e welcome to eust City Hall this is a community Redevelopment agency meeting it is 5:15 on Thursday August 1st 2024 Mary is there a quum present proper notti has been given yes sir thank you so much uh first we have the approval of minutes from our April the 18th 2024 CRA meeting so move have a first and a second any further discussion not hearing any roll call please Miss Lee I yeah I I'm glad you got it first Mr Hawkins I Mr Ashcraft hi chairman Holland hi all right let's come on down let's see next on here is audience to be heard anybody want to speak to the CRA board about anything not seeing anyone we're going to move right on down to CRA items with board discussion and Direction Al Commissioners um this report is going to summarize the get adjusted here uh this report is going to summarize the uh proposed 2024 2025 CRA budget um if you'll just look at your screen you will see that on the revenue side the anticipated revenues for the upcoming year is 4 million roughly uh 128,000 uh that is an increase of $43,200 over the current year um those are all the comments I want to make on the revenue side but before we leave revenues if you've got any questions I'll answer them here did we did we get a chance to check into the um loan with um USB to see if it was we we did you want to cover that now I I don't know we don't have to if you were going to cover it later that's fine sorry no you said questions I've got a yes I've got to call my specialist oh okay hi Lorie Car Finance director yes uh originally when that loan was taken out um it was in low interest bearing CDs and we were not making money uh the loan is at 2.875% and we have since cashed all those CDs in and we're making just interest in a money market fund with interest rates ra uh ranging from 5.2 5.19 so we're averaging since we had moved all the CDs out uh we're averaging about $5,500 a month in excess of the interest that we're actually paying so we are making money on it that's good but a word of caution uh if we go to refinance at the end of the year we are not going to get 2.875 on the loan so that's just something to keep in mind as we move forward okay moving on to the expend uh expenditure side uh for the 2024 budget we are projecting 3,7 00,000 for uh expenses this year um the um in the other projects category I'm just going to highlight a few uh major groupings here um we've got uh included in that category the Gateway grants the uh Economic Development incentives uh and the uh development agreement payments um that's detailed on a sheet further back but I thought I'd go ahead and cover it here um just for clarification purposes also within the administrative cost uh want to just remind you that 20% of the director's salary is in that line item as well as uh commun excuse me community policing um expenses uh within the CRA the uh the housing rehab program the housing rehab program Tom you want to speak to yeah so that the housing rehab program um we can talk about that you're we are not proposing any new money for the housing rehab program unless the will of the board is to uh add money to that program we do I did check uh we are currently at a balance of $59,000 or so so we have not this program is about five or 6 years old um it was started with $250,000 we've been spending down since it's Inception we have about 60 $59,500 left in the program but you're not seeing any new money in this budget unless the will of the board is to add money to that program and forgive me for asking but how much have we been normally spending or how many projects have we been normally spending a year for for that program the we spend about 12 to $15,000 per home um including the admin costs and so with about $60,000 left uh we could probably do three to four additional homes for about $60,000 and we typically do how many houses a year time well uh the program started very slowly um for those of you who have have been through this uh the through covid uh basically there was no activity uh and prior management at Lake Community Action just wasn't very aggressive with the program but I would say uh the last two years we've probably done about six homes a year in the last two years okay yeah to me it just seems like I don't understand why more people are not taking advantage of this program is it a community a action that's responsible for marketing the program or is it or is it us I would say it's probably a joint effort I mean they're administering the program but it is our money and so I would say it's probably a joint effort to market the program and based on based on what we give and uh funding that they give they have the ability to kind of uh combine monies so we don't spend as much money of our our money so uh if there's something that uh Lake Community Action can pay for out of another fund they do it and they kind of put ours together um I I will say that uh and Tom and I have gone to to every house that we've done in the last what two or three years yes um uh the people that have it done because we look at them before and after they need it um and I think word of mouth is is more prevalent in this than going to uh Late Community Action um but I I think it's a worthwhile uh project um I don't see us putting in another 250,000 but I'd like to see us at least get it up to 100,000 that way if we stick with our Norm of six six seven a year we have enough money to fund it so I have a question I had asked about following up after this done to Art first of all encouraging them and giving them skills to keep it up so it won't get back into that condition but secondly does anybody follow up since it's been the ones that have been two or three years does anyone follow up to see that they are continuing to keep it up based on um based on the comments and I think Tim has come before us and he he said it in the past uh they do follow up uh they do they do the classes uh and I haven't seen anyone uh to come back with anything um so I I think they do a good job uh you know I see I see the uh the start of the project and I see the end of the project um and we get to meet the people and talk to them um and you know I think it's helpful for the community yeah and based on this uh uh I think it's important that we keep it going ready to move on you can move on so what are we do to increase the pot so you'll I think you'll probably see in a future slide so the The Debt Service for the property really throws the numbers off but it's it should balance out because you're going to see it on both the revenue side and the expense side when you separate the uh the loan and the proceeds from the budget you're going to have about a little over $200,000 in Surplus in the CRA this year and so if you direct us to move approximately 41,000 of those Surplus proceeds into the housing rehab program we can do that and the CRA has the capacity to do that let's look at the rest of it and then we'll make some decisions okay so um on page five um want to draw your attention to the operating budget um uh there is one item uh that uh is materially different than previous year budget uh that is office supplies uh we are uh proposing an increase uh from $100 up to 2,000 uh and that's simply because the $100 was just uh insufficient uh to meet the needs of the um operations so uh other than that everything else is in line and so this again um is the uh development incentives as I previously told you that's Gateway grants that's developer agreements you know that's Economic Development incentives uh and then the CIP uh these are the pr projects that are are in the CIP um Street re Rehabilitation uh the seaw wall um the uh um housing rehab which we just uh talked about and uh Street Rehabilitation so any the difference oh sorry let me let me uh address the seaw wall first um so keep in mind that we have $400,000 that was previously budgeted that's going to roll forward and so that 550 is actually in addition to the 400,000 because this the seaw wall project we're estimating is going to be about a $950,000 project and so uh that 550 is new money that'll be in addition to the 400,000 and uh we are um engineering has just about wrapped up on that and we're going out to bid on the construction for it uh as we speak so that that project is moving forward but again that 550 is in addition to the 400 previously budgeted on the sidewalk in the tree planting um tell me about that is that something we could intermingle with what we're trying to do with aib uh that is actually a rick question so the the sidewalk job that the tree planting is a bit of a misnomer um with that project what it is is we've done Street trees that's a watering we put the gator bags in that's the money to put the gator bags in the watering for the trees um it's more of the sidewalk construction monies that at for next year or this this year this budget we're looking the north side of bats from Prescot to palet um have a sidewalk on one side of the road but we don't have it on the other um and it's the construction I believe that's 47,000 and then we have another um job kind of tied to the CRA that we'll do under our regular sidewalk money so it's not really the planting of the stre street trees it was more as we as we were planting our trees as part of the Arbor Day we would always put the bags in there so some of those trees when they need watering and droughts we have the gator bags and we tell those thank you any other questions okay uh and now the uh last page any questions on uh page eight uh on The Debt Service we we talked about it earlier but any additional questions would you change it for us up here P eight thank you oh it's I'm sorry thank you so any questions is is that the the is that mean an idea is coming or a question's coming I thought I thought I heard commissioner Hawkins don't mind him no okay you're good you're good okay so with the um uh addition of raising the um housing rehab uh line item to $100,000 um the uh staff recommends approval for the 2024 CRA budget what I want to make sure of is that uh and the figures you got time are the ones that that we actually have from receipts receed yeah so what I can do is I can confirm that there are no outstanding pay requests coming and if indeed we are at 595 then we will we will add additional funds to make that 100,000 total if we have still some payables then we will modify the budget to get it to a thous $100,000 I can't remember what we did with the one we did last week does this does this include the 5500 we're making from the um that would be under Revenue now what gets a little tricky is the CRA derives revenue from its reserves I'm sorry it derives interest income from its reserves but the money that we use to secure the loan was not necessarily CRA money if that makes sense do do you remember the deal on that was we use cash to secure the loan correct we we we have some restricted reserves that we can't spend and we have to hold uh in case of a rainy day or you know Pension funds and so what I can't guarantee is that the money that's sitting at USB is CRA money that may be pension fund money and I I don't off the top of my head I don't know what cash we use to uh secure that loan and so what I would say to you is the CRA derives interest revenue from its reserves but I'm not sure if the 5500 is going to the CRA or if it's going to another fund because that's where the money is coming from if that does that make sense it does I was just so the city is earning interest I just don't know if the CRA is earning interest because it may not be CRA money sure my thought process is we could just use that money for the housing reab gotcha yeah that it um I mean longterm maybe that might be something we can look at but it wouldn't be enough to replenish the funds for this year Lori any questions Willie any more questions Gary no I'm good no all right looking for a motion to adopt this budget for 24 or 25 so moved second have a first or second any further discussion not hearing any roll call please ice chair Lee I Mr Ashcraft hi Mr Hawkins hi chairman Holland hi all right anything else Al no sir Tom anything else for CRA no sir anybody else up here have anything all right we're done