what's our count two minutes less than a minute 30 seconds extraordinary budget meeting of the Durham City Council to order at 1 p.m. on April the 24th 2020 we have as I understand our agenda really just two agenda items we have the discussion of the budget presentation that will be led by our budget department and then a discussion of our budget guidelines we're glad to see everybody and again as always thanks to our staff for helping us make this online meeting work thank you so much and now I will turn it over to the city manager for his leadership thank you mr. mayor members of council good afternoon again I hope you're doing well we do appreciate you the time on a Friday afternoon I know we've all had a very very busy week but we need to spend some time this Friday afternoon talking about kind of the budget and where things stand as I have said to each of you when I've had a chance to talk individually certainly not unlike the rest of our community and so many people in the world so to speak our our world has a changed around around the budget the last time we had a meeting with you to talk about the budget I think was maybe early March and at that time and prior to that time we were fairly close to bringing in a balanced budget kind of across the board in many areas looking forward to a number of new initiatives that people had ideas about that were going to advance either our strategic or aspirational goals for so many things in the community and certainly the last 60 days things have changed dramatically as you'll see shortly when the budget director talks about the the financial positions and projections we've gone from almost a balanced budget to to about a 12 and a half million dollar gap in the general fund alone but we want to spend some time this afternoon with the council kind of giving you an update of our best projections and best estimates about where things stand both in terms of the current year but also as it relates to to the obviously the budget that we will be bringing to you later in May and that you'll be considering in in June obviously the impacts of COVID-19 are continuing to evolve in many many ways but as it relates to the budget there are so many aspects of both our revenue projections as well as our anticipated expenditure needs that we just don't know we we are using our best judgment to try to establish baseline revenues and think about where we have placeholders for either own or unexpected expenditures but we know that unlike any budget really that we have presented to the council in my tenure but probably councils have considered this this budget while it will be adopted in the fashion in June it will be evolving throughout the year as we learn more every month about things that either don't go the way we had anticipated as it relates to revenues or probably more significantly things we learn new about priority expenditures that that we will have to adapt to hopefully the financial position that the city has been in that we've worked long and hard to establish will give us lots of flexibility for pivots and we won't have to make the very very difficult decisions that I know a number of other communities across the country and in some cases North Carolina are having to make related to either service reductions or employee layoffs and those kinds of things but again things that we don't know now are probably some somewhat the scariest for me to think about difficult more difficult decisions than we'll already have to make but I wanted to you know let let us walk through where we are today hopefully this will be an opportunity for certainly some candid conversations but also maybe even some initial decisions as we talk through the the budget guidelines which has been our guiding document we are our very moving into a fairly short time frame that we will have from very intense staff work over the next couple of weeks after today to to put together the final budget and be in a position to present that to you and to the community on the the 18th of of May so with that let me turn it over to Bertha and she will take the presentation Bertha is in City Hall right now at the dais and we very much appreciate her and the budget staff who have really had to to pivot in so many ways to help us think about the new impacts and the changes in this budget it's almost like doing it twice but they've done a remarkable job and hopefully after today you'll see the the kind of thinking and thoughtfulness that they've already brought to to this discussion so thank you thank you Mr. manager and welcome Bertha we appreciate you we know what a burden it's been over the last month since all this is turned upside down so thanks to the manager and thanks to you Bertha we look forward to your presentation thank you at this point I am going to share my screen with you so that everyone else can see the presentation that I sent to you yesterday so really what we want to share today is we want to give you an update on our budget financial projections the last time we shared those numbers were with you were at our retreat in February on the 14th we also want to share our proposed changes to the budget development guidelines and talk about any other budget matters that we need to discuss today so looking at our general fund revenues we are looking at reducing our property tax revenue by 1% and that is because we are reducing the proposed collection rate based on information we receive from the county as well as looking at the numbers particularly around auto auto sales auto property tax and sales tax so we're reducing that by 1% and that will be a reduction of 1.1 million in revenues sales tax projection and I'll share a little bit more about those numbers on the next slide we are looking at a 10% reduction in revenue which I shared with you the last time we spoke which is 7.2 million dollars and I can see tax 9% reduction which is 297,000 so looking at property tax just as a reminder when we reduce the property tax revenue it impacts other funds as well and so you can see here what the original adopted amount was for 1920 what the 2021 original budget was which is what we share with you in February in what our revised numbers are and that is caused by us decreasing our collection rate from 99.6% from 99% to 99.6% that is consistent with what the county has done as well and we are also keeping the vehicle tax portion flat compared to FY19-20. Can we interrupt you with questions or would you prefer us to wait till the end? Okay can you talk a little bit about what like what the evidence you're using to guide these projections in terms of how much sales tax we're going to lose how much occupancy tax we're going to lose like are you looking at are you looking at ideas about you know how long stay-at-home orders are going to stay in place or like like what's built into that prediction? That's a great question with all of these projections we've had multiple sources we have our Peer City groups groups that are in Peer City geographically Raleigh, Greensboro, Durham County our other cities in the area so we've had multiple calls and conversations with them but more importantly each year we get projections from the NCLM and they we use those numbers because their economists build build those numbers and we use those projections every year in our projections and adjust accordingly. We also have had conversations with others like Dr. Walden has had sessions and we look at all of those sources and all those sources have been pretty much the same projections for sales tax example the 10 percent number that we use it's also the same number that Dr. Walden gave us the same number that the league used the same number and I'll show you another slide that most of our cities are using and this is in the middle of the highest and and the most conservative and the most progressive and so I'll share some more details but those are the sources that we're using and to the manager's point we don't know we are looking at this you know daily as we look at our numbers as we can continue to participate in multiple calls with other organizations as well as some of our state agencies. Thank you. Do you know of any of those economists or folks at those agencies are consulting with health like are they consulting with health care experts about the ideas around the you know the way the virus is going to change over the next year? I feel like there are a lot of different ideas about that and I find it I'm just I'm kind of wondering like which one are we using is this like a best-case scenario is this a mid-case scenario in terms of how long it takes things to go back to reasonably normal you know there are some health care experts who think there's going to be another pretty and there's going to be a need for another pretty intense wave of social distancing in the fall like are we compensating for that in our projections? So one of the things that is exactly what Dr. Walden said he said the expectation is we'll be dealing with this in the fall and so he has taken that under consideration in his projections but he also says that they continue to update their projections and and get additional information. We I have some information I can share with you that we received from from the league as and they also work with others as well and so I can share with you I can't tell you specifically how they incorporated that data that information into their projections but I know they are considering it. Great thank you so much. Thank you. So here in this gamble what I was referring to when you ask that question is you know there are multiple scenarios you can look at you can look at the most conservative you can look at the severe and you can look at the moderate. Most of our cities are in this area choosing the moderate which is the 10 percent for sales tax which is the number that we also received from Dr. Walden and so we are looking at multiple scenarios as we always do when we share with you all multi-year fund projections we'll we talk about you know the different projection levels whether it's you know conservative whether it's an aggressive projection based on what we see what we're currently seeing in the economy and so you can choose either any of these numbers but most of us are in the severe in the 10 percent sales tax and you know some may wonder why we're so consumed with sales tax you all know that because it's such a significant revenue source to the general fund and it's so volatile when as it as it relates to the economy and so that is one that we do often put a lot of emphasis on when we're talking about the general fund budget in particular. Can I can I be the person in the room to interrupt just briefly and say I think maybe we should take attendance? Yes we may take attendance thank you. Just want to make sure everybody's here and can hear us and it's right. Okay yeah sure let's do that thank you. Good afternoon. Madam clerk would you help us do that? Absolutely. Mayor Shull here. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Here. Councilmember Caballero. Councilmember Caballero is having connection issues she's trying to call in. Councilmember Freeman. Present. Thank you and Councilmember Middleton. Here. Councilmember Reese. Here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Councilmember Reese. Thank you Madam Clerk. Go ahead Bertha. Thank you. So as we look at our other revenues we also typically get these projections from the North Carolina League so we have implemented those projections in our updated numbers as well. Some of those are not as significant as others. As I mentioned about the power bill which is a gas tax the other week we do not do not have an updated projection on those that revenue source as of yet and we've also made some projections you can see the only program revenues that we have projected a decline in is during parts and recreation. So to the manager's point when we saw this multi-year financial plan for the general fund in February the number was we had a deficit of 750,000 and that number is 11 point almost 11.8 million now. You there's when you look out at future years those numbers would change as we make recommendation that as we implement new changes to the multi-year financial plan based on decisions that are made by council when the budget is adopted. Also I want to point out here and we'll talk about this when we get to the budget guidelines if you were to take this multi-year financial plan for the general fund and compare it to what you saw in February you'll also see some changes on the revenue side and expenditure side because we have made some changes in terms of pulling out the four million additional that we had suggested taken from fund balance for street maintenance so you can see that number dropped from five point almost five point nine to zero we also had some additional revenues in there from fund balance for other reasons and so we've also taken out the expenditure side of that as well and we can we'll talk about that in detail next when i go to the multi-year when i go to the budget development guidelines. So what we've tried to do is we've tried to take those changes that you just saw in terms of revenues and incorporate those in some other language related to what we feel like we need to change in the guidelines that send the message of the parties of the organization so what i've done is and in the version you can see is i've made changes i have changed the font color to red for those changes as well as to strike through items in the budget development guidelines so we started with the first overall we wanted to make sure that it is clear that we prioritize funding related to COVID-19 in our budget development process there's a request that everyone mute if they're not talking this vividness still getting some feedback so in the under revenues you can see in the red here we have the comments around our plan our strategy commitments and initiatives and but we also need to consider potential revenue losses and the revenues the first bullet related to the tax rate we struck out unless the council determines that a tax rate increase above this amount is necessary to fund budget requests for important needs that cannot be otherwise funded that means we would not recommend a tax rate increase for the general fund when we look at fund balance we initially had the fund balance at the 16.7 percent we would recommend that we not let it fall below 12 percent which was our policy before we changed the policy to be 16.7 percent a new item i'm sorry that 12 percent that's the level that's required by the state is that correct that is a number that was in previous policy policies and yet as that is the number that's recommended by the state but not required by the state i think the state requirement is something like eight percent requirement eight percent okay okay that's correct mr. mayor it's a eight percent requirement at the state level thank you another comment out of fund balance is we added this item fund balance may be considered to cover projected revenue losses we did not make any changes to the debt service fund or the solid waste fund for the tax rate portion the rate for the dedicated housing fund we struck out an increase of 1.5 cents to cover debt for the affordable housing bond which means we would which means we would not have an overall tax rating increase so i don't know if we want to talk about that now or later mr. mary we go through all these and we'll come back to some of these points yeah i think it'll be good to go through everything and we're all and then we'll i know we i have some questions to what has been previously said i'm sure others do too so why don't we go ahead thank you yeah the next change is that we we added to the statement around the bid that a reduction in tax rate for the bid will be considered the current rate is seven cents and we have a slot in the presentation that will give you the scenarios from five to seven cents can i ask if that's a revenue if that's revenue related yes that's the tax rate side of it so that would reduce our revenue that would reduce the revenue to the bid and and specifically the bid property owners are these people of color um it depends yeah they're the downtown businesses in the bid district it's just the businesses in the bid district it's the property owners in the big district right okay so it sounds like a tax cut for property owners downtown is what you can what it was what this sounds like yes it is saying that we will consider a tax rate reduction unless you all um want to restore it back to the original which was it would remain at seven cents these are i think we'll we'll talk some more about that when we get there we have a slide on this so the next item is the water rate increase um the number was originally four percent and now we have will not exceed three percent so those are the revenue items do you want to discuss those before we go to expenditures yeah let's let's go ahead discuss their revenue items i think that sounds good um let me ask first bertha covered a lot in her original presentation on the on the budget and does anyone have any questions about that presentation before we get to the guidelines anybody have any questions about that i just wanted i just wanted to to just ask a clarifying question these um revenue areas these are the only revenue areas that we have that we're looking at right now no these are the revenue areas that we normally bring to you as part of the budget development guidelines so this is just taking those guidelines normally we would be bringing them back to you now for you to adopt them since um the change in our projections and revenues we need to update this version and get you to adopt a different version because we had to make changes to revenues and we wanted to make sure that there was some other um recommendations on the expenditure side as well we have other revenues but there these are these are the revenue uh these are the guidelines we typically bring to council for adoption because they are the major revenue sources and we also need guidance from council as it relates to the tax rate and so we usually break we break out all of the tax rate components in the guidelines so just one question regarding one revenue source that you did mention um i noticed that the i'm sorry i'm trying to go back through the slides the revenue for hotels and occupancy it looks like you decreased it by three percent is that just for the quarter or is that for 21 that's for 21 okay that seems a little conservative like really conservative but but okay yeah um i i think that's a great question that that looks awfully optimistic yeah really do we uh those those projections come from dcvb or um where do we we did get we did reach out to dcvb and i was trying to go back to my notes and see what um if we got a number from them i'll let staff look at that and we can come back to that all right let me just say that the the power bill uh also is aren't we certain that gas tax revenues will be decreased well we're not certain the league is has not put out a projection because it's the majority of it is based on population um and street miles doesn't change although the entire availability of funds may change so we it's flat at this point at some point i'm sure we will get a projection uh from them we just don't have a number at all now um and because we have received our entire um payment for this year we haven't been we don't have any way to project what the number is next year and none of our other uh cities in our group has changed their number yet uh that doesn't mean that at some point we will not adjust that okay yeah those numbers those two numbers both look optimistic but uh thank you a council member caballero i was just going to ask if discoverer i'm going to give us the number but it's going to follow up thank you uh other questions about these uh the the first presentation at this time just the just the also just the not um i went to similar to council member i'm sorry may pretend johnson's comment it would be good to see a good better best or from good to worse on these because it feels it feels like a dream honestly like this would be phenomenal if the gap is only 12.5 million i think um hopefully we'll be able to get closer to reality as time goes by um and we'll we'll see how optimistic these are or how pessimistic these are um yeah um on the multi-year plan chart uh the sales tax the other local taxes line looks like we're projecting about two and let's see about two and a half million dollars less in sales tax than we had in 2020 does that seem about right bertha where we we collected with this year we're getting about 72 million next year the revised projection is about say 69.7 so 2.3 million dollar difference yes okay so our projections were quite a bit higher we were yeah okay and the um the multi-year assumptions and just looking at the bottom line that's your 12 million dollar gap there for 2021 and explain a little bit more about the gaps that we see in the following years um assuming that we what are the assumptions that have changed i guess let me let me ask it this way i can't remember what the gaps look like don't the original projection for those years i believe we had the negative numbers my recollection is into the future years that we were going to have to fill gaps also and i'm wondering how this compares to that i don't have those in front of me from the previous bunch of presentation i do not mean either but i would say that um when you look at the next year the next year we have not changed our assumptions for 2022 meaning that whatever assumptions we had when we when you when we presented this to you in february we haven't changed the assumptions for future years so those revenue assumptions the the three percent gross in the sales tax the 99% collection rate all of those are still in so that's why i said earlier is you really can't look at the future years because we haven't changed those projections and you also don't see any contribution contribution from 21 to 22 for revenues on on the multi-year okay thank you very much excuse me i'm sorry ma'am this is john john allure assistant budget director hi john hi i just wanted to chime in on a couple of things there one with the multi-year because there's such volatility particularly in in what we know now and where we're going in the next 18 months it really requires some decisions for those 18 months before we can really see what the role factor is in the out years so a lot of that would pivot and and change the second thing i wanted to do address was occupancy tax since it was brought up when we presented this the best we had was three percent we since presenting this got did hear back from discovered Durham and they were looking more at 30% so that would increase our by their projections however i had not dealt there's some new staff over there and i had not dealt with them but that would increase the gap by about eight hundred thousand dollars just keep in mind that we we do look a lot at monitor monitor occupancy tax because obviously it's very important to us it's a major revenue but not to the extent that sales tax and property taxes thank you john that's very helpful any other questions before we go back to the budget guidelines on any of the previous charts no my question is for the in the budget guidelines okay well let's go to the budget guidelines in and councilmember caballero please um seeing the you know we talked about what we would add potentially because of the affordable housing bond and seeing that it's been struck and i just think that that's that's right i agree with that and i just wanted to share my opinion i know it will we'll have to then make different decisions in the future but for where we are right now i think that that's absolutely right another factor that will come into play with that is ultimately if we do have a reduction in property tax collections or values uh we'll have to update the projected tax rate increases that will be required to to support the debt service uh something we'll have to watch and we know we'll have to continue to recalculate once we see for sure how those tax what the tax values come in well why don't we do this uh bertha like what we usually do with these guidelines is we kind of take them one by one so maybe we'll go ahead and do that how does and let's look at the revenue guideline just to make sure everybody gets to be heard on those um mr. mayor could i could i suggest we go through the entire budget guideline and come back because i think some of the expenditure side discussions may impact how we think about the revenue side piece as well or vice versa sure let's do that thank you thank you so yes i would suggestion that if you have questions on the revenue side clarifying questions we can talk about those now but then wait to the end to make the final decisions so the first item on the expenditure side is pay and there is a a lot of red um that we have strike through but really it it really uh boils down to the first new item which is as we move through the budget development process and fiscal year pay adjustments for full-time and part-time employees will be considered we're in the previous version and other versions we we are very specific about uh each of the pay uh plans and how we would what recommendations we make before those pay plans we don't feel at this point we're at a place that we could make those decisions or recommendations are our retirement contributions in any way um governed by state law they are totally cow the the retirement the last bullet is that the one you're referring to this sorry can you all hear a birth i can't hear her anymore yes i can hear bertha yes can you hear me now i think you're on mute yes sorry i hear you now something's wrong with my headset okay and now it shows you on mute again do you still have a question yeah i'm sorry um the how are our retirement contributions governed by state law i missed the answer if you already answered it are you referring to those at the bottom in the bullet that i'm highlighting because those are totally controlled by the state okay so this supplemental retirement that's at the discretion of the city that is correct this one which we which is the only other guideline related to compensation is that we would consider a reduction of the five percent city contribution okay thank you so the guidelines related related to the dedicated street resurfacing fund we originally had six million birth excuse me one second i want to make sure that we were clear the when we look at the financial projections that you know that the the model currently that model still has those pay increases in there correct they have the pay increases in there except for a reduction of general for one half year which is right honest yeah that's the only reduction right okay thank you thanks so the street resurfacing fund again we already talked about this one but the original amount was six million and we have been adding an additional four million for fund balance obviously we feel like there may be higher higher need for those resources so we will just maintain the fund at the six million funding level the maintenance replacement project will remain at one million we've added a hundred thousand to that fund each year we feel like this is a year that we want to use those resources may need those resources for other needs we did not change the fleet replacement funding we also just struck out new funding priority to our strategic plan and we added an item the first item is funds will be held and reserve up to five million for future COVID-19 response and that programs may be considered for downsizing or discontinuing patient can you talk a little bit more about the five million for COVID response I'll have Tom talk about that so this is one of those areas that quite frankly you know we we just don't know but my instincts are that there are going to be a variety of emerging issues some of them may be operational and some of them may be programmatic you know community response kinds of things that we will be facing depending on the the length of time that obviously we are we are in a significant impact mode and rather than try to either guess individual items and put a number on them or respond to you know in a current request or urgency that someone in the community or the council thinks we we should respond to I thought it would be important for us to for now for budgetary purposes just set aside an amount of money and this is clearly an arbitrary amount of money but set aside try to figure think about how we would set up some COVID response reserve that once we had better handle or grasp on on certain aspects of either operational requirements or community response requirements that we hadn't balanced the budget without thinking about that I don't know if that answers your question Mayor Pro Tem. Yeah that's helpful thank you and is the idea that that would come from the general fund fund balance or or some combination yes that we would be setting that aside as a part of the budget obviously if we didn't need it or you know that then that money could go back into the general fund but that we go ahead and set aside some aspect of that that we have we know it is available you know I would be really concerned if we start talking about dropping the come back to it but the fund balance below the 12 percent because I think there's a lot of other ripple impacts to that but I do think that before we embark on spending spending any of that excess or that extra fund balance on things that we not forget to set aside some some money for unknown I call them at this point COVID response needs. Does this budget take into account any of the federal funding that we anticipate receiving the additional home and CDPG money or the transit money? Those are going to be in different funds not the general fund okay so they wouldn't they wouldn't be a part of this five million correct would be separate okay thanks. Thank you Bertha anything else you want to say about the guidelines or should we go back to the top and start discussing them? We can go back to the top and start discussing them and if you have other questions I can move around if you need to. Thank you okay colleagues let's start with the first red sentence however funding needs related to COVID-19 may take precedence. Any questions or comments about that? Mr. Mayor if I might. Councilmember Middleton. Thank you Mr. Mayor good afternoon everyone and to my colleagues and everyone watching I I think that is the appropriate tone setting statement and I think that's the way I think that it strikes the proper tone for us to to conduct our discussion about the the budget moving forward and you know we we talk a lot about nailing down what the what the deficit or what the the gap is going to be and you know it's part science it's part art I was on a call with the North Carolina League of Municipalities Board of Directors yesterday talking about how to to to project what the gaps are going to be and and I think a prevailing sentiment was you know plan to govern for the worse and hope for the best it's much easier to come down off of austerity than try and course correct upward as you get real-time data so I you know just just at the beginning that's how I'm going to be governing myself in this conversation I'm assuming the worst preparing for there are some red lines I think that we should have in terms of what is absolutely vital and critical for us as a city to maintain obviously employment benefits for our staff but but I'm assuming the worst in terms of the projection and hoping for the best so I want to thank the staff for the work that they've done and I think that's a wholly appropriate statement funding needs related to COVID-19 may take precedence I think that's appropriate that's how we should govern ourselves thanks thank you thank you council member any more comments about that sentence I think we're all in accord so appreciate your comments and thank you Bertha let's move now to the second red phrase which is go back up Bertha yeah there we go the FY 2021 budget must support the state's strategic plan identifying funding to enhance priority programs and services while considering potential revenue losses you're by good with that I'm saying some thumbs thank you the tax rate for the general fund rule this this is this was very important now this is a big one so let's give this some careful consideration the tax rate for the general fund were made at the current rate of 30.8 cents per $100 assessed value and we had added very consciously that we would be considering tax increases above this amount for important needs that could not otherwise be funded so the administration is now recommending that we not have that tax increase and I will welcome any comments that folks may have about that thank you yeah I think that that's absolutely necessary for the economic moment that we are in right now we've got a really severe crisis and there's you know our important needs that cannot otherwise be funded are just not going to be funded right now that's the reality of the situation that we're in that's the reality of the situation that our residents are in I think a tax increase this year would be yeah it's just it's just not it's just not appropriate and we got to move forward with what we got I will add my agreement to that there's a lot we want to do but we're in a we're in a we're in a crisis moment and I think this is the right recommendation other comments on this I'm have I don't see everybody on my screen so speak up if I don't call on you okay Councillor Middleton no no I was I don't see everyone as well I think what's the screen when we're in screen sharing mode we still see the documents so I don't have the benefit of seeing everyone as well so we'll use our voices to pipe up charlie is waving thank you charlie thank you mr mayor thank you council member freeman for witnessing my my plea for attention I just because this is such an important statement I don't want to let simple silence equal consent here but I will say that that I think this is exactly right and exactly where we are we're going to have to be very honest with our friends over the next several weeks about the situation we find ourselves in and I think we're going to have to be very direct and clear with folks about how important it is for us to maintain essential city services in the upcoming budget and I think what people also need to understand is that that these forecasts as we've heard today are preliminary can change as we go deeper into as we get into the next fiscal year we don't know what's going to happen if there's going to be a relaxing of our stay at home orders so that our economy can get a little bit back to to business and then need to be restricted again if as we hit an additional wave of the virus later this year and so I think those those factors all demand the very cautionary and the very careful approach that these guidelines set forward and I just want to as everyone else has so far thanks staff for being for putting in all the work to get us to where we are today I believe the city manager or you Mr. Mayor I can't remember said it's almost like having done it twice I think it's exactly like having done it twice because they got very far during the first week in March toward what was going to be a really good budget with a lot of great new things in it now they had to they've had to retool nearly every aspect of the budget to get us to where we are now and all as I said this sentence and the revision here is really important for us as we go forward as policymakers into the budget vote that we'll have in June but also to make sure that we are all in the community obviously using appropriate social distancing that we're in the community and talking to our neighbors our friends and city residents about why this is important and about how we all have things we want to do in the upcoming budget and we're all going to be disappointed but the critical issue is we have to preserve essential city services I think that removing that language from the budget guidelines helps give us room to try to do that even under a number of the worst-case scenarios so that's what I wanted to say about that thank you Mr. Mayor thank you very much councilmember Reese councilmember Freeman thank you Mr. Mayor I'd also like to add that I appreciate the staff's recommendation to stay at where we're at I would likely be encouraging us to look at lower but recognizing that right now is the time for panic so I'll just hold on on any of that push but I do know that folks are reeling right now based on their own personal finances and job loss and what have you and I'm really concerned about how property owners will manage even at the current rate considering that there's been quite a bit of of property tax increases in the last two years so I just want to make sure that I do note that I appreciate where we are but I would like to push for more thank you very much any other comments on this one okay I'm going to then just say that we have consensus we don't traditionally vote on these things that the individual items in the guidelines at this point and Bertha you will at some point bring the guidelines back to us for a vote is that correct that's correct but I'm hearing broad consensus on this very important decision so thank you very much Bertha and I think we'll now next the next thing we have is a new item fund balance may be considered to oh no I'm sorry fund balance and the general fund will not be projected to fall below 12 percent this is the number that we had in for many years in the last few years we used 16.7 percent but we have always known that should a emergency one of the reasons we had that 16.7 percent was to keep a safety margin should a genuine emergency occur and so I'll just say that I endorse this and I'm happy to hear other comments from members of the council councilmember freeman and then councilmember mace thank you I appreciate that I also concur with this projected or the recommendation the only reason only thing I wanted to note is that if there was not a move to push for funding in emergency cases for COVID-19 in the amount of five million dollars I would not be supportive of that 16.7 percent going down to 12 but noting that we will have unexpected expenses and having those funds available make me more comfortable with that going down to 12 percent thank you thank you I think I call on councilmember reese next and then mayor pro tem thank you mr mayor this is the general fund is often somewhat erroneously and simplistically called the rainy day fund for cities however I think it's raining and I think dialing back our expectation on on how much of fund balance we retain is exactly the right thing to do right now that's what it's there for that's why we keep it and it's a testament to how well run the city has been in the last decade that we are in the situation we're in with the fund balance and so you know we've all had moments over the last number of years where we've had things we wanted to do and wanted to spend fund balance on I think for the most part we've been responsible about that and today is a day to to be glad about that and to agree that I think 12 percent is the right number for where we are it will always be the right number but I think it's the right number for this upcoming cycle thank you thank you very much mayor pro tem thank you can we hear a little bit more from tom about what other consequences there are to going down beyond past 12 percent down to that state minimum of eight I don't think that that's necessary now but if you know as as the rain increases if we need to pull additional sources of revenue to to manage operations what would be the impact of going down to the state minimum level well you know there there are a number of factors and I was going to comment even about going down to the 12 percent factor certainly you know the biggest impact is when it would be you know how it played out on our bond rating 12 percent is is typically you know a fairly standard place place for us to to be so that would be that would be one the other thing I was going to say too is that you know how we use fund balance is something that we usually are very protective of typically we you know say fund balance will be used for one-time expenses so that we don't you know spend spend money that we need that we think will need every year but we only have it once this is this is a fairly exceptional time obviously as councilmember Reese said I think that you know it you know to the extent that you know we we accept the the projections for future years is a some somewhat return to normal then I have less concern about that I also think that we will as a part of either the budget or or subsequent to the budget want to think about how we build in a rebuilding or you know reinstituting these balances in the future in future budgets so we don't just say okay we're going to start living with 12 percent 12 percent from now on you know we would want to think about you know building in future future increases back to to those you know those stable points for the the next time that we we would need them Bertha do you happen to have the numbers like the absolute dollar amounts we're talking about in any of these contexts we we had a slide previously but I don't know if we have that today oh yes looking at 12 percent the number the minimum level would be 24 million and at 16.7 it'll be 34 million so our surplus for 16.7 is 10.6 million but if we if the number is 12 percent then we'd have 20.3 million okay so so the the difference between 12 and 16 is what so the it was it's 10 million around 10 million okay i'm just i was just trying to put some dollar context into percentages so thank you and and tom just the caveat to that is that is based on us meeting our projections for the current fiscal year right which still can be a challenge so we did our quarterly report we project what we where we think our revenue is going to come in and our expenditures but we may have more expenditures than we anticipated this current fiscal year and we almost we also may suffer of course in some of our department program revenues less revenues so that number is not a not a good number at this time we'll need to recalculate that calculate that of course at the end of the fiscal year thank you so bar says i understand it then the the it's the the the the amount between the 12 percent the 16.7 is 10 million dollars or less and the less would be it's less by the amount that our program revenues are declining in this fiscal year or we may have some other extra expenses in this yes and then it's calculated based on what the actual budget is and so it will depend on what our budget is because it's a percentage so we will have a closer we'll have a number obviously by the time we get closer to the manager's budget we will continue monthly to to but we are starting of course we have some revenue shortfalls already in our departments as well as some of our other revenues slowing down we still get you know i can see tax and other revenues in the current fiscal year that we had normally we come in within one percent of our projections and so that may not happen this year right so there's the revenue challenge there's also i guess some of the the um the fee challenges are in i mean there's the property tax question challenge but there's also the um i guess there for example parks and recs parks and rec is in the general fund that's correct yeah that kind of thing okay mayor pro tem i think you may have had another question or two nope i'm good thank you you're good okay uh council member freeman i think um i just wanted to ask quickly if the tax revenue shift or the tax date shift is going to have an impact on which quarter that's going to come in does that does that have any impact on where we'll stand but the end at June 30th are you are you referring to income tax yes so when the property tax does actually hit um i guess the city because it's coming from the state to the to the county how does does that any of that time in matter are you speaking of property tax or sales tax both so property tax comes from the county to us they collect for us and the majority of that revenue is collected in january most people pay it by the end of the year so we have very little coming in after after january the sales tax revenue comes from the state and so we get those that revenue on a monthly basis okay thank you i think um councilman macabre i had a question yeah let me let me come back to that too councilman freeman i think that uh you know one of the one of the things that we we have experienced before during the recession in 2008 and that i expect we will experience now for a couple of reasons is probably some delays in those uh receipts of those sales tax collections that's what i was getting at i think the state is likely to extend you know timeframes at businesses and have to submit their sales tax but also we have seen many times that the state for their own cash flow requirements have have been a little bit slow to push so we are we are continually challenged when that occurs because you know we'll we'll receive a payment for a month but we're not always sure if that's a hundred percent of the payment that we should have received or some subset of that and so as we make projections we're always trying to think through you know is that a complete collection or not and then remember that we have a three or four is it four month delay birth or three month a three month lag uh in in the best of times from when collections are made till we receive them uh but but we expect that that's going to be even more significant so it is going to be a challenge for us to really manage uh and project sales tax throughout the year for a variety of reasons okay thank you thank you uh councilmember caballero did you have a question yeah just clarifying so basically the rainy day fund may already be getting used or seems likely to be used in our current year which then draws down that 10 million because of current gaps and then that also then gets kind of snowballs more into next year right i think that was the points the mayor was making with its 10 million or less yeah or less okay is there and this is just you know you're going from 16.7 down to 12 is there do some people do like is there do you have to go from one straight down to the other i mean do two people tear it at less percentages absolutely absolutely okay thank you thank you are there any other questions um i'm looking at the group i don't see any hands up any other councilmember freeman on this issue yeah just one more um councilmember caballero's comment brings to mind does this does this um decrease in rainy day funds have an impact on bond ratings by any chance just making sure that we're keeping that in mind as well i think tom mentioned that in his comments so that is considered as part of the bond rating yeah i think that below 12 i would be very concerned i think my my thoughts from you know all the years we've talked about this and and and and david boyd's conversation with the rating agencies you know when you when you use some of that fund balance are we lower an amount the bond agencies really want to know what's the plan for building it back uh as much as the fact that you you used it and so those are things that we would have to continue to work on to the extent we uh we you know significantly draw down on on fund balance and i just make that point just to highlight that it becomes really important how we invest as we're in this downturn in the businesses that are here locally and making sure that they can come back because that is our revenue in the future and so just making that point thank you thank you all right um i think that we uh have again on what i would consider a very important issue uh reach to consensus uh is everyone good with this uh with this budget guideline is there anyone not good with the budget okay um when i go to the new item underneath that fund balance may be considered to cover projected revenue losses let me ask uh on this one uh bertha does this include a lot of items that are not one time funding does this mean that we would also consider fund balance to cover recurring uh expenditures this is just to stay in the past we've not had to use fund balance to cover revenue losses because we've matched our budget to our revenues and this is just saying there's a possibility like with sales tax we would have to fill that gap with sales tax or the other options you would have to cut on the expenditures so it's not about the one time items say again it's not it's not really about the one time items it's just saying that this is a different use of fund balance to cover a revenue shortfall where we may want to make that decision versus cutting on the expenditure side right and and mr mayor this is the point i was making that you know some some of the decisions around using one time revenues for reoccurring expenses are to what extent do you believe that those revenue losses are permanent or to what extent you believe those revenue losses you know would be restored you know either later in the year or in future fiscal years and there's lots of you know lots of debate about that but you know on its surface you know based on you know what we continue to see about the the economy and in the triangle and endurum and and you know the bounce back and all those kinds of things i stay pretty optimistic about this even though we acknowledge that there's lots of pain and suffering both you know figuratively and practically along the way you know for maybe the next 12 months or so but but we want to be very cautious about this but i think this is a time that you know that that we you know we may well deviate from our standard practice and and use these one time revenues to cover reoccurring expenses because we think that it's important that those expenditures be made to not have either a service reduction or some other cost reduction but also because we believe that the the revenue losses is either temporary or one time as well thank you very much um okay uh other comments i've somehow lost your picture by something i did here hang on speak up if you uh just because i can't see you ignore me yeah mr mayor i'd like to say one quick sure thing um thank you i think one of the things that uh that we need to keep in mind is when we use uh fund balance to replace these these types of revenues is that as the as the city manager said i think our assumption will be that uh at some point in the future whether it's six months 12 months 18 months whatever it is that things will get more closer to normal uh than they are today but i think we also need to be keeping in mind that it may very well be that this um that the prevalence of this virus has ends up forcing changes in the way that that we do business um around the world including right here in Durham and i think whether that's uh changing in the nature of restaurants and how seating and service is handled whether it's um you know the does the movie business uh going to movie theaters does that actually come back in a form that is recognizable to where it was two months ago lots of things could change and i think as we kind of move into the i guess post COVID world or the fully COVID world i guess i should say i think we need to be aware that we won't always we there will come a point where we have to change how we structure the budget change how we raise revenue such that we can't just keep going to the to the fund balance to accommodate that so i think you know for this for this time this is exactly the right decision to make but i think in the long term we obviously need to keep our eye on how our economic base is changing uh with the new reality that that i think is going to be forced upon us uh in the years to come and obviously that will have implications in a lot of ways but i think right here it's that we can't that you know using fund balance while we're trying to figure all that out is a really good idea but beyond that it's so thanks thank you council member uh anyone else like to make comments on this okay thank you very much um i think we're in agreement um and these are important decisions and i really appreciate everybody's thoughtfulness uh the next one is the tax rate for the dedicated housing fund will remain at two point zero cents so uh this would be we had previously decided that we would raise the taxes per the voters uh what the voters did on the bond referendum and the administration is here recommending that we not have this tax increase this year um and um let me just ask a couple questions about this um we have uh the the i'm reading the presentation we still have the the only decline in the uh the dedicated housing fund projected is these the the relatively small decline in property tax collection uh rate is that right bertha that's correct um i want to remind you we'll be showing the other funds yeah we get through this so you might see that a little bit clearer too yes um and um yeah i saw that when i when i read the presentation and the um the negotiations with fallon are ongoing for the sale of the five uh for the police headquarters yes but that revenue is in the general fund okay so we had discussed using that revenue for affordable housing uh what's this what is our thinking on that uh well at this point you know that was we talked about at the budget retreat uh you know those decisions are are to be made but i believe right now the revenue projections and bertha you can correct me if i'm wrong for the current year anticipate receipt of those funds uh in the general fund that's correct okay so that current projection that you gave us bertha that's where they are now that's correct in the car fiscal year okay um all right uh we've heard from council member caballero on this one other folks mr mayor council member middleton thank you mr mayor um i think uh council caballero's dead on on this i i some maybe remember that i argued i debated rather vigorously for this increase in anticipation of the uh debt servicing of the affordable housing uh money we would raise i thought that since voters had overwhelmingly uh agreed to take on his debt it'd be a good idea from a financial uh prudence point of view to get the money early and start collecting uh interest on it uh in anticipation of the debt that we knew was coming but in light of these overwhelming and extraordinary circumstances that we find ourselves and i think this is a most appropriate um uh recommendation on a part of our of our staff and that and i support it fully thank you thank you council member rice i agree everybody else anyone else mr mayor i just want to thank you add that um we're we're in this difficult position where at the same time as our our revenues are going down in our community's overall capacity to pay taxes is going down the need in the community is going up particularly with regard to um you know housing and food and all these other basic needs and so um these are going to be really difficult decisions right these programs are things that help our most vulnerable residents be able to you know afford housing and continue to live in the city at the same time we're you know dealing with the impact of increased taxation on those same people and on the city overall so um given that we don't need this increase to um put into place our first year of our housing plan uh i think and and that this year is you know not a good year for a tax increase i think this is the right way forward um but i you know continue to have in my mind that we're gonna have to figure out some really difficult questions around you know meeting the increased needs in the community that are that are coming up as a result of covid with the limited resources that we have and those resources becoming even more limited as a result of covid so yeah it's a it's a tricky place okay any more comments council member freeman thank you i appreciate mayor feltim's comments and um i just wanted to note that there is also which is why i was arguing vehemently against uh increasing uh tax in uh in our last meeting regarding the budget um there are a lot of folks who were experiencing covid related um financial situations prior to this and they're disproportionately people of color and i just want to be mindful at all times that yes we're where covid has created some financial hardships for some some are still experiencing that on top of the financial hardships they were already facing and so just being mindful that the the way in which we do invest i'm i'm i'm going to keep hitting on that point is that in that it's not just the businesses but it's the people and being able to stay in their homes these things matter and creating uh the safety net that we know that the federal government's not going to create for some folks who wouldn't qualify for services is really important and so i i want to say again that it's um i'm very grateful that the uh staff has already put in the recommendation the five million dollars for covid related expenses that might arise because we know that they are out there thank you thank you okay um i will also agree with this i think it's it's the necessary and right step um i think that in terms of the emergency we have an affordable housing fund we have a dedicated fund and we have to make some choices uh about that funds about those funds we're we still have housing funds and we will get um some more cdbg money from the government i'm not sure that we know how much exactly maybe we do um but we will be having to face important community concerns we have our dedicated housing fund to think about that from if they're housing related and we also have potentially uh this covet reserve which i'm in complete agreement with that we don't want to commit now because we want to see what the needs are so i think we have unanimity on this as well any more comments on this one i'm just trying to look through the whole screen here okay thank you uh we'll now move to a reduction the tax rate for the downtown business improvement district will be considered we haven't seen that chart yet do we want to wait till we see that chart to discuss this one bertha it's up to y'all i can i can i think let's do that let's hold on that until we look we haven't seen that chart yet okay the next is the uh proposed water and sewer rate increases will not exceed an average of three percent it was it was it was let me see it did what is it what am i saying here bertha i can't tell where the is there a line drawn through the four percent it is it it's hard to see on the screen i'm not sure why but it's it's a line through the four percent here yeah three percent is what we're showing now okay the not exceed three percent an average okay so let me just say that i know there are concerns about our uh our ability to make sure we're able to fund our all the water and sewer infrastructure that we need um and that we are able to do everything that we're supposed to do within our water and sewer needs does this um adequately address that at three percent yes mr. mayor this this can handle the capital program um it is an area that we aren't going to be doing as much as we had hoped in the in the water system we staff spent a lot of time talking about you know all these things wanting to avoid any increase in any charges that we possibly could but was one area that we felt like uh we we needed to continue this and it is fairly modest when you look at absolute dollars as to what this this three percent would entail so that when we you know we could continue the the capital plan but also avoid as a result of our financial model a significant increase in in future years also i think that we we have a lot of uncertainties around the water and sewer fund to the extent that there are we've seen a significant increase in the the not not not delinquent bills because they're not legally delinquent but a significant increase in the percentage of people who aren't paying their water bill and as we move into recovery at some point in the future when the executive order might be amended and we start talking about uh new recovery uh this is another area that i think we have a lot of concerns about how that might play out what our bad debt expenses would be those kinds of things and so we need to keep this fund solid and again the well three percent is three percent dollar amount absolute dollar amounts on these bills is a fairly small monthly amount per household thank you and we are i know that we have a lot of people as you said mr manager who have not paid their bills and i assume would have had the water shut off under different circumstances so i assume that the possibility here is that we're going to have to consider as part of our water plan i believe you said the bad debt write-off you know debt relief not sure exactly how this will all play out but i'm assuming that also is going to be a factor uh moving forward with this fund those are the things that we're going to have to deal with okay um comments about the proposed water and sewer rate increases anyone have any comments or questions councilmember caveatum yeah just are we prohibited from doing voluntary you know how duke has their share the warmth fund you know as we were thinking of folks who are are facing obviously we're going to do the best we can as a city with with over overpaid i'm sorry delinquent bills it is are we prohibited from doing something like that legally i know we have a lot more restrictions but i'm just thinking if folks can contribute more from their own just individual Durham residents to a communal fund is that an option for us i'm not certain about that i could follow up i know we do make a contribution to social services for emergency support every year or for utility bills okay i don't know if we have a a round-up kind of program or something like that exactly thank you thank you be good to hear back on that other other questions or comments on the three percent um the recommendation to cut the rate increase from water and sewer from a recommended four percent to three percent anyone else okay i don't hear anymore and so bertha i'm going to say that we have consensus on that as well our next is a new item as we move through the budget development process and fiscal year pay adjustments for all full-time and for full-time and part-time employees will be considered so we um had previously we had previously outlined very specifically as we always do in our budget guidelines what the what the average pay increase is we're going to be but uh under the uncertain conditions that we're in the administration has recommended that we will have to look at adjustments to what we had previously recommended um so i'll open up uh for any comments that you may have mr. mayor uh calcimer calcimer melton thank you sir to be clear um when we say pay adjustments will be considered we're talking about how much upward right or or are they asking for is a staff asking for pervy also to go downward cuts you're correct calcimer melton up okay either yeah the performance increases got you got you just want to be clear thank you yeah thank you for that clarification any other comments or questions about this uh mr. mayor i would just say obviously we have a lot of work to do in this area uh employees you know very interested in this as you might expect uh we you know have evaluated a few a few options uh and we will definitely be coming back with some recommendations obviously as we work to balance the budget but this area will be a a significant challenge for us to work through and communicate to employees yes it will thank you very much i think we all regret this and this is just we talked about the fact that we there are so many new initiatives that we can't do that we were hoping to do um and here we're in a situation where we value our employees so much we've been able to do a good job of raising their pay and increasing their benefits over the last number of years that i've been on council and we um we're we hate to be in this position where we may have to be able to where we may have to reduce the raises that people are given but it is the reality we're in and we know that the administration will come to us with a a balanced package that will include all of various factors that we but thank you and i think we have consensus that this is an unhappy necessity next supplemental retirement a reduction of the five percent city contribution may be considered any particular comments on that i think we're that's sort of the same the same boat as the last item all right uh then the dedicated street resurfacing funding uh will remain at six million dollars for fy 2021 and then we have taken out the additional four million from fund balance which we did last year and which was recommended again for this year any comments on that mr mayor i would say first this isn't you know this is another one of those that if we think back to the resident satisfaction survey highest priority back then for our residents i suspect that may change have changed if we did the survey today but it is something that you know we we still have roads maybe they're being driven less on for the last 30 days but that that's not going to stay that way forever the you know the the consultant and the previous work even suggested we should be spending as much as 20 million dollars a year on street resurfacing so this you know in in doing this during these very challenging times would be an acknowledgement that we are willing to as a community in a sense have a lower the standard for which you know our roads will you know the not not necessarily function but i mean the conditions of our roads will definitely deteriorate and will continue in future years you can just if you remember the model the longer you wait to do certain things it's an exponential you know cost in the future for waiting but again this is another one of those extraordinary situations that you know we'd prefer not to do but i think realistically it may be a place where we are thank you mr manager any comments all righty i'm i'm assuming that uh cast member reese i just wanted to say i know this is especially painful for those of us who have been um involved in working with residents to try to address a lot of these kinds of problems i i'd spend a ton of time released i did until about seven weeks ago um being told about uh road repair needs going out looking at them um and referring those to staff and i i this is tough i know we're all going to be mindful of what the city manager just described about the need to stay on top of this as much as possible but i absolutely agree that right now it's time to focus on the the essential services that we need to provide and so i support this measure thank you thank you very much council member i also support this measure is there anyone else that would like to comment i think we're all agree on council member freeman thank you mr mayor i would just like to add um i agree and council member reese's comments specifically uh highlight all of the areas of how hard this is and noting that there have been so many conversations and i'm hopeful that the funding that would be necessary just to do road repairs would be able to cover some of those um failures that folks seem to report through derm one call and so i'll just continue to have those conversations with folks to make sure that they're doing and that's reported so that we can keep track of what's happening and where failures have occurred as opposed to just you know focusing on the repaying so thank you thank you any other comments on this one okay uh again bertha thank you i believe you have uh our consensus agreement uh funding for the maintenance replacement project plan will remain at one million dollars we usually have been the last few years we've been increasing that at a hundred thousand dollars per year the recommendation is that we don't do that this year any objection everybody good with it i see some thumbs thank you um next is new funding priority will be given to those requests that support the strategic plan um new funding priority is out this we are not doing new funding essentially uh and i just want everybody to be very clear about that this is very painful there's so many things that we would like to do and i think that what council member re said uh early in the meeting is very important we are going to be hearing from lots of people mainly our friends who want lots of different kinds of spending that are not covet related but are things that we want to do we're going to have to say no to a lot of people when it comes down to the end of this budget and it is a sad reality that we face um any any comments about this any any uh anyone have any comments or any concerns that they would like to raise at this time for some reason okay yeah i'm now i'm seeing everybody okay anybody okay thank you uh we'll now move to funds will be held to reserve up to five million dollars for future code with 19 response um i have one question about that which is when it says up to five million dollars does that mean that when you present your budget you might present us an amount that's less than five million dollars or does that mean that yeah so what is the up to me yeah that that's what that means mr mayor it you know i don't think we were thinking i was thinking more what's the maximum amount that we were we were targeting you know we will we will shoot for that but obviously as we go through the budget and look for you know where where the you know the balancing mechanisms are it may be something less than that but but that that would be my goal uh that i would hope we could we could we could get to uh without other ramifications because i think there is potential uh from a variety of fronts that uh that that will be be needed in some cases uh you know there would there may be ongoing expenses that we need to figure out a way to pay for but i think there's also a lot of uh uh there will potentially be a lot of one-time expenses as well it's just something i think it's prudent that we we keep in our keep in the forefront again for those uh those things that quite frankly as we say to today we just don't know yeah and so that includes as i understood you uh two categories of things one is things that might occur from city operation side but also community needs so for example would this include um potential assistance to small businesses right okay all right uh council members questions comments um i see a thumb up from mayor pro tem uh any i could thumb up from i see some thumbs up okay great i want to just say i appreciate this initiative mr manager and bertha um this is i think really smart and i'm appreciating that you have taken the initiative to to get this to get this as part of our upcoming budget i think it's really important so thank you and then the last item we have on this is programs may be considered for downsizing or discontinuation mr mayor i'm sorry can i just say one thing about the course you can yes absolutely um i just wanted to add that i hope we can get as close to five million as possible this would be like this fund would be a priority for me over some other items in the budget just given you know the crisis that we're in five million dollars is um it's a lot of money it's still not going to come anywhere close to meeting the need um but if we could get if if we could get five million dollars out into the community i think that would be really helpful thank you any other any other anything else on that okay now we'll move to programs may be considered for downsizing your discontinuation uh any comments on that councilmember caballero yeah just at some point there will be a potential list of what y'all are thinking so that we certainly uh you know i i wouldn't say that you know there anything specific uh at this point but i i do feel like there all always should be the reality that when we are trying to address a budget gap of this magnitude that you know as we make some evaluations it may be that you know we've always we always try to avoid the the you know the situations where we say okay it's across the board everybody cuts to a budget 10 percent we know that doesn't work that doesn't make sense but also i think that for for several things both the financial realities but also potentially the um the health realities of some things that we have traditionally done we may want to downsize or discontinue for the foreseeable future and uh you know we know that that sometimes impacts employees sometimes impacts certainly impacts you know things that the that residents like but i also think that i felt it was important that we put this in the guideline as as a potential reality that there may be some things for either financial or health reasons or employee health reasons that we will come back and recommend be discontinued if uh you know and i would say more likely in the in the in the temporary basis which could mean a year or two but then we would just see see how that goes but i i just felt like it was important that we we not at least not put that out there as a potential thank you cast member race i just want to thank staff for giving us this reminder of what i think should always be a budget guideline um but especially during this time where we're trying to refocus on the truly essential needs in our community uh during a time when we're going to have when we have a budget gap to try to address it's nice to have this reminder that that this is what difficult choices will often look like i sorry appreciate the staff putting that in there thank you thank you very much mr mayor cast member middleton thank you mr mayor and i also wanted to um thank the staff i this last line it's almost like the the beginning is the end i i see this basically is just a recasting of however funding needs related to cobit 19 may take precedence um saying spirit i think it captures the same sentiment as that first red line uh in the guidelines um i think we as a city are gonna have to make the same choices that families and household are making uh at the micro level and it's a part of the city's one big family one big house we're gonna have to look at our family budget and make some decisions you know when times are tight you may not get to take that vacation or or buy that second vehicle uh and that's where we are as a city so i think this is wholly appropriate uh this line and and and it's gonna be tough it's going to be tough for for all of us but uh no tougher than it is for families that are making these type of decisions thousands of them all around our all around our city right now at this very moment so i thank the staff thank you councilmember caballero sorry i was having issues with my mute button apologies just and also it and i trust the staff to make these kinds of decisions um thinking about the five million you know at least temporarily if things have to be just discontinued programmatically because it helps us reach that higher amount for relief i think that that's absolutely the right call thank you oh we were thinking thank you all right any more any more comments on this one thank you um i appreciate it um tom and bertha other than the bid um guideline we've now gone through all the guidelines and we've given all of the guidelines a thumbs up um do you all have anything on on that just before we move on that anything else that you feel you need from us or do you feel you've gotten the discussion and the and the and the judgments that you needed i believe we do um mayor i also want to thank you all because this is the first time that we've gone through the guidelines in such a transparent way um at a televised meeting our employees are listening our residents are listening and so it sends the message the same message to everyone as well as uh you know it promotes transparency and so i appreciate that thank you i agree thank you for saying that bertha thank you tom thank you bertha um colleagues i just want to recap i mean what we are saying here to our community is that uh we will be considering and we will we know we will have to have some programs that are discontinued or downsized that's a reality we're going to face we are we are not going to be paving the number of roads that we usually pave uh our maintenance funds for our replacement project plans are going to be less than they previously were we're not going to be increasing taxes for the um for any purpose um our employees who i know are listening and who are so valued uh may not get the raises that they are almost i would say unlikely to get the level of raises that had been previously planned so we are in a time of budget austerity because that is the reality we are in uh i can just say i cannot think of the team of people that i am more confident in than our budget team that bertha johnson leads our finance team uh our all of our city management the ability to make the adjustments that we need to make and our city manager who has already guided our city through a very very difficult budget time 10 or 11 years ago tom and we're so fortunate to have you all to be leading this process and are very very so confident in your ability to do this well so thank you thank you mr mayor all right um i think now we should move to the rest of the presentation on the um other funds we will come back to the bid uh once we hit the bid uh discussion we'll come back to that guideline so the next fund we want to talk about is the transit fund we expect the fund to be able to operate within the 3.75 uh since the although the fund is losing some revenue with property tax based on the adjustment of the collection rate 134 000 there is uh 12.2 million dollars that's been appropriate to this area by the cares act and i believe on may 8th the npl will vote on the split of those uh resources and so there there is an opportunity for additional resources for uh the transit fund the fund does not have fund balance and so if the funding was not available through the cares act we would have to look at how we would um provide some additional resources to this fund and so until that point we really don't know the exact number until we see what that apportionment is thank you very much are there questions uh at this point uh or any anyone want to uh discuss the transit fund i'm trying to see if there are any hands up i don't see any um okay um yeah so looking forward to hearing what the transit fund uh operating uh support is from the cares act that'll be super important and we'll look forward to hearing back from you on that i am uh going to be at that may 8th meeting as i'm the alternate on the um mpo and i'll be stepping up to be at that meeting uh because uh of course for now i will no longer be there but charlie and i will be there uh as part of that thank you charlie thank you mr mayor just on transit real quick um uh we don't know what the amount of cares act money is going to be that flows into the transit fund so it's hard to know and also we don't think we've done uh enough work right now to know how um how the new um how the new reality that we face on the ground in durham will affect uh transit long term i think what i take away from what i've seen about current ridership is that unlike many other cities within north carolina and around the country there is still very significant need for our transit services here in durham um and i think that is uh something that we all need to understand is an absolutely essential service for the city but obviously it's much more expensive to run that service under the current conditions um not least of which because we're foregoing the revenue from the fare box right now uh in order to protect our operators and our ridership uh from the kind of close personal contact that collecting fares can often create and now we have moved to limiting seating in our buses to 16 riders per bus um obviously that increases the need for more frequency which our administration has uh as we heard about um at your work session we're looking at ways to try to address uh that problem because obviously um you know we've all heard from folks over the last uh three four days who have found who've been in difficult situations with buses passing by stops having reached their allotted number of riders and so I think all of that is to say that um that this is going to be an area that we need to be very focused on as a council in terms of how we work to make sure that our transit system continues to operate for the riders who desperately need it and I just want to say that this is going to be one of those really big priorities for me um I think the budget will be what it's going to be but as we go into the next fiscal year as we look at what adjustments we have to make in terms of when the revenue forecasts are adjusted this is an area that I will continue to be very very focused on and I just appreciate everyone's attention to this as we get into it thank you thank you very much thank you very much any other comments on transit all right thank you so much let's go ahead and move to our next fund the solid waste fund is projected to operate within the tax allocation of five point five nine cents there's a two hundred and one thousand dollar loss with the adjustment of the property tax this fund is healthy they have six million dollars in fund balance so although there may be some revenue losses we feel confident that this fund this fund can be just fun next year with this additional fund balance if needed thank you and you know what I'm seeing here that fund and some of these others is that while we're taking a hit on the sales tax on the property tax side those funds that rely primarily on property tax are not near taking nearly the hit as the general fund which has the big sales tax component that is correct that's correct and if you were you know we talked yesterday quite a bit at the work session about the the increased recycling costs and those are factored into into these budget projections already as well thank you anything else on solid waste at this time all right let's move to the next one so we don't have any updated projections for the parking fund at this time we know that revenue projections will be impacted there is no property tax in this fund so the fund doesn't will not have any revenue loss from the change in the property tax we're still working on the projections for this fund and we'll come back at a later date but I do want to point out that the fund balance is 8.3 million and the fund and just like the general fund when there is fund balance and there's a loss of revenue we do have a way to to cover that gap thank you I just want to point out as I see these individual fund balances for the various funds that this is very wise management on the heart by half of our city management so again Tom Bertha all of you all who are responsible for this very wise management of our city we're now seeing at this time of emergency and austerity that you all have done a lot of wise planning and so I want to appreciate that and uh Mr. Mayor I want to point out that David boarded his team in finance they work closely with the enterprise departments on their financials and so I want to give some kudos to them for the work they've been doing with these departments shout out to David thank you so the bid the scenarios we have here is the bid expected revenue at seven cents six five and five point seven three five point seven three is the revenue neutral number that we shared with you last year after the reval we as you look at this fund you can see the you know the major expense in the fund is the ddi contract and for the purposes of this presentation that number remains flat at each of the scenarios we um at if you look at the six cents number you know that's pretty um that's pretty flat in terms of the surplus or deficit so in the guidelines we had that we would consider a reduction meaning that we would just have the option to look at a reduction in the bid and we certainly wanted to have this slide here so that we could get some have some discussion with you all and get some feedback could you describe to me what is the major actual functional difference that would occur where are we to reduce the bid tax rate so the if you if we reduce the six cents we would hold and others can jump in we would hold the the contract at the same rate if we dropped it to five cents and tried to hold the contract at the full amount you see we have a deficit so the only funding source for this fund is the bid tax as well as the revenue that the general fund puts in the 250,000 which we had talked about a possibility if we needed that funding elsewhere so at five cents we would either have to reduce the ddi contract if we wanted to maintain the contract at the 1.2 million we would have to find an additional 152,000 and you see the scenario at the 5.73 cents so at this point the break even is obviously at the six cents where you wouldn't have to reduce the contract the ddi submits a budget request through oed every year and so they have they are working on looking at where they have some savings from the current fiscal year from some of the activities that didn't happen in the spring that they could carry forward some of that funding the next fiscal year and therefore we could have some savings with their contract it's just information at this time but it relates to the guideline in terms of us having the option to reduce the rate. Mr. Mayor I could jump into this one that you know we we have spent some time thinking about but not as much as we have the general fund and you know we we kind of try to balance the you know the what what we hear about the you know the downtown business owners and the restaurants in different places that are financially struggling and and to what opportunity there is to reduce their their tax burden but at the same time thinking about if we kept the tax rate the same not suggesting that all of the services that that ddi previously had or had been you know had been funded for how we might think differently about the needs for some additional revenue for some support for the actual businesses not necessarily the property owners in in the downtown area we don't really have a I don't have a plan in place or in mind specifically right now but I think it is the trade-off of you know on the one hand you know the the taxes trickle down to to tenants and businesses and in those fashions and so I might think about that but also think about are there some programmatic aspects that we might want to think about using that full seven cents or some you know by going to keeping at the seven cent tax rate to support downtown businesses the side of that of course is that I think then we'll quickly hear about why are we doing something for downtown are we prepared to do that throughout the entire community and a lot of the folks you know that we typically would you know we would normally hear from not typically associated with you know priorities for downtown versus priorities for businesses and other neighborhoods so those are that's a swirl of things that go through my mind when i'm not sleeping well at night about what we do about downtown and the business district and then you know the bid district but I thought I wanted to put this in front of you not with specific recommendations but just to hear kind of some of the council's thoughts about you what you're thinking about tax rates and you know interest in potentially lowering tax rates for you know for the downtown area versus how we might think about prioritizing some you know regular revenue stream for for other purposes as it relates to downtown businesses it's i'm sure you have already heard a lot of a lot from and a lot about thank you mr manager do we have comments or questions by members of the council mr mayor councilman middleton thank you mr marine thank you tom for that and thank you again to the staff and for sharing this this slide and this is something i've really really thought long and hard about coming in uh to this discussion full disclosure i i put well the council obviously knows but for those watching i sit on the board of directors for the bid as the council's rep so i'm i'm pretty conversant on some of the inner workings of the bid and firstly i want to say something about tax rates in general philosophically and and i for the sake of uniformity none of the other rates were proposing lowering we're holding them static we're just holding them where they are and i think in terms of lowering rates we know that this is a temporary situation we're dealing with COVID-19 at some point we're going to be on the other side and whatever we lower if we lower it more than one percent say to five you know governments generally don't restore you fully to where you are it's usually incremental so if if we were to go from the seven percent downward i'm concerned that when this is over down the road how how willing we would be or we would we even have the bandwidth aware with all to get back to the the rate pre-covid rate when all other rates from a taxation point of view are being held from the dedicated housing fund nobody else's rates being cut now i say this because the the downtown folk at least when i think about the folk i deal with uh with ddi we're not talking about multi-billion dollar conglomerates and rtp we're talking about bucafe are one of their constituents we're talking about in power dance studio mechanics and farmers still has an office on paris street here downtown so so one of the things that i know ddi also is working on programmatically is being the tip when we talk about the lack of minority involvement downtown ddi is one of the main organizations and interests we're looking to to help us fix that so programmatically some of the things they're involved in are precisely trying to increase the amount of minority and wisdom of women representation in the downtown corridor we're not talking about big out-of-town developers we're talking about business owners who we know and many of us patronized so and i know that there is a willingness to as tom alluded to find a way perhaps from up from up from a a budgetary way to to redirect funds to deal with some of the issues we may want to deal with under the covet heading without moving the the rate so so from a uniformity point of view in terms of how we're treating all other tax rates i'm leaning i'm really amenable towards leaving it at the seven cents but we definitely need to have some conversations with the bid about if we don't lower the rate definitely redirecting some of the funding the actual hard budget choices of what they're doing with that money to perhaps rather than landowners helping tenants and actual business owners downtown because you know when we get on the other side of this when we're looking for those engines that give us the money to help people and and to do things a lot of that's going to be driven you know for better for worse by downtown but i i do want to demystify some of when we say downtown that we're talking about some folk who are neighbors or small business owners or mid-sized business owners that many of us love and and and support on a regular basis in Durham and so i would be amenable to keeping the rate at seven cents but working on the specific budgetary decisions and i think tom alluded to the possibility of redirecting funds in ways that that meet our goal of addressing COVID related exigencies so that's what's my initial salvo when i'm thinking i'm interested of course to hear what my colleagues have to say thank you mr mayor thank you very much council member council member reese thank you mr mayor have we heard from from ddi about kind of what what they're thinking is right now i know we may have received a budget request from them prior to march but what kind of what are what are we hearing from them about about this particular question i think bertha has been in contact some with the ddi folks but i have not seen any proposals yet bertha do you have any have you received any information yet i have received some information um as i mentioned earlier uh nicole thompson and i have talked several times and obviously you know it it's her preference to retain it at seven cents but she's also working on scenarios where she may be able to capture savings from the current fiscal year if we allow her to retain those savings that we could reduce the contract next year again obviously she wants to retain it at seven cents we do know that it is a challenge sometimes when you reduce rates to bring this back and so i i definitely acknowledge that but she understands that we may not be reducing the tax rate for the general fund and other funds but we certainly may be making some reductions within those funds and with some of our programs and services and so i see that sort of akin to this you know it's it's a program within the bid so we have had several conversations and she has sent me some scenarios i don't have those in front of me but i would want to uh say that she did say she you know obviously would prefer to keep the bid at seven cents but that's the decision that we wanted to bring this forward as tom said for you all just to give us feedback i mean no decision has been made and tom has not received the budget yet nor has he received the additional information she sent to me earlier this week thank you bertha um let's see anyone else with a question at this point or comment on the bid tax rate i'm mayor pro tem thank you mr mayor um just wanted to comment that the 250 000 transfer from the general fund um if we if we kept the bid at seven cents would we would be able to remove the majority of that and still have the fund be um have like not have a deficit so that's an option that we could consider as well thank you any other comments or questions on this one mr mayor uh councilor melton yes thank you i i i think i i should respond directly to um council reese's query and and and just disclosed that i have as a member of the board had conversations with um ceo and the coal tomsen and i can say most assuredly that one she is in support of the maintaining that seven percent and she definitely is willing um managerially and as the ceo to work to find savings and to redirect funds within the under the um umbrella of that seven percent uh to address covet related uh matters so so there's definitely a willingness uh from her part i mean she made that representation to me so i think i should form a record saying that since the council reese asked directly i'm sorry if i didn't make that clear uh at the outside of my statement thank you all right uh councilmember caballero yeah um i mean just thinking about you know the my concern are for the small business owners and just because their landlords get a rent or you know lower tax rate does not mean that that savings is going to be passed on in the rent paid to those landlords by the small business owners uh whereas if we keep the the rate at seven cents and there's a little bit more give in the budget then we can potentially provide more assistance to the actual business owners versus just a tax decrease um so that's kind of my thinking thank you very much councilmember uh do we have any more do we have any more comments councilmember freeman i'll just restate i mentioned earlier that it was concerning that we would be giving a tax cut um you know area that folks have already raised issues around it always receiving the attention of the city and um i would i would think that um if we're not considering one in general that it's a hard um position to be in to make one for downtown and so just noting um i look forward to hearing more about why it would be necessary if there is something i'm missing i would love to hear something specific but um i don't understand why we're considering that cut so that's a little concern that's all thank you any other comments uh this one's a little harder to summarize than the other ones but let me try bertha i think what i'm hearing is that uh there are some folks that definitely think we ought to keep it at seven uh there's a suggestion that we might consider transfer from the general fund of some reduction of that um i i i think that um there's a lot of interest in that if we keep it at seven or whatever we keep it at that we hear from ddi what the covid related relief that they might be offering to small businesses especially our disadvantaged small businesses am i colleagues do you feel like that's a fair summary anybody want to add anything to that okay um mayor pro tem yeah sorry there was something i wanted to add which is that i believe the majority of the ddi budget is their staff right they're the downtown ambassadors and and folks so you know one of we're trying very hard to you know make sure we keep all of our city staff on board um i would also with you know with with organizations where a large chunk of funding comes from the city wouldn't want to put them in a position where they have to lay off people unless it's absolutely unavoidable so when we're asking ddi to come back with um with budget adjustments given that you know we don't given that keep it we could keep the bid at seven cents and um keep their contracts whole and they could keep all their folks on board just want to communicate to them that you know avoiding layoffs is a priority and i would be i would in general i support keeping the tax at seven cents but i think i would be even more um you know meaning in that direction if not keeping it at seven cents net folks would lose their jobs thank you bertha how's that is that reasonable guidance yes yes thank you thank you mr mayor if i can just add one thing sure and i i want to say uh again and privy to this by being on the board uh to ddi's credit they've already uh begun moving our money around uh to support uh small businesses and restaurants in the downtown area i know they were instrumental in in in jettus t uh getting jettus t where they are and keeping zen as well so um these aren't things that they're thinking about now that covid has come about some of these things are already uh money's already being moved around towards covid related uh matters and i know they they they would want that on the record and i just want to put that in the record but i appreciate the the sensible uh and in-depth comments i think my colleagues have provided on this matter thus far so i thank you thank you thank you very much all right um i think we're ready for our next so um this slide was these um items are here because i didn't know how far we would get if we needed more discussion on the water sewer rates as the manager mentioned we continue to think about those we have a meeting on monday just to go through the uh budget requests for uh the water for water management to uh ensure that we can get the best rate we can get in terms of um and what that means for our for our residents um we don't need any other discussion about storm water rates or the dedicated housing fund these were just here because they're they're tough decisions and if we needed to come back to those we could um i want to before your excuse me before we leave the dedicated housing fund i i think we you know i i would like to get some reaction from council members if you're comfortable that we just kind of move on uh move move forward with kind of the the strategies that we had put in place or do you think there is a need for something similar to this discussion that's strictly around the the housing fund i know that um uh you know where we left off so to speak uh you know the mcdougal terrace uh situation uh was was in a lot of uncertainty happy to report that i think the last family is moving to mcdougal terrace this weekend but we also know there that uh we the costs associated with that uh those repairs and that relocation is still still up in the air uh i know there's been a lot of interest in the uh our concern i should say raised about you know what what coming out of of covid will mean with um evictions uh in any of those kinds of upticks of situations that will need to be responding to and then uh still a lot of discussion in the community about the uh tax assistance program and i do want to say that you know you know as of today just to be clear this the staff has not been working on that much uh the county staff also has not been working on that much obviously because we've been responding to a whole new set of issues that that were never even contemplated so i just want to put that out there uh because i don't want to have a situation if we haven't talked about it that when we get to the budget all of a sudden we you know we're out of you know what about this what about that i mean we are fortunate to have the the dedicated housing fund or the housing the housing funding of itself which has a you know the two cents tax tax revenue stream and the and the the federal the federal funding programs and some other resources and it can be just a situation of of you know moving money around or deferring projects for other priorities but i just wanted to be sure to check back in with you today is to see do you think there's a need for a separate mini budget discussion around the housing programs or are you comfortable that knowing that the money's there and we will continue to respond and kind of figure things out as we go and as you know other um you know uncertainties become clearer whether that's to what extent dha will get uh federal funds to reimburse them to what extent there's other costs associated with me google terrace uh to what extent there are uh additional priorities for eviction diversion some of those kinds of things i just want to put that on the table while we have you here today so that we you know we don't get down the and find out that there was a either a surprise or something that we missed with your intentions thank you mr manager i'll i'll uh respond to that and then happy to hear from colleagues i think it would be good once you're a little farther down the road with information and knowledge uh to have a discussion about the dedicated housing fund and also for example if there's other cdbg money that's coming especially for these kinds of things um i think that that's that would be good i don't i would i would prefer it once you all know a little bit more um maybe we could do it as a work work session item with a presentation or of course if you feel that we needed for a special meeting we could do that too but um you know i think one of the things colleagues that i heard the manager say i just want to say this out loud is we have been counting on the money from Fallon for um the housing fund it's now going to be out of necessity put into the general fund uh you know we talk about all the people we're going to be disappointing and one of the groups of people we're going to be disappointing is people that want to use that money for uh affordable housing we are in an all time of austerity and i just want to say that i support that but um we all of us are going to have to be dealing with the many disappointments that uh people are going to be feeling uh and we're just going to have to be honest about our situation transparent about our situation and strong in our conviction uh that um this is the time for uh that we've got an enormous budget hole to fill and this is a time for the kinds of austerities and choices that are uh going to help us maintain our essential city services keep our employees paid and and well compensated um and uh able to do the most important things in front of us any thoughts of any other thoughts about the dedicated housing fund are you all okay with the idea of having a discussion um um i got a thumb up from councilmember caballero uh at a later time i see some more thumbs up councilmember freeman mayor pro tem okay so i'm hearing good guidance from looks like everybody um comment bertha that we would like a conversation about that but that perhaps at a later time when you want thank you thanks i appreciate tom bringing that up because that we in the past we have had a separate kind of housing discussion um prior to budget adoption and so thank you tom thank you all right yeah go ahead bertha i was just gonna ask other questions related to the presentation are there any other questions related to the presentation i have a question uh huh go ahead councilmember thank you mr mayor and i thank again tom and bertha for for this incredible work uh you're doing for the city um i i'm i'm i'm glad we're we're gonna have this five million we're looking to have this five million to address covid related needs whatever they might be i'm curious um and i hope this isn't premature i'll put you guys on the spot asking um we've seen some media lately about about a million dollar fund that our friend and raleigh shout out to them i know they watch us regularly um friends and raleigh have established to help small businesses in raleigh i'm wondering and i know that raleigh took notes from us on our affordable housing bond um have you guys looked at that at all is there anything worth looking at uh that in terms of moving forward and how we might help businesses uh in terms of a model worth looking at in your opinion bertha or tom if you have looked at it um yeah i don't know that we know for sure yet uh because that was more a transfer of funds with a a you know the program was not completely defined uh the um deputy uh city manager chadwell and uh petty group have been working with our partners uh thinking about what a program might look like for the city federal programs uh and funding that are coming down trying to understand what that looks like there's some potential for state programs so we know that it is uh it is an issue that we want to respond to i anticipate that you'll be hearing more from us kind of out of the budget cycle about what that might look like i think we are being very cautious to not fall in the trap of acting quickly uh for the sake of acting quickly uh as i say scratching an itch uh and making sure that uh that whatever we come forth with really is targeted and not just something that is quickly uh you know used up by those that have the the easiest advantage of access uh so it's something that we're we want to be very intentful about uh certainly i think it's going to play into our to last initiative as well uh probably we'll look a lot like that but just with a different a different a little bit different focus so you'll be hearing back from us soon uh with some ideas about that but i also want to say i am not uh at this point i don't believe we're going to be as you know that we're in a place to just say let's write a million dollar check so that we can say we did something and move on we want to be you know not saying raleigh did that but those those programs and guidelines have not been developed yet from everything i understand thanks so much for that appreciate it thank you i think we all recognize the importance of assisting our small businesses and we want to do it in a smart way and i think that tom and i have talked about this and i've been on some of the conversations uh with um there gosh a couple of weeks to go conversations with uh self-help and uh Duke University as you all know is established a fund of a million dollars to a help small business and there is in the way that tom said that they haven't decided uh that that we're still trying to decide about what how to set up a program duke is still working to figure out what its criteria are um i feel strongly as tom indicated uh we don't want this to be a first come first serve program like the ppp has become for the federal government we want to target the disadvantaged businesses that we know are most in need and are let are the least likely to be able to access federal funding including some businesses that are operated by undocumented people who can't operate who can't access the federal funding at all um but our and our historically disadvantaged businesses and so i just want us to be mindful of that i know that duke is very interested in us helping to match their funds and i definitely support that uh but i support the thoughtful approach that the university is taking uh and that uh that stephanie williams office and that our oed is taking and the other folks working on this so i definitely want to do it i'm very much in support of it and i want to do it our way um the way that we do things do things well any other comments or questions on that any other anything else on that uh council member freeman thank you i i appreciate your comments on that and i i understand i know that i mentioned on monday night um pulling together some folks around creating a fund specifically um to address something like this and so i'm waiting for them to give me more information and i know that they're they're trying to nail down some specifics exactly around what you mentioned just as a small support um that or small piece and and part of trying to support the small businesses in our community i um also i just wanted to track back i noticed um we received an email while we were in this meeting and i just wanted to be clear that if there were a decrease in the match for um 401k's that that would still come back to us before it was done i just wanted to make sure that that was clear to folks that this is not a we're not saying that we're going to decrease anything right now but uh that's correct that we're just just making sure that there's considerations that are available for the city to make adjustments if necessary absolutely thank you all right um i think we've done it bertha have we yes and i just want to thank uh john and lauren his his team um they have pivoted from working with our departments developing their budgets to go back and go back through our multi-year plans and develop these presentations um we are so fortunate to be able to telecommute so we haven't lost any time in terms of the budget process and so i just want to thank john and his team for all the work they've done over the last few weeks and continue to do getting us ready and trying to weekly listen to what's going on with economists and other folks and trying to you know adjust accordingly so i just want to thank his team and thank you all i too want to express my appreciation to bertha the budget staff but all the department directors who have just continued to to to work amazingly under very fluid situations and a lot of times you know some of these budget discussions are not their highest priority for the day they have stayed attentive and responsive as we've tried to to work through them and as i said at the beginning really the the next couple of weeks are going to be very intense for us to have quite a few quite a few meetings to to sort through how we come back in the middle of may with a a recommended and balanced budget that that is consistent with the the budget guidelines and and is something that you know you will be willing to to consider and and propose to the community thank you tom i think that and i want to thank ed bertha to your thank you bertha and add to your thanks to john allure and others on your staff we appreciate you um so i think what i'm hearing uh tom let me make sure that we're on the same page now pardon me about the timeline um you all will be talking to us in your individual meetings tom and maybe if you need others in the intro about what you're thinking is along along the lines as you develop more information on the on the housing we'll have some sort of more a group presentation either a special meeting or at the work session and then in mid-may you'll come to us with with a fully developed budget proposal is that is that what we're thinking yes and i think that we'll you know we'll likely have that kind of free budget check-in with the where we are before the budget is presented but we and you know would be presenting the budget officially at the uh the second council meeting in may okay thank you and mr. mayor i would just want to be sure i i i think it was uh evident and and assume but i want to be sure that there's not misunderstandings and we can do some more follow-up but you know we when we last were talking about budget in a different environment uh the council was wrestling with a number of new initiatives and new priorities that that people were proposing and i'm i'm pretty very acknowledging that those are going to be held in abeyance for now as a part of this as well along with the other staff initiated requests mr manager i believe that we all are of that understanding um to be sure yeah i think we're all facing a very very difficult reality uh this and you know i mean i'm honestly i'm heartbroken about so many things in our community right now so many of these initiatives i'd wish we could do so many ways in which people are just having to undergo such difficult circumstances in their own lives um the financial hardship that people are facing it's just a very tough time and uh we uh i think uh mark anthony said it well we are facing the same situation that a lot of our individual households are facing as a community and we're just going to have to uh we're going to have to step up to that and and again i clearly think that that you know this is a budget that uh we will be paying close attention to and that will evolve well past the adoption date in june uh and that we will you know have a lot of continued check ins uh and and you know if if we are very fortunate and things can rebound then there'll always be opportunities to come back and revisit some of some of the issues but for now again we are we are where we are but thank you for your support and cooperation with all of us thank you colleagues i do want to say and uh uh that we have out today a new uh stay-at-home order uh the uh the county has amended the stay-at-home order which we of course have adopted in the spirit of our unified stay-at-home order it does extend until may the 15th um as you all know the governor extended to may the 8th this is a week beyond that uh the governor has continued to make it clear that what they're doing at the state level is the floor and they're expecting the urban areas to do what we need to do to keep our community safe and the understanding that our restrictions are uh very very well might be uh more stringent than theirs uh so we are continuing our own order through may the 15th we have done a little more relaxation uh we're trying to gradually relax things that we can and let people get back to you know especially employment forth so we've done a couple things we've relaxed the real estate regulations a little bit i want to thank councilmember reese and uh commissioner rec howl for working with our real estate businesses on that thank you charlie big help and we're also now allowing curbside uh delivery or pickup from any uh retailer so uh that uh rile wade county and orange county have been doing that for a week i'm not sure how long orange has been doing wakes been doing it for a week they have felt like it's been successful so you will now be able to uh if you're a real pure retail business be able to offer curbside pickup even if you're not deemed essential uh this is under certain of course safety constraints uh but i'm glad we're able to do this listening up and then in the last order we also re-established the ability of farmers markets to operate under safe circumstances and i want to thank uh everybody who worked on that as well but i did want to let you know that that order will be in effect tonight at five o'clock um any questions about that councilmember caballero just that the governor did cancel school through the rest of the year during his announcement this afternoon okay thank you and then i had a quick question that was budget related sure which is we're supposed to have one a minimum of one public budget meeting which we that was the one we cancelled back in march and so are we thinking i guess what are we thinking around that and then additionally i just wanted to say thank you to all our staff for your excellent work i know we're facing some really tough decisions but again you you really do set us up to make those hard decisions in a really effective way so um the public hearing we still have a public hearing scheduled for june first which is the required public hearing the one we had scheduled before was not required thank you thank you any more questions for bertha or tom all right thank you for this special meeting everybody great job um have a great weekend everybody thank you so much i'm going to declare this meeting adjourned at three twenty two p.m thank you so much everybody everybody have a great weekend stay home wear your masks thank you thank you tom thank you bertha thanks everyone bye