Howard, are you here? I got it. All right. Mayor Rivendell. Here. Thank you. Reverend, now do you mind getting a floor, sir? I'm doing prayer. I'm doing prayer. The Reverend Dowell, do you mind saying an extra word of prayer for one of our employees who was injured yesterday? He's one of our senior part rangers. And I want to get his last name right. I suppose I'm just wrong. Radliff. Radliff. I was thinking I'd say that wrong. Oh, no, Radliff. Are you getting a hospital? Yes, sir. I'll give you the. Radliff. Radliff. Radliff. Yes, sir. Everybody needs to create a God for all that you've done for us. So the opportunity to gather around this table for the series continues to expand itself. That continues to prosper in energetic and prosperous ways. We ask for your continued blessings.  We pray for Ronald Radliff, one of our part rangers who was injured. We pray for a speedy recovery. But we know that all things are possible. So we ask for your continued grace upon him, and particularly, Lord, for this city and for this nation of ours. As we mourn, as we grieve, the lost lives, 19 little children, as we grieve their deaths and yet their heavenly reward for the 10 persons who died in that grocery store and for persons in this city. Whether it's through guns or through fentanyl addiction, Lord, we pray that that would sensitize us all to your will and to your care. We ask it and claim it in your name. Amen. Amen. I was asked, I understand that you're under the weather and we certainly lift you up every day. So we ask that. I needed some lifting up yesterday. I feel better the day, but yesterday was rough. All right, we'll send you to check then. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, sir. Ms. Wilson? Yes, sir. Thank you all for another day of budget discussions. We're going to start today with the Municipal Court discussion, which will be fairly brief. I think you're just looking for confirmation of the direction in which we're going with that. And then with the Columbia Police Department pay plan options, we have some examples. I think you all asked for the modeling of the two options. So hopefully we can lead with at least the more clear direction just on the option that we need to pursue. And then there's some additional items regarding that discussion that we would like to go into a second discussion about. Mayor Rick and then I think Mayor Quickman will make that motion at the appropriate time. As to the FY 22-23 proposed budget, this needs and Jeff and I's necessary to take you through the rest of the fund. And I believe we're going to hold discussions regarding hospitality tax and ATACs and capital projects. Right, Mayor Rick? Yeah, something we'd like to move that into a July work session where we really have the time and the efforts to go through it and make sure that the decisions we're making benefit to the community as a whole. Yes, sir. So with that, we've gotten into the court. You all have the proposal that was previously provided. We've looked into that proposal to include hosting the positions for three additional full-time groups. And that's under way. But of course, we wanted to make sure that councils gave us any other directions. We need to discuss the building needs just at a minimum. I have reached out to Richland County just briefly, but I need some additional timing or that from their administrator and their former Chief Magister Judge who would have been more familiar with the Decker facility and any availability they are. If that's even a possibility, then you don't have something there to pay. Well, did you get kind of a warm-up for these things? Is there something you want me to talk on? More of a let me get back to you. I want to talk to former Chief Magister Ed, and I think he thought with our information on the projected use of the facility that they're not using right now, we wouldn't want to, I guess, go into that. And then they need to stay sooner than what they were thinking. So the administrator can, I mean, that he would get back with me on that. In the interim, though, we have provided you all the numbers regarding the preliminary cost to up the courtroom three at the municipal. Currently, which would need new carpet and painting and those type things, just basic repairs. So with that said, and in regards to any additional staffing needs that would probably be necessary if you're adding three additional full-time judges, there are some additional staff through the court and CPD that would probably be necessary, as well as the city attorney's office. So all of that estimate was around $400,000. And we were thinking about a contractual arrangement for the judges. So to go into it, that would be at least for this next year something that we could possibly look at contracting out to get started. But Pam, did you want to add anything to that? Henry and support services did go and assess the court so that they could see what the cost would be. And that's on that last page. This is just based on some general conversation I had with Ms. Knox, Chief Holbrook, and Ms. Jackson about their thoughts on it. Of course, there's certainly room for more discussion and more feedback from the participants. I'm certainly not down at the court, so we certainly want to ask Judge Mangum and the staff down there what their needs are. But those were my preliminary estimates. Questions? Council? If we go to that, Howard. Yes, sir. Marisha, what is the contractual relationship you're talking about? How would that work? Well, I think that there's the possibility of bringing on the judges on a contractual basis. I think some of the potential applicants that are out there might be more interested in a contractual arrangement versus coming on as a full time city employee, which would, of course, be a bit of a savings as well as y'all are getting started with this. It's simply just a contract employee versus an FTE. There's some retirement rules and some things like that that make contract employees attractive for something like this. Really no difference. Well, and just for my clarity, though, will all the contracts be the same, i.e. are we saying still 40 hours? Were they all committing to 40 hours a week? They would have to. I mean, again, I think Council's intention here is to try to reduce the backlog, get three more judges working on a full time basis, which would be 40 hours a week at a minimum if they're working full time. Would this format let us flex into a night court possibility? That certainly can be discussed in terms of Judge Mangum, the ability of the judges, the officers to come at night. I know that is a little bit of a challenge based on the short staff that police officers in working with their schedules, I certainly would let Chief Holbrook weigh in on that. But I know that there's been talk of having a night court. Yes, sir. I think it'd be good to understand if that's an option, because that also changes, then you don't need to renovate a third courtroom. You're just utilizing what we already got at a different time structure. So I do think that's an important piece that if it's not viable, we need to know that as well. And I don't judge Mangum's here. If y'all have additional questions about the flow during the day, it may still be necessary to outfit the courtroom three, though, if you've got four. Well, I think that's what we need to determine if all of that plays in factor as well. Regardless of the night court scenario, I'm thinking you may still need it. Maybe we should get the judge and the chief to address those. Those may generate more if you go to the microphone. Just very quickly say that we're using courtroom three right now. So I haven't seen what's before you. OK, but we're using the courtroom right now. And absent maybe a use that I haven't thought about, it is functional. Certainly everything in our court could use updating. I would not argue if you want to put money into anything, including the bathrooms. You don't like the 1960s look. No. I just wanted you to know that we are using that courtroom now. We don't use it all the time, but we are using it. We use it at least once every two weeks. But you're not using it for the way in which you would be using it if you had a full-time judge in there all the time. We do. We use it for when we have a roster meeting, we have a judge that's up there that takes care of pleas, motions, all the same things. It would not be a jury trial courtroom because we do not have a space for a jury trial. But we have plenty of cases that are not jury trial cases that we could use in that courtroom. And we are using it now for that. Yeah, my understanding from Ms. Jackson was it wasn't as utilized as the others. So is it or isn't it? I guess that's my question with clarity. Is it or is it not? Is it a much smaller courtroom? And right now, we don't have the capacity with the structure that we have to use it as much as we could. We had additional judges. We certainly could. And we could be up and running in terms of the facility from what I understand and how we use it right now. It has all the things we need to be able to do to please motions, the things that come before the court. In a regular courtroom setting, like a traffic court or a criminal court, we would not be able to use it for jury trials because we do not have a place for our jury to sit in that courtroom. Well, I wanted to see what the chief's comments were about the night court. So night court, I think, in theory, is a great concept. One of the challenges we have right now with court is scheduling. And that's not a court issue necessarily. The police department issue, just with resignations, transfers, people working different shifts that occurred after a court date was issued. For example, we would have people showing up at all different times on duty, off duty. I think night court would present some options that may be more convenient, especially considering somebody may have worked the previous midnight shift they could come in before they go to work, which might be helpful. So I think it would just create some greater efficiency. But a lot of it, for us, comes down to capacity. I do see some challenges. In the daytime, for example, we'll call officers to be called in the court so they'll come off the street so that's to handle their cases. The same argument could possibly be made for night court. So I think scheduling would need to be something that's scrutinized. But if looking at a scheduling process that you could work out, both with law enforcement and with the judicial system, you think there could be a benefit there to give more flexibility, which may help us with the caseload as well. So that's what I was curious about. Yes, sir? To summarize, we're looking at budget-wise. We're talking about where are we landing on the suggested judge staffing for Fiscal 23? We have a chief administrative judge, correct? That's correct. Right? And then how many full-time judges, chief administrative judge, full-time? So I think what you all were thinking of with or Judge Meaghan was thinking of was the three additional full-time judges. And in the handout that I gave you, if you were looking at a salary of $88,476. But this personnel, for first, we get to the money in a minute. That's what I'm doing right now. No, is that any substitute judges? In other words, are we just talking about four judges in total? That's what I'm asking. We're talking about what other judges beside the full-time administrative judge, three full-time judges, what other judges? You're welcome to speak. When I talked to you before about the four judges, the way that I envisioned that working was we have bond court, we have preliminary hearings, we have jury trials, and we have what we call courtroom one, which is traffic court and criminal court. And our full-time judges would handle that one day through Friday for the most part. They would need a little bit of freedom when other things come up that they couldn't be on the bench. But that would be pretty much a Monday through Friday. We would have to have part-time judges to be able to fill in, because, for example, bond court is always going to be on the weekend. And so we would need judges to be able to fill in for that. If we move to a night court, we would need judges to be able to fill in for that. We also have some other specialty courts that aren't included in that, like homeless court, domestic violence court, and quality of life court. So when I originally presented it to you, my thought was that we would move three part-time judges to a full-time status. And I understand that you have a different view, but I'm just talking through what I envision. I hadn't said anything, so. OK, well, I thought by the posting that y'all were thinking about doing something else. So my thought was to move those judges to a full-time, three of those to a full-time, move our substitute judges up to a part-time. And I think that would leave four part-time judges to fill in where we needed other judges. And then the four full-time judges would also be responsible for things like continuances, and motions, and drafting orders, and those kinds of things. The administrative portion of what we do. I did the math, that's four to six. That'd be four full-time, two. Are we going to call the two substitute, or are we going to call the two part-time? Two part-time, and then four substitute, is what I just heard. I don't personally think if we move judges to a part-time unit, I don't think we need substitute judges. But if judges get paid for the time that they come to court, and that has varied, it used to be that they would come two or three times a month, now they're coming sometimes six or seven times a month because we're short on judges. So on the four full-time judges, they would rotate some weekends and some nights. Sure. OK, and so, and we would only have, OK. Well, just for my clarification too, so are we going to, is the recommendation, and it may be two different recommendations, I don't know, to go with two substitute or two part-time, or does it really matter? It sounds like two part-time. Two part-time. OK. So if, for example, a full-time judge is doing bond court one week, and then we would have two days of regular court, they would have to be filled by another judge. Well, we say substitute and part-time. Well, we're talking about, is it going to be a substitute? I can also understand that in my head, but what does that mean? Right now, I'm going to work here. Judges work about 12 days a month, 12 to 15 days a month. They are, they receive, thank you. How are you on the phone? How are we, we need you to mute. They receive, our part-time judges receive city employee benefits. Our part-time judges receive city benefits. So they receive health care, part-time judges do right now. Our substitute judges only come in when we do not have judges available, other judges available. And they get paid based on what they actually do. They get a check, and that's it. They don't get any benefits, they get nothing else. So right now, we have two substitute judges who are operating under that system. And then we have five part-time judges. So for clarity, I think what we're hearing is if we have four full-time, two part-time, I think you've got to have substitutes in the back wing, but they only get paid if they work.  Is that what I'm hearing is? I have no idea, Mayor, because I don't seem to understand how it works right now. I mean, we have all these part-time and substitute judges, but I guess because they work, that's why the time isn't being put in. So there's this discussion of having full-time people who just is their only job. I guess, I mean, there's nothing to have to answer the questions of the scheduling because I'm not sure that I'm ever understanding it. I think what we want to make sure is that by addressing the situation that we're dealing with what the backlog and obviously moving forward, keeping the court moving, and I think that's all our goal. So I just want to make sure that as we're moving forward that we're understanding what we need to do for a change as we're advertising, and I just want to clarify, I mean, what I heard and I want to make sure, I mean, if that helps us, is that ultimately the goal that we go for full-time to part-time, I think you're gonna have to have substitutes just in case, but we're not, this doesn't cost us anything to have them at this stage unless they actually go in. I guess. Well, I guess. Are we going in now? I mean, yeah, I guess. The only thing that I would raise is that I thought the purpose of having the full-time would have been to help eliminate the part-time and the substitutes, and it looks like we'll be eliminating maybe two part-times. I just want to make sure that we have the effect that we want. I think we got the full-time discussion was really more or less to knock down the backlog is where we started the discussion. Right, but they're gonna need work after that, so.  How many, in regulars work, how many days a month? Typically. Right now, some of our regular or part- We call them part-time, so that's the confusion, and I'm sorry, but. Okay, so I'm gonna write part-time, you know what it says, regular. But our part-time judges, some of them are working 15 to 17 days a month. I mean, that's the extreme. They're all working at least 12. Okay, so we have four full-times. How many part-times would you recommend? I would like to see all of our judges have a spot in a new system. That ain't gonna happen. We can't do, I don't mean it's not gonna happen, but that's just not how we need to plan it. We need to plan for what you need. So how many part-time judges do you think you need if you have four full-time? I think we need two at a minimum. Two. And I agree with the mayor under that. If you have two part-time judges, then you're definitely gonna need some substitute judges as well. Two substitutes. Wait, so I, yeah, I'm not understanding. So we are going to be putting four full-time. Nothing listed here except for Chief Magnum's role is currently full-time. So these regular judges are only working half a month. And we're saying we're gonna create four people that will work 30 days a month. I'm not really sure why we're then necessarily talking about a part-time. We should just have substitutes for the four full-time judges. They work full-time. They work 30 days a week. Or 30 days a month. About 22. Okay, so right, right. But we're just then what we're proposing right now with part-time and substitute is really just reworking what's currently here and calling it different things. That's all I wanna point out there. But I can give you an example that maybe helps clarify the need. So let's say on a Wednesday in city court. On a Wednesday morning, we have criminal court, we have domestic violence court, and we have quality of life court. That's our basic courts. Then we also have, we could, every other Wednesday, have a jury trial. And then every Wednesday morning, we have bond court, and we have preliminary hearings. So that's six courts that are going on on a Wednesday. Now I give you that example because that's our busiest day. But that's a day when we need six judges. We have six different courts going on. I have six courtrooms. I mean, on other days, we have four or five courts going on. So every day we have four courts. That's our minimum, except for on Fridays. We don't have an afternoon court. You're asked now, Howard. I got it. All right, well, to just for maybe, I don't know if I'm muddying the order or for clarification, if we have the three additional full-time judges, the role of part-time and substitute would be when folks are out, maybe. And then maybe weekend work, night court. Is that what we're looking at? And it would be also those days when we have more than four courts that our full-time judges are handling. So if we have a judge that's in on a Wednesday in criminal court, one in bond court, one in pre-limbs, one in jury trials, we've still got quality of life and domestic violence, we've got to have a judge for that. We're doing bond at Alvin S. Yes, twice a day. So we're doing bond court at Alvin S. So one person has to go out to the jail. And that's 365 days a year. We do bond court. I'm looking at it going, I'm back to that you have four full-time, two part-time, they could be substituted or they could be part-time however you wanna call them, but that sounds like what we need. But their part-time means that they are an employee to get benefits with a completely different structure budget-wise. Their substitute is simply they're just getting paid the fee for service. They're coming in just to provide that court for the day, getting paid $300 when leaving. So we do need to talk about whether it's going to be substituted truly or part-time because I'm not budgeting in fringe benefits, personnel costs, et cetera. Well, it is what we need, I mean, what we have structures here in this budget. No, seriously. So why can't part-time judges also be substitute judges? At the same time or move, I'm not sure what you're asking. Could they be moved to substitute current judges? No, what I'm saying, a person in the position of a part-time judge, why could they not also be considered a substitute judge if an emergency arises and someone needs to handle a court? Well, that's, I mean, they are, they are our part-time judges right now are the first place we go when we need, we have somebody that's not available. We try not to use substitute judges because we pay them by the visit. So we use them as little as we have to. Right now, because we have so few judges, we're using them more than we ever have. But yes, the goal would always be that the part-time judge fills in any time that there's a need. The substitute judge is the emergency judge because we're paying them for each visit. The part-time judge is salaried, so we use them as often as we can. But there will, even with a part-time judge who's in private practice, there will be conflicts. There will be times when they have to be in court, they're not available. And that's the same thing for substitute judges too. Sure, yeah. That's okay, I can ask a question. I think some of the problems are with titles here to be perfect anyway. We have four full-time positions and I wouldn't care if we had as many substitute judges as you want as long as they're kept under 30 hours a week and treated as they're not FTEs and enough good benefits at that point. They just get the substitutes to the $300. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Just as many substitutes as you want to have, but you've got to keep them under 30 hours a week. What do you mean? Excuse me, tell me where I'm missing. No, I don't think you're missing anything, but again, I don't understand how the part-times and the substitutes right now aren't being used to that. I mean, I hear us saying we don't have that many, but as long as I've been at the city, it's just always been a whole lot of judges and part-time, substitute, whatever.  I don't understand why we're having the problems we're already having if we're maximizing them. Other than, I think the judge says they have other jobs. So if these four are gonna be working full-time, great. And then substitute or part-time, I think substitute would be better because they're not full at full, you know, an FTE. Well, right now we only have six judges working. Right, seven, totally. In the scheme of things, that's all we have now. Here's the view. And the guys and gals, ladies and gentlemen, who are regular judges, aren't working full-time. But if there's the issues or what they are, again, as with all the things we're talking about today, whatever we do, we need to be doing something so we don't continue to have the same issues going forward. I 100% agree with that. That's why I'm trying to... If it's how we're scheduling the courts or how if, you know, either you got the capacity to do something where you don't. And so this idea that we're running however many courts, six on one day, but then we don't ever have enough people. Then I mean, I'm not understanding what the, why are we having that many courts on a certain day? I mean, I don't know. I'm not down there, so I don't wanna speak to it. And that's why I'm not answering your questions, Mr. Taylor. Because I don't understand how it's going to go right now. I understand it more than I think I do. I mean, here's, I think it would help us to have a, if we had a sample schedule of what you're talking about. Cause you only have three courtrooms. You may have six courts on Wednesday, but you ain't got but three courtrooms. But we do preliminary hearings by WebEx, so that's all done virtually. Okay, that's what I was saying. That's why I think it would help us. I think if we had a sample, a sample scheduling, I mean, there's court runs seven days a week, right? Cause of bond court. So you can't just, so it's not just a money through Friday, Friday deal. So if you have four full-time judges and you have, let's just say you have three courtrooms and it's just, so you just gotta, you know, somebody needs to build a typical weekly schedule so you can see just what it takes to staff it. And then you take into account some vacation and sick time and those type of situations too.  The question comes, how many substitute, I'm gonna use that word, judges that you need to augment your four full times. And again, and it's been mandated that those substitute judges stay under 30 hours a week. Period. That's, well, that's right. I guess that's how, but it seems to be what they have. And I just wanna be clear, the judges that we have now are working harder than they've ever worked. They are scheduled for more courts than they've ever been scheduled and they make our part-time judges, our part-time judges make 35 or $36,000 a year right now. So that's what, I mean, they're giving up. No one is insinuating that nobody's not working hard. I mean, again, the question is we started down this road because we were told and rightly that we had this big backlog and the question came is how do we address the backlog? And I think this council and our staff is committed to doing something. The question is we gotta do it in a financial way that works for all those. Unfortunately, the state doesn't let you find folks what I think are fear amounts for some of the crimes that we deal with. And so, you know, it's figuring out how to do it. And again, I think if you would give us a typical two-week schedule on how it would work, then you could figure out how many substitute judges you needed to have so that, again, I would think you would put them on a rotating, like, own-call basis or, I mean, do it like doctors at a hospital, maybe. I don't know, but. We have a system of no days. That's what we use at the beginning of every month. We get the no days based on what the court schedule requires. And like I say, that may be the perfect way to do it, but the question none of us know is how many substitute judges? If you had four full-time judges, how many substitute judges would you need to operate seven days a week in a way that help us reduce our backlog? Well, Mr. Mayor. Maybe it's me and maybe it's my lack of understanding of what's needed to. I think the central theme of what we're talking about is that we got a volumous backlog of cases. And we have not, in a fiduciary way, handled those things so that frequent fliers are there. So what do we need? And we're talking about that. If we're going to eliminate, cut and have, a move that backlog number down instead of up. Do we need four full-time judges? What do we need? And for me, it's not clear. To me, right now, in terms of what we need to make sure that this backlog doesn't continue to increase, and I admit to you, and I agree with you, judges work hard. They work hard, but is that decreasing the number of cases that are backlogged? Is it four-time judges? And yes, it's a financial responsibility, but how serious are we to eliminate that backlog? I mean, it's continuing, and it continues to grow. So if it's four full-time judges and 10 part-time judges and 20 substitutes, I know that's the thing, I know it. We need to decrease the backlog. And we just can't continue to talk about a backlog without putting into place something that is going to legitimately and authentically decrease the backlog of cases. Well, I think what we're missing that may help us all is to see the plan to reduce the backlog. So for instance, because my big concern is bringing on part-time folks and not needing them because we reduced the backlog in six months or something like that. But I think that if we could see tangibly how, and I think I sent an email about the cases that we're moving now versus what you anticipate that we'll be able to move, then for the analytical folks down on the other end that might help them understand how that works. And for me, the need to have them on an ongoing basis. But then if we add all of those, oh, I know what it was. I do have a recommendation that we use maybe the substitute judges. Because I think the concern here is we don't know what this looks like. Like we don't know what this, reducing the backlog is gonna look like. We need y'all to help give us a vision of what that looks like. One of the recommendations I would have is maybe using the substitute folks or to help with the backlog or something. I don't know, I just need to see more of what the plan is besides just hiring them, how this works out to help achieve what we're trying to achieve. And I will be glad to provide you a schedule and all those kinds of things to help you make better decisions in terms of the judges. I just wanna make sure that everybody in here understands that judges don't schedule cases. And so I don't have the authority to do that. And so the backlog would have to be through court administration. The judges are available and present and will be in the courtroom whenever we are needed. But I don't schedule cases. So does that mean someone else is better able to answer that question? That comes through the city manager and court administration. Judge, may I ask? Thank you. I'm sorry to you. I was just wondering, maybe y'all could work together on that quite possibly. I think we're coming to a crossroad where we need to get some clarity because from a court organizational standpoint, how it operates, we need to coordinate this because we can't make a judge decision on exactly what we need because multiple days, as y'all heard, we have multiple courts. We still have bond court at Alvin S. Glenn and we gotta remember, somebody has to go out there. The county used to do it for us. They don't do it for us anymore. So that plays a whole different role in it. But not understood. I do think we need to understand how this is gonna affect the backlog and how it's gonna keep the court from getting a backlog if we make this decision. And somewhere there seems to be a disconnect in how we're gonna schedule that. And it sounds like the administrator and the chief judging to get together and provide us a structure because I don't think it's crazy if we just go hire four people and expect it to be fixed and that's not the solution. I think we wanna know, I think we were under the impression this may be the solution, but as we're getting into the weeds, I think we gotta have a more strategic plan to address that because that's gonna have effect on our officers. Obviously our expenses, our courtroom needs. You know, I do think we need to fix that third courtroom anyway. I mean, clearly we need it in a little better shape but if we can make it operate. But I would suggest that we get some type of plan that shows us how the schedule would work, how the cases would get done and how it'll affect that backlog. And how we can schedule. Maybe who's the right person to schedule the cases are so we can make it happen. And I'm with you. I'd say we go ahead and I think ARA money might be the right avenue for fixing the courtroom space up. Just to consider that. I think that's what we need.  And I think that proposal too does need to include what night court would look like. So I think we don't have enough information to make that decision. Judge, just a question of inquiry. Yes, sir. How far back does our backlog, 2010 or 2012? They won't take my recommendation to this. Okay, thank you. 2012 is not 2010. Thank you ma'am. Thanks, y'all. Now I think you're best to go ahead. Yeah, Mr. Mayor, I would think and of course I buy into what you just said a moment ago and that is the development of a strategic plan. If we've got cases dating back to 2012, we've dropped the ball. The ball has been dropped. That strategic plan ought to be a combination of what you just said. What Ms. Wilson I think is indicated and what Mr. Taylor has so put in a way that is doable and perhaps fixable. It would seem to me at this point that if we've got cases dating back to 2012, we need to have a strategic plan that's going to outline what a typical day in court is all about and how it works. We're not going to decrease our, we're not going to decrease our load, our case loads, especially those things that are eight, 10 years in the rears. That plan needs to be inclusive. It needs to be intentional. And it needs to be so that whomever comes in to carry that ball needs to have a ball that is doable and very straightforwardly. I'd just like to add one last thing. And if we have that done, it will help Ms. Fielding Pringle run the public defender's office, the Richland County Public Defender's Office of which I was a great member of way back, way back, way back. But when we have that plan and we say these are the number of cases that we're moving and what we anticipate, that helps them plan and know what their staffing needs are gonna be too. So I think that that's important so that they're not just guessing about what they think they may need. So Ms. Wilson, can we have Ms. Jackson, Judge Mangus get us a courtroom plan with a proposed schedule and strategic how we're going to address the backlog along with taking on the cases that are going on a day-to-day basis so that we can, all right, this is what we need. It's for full-time and X amount of substitutes or whatever it is so that we can move forward. We know what needs to be done. We know financially what the ranges are gonna be so we've got some good there, but the reality is what we need to know is is that gonna solve our problem? We good with that? And the budget accordingly. Yeah, and the estimated cost to do it. Because I did, I have, you know, I thought Judge Mangus gave us a good kind of proposal early on and then every other department looked at it so we just need to consolidate the prosecutorial part, the public defender part, the judge part and then the capital part. And again, make the recommendations on the, I see Ms. Jackson here on how we administrate this thing to make this stuff fall to where we can knock that backlog down. And I would just ask, how has our call for the posting for judges, are you getting pretty good responses? When I checked on Friday, we had seven applications and three of them were for current, rather than from the judges that are current. Okay, you answered my second question. Thank you, ma'am. Howard, Howard, do you raise in your hand or? I can't. Okay. It was my understanding that the 6,000 plus cases that we have on backlog, the vast majority of them will never come to trial, but we have to go through a process that is kind of labor intensive to clear off the backlog. But I think our goal should be to prevent any further increase in the backlog as we are fiddling down the 10 years worth of backlog. And Howard was right. And I think part of why we want to understand a strategic plan, not only take care of the backlog, but moving forward that we don't end up with a backlog. So are we hiring enough judges? I mean, and how that's gonna rotate in considering the different courts and the locations that we have, how that plays into it. Ready to move forward, Mr. Mayor? Yes, ma'am. Part two is the Columbia Police Department pay plan options. Ms. Pamela Benjamin, Assistant City Manager for Administrative Services. We'll take you all through a couple of examples of the options that we presented at our last meeting. And again, we'll have some additional discussions related topics in executive session. Good afternoon, everybody. Let me try to make sure I can walk us through this and it doesn't get confusing for you all because I wanna make sure that this is as simple as possible. What I presented for you last time was working with our consultant. There are several different scenarios that we can implement in order to execute a new pay plan for the police department. And so the things that we talked about last week were moving our officers to new grades. And the last page, I think you guys have that. The last page on the back outlines those new pay grades. I did not bring the comparisons from the last meeting, but I can make a copy of that if you guys need that. So essentially, you know, here it is. That's what you got here, the Jane Smith. Yeah, so what I was trying to do. What I was trying to do is give you an example of kind of what that looks like. It's the same sauce. Try not to get confused. Everybody have one. Everybody got one of those? So if you look. Look at the one that has the cover sheet. One you just handed it. So on that page when you turn over, you'll see that you'll see option one, proposed pay grades listed are the proposed classification titles, the current grades. Everybody see that police cadet 104 current minimum. Yeah, you have that. It's not up here on the screen. Mr. Taylor, I just want to make sure we reference back to remind you of what we discussed last week. And so then you have the current maximums, the proposed pay grades and the proposed minimums and maximums, everybody see that? So hold that out so that you know that that's what we talked about last week. It's the one with no date on it. Yeah. It's this one right here, this chart. Go to those pay grades. You'll see here that there are steps that go out to 15 steps. And so potentially when we get, implement this new pay plan, then the officers will be able to see where they step, every single step they go. And you'll see the salary increases as those steps go through. So that's one part of the plan is to implement steps and to break the police department out in its own individual plan with its own new pay grades. So everybody's there. So then we had the discussion about the two different implementation strategies. So we'll go back to that. So implementation strategy one, we had two actually that we talked about yesterday last week. So with these implementation strategies, the first thing that you have to do is to have to take everybody to the new proposed pay grade and the new proposed minimums. Okay, does everybody see that? So once you take each officer to the new pay grade, then the determination has to be made whether how you're gonna place them on their new steps with the new pay plan. One option was to do what was called range penetration where you would take that officer if he or she is at 20% within their pay range, their old pay range, you would take them to 20% within their new pay range. In order to be cost effective, we were capping that at 10% and that allowed some movement from the new minimums to their new pay grades, to their new pay ranges. The second option was to use years to move that officer to the step that's appropriate. So based on wherever they were, the years of service they have, then they would be placed on a step that corresponds with that year of service, that amount of time here at the city. So let me just walk you through this so you can kinda see the examples. So if you turn to the next page, you'll see John Doe, police officer. So in this scenario, he's at a pay grade 108, remember our last previously, at our old pay grades, 108 is the police officer, and you'll see those ranges. This person would be moved to the new pay grade, which in this scenario is a 203, which is the same as a police officer, and those are the new pay ranges that would be implemented. Everybody see that? 48 is the minimum midpoint. So in the calculations, you'll see their current pay is 46,273. Their new minimum is 48085. So they would get a 3.9% increase to go to the minimum. So that's the basic part. You gotta do that first because you can't have any employee who works below the minimums that you put in place. So with a range penetration, because this person had equivalent to the years of their service, they would be adjusted in the new pay range and they would get an increase of $4,128, which would end up them being at step two based on the fact that they have been employed with the city for around two years. Actually it's a little less than two years, but it's close to two years for this person. As you see in my note below, you see that there's not much difference in this person because they are a new person, but that's where they would be step two. For the hybrid year, you see that they would get about the same increase because their years of service and where they are in their range is relatively the same. So in this scenario, that person, you wouldn't see a great difference between those two situations. Anybody having questions about that? I know that's a little bit confusing. Oh, the range penetration. So the- $1,800. So the $1,800 takes this individual to the new minimum of the pay grade and it would be the same regardless of the option we chose, regardless of the steps. Because remember, your first step that you have to do with any of these options if you have to take a person to the new pay grade and the new minimum ranges. So they cannot make below the minimum ranges. So that's the first step. But you will see a difference if you turn the page to the next option with Jane Smith. Okay? So let's look at Jane Smith. So again, basic concept is that we're taking them from one pay grade to their new pay grades. We have to make an adjustment to take them to those new minimums. In this particular example, what do you see? The current salary is over the new minimum, right? So what do you think she's going to get? She's going to get nothing because her current salary is over the new minimum. Okay, everybody follow me there? But then you'll see that because she has worked here six years, she's further along in that previous range. So that increase is $5,347 and puts her on step four. If you use her position on her current pay range and put her into the same position on the new pay ranges, okay? And that's going to put her at a step four based on the way that we're plotting our officers on these new steps. If you were to use her years of service, you'll see that she's going to get a little bit more money because she has more time in service. So what we've seen out of modeling this with our different officers is that the hybrid year gives more credit for user service and gives the officers a little bit more money based on their user service as opposed to where they are on the range. Because if you had an officer who was an officer that came here relatively soon, not too long ago, we had the opportunities to give them some pay increases so it moved them further in their ranges, right? But some of the officers who are here for a longer period of time, they were not given those increases as often and they're not as far into their ranges. So giving them credit for the years seems to remove some of the compression to write their salaries a little bit better and get them all started in a new position that's commiserate with their time and their experience. So once we establish where the people are, then that's when they would start on the steps. So Jane would start at step four if you did them. Range penetration or step five and then you'll see she would have step six, seven, on out for 15 steps. The 15 steps is based on a 3% increase for every step. It's a little over 3% for every step and so that's the model that you see before you. Yes, sir. So she would start at step four or step five. Okay, well, which one would it be? It would be step four, if it's the range penetration strategy or step five is VISTA year service. There are three, I think it's 3.4% every year. Yes, sir, mayor. In the hybrid year, it's about exactly the same. He had less than a year of service. So he hasn't moved. He had a year and six months. So he hasn't moved any in the range. He started pretty much where he started from his first day of hire. I'm just using it as that's the mechanism for which they would be given credit for time. So you're right, in this particular scenario, he didn't have any time. So anybody would be adjusted for time and these are models that we certainly can, talk through. Yes, sir. Wait, the end of six months. That was our option. So what? Everybody on there, yes, sir. Once you have everybody on their step, then every year it would, no, sir. It's 3.9 to get him to the minimum, the new minimum. The steps would be 3.4% every step. Yes, sir. So they stayed in the same category. Right, right. Up a category, you get the raise plus a bump. So if you moved up a category and you were, let's see, I don't think I have this slide up here. For a, say they moved to a corporal. So they were moved to. We just don't stick Jane does. So a 207 would mean that she's gotten a promotion.  Time's going by, so she's going for making. Let me tell you. She goes and if she goes, if she gets promoted, does she build in the same step, right? No, not necessarily. What happens with this? Once we get a promotion, what happens with this? No, not necessarily. What happens with this? Once we get them where they're going to be, then they'll start off at step one if she was promoted. I mean, of course it would depend on it. No, Mr. Till, I think. First, it seemed like. You would go back to step one unless that means that your salary would have to be reduced, right? So because you don't take anybody's salary from them, so they would get the start at the minimum, or they would get the amount of increase for that promotion, which in this system would be about 10%. This aggressive step period for retaining if they want to stay in that category or not. Right. Right. If they want to get promoted, they would move to the new. New pay grade and then they would be on the proper step. Police officer. And she would, if she wanted to be promoted, she might become what an investigator, she corporal or a sergeant. But then she would go depending on what her pay was, because at night, maybe she had a whole lot of years already or something. We also help see a pathway. Howard. Mr. Mayor, do I understand that the hybrid starts in January and the other model of option one starts in July? Well, we haven't decided on that yet. Okay. I think that's the discussion yet we're at to have. It's when was this because there's, you know, this is just the beginning of a lot of different pieces that we need to discuss about how that affects overtime, other things. So I think we want to be able to understand at a good point. I think ideally we're somewhere in between. I think it'd be impossible for us to start July one. My only question and it may be a necessary evil, but I learned a long time ago, the more complicated you make compensation plans, the less gain you get from it. I mean, is there anyway, if we settled on something here, is there any way to simplify this to make it easier for our staff to understand? Yes. Once, once we settle on it, we definitely can can make it easy to understand that. That's critical. You're right, Mr. Taylor. Oh, just because like this, just look, that's right. You're just looking at this. See, we were both bewildered by it until that last line went all the way by. You know what I'm saying? Well, I think I think right. Yeah, I see what you're saying. Yeah. And we can, we can certainly, we'll have lots of meetings. We can, you know, talk. In the digital employees, you know, the question really is to, you know, which approach we want to take to move forward. So your question is? My recommendation is that we do the hybrid. When you look at the current staff we have and you model it out, you will see that, you know, some people just been lucky enough to get here when we were given increases and other people didn't. And so the hybrid gives them credit for being here, sticking with us, and it makes some of those, writes some of those flaws. Well, the $64,000 question is, Chief, will this solve our retention issue? I don't know, but you got to ask the question. It's taken me out. Yes, I think it will. I mean, I certainly think it makes, it's probably the most progressive, you know, pay option I've ever seen in my career. I think all the things that we hear about in formal meetings such as this or, you know, a parking lot hustle is you want to know what you make when you get here and what you're going to make five years and 10 years, and I think this gives us that, you know what your maximum earning opportunities are and it shows you the pathway to get to that. So I think it does that. And then the only other question I have is, and I think this is job well done. Ms. Harvard, I'd ask you to bear with me when I say this is, I do think we, you know, we got some steps that we need to put in, we do this, we need to put in, you know, some levels of expectation of where we want to be with net increase of force over the course of the next, just probably this budget year is all we probably need to do. Yes, sir. You know, I would, again, I think city manager mentioned a second ago, you know, as we increase the level of the force, we need to see, and this goes really everywhere in all departments, not just police, that we bring the overtime down as we increase the thing and then make sure our folks are all getting medical assistance that they need so we can hopefully reduce the amount of leave that we take. All those things, if we control those, that's what allows you to be able to do this kind of, almost like what we call it, sharing the wealth a little bit. But I'm with you on this. Thank you. Ms. Benjamin. Yes, sir. If we move forward with this package, great work by the way, that's the exact chart we asked for. Thank you. This, we are still continuing forward with take-home cars in this budget across the board, correct? Yes, sir. I think that's been budgeted for the cars, yes, sir. I don't know if that's a one-to-one, though, but it's a phase in a man, yeah. And then opportunities for our officers for off-duty hourly work. That's completely separate, correct? Yes, totally separate. Perfect. Just want to make sure. I would suggest that we target the beginning of September, which would give us time to work out the kinks and adjustments, and that should be our target if we could shoot for that. Like I said, I think making it a less easy for everybody to understand, too, let us put the expectations together, allow us time to put everything in a package that we all can embrace and get out there, but have a time frame set for the beginning of September. I think that's a good goal. I think just trying to push it out earlier, we would end up causing mistakes, and I don't think we want to do that. And then a question kind of going to what Mr. Brennan was saying. As part of this, I'd love to get a report back from HR and the chief that shows what the earning potential is, not just the salary potential, but the earning potential. Again, are we requiring overtime? If we're requiring overtime, how does that factor in? How much optional overtime can I... But people know what they have options for.  I was going to give it to you when we went in. He's not going to go through it, but to answer some of those, those are just basic questions I think he could probably answer. And then I did have one other question that came up last time. But when USC, we charge them, do they pay directly to our officers, or do they pay directly to the city? And they're on city time. They're off duty, and USC pays directly to the officers. And I think Mr. Taylor, I think each question that you were interested in is addressed in that memo. And I'm glad to explain further if you'd like. Okay. Just a complimentary word. I think this model that you presented to us today is very doable. I think the only issues... The only issues we have is time parameters. What time? When is it going to take place? I think the hybrid model seems to offer some real, essential possibilities. My only concern is if we don't do it now, it's... I'm sorry. September, is that the global date? Then we need to do it as expeditiously as possible. Thank you. I think the hybrid year model will have beneficial effects for our current employees. And I share it with a couple of you all, running into some guys this weekend working on Memorial Day. And the new folks seemed happy because they, you know, they're coming in on a good number, but there was a gentleman who had been there for five years, and he pretty much said, I've been here for five years, and it took me five years to get, you know, just a little bit more over what the other gentlemen were working. So I think that if they know, if our long-time employees who put in time know and understand that there is a value to the years of service, that's gonna go a long way. That's precisely the hybrid model. I think it targets exactly that audience that we know we've struggled to retain at two to seven years. Let's be realistic. That's our biggest challenge. It is. I know I'm not trying to throw a monkey wrench in it because I agree that the hybrid model is the best. I just want to be clear about how much it costs and that there, and from this, I think Mr. Taylor said it perfectly when you start getting into pay plans and the complexity of them, the hybrid based off the modeling and what we've shown you today is the best way to go to pay for the hybrid, which is the number we showed you last week. Also, I want to be clear because that didn't resonate with me either at first, and I think this is something employees may ask. So Pam, can you touch upon when you, when we cost out the hybrid model, you're really costing it at 0.5% of a year. So I don't want, our employees, I want to be very clear. If you were to, to, it's just the cost inferential to make this doable for us. What we showed you all was around $3 million, which is what I think we need to stick with. And that, Pam, can you explain the difference between 0.5% or 100% or a quarter of what that ends up, that differential is to price out the hybrid model? I think what Stacey did for us was show it to us at 0.5%. 0.5 will be January, correct? It would. That's what we originally said. That's what we originally said. 0.7.5. Well, I don't, I don't know. That's what, that's what I'm, that's why I'm raising the issue because we did it at 0.5, and I was suggesting starting it at January, yes sir, but we maybe could keep it at 0.5 and go ahead and bring everyone to the minimum and then in September. And then work our way, because you've got to bring everybody remember that first step. But the three number was, was what I was saying January. That's three, yeah, that's, that's point, that's half of what the annual cost is. Let me let her raise my, it was. No, sir. No. That's what I was saying, yes. I was saying if we were doing the hybrid and at that point in time when I understand what the three million equated to, we was, we could do that but started at half a year, like you're saying. That's correct. So 1.7, 1.7 and change is the 0.5. That's a different 0.5, which I didn't recognize that. So that's why I want her to explain it. Yeah. And I'm, it's, it's kind of tricky to explain, but try. Look at, do you have that? I think you were saying you were going to show it to them what it would cost if you, can you explain the concept of what I'm even talking about, what Stacey did because. And if you look, when you look at this sheet that I'm passing around, you'll see the different options. Does everybody have that, the color? That's okay. No, I just, I just need one more. We're good now. I think everybody has that. Except Mr. DeVall. I don't know if he has this, but. We can maybe scan it and email it. Okay. So everybody, does everybody see that chart up top on that? So these are the prices for the different implementation models. Okay. For the full year. So let me walk, let me walk you through it. So you'll see that 866,152. That is to bring everybody to the minimum. That's the. Or how, what period of time? To bring everybody to the minimum happens once. Everybody's salary is adjusted to the minimum. And that happens one time. That's correct. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. One time. That's a 12 month cost. It's a one time cost. Whenever we do it. Okay. Well not reoccur. That's right. So of course you have to remember that that figure adds into the new personnel budget for the police department. Right. So going forward, their total personnel budget is increased by whatever we do right now. Right. Everybody understand that. Right. Well, other than. We're actually. The question is, you deal with a police personnel budget for fiscal 23. It has 36 unfunded positions. Excuse me, unfilled, but funded positions. So I don't even, I don't want to further complicated. But yes, whatever we do, you'll have to, we'll have to model out how much it'll cost for. Him staffing up for the chief staffing up for those positions that he said he's going to fill. Right. Are they funded in the budget or not funded? Yes. The funded in the budget. Yes. They'll be funded. But again, this is why it's important for me to understand which model y'all want to go with. And that's why it's important for you to understand. I got you. But I also need to know the parameters. So we've got 36 funded positions that aren't filled. And then we filled over the course of 12 months. You have some offset off of those salaries unless you're putting them in there filled at a schedule over the course of 12 months. Right. And we were, what we've said that he's aspiring to do is 60. So we're on budget for that. Okay. So budget for 60. And he's in a net. So Pam, for the, for, you said that it increases, the personnel budget increases. What would that cost be for bringing to minimum implementation option? So I don't have the total amount of the, their current personnel budget. Is that what you're asking me, Dr. Brussels? No, I'm asking how much the person, how much it would change recurring, what would be the recurring cost of that option? The additional, I mean, it doesn't matter. This is it right here. This is it. So an additional 866,000 we should budget for every year. So that's just bring it when, remember when she said either range penetration or hybrid, you got to bring everyone to the minimum that first step. That's what that 866 is. Okay. And then that 866 is going to get built into either range penetration or hybrid. Right. So then that's going to be your ongoing. Your annualized costs. So this is not really an, like this is what we have to do regardless of what we got to bring them to. So it's not really an option. It's bringing that. Okay. Right. You got to bring them to the minimum. Exactly. What either option A or option B got to do that. Got it. Okay. And then if you all look down to the next you see class year parity, that's giving them credit for being in their current classification. So if they got promoted. That's giving them credit for that. And as you see, that's $2 million. Higher year. Right. Well, I'm just trying to explain what they have in front of them. The higher year is the one that gives them 100% year for year for their higher year. So what the hybrid does, if we can skip down, and this is an example of like Ms. Wilson said, we gave you the 3 million because that was half. So what you do is you take the difference between their years in service and their years in their class. You subtract that out, take half of that, and then add it to their user service. And it gives you a mathematical calculation that's the hybrid. So that total is 2.4. That total is 3. 3.4. Where's that sheet? 3.4. When you add the 2.4 to the 866. Yeah. About 3.3. 3.1. Okay. It's 3.143. Okay. It's 3.143. That's 0.5. Okay. Just to clarify, that's adding the 866 to the 249 up. Yes, sir. You got it. So the, this is what I want to show you so you can see how you can, you can make some cost adjustments for both plans. The one that I just gave you, that's this one with the multiple, that's 0.25 for the years of service. You see it's 2.49 million. You see that? You see that on the sheet that I gave you? So this is what I'm trying to show you is if we do 0.5% of their years, the difference in their years is 3.14 million. If we do 0.25, it's a 2.49 million. So we could, you know, and I wanted to show you if you did 100%, that's that 4.8 million. Y'all seeing how you're tracking with me? How if you change the percent that you give them credit for the years, it affects the cost. And so we have those flexibilities to make those adjustments if we wanted to spend 4.8 million. We can give them 100% year for year. I think the hybrid is, I mean, to me, that creates a balance. It takes care of our officers who've spent time there. It levelizes out the playing field. And with the range that we have now, you got an idea of what you can do from promotion-wise and where you can be where you want to stay. You've got a forecast. This is a roadmap for our succession plan for somebody. I think this is what we were looking for. Right. So it gives you that. So the options are, you know, what percentage you want to put weight on the years. You want to do it at 100%, half of it, or 0.25. I wanted to show you all those different versions. So you can see that the costing is different based on how much weight you put on the years. Well, we want to stick with the hybrid as to when you recommend it. So it's, they're all the hybrid, but they're the hybrid based on how much credit you want to give somebody for their years of service. Again, like I said, the 3.143 is giving them half of the percent, and then the 2.490 is giving them 25%. The hybrid year is the calculation that places employee in their newly recommended rate based on a hybrid between their time spent and current classification and total time. I think that makes the most sense. Well, and I don't think we're clarifying this. I really have to dump things down for me, but we're saying the same thing a little bit different way. So my recommendation is the hybrid. I think what the discussion at the moment is, what value you're putting on a year for service. I'm looking at 3.1 million because that's all I can do because I don't have a way to calculate it any other way than what's in front of me. Well, they have this? Yeah, right. That's the one I'm talking about because that's what's in front of me. See, that's what she's saying in here. It's too different. This model is at a quarter. This is at a half. So there's a different percentage. This is the model that I've been calculating in my head. It's already added. It's already added. It's already added. It's already added there and it's already added here. That's the guy. That's the client. Yes, sir. It's already added. We're valuing a year's of service at 25%. So this 2.4 includes the 866. It's not an add up. So you got a hybrid year here and a hybrid year here. This hybrid year is less expensive than that. Right. Because the value of the officer's year is value less. And that's the only reason why I was saying when you said, you know, this gets complicated as people start saying it, I don't understand. We would have to explain to our officers that we value it. We can explain it. I promise you. Oh, no. I promise. 25% versus we value their year of service. I want to be on the other side of the mirror when you're explaining that. We can explain that. If we value their year of service at 100%, it would be higher year. So which one are you recommending? You recommend him. I was, I'm recommending this one, the one we originally showed you. I don't need this sheet. I need this old sheet. You do. If we go with that. Okay. But we just wanted to make sure that we're good with going there. Here's the $64,000 question again when it comes to budgeting. If you take this, if you use this number here. Your packet. When we're doing a budget for F-23. The packet we have used this sheet that hybrid year model, not the one that I'm talking about. Mm-hmm. That's the existing budget for F-23. Yeah. This is different than the other one. Yeah. I guess, I guess what it is. Yeah, I'm not using that. If I look at the personal budget. I know what you were trying to do, but it's already a complicated process. The new rate is a little 60. Factored into that personnel budget. Ms. Wilson. I think that she does. So like I said, we're just saying 60. Can you just say, let's just say we're higher. This is 7.9. So in the budget. I'm just not understanding how do you. The last number 56. But this is a hybrid year, so why is it. It's only in there for one month. Two different models based on year servers. That's what she was saying. Yeah. Look at it. Or, or, or. I made it complicated. And the descriptions are, I haven't read them, but the descriptions are how they came up. At the bottom. Let's see how they got today. Throughout the year. All on top. And then this one, but. Where should we put the budget. In the police department personnel. I'm wondering what you are. Why. Should that be 10%. Whenever you're ready to work. Think cheaply. Right. So I'm still not understanding. I just need to know what. The mayor is calling the meeting to order. The mayor is calling the meeting to order. I'm going to bring you a gavel. I got a gavel. Thank you. I want to. As we're, as I know, we're going to talk. Talk benchmarks. So I want to kind of clarify something. So. When we, when we began this. The mayor is calling the meeting to order. The mayor is calling the meeting to order. When we began this authorization versus budget versus actual. And we really started looking at our numbers. The question was posed to me. How many people. Can we hire. And I said, I believe our capacity to hire based on things that we can control. And also things that. At least we know scheduling purpose, but sometimes we don't have control is. How many people we can push through the state police academy. In a year. So we, in that sheet that I gave you, it was passed around. We talk about hiring. And things that I think we can control and potentially create greater efficiencies and approve upon would be. Right now it's about a 90 day process from. I dropped my application to the time that we swear somebody in. And certified. So we just added a second person to. To recruiting. Depending on, you know, our, our efforts and our successes with bringing good applicants in the door. That meet the minimum standards without changing our standards. And that we can process and start pushing through the academy and doing our basic school. Into the state academy and then our FTO program. You know, the most we could do would be 60. So for a budgeting for maximum 60 would. We think, you know, we wouldn't have the capacity to hire and train any more than that. With that said. We know we will lose people just through regular attrition. What we want to do is, is lower our. Create, you know, better retention. So the people that we would want our, you know, attrition rate to probably be around 5 to 7% based on just normal. Retirements. And on our staffing dashboard, we track all that. So. For budget for maximum budgeting purposes, yes, 60 would be that number. But we also know we will lose some people and based on the numbers that we've used for these this modeling is actually. It's based on the number that we're actually, you know, a few positions less now. Just because it's been a few weeks. So. I don't mean to confuse anybody, but I just hope that makes sense. Sir. You got to put the number on the table. For act. Well, I did.  You got to set a goal, chief.  I mean, that's. But what you said, here's what I heard you say. You heard the maximum people, people you could put the Academy 60. You also said we're going to lose folks. So if you if you're replacing folks and adding folks and 60 is the maximum number. You'll get through the Academy then 60 ain't gonna be the number you hit. That'd be the number we would hit for hiring. I'm talking about what what's your goal for net increase of sworn officer force. Or at the end of next year. That's the key number for. I understand that. We're doing this, not just to help you hire, but to help you retain. So. I think it's, you know, right now it's the retention. This is a priority. I think, you know, are recruiting and hiring. I think we can improve on that. But right now we've got to stop the hammering.  My goal would be that we have a retention rate to reflect just normal retirements. You give us an idea. Like me needs a number that he can relate to where you think we'll be. You know. And that increase sworn officer position at the end of June 30th of 23. Well, can I ask it another way? What what is the you give us a number of what normal. Retirements look like are people leaving versus what we're dealing with now. It's since I've been here, it's been about seven to 10%. And that means how many people. I have to do you're asking me to. Oh, yeah. Do math and. That's. I understand that that number is between seven and 12. My year. As far as. Retirements or leaving for other reasons. Just. That number is fluid, but resignations. Like the chief said that that's about seven to 10%. I mean that but that number fluctuates. You have some folks that leave. The professional together. You have some folks that leave. As the grass is green on the side. You have some folks that leave on a temporary basis and I'm coming back. But it's a it's a fluid number. So remember we're looking for the increase next year. 3540. Yeah, yes, sir. And I would have 147 to 15% over the last decade. So what we're trying to do is reduce that number all the way around. With this plan. Oh, so. That's why I'm asking questions. I mean, I'm not dancing around the number. I'm, you know, it's just it's going to be a combination of improving retention. And in. In maintaining a, you know, our pace for hiring. I understand. And we're going to measure success. And we're just that we're creating we're spending some money here. And. And like I say, I just think asking for what our level of expectation. We should be able to see in the net increase. Of our sworn officers. At the end of next year. You know, at the end of June 30th of 23 is not an unreasonable question. I have a target goal. I will say. Report back to you. You can pick it or I can pick it. It don't matter if somebody's going to pick it. So before I confuse anybody anymore. Any questions? I'll try to answer. I don't mean to. I don't mean to be a stickler here, but chief. I got a level of expectation that we should be able to see in the net increase of our sworn officers. I got a level. We we should have some level of expectation on what. What we should expect if we're going to do this new program like this.  If you think it's 60 say it's 60, but I got a I'm not comfortable. Redoing our whole compensation plan with no, you know, with. With just. I mean, I want to reward our folks, but I mean, I just think I think we need to we ought to have a number of that we can we can expect. Again, Mr. Taylor, respectfully, I mean, I'm trying to I'm trying to give you that analysis. I just what I just put in front of you, you know, in our in our budget session, I talked about the national how the national average has increased 18% with departures and resignations this year. We know we're no different than that. We we know we can forecast and plan for retirements. That's what the major just spoke about. We have, you know, a whole block of we have a precise number of folks that we know are retirement eligible when they will become retirement eligible so we can forecast their as we read our exit interviews. We look at different factors that have caused people to leave some or outside of our control. Some of them are in control. The ones that we read that I think are within our control is, you know, I guess what we have to, you know, quantify for for your purpose is I'm perfectly comfortable with, you know, giving you that number. I just don't want to throw a number out there today. I know what we have the capacity to onboard. I do think, you know, I'd like to see us shorten our onboard our, you know, our hiring or recruiting and hiring time because I think in 90 days, I think there are examples where we have lost people to other agencies that have, you know, had a, I guess have created a hiring opportunity quicker than us. So they've taken them offline. So I think that's something that we can control. I think the, you know, what is somewhat ambiguous that we got to drill down on is really what is that that realistic net number that you can hold me accountable for? It's not anybody else. It's me. Oh, it's you and personnel and the city manager. Well, it's me. I look at it as it's on. And let me tell you, just so you know, I promise you that people in district four are going to hold me accountable too. Yeah. And they're going to hold the mayor accountable citywide. I mean, so it's not like it's just a one thing deal. I mean, when we. I'm leaving that retention because what we want to see is an increased number of sworn officers all the way. Some of that keeping some of its hiring. So that's that's what the number we're trying to get at. So that we're all worth it because it's got this. This is team is a team sport. This is not just on you. It's on all of us. Let me just finish by saying, you know, we've talked about lots of things that that we think have handicapped us a little bit now. And I appreciate you and the city manager. And I think this council is a whole of really addressing these things and and understand that nobody likes to put a put a marker down. But you know, if we're sitting here a year from now, we're, you know, and we've addressed a B and C. You know, we just need something that gives us a barometer of it's working or it ain't working. And that's why I've used the number net every time.  Because I'm looking at this memorandum that you handed out and I will challenge our personnel department and the police department. We're talking about salaries. We have to add in what you can up, what you can make on the on the I don't want to say on the side, but as a is a contract deal at 35 bucks an hour. I mean, if you want to pick up an extra, you know, 10 or 12, 15 hours a month, that's a pretty good income supplement. I mean, if you want to do it, you don't have to, but it ought to say you can, you know, somewhere in our thing, say you can earn up to X or something. So what's the number? So, and I was going to say Mr. Taylor as well and chief, I think what is uncomfortable probably in what I'm seeing, what I'm watching the chief do in his answers is he's basing his answer of the what was and not what we are about to become for doing this. So you're going to have to not base your answer off what we've been doing and the exit interview and what's typical. You're going to have to think about this seriously and base your answer off if we become what you've been saying, and we all have that capital city police agency, the police department that now has this. And I think you told me today, nobody else has this that you know of. So I hope I'm not now, you know, branding us or everybody's going to start chasing behind us, but that's okay if they do. But you also said today that I think you said the beat North Myrtle Beach or the beat they're going Myrtle Beach is going to a minimum of 50 or something like that. What's different about that though is and some of the other agencies, the state are going to that minimum, but they're not incorporating the steps. So what we need to do is base our net on what we're doing beyond bringing it to the minimum. This everything we talked about today that we're forecasting for individuals who want to go into law enforcement, what it will look like for them in the years to come, or if they want to get promoted or if they just want they want to stay a master police officer, they can project out. We need to forecast for them that they want to get off duty pay what additional pay they will get and market that and when you market those things, take that into account when you give this infamous number to us on what you think you can achieve. Because I think that's a different story to tell to someone who wants to come work for Columbia Police Department now and maybe that will help you come up with that net number. I'll talk about Gene's sense. Thank you Pam. Thank you Chief and Major. So turning the corner to our general fund budget, just wrapping up a few loose ends for the most part. We've given you all all of them departments. There's just a few other highlights. No really back office functions other a few other departments that it probably wasn't really necessary for them to present. Is any of this different? It's every, yeah nothing, it shouldn't be anything different. You just made graphs with this one? Yep, she just, Missy made a few slides based off the memo that was sent on Friday. Okay, thank you Miss Wilson, Mayor and Council. As Miss Wilson mentioned we are just wrapping up a few other items in the general fund to sort of wrap up review of all the operating funds that have come before you. Today we're just going to hit on a few budget highlights that we've kind of mentioned and pointed out to you that's provided in the materials attached to the agenda today. We'll also talk a little bit about external agency request, homeless services, community promotions and general capital projects, parking capital projects and just review of our next steps. With regards to the external services, so today is not review of their contracts or approval of their contracts, it's mostly just talking about what's in the budget and what's included in the funding in the proposed budget. With regards to general capital projects and parking capital projects, again that's provided for you for informational purposes. I believe there's been an indication of bringing those back at a later time or more discussion and consideration for allocations. So that being said, just wanted to highlight for you the general fund budget. The package you sent out last week followed side by side with it. So the proposed general fund budget is 164.8 million. As we've said previously, it does not include a property tax or any other rate increases. The public hearing, yes sir. I just want to say thank you. When we went through some of these things earlier, this is the one that's here. It doesn't include the municipal court yet, though. It doesn't include the police employees yet. It doesn't, yes. It doesn't include the police and the municipal court because of the possibility of just getting it started and maybe it's not that there's a fund balance there. So I'm just trying to match it in. It doesn't include the $3 million that was on the page. The budget still doesn't include it. Allocation from or it does include as part of the revenues and transfers and $3 million in surplus. So moving forward and then as mentioned, the public hearings advertised and scheduled for next Tuesday, June the 7th. As we've pointed out over recent discussions and as we've brought the budget forward to you, we have highlighted, departments have highlighted a number of key investments both in, they're in line with city council's strategic priorities of safe communities, organizational effectiveness, and of course, streamlining communication, which we will highlight a little bit for you as we move forward. We did want to sort of just demonstrate graphically the proposed budget and this is in line with prior years that public safety makes up about 46% of the total general fund budget. Public Works is 13%. I've consolidated a few departments into general governmental just for, mostly for ease of graphing here. General government at 14% and then parts recreation makes up 8%. Those operational areas make up, of course, the majority of the overall general fund proposed budget. Absolutely. Yes, sir. I'll do that for each of the funds. It looks a little different across the different funds. Sure, we'll do. A few of the items to highlight that were highlighted in the memo with regards to certain departments, especially in areas that have specific interest to city council that's been discussed, especially over recent months, to include public relations, marketing media, their department, a number of consolidation of existing resources. There's no new resources applied here. These are existing resources that have been aligned in the public relations department to be able to focus on city-wide marketing communications and our social media platforms. As we go throughout the new year, also within the office of the city clerk, replacement of the citizen portal, if you will, or the citizen's response communications, I think many of you all have discussed, over recent months. Yes, sir? I mean, do you have a question for public relations? Yes, sir. Two questions. And the water and sewer transfer, is that a separate transfer, or is that included in the global water and sewer transfer? This actually would not be a transfer. Is that actually in Alex's direction? Of the water and sewer fund. Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. Okay. And then you would like it down for what you had a strong partner contract to do. Yes, sir. We can improve that. Okay. Ma'am, look at over here. I know. I appreciate that. Thank you very much. Any other questions about public relations? Anybody have any other questions? Well, ma'am. You can put it in your pocket. Well, it's a combined budget for all the funds. We need to look at the funding for public relations in the general fund and water and sewer. That's an effort to address some of the streamlining that you all had brought to our attention, where maybe there was public relations functions going on in other departments. And as mentioned, Officer City Clerk, you covered that one. Human Resources is highlighted. Clerk's office, though. Going back on it. How much was the election? Is that what the massive cost was? 185. 185. So that's the difference. What was the cost return for the next year's budget? For the election next year. I'm not in this coming budget. Oh, sure. Oh, yes. That's right. I didn't highlight it here, but yes. In your memo, there is reference to the governmental affairs budget. It's an increase of about 141,000 that was for addition of two additional lobbyist contracts that were added last year. I don't have any other points in this presentation here, if you want to talk about them in the memo. We certainly can't go through by the time. Sure. We're not highlighting in the presentation for the day. Calling out certain things that were in your memo that were of a particular interest to City Council just bring to attention. So these are highlights. It's not necessarily a thorough rehashing of the memo. So I think from... We're prepared to talk about it. How would y'all prefer to do it? You want to go through the memo and then go back to each one or go as we're going through the memo? That's fine. I got a right here. The governmental affairs, which is not bulleted here, but it is one of the items in the memo was reference to the governmental affairs budget has an increase. That's reflected. Add to that. We're not obligated in any contract at this point. Contracts in July 1. June 30. June 30. So we have a little time. I think this is one of those work sessions items that we need to discuss about how that path is going to move forward and how we want to to structure. I think we'll talk about different structuring options possibly of how we could do legislative moving forward. I like that. But we would do this in this budget right? Well right now we have an over a dollar amount of things. We don't understand, but we may want to allocate those dollars somewhere else. Well that's what I'm saying. We would do that in July. We don't have to do that today. That's correct. Because we'll amend the budget. We have no contracts come July 1. 1.1. 1.8. We can move additional funding around. We've advertised a bottom line price. Which is a number. A number of prices. A bottom line budget number. And so, but this is just well then we'll have to figure out a time, I don't know when, but we'll have to figure out a time to have that discussion. To me it's like hospitality accommodations to be something we could deal with at a certain time. I will say I have a concern with the additional 141. That's a pretty significant investment already. We'll look at some of the other needs. I'd like for us to revisit the number of lobbyists we have locally. Okay. Adding to it is just explaining why the budget from this year is increased that much in next year. It was added in the budget. We didn't add any additional. Right. It was an amendment. It was already there. Because new lobbyists were brought on. Yeah. After the general government section and government affairs. So legislative would be the mayor and city council's budget. That's you. And I apologize, that's correct. As Ms. Wilson mentioned, some of these costs you're seeing as the annualized cost of things that may have been added in this current fiscal year. So the 141 reflects what it was added in the middle of this year, or some point in this fiscal year. So next fiscal year, that's what it's adding to it. I want to say one of the things I want to look at which is not in session can help you manage relationships. And the mayor with Wilson County, Paul Stakers, you know, what she used to be. Thank you. With respect to the contracts, do all contracts and at the end of the fiscal year? These two. All these two. Even the ones that were added on in the middle of the year. Okay. That's what I'm going to say. Some of those lobbyists, they were only paid for the time that they served during that year. Well, not often times, but if that is the case of what will happen, if we add something to a budget in the middle of the year, it may not be something that we're adding on top of something in the next fiscal year, it's just you're now seeing the annualized cost reflected in that budget. We're going to move forward with the amount and have an additional discussion at some point, because we'll just have to amend the budget if we change the whole value there. We've already advertised the overall number, so if we decide to change something, we can amend and shift that to another department or use it however it's necessary. That's correct. It isn't a reflection of the contracts you're approving as much as it is the funding that's available or what is in the budget for those contracts. You're not approving the contracts today, you're approving with a budget that reflects the cost of those contracts in the budget if you were to approve them. That's true for any item in this case. For the organizations or external investments we're making, we're just simply improving the dollar amount not the provider contract itself. In approving the dollar amount is really relative as the mayor has mentioned in terms of approving the overall budget and how the allocations work out could potentially be adjusted as we move into the actual time for those contracts to come forward to you for renewal. Pretty much I think on this. It assumes the amount. These contracts would assume the amount that we paid this previous fiscal year. For the homeless services contracts or sometimes they made requests they may have requested a little bit more, but we typically incorporate in your budget until you all have time to take up those contracts what we paid them previously. I believe all of the contracts we're talking about today are all July 1 starts so they would be coming to you. Right. Their current contract in June 30 appears no matter what. Is it concerning for the allocation of funds? Yeah. I mean I'm not saying because I've never been through a budget here before but I've been through them in a lot of other places and it's amazing how you get into the budget here when you start here that's what we thought it was that never I mean I was really disappointed by our efforts in the state house this year and I just think we just got out of a way to do that don't know what it is yet and I'm just not so sure we've got anything we're paying for. Okay. And the mayor's from maybe with some of the things that council and staff had to hand should have been handled by our lobbyists and some other things. Maybe on the human resources um the minimum minimal new resources there most of what's added there is just the ability to do some additional focus on recruitment like with the job fairs and some other efforts that you've seen this year in terms of streamlining and helping to improve the onboarding of employees in order to shorten the hiring time frame. And part of that I think is the same thing we were saying earlier with the chief is we got to have goals we got to have a set if we got turnover here and the things that we're doing to create a better atmosphere how we're recruiting I think we've had a lot of discussions about what we're doing the criteria you know all of that I think we got to build in that there's expectations about what the outcome is going to be. And Miss Javis has mentioned before she just needs to know how many people she needs to hire so she's focused on those efforts as well so and this is to help be able to help support the departments in those recruitment efforts as well. A gross number before we include this thing final. I think it's a real projection. I'm not sure we would need to have but I think our target is 400 I think or so was the expectation but I think we'd have to sit down and take a look I think the police department has mentioned 60 utilities has mentioned 80 I would not I mean that is a number to use but I would prefer to have a how many do you plan to hire in the different like I would rather see this is the goal of what we think we can hire and I want to see you know retention to give you that net but I don't just want the net because I think that yeah I want it broken down and in that way we can talk apples and apples and oranges for how much of this additional people and I think Missy is this $24 million department is that our contribution to the contract that reflects operations of city fire stations what's the ballpark counting data and I think it's also on the combined fund summary that we've provided and of course that's what's to that point while we're there that's what's been submitted to the county for approval that's not what the county has approved that number is still pending and the request for the county portion is $21.5 million it's a request of an increase but it's not determined funding it's just curious what is one city it's a program that's got a version that's created halfway for kids who don't want to go for your contract it's got eight years current money perfect, that's all I mean thank you can we look into the other program I share it with you did you say that was richland school district one I just wanted to confirm office of business opportunities just pointing out their efforts that they will be working towards this year we did want to point out that their requested budget the proposed budget does not include any specific allocations for the commercial retention and redevelopment program here it is one of the things that would be considered or requested for possible one-time allocations if the program is to go forward do we know what the balance is or what they have available now I don't have the most current but we can certainly find that my understanding I think they are committed through what they have available at the time Ms. Gentry has just confirmed they have committed all the funds available to them at this point so there's no available funds for allocation y'all have changed some names up is this the old facade facade program and this is one of the items I think you all spoke about in the last economic and community development committee so we put the note at the end about potentially if you do want us to allocate funds towards it I think there was an interest in encouraging certain sectors like healthcare you know whatever the business industry might be in a needed corridor versus it could be a different way to do it versus the way we've done it in a path and so based on considering the funding from American Rescue Plan is that something we need to decide now moving forward so into non-departmental the external agency funding we've pointed out the allocations current year funding levels no changes in funding for the 5th Circuit Solicitor the 5th Circuit Public Defender and then the Alvanesco and Detention Center the cities per diem that we pay for the Detention Center we were it was running around 400 a little over 400,000 let me look and see what we had done this past year it's highlighted in the materials attachments but Joe what was your question 403 in 2021 and we we just have budgeted 500 this year we don't have an actual yet but 403 in 2021 when we were last tracking we are we are above spend them last year but still within our budget we had an increase this past year again the rate has not increased in several years since those recent discussions from a couple years ago where they were doing annualized increases they have not your rights are actually was a leap the current rate is 71 per inmate per day per inmate per day they call it per day they are 24 hours every 24 hours that clock starts over 24 hours a clock yes so is it prorated if they are just there a couple hours the minute they are in there they charge us that I mean before the eventual decision to the homelessness committee but if we are going to accept and carry the social cost of the midlands in terms of the year the social cost of homelessness from the county to the city and we have to adjust them we take them back and we got to pay something is just not effortful there and I mean I am not going to call the chief for another one but I think it is something we got to have a discussion on that is not as much as it would cost us to have a jail by any measure but again where does it where does the FLI say unfortunately this is a long history discussion until Mr. Brown came we never even had an opportunity to see any of the jail numbers for our state there are other communities in the county the county does not pay I think if we are going to carry the social cost somebody has got to share the cost because if we arrest them it will cost us $71 if we arrest them and drop them off in front of the jail you know as you say that is an example you know again we are making a cost to have an advantage sometimes for and it is not just rich in county it is all of the municipalities and government entities around here I just get that on the record during the budget process I am not going to figure it out today I may not have any confirmation and if we for me in the county if they are public that there are three thousand people in the county but three thousand and five million why not pay that you can comment on it so this looks like every community is taken from the police department to the detention center I would think that in downtown or Panhandling as a city you know as a city and that is my biggest concern frankly is with the homeless side again asks to and the fiscal cost, I just don't know if that's equitable. Something to look at as we get into the new fiscal year. Any other questions about the allocations for public defender? The public defender, I think, noted that they have consistently asked for increase. We have an increase this year over last year to help. Hopefully that will get us as we are pushing forward on all these cases. What's that increase? So they're actually in the budget for this year the same as they are the current year, which is 225, but it was an increase of a prior year that was 138. That's right. Thank you. So clarification, because there was an email that went out, is the increase for this year directly proportional to what they said they could do in working the caseload down, or is it even more on top of what the increase is anymore? It went quite well already, just so you know. This number doesn't contemplate, I don't think this number contemplates the plan that we were discussing. That's what I'm thinking, too. Yeah, this number doesn't contemplate it. My understanding is that their allocation here is, or their amount here is not in anticipation of anything changing. No new courts, no new programs. My understanding is that they were waiting to submit those amounts once they have an idea more so about. That's what I'm just thinking, too. So it would be two bumps. Depending on how many additional public defenders they would need to hire. And we have an obligation to fund this public defender. I assume the way I read this memo that was being added, because we have an additional public defender in this memo, which is part of our overall cost. Our memo? She should have sent it. Oh, the proposal. Oh, the court proposal. Not the budget memo. Okay, good. Yeah, none of those costs are hard and fast in here. And obviously we think if we fund balance or whatever, we can make, we can maneuver and get, be there, but we didn't incorporate it. We need to make sure that we have anything larger than we think. Ask for clarification on the budget memo, just for sure. Well I think just for clarification, I think we decided that once we get a plan together from our people, then we'll submit it to the PD's office. I'm sorry. The PD's office so they can give us that number. And from my clarification, do you have a memo already from the public defender's office that you're referring to, or are you just referring to the proposal? I can't be referring to the municipal court. Court's proposal. Yes, that's what we have. I believe, right? Unless I, I mean I don't know, because I didn't. That's what I was referring to. Okay. You sent something out. Yeah. I understand that the public defender's requesting the same amount, pending no changes. If changes are made, they're requesting additional attorney, and our office will be an additional prosecutor. So moving forward into community promotions, community promotions is what we typically have referred to from the general fund and allocation for grants for external groups. We have not funded a community promotions allocation in some time. So these funds would be offered up, and our recommendation is that we issue this through a notice of funds available through an actual grant program based upon direction from City Council in terms of parameters of any type of grant you may want to consider for allocation. The reason I asked for us to look at putting community promotions in was really focused on micro loans to enhance neighborhoods and corridors, cleanups, planning, things where there's funding sources to help generate those neighborhoods that get engaged and do things to improve. I'm not looking for this to be all open to all organizations. I want this very targeted on building back that pride and beautifications in our neighborhoods and giving them opportunities. If you look at a lot of these neighborhood signage, it's terrible. It's all rotten. Things like that, but they have to be engaged. And I think we have to talk about the parameters because the one thing I want to make sure that we're doing is that folks are engaged, the neighborhood has some type of sweat equity or skin in the game that it's not just, we're not just handing out money. I think we've got to talk about how we want to move that forward. And just for my clarity. Yeah, they're grants. I said loans. Yeah, you do. Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to say loans. I meant to say grants. Is this the same thing we were talking earlier about neighborhood associations applying for or we're talking about nonprofits who want to do all kinds of things? I think this was community based. So I think there's two things going on. So we mayor and I may have, well, we hadn't talked about it. So we probably hadn't been clear either way on it. Historically, community promotions have been for nonprofits to apply. I think what Mayor Brigham in has been discussing with us and some of the staff is maybe a separate program for the neighborhoods, beautification efforts, neighborhood associations could apply. I was thinking Mayor that we could work, which is I think we had a meeting last week with Gloria and CDBG dollars, but potentially funding that particularly for eligible neighborhoods, which you could do both, but I was targeting that maybe because while I know we're saying this could go towards that, I'm also getting, you know, from some of you, these other requests from nonprofits. And so we, I mean, y'all can do it however you choose. But those requests seem to be coming in as well. So I think it's just going to be philosophically, do you want to have this pot or not or no pot? I think you just were putting it out here in an effort to have something. So what do you envision the criteria or funding for that community promotions then if it's a community-based nonprofit? What do you envision? I'm trying to understand what we would. Well, and it's based off what this seated council would want the requirements to be. In previous years, council has specified, you know, I think one year there was a target on youth assistance for youth programs or, I mean, it could be whatever you all decide it to be really, as long as, you know, they're in the city, they're nonprofit status, that sort of thing. Maybe grants and we would limit the grants to dollar amount. We could certainly propose parameters around the grant structure and then get the guidance and input in terms of the type of grants you would want to make to bring that back to city council for consideration before we would release a notice. I think we should do that. I think it's very important that there's some real parameters around the funding and part of the enhancement for the community. It'd be similar to how we do hospitality tax now. You'd set certain guidelines around how you would want to minister the program and we would issue that that way. It would be important to have a distinction between, like, I don't want this to be folks that miss the age tax deadline and then applying for this if it's open to all nonprofits. There needs to be a clear goal. Yeah. Or why we have this separate part. These funds are, these are general dollar, they're general fund dollars so they don't come with the same restrictions but they certainly. We can put the parameters and the guidelines around and I think we have to be very clear about what those are. Yes. They still have to be public use. I was just asking Miss Wilson, I think it used to be action grants that we had for the neighborhoods. I had heard that name a long time. I think we do need both. Yeah. If we can do both, use CDBG for that and the other one, I think that'd be great. I don't know how far $140,000 goes. Mr. Mayor. Yes. Tina and I have met twice with a group on our road that's doing a after school and summer program and they have about 50 youth from two housing complexes that are in the city of Columbia, although the, I think that the actual site is not in the city of Columbia. They've asked us for consideration for some support for that group. So I would like to make it so that we can at least give them an opportunity to make their case for, not a considerable amount of funding, but a decent amount of funding. Yes. And I think I have mentioned to you all that I've had it by tracking four organizations and y'all, some of y'all have probably met with them too, particularly trying to do things with youth. And there's just, it's so hard to, first of all, I always tell them to wait till CDBG and they typically miss CDBG, but if we have an opportunity to let all of them go through a process where we aren't involved, I think too, is very, would be pretty good. I think, well, I mean where we are right now is we've got to develop a criteria, a specific criteria and around that before that can be released and that we understand completely what those boundaries are. That could be one of the items we bring back to City Council with regards to parameters as mentioned for future discussions. I also saw in the budget that we have a very robust and looks like very good summer program at our park system. And I mean, do we want to compete with our parks? Do we want to lead those youth into the program our park does? Because that summer program looks fantastic. Or is that in addition to, is that in addition to Henry? I can't, I can't hear you. Oh, what, DeVall speaking. What, Mr. Chairman, you're talking about what you know about what counts. I mean, those are other programs. Yeah, that has nothing. Yeah, that's not city. Right. Well, I was just saying that the program that Councilman DeVall is speaking of is a specifically targeted population that the Erma mayor has been working with. So that's different from what we have created for our summer program. That's the harvest and forest proposal that we heard about. And we also whenever the appropriate time is get an update on because it is important to have opportunities for neighborhoods to engage what the CDBG funding would be available as neighborhoods ask what opportunities are available. I'd like to be able to provide them with that information. Right. I think we were waiting to understand if the suggestion Mayor Rick and the head about neighborhood beautification is something that you all are wanting to move that forward. And then I think Gloria could better, you know, move the funds or suggest funding from CDBG to accommodate that as well as maybe the traditional action type grants that they've had in the past. So I think they'd be helpful. Yeah. If you could make sure, Missy, she's got that pot identified. Thank you. Yes. Yes, sir. And then, of course, there were there was three hundred thousand dollars as noted in your memo and fund balance from the previous one of the previous programs during the pandemic for nonprofits. That was the resilient Columbia non-profit stabilization program, which again, that fund funding, you know, it was general fund dollars. So I think there had already been a couple of requests. Maybe that would be appropriate for that funding as well. I'm just not sure how y'all want to, if you want to just now take that and lump it all together for a NOFA or if you want to keep that separate. Why don't we, why don't we talk about that as we build this criteria? I think that'd be the best way to do that. That way we were, we can create one option here with the criteria built around it, put it into a structure. I think points from council all over is, you know, we don't want folks who are getting money from another pot to go here. This should be specific to fill some gaps, but make sure that there's a benefit to the community for that. Okay. Moving forward, the next item is the homeless services contracts that the budget currently includes a million and sixty thousand for homeless services contracts. The total request of the contracts is 161,000 for this coming year, which would cover the operations of the inclement weather center. One million, right? Not a hundred and sixty one. We have a hundred and we have a million and sixty thousand. Okay. The request is a hundred and sixty one million and sixty one, one million and sixty one thousand. Transitions contract transitions is also included request and then USC supportive housing. Inclement weather center is contracted with United Way is the prime and then the services are sub-doubt and the inclement weather center is run at the best of the city. It was operated from a solicitation for services from several years back. Can you explain something to me that the increase of fifty thousand dollars for travel vouchers? Not how I don't. I was trying to dig through to remember I have no. So that's okay. So it's not just for the travel vouchers. So the inclement weather center is is a year round operations, but we also had a contract previously in previous years. We've had three two contracts with United Way. One was the regional coordinators contract. One was for the operation of the inclement weather center. The regional coordinators contract is was run by still. Contracted with United Way, but the services were being provided through staff person in this current year through transitions. So it was another subcontract. Part of that contract for the. Regional coordination contract included travel vouchers, which is whenever there was an individual who was encountered, who was looking for a way to get back home, wherever that may be. This would pay for those services. The actual budget for that is about ten thousand. So forty thousand is for homeless coordinator contractor. Some of the homeless some of those services for the supervisor on top of the. So what we're really talking about is an inclement center is really five hundred and fifty thousand for argument sake or five hundred. Yeah, four hundred and roughly runs about four fifty or so. The one the one outlier at this point is that they are still waiting on cost projections or cost proposals from the security services. Security services have had significant increases. Those are obviously things they can't control the cost on and have been working to negotiate with those contractors. Part of it just comes from changes in the number of vendors that are available for security services to be provided at the inclement weather center. So we're still waiting to hear back from them on that. Mayor, I don't really have an issue with the amount of money. I don't try to understand. I don't want us to buy proven in by going into the detail. Right. I don't want it to imply that we're improving these contracts. Right. You're not. So we're OK. I just notice I'll use the word imply. Right. So again, I'm fine with the money, but the details need to be worked out. And some of them need to be really coordinated through our homeless. Our homeless committee, because that's another one of those places where where I'm just I'm not an expert. So I'm just not I can't say for sure whether whether the money has been spent right and whether we've created accountability. I mean, sometimes I wonder that the more we spend, the more homeless we we have. So I trust Dr. Bussell's committee to come up with with the proper solutions. I think Dr. Bussell's made a valiant effort at the first task force meeting to kind of put that on the table, that those just items would still have to be discussed. And I know I also because I probably had more knowledge of it than than she did being that this is you all some of your first time dealing with those contracts. But I did say at the task force, Mr. Taylor, that, you know, I was just from my vantage point observing that I thought that, you know, this would be that task force would be the opportunity to really go through those scopes of work, see if based off what the urgent needs are right now. If that's those things are being addressed or if we need to make changes. But we did reference the fact that I just like the record show that we approve this much money for for homeless services, but. But not specific amounts to entities, right? I think at the task force, the question that was asked was are they line items? I think that was the way the question was asked. That's what I'm saying. Right. What I'm saying is they aren't lying right now. Right. I what I answered was historically they have been they have been historically, but again, we hadn't had this effort. We hadn't had this task force. And so I was just trying to make the point. Yes, they have been, but I think this is the opportunity to revisit. You agree with that, since you're the chairman of the committee. Yeah, and I was going to say the line item is just homeless services. I'm fine with that. Right. Right. Yeah. They're asking about specific line items. And I think there's one provider in particular without calling any names that I think we have to look at some accountability issues on what we're going to do going forward. We have historically budgeted a million dollars thereabouts for homeless services in the budget. And because these contracts have just carried on over a period of time, it's been implied to your point, I think that they're line items. But now you all are going through a different effort. Well, we've done some other departments and other issues. We've approved amounts and said we were going to revisit the allocation within that amount. And I would like to see reference on homeless. And for this and for any item, no matter what it is, if it's contractual and it's over $50,000, which all these are, until there's a contract that comes before you, it's not approved. I understand. I just don't want to control the level of expectations. The way that it's written, I think it's important based on our discussion that it's clear that we're revisiting how we may be approaching funding, homeless services. But I do think it's important to recognize we're continuing to put over a million dollars towards homelessness. And if you count some of the CDBG and American Rescue Plan, it doubles us to three or four million dollars. So, yeah, I agree. I think that some of the work on the committee will help us get more of an understanding. And in my last question, do all of these contracts end at the end of the fiscal year? These contracts do. Well, I think the issue for me, of course, is accountability. We approve monies over and over and over again without any real accountability being placed on the table. I'm not going to call a name, but if it were left up to me based on their track record, I would say, give us, put some skin in the game. Put some skin in the game. And if skin is not in the game, then I just don't think it's worth funding because it's not working. Yes, sir. Thank you, ma'am. I'd like to echo what you just said. Sir. I agree with you 100%. Let's put some skin in the game. If you want our dollars, it is dollars. Where's the skin in the game? That's right. And for one of these, and again, I'm not going to call a name, but I have some real trepidation. I'm not going to say anything. Excuse me. The service is not being provided in a publisher. Thank you, ma'am. City manager Wilson, when we do give out contracts through the general fund, this is more of a process question. What is their reporting requirement and who reviews that because I'd be interested to hear kind of is there an end of contract report they're supposed to give. Do they get feedback or is kind of the assumption? All right. I submitted it, checked it off, and hopefully I'll get the money again and be honest. Yes, ma'am. So typically with the homeless services contracts, I mean, I mean, there's all kinds of contracts throughout the city and all for the most part have project managers of just through a department, that kind of thing with these. The historically, what we've done is the providers do give like an annual report, they come before the council and report on their activities from the previous year. And also in the context of what they request is for the new fiscal year. And we typically get try to get those scheduled pretty soon after July after the start of the new fiscal year. So I think with this process, you all are going through with the task force. It could be that, you know, some of that is funneled through the task force that typically missy is charged with receiving on the reports and we should I look at them and then we bring it to council. That's why it's worked with the homeless services contracts. We get those annual reports or whatever. But I think what we've been discussing as we move forward when we start contracting folks that we want accountability measures with our partners, not only for us to be accountable, but for them to be accountable and outcomes. We want to know that we're, we're advancing the ball and solving some of these issues and reducing those amounts. And I think unless we have it in a contract spelled out, we're not going to get that. And I would suggest that you're, you know, that the homeless on homeless services as an example that the committee, you know, specify the outcomes that you would expect, you know, as an outcome of the committee on the memo. I just, I think that would help the city manager help finance and everybody. I think that you know, your committee is the one that will know the drill. And I think, I think that's what River McDowell saying. I think that's what you're saying is let's, let's, let's put a measurable on the, on these things that kind of where you're coming in and you committee take over that role. Typically when you receive a grant and this is outside of the city, you have a product. We don't have the capacity of having a project officer or someone dedicated to following the progression of how much change that they're making or if they're making any change at all. And so what I'm trying to understand, going back to Rev's point about skin in the game is how, you know, we can create all of these measures, but do we actually have someone, what is the measure by which they could write anything, right? Is there any sort of follow up to if the measure was actually achieved? And that's my concern because when you are in a grant style and you have a project officer or somebody that's following your grant from birth to end of it, there's many more opportunities to fix things along the way. And I know from a city perspective, we just don't have that right now. So that's what I was kind of trying to open up the discussion in general of how do we build in accountability, but something that's actually meaningful. Well, I think one of the things that has to take place is what's the track record? What has been the track record? So there are some historical stuff there that we don't have. What we've done over the years is just here's the money. What's the historical narrative? A lack of a better word, what's the historical data that will help us clearly define what these particular providers are giving us? We can't adequately fund the thing when we don't actually know what the providers have done in the past and what they're doing. It just doesn't make any sense right now. So I think it's very useful for us to look at that to make a determination on what that amount ought to be given to that particular provider. And what you want to accomplish. That's correct. I think it might be a little bit different. Because the paradigm has been sort of skewed in a sense in that we've just given money. What are the time frames? Right. We haven't done that. I just wanted to add when we first started funding these, they went through community development. And Jeff Rainwater, I had to think of his name. Jeff Rainwater, he was deputy director of community development I think at the time, or he wanted to be, I think he was deputy director. Sorry about that. But in any case, he helped get those contracts started. And then I think once they became on an annual, and then he left, we didn't create another position or give that assignment to anyone. I'm not volunteering anybody. So those grants are still grants administered through community development. Those are grants. These contracts are definitely a different nature. So these are, but these contracts are not administered through community development. No. You're not what? You're not administered through community development. Just curious, when we make the grants, how do we pay the money? Do it lump sum or is it paid out over the course of the year? Is it monthly, quarterly? Or is each grant saved? For grants? For grants? Or for contracts or grants? For these contracts, I administer these contracts. And for these contracts, for the Inclement Weather Center specifically, they are, they do ask for an advance. And then they draw from that advance for the first quarter. But then after that, everything is done by reimbursement.  Same is true for housing first and for the, and then for the transitions contract. We started in a little bit different nature. It is also based on submitting for reimbursement. Those were grant contracts. All through reimbursement, quarterly? They are done. Inclement Weather Center is done monthly. That's what you tell me. There's no specific deal. No, transitions is done quarterly. So can you refer that to the administrative committee? We can standardize it in the contract at any point in time. Can you analyze, review on these things? My only concern with that is dealing with the cash flow of the entities. Some of them they have. You negotiate that when you make the grant. Right. And that's, I think that may be why they have different time periods. Well, I'm just, I mean, like I said, I think, I think what, I don't want to put words in Reverend McDowell's mouth. And I think what we're talking about is, you know, it would be interesting to see us, especially on some of these homeless issues, one in particular, that I'm not going to call a name like him, where to ensure that they're performing the way they're supposed to perform. You know, whether it's by... You mean before, before stuff is released? Yeah, in other words, when you write that grant, it's for XYZ. And you want to make sure, like I said, one of those, one of those stipulations may be, you know, that it prevents criminal activity within a certain place. I think that's going to be so difficult. I'm sorry. Well, I'll be happy to share the details with you a little bit later on. But I mean, my point is, you know, we've had, we've had them notify residents that perhaps law enforcement was coming. And it just, there's things that we should stipulate a little bit more than we've done in the past and create a little more of that accountable. In other words, we want... Sometimes I would wonder if the good of the calls takes precedent over sometimes the good of the community a little bit. And I just, I just would like to revisit some of those guidelines and stipulations and things like that. I just think it'd be helpful to do that. Are you going to take that up in the Task Force? We can take it up in the Task Force. Or it can be referred to the administrative? I'd prefer it was, that was referred to administrative. I'm not sure the folks that comprise the Task Force would be able to provide the guidance we're looking for in terms of administering grants or contracts. But that would be my... So we're talking about, maybe are we talking about the homelessness services contract? It just kind of, just a different look. Just to review all the grant requests for the first time and see if any can be standard and things that should be added. Recommendations for the city... Is it specific to homelessness or just in general? I'd do it for most everything. Just to make recommendations to you. And then you do what, you know, do as... It started with homelessness, but I mean I wouldn't... I mean federal stuff doesn't need to be looked at by... City funds that go out probably should. Just to look. So we could certainly... Yeah, I mean these are contracts. These are contracts. I know, I've said contracts, grants. But then the community promotions we certainly could do something that's more of a quarterly basis. Hospitality tax grants, accommodations tax grants, those kind of fall in the same line. I have a grants administrative that started today. That's what I'm saying. It'd be good to have them sit down with us. I do think on the homeless deal though, I think there's some things in there, some things that we should add that make so much sense that you would have never thought you needed to add, but it gives, especially our law enforcement, certain abilities to create some accountability if needed. And again if we... I'm good with that. I just want to be clear on where y'all are taking those up in the task force. Administrative committee. So the homeless services contract... Let's start with the homeless... Based on experience, look at the contracts and see what needs to be added to make sure there are medicals and accountabilities to that contract. Wait, so when you're saying let's start with the homeless, you mean let's start with the homeless contracts, not the task force. Because I will say this is not an appropriate topic of how we administer grants for the task force. But Missy, I would like to sit down once the grants administrator does get comfortable to just talk through specific to the homelessness grants what we can do to put some mechanisms in for accountability. I think y'all just said two separate things, so we'll figure it out. I have a little bit of a question on which way we're going with the homeless services contract. Oh, no. I think we're talking about two different things. I got it. The homelessness contracts, along with all of the other ways that we administer contracts to the general fund, I think Councilman Taylor wants to visit in the administrative committee. And I, you know, after feedback from the task force about some accountability measures, I'd like to talk with Missy and her new staff member as well. Because those contract renewals are going to come within the next 30 days, whereas our final report... They would have, but pending where we are with the conversations today and with the, in light of the homeless, the city's contracted homeless service providers, our partners, are due to present to the task force in August. So we've already let them know that there could be some... So the final... We'll need to either renew where we have to extend, I guess, for a month or so, where we have to day and then move forward. The final report of the homeless committee will set the path towards where we want to go as a council and we compare that to where the contracts, what the scope is. No, we're not putting them in context. And based on this memo, we don't even have security services in this and that. So there are some things that we still have to get information, but I think the committee's got to have an opportunity to look at it because we can't just renew the contract the way it is the task force is. I'm just asking because y'all sent two things. That's the next meeting, isn't it? They're going to the administrative committee and they're going to the task force. Do you want the current homeless services contract providers to present at the task force? Correct? Okay, so typically when they present is in the context of them then getting direction on their contractor services. So is that what... So once they present at the task force then you want to switch them over to the administrative policy committee. What's saying is the contracts, just let the administrative committee review the contract