potential impacts um we're going to continue to monitor we're going to continue to communicate as we learn more and then also with the priority based budgeting process that we're taking on this year
for the 2026 budget we'll use that as well if there's anything that needs to decisions that need to be be made make sure that they're thoughtful and strategic aligned with the the city's values community values so with that just sharing this
information we just have some questions that we prepared here just any questions of clarity that you have kind of what stands out to you any feedback as we're looking into strategies or areas that you'd like more information um places you'd like us to prioritize just we're looking for that
feedback this evening well thank you all for this um cheery way to end this Monday night Monday night thanks for that uh I I guess the biggest question that I have and you don't have an answer but I think at least something to be thinking about
uh we talked about this at our HA port meeting last week if there are significant funding challenges or cuts at the state level it's going to it's going to work its way down to us for example when if and when
Medicare or Medicaid gets cut it's a two billion hole two billion dollar hole in the state two billion is what it I don't know maybe not it's a big hole in the state budget and it's going to it's going to come down to cities also and I'm I wouldn't expect you to have answers
about or even an idea of how they might how legislators might deal with that type of issue but knowing full well that we're probably in addition to this great work that you've done and really good consideration that you put into this there will probably be additional consideration that we're going to have
to look at depending on what happens uh at this at the federal level as it affects the state level and then comes down at the city level but I know you've already all have already thought about that so I just wanted to say that council member
Dalisandro question uh regarding the safer grants i I know that because because the first grant was only going to go through 25 anyway um we have 26 first quarter of 26 yes right okay um I
was thinking about it from a our budget perspective that we were going to have to start absorbing the costs in 2026 right so so the the I guess the first question I have is there an expectation that I mean you're not going to know the answer i don't know why I'm asking this
question but I'll ask it one of the one of the questions I have in my own head is you know whether the changes that we might get from the federal government are are you know stoppages versus clawing attempting to claw back the dollars that's what I
that's a big difference right there's a big difference between like we're not going to go forward versus I expect you to pay back those dollars and that's you're not going to know the answer to that question like I said but I I think I'm operating on the assumption tonight anyway that we're thinking about stoppage of dollars we're not necessarily thinking about and we have
to give it all back so with that in mind um if I think about the 2026 budget that we are going to be working on soon um we are preparing to take on those first 18 firefighters in 2026 anyway so would it
be reasonable for for um if we have been preparing for that anyway is that is that those dollars that we've been prepping for at risk also or are they part of the calculations you all might be making
towards how to how to address any shortcoming in the future you know because I I would think that one way or the other we've we've all kind of have to have planned for the fact that the first 18 of these folks are going to be paid for by us you know
in our in our budget in 2026 so how do those dollars how are they how are those dollars translating into like total impact I guess is what I'm saying like or net impact if you will sure so um
mayor council members member Delisandro so we did have we do have a plan to use money from the fire pension fund that's had some really nice years of investment gains to and it's it's not the fund for the fire pension but it's our special
revenue fund that we put tax levy money in so that when when it is time where we have to make a large obligation we can and that we have that money set aside so we have a plan to bring in some of that as we start absorbing these firefighters into the general fund so that was that
is already part of the plan what we might like Chief Seal was look was talking about is we might potentially use some more of that money than we were intending to like start that plan up ramp that up a little faster and also look at our CIP our plan for our fire
station remodels and maybe delay those maybe push out some fire truck purchases a little bit so those are the the big dollar okay so that that original plan for the revenue the special revenue dollars is
in place for the first 18 anyway what we would do then is look at whether or not we could absorb more of that that funding uh or use more of that funding to kind of maintain the other 18 that we're bringing online this year assuming
that we don't have that safer grant to cover the the next three years that's one source yes right understood okay hold on yes mayor and council member I think something else that this conversation will lead to is into the conversations
that we will have as a retreat and what your priorities are moving forward into that next budget cycle so solving for fire may not mean fire has to figure out fire if your priority is to continue to
respond uh by a certain time uh to a fire then we know we need to prioritize the fire department at a certain level and so we need to then adjust how we're going to do that across the city and how we fund things in the city not just the fire department so I just want to
something that we'll continue to talk about and figure out together yep okay thanks additional questions council member no thank you Council Member Mua thank you Mayor um yeah I'm sitting here and $20 million can't come from just one spot
right we literally will have to be scraping the bottom of the barrel for everything um everything that we can and that that to me potentially um is really scary because those are our dollars that are no longer coming back here because I paid my federal taxes i
want to come back to my my town um my one question I really have is for legal are all our contracts moving forward including language that allows us to get out of this if federal funding
gets cut miss Magers uh as Sarah can attest because we were just talking about earlier tonight um we have very expansive termination language uh in our templates already that would allow us to stop with no
notice or excuse me with no reason um or any reason at all uh but we are actually adding um when there are grant funded programs specific language that says if we are midway through a payment cycle and we get the funds pulled back that we
do not have to make payment or anything once if the if if we get the if we get the money pulled back from us so we are adding more specific language short answer to your question yes but we are we're already in a good position thank you
additional questions council member Carter yeah I'm just curious so um I was just think about like when the pandemic hit philanthropy really stepped up in a big way in giving and I'm I guess I'm just curious are local city governments having conversations with some of our big foundations and other
organizations to get an understanding if they're preparing for all of a sudden section 8 vouchers are gone with is gone maybe during the farm bill conversations we have a huge reduction in SNAP and tanniff and like I mean it could be really devastating for our communities
and so I'm guessing I I guess I'm just curious if you all are hearing anything about um foundation world and what conversations might be having happen happening there nothing that you want to hear me say I mean I heard at the federal level
that they're looking at tax exempt status all those entities which would be devastating to So I think everybody's a little bit gunshy right now and kind of watch it and wait to see what happens um then we'll flex where they can flex to absorb
they can absorb customer we had a conversation with beep last week and you know they they talked a little bit about the dramatically changing reality for their donors um they're not a lot of their
donors are the smaller uh families and uh they're getting squeezed in other ways and changing some of those donor patterns we're seeing similar conversations with some of our other partners where other things going on there's some realignment of corporate giving and
other things that are impacting me revas i'm just I'm gonna say something encouraging although I don't have any tangible proof of it i I just got an email from the advocacy group from the National League of Cities
and what they're saying is that the safer grants uh they have some good news on regards to that that we might be able to get 100% of what they have promised already again you know it's just up in the air
uh and they do have a list of u senators and and um house of representative people at the federal level that they have contacted directly and so they're leaning on on the fact that they will those files will be forthcoming but again that's just here say it's just an
email I got and I got a couple of letters I hope they're also sending out to u to Congress and directly to the president to uh to encourage them to maintain in sort of uh health urban housing urban development and stuff so I
don't know I just hope it's truth and that it's you know that we continue to get those not just for only for our sake but for everybody around us it's um so it's a big push and I have requested from the city managers information that and from the county also on regards to
the grants that we have been getting and uh I have also sent letters to the you know especially to the Republicans that I have met uh so there's a group of Republicans on both sides the house and the senate that we have been contacting
u um consistently weekly to uh encourage them to vote for those funds to continue to come to the cities so uh the National League of Cities is really involved in that and I got lucky that I got called to be part of uh the federal advocacy
group that is doing this so it's really nice to learn all this stuff i mean whether it will materialize or not if I can promise that but it's there so it's encouraging to to read that stuff hopefully we don't have to uh find all the firefighters you know for now i mean
I know it will come in the future but I hope it works i hope that that you know they vote for it i mean including the the uh MUN funds also or bonds i mean MUN bonds uh those are also part of the the thing that the National League
cities is pushing uh to Congress and Senate so I mean I hope it works you know we don't want to be missing any firefighters or sort of a helper people get out there with their health you know assistance as they get
so let's see what happens but I mean it's very encouraging i I you know I wish I could share this stuff but it's too bunch of letters that takes a lot to read yeah so it's I I mean I'm encouraged right i hope that it does work and that we continue to get the funds i mean I I I thank you uh both of
you and the accounting uh department has been very uh gracious providing information for me to uh forward to the national legal cities and it's you know it's they're pushing uh they're making a big effort to make sure that we do get those funds I hope that work
council additional questions comments council member Nelson and council member len council member Nelson yeah is very quick and I don't need an answer to it but we have another project that we talked about with our marketing capital in my mind this changes that in terms of how we approach that um and because I
think the needs may may vary so I just ask that this information be incorporated into that study that you're working on so that we are making sure that we under capitalize ourselves given the risks that we're facing moment thank you
um thank you for this this presentation and this update that you've given here so I just uh shout out to my fellow council member glad you're working with the federal advocacy with that uh I think it's great the contacts you have um and your voice there um glad to have
you there at that level that the network is helpful to us i think um so this as I look at this mayor um both the sheet that we've been provided here and then also uh the slide presentation we got I guess the thing I think of is I'm hoping
that we kind of move forward and I know part of the the issue run to municipal government is when you use the word flexibility um then you run into regulations and that kind of thing you know so I'm hoping that we will continue to be flexible as much as we possibly
can um and then I'm hoping that you know as I look at the you know the 56 and a half uh staff that are there we really can kind of protect you know those staff members that we have as much as possible uh whatever flexibility that we have and
then I kind of goes for me into the those vulnerable residents that are out there um I look at all the health type of things there some of the other departments kind of have other ways that we can leverage for it but you know we don't necessarily have a dedicated way to kind of go after that so I'm you know
particularly concerned about the wick and and any of those things that kind of fall into that because those folks are already um really kind of facing a difficult circumstance situation so I just hope that we're able to to to really with those folks uh kind of look at that and then the other I kind of put
this under my bucket of concerns mayor is that you know we have you know as a community come together um and put together strategic priorities and my concern is that um there may be some challenges to some of the things that we
have as a community kind of said hey this is what we believe in and here's what we're trying to trying to fund and I just I'm hoping that we can figure out where that proper balance is uh if that that does come to light um and I'll just leave it at that and then finally uh
Mayor um again not not necessarily today but I you know the markets haven't been doing great and so one of my my fears is that you know obviously not this year but you know in future years we may have um you know have to make some contributions to that that pension fund
i know we've got a balance there and that type of thing but I am concerned um that you know the perfect storm happens where some of these other things kind of disappear and we've got to then kind of move this and that around and then we're we're in a position where we find ourselves in a couple of years back to back like we did a number of years
before I was even around um I know this is one of the reasons why we did this but I'm just I'm very concerned um we talk about that flexibility as we look to do this and we uh just be very careful as we move forward knowing that you know it's not just this next year it's it's future years as well and
certainly concerned about about those future years we leave those future years the last piece um thank you mayor I want to make sure we still do is continue chasing grants whatever they're opening up I hope we're still chasing them it's
just because we're worried about the stuff that we already have I don't want us to stop every single dollar we bring back in is something that I want to chase after even if we know it's going to change so as long as it's still open I would still like us to continue to do that delado just a quick uh question i
apologize i should have asked you Dr kelly before um there's a fairly big number 580,000 in the CDC infrastructure grant um and I don't I I apologize i don't remember what you said that was for would you mind just articulating
that a little bit more what we're using that for right now council member that is a fairly silo funding stream for building so right now uh we are
partially funding a position that's also funded by another grant um in using that uh that grant goes through almost the end of 27 to manage that uh staffing cost partially funding a staff member
right and the other so so I see that it um but the other half a million or so that's in there or is that not correct that uh we had a project adjusted based
on changes okay yes okay understood so that's money that's already been impacted essentially okay thanks my last comment I think um I guess I'm just thinking about how we communicate this to the community um and whether or
not we do or when we if something happens and we lose a substantial amount of funding and need to communicate that out so I'm assuming that those conversations are also happening and thinking about those things it's interesting you brought that up council member Carter because that was going to be my next comment because uh this this
this is this is big stuff and this is important stuff and it was going to be topic in the council minute on Wednesday just the potential what we've talked about here this is a public meeting so what we've talked about here is going to be part of the council minute and explaining this in in detail what the
impacts could be and you know we we look at our firefighters obviously that's an an enormous impact you know they need to be fine printed always look at the fine print at the bottom of the page folks uh the community health and wellness center geothermal and our solar projects that's $8.8 million that very likely will go away if all this other stuff goes away
that's going to go away as well it's going to impact the uh uh the sustainability efforts in the community health center but to council member Lman's point I mean I look at some of these numbers of households impacted and I'm most worried about the 608 families
that would be impacted with section 8 housing or the,00 families by temporary assistance needy families 1,800 families with with wick those are the folks i mean there will be actual impacts here this isn't this isn't we might be another few minutes slow on the on the on the uh on
the response times for fire or we don't get the solar panels on top of the community health and wellness center these are people whose lives are going to actually be impacted and I fully intend to talk about that on Wednesday and I think we should all talk about this as openly as possible uh this the
relationship and the the the working balance between federal and local has been it's long established it's based on trust it's based on shared goals like making sure people have enough to eat and people have enough to a place to live and that public health is a really
good idea long run public health is probably a really good idea and to see that eroding right now is something that's just appalling and it's it's breaking uh breaking agreements that have been in place for 60 years now even
longer i mean if you 60 years 70 years and to see it uh to be to see it be uh pulled apart like this in uh such a haphazard and frankly cruel way is is is really disappointing as a as a public
official to see this happening so I'm going to talk about it uh I think we should talk about it as a city i think we're not I'm not going to be as shy about it and uh I'm encouraged Council Member Revas if you few your folks at NLC are are saying good things i'm I'm glad to hear that uh I would like to see
more of that and we just have to continue to keep up the battle we really do uh and with that kind of as a summary uh Emily do you have anything to add from DC um well I I just think for one this is just such a thoughtful exercise and I
really and sincerely commend the city for spending time on this because it is very um you know chaotic there's lots of things going on there's lots of information misinformation um and so spending the time to really just you know have a
baseline understanding of where threats are and where opportunities are um you know if needed uh is really is a really good use of time um because it is you know you can only control what you can control and so being as prepared as
possible I think is the right move um I do uh you know I think that preparing for all of this is good um I I think we are seeing somewhat trends that things are getting at least unstopped or you know unfrozen um and
there's a lot of obviously you've seen this you referenced it earlier a lot of legal action around this um we are watching very closely to see you know if we can get any uh heads up where the trends are going things like that uh to make sure we're we're communicating with
staff on a regular basis on that but I think I just want to add that you know uh some of these things that were we are seeing a more of a trend of things being unfrozen and I'm not trying to be you say in this apolianish way that you know everything's going to be okay and we
shouldn't worry um but it is uh at least trending in a more uh with the safer example today um where things are on pause we're seeing uh when we're talking to congressional staff we're hearing a lot of um word out of DOT that things
are being unfrozen so again we're watching very closely and and I think it was said earlier very well that things are changing uh from day to day but they seem to be changing um more often as you know things move forward uh with with
unpausing of funds we hope that trend continues but once this the next step of the reconciliation process um you know when Congress really digs in in this budget that's where we're really going to see where where cuts are going to come down for future spending and
hopefully um you know they they will honor what has been allocated already and I think that the advocacy around that is really strong and really felt uh by cities and um and states as well and I think that Congress is is hearing a
lot from from their constituency so that's that's a good trend to keep up as well thank you council any questions of Mr tranter thanks for joining us Emily those young staff members get them working hard
all right thanks thank you council anything else to add on this final item on our agenda this evening if not uh I would entertain a motion to adjurnn so moved second motion by council member Mo second by council member Revas to adjurnn this evening no
further council we have further council discussion council member Gelson are you going to do a summary listening session or do that here uh I was going to do that the next time at our regular meeting but uh turn into a regular meeting we don't we
don't have council issue update updates on this agenda thanks we have a motion and a second on the table and a second on the table to adjurnn any further council discussion hearing none all those in favor signify by saying I i motion
carries 70 thanks for the conversation tonight council well done thank you good stuff