r that time I think to the extent that council's priorities change that our organization's priorities change the cip does need to change and each year we put a great deal of effort and put a great deal of pressure on departments to update this document uh with their desired changes in availability of funds or prioritization of projects um I would say so that that's the philosophical piece is that this ought to change it ought to reflect your priorities that being said I would say that within the first three or four years of the plan a lot of work is being done now to plan those projects and so that doesn't mean we can't change those priorities it's just that I would want council to be aware that we may be stopping work in progress uh to reprioritize and to the extent you know the more notice you can give us the better uh people in public works people in general services in other departments that deliver projects are constantly laying the groundwork for projects that you see in those first three or four years and as David will mention shortly you know we are then calibrating the financing of those projects and the cash flow of those projects so so yes it can change the more advanced notice we have the better and to the extent that the equity lens is changing our priorities now I think that absolutely this cip is you know is a is a clear expression of of that I think to the extent that we get messaging from council where you see specific projects you want moved sooner and suggestions for what projects would be moved later I think all those conversations are very appropriate I know I appreciate that Bo and I think that's that's deeply helpful and I hear and appreciate your your admonition as well respectful but in admonition nonetheless I mean I'm I'm a fiduciary of the city the last thing I want to do is wreak havoc by you know if we've got sunken costs and some stuff that's already going on we want to be certainly be responsible uh in our pivot um so I appreciate that greatly both Dave did you want to add something to that where you uh uh just just briefly we have the tool to do it but I don't want to uh to mislead folks it would be a big undertaking and and as as Bo said it would be um the early years would be would be difficult to make changes in um but but we would have a great deal of flexibility further out but but it would be a it would be an effort but we do have the tool built right now with the fact that we're already looking at it over 10 years to be able to evaluate what those changes might look like I think the other thing that that that Bo um didn't mention was you know there's there's some of these projects you know I I think you can kind of capture characterize them perhaps in kind of the discretionary and non-discretionary type projects you know the the stuff that we kind of have to do to to take care of what we had versus kind of the the the option kind of like at your house you know what are the what are the things that you that you have to do just to keep keep the house in order versus what are the things that that you might want to do and I think we'd have we have to parse out you know kind of what are those things that are kind of necessities um and and see where they need to fall and then see what kind of flexibility we have within the entire plan but we have the tool to be able to do it no absolutely thank you so much and uh thanks uh mayor I'm going to yield now I'll just say this final point by way of dismount um I think you you you've kind of shown some light on some of the the challenge of race equity work is that it it can be disruptive sometimes when we've got institutions and almost by inertia we've been doing things a certain way you know for decades sometimes and they're efficient but but sometimes the work of racial equity is going to be disruptive and uncomfortable sometimes but but your admonitions are are well well stated and well taken as we move forward thanks for your time guys I appreciate it thanks to you I wanted to try to make some of the specific just by looking at the chart that we have you know in front of us uh the the exhibit when I think about something we have to do you know we've got fire station 18 funded for the next over the next three years and I think that's one of those we got to do fire station 18 but when you look at the we've got also got a I think a five-year plan for paving unpaved streets if we decided that you know that's discretionary in a different kind of way I think and if we decided we wanted to move that up to the first three years to get the job done on a racial equity basis that's we'd have to move something else but I do think that you know that's the kind of thing that we could look at I also think that a lot of the prioritization of the capital projects is done within these large grouping so when you see sidewalk repair on the exhibit I can't remember how much it is but it's a tremendous amount of money um one aspect of the sidewalk repair would be or is and I know that we try to do this now we have a racial equity factor in the in the in the decisions about where we're repairing and putting new sidewalks that a lot of the prioritization around racial equity can be done within the larger categories of of capital improvement so I just wanted to offer those a couple of observations absolutely thank you um I do have a question about one specific item on the exhibit and I'm not sure this might be both for you but I'm not sure uh which is we've got the long meadow pool construction is a large amount of money in the plan over a period of gosh all the way and we don't have anything in here for the wheels um of course we we wouldn't have anything in here for the wheels redevelopment are we thinking that some of that money or is this premature that the money that we have allocated for that facility which I don't think we really knew where it would be at the time would that money be kind of moved towards the wheels redevelopment over that period of time or have you all had a chance to think about that so at this time the direction we've given staff is that the the money that you have seen for the long meadow pool replacement needs to reflect the cost of that project specifically about creating that regional aquatics facility that has been in one shape or another been part of the cip since council adopted the aquatics master plan to that effect the staff is working on long-range plans for wheels and I expect there will be a cip submission in this year a first submission to reflect that project we're also working on how to reflect and show funding for any facility that goes back into long meadow park when the pool that is currently in long meadow is decommissioned so those are three related projects I think for transparency my direction to staff has been to try and keep those projects separate in the cip so that we see the different funding buckets and again so the council can help us make priority decisions about when each of those phases are delivered thank you very much Bob that was great colleagues other questions uh at this point about the presentation didriana thank you I just for clarity um I just want to make sure that it's clear at note you're hinting at and acknowledging that long meadow is the only pool um located in eastern and the conversation around taking it offline I don't think I don't know that that's been as public as it needs to be um but I'm hopeful that folks are aware that it's going offline for the summer and that it that is the hope that wheels will come online and that'll be in place of or alongside of a splash pad or whatever comes up that folks decide so thank you that is in fact the plan uh I've you know long meadow pool is beyond the end of its useful life I think we uh have tried but will continue to emphasize with uh stakeholders and community groups that that is that is the case a lot of work went in years ago to determining if that facility could be lengthened and improved and because of a number of factors site constraints there uh we can't build the type of facility that uh esterm deserves and that the aquatics master plan called for the the a broad search for a replacement property that could serve the same geographic area was underway when the wheels opportunity presented itself and so we were able to sort of merge those two needs and so the facility that will go in at wheels would be a significant upgrade over long meadow but it is a still a relocation and so that's why the conversations about the splash pad at long meadow or or some replacement facility that serves an aquatics purpose have been underway I will continue to message that that I want to reiterate the short-term uh effort is to continue to operate long meadow over the summers for as long as we can make that happen it is year to year given continued failures in some of the infrastructure there and but we are making every effort to make sure that that facility continues to operate until the replacement is ready to go thank you for thank you very much bow um colleagues i want to point us now to two discussions if it's okay john are you ready for me to move on um and do we need to do a time check steve can i can i ask one quick question yeah of course charlie sure thank you i'm sorry the um on the slide that has the general fund fiscal year 22 project updates can you just give me like a sentence on what microwave upgrade means i'm sure that's not the microwave in the kitchen so um or if it is that's a really pricey microwave go ahead it's that's a radio system improvement thank you for that okay thanks we have uh dr walton i don't know if he's here yet but joining us at one so depending on his arrival and his i can check on his time commitment we can we can and paulus definitely get him in at one yeah i mean we we thought he's he's coming to to be with us at one let's let's let's make sure we do that very good um we have dr walton at one and that's really other than closing remarks in our discussion and we need to have some i think that's the the the last thing on our agenda but we do have a few minutes now to discuss us at least one of the uh aspects of the of our potential uh you know this debt discussion and that why don't we go ahead and talk about the affordable housing bond and i'll first ask david david uh could you uh let us know what you think the tax increase lift would be this year uh to finance the 95 million dollar affordable housing bond sure so um as as recently as as last week we got the latest projections from community development on their spending plan towards towards accomplishing the goals of the affordable housing plan and it looks now like um the first tranche of debt um would not be issued until late fiscal year 2023 so uh and it's looking like that would be about uh 45 million dollars so so that's less and later that than when we talked about this last year and then the second tranche of debt would be um fiscal year 2025 for for the balance uh of the 95 million so 45 million in 2023 very late in 2023 and then 50 million dollars in 2025 um based on um what i think are are conservative but reasonable interest rate projections um if we were to raise taxes in fiscal year 2022 to cover both of those tranches of debt and this is kind of using what we talked about previously to kind of the set it and forget it tax rate you know we just could set the tax rate once and then that should be sufficient to to cover all the all the debt throughout the life of both of those issuances um if we did that in fiscal year 22 uh the tax rate needed is currently projected at 1.38 cents um so that's less than what we had talked about last year um if we wait until fiscal year 23 so that first option is we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna increase the taxes before we issue debt and kind of bank that money now knowing that we're gonna need it uh when we do issue the debt if we wait until fiscal year 23 and and increase the taxes in the same year that we first issued debt um that tax rate would be one and a half cents to to cover both of those tranches of debt um like i said we we got these um most recent projections last week um so uh as we work through the budget process it's it's possible that that those projections might change a bit but i think you can see kind of order of magnitude it's obviously lower number if we do it this year higher if we wait till next year 1.38 in 22 1.50 if we do it in 23. David thank you that's exactly what we needed i appreciate that um holly uh i i wonder yeah i just wanted to say one thing right right quickly the affordable housing plan as we all know would have multiple funding sources so what we're talking about right now is just the debt component but it is not to be you know conflated with the overall plan that the community and the council has become aware of and will be bringing an update on that plan at an appropriate time thank you thank you for that very important clarification jillian thank you um david i'm just wondering how like why those projections have changed like what's happened to change them sure so so um number one interest rates are lower than when we were talking about this a year ago um and that's kind of one of the things that we that i've talked about before you know the sooner we impose the tax rate in advance of us actually issuing the debt kind of the more conservatism i need to build into the the the expectations on what we'll be able to borrow at um as opposed to doing it closer to when we actually do the borrowing so that's the first piece and then the second piece when we talked about this last year we were talking about the first trance of debt being 50 million dollars and now we're talking about the first trance of debt being 45 million dollars i'm sorry it was 55 million dollars when we talked about this last year now it's 10 million dollars lower at 45 million dollars for the first trance so it's kind of flipped that so we're borrowing less later and that's what's driven down the the tax rate okay that's and the and the 10 million dollars less that we're borrowing is that just because we have a better sense of the timing of the projects exactly okay thank you thank you colleagues i know that we have more to discuss about this of course um and we want to try to give some guidance today but um uh dr walden is with us and i'm going to ask um and david thank you we'll be back to do this in a minute and i'm not sure who's introducing dr walden uh but john are you or bertha uh introducing right i'm happy to do so good afternoon um and welcome uh michael walden um for those of you don't know uh dr michael walden is a william neal reynolds distinguished professor and extension economist at north carolina state university and a member of the graduate faculty with the pool college of management his phd degree is from cornell university and he has been uh nc state since 1978 he's also been a visiting professor at duke university uh dr michael walden can be frequently seen heard and read in the media he's appeared in nbc cbs the fox report on the news hour with jim larer and is frequently quoted in usa today the news and observer the charlotte observer boston globe wall street journal and the washington post is by weekly column you decide is carried by over 40 newspapers in the state i'm very welcome very happy to welcome back michael walden take it away sir well thank you john and a technical point are you showing my slides or am i sharing them we have a crew here who are going to show them for you sir okay so when i want to go to a slide i or next slide i just say um next slide okay all right well very good well thank you uh once again for inviting me i was thinking back i think this might be my gosh 15th consecutive year in speaking to the retreat council so um i must be doing something right or i come cheap one of one of the two uh but um i think it's good to see all of you i did see most of you virtually on the top of my screen uh look forward to if you ask me back next year look look forward to seeing you all uh in person um what i want to do with you is obviously talk a bit about where we've been in the last year with the virus how its impact to the economy particularly the the Durham metropolitan economy uh at the start of this year are we share with you what what i think it seems to be a consensus feeling economists as to whether this is going to be a better year we hope the answer is yes how fast we will recover and i'll give you some information on that and then the last part which i think might be the most important at least in my mind is uh what has our experience of the last year with the virus the covid recession etc what has that done to our what we call it what economists like to call structural issues in our economy how has this um how is this recession how has this virus made some permanent changes to our economic future so i'll go through that and and i will give you a teaser here um i i am very very optimistic uh particularly about our local economy uh the Durham Chapel Hill metropolitan economy as well as the rally uh rally carry um so to jump ahead uh in case you were we're going to close your eyes and worry about if i was going to get a lot of bad news uh i think we are lucky to be where we are here uh in the greater triangle we have a lot going for us and as i'll talk about i think indeed the structural changes that i'll allude to might even increase our potential for for economic growth all right that said next slide one of the reasons in fact i was thinking about um what i told you last year i think last year i had very little time because of of time constraints but um even even though the virus was creeping into our discussion i think we had already had the first cases uh in the U.S. by this time last year um we obviously did not know what it was going to come to and i suspect that i was optimistic about the economy in 2020 and and there was good reason to be optimistic if you look at some of the bullet points here we had had a record uh length of economic growth in our economy we had a very consistent very reasonable growth rate of about two percent we saw wages adjusted for inflation were rising across the board that is the all rungs of the economic ladder seemed to be improving we had a 50 year low in our employment and the top all this off we had very low inflation so so we really had the best best of all economic worlds next slide and then the virus uh came and it's in a state and the um medical experts quickly assessed that the COVID-19 virus was um contagious highly contagious and it was deadly and you put those two together you really have our worst nightmare and um the the conclusion was that we had to treat this as a very very serious um um a threat to our economy which is as we saw was indeed the case next slide so the the medical people told us that we and i and i say that with with all respect but i want to emphasize it's not me or economists speaking the medical folks said we needed to to to control or contain this virus because of its contagious aspect because of its deadly aspect we could have a situation in the country that we hadn't seen in over 100 years you had to go back to the so-called Spanish flu which incidentally was miss misnamed like i tell you a story about that but the so-called Spanish flu that my my grandparents lived through neither of my parents were born yet 1917 and 1919 that killed somewhere between 500 and 600 thousand Americans and we we literally if you read read books about about that horrific event which i have read a couple we literally had hospitals overflowing uh people had to be sick people had to be put in warehouses you had cemeteries filling up you had people dropping dead on the street i mean it was an it was an awful awful situation and i i think that um those people who were aware of it uh knew this could prop could potentially morph into that so the conclusion was made early on that we needed to contain the virus unfortunately by containing the economy and so most of these decisions if not all were made at state levels and and you may recall i think it was march 19th and the reason that that date sticks in my mind is that's the day after my wife's birthday and um march 19th i believe it was the case governor cooper issued the the orders the state home orders and the shutdown orders for for selected economic sectors and again the whole reason for that was to try to slow down person person contact so that we could get a handle on the cases get a handle on the hospitalizations and the deaths and then hopefully be able to to reopen to some degree uh layer now when this happened these orders were issued here i'll bring in economists we knew this was going to cause a recession because if you if you restrict the uh face to face contact a lot of businesses can't operate and if you tell people to stay home unlike fortunately my job where i can pretty much and have done pretty much my job consistently um using this technology with students and meetings and research etc i'm lucky a lot of jobs can't be done that way so economists uh left forward and said all right we understand the medical situation reason for this but the economic situation is not going to be pretty next like john and so we knew there was going to be a recession i call it the mandated recession because it's i think now i've been at nc state 43 years and i think this is my eighth official recession and this is unlike any other recession in the sense that it was and as created by public policy but obviously created in order to deal with the health issue um we we had the biggest the worst numbers were in the second quarter so april may june again the shutdown orders started at the uh mid march uh you may remember some of these headlines and when the numbers came out for the second quarter of 2020 uh most the headline said one third of the economy lost um actually that's a little bit of a misnomer and i mean if this makes you if this makes you feel better i'm glad just a little background here um a lot of federal numbers are quoted on what's called an annualized basis meaning that in this case they take what actually happened in the second quarter they being the bureau of economic analysis what actually happened in the second quarter and they said what if this continued for a whole year what would it do the economy and that's where we got the 32 that's where the 32 came from actually the decline in the economy actual decline in the economy in the second quarter was nine percent they might say we're walled in nine times four thirty six not 32 other seasonal adjustments and going from the quarterly to the annualized now that was still bad in fact it was uh i believe i'm practicing the worst on record whether you look at annualized or actual so this was a very very bad downturn next slide and and we can see it probably people can relate to and i apologize for getting the economic leads there people can obviously relate to jobs that's what most people understand they know it's the easiest economic data to communicate so i'm showing you on this slide the change in jobs on the left hand side at the u.s. and u.s. and right hand side of north Carolina and obviously april pops out we lost over 20 million jobs in april um last year in north Carolina we we lost 600 000 and i can remember i got a call from um my my local senator in the general assembly and he said mike can you can you put some numbers together that would would show that i can that i can communicate with my colleagues about uh perhaps this was before any of the stimulus packages came out of washington he said i'm worried about people being unemployed not having enough money to pay the light bill pay for food etc so i can you generate some numbers some estimates what it would take uh to carry people who are in an unfortunate situation for maybe six months and i said sure and i can remember um i i i took some time in doing this a couple weeks so the one tried to get it right but every time i return to it uh the forecast got worse they kept getting worse and worse and worse i think i remember starting at thinking well it's going to be a 200 000 drop then 400 000 as you can see it all only came almost 600 000 so just an unbelievable uh month of carnage in the economy now you can see in may we had a recovery and it was actually the start of a multi um month recovery and if you remember that is the month and i forget where it was in the month i think was toward the end where governor cooper pulled back some of those orders and most states did so so we were able to see a little bit of a job growth in may and you can see onward now if you look at the national level in november december and we do have january numbers for the nation we don't yet have for north carolina you don't see a lot of grain there above the zero line um in fact we did eke out a slight increase in jobs in november we actually lost jobs at the national level in december and then we came back and added a very few in january and i think this is because of the resurgence that we've seen uh after after last winter which is hopefully getting under control now and that caused some states to reinstitute some some uh closures in the economy but even there's been research on this even if people are not ordered to stay home or even if people are not ordered to to to go out and go to their job many people will still do that they're cautious my wife and i are like that we barely done anything outside the house um because i think you get there some people who who simply say this thing is scary i don't want to get it i don't want to pass my family members i don't care if the governor says we can go out uh we're going to stay home and so we've we've seen i think that come back in november december and in some sense in january now if you look at the right hand side of the slide you see north carolina has done a little bit better in november december we actually gained jobs again we don't have the january numbers out but clearly we had a slowdown in the economy uh in the end of last year the beginning of this year with the resurgence of the virus which the numbers now are telling us it looks like that's uh that's being contained and pushed back a little bit i might say my biggest worry and again i'm totally outside my lane no medical background at all my biggest worry right now is these variants get going and and i'll read one article where one medical expert says yeah the vaccines will work with the variants i'll read another article where expert says we don't know so um and again i want to be optimistic here but that does that does bother me uh next slide let's go listen to me okay all right are we okay uh okay uh so let's uh look at the unemployment or the employment market in a little different way and here i introduce term chapel hill on this slide when i'm showing you is job change on a percentage basis where the percentage the base of the percentage is the february job numbers which were pre-pandemic so so for example you look at april and you see for the nation that turquoise number you see 14 what that means is the job loss at the national level in in april was 14 of the jobs that we had pre-pandemic in february and you see it was actually a little bit less for north carolina and a little bit less for germ chapel hill but still these were big percentages germ chapel hill was around 11 percent and then if you look the other months you can see in most cases gains although germ chapel hill actually lost some more in in may but then i came back in june etc and then you can also see on the far right hand side november december where those percentage gains were um were um much less um we've we've recovered a little bit if you if you want to take a big picture here today we we we be in the economy and we're pretty much just as consistent across whether your national state or local we've recovered a little bit more than half of the jobs we've lost so we're not back in total but but we've moved certainly in the in the right right direction and i show you this slide in part because even though germ chapel hill economy is very strong very vibrant one of the best economies in the country i'll show you some data on this later same same where i am charlotte chapel hill um raleigh that's so the whole triangle but clearly we were impacted and again look at that look at those april numbers and and also they extended through through may next slide john uh saying again all this a little bit differently with the unemployment rate uh notice the big jump in the unemployment rate in april now interestingly in uh germ chapel hill the unemployment rate didn't peak until may i'm not quite sure why that's the case but the peak was in may and then there have been improvements uh since then and germ chapel hill's unemployment rate in general for most most months has been under the national and under the uh state now i do want to pause here for just about 30 seconds and say that economists are fairly united in saying right now these unemployment numbers are actually understating actual unemployment and you might say well walden why well um the unemployment numbers uh do not come from people filing for unemployment compensation that's that's a myth that's out there i don't know where it got started these unemployment numbers come from a separate survey that the federal government does over 100 000 people are served every month and they break it down by state and to be counted as unemployed you have to meet three tests you have to number one tell the surveyor you don't have a job number two you have to tell them you want a job obviously we don't want to count people who like retired people my wife who doesn't want a job uh she told me that the day after she retired and then thirdly though they have to say in the last month they have been actively looking for work sending out resumes visiting potential employers etc now always there's some people who who who don't have a job want a job who in the last month don't look for work usually there are people who have been looking they just can't find anything and so they've stopped for a while we actually call them to scary workers but we think that number is bigger now because of the fact that many people who lost their job they want a job but they're not looking for work because maybe they they're afraid of getting the disease the virus uh maybe they've had the virus the recovering or they have a family member who's recovering or very importantly and this gets into another issue that I know you're uh every every county is debating they have children that are home from school and they need to be home to look after those children so as a rule of thumb this is a rule of thumb this is not something scientifically based these are estimates uh economists think that these unemployment rates are actually about two percentage points higher right now so rather than around six percent we're probably dealing with around around eight percent so unemployment is worse uh than these numbers would would indicate next slide john all right you know this because i'm sure you you are all engaged in the community and you follow the community you know that the virus has not impacted uh economic sectors equally it's been hardest on those sectors that rely on a lot of face-to-face contact so look on the left you see hospitality leisure personal services it has not impacted as much jobs that quite frankly can be done remotely like again the one I met a lot of professional jobs can do that technology jobs financial service jobs some education jobs particularly of the higher education and so if you actually look at the numbers uh on the three that I have here financial service professionals and technology yeah they lost some jobs initially but they're pretty much fully back so those those industries are fully back on the other hand hospitality and leisure personal services they they've come back some although they were they took a couple steps backward with the resurgence in the last part of the year uh but they they are still down uh significantly 20 to 25 percent from their pre-pandemic levels the other the other issue with this dichotomy is if you look at the jobs on the left hand side and the right hand side you you you can understand or you know they differ in terms of average pay hospitality leisure personal personal services not every job of course but on average those are low-paying jobs on the other hand financial services professional jobs technology jobs on average they tend to be higher paying so one of the things this pandemic induced recession has done it's exacerbated it's exacerbated income inequality and hopefully that's something we can deal with on the other side of the pandemic next slide John all right let me talk a little bit about uh governmental help and most of governmental help has come from the federal level and there's a simple reason for that only the federal government has the power to borrow the money that was deemed necessary to prevent the economy from from crashing and prevent households from enduring enormous paying businesses the same way so right now the federal government has borrowed if you look at all the the various programs and I think we've had three big big programs that came out of washington uh to date they've borrowed about four trillion dollars and they pushed that into the economy in terms of various programs like stimulus checks uh uh increasing unemployment compensation uh PPP payroll protection plan etc all that money's been borrowed so I often get a lot of questions from people who are walled in uh isn't that going to sink us in the future well as as your your budget expert was talking prior to me one of the benefits of borrowing right now is the low interest rate environment and actually if you look at federal interest rate payments on the national debt as a percent of the broad economy we're lower now even with all this borrowing than we were in the 80s and 90s so uh this this pandemic if there's anything lucky about it and I put that in quotes it is it is that it came at a time when interest rates were very very low which is allow the federal government to borrow and and help question the blow of the pandemic now to date north carolina has gotten about 39 billion dollars out of that four trillion it's and most of its head strings attached it hasn't been dumped into the general fund it's had strings attached now as you well know I'm sure you're following the Biden administration's 1.9 trillion proposal would have well I think uh 300 350 billion dollars that would target it to state and local governments uh I'm not I don't know that anyone has seen the details but my my expectation would be there'd be many fewer strings on that so they could go into general funds and allow allow decision makers like you the option of deploying that to your um to your um um high shoes um now the the one when people say well them well aren't aren't we gonna isn't china gonna gonna call us and want all their money back or some no most this money has actually been borrowed from the federal reserve and how how's the federal reserve paid for where they print money and i'll talk about them in a moment so no don't worry about china knocking on our door and saying give us our money back that that's not going to happen um but what economists are pretty well settled on is is what what borrowing from the future means is you're really borrowing from future growth and so the cost here is not that we're going to be able to pay the bills it's not that we're not going to be able to uh even borrow more money in the future it's that our economic growth will be slower in the future than now and to put some numbers on this I just I just got a study last week from the Wharton school in at University of Pennsylvania they calibrated that due to the the borrowing that has been done uh this last year and probably into this year economic growth I think they went into 2023 and 2024 they were assuming those would be growth years will be 0.2 percentage points under and if you go back and remember on the first slide the economies are growing about 2 so that's about a 10 hit to economic growth so I think that's the best way if any of your constituents asked you that question I think that's the best way and again you have to say well if we weren't going to borrow what are we going to do we're going to let the economy burn and crash and people just gal in the street so I think this was this was necessary I'm concerned about the amount but I think was absolutely necessary next slide John federal reserves also gotten in the act as I said they bought a lot a very high percentage of the debt that the federal government has taken they lowered interest rates early on effectively zero and there are two worries right now that you'll hear people talk about one is that as I said federal reserve has done has done a lot of the buying of federal debt and they pay for that by creating money that's one of their big powers I've always told people the only job that will regard me to leave NC State since I've loved my career here was to be put on the board of the federal reserve as they can create money and I don't know anyone else that can do that I somewhat jokingly say that but it's true and I was taught some 53 years ago and I had my first economics course that inflation results when you've got too much money chasing too few goods and services and there are people who are worried about that in fact two very prominent people Larry Summers a Democrat in the Clinton administration Treasury Secretary Phil Graham a Republican former U.S. Senator ran for president 1996 they have each issued public statements in the form of op-ed articles that they're worried that all this borrowing and all this money that's been created once the economy gets back and people start spending more the capacity economy at least initially won't be able to keep pace and we would very well see higher inflation now are we talking about 1015 percent inflation no we're probably talking about going from one and a half percent inflation which is roughly where we are now and maybe three percent but that's noticeable so that is that is a risk the other concern here with federal policy is that the the various programs the stimulus programs that have been pumped into the economy actually the if you look at the data that's been collected it's now about a year old on what people did with their stimulus checks those what were they $1,500 $2,000 stimulus checks you recall what did I do with that what what researchers and the Federal Reserve researchers actually have found is that as you move up the economic ladder that is of higher income now there were cutoffs these but they were fairly high cutoffs as you move up the economic ladder people saved a lot of that money they didn't spend it they saved it and in fact if you look at the total amount of the stimulus checks and you say what percentage was saved it was about a third and now saving means you're going to invest it somewhere and if you look over the last year what has been the investment market that has just continued to chug along and almost set records every day it's been the stock market and the concern is that that a lot of that money made its way in the stock market has been up to stock market and the question is is that setting a speculative high for the stock market well we have a pullback I learned long ago not to try to to forecast the stock market it's very very iffy but I will I do want to throw that out that is something that economists are least concerned about it is one of the casualties of this economic policy we've gone through going to be that we will have at some point a significant pullback in the stock market as well as the issue about inflation next slide now state local governments there's been a lot of concern obviously about state local governments who don't have the ability like the federal government does to just about borrow for anything you can borrow but you're constrained and what you can borrow for with the with the economy in such a bad recession will your revenues go down will you have to lay off people etc well for North Carolina at the state level at least we've had two pieces of news one of which just came out yesterday but the the first piece of news that was has been out for about a month is the the state controller reported in their most recent report I think it was that North Carolina has about four billion dollars in unspent funds the state that's that's let's see general funds around 25 I mean that's the second part of the general fund and this is a result from two things one money in the rainy fund and two the fact that the governor Cooper and the general assembly not been able to get together on a budget I think over the last two budgetary sessions now in the old days remember how old I am how long I've been here the old days say in the 80s and 90s that would have meant I wouldn't have gotten paid but there was no budget literally if North Carolina couldn't agree on a budget between the executive and the general assembly there would be no money spent now that was changed about 10 15 years ago so we go on what's called a continuing budget and that's that's essentially what has happened in North Carolina at the state level continuing budget now you might say okay so what what does that mean what that means we're spending out levels that are now two or three years old meaning that revenues pre-covid were coming in at higher levels based on the on the bigger economy and that's generated additional savings now the other piece of news that just came out yesterday I think afternoon which people like me have been waiting for because the last report on this was in May was the joint budgetary forecast between the fiscal research division of the general assembly and the office of budget management of the administration they finally they finally issued outlook budgetary outlook which I think is this is only at the state level now very very optimistic very very optimistic mainly due to the fact of that 39 billion dollars that's been pushed into the economy over the last year from the federal government the forecast for I think this fiscal year in terms of revenues is is almost 18 percent over what was forecast last May which means I think the general fund is going to be around 28 billion rather than what was forecast much lower so this is very very good news now you know I'll let your your budget experts have already talked to you about your budget so I won't I won't talk about that but things are looking better and then on top of that of course watch the 1.9 trillion whether that gets through and if it gets through with the money going to state local government so it looks like the governmental sector is is looking a little better here particularly for folks like you who have to deal with these issues every day right next slide john all right now let me get into talking a little bit about where I think the economy is going I do this thing called a leading index for the state uh all the only the only takeaway here is if the no if the line's going up it's good it's going down it's bad and notice that in the last couple of months it's been going up for the state so that suggests that the state economy is going to improve growth rates are going to be higher next slide john uh this is my forecast track for north Carolina is what we call real GDP um real always means you take out inflation and GDP in this case gross domestic product just think of that as aggregate production where we put everything that everyone does every business does in the one one number and if you look at the left hand side you can see the big drop in the second quarter you can see an equally good strong rebound in the third quarter uh fourth quarter a little bit slower now first quarter which we're in I actually think we could see a little bit of a retreat because of the resurgence and the fact that people are not going out as much but then after that once the vaccines get going and people's optimism goes up and and and we we feel like we can go out and do more things notice I'm looking I'm I'm forecasting continued growth for the rest this year and then on to the next year in the year after and and also you can see by the third quarter this year I actually think we'll be back to create pandemic levels our economy and suddenly these numbers are annualized GDP numbers so for example in the third quarter I'm forecasting the state economy will be 515 billion on annualized basis which is greater than the 512 we had in the first quarter of 2020 so so this is a this is a optimistic forecast and and you can look at other economists around the state uh John Connaughton, Charlotte, Mark Bittner, at Wells Fargo their their forecasts are are similar next slide John a little bit different though with the the job market um and I think this is going to be a real challenge uh these these are the unemployment rates the official rates so I'm not ahead of the 2% here but I told you you really need to do to get real unemployment these are the official rates and you can clearly see the big jump in the second quarter a good improvement in the third and fourth quarters now notice first and second quarters uh 7% I'm showing actually an increase you might say what's going on there I thought you said the economy has been improved this is where what I told you before about people who are sitting on the sidelines they're not looking for it even though they want work this is where once they do to come back they feel safe to come back their kids are back in school they're the relative who had covid's all well maybe they they now go out and they hear the job market's better they start to go out and look before they get jobs they will now be classified as unemployed so I think we're going to see that in the first and second quarter we may very well see a bounce up in in the unemployment even though jobs are increasing but then after that I'm looking for the unemployment rate to to fall on trend but notice by 2023 I'm looking at an unemployment rate in the state of still over 5% much higher than the 3.8% we had in the first quarter of 2020 so what I'm saying what I what I think is behind that is that one of the big challenges uh that that this that the the post pandemic economy will present to us is that there's going to be what economists call a lot of disruption the job market there are going to be businesses who come back and say and look at their structure and say you know what I had to shut down because some of my employees got sick if I can do anything to reduce my reliance on people and instead use machines and technology I'm going to do it and I'll give you a quick example of this I got a call probably it was April or May from a national reporter who went on to talk about talking to me about the North Carolina economy we were chatting about various sectors and I was talking to her about the food processing sector which we we have a very large food processing sector as you most you probably know in North Carolina in fact we have the largest food processing plant in Tar Hill North Carolina in Bladen Bladen County in the world and and uh that that sector had problems with COVID because there are a lot of people working in or in close contact now it's been deemed an essential service so people continue to work but businesses food processing businesses had to struggle to deal with outbreaks etc and I told the reporter I said now this is a perfect example in my mind of where we could probably say totally different food processing sector in the future that after COVID's gone owners and managers are going to look at those factories and say you know what if we can bring in technology like robots and replace people then we don't have to worry about another outbreak of whatever in the future and we can continue working and I told the reporter I think that's in our future but it's not in our near future no sooner almost than I said that well about two weeks later I read in some national publication of a food processing plant in the mid midwest Nebraska Iowa one of those states that was actually introducing robots and replacing people on the food processing chain with with robots so that's the that's what I'm talking about here I think we're going to see a big move and it could be even down to the restaurant level we're an owner of a restaurant looks around and says you know can I can I do things are there some machines I get that can actually cook or at least do some of the kitchen work and I can I set up a system where I don't have to have as many waiters and waitresses etc so this I think is a concern and I think it's going to keep our unemployment rate elevated for several years and it also is going to present a challenge for our educational institutions particularly community college because I think people who get take a food processing worker who loses his or her job and they've got a family and that's all they've done is food processing they don't have time to spend going to a four-year college like nc state or Duke or Chapel Hill they need to get retrained in something fast because they got bills and so I can see that our community colleges are going to be very very key in and stepping up and dealing with this I think this reskilling challenge next line all right now let me finish up here by talking about some of those structural changes that that that many predict one that I at least I've read about is there's been a lot of pushback primarily because we think the virus we think I'm not 40 on this the virus came from China we obviously have a lot of economic interactions with China and there and there's been some who said you know we we need to pull back with trade international trade we need to we need to become more self-sufficient I don't think that's going to happen I think world trade is is too embedded in our in our global economy they're they're clearly benefits to world trade the triangle has a lot of international connection so this is important for the triangle so I don't think we're going to cut ourselves off from world trade I do see however a couple of changes here which could very well be beneficial North Carolina let me take the last bullet point first and that is that even before the virus came here so we're talking the winter of 2019 we were feeling some of the impacts of the virus in one province in China because a lot of our companies in North Carolina as well as around the country by inputs from China so their supply chain as its term goes back to China and and one was shut down so they were scrambling to get their inputs so I've read a lot about companies saying you know what we need to start thinking about at least having a backup supply chain here in the US now if that happens that could be very beneficial for North Carolina the second bullet point is that and many most of you know this we got caught the country got caught when the virus took off with not having enough medical supplies ventilators masks gowns and I have not seen anything yet from the Biden administration but now they've not submitted their budget I would not be surprised to see the Biden administration say you know we don't want to be in that position ever again we need to replenish our our key medical supplies with American producers and so I could see a plan to finance maybe through the government masks gowns and ventilators other things North Carolina is well set up to do that we're manufacturing state we can do the ventilators and where else would you go if you need a textile product maybe Georgia South Carolina but clearly we're in the mix there so I think this is this is actually good news for North Carolina that we could see some additional economic activity here next slide I talked about this war labor market disruption this is something economists have been talking about for 20 years as technology becomes more adept so I'm not going to dwell on this but I do think that we need to be I think we need to be proactive in the state by frankly we can't wait to see that oh we've got 10,000 more people unemployed this month um and then let them figure out what to do I think we need to go out and find them and help them and tell them okay here here's what you want to look at here's the training and have that all thought out and that's something that I think we need to hopefully be thinking about in the months ahead as we get past the pandemic next slide uh education um of course you all every county is dealing with this that a lot of remote learning learning has been imposed on k through 12 I think k through 12 is taking up my opinion a bad rap on this in terms of people complaining about well in person at home education not the same as in person I get that but um there are a lot of wonderful programs that I've become aware of that can be teach young people through remote learning that are marvelous we just our school systems just didn't have time to do this this was thrust on them so the bottom line here is I don't think remote education is going to go away I think most kids are going to go back in person schools but I think there is a place for for parents who want it and maybe for certain kinds of children who who special needs or whatever I think there is a place for for remote education and and again I think there are some great great programs that that do this if you're interested in this just contact the school of education at NC State because they've been doing a lot of work on this next slide now teleworking uh this probably has been the the biggest change that we've seen in our economy that affects most people prior to the pandemic if you look at the first bullet point nationwide about eight percent of people work at home at least one day a week at the height of the pandemic it was up to 40 percent 40 percent of workers work at home at least one day a week now it's it's pulled back from that obviously as things have changed but I I think and a lot of people who agree with me that teleworking is here to stay at an elevated level we're not going to go back to the eight percent we're going to stay higher uh if you read about teleworking uh it's like there's nothing in the middle I read stories about people in business who absolutely love it and I read about people in businesses who hate it so but I think the option is going to be there I think the option is going to be taken by by more people and so I think this is going to be one of the long-term sustaining impacts of a virus that teleworking is here to stay at a much elevated level than we had pre pre virus next slide things like drum drum delivery of services I have a neighbor across the street who's a young person he's a banker and he has been having all of his food delivered and his meals and he said to us of course properly distanced he said to us that he loves it he's going to continue doing that he said he never liked to cook and now he doesn't have to cook so there are a lot of experts who think that ordering things online more so than what we did pre pandemic but we're going to be ordering more things more services meals etc that's probably here to stay and you've probably read a lot about drone delivery of things that's going to come I think in fact the FAA federal aviation administration which which has control over this just made the initial approval for drone run now you're going to see not going to see drones in the sky yet but there are several stages here but I think that that is coming and I think that's going to be a challenge for cities in particular obviously because of the space and another thing is there may be some tax opportunities there for local governments if you have drones flying around delivering things I think there might be some using your airspace if you will there might be some tax opportunities tax revenue opportunities I should say next line all right reconsideration of residential location there are two parts of this first you hear that that people are reconsidering living in the New York New Jersey metropolitan area in fact I think they've lost between 100 and 150 thousand households in the last year or people are reconsidering living in LA or San Francisco so there is a geographic part of this which if true if this if this is more than a blip if there is going to be a movement of people out of those highly dense highly expensive areas I think North Carolina and I think especially the Triangle is a great destination for them in fact there was a study done of people leaving the New York New Jersey metropolitan area and they ranked the top 10 metro areas where those folks went and Charlotte and Raleigh were in the top 10 I think Austin and Nashville were the top top two I still don't get national lets because I'm not in country music but I just don't get why Nashville's there but we're there the Triangle's there Charlotte's there so I think that we may very well gain out of some of those relocations now the second part of this though is where within a metropolitan area will people live are they going to go downtown and Durham you've had great downtown development Raleigh has had great downtown development is that going to continue or will people say well you know I don't know about living in these really dense areas maybe I want to be in the suburbs maybe I want to be in the excerpts right now the experts are saying that they do they don't think downtowns are going to dry up but they do think that in the long run more people are not going to maybe going to choose the suburbs and the excerpts now I think an extension of this is whether you are going to see people move beyond the metro areas and maybe back to not back to but into rural areas now for that to happen we're going to have to have high speed internet in rural areas so I think that's something to to watch and next slide which might be I think we may we may stop here all right let me let me wrap this up by talking about implications for the triangle and specifically for for Durham Chapel Hill uh first point I've already hit I think we're going to continue to grow in other words I don't have the worries about this area that if I was an economist in New York New Jersey area or Los Angeles San Francisco I wouldn't have some words we're going to continue to grow we're may actually going to continue to grow at an accelerated rate and in fact you might say where's the evidence for this well and are you just thinking off the top of your head well I think the evidence is if you look at what investors are going particularly investors in space look at what's happened in Raleigh we've had four four major developments downtown south the innovation center at north hills what it's called park park place south which is going to be adjacent to to um Dix park and then just today it was announced they're ready to break ground soon on the second phase of the union station which is going to have some commercial property I think when you tally all those up we're talking north of three billion dollars of of investment I don't think people who are smarter than me uh are going to do that unless they see a market there even with more remote working I think what these investors are seeing is we're going to get enough people come in here that we can still fill up these buildings even if more people are going to stay home working remotely so I think I think I'm going to bet on this area continuing to grow and probably an accelerated pace second point I think north Carolina is as an entire state is going to possibly see accelerated growth because if you look at the two major metrics that indicate the medical costs of um COVID and then the economic costs uh if you look for example at deaths per capita from COVID and then job loss per capita we look very good on both of those relative to other states I think we're in the lower least lower third if not lower 25 for states so another way of saying that I think north Carolina is going to come out of this and being viewed as a safe state yeah we have problems just like every state our problems with COVID but we managed it fairly well um and if you look at those two metrics now specifically for Durham the Durham Chapel Hill Metro uh if you look at the 380 metropolitan areas in the country um since 2000 uh Durham's growth rate was 35th highest 35th highest and and so clearly you are in the upper echelon of economic growth and prominence in the country and I think that that will that will continue um so let me stop there although John maybe uh go a couple more slides uh for uh yeah push on push on oh yes a moment for advertising I have two new books out that I wrote last year one is a policy book called Real Solutions looks at all the solutions poverty um um healthcare environment taxes national debt income inequality pay difference etc 500 pages worth of uh but but people tell me it's well written it's easy to read 500 pages worth so I commend that to your attention and the next slide John if you want a little diversion uh I wrote this book last year in the midst of all the political issues going on which have only been accelerated this year I call this a political thriller so it's fiction but if you like fiction and you like political thrillers uh I recommend this to you so let me uh stop John and do we have time for some questions or you can read me questions I'll be happy to try to address them thank you so much Michael I really really appreciate it and turn it over to council and see if there are some questions okay good thank you so much Dr. Walden it's always great to hear your presentation and it was a different year but and really interesting to hear the way in which the ways in which we have recovered and the ways in which we haven't recovered along the unemployment front which I think are things we know but really interesting and important to see the numbers that you put to it it's very very helpful so and always so grateful to hear your ideas about the future trends uh and glad to see that you continue to have confidence in our region uh and in a particular not just our region but in the Durham Chapel Hill area so thank you for that colleagues questions or comments for uh Dr. Walden didriana thank you Dr. Walden and thank you Steve I'm getting there uh I I really appreciate the the breakdowns and uh value the the kind of walking us through all of us I really just have one additional question around acknowledging that the boomers are aging up quite quickly did you have any predictions around that area acknowledging I mean that's they're they're not likely to show up in our economy in the same way um well that that's uh councilor that's uh that's that's an excellent point I'm I'm now 70 so I classifies me as an old boomer I guess um it's interesting to bring this up because I did a program uh I forget with what tv station recently uh talking about demographics and of course those of us 65 and over that demographics actually increasing in relative size and so I think one implication for the aging boomers is that they may even become more prominent as a class of consumers as a segment of our economy that that um that that will have attention um and I I do see for government um some tension here between the boomers who of course what's one of our most important factors healthcare access to healthcare expensive healthcare and then for younger people the the young people I teach the well the the younger millennials but also the gen zers mostly who are obviously focused on education that's what they're worried about and if you look at the state budget um those are the two biggest chunks of the state budget and so I could I can see potentially over time those two groups coming to loggerheads in some sense because they're both going after programs that that impact them but the broader and more positive statement is if you're a business any business you need to have a plan for reaching the the the the older boomers you need to have a plan to reach the the senior citizens because they they have a large still a continuing and growing relatively large share of commerce so you need to know how they shop and what ways they shop I think we shop maybe a little differently although I've been forced into into the computer world my wife is still in the uh write a letter make a phone call world uh she's not been dragged into this but but I do think they're um um an important part of the economy now probably less so around in this area where we are because we're relatively younger area with all the students here the young people here coming to take the tech jobs the pharmaceutical jobs etc thank you if I could follow up I I'm thinking along the line so I had a presentation yesterday on smart and resilient cities and just thinking about how I think the conversation was moving towards the unmanned not just unmanned drones but unmanned vehicles on the road what infrastructure might look like and how all of that's going to play in I'm mindful that uh the the conversation today or yesterday started with you know I wrote it down too uh never let a good crisis go to waste and trying to figure out what those investments might look like do you have any suggestions there um well interesting question I just I just spent two years on the NC first transportation commission and our our tasks there and we've issued a report I'm not sure that it's available to everyone but it's been sent to the General Assembly or will be our our task there was to look at North Carolina's transportation future and how we're going to finance that future and this this issue or this question or comment could come up because many think that transportation is probably going through its biggest changes since the invention of the automobile and one argument can be made if we do go to a smart city smart vehicle situation we may actually need less space and expenditures on roads because smart vehicles can can be managed better on on highways without instead of people driving them and weaving them out etc so that's one issue another issue of course is public transportation in large metropolitan areas if we continue to grow and add density that's probably going to become more more viable and more valuable again I know more about Raleigh than I do you but we have these high-speed bus lanes that are being planned and promoted and probably will come into progression in the future the big issue we faced on the commission though was how we got is the gas tax going to and this is I know not a decision you all made but as the gas tax going to continue to provide us with the revenues we need and the answer universally was no because people are moving to hybrid vehicles are moving to electric vehicles they're moving to better gas mileage and so we we talked about what are some alternatives a mileage fee was one of those maybe going to a sales tax addition that would some of which would be earmarked to to transportation and maybe looking at some ways to recapture value from commercial activity that is built and benefits from from a good transit nearby so yeah I think I think the transportation commuting part of our economy particularly in metropolitan areas is going to be in a big state of flux over the coming future Dr. Walden thank you we have I think time for one more question and there was a good question in the chat from our director of office and economic and workforce development Andre Pettigrew Dr. Walden small minority and women owned businesses have been greatly impacted by COVID-19 what do we have to do as a city to accelerate and sustain the recovery of our small business community and I agree if you look at the data on not just that but if you look at employment data women have gotten hit harder in general than men during COVID in terms of business recovery I would I recommend this for that group but I think generally one of the things that I'd like to see discussed maybe at the state level since we've got some money but may also at the national level and I won't talk for cities cities tend to be your budgets tend to be a little tighter is recognized and a lot of people went out of business not because they were bad business people not because they weren't doing what they should they're in a profit they just couldn't sustain themselves when people weren't out there buying in normal fashion and of course we had PPP to try to keep businesses going that work in some cases didn't work in others of course there have been a lot of stories about about the equity of the distribution of those funds one thing that I think might we might think about and this is not original with me is setting up some capital funds that would be available to businesses it could be at the federal level but it could be at the state local state or local level that businesses that maybe can't get funding from traditional sources banks could come to and say look I used to have a business on a particular location here in Durham and I had to give up the virus that killed me I had to give up but you know I mean this is the business person talking you know I know how to run a business you know that I put out a good product whatever it is I can't get finance and can I get financing from the city so that's something might be worth discussing thank you doctor Walden and I want to say how much we appreciate hearing from you every year thank you so much thanks for thanks for asking me it really is a pleasure and you always give us such an important perspective and I was really interested in what you were going to be saying this year because it has been such a different year and just want to express my appreciation again for you being here for the for the the light that you always shed so thank you so much and even though I have all these since-day red tats in back of me I still root for the Durham Bulls and we're really glad to hear that thank you thank you and hopefully we'll be at ball games together again yes yes can't wait thank you all right colleagues that was really interesting and very valuable and I think John or Bertha are you all with us here and David yeah great so I'm gonna without and there's Bertha too great without any I think I want to just go ahead and take us back to the discussion that we were having prior to Dr. Walden and so we can go ahead and move through our afternoon we have a couple of other things to do and just to begin so just to just if I'm going to try to outline what David said and David you can tell me if I got it right if we raise taxes uh for the $95 million affordable housing bond in the next budget that it would cost us about 1.38 the tax rate would be about 1.38 cents I get that right if we did it in a future year it would be a 1.5 cents or the following year that's right all right and um I think that that was the most important those were the important facts that we heard colleagues I want to try to give our administration some guidance on this we've already heard from Mark Anthony earlier and Charlie both about going ahead to you know their voters have already told us what to do on this and I agree and I'm actually really glad to hear we when when the housing bond when we were campaigning we were we were using a number 1.6 cents and so the fact that we are nicely under that I think is really good but I want to try to go ahead you know I like during these processes and I know our administration likes it too if we can give them as much guidance as early in the process as we can so I want to hear some discussion about this and then I'd like to try to give them guidance hopefully to go ahead and and put the tax increase uh in the budget and we can work from there did your honor I just one question I'm trying to just make sure I understand we're talking about on the 11 cents going up to 12.39 versus or are we talking about something completely separate uh councilmember this would be completely separate the the 1.38 cents would not would not go there it would be accounted for elsewhere and not part of that at all it would just be strictly to service the debt for the affordable housing bonds and so it would essentially create a separate like fund that would be created because we haven't spent the money yet right it would be kind of fenced off in the dedicated housing fund where we would pay the debt from thank you good question other questions anybody have any other questions for david or for john colleagues uh uh charlie go ahead um mr mayor I don't I don't want to throw too much of a sand in the gears here but um hearing uh david tell us that the difference between starting this year and starting next year was a 0.12 cents on the tax rate is that right david did I get that right yeah 1.5 or somebody 38 I have to say I had expected a larger difference than that um and uh I think it makes sense for us to consider uh waiting until next year and so I know that I said I wanted to do it this year but that's because I thought we were borrowing this year um and I clearly had the wrong impression about how this was going I totally understand as the as as madam manager said earlier that um there are lots of different funding sources for the uh five-year plan but I I guess I just assumed that since we didn't borrow last year we'd be borrowing this year and that obviously isn't the case um and so I'm not sure anyway that's that's where I'm at right now so okay um yeah mark anthony thanks even uh thanks colleagues and I uh I definitely see definitely see uh uh virtue and merit um neither doing it this year awaiting I I argued rather rigorously uh last year for going ahead and doing before COVID struck for going ahead and doing it um because I I think I think we should just take yes for an answer um and that is voters said yes um and and they they overwhelmingly said yes to this this bond which to me I think can at least in one way be interpreted as there was preparation and willingness to do what was necessary to fund it now I understand our desire to want to uh ease it or or maybe make it more palatable but I think there's something uh to be said in going ahead and getting that money and not letting it be lazy I mean you know banking it and and and letting that money work because we know this is debt that we're going to have to pay off and and go ahead and integrate it into the taxpayer's worldview now if you will um and and go ahead and take yes for an answer so so and they said yes so I I um I'm leaning more towards going ahead and doing it we know it's we've already said yes to it we know what's coming um I certainly understand the the the desire to defer impact but um you know we can only speculate as to what conditions will be then even the best minds you know it's still speculative so I I'm I'm inclined to just go ahead and take yes for an answer you know voters and go ahead and lock it in now uh and take action and bank that money uh and be in position um hopefully ahead of the game when we start servicing this debt um now so that that's where I am brilliant thank you uh so yeah I also came into this conversation thinking that we needed to raise taxes for this this year or that we would be in trouble next year essentially that if we didn't do it now that we would have a much bigger increase in the future um and was prepared to go out to the community and sell a tax increase um during the pandemic for that purpose because it would be much worse if we waited after hearing from David the difference between this year and next year I feel like it's actually not as you know it's not that much worse if we wait um so I don't feel as concerned about um about doing the increase now I feel like it would be um I feel like it wouldn't be unreasonable to wait until next year given the fact that we're still um in a pretty that a lot of our residents are still in a pretty precarious economic situation and that we're not really um picking the can too much farther down the road if we're only looking at a you know one percent and a and a small you know increase in the in what the tax rate would have to be if we did it this year um versus next year and then also thinking about some of the other things that we want in the budget like potentially being able to raise employee pay or um fund some of our departmental or council initiatives I feel like if we were to raise the tax rate for the bond spending now that it would be much harder to integrate um a pay rise or any of the other things that we might want to do whereas if we deferred the bond increase for another year that we would give a self give ourselves a little bit more room to think about um that you know two cent pay rise two cent increase for for raises or any other um things that we want to do so I'm feeling less urgent about the race for the housing bond now after hearing um the report from David and think I want to if we're going to raise taxes this year I think there are some more urgent priorities that we could put could put that increase toward David did you have a comment or you just are showing up or in case there are questions I'm just available under and answer any questions okay yeah I just I feel really strongly we need to do it this year the voters told us to do it we put it all for a year I just think that people fully expect it I feel like if we start getting away from it uh we're um the the farther we get from that vote the less I think we're keeping faith with our voters and I am very prepared to do whatever tax increase we need to do to raise pay and do this as well and I think we all ought to be I also think if you know I can't imagine uh this year uh you know or planning for the next year uh for a green infrastructure bond which is going we're going to say to people hey vote for this and you know raise your taxes for this if we haven't already done that for the housing bond that people have agreed to uh so yeah I think you know to me this is the year but clearly we don't have consensus on that so we'll have to have some more discussion uh and a couple of our colleagues aren't really with us here able to be heard uh did you on thank you I had hoped to not rehash last year uh it was kind of painful I think I was the only one who was leaning away from raising taxes or initiating the bond and yes like yes Charlie and I and just acknowledging I think that just harkening back to to Middleton's comment around how folks in the community are experiencing COVID right now I think we just want to I mean for you know from 0.38 to 0.5 I lean more towards just holding for another year I think that voters would understand clearly that we're in a pandemic and you know all that's happened in the last year and not knowing what's going to happen the bond is here it's going to move forward it's it's not going to change but um the difference and and and the stories that I'm hearing about folks and their their fear around taxes uh I am mindful that there will need to be an increase in how much that increase will be if we could alleviate 1.38 percent uh right on that recent that's already on on the table I am leaning in that direction thank you all right colleagues um I see council member Caballero is with us I'm I'm here too miss and council member Freelon okay good yeah are we do we need to make a decision on this today I know you said you wanted to give guidance to council I would like to I would like to give guidance but I'd like to give the guidance that I'd like to give yeah well um I just had a quick question about the difference um what is that what do those numbers mean it's 0.5 or 1.5 whatever the difference is what does that mean in terms of dollars for folks if we wait what would the difference be David give me one second I got a spreadsheet I think it has that on there so 1.38 is $31.64 for the average homeowner and 1.5 is $34.39 okay thanks for that uh three dollars thanks thanks for that info um I guess I'd be uh splitting things down the middle I I'm leaning towards uh Mr. Mayor and council member Middleton's uh proposal to go this year thanks thank you council member council member Cobbier I'm not sure if you'd been able to hear the discussion so far those were the fastest orthodontist appointments ever um I have driven there and back uh with two kids so um I'm home now I was able to hear um one of my questions is what Pierce just asked and then I guess my other question is what's I'm I want to understand the risk and I feel like I want to hear from community development folks about if we don't borrow I know we're borrowing for projects coming but like what does that do to their work plan they have created a process based on an assumption and so if we decide okay we're going to punt for another year what does that do to their plan I don't feel like I can make a decision I'm leaning towards going ahead and raising the rate I think we are um risking a lot uh one of the things we know is interest rates are really uh I know we're not borrowing until next year but what if we push I feel like if we push it out one more year I am concerned about what the potential domino effect is and I don't have a clear sense of that so if I might council member um the decision on the tax rate will have no impact on the funding available for community development to deliver on the plan it's just when we increase taxes to start accumulating funds to pay back the debt once we issue it thank you David Mark Anthony thanks and I really appreciate the spirit of the discussion for my colleagues it goes right to the heart thing of who we are and you know of course we want to you know harm the folk but I think it would be helpful to view this in a larger context and that is our values as as a city I mean affordable housing isn't something extraneous to our values it goes right to the heart of even what some folk are struggling with in COVID that is um you know housing housing is impacted by lack of employment uh income and and you know one of the things we talk about all the time in Durham so having a safe warm dry place uh safe warm place a dry place to to lay your head uh is absolutely uh essential to you know everything everything else you do being able to get a good night's rest before you go to school or go to work the next morning um so I it resonates deeply with me um you know wanting to to forego you know any hardship on folk now but one one of the things that's impacting us and we talk about root causes and doing things that will you know strategically impact things at the root and at some point you got to get in and do that work um and and and start you know making commitments to that and it's uncomfortable sometimes uh at first but again and I don't want to sound like a broken record um we you know we we've been given permission and anybody that supported the affordable housing bond supported a tax rate increase so it's a matter of of when not if so you know so so all of us supported the tax rate increase on us if we supported the affordable housing bond uh and I think that you know for the reasons I've stated previously but also I just want to add that this this goes to our values I mean affordable housing was perhaps you know the biggest thing that shows up time and time again or you hear time and time again when you talk to residents and whether it be in our survey or be it anecdotally uh just interacting with constituents in the street this is where the rubber meets the road for Durham uh you know the affordable housing issue so I would I would uh um again say let's let's let's take the yes that we've been given there's sometimes things are a lot of uh quite ambiguous but this is one of those uh few instances in government where we have a clear indication from uh constituents as to what to do I think as reflected by uh their vote um so I I again I I think we should go ahead and do it this year uh and still do the other things that we you know there's some other things we need to do as well this isn't a totality of our decision but I think this is an important piece I'll yield thank you thank you Mark Anthony Charlie I have to say I don't 100% understand the the thrust of those remarks but let me just make it clear to everyone who's watching whether we vote to increase taxes this year to start accumulating money to to borrow the debt necessary for the affordable housing bond or we start borrowing next year will not change one iota of the work that the community development department is doing around affordable housing between now and then not a single affordable affordable housing will be built if we vote to approve it this year versus next year um not one addition there's nothing nothing changes with community development's work plan that's been clear from staff so I want to make sure that folks who are watching and also everyone in the sit in this council understands that this is not a vote about how much we value the issue of affordable housing um that's that's not what we're talking about here uh what we're talking about I'm sorry council what did you say Mark Anthony neither was I okay um but so the an argument that says we should vote for it this year because affordable housing is important to our community I don't really understand that because it's important to me too it's important to everybody that's why we're going to do it bond past uh with the voters we're going to we're going to fund the bond the question is only one of timing of the borrowing and and had community development come forward with a plan that required borrowing during this next fiscal year of course I would support increasing it for the next fiscal year because that's what the plan requires and I'm fully supportive of the plan it doesn't require that we can accomplish every single goal in the affordable housing plan uh whether we start start start the raising the tax for this year or next year this is not a barometer of how much we care about that value it's a question of do we want to raise taxes for this year or next year um and there are good reasons on both sides uh but but that's that's the question that faces us and I for me I would prefer to wait till next year but it sounds like there are four votes for this year and I'm perfectly happy with that so um that's I just wanted to make sure that that was clear to everybody um so thanks thanks if I might respond and I think your comments are a refute in search of an argument um I didn't say anything that even rhymes with community development or their work I don't think I said anything around community development my value comment was about taking what the voters have said and and and and considering that a a an indication of their willingness to accept the discomfort of the tax increase be it this year as opposed to last year I didn't say anything that even remotely suggested that not raising taxes this year is and and that's quite a stretch it somehow suggestive that we're not operating within our values my point was that because we value affordable housing and because we voted for it it could be viewed as an indication of the willingness and readiness of our residents to deal with the tax increase because they in fact voted to deal with the tax increase and that even if that even in in our earnest desire to minimize impact by by deferring it to next year as opposed to this year because we value it we have collectively said with our voice that we are willing to deal with the discomfort because it aligns with our values that's what I meant any other interpretation is I out of out of I'm sorry if it came off that way but they had been in nothing you said even remotely resembled what I was talking about awesome glad to hear that in that case then we get to decide how the community pays for it that's our job that's what we're doing because we've it's not because the voters voted for it we have to raise taxes this year that's all that I meant didn't say either how are you I didn't say thank you I'm actually the one who mentioned community development so I appreciate the clarification Charlie um um I just want to share again I think that we my position is that we should just go ahead and do it otherwise we're raising taxes this year and next year um so because we're already I think I feel like I've heard some consensus on everyone understands that if we want to do anything different than we if our budget is going to be any different than what we passed last year the only way to do it is through a tax increase uh that includes employee pay etc and so it's it is a difference of when we choose to do the affordable housing bond but all we're doing I mean it's just a two-year in my mind consecutive tax increase because we will raise taxes this year to do the parts of the budget that we know we want or at least that I heard that I think we want and we will do it again for the affordable housing bond um I also just think that and this is a conversation that came up with taxes and during our previous presentation we don't print money there's very few ways we can increase revenue and we consistently hear from our community about the things that they find important at a certain point people have to align what they tell us they want and and they have to understand that that comes through taxation unless we cut services that's the only other choice um so again I think we should just go ahead and pass the bond increase or the tax the tax rate for the affordable housing bond um thanks thank you other comments did riana just the question um because I'm still trying to align how we or I guess where we are right now and so with the four of you saying you want to increase so we move from the three cents to the 4.38 cents and then does any of that include that doesn't include any of the items that we've been talking about today in the challenges and current kind of like projects that are all being proposed and so that's an addition that's an addition to that I think that the the three percent that you're referring to was not a tax increase uh it is the percentage by which the administration is anticipating that the property taxes property tax uh amounts will increase but I'm going to ask john allure that you all haven't built any tax increase into this at all am I correct yes that's property tax growth the three percent it's that's the growth in the assess value okay so so then um just to make sure um that I understand and uh that the this 1.38 would be all we would have decided on in terms of tax increases now what did riana ask about would still be decisions we would need to make if we're going to increase taxes for pay and those things there's no there's not a three cents we're already starting with correct okay thanks for the clarification yeah all right colleagues any other questions or comments and are we ready to uh try to give some direction or no uh jillian do you want to make some comments uh no I think that it's clear the majority of the council wants to move forward this year and so I'm happy to give that guidance to the staff all right uh colleagues uh do you agree are we comfortable with that uh do yes I'm I'm hearing uh pierce are you are you good with it yep I'm good with it all right it looks like we have four people at least maybe more uh who are ready to uh support the tax increase for this coming year in our budget 1.38 cents uh or it may change a little david has let us know as we get even closer to the actual knowledge all right do you want to show thumbs everybody shall we all right okay we're we're saying pierce's thumbs up all right thank you very much for that I I feel we made the right decision but you knew that already okay the next uh item that I would like to discuss and I said we would try to do this all about 230 and let's just see how we do here is at least get some uh thought from people because this has been uh mentioned uh didriana talked about at the last council member meeting we've talked about it several of us have had some discussion about it I know the staff has talked some about it um do we are we interested in having on the ballot this year a green infrastructure bond and if we have some interest in that this year um then I think we should hear a little bit about the staff front about what uh time milestones we would have to hit which I know that uh david is prepared to let us know um and if we're if we're not interested in putting it on the ballot this year we don't have to have that discussion so I'm interested in hearing from from colleagues if if you have any thoughts about whether or not you want to want to seriously consider a green infrastructure bond uh for this year and I think didriana had her hand up yeah thank you um you lay on that I just wanted to clarify did we say there was going to be green because I was thinking it was going to be more gray and resilient well that's a that's a uh I use that terminology but we can certainly talk about what I mean one of the so there several things are we interested in it and then what's exactly in it and you know that would have to be the process we'd have to go through and what's in it yeah and I'm thinking more about the aging infrastructure that we have and some of the failed infrastructure um in addition to greening so yes and there's other areas so yeah just making sure that that's clear yeah and we may be uh we may be using different terminologies for the same thing um you know I think that that when I say green I'm not necessarily talking about new I'm talking about infrastructure that is uh supports a sustainable community there we go yeah this thing yes okay um so colleagues uh would anyone like to give any thoughts about your thinking about whether or not we should consider this for this year we don't have to make a decision obviously we can't make a decision on that now but uh should we is this something we should pursue should we try to move it forward should we try to get our staff to start thinking about it um I can certainly imagine um a very exciting uh bond that would include lots of things that our community wants and needs uh in in terms of infrastructure that is supporting a sustainable community uh but we need to think some about the timing and I'm interested in your thoughts and if I could share a little bit of a foreground and that just acknowledging how we've been saying today you know don't let a good you know crisis go unused acknowledging that there I mean just in a previous few um planning and zoning cases that we've seen the conversations around you know traffic and some of the roads that need to be repaired some of the sewer lines and water lines all of those things are factoring into what what I envision a bond with would definitely address but I think on the other side of that is acknowledging that that also creates jobs and opportunities for contracts to be brought online as well and so I'm mindful that it's it's it's an additional tax but there is a lot of benefit to that um and around workforce development and around many other areas especially around sustainability and aligning that with our education uh educational system you know acknowledging that youth uh will need to kind of have some some plans in place to to kind of get up to speed or trained in very new technologies and services that will need to be available in order to do do whatever's next I'm gonna just see that wander yes she has thank you um for recognizing me I would just like to ask mr boy to speak about the enterprise uh improvements and how they are funded uh in totality compared to a geo bond referendum if you wouldn't mind doing that mr boy I think that would be helpful sure I'm happy to so just like our previous conversation about the um the 11 cents that that we use to fund our general capital plan that's um that's the same type of thing we're kind of talking about here a geo bond would would be appropriate for the same types of improvements um the water and sewer lines are all funded through the water and sewer enterprise fund which is supported by rates and and the types of bonds that we issue there are revenue bonds that don't require a vote and um we have a financing plan uh within our current rate projections to cover that needed infrastructure uh likewise any need to have a stormwater improvements are included in the stormwater enterprise fund and are projected to be covered by current and expected future stormwater revenues so the types of things here would be you know capital improvements transportation related parks and rec facilities those those types of things as opposed to anything related to any of our our enterprises would would be where we would be looking for for some geo bonds we do not need a referendum to borrow money for any of the other enterprise funds if we if we need to borrow funds for for that type of infrastructure so so David um I'm going to list some things and you can let me know if these are things that would be includeable if that's a word in in the in the in a geo bond in a general obligation bond sidewalks park improvements trails yes if the city had some energy improvements it would like to make you know solarization um the construction of of that type of stuff yes not the operations of it but the constructions of construction of it um uh so a bicycle infrastructure um how about stormwater stormwater uh we're currently projecting our ability to fund all of our stormwater needs through the stormwater utility rates and we would have access to stormwater revenue bonds non-voted debt if we did need some uh within the stormwater utility so I would not include stormwater improvements generally in that category can I accept pavement markings um traffic lights um I mean once once you get to things that that are are you know operational um I think you could make the argument that paving the streets is an operating cost not so much a capital improvement um you know and so there's there's kind of some some uh some give and take on certain things like in the pasture recall we did we did a bond in 2011 to repave streets um you know I think if you looked in the book of financial management that they wouldn't suggest that paving is necessarily the best thing to borrow money for that that is an ongoing expense that you need to pay for every year and you need to find a way to pay for it every year and and borrowing money um to do that it is it's not the best way to deal with paving needs but also understand that you know sometimes you get way behind and it's the only way you can get caught up so there's there's you know some um some gray areas what about about bus shelters David yeah yeah sure an urban forestry so acknowledging that there are some areas that need to be addressed you mean like planting trees the other like pruning cleanup um that that I mean if you buy some some expensive equipment perhaps but but not the operating costs for that type of thing programatic things wouldn't wouldn't be wouldn't be things that we could borrow money for sorry colleagues um any any questions or thoughts at this point Jillian thank you uh I think it's worth considering for this year specifically for things that um advance our sustainability goals like as you mentioned Steve sidewalks trails transit green energy um those are pieces of infrastructure that I know our community wants and needs and that is part of our long-term plan to cut our emissions as a city um and our sustainability you know what did what did we say 100 percent um carbon neutral by 2050 and um so I would be excited about investing in a bond to do those things um I'm not I feel like I'm not as clear on what other infrastructure pieces we might do outside of street paving um that wouldn't be part of an enterprise fund that we could do with the bonds um so if if folks have other ideas I'm interested to know what they are I think the street repaving has some real opportunities related to sustainability as well with being able to put in protected bike lanes and generally um make our streets implement our shared streets model so I think street repaving could um fit well into our general um goals around around sustainability and green transit whether we put it on the ballot this year I think depends a little bit on like timing and what the economic situation looks like I'd want to put it on the ballot if we think that this is um something that can't wait and I I do think that you know investing in these sorts of green infrastructure projects to fight climate climate change can't wait um but that we are in a position to really make the argument to the community that we need it now um and that and so that we can get it passed I think we did a really great job making the argument to the community that we really needed the affordable housing bond and that um and part of that part of making that argument was work by lots and lots of organizations and people around the city who'd been fighting and talking about affordable housing for a long time I think we would need to make use of those same sorts of like organizations and networks who have been fighting for um environmental justice and sustainability in order to really um sell this need to the community and get and get the bond um get people to be excited about about this kind of bond and I know that the county is probably going to be looking at bonds soon too for schools and um other kinds of development so um yeah I think it's uh Durham's growing we gotta we we need to do we need to do a lot more of this kind of work um and we but I yeah I just want to make sure that we're that we feel like we're in a position to really get out there and and sell it and make sure that we get our community on board. Other thoughts? Mark Anthony? Thanks Steve and thank you Jillian uh I uh I associate myself with everything you said I um I mean viscerally yeah green infrastructure definitely um you know and I think that there are some things and choices and decisions we can make as a city to start um codifying and institutionalizing our commitment to green infrastructure sans bond even as we're operating now within our budget choices now and with our contracts now we can begin to to incorporate that into our culture uh our decision making culture our our money spending culture even before we get to the bond I I just don't know and I'll just be very you know just be very blunt like I'm not normally um let me I just think I don't know if the educational piece has been done yet um in the public I remember the Lyft and and Steve and others will remember some of the meetings we sat in trying to sell the affordable housing bond to some constituencies and I imagine it probably would have been an easier lift if we had a year of education before the year that we were actually voting on the bond um I think there's a lot of communities um in the city that they hear green infrastructure I think the work needs to be done particularly when you talk about it from an equity point of view to to to demonstrate and instruct how that's going to directly impact your your particular street and your particular neighborhood um and I and I don't know given the the engagement challenges we've had with COVID on other things the the work that would need to be done to to educate and to sell and to to um not in all communities but in some communities to to get folk to coalesce around this I just don't know if that that's um a lift we should try and do this year we should definitely begin talking about it I don't know that and I support it at you know 100 but I just don't know all things considered if if we want to put it on the uh on the ballot this year asking folk to commit us to more debt for something I'm not sure we've done all the work in fully explaining uh to our constituencies into the city um and even with that without that there are still some things we could be doing and should be doing as a city to incorporate green into how we spend money right now so it's not like we can't do stuff now without this bond but I definitely think that there needs to be a massive conversation and part of that conversation has to be you know telling folk in certain communities how we're not just going to take money again and we're going to build up infrastructure in those neighborhoods the neighborhoods that normally get it uh or or once again we're going to you know when to raise money and you know uh what's in it for your neighborhood and and I just think that you know just drawing from some of the lessons in the affordable housing bond I'm wondering if we should take some more time to build up knowledge and goodwill before trying to put it on the bond on the ballot this year and if we do put it on the ballot this year I'll vote for it and I'll support it but I'm just wondering about the timing thanks I think that those are good those are really good questions and I think that those are yeah I mean I think that's really the question we face is do we feel like we could do the education necessary in the time frame and I think those are important questions colleagues I said we would say till 230 and now it's already 240 and I don't want to presume on you and the staff I could keep going for a little while but let me make another suggestion that we asked David to give us what the potential timeline might be if we so that we could make a decision about this we would know what the timeline necessary timeline would be and then we if you know one of the things that we could do after that is we could ask our administration to help us think about this a little bit once we know the timeline and we can also talk about it some more and figure out what we think about the timing does that suit everyone I don't want to try to shut this down but I am cognizant of the fact that we have our staff here and you all are here we're all here and would you know be on time so I'm just trying to be mindful of that is everybody okay with that process that I outlined okay I see some thoughts so David could you please let us know what some of the milestones might be that we would need to hit sure that's a quick conversation assuming you all take your normal July recess to get it on the ballot for November it would take three actions the first of which would have to happen in May so you'd have between now and May to decide whether or not you wanted to take the actions necessary to get it on the November ballot if you want any more calendar I can certainly have one drawn up but but that's kind of the first action you all would need to take May council meeting to to hit the November okay okay good so that's important knowledge um Javier uh just real quick and it's either we do it 2021 or we wait till the next municipal election in 2023 or does it matter and it can go on the 2022 ballot because there's always an election under them I mean every year anyway I would need I need to confirm that with our bond council in the city attorney's office because there is some intricacies to that that I just want to make sure I don't give you the wrong answer on that piece I can that can get you all an email about if we don't do it this year do you have to wait two years or can you do it in 2022 thank you good question I hadn't thought of that okay uh so let me then ask um our staff our our city manager and our uh to like maybe give us some guidance not today but to give us some guidance on what some of the categories we've already discussed some of them to you know check in with the departments what are some of the need what are some of the unfunded infrastructure needs that we're talking about so that we could actually take a look at what this might be with with more particulars and with with the equity considerations that we know you all will apply um we want to make sure that these equity considerations are top of mind as I know that they will be for our staff and is that enough guidance for you uh Wanda and company it is mayor it is you can see that we we we need your guidance to help make a decision about this both what what the content of a bond might be and then we'll have to decide about the timing and whether or not we think this is something that we can do on this ballot want to do on this ballot or that we need to wait and we'll have the information about what how long we have to wait colleagues um other thoughts and ideas that you might have that you want to convey to uh the city administration on this again i'm not trying to shut down discussion so if there's anyone who has any other thoughts to offer any other hands okay um all right i will i will uh turn it back over to john or bertha uh or or wanda not sure who's giving us our our send-off today so i believe mayor that we are at the end of the day am i correct john correct and we would be um i don't know if you've finished the council and mayor have finished closing remarks i do have a very few remarks um to close the i don't have any remarks but i'm let me ask my colleagues want and then we'll turn it over to you for the final remarks colleagues would you like to make any final remarks before wanda okay wanda it's all the floor is yours all right well after presenting these budget projections and budget outlook the cip update as well as the economic outlook today we are always hopeful that these topics and real time updates that we've selected provide the important information you need to begin to provide budget guidelines to us later this month uh that will move us another step closer to a proposed budget for 2021 2022 again i would like to thank the staff here today who are experts and do this work as good as anyone and actually better than most they have been recording questions and insights they've been monitoring the chat for issues requiring additional information and follow up as we prepare to close this two-day session i once again call upon an ancestor an american poet and a civil rights activist maya angelo for inspirational words as we continue to work on this budget that reflects our policy and most importantly our heart as we look for hope and light until we return at the end of the month and i quote this excerpt from on the pulse of mourning lift up your eyes upon this day breaking for you give birth again to the dream women children men take it into the palms of your hands mold it into the shape of your most private needs sculpt it into the image of your your most public self lift up your hearts each new hour holds new chances for a new beginning thank you awesome fantastic ending to today madam manager i have one more thing i'd like to do before we go which is just to ask the members of our budget staff and if there are other members besides david of our david and members of our finance staff to make yourself visible on the camera i know we have several of y'all here erin and tony and christina and if there are other members of the budget staff here uh we are we know that behind the scenes usually we get to hang out with you all in this day uh and we we get to go over to the tables that you're madly taking notes at and we get to shake hands and share a few words and maybe a meal and we're not able to do that today but i just wanted you all to be on screen so we could also thank you you we are so grateful to you you are unbelievable thank you and you heard you heard pierce um you're not just uh better than most you're better than all and uh our gratitude to you is is without bounds so thanks for doing doing it all so incredibly well thank you and colleagues thank you for hanging in there for a couple of long days and uh i guess we'll see you on monday night is that right monday night seven o'clock be there be square i'm going to declare this meeting adjourned at two fifty p