Have a good afternoon. How are you? Great. That was a good parade. We had a lot of kids on that float. That was awesome. Two cents beside me were freezing the day. Yeah they were. Oh yeah. At least it didn't rain. Mobile insurance policy three times jumping on. One. One. One. Please be careful. What was that? Everybody says fully open public. Yes. Here. Soon they forget you. Can I leave? Can I leave then? Thank you. Oh God for all that you've done for us today. For the blessings you've disordered upon each of us as individual members. Yes that you might continue to show your blessings upon us. Allow us to sense and to feel your nearness and collaborate and discuss the policies and the workings of our city. Our city to feel the necessary warmth that is necessary for building and for sustain the city. We will begin with our city council discussion. Reverend Mcdowell before your item. I did want to ask you this is a housekeeper matter. We clerk who always reminds me of springtime and people coming up for spring break in Eastburg. Do you all want to revisit April's calendar at all? I think you had a few questions about it. And then I also remember with Caller Routham I would mean that some members of Council in the region might have a visit as a council to visit some of the delegation members. I just wanted to raise that. Right now you all are meeting on April 16th for a work session and a council meeting. And we wanted to propose. Yeah I thought there were some scheduling challenges so we wanted to get that straight one quick. So is April 2nd? Which would have been a normal yeah. That's what I had down April 2nd. I don't know if the school district's calendar is changed we thought this year. I'm not sure how we got a little up track. April 2nd? Is that good for everyone? Right now we only had April 16th listed so that was the other reason why we were trying to double check with everybody. Okay so you're not available this second. I can do a second. But you can. About the 24th. The 30th. I'm just going to do a nine. Just plan on the second and I'll just try to see if I can. Let's just plan for a second. I don't think I have to do that. We're just trying to get one meeting. Right now we're just trying to get one meeting. Do we have the second? The second. Well I think that's a recommend. I mean y'all go ahead and just plan it. If I'm not here I'm not here. I can't really participate. You know you need to be working. What's working in the evening? Afternoon sessions when all the work is done. Work session. Is one better than the other? I'm out the night. I could do the 16th but that's why I plan. Y'all just plan on the second. I'll see if I can play something around. And then do y'all want to talk about it? I don't know if we can do that. We can do something in a few dates. In regards to Washington still. Whether it's April or not. I guess what are we going for? That would. Yeah we got a plan for that. What do we need from them? No we don't. If we've got a good file of agenda. Fine. But if not I wouldn't go. We had talked about it. Sam and I mentioned it at the Ralph when we were in D.C. Because that's when everybody else was going for our meetings. And it was just Sam and I. So we didn't do any meetings. But we reminded him that when he was here to make the briefings.  At a time different than in a speech. That he didn't have a meeting. About the discussion though. A couple studies that Ralph mentioned to us. We would talk to him. So. New market tax credits expire this year. So he just. That was one of the things that he had mentioned. That. That was on our horizon. We may want to talk with him. He thinks there is a willingness to spend more. But we may want to talk about that. And then of course. There's an opportunity. So. That may. But. It wasn't for his leadership on that. Maybe he would like to. Get some project. On my day trip. First slide out. First slide. I know you like to do that. Regardless. But. Other than. Okay. Thank you. So he's. Shedding almost there. Everywhere all the time. Really bright young man. Happy. Having. You. Really. Really. Really. About. My chief advocate. Mobility and bike ability and. Armour. Armour yellow. Unless you live on there. Spring Hill. Okay. That's okay. I graduated. Okay. Maybe I'll take him out. About. And so we follow to this. The civility discussion. Right. Perfect. Perfect. I wouldn't say that. The other man. Send me out there. You want to know. Hey. Mr. Green. I think it's important as we. Discuss this. A month ago. A month ago. We wanted to make sure and ensure that. All of the. First. Initially. Now we did not make any changes. To. Understand that there are some. If we're going to talk about this. Let's talk about it. In terms of. If we're ready for it to. Push forward. To. That. For the document. Brian wasn't here. And. I think Brian. Brian. And. Kind of. Two things. Certainly. I would say. When we did this. There was a lot of going on. A lot going on regarding. Intunes. Kind of. And so it was. It was needed at the time. I do. A little. But. But. What I share with. Ironically enough. I just met yesterday. With a gentleman. From. Australia. He was one of the. But. They have started. It's called. And. International. That's the. It's. There are. There are. There are. No. There's no. And. He was. That. And so. Somehow. And. So. Yesterday. There. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. I know. I know. And. Getting there. Going to. angry. Rather. At. And. And. And. And. And. And. You know, it's a great program and we have some of the, I think we should, we should just, I would be good at social distancing, but I don't think, I think it's meant to, it's meant to be a bright side, I agree, I think it's meant to be a proper thing. Well, you know, even in the, of course, state of the city, it's one of the things that you need to do. So if, if I'm hearing correctly, we could very well take something like have a conversation with those people and that we do the teaching and the mission of this and the economy and bring it back to them. Sounds like a plan. Welcome to today's budget workshop. I didn't forget that you all said you like me at Busy Street on the budget workshops, but because we finally were able to be back here with the elevator being fixed, we just decided to stay one place. We'll start with a report from this morning from the honor of the Sam Davis on homeless services that was a population of people patient. During this morning's economic and community development committee. And committee and committee and the committee. Well, we did meet with the three primary service provider on housing services. I think the outcome was essentially that we've got to continue to talk with them just based on the information that we sort of shared in this morning. Each organization, I think, proud of what they've done, they're proud of their numbers. We attempted to kind of maybe get some clarity on some of what has been, I guess, shared with us over the past year. I think some of the daily interactions with public as when it comes to people who are homeless, especially in the downtown area. And also, I think the fact that, but one thing that I was surprised about that is that there was no outward request for additional dollars. Money wasn't on the table. And I think we kind of thought of not muddled through, but we had, I think, maybe some difficulty in agreeing that the organizations are basically going in terms of their service. Not much, I think, well, there is coordination, but when it comes to their ability to provide affordable housing, they're kind of focusing on that. Affordable housing is a challenge. Also, length of stay, their funding source, housing first, I think, is more focused on where they're going. Their timeline, I think, their timeline is more predictable in terms of two, what, 262 days of stay, 262 days of stay before they transition. Mika, you would agree a difference of opinion when it comes to transition? No, what I raised before I had to lease, I wasn't, I don't know if Craig responded, I wasn't asking for a response. What I shared, he did. After the news. What I raised was that transitions came about because MHA business leaders thought we weren't going enough. They had a solution that they thought would work, and MHA was born as you feel like there's been progress over the eight years. We're at a place where, and I can't speak to you guys, but what I shared was that I hear just a lot of concerns and complaints that people feel like transition is not really addressing the issues. What I shared was that I'm not saying that they're not, but I think instead of being defensive about the criticism or the perception that people have, which I feel like a lot of times when you bring a concern, you get more defensiveness, you know, we're doing this and giving numbers, we need to stop being defensive, except the perception in reality sometimes to say, okay, how do we step outside the box? How do we, you know, how do we stretch ourselves, do more and do more? So that was my concern, and I would just say that we need to acknowledge that concern and perception out there in the community and figure out how we're going to address it. The other thing that I raised was in the last year, I've seen a lot more of my clients in the mental health court than that.  The law requires that they have to be, they can be committed, the court can commit them, but once they are able to get charged, you can't no longer put them outside of, against their will. And so when I get involved, I'm representing them when they're ready to be discharged or if they're not ready to be discharged, they're certainly not ready. In the last year, I've seen a lot more of my clients who are ready to be discharged, and the issue becomes placement upon discharge. And more and more are no longer able to vote in addition. What happens is the hospital can't keep them anymore, and so we have people who are known to have mental health issues. We're hospitalized because of mental health issues. Once the hospital finally gets stable, they're discharged to the streets. We all know that once they get on the streets, they're not going to put them there, and they can fall back into an issue. And so there needs to be something that we do, and I understand I'm not saying the transitions didn't have rules, but we need to recognize that if people can't vote to transition, the street is not the place where the hospital needs to discharge, you know. And there needs to be some conversation among service providers as to what is that, what do we do because it's a lot more than enough, because you've got to be mentally influential with people on the street. So that was the concern I raised, but I did acknowledge, I had to leave, so I put that on the table and left. It is my same question though that comes up, you know, we're dealing with homeless in general though, because there's no requirement or we cannot make anybody accept the services. So it's a challenge both with a lot more, which I think we're going to see more and more in the past, but that's the same problem we have. I mean, for weeks we have people coming up here every week saying there's nowhere to go, but there is, they just don't want to abide by the rules. So we have, that's our, that's the quandary we're in. Jennifer actually, so I think the kind of the light, I saw the bright light of the entire presentation was there is a program they've been doing in the last few years in here. They call it for their frequent fliers, but for the ones that are challenged. And so there are 42 people that they have finally gotten to who are willing to go into the system if you become on back to where you place them. I do think they're trying to, you know, building relationships, to build a rapport for folks who have been hard put to this point. But one of the things was where we reach out to people, you get them ready to get into the system, but then there's no way to put it. So some of these people are still in the state, and some of these people are in jail, and so they're still in the state. But they, you know, there's that, and they said about 20% of them, they get about 20% of them. It's like 350 people. But yeah, and then in each case, they all have a, as part of their mandates to find some stable environment. But that is, they're talking, in some cases, families and some cases, individuals. It's easier to place individuals and families, but they both, they along with us have the same issue right now. That is finding, getting a supply of affordable housing for individuals or families. That's a challenge. And actually, we all know that that's a spinoff of the institutionalization anyway. They can go out of their institutions and you're right, they have the ability to make their own decisions. As long as they can make competent decisions and you can't tell them where to stay, you can't force them. But you can't force them to live anyway. But we, we need to make that transition to, that, you know, look, you either get help through one of the service providers that, and there's, I mean, the one thing here you're not going to starve and you're going to get care. Everything that you can think you need is there available if you take it. But we can't, we're going to have to make the broad leap at some point. We're going to require folks to either get into a program, accept the rules of the housing, or they're going to have to move on. They just can't continue just to, to, to infiltrate the streets in our community because this is becoming a problem. Advocacy. Well, it is easier said than done, but at some point we have to make the bold move that says it is, and then it becomes, it is what it is. We came to every protester that comes down here from all over the United States except for the people who live here. And this weekend is going to be a prime example where we have 25,000 people rolling into town and we're going to have a problem in the business. Because you go down there on Saturday and you've got the same group of people who are, are there and they know that there are opportunities to move forward. They're not getting the help and they're not doing the things that they need to do.  We've got 67 providers who provide homeless services in our community. And, you know, I just think sometimes we've got to, we're going to have to be a little tough love here. I think one, another challenge and all that, Daniel, is that advocacy comes into play. We, we don't regulate, but we help provide the services. But then you have advocates that can always then challenge us as to whether or not we're doing enough, whether or not we're doing the right thing. Or whether or not those providers are able to step out of the problem. It's become very repetitive for our providers. And I think that was some of the conversations that we had today. When do we step out of the box? Something that's going to get right into the implementation of the economic development. One of the things that I said, and as I said, I didn't fit with you all. I don't know all. I think we've got to come up with something. We talk about feeling the power. We talk about what we're going to do over there. A lot of communities, particularly those who are close to us. Most can take it as to it. Very excited about that. We don't deal with this kind of situation. Whether it's through employment. I think we've got three odd services that are already doing what they're supposed to do. What about those other folks who are able to be ready to work? What's going to happen? You do that in the park and it becomes a five-star park for homeless people. That doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel right. The priority for me is why not? I think what I heard this morning was that there needs to be a deeper conversation. Transitions, of course, got a little bit defensive. That was my whole point. I think we're always thinking about being defensive and figure out if that's the perception of whether we think we're doing a great job or not. That's the perception. How do we address that? We just agreed at the end of the meeting that they've got to continue to meet. Come back, but also show the ability to go to look at what's happening elsewhere here in Columbia. Obviously there. When they seem to agree, you can pull from a number of experiences in other parts of the country. What we need to tweak here. There's an agreement to do that. Transition of places. I've been going to their board meeting and they are trying to think out of the box. They've got an expert on Medicaid and they are changing some of their procedures so that they would qualify for Medicaid to get reimbursement for services the way you have them today. As I've been said around the table several times, the problem is beds. Transitions have 264 beds. There's something around that number of beds and almost every night they're full. So we identify people that need a bed. Those beds are already filled at transitions with people that do obey the rules so there's no capacity. If we want to build capacity for beds, that's the problem that's going to be offensive for a whole community. So there are no easy answers to this. The best I've seen is what Timothy was talking about. They, Kathy Riley and their group have identified a hard core and are working with about 40 people trying. And they're the ones that cause 90% of the problem. I think it's 20% cause it's 80% of the problem. They are causing the problems and they're beginning to get some of these people back to a point where they can get back to them. There are no easy answers to the question. Certainly the city of Columbia by itself cannot solve this problem. Well, I know you wanted to say something. I just wanted to put two more things on the table. I think, you know, the mayor talked about us losing the affordable housing and tax forces and revisiting our commitment to adding to the stories. I think that has to be part of the discussion for this. But the other two things I wanted to put out there, to gain a point on kind of making people feel that it's really hard. But there are certain things that they said again today, and I believe it's true. I haven't gotten a recent report, but the homeless court has been pretty successful. And I hear they can have the homeless court and they haven't had any of these offenders that they've successfully completed. So, you know, the question becomes, you know, is there a way that we get more folks in there? How do we, you know, kind of get some of these charges to try and get these homeless victims back to being homeless? And two, and I don't know if this is the point. I wanted to make this one, and I forgot to put it out. But I'll talk to Amy about it. But I have never seen any of the service providers with a sexual person at any of my local communities. But, you know, placement always is a issue. And I think they probably, mental health court relies on the Department of Mental Health that really hasn't been very helpful in finding places. But, you know, maybe there is also, I hope there is a law that maybe utilizing that it's not homeless court. Maybe mental health court could also be that kind of thing because women have really good, because as Nicole has a really good opportunity when they're in front of, they put them into court of housing that requires them to commit. Some people are placed on staff, but they're not going to pick them up poorly. So, you know, but housing has never really been a piece of it. Other than sometimes people aren't ordered to structure placement. The question becomes where do you want to go? Because structure placement isn't available within a community. All of the social facilities are possible. But that's also something that we need to think about because a lot of the homes that are out there are problems that, when they get to those, you have the struggle with, you know, no, we don't want a community care home in our neighborhood, blah, blah, blah. Same folks telling us we need to do something about the problem. But those are, I mean, those are some options to kind of think about. How do we use to get that? I just got to follow that. It's really educating the community. And you're right, unless people, number one, those kind of houses are mandated to pay it anyway. But they tend to qualify for more money. If these groups take advantage of specialized housing for people with special needs, and most of them have mental health issues to be qualified. That's not the problem with the state of South Carolina, who hopefully understand their mental health, for the last ten years or more. Cut your funding down, and your resources down at state level. It's been a state responsibility, isn't it? Well, I think it's a generational change in life, too. We've got families. You know, it used to be families that care of family members. And that model has slowly progressed. I think we're seeing more and more. I mean, there's always the fear of what would happen. I think we're getting there. I think we ought to make a comment, a true comment that, yes, I think there's been a lot of great things done. We're addressing the people who can immediately get the help and the need. Our real problem, and what we really got to focus on, is those 350, 400 chronic folks who are not accepting and are just fighting the will of that, you know, they're just going to live this way, but we as citizens need to find an avenue to take care of that, that they either try to get help or find another way to address it, because that's the root of our problem. I think the agencies are doing a great job of placing those folks where they are, where they can, and a lot of the families and individuals. And I'm not going to say we're always going to have a challenge in that. We saw that when we went to Miami. And they talked about, you know, all the people that helped, but they never could get the number to go down, because it became the center. We're the capital. So, when you're going to be short before you close, we have agreed that they're going to keep talking. One thing about the numbers, they did mention that the number of homeless populations decreased by 40% from the first year. I thought that was an encouraging number, but although when you get your e-mail with Facebook posts and stuff about homeless, they're still everywhere. There we are. We have an aggressive, proactive community that understand that women are the help themselves and the privacy. They lose some consistency in trying to keep the regular office. That's the only impact that the public sector has on the community. That's something that they've got time to lose to do. What I want to see, thank you for what I was saying, is that I want to see strong coordination, especially those who are given public money, and they can do whatever they want to do to try and keep the relationship going. These folks, and I wish they weren't going to do that, and they're going to be back. But I know that they're going to be back and they're going to be back and they're going to be back. And they're going to be back. So, I don't imagine that there's going to be anything that is going to be natural, and that there's going to be a reality that this is upload, and there's going to be a lot of people that are going to be back. So, other than what we have to see, particularly as it is going to be with the public sector, with the funding, at least out there, there's the donations there, there's the funding there, there's the providers, there's the community, there's the bought delay, there's the leverage of the partners, the facilities, and the public to see if it could be distributed, if it could be distributed, if it could be needed, and if it should be of good access. If it's a job to get back, if it could be done, if it could be more of a partner that way it would show that level of participation. And it could sometimes be a leader. The homeless population is still not up a margin to see if it could be distributed. And it's changed, you know. And that's why we have this discussion. Four years ago, there was a federal and state disinvestment in health services for updates, to a number of communities outside of the community in the region who have not been treated for many, many years. And so, we know that we're becoming more the need for you know, for better or for worse, either in a very altruistic way, just helping the entire region, but also something that we don't want to deal with. I guess that's a perfect example. The point is that we know what the numbers say, but I guess when you bring that when you bring that point up it's very good like, these are the numbers. 50%, 60% of the region counting and whatever. We hear that's the numbers and accept that's the number, but instead of their response doesn't need to be, well no, that's not true people aren't discussing here or that's not the issue. It needs to be more so, okay, the numbers tell us this, at least there's definitely a feeling that this is going on, this is how we're addressing that. I guess that was just my point. How it's quantifiable, how you're quantifiable, but we know very very specific about it. We know that that you know, and those aren't the individuals that he is dealing with which is why if he, we had to come up with the afterwards if he wants to engage I mean, what I think the balance has to be and I was explaining to him, no one is underestimating and please don't say, if you weren't doing what you're doing we would have an even bigger issue that we're dealing with on a daily basis. We want you to keep truckin' and doing what you're doing. It's that smaller percentage that gets the focus right when they're talking to their council members because any, if your child is you're walking down Main Street or wherever it might be and you have an interaction, that's the impression that you're left with and have them forbid because of mental illness or at one of our individuals we deal with chronically they have a really bad day and it's that one instance where something really bad happens and it's destroyed and not further the perception that transition isn't doing what it says in the United Way we need to expand upon those things but I think also what we tried to reiterate today Mr. Mary is that coming each year with a report out is great what would be better and more helpful is some more tangible things and we can move the needle forward now with where we are right now you're at five years from when you put the RFP out I understand that we're talking a lot about with the United Way what they're doing as far as that population of 40 but for a meeting in this room that was very candid and we need y'all to work on that I think they've been working from that original RFP and they said that today now that what y'all put out during a different place and time five years ago is different from where we are now so they need to reissue the RFP with some specific deliverables or let them keep working but we've got to be very specific annually on what the outcomes need to now be it's the former not the latter we need to see active engagement and when someone has an unpleasant interaction with somebody and that's not the fault of that alright and that is absolutely not what we're saying the police department there's this discrimination of a number of different levels in the community and in the district but we do have a different approach to that and the way in which we have that emotion is how you pay dollars and throw dollars you've got to be very creative how you do that I'd love to see much more about the engagement of the district as soon as they get here as soon as they find new ideas and they face it there's so much more we need to do we need to get back to the partner and maybe a definition of the relationship is important but with the understanding that it's not there are providers who only there are receptionist realities as we talk about crime and primary and they feel safer it's very much the same I don't feel the population it's not the rest of the city but every year can I push back on that a little bit today or I tried to but I didn't need to infer at all that the work that is being done is not work that needs to be done I feel like for the contracts that y'all have they need to be more narrowly the core issues are right now and that's that smaller population of more challenges it appears they top everything you know and I think they've talked about more outreach so does that equate to another the money being spent on an additional person who's doing outreach that's what I was saying bring back what relates to what we're saying needs to be done and then the challenge and the chief raised that today and I don't know if maybe that well the providers push back on that they push back we had zoning form but Kathy and that crowd didn't want to go then you're going to spend all day getting people to wherever the services are which might have the chief response to that was I got to take them there anyway so whether they're in the core or wherever the service were we're going to get people there doesn't help the neighborhood well we all agree where we are where we need to do and the conversation needs to continue and we need to set up some dates and time do you want them to come back to the committee and I wasn't I wasn't suggesting that you do another whole RFP but I do think some type of renewal or amend the contract but that's very smart yes thank you our next item on the budget workshop is the parking fund discussion Missy will walk you through that on Missy Kauffman Missy Gentry I don't know if they're all in the room but oh yeah that's right we've got an interview she's supposed to be on it's a lot going on with the tournament so she's talking about parking parking I don't know is that one of the USC's yeah that's what she's going to interview about so if you saw the yeah if you saw the piece last last night it did not distinguish that was not our parking garage and we don't have the responsibility for the safety in USC's garage but today it will be meeting with that reporter and hopefully there will be a better story today about our garages and also just overall tournament thank you but that's what they're doing that wasn't our garage and we were we're back we're back we're back we're back we're back we're talking about for the tournament ours is 20 for event for they charge the other night for Elton John that's what they were talking about the city garage yeah it was Park Street garage sure it was I parked there I know what the big sign said $20 that's not one of the ones the one connected to the convention center hotel that's not the one but it was yeah the break-in was at yeah Judy's we're gonna be proactive and hopefully they will they will give us the information allow us to share all the information on twitter locations for the tournament good afternoon everyone we have a short discussion today or a short topic rather today we are talking to you primarily about the proposed parking fund budget for FY19 which is timely considering our conversations we're just about parking a lot of activities are going on in the parking system the proposed budget for FY19-20 the next slide is $8,858,070 that is just a little bit of a 2% increase over the current year budget about $165,000 I'm going to talk through a little bit about what makes up that net change and it's a net offset between revenues and expenditures that are happening it says on there I'm a little confused one says it's up by 6% well the top part so and this may be where it's confusing because I broke out the top part is the total budget below here I'm talking about revenues, revenues coming in is actually $8.5 transfers in in other words use of fund balance that's another financing force of use so when we add those together that's what makes up the $8,855,000 what will we transfer into the parking fund the parking fund balance it's a financing use of fund balance parking fund balance and that's coming down below so operating revenues would actually be those revenues our parking garages our street meters our non-moving violations also named parking tickets or those lovely little orange envelopes that we sometimes get in our windshields lots and other special event revenues parking meter revenue is up and we're seeing an increase in there a lot of that of course is attributed to the use of the parking app the mobile app in the south in this entry my parking meters have been that eliminates a lot of people that will not have the app on their phone or whatever but I would strongly advise us to if you want to put the parking app fine up there that's fine but leave a meter on the top so you have the the cheapest way to park philosophical discussion but I mean I'll just say it that way because there's some nuances about where we put the app and it's and I'm not meaning this anyway because I hear it from my mom so generational I know as to what you know people are used to doing what it's a part of doing I want to go download it at the park of the meters I get it and there are people who prefer a lot of it is availability of the parking meters that we use the decision of whether we're going to go to a different style meter or not we were having to retrofit some of those older meters so a lot of the areas that are app only are highly utilized by students not all of them because we all go all over the city but we were deliberate in trying to make those areas that are you don't have because most of today's students have the app and most of my generation may choose not to use the app so we've been very conscious of that but we'll take a look again and see how many meters we have available but the meters that we currently use we can't buy we would have to go to a different style meter we can't buy the style of meter that we currently have in place now there's meters available and we've had long conversations about credit card meters even so we just need to make a decision of which style meter we'll try to accommodate I'm getting messages y'all make sure your mics weren't covered and we can all hear it you can always spark it in two meters spot smear and hey both of them Mr. Vanth so I guess the question prior to that decision being made have we done any have we done any civic engagement to just discuss that because I do think we need to be making an investment that's going to be long term I know we're doing stuff at the garages but as we as we decide oh hey this is the way we're going we're going to go with this type of meter and that's going to be something that the vocal folks who work downtown don't utilize or don't like so we need to be making some community surveys some surveys and knowledge I mean I know when I go to other cities they'll have the box but you have the option credit card credit card app or even sometimes money so I know there are a lot of options out there but before we decide on options we need to figure out what's going to work best for us absolutely and we've had conversations for years too about the pay stations and we have those in our garage but that's probably a more appropriate method in today's time the challenge with that is then you're going to have to your customers are going to have to walk a distance and then walk back to the car to put the little ticket on there that's the way a lot of agencies are going you know in Atlanta you don't have to do that put your license plate on there and put your phone number in it and it tweets you and you're about to run out and this and that there's no convenience for you it's all included in the price it's a single tower you mark the space it makes it easy because when you're somewhere and you get that tweet you know you've got to get back or whatever but you can also maximize it you have to learn the license plate the convenience there but other than that it makes it easier for the parking folks as well because they can just go to the tower and then they know the space they're not going to each new year and some of the new technology will even send us notifications if something's inspired the example you're talking about sounds like you would still have to have an Apple on your phone and again we need to okay it's just a text with the phone number you can choose to do that or not I do it all the time but then I know I'm about to get a $1 ticket we will certainly look at options and bring back recommendations just to keep us on us, we get solicitations regularly the technologies changes so rapidly in parking and quite frankly I think we all are wondering if in 4, 5, 10 years if this would be a revenue stream at all you know just the way the world's going so let's continue to look at what other solutions might be out there to allow us to adjust accordingly maximizing revenues and also enhancing the effectiveness of carrying and continuing to keep eyes kind of down the road on what do we do in the world of autonomous vehicles and ride sharing and this revenue stream very Jeff goes away at some point but let's continue to iterate what you basically got from us we want everything we want everything which is what you get from people everywhere I mean there's so many different points of view and the world's just changing so fast so how do we just kind of stay ahead of the curve and obviously stewardship and make sure we invest and have some staying power as long as there's staying power which these days is pretty short they even saw some really interesting technologies just last night looking at how ways in which cities and other governments can begin to first monitor and then regulate and then potentially monetize this mobility in general some software has been powered so it allows us to be able to track every TNC, every Uber and Lyft every scooter and eventually autonomous vehicles and to be able to control that grid prospectively down the road in the world again and with a lot of these funds and you think about electric vehicles and gas taxes very soon the obsolete fund revenues that we used to put was changing so we're going to have to figure out how as policymakers and no one in the entire country is ahead of the curve but how do we at least try to keep up but things like that cell phones so with that revenues for the garages we are projecting a 6% increase over budget which is in line with prior year actuals which meant that we were able to reduce the amount of use of fund balance other sources of revenue that are non-operating or other financing uses would be the interest revenues and then rents and use of property and of course street meters and garages garages are a few primary sources I'm just curious and I'm not trying to start something so all the all the parking businesses that they charge parking they have a separate business license valet parking they have their own garages they have their own lots after hours and you know that's private lots with private revenue and typically some of the valet companies are managing those lots at night Southern valet manages a lot of the lots but they do have a business license we can work with business license to see what they're reporting and what they're paying based on but we can certainly looking into that I wasn't trying to start a new thing I'm just curious add it to the list but we do have lots too the city does have some parking lots next on expenditures so the operating departments that make up the finding the parking fund those departments that are directly directly related to the operations of the parking system those department budgets total 5.1 million which is an increase of about 4% or less than 200,000 parking services is the largest function of that agency of the parking fund at 3 million dollars it's basically flat from the current year that would be the actual parking operations folks that manage the garage manage the systems there is one new position for event operations and extended booth coverage those are customer service folks and part of the reason why there's no changes that there was a capital replacements for this year so that offset the increase for the personnel addition next we have the parking facilities that would be the support services crews those are the folks that actually maintained the physical structure of the garages and the lights that budget is 1.7 million which is an increase of 121,000 or 7% as we switch to the parking garage control equipment that is a cloud based solution and there's an annual maintenance and support along with that new system also the addition of the divine street garage a lot of which is the electricity and some maintenance functions of that garage the actual communications and the management of the system that system also is managing the monthly customer monthly customer database debt services is a slight reduction from current year at 2.7 million another addition in the non-departmental section of the budget would be the addition of a parking funds portion of a citywide computer refresh that's a citywide replacement and this is just the parking fund that reflects the addition of parking funds the staffing technology that she's been working it's also not listed in here as we do have some funding at this point for cost of living merits that's reflected in the department budget it's actually part of the operating departments of the parking fund and that's of course proposed it's not yet adapted into the budget just to sort of move on with regards there's a lot happening as we've talked about with the parking fund the parking garage control equipment it's in place and go alive here in the next month or two and it's primarily at four garages for now it's Lincoln Street garage Park Street, Lady Street and Sumter Street also later in the year there will be an issuing of a parking rate study which may take into account some of the conversations that were just discussed with regards to new technologies perhaps and new investments that will be needed to sort of modernize continue to modernize the parking system a lot of work has been done already so this will just continue moving forward but that schedule at this point would produce a RFP late summer early fall hopefully late summer again takes in the capital investments plus the ongoing maintenance that we have of our garages and the results anticipated would be in time for the next budget cycle so y'all are all aware that we're in the process of replacing our hardware and software systems and it's taken a little longer than we intended but we also recognize the importance of getting it right but we are working on the Lincoln Park, Lady and Sumter Street garages right now we will not be live by the weekend but we are certainly staffing all of the garages recognizing the influx that are of people coming in this weekend and the need to balance the demand and supply of the parking so we're actively working around the clock and I literally mean around the clock both city staff and the consultants to go live as quickly as possible but not sooner than it's actually ready we recognize you get one shot to get it right so when we go live we want it to be everything that we talk about it being and it will certainly increase efficiencies both for the city managing our system but also for the customer using our system so we're excited about the changes coming and there's been a lot of communication with our monthly users specifically about this process and as well as our event users because there's a lot of challenges managing the event space to the event parking so we're trying to be very hands on with all of the stakeholders who use our garages for parking and y'all too will get additional credentials that will provide different accesses into the garage so that's a process underway I wish I had a date certain for you but we recognize again we've got to get it right before we officially go live so that's coming in the very near future with Lincoln Street yeah I know what you're talking about Lincoln Street when we first built Lincoln Street garage we recognize that it would take some time before the demand for that garage was at capacity we're approaching that time when we went live we allowed the first hour to be at no cost in the garage that's not per ordinance that's not advertised anywhere so as we're implementing the new system we're taking away that free hour unless y'all direct us otherwise I wasn't saying for them to direct us otherwise I was just wanting them to be aware in case they heard about it or anything else with the transition I know we are late with them and their customers one of the things you ought to consider and you know Charlotte airport does it other places do it the first 20 minutes is free so that if somebody is really just zipping in having to stop grab something but you know it's done on the ticket so you know obviously you stick it through in there 20 minutes you lose the ticket you pay the full price we ought to look at something there ought to be some type of race period in there especially as we're getting tighter in parking and we are really at capacity for the most part in all of our older garages one thing we're also doing as we're changing this equipment out is recognizing that the design of some of our older garages it had the meter and the visitor parking at the top levels instead of at the bottom we're changing that that's evolving that's not a easy process a lot of our older garages where people have been parking there as they can remember they want to be at the bottom as well but the model the industry is you that's your most convenient parking as your visitor parking so you can get the in and out that are patrons of the businesses so that process is underway we recognize how delicate that is to a lot of our monthly parkers and we're working through that so if you do hear of that that's definitely going on so part of that is signage and part of that is agreements and again we're getting new agreements signed by all of our monthly parkers some of the old agreements including even in Canada even though that's our newest garage for reserve parking it did not have specific time so we've got to work on the agreements with those monthly parkers to say that's during business hours and at night you know it's going to be open to the public and then we have to sign it so that the public knows that most of our garages are on reserve spaces there's no indication that after hours you can park there so that's something we've got to change yeah and also the model is going away from reserve spaces if you think about it when somebody has a reserve space if they're not there nobody else can park in it so the model across the industry is trying to minimize reserve spaces again that can't happen immediately for us because especially our older garages there's a lot of customers that wouldn't be relentless on calling all of us and all of y'all as we let that evolve but we are very conscious of the reserve versus unreserved and the need as we struggle to balance the demands of freeing up as much space as we can we are talking about that every day actually we're one thing we're doing and this new equipment will allow us to do is better manage the supply demand with regards to we know who's in our garage who's paying to be there and and not the access to people who are not paying to be there will be very limited I mean there's a lot of opportunities for people to have slipped in and out after hours or when the gates were up and that's going to go away and that's not a deliberate effort driven for revenue it's a deliberate effort to manage the supply demand because we are at capacity we're also as we talk as developers come to us and want to do projects we're obviously talking about what that looks like from a public parking standpoint and can the parking be used if it's a residential facility can the parking be used when the residents are at work I mean you can't oversell your parking 100% of it but obviously people who live in certain areas drive away during the day and vice versa if you're working downtown during the day that space should be free at night so we're looking for all of those opportunities and again this equipment will allow us to better manage we're also looking some of our garages do not have gate equipment so as we update agreements and and tune in on who's parking and who's actually paying to park some of that will evolve and spaces are freeing up so the last several years we've had a couple studies one that looked at the market and the rates and another that took a look more at what the facility needs were the study that we're talking about will resemble more what we do in water and sewer taking a look at what our rate structure is the revenues that come in and what the needs of the system are and how we're funding that the parking system is still has outstanding debt about 40 million dollars there are rate covenants we haven't in the past we always make sure we're within that but in order to work the necessary work at the different decks throughout we're going to need to have some expenditures going on so we need someone to help us take a look make sure we stay within those bond covenants and that it's kind of it'll be a little bit of a combination of past rate past studies that we've done and brought it all together so it might look a little more similar to what we've done what we do each year with water and sewer we are very conscious of the taxing of our system we're not wed to the city's the only parking provider we reach out to private companies as well and if we can help make parking available for a project to go forward we'll certainly do that we also are creative with our street parking if there's areas that are not highly utilized we have in and out passes for businesses and residential to try to again encourage development and recognize we want everybody to come downtown and live work in place so we're using we're maximizing the use of our spaces so if there's any other questions that includes our discussion of the parking garage proposed budget next is just we're trying to bring back Barry I mentioned we really talked about it we just want to take another look at it we're ready to probably start implementing this if you all are in agreement a lot from you all I know this is the advantage of the economy creative ideas with that comes lots of opportunities and discussions and vendors and all types of people that have great ideas and many of them are things we my only not a caution but I guess reminder would be we're always going to try to do our best to the level of I would say I would say I would say the glow run maybe that would have been a council directed project to buy but it's all good so and see the other I think of the other thing we would get out of doing this is that all of you would then become aware of the other council members thought and we can then go to a point to bring something back for a consensus to believe that I'm moving forward I don't think it's something as simple as your day to day that is not what I'm saying I think it was possible for telling this a lot of basically I mean this back on how you want to require staff resources outside of your normal well it went to the point it gets in depth and I think probably this is a perfect example of staff chased around with a developer for I don't know how long but nobody took the time to do the math on this so I think what she's incurred the first client property deal where it didn't pencil out at all so I think this makes a lot of sense and I think it's good for us to realize that a lot of things that get proposed will be budgeted I'll let Missy do it I mean we started down the path because a lot of us have state government experience and there's something called a routine we use on state level so this was because of staff in response to oh okay I thought we were still in the top well I don't know it's kind of a combination I'm not trying to put another piece of paper in front of you to fill out I think I get enough the ACM's get enough and I would you know in general is there something on that level y'all are requesting it do you mean not meant to be arduous on the request or so much the department would really be the one to provide the information about the personnel with the impacts mostly what we would look from the council or the manager or ACM's would be just at least a description of what it is that's being requested we said you're going to fill it out with our input okay we won't fill it out but if you get a request and y'all will know whether or not it rests we will fill it out we will know that this is your attention and the back door this is the feedback that we get back to the impact that we're looking at at the turnaround time I haven't thought about that I'm appreciating all of these the feedback several of you have asked for this over time and we just never kind of put it into place and so this budget cycle we decided let's go for it because like I said there are a lot of opportunities I think I know there are some things risky moves some people might say you get ready to take action on it you take action on it but some things I think we're going to have to it's like it's a solution out there some members it takes a little bit more than internally back all that down and we will be going to the turnaround this is something that can be reduced to some type of a very basic form that we're doing a smart phone or something sometimes it's something that's very well thought out the idea although maybe you're not getting consideration with fiscal impact sometimes it really is a win or something really a good idea we need to do something good just there so I think it's simplifying as much as possible so maybe this form might take the place of course it's called a document to take the place of an email it's all one place at one time and then within whatever time this is as much for your folks who respond back to you as you respond back to us we're thinking the easiest way that we can get all this in place and then this is a part and obviously my thought is that the primary response we're accounting is to think about what we are focusing most of our time on resources and the system and the vision and the goals I'm just going to sum things up to be outside of that at time the vast majority of the questions but it's if we're going to have a module that describes the disinformation in one place which is thoughtful respond back it's back in a few days it's one day it's back in a few months it's a whole nother thing and I think that you're right Mayor with this latest iteration of yours you all gave us some very specific I think as you know there have been some other things that I've heard about if it came up outside of that or if it came up outside of that or if it came up outside of that how do I bring some other additional things back to the table and sometimes we fill out the form and we bring it back to the whole also maybe sometimes there's something that does rise to we all know about it we hear about it but if we're not directly involved about it so a year later is there maybe an ongoing quarterly briefing or something to say like council still reviewing revenues and raisins just without it being on our agenda so that we all know yes this is moving forward or no it's bad because going with this could very well this could very well be something to step out of the box and something to say in the past that we talked about we don't feel this out we all do that we talk through it with you guys I think like any you need to do a three page summary of your project you all and present it to the manager before it gets let's do this starting point let's think through the rest of the process and solve but this is the thought process we all need to do so let's think about how best we can actually act on it as things are coming to you and to everyone else on the team we need to make sure that our requests particularly those that will require time and energy and resources are consistent where that should be that's key and if we're gonna have a huge ask it's not on this page we need to be able to quantify exactly what it's going to require and then a decision made by us as policy makers or you within your signature authority how we redirect some funds in a recurring and non-recurring way non-recurring I know what you're trying to do so let's just think through it how best we can do it so we're not chasing we're not chasing rabbits we're not chasing buffaloes I mean now some big ticket items with a lot of time and energy our problem has been not the buffaloes it's the rabbits that cost us $100,000 here and there is what eats up the budget so the process makes sense let's figure out let's make sure we're given everyone less work or if it's more work it's more meaningful work and strategic work I'll digest this thank you thank you we're just showing you some topics we've covered many of these so some of the other county lots of county items fire and 911 communications it's my understanding that we may be getting a feedback on 911 communications and that not today's county council meeting but maybe in April we might be out there maybe that's about some information we have of the time to ask for it under the detention center listen to Dora I had asked her what's in this door for information that we've been in recently a couple months ago yeah I think mainly like what would it mean if we operated our own jail that's not doing that but we do think that the jail certainly can give information especially with the huge increase of their requests with no amount of documentation and then I know Mr. Ball's asked for a bit some of this for a topic a good topic it's about transferring transferring I hear that we're transferring but if there are any other items that y'all have we want to other than the normal we can go through all the funds I was thinking the same thing yeah I've been put it on the economic level I didn't put them up here because I think we already have our marching orders on those so I've asked for council gateway enhancement Robert's working on Robert and Robert who's very recently but got some other ideas around gateway enhancement that's something that's such an easy touch that if we focus on eventually so much more enhancement here you know what what hasn't happened in that way I've had a couple of designs a couple of data we talked about the gateway enhancement we talked a lot about cleaning up areas and streets and this and that you know city year is not really involved anymore we haven't had a cleanup for one person it's been beautiful this and that you know as you ride around and you're seeing it in the gateways in the neighborhoods you've got to figure out this sense of pride beautiful amount of pride I mean everyone is really again providing all the resources to be unmasked and consistent you've got to get the property owners engaged as well it's interesting to see how some businesses have just heavily relied on the yellow streets they don't take an ounce of pride of cleaning up in front of space and doing it for 40 years still do it every month that's still internal but you know that's different from what we're seeing in the streets it would be great to take staff and just ride around and look and see and some of it's coordinating with DOT and other places but I mean coming down Trenham Road Extension another day again brand new school grass trash everywhere you spent $20 million on a brand new school and the front looks like nobody cares big effort with internal resources but it's just an example it's just one I saw but you know riding down two notches the other day you know we're just trash cans at the you know or pulling pulling out of if you're a family at Fort Jackson visiting your child and you take that child to Walmart you pull out of there and there's 12 shopping carts filled up in front of Wendy's another 10 across the street at Verizon and then you look down and there's a trail of mini bottles and whatever else trash everywhere I mean there's just support but a lot of our work is going to be really getting all the same people could you do that because I'm going to do it because again it's little abatement and some things will be the challenge is the corridors and the interior of the neighborhood so let's talk about what we can do I'd love to have a one NASA community wide effort recurring efforts a lot of these things guys if we come to have a comprehensive plan we'll find wonderful philanthropic partners you look at some of the sub-no-blanch that's right in the right but there's so many people there we have an engagement you know the forever farce getting people to put more trees plants and getting sponsors to do it because I think when people get that sense of pride they're not going to do it you notice it's Charlotte South Boulevard and any of those corridors that were the warehouse and industrial are now the plannings that they're doing prohibit trash from being like the medians have this special grass and it stays high it keeps the trash out of it becomes keeps people from tearing it up we'll look for Robert's support yes sir were there any others I'm sorry I don't know if this was the year 17 2018 audit report this Ellen Atkins who's the CPA for Webster Rogers LLP thank you for joining them and Jan along with our final director we'll open in conversation okay that's what Jeff told me I'm sorry Todd and Jeff that's called delegation I can't say no rubbed off on them I guess great reading that would be the other book that my child picked that up mommy you read there's a lot of pictures in it so there's a plus I am Ellen I'm a partner with Webster Rogers and I've been behind the scenes on the city's audit for 2008 when I joined the firm when my firm was acquired by Webster Rogers the bud and I've always worked together but bud's been the face you've always seen boy are we gonna miss him it was a good opportunity for him to go work for one of our clients and certainly just have to wish him well what I just handed out to the council members it's what's called the governance letter this is communication from the audit firm to the council members this is not the same as the big audit report this is our communication to you it tells you significant points about the audit and some of the things that are in here it points out what are the significant estimates that are within the financial statement if there were any problems with management if we had any problems in the audit what were the audit adjustments what were the unrecorded adjustments meaning things that we found that we discussed with the staff and we determined it was not material or for whatever reason did not need to be recorded and then we also include the representation letters that the management has provided so to talk about some of those key elements significant estimates what happens is in a financial statement you have cash transactions that are pretty hard and fast but then there's a number of things that are in your financial statements that are softer for instance one of the big adjustments that was made about four years ago was GASV 68 which was the recognition of your net pension life role this was a change in the accounting standards that said okay it's not enough to just pay what the state says you need to pay for your employees we need to know what the big obligation is what's the total obligation for those people that are working for you today in the future and what that obligation is going to be to pay out their pension and that hit your books about four years ago and it was a substantial number this year you got hit with another one it's called the OPEB as the post-employment benefits that's the health insurance for the retirees and so it's a big estimate and in this financial statement you have about $110 million hit your equity it's only on the government while I didn't think goodness it's not on your fund balance and if you look in the financial statements you'll see an obligation of $150 million for that you're not going to have to write a check tomorrow a lot of people look at that and think oh my goodness we've got $300 million in obligation so with the new rules show tell us its OPEB liability do we still have an annual prior contribution how does this work it's a different it's a different obligation with the obligation that's recognized in your financial statements is the total obligation but then you still every year are told this is the amount you have to pay for it this year so you pay a monthly amount quarterly amount and so forth just like you do with pensions the idea is that the state agencies have money to pay well they do a calculation saying in order to fund this obligation for this next year you need to do x% of an employee's paycheck it seems reasonable and that's the check y'all write what they tell you is the percentage and there are limits as to how much that percentage can go up each year there are limits as to who gets covered there's a lot of rules about it but when they take that and then extrapolate that and so forth it's $150 million so but it's just an estimate you're still paying the same the approach is still the same as far as what you write and check for every year it's the same approach as what you've always done there's been no change in how you fund it's just what's recognized in your financial statements I guess I'm trying to figure out based on some of the changes that we are making what's that I'm trying to get an idea you know the question we're trying to figure out exactly how much relief if any I mean since we've shifted to defying contributions for a while but continuing to revamp our plan for years we've somewhat stayed ahead of the game the last move has significantly lowered our long term liability okay thank you that's exactly why we try to tell you about this in this letter to say that's a real soft number it says $150 million it might be different than that and when you read the disclosures it says if there is a 1% increase in certain assumptions what is the impact so those are very soft numbers it's going to be big we know that but we don't know exactly what that number is and so this is a best guess based on the actuaries estimates and so forth and that's where these estimates come in but this letter the point one of the points is to point out to you some of these numbers what are estimates in here like when you build for water and sewer services there's an estimate you're not going to get 100% of that same thing with your tax rate you're not going to get 100% and so staff makes an estimate it makes some assumptions and estimates some of these numbers and we look at how they approach it and we say yeah that's reasonable same thing with the fixed asset line that significantly impacts how much depreciation you recognize each year that seems reasonable what the lives they put on those assets that seems reasonable so any of these softer numbers in here we are applying procedures but we just want you to know those are softer numbers than the hard cash one of the other things we talk about in this letter is audit adjustments we're required to disclose to you if we made adjustments to the financial statements and also were there any adjustments that were identified that were not recorded unfortunately this year there were more adjustments there was a timing thing with some staff changes on the city's behalf that when we started the audit there were some changes made to the financial statements more than we normally would make a good majority of those adjustments were identified by your staff but if they just didn't have it done before they gave us a trial balance happy to say that they hosted all the adjustments that were identified even if they were you'll see if you read through these early entries you'll see that some that are I would call trivial or not material but your staff wanted to get it right so they wanted the adjustments made so there were more adjustments in that line as well that are not as auditors we would not have had you make them that was something that they wanted to make so there are no uncorrected misstatements so we don't think there's anything in here that hasn't been fixed and that's a good thing but there were a lot more adjustments than normal we of course had no issues with management there were before we got too deep in the audit one of the major discussion issues was Gatsby 75 which is the OPEB there was a huge a lot of discussion going back and forth with the with staff and we do have the attach to this the representation letters that the management signed whereas in the process of signing we understand what they are telling us that they have given to us this letter is really a communication from us to you to let you know what happened in the audit how did the audit play out with regard to your financial statement I know you've had them for a while because the financial statement was actually issued in January 22nd and I know you've been providing a copy of it so I'm not going to really dwell on it but I do want to point out a couple things if you do have the occasion you want to sit down and read the financial statement and give you an idea of what are the some of the key things you might want to focus on the city does issue a CAFRA a comprehensive annual financial report not every government does that it's a huge commitment of time and resources your staff prepares these financial statements there are a number of governments in South Carolina that do not the audit firm will prepare the financial statements for them you've got outstanding staff as far as their skill set so they are incapable of preparing your financial statement you should be commended for that one of the big issues the big parts of the financial statement of this package in pages one through six is the transmittal letter this is from city management it's a forward looking discussion talks about what the city got planned what are some of the initiatives going on it's a very important someone was moving to Columbia wanted to get an understanding of it and understood financials that would be a meaningful letter that city management drafts three through five that's really any responsible official anyone that thinks should be teamed spend some time oh yeah it's a heck of a deal we were saying each year we just got a little earlier there isn't so much going on if y'all ever think of things you think we really thought of draft that what do you think of that I agree that transmittal letter in the front that comes from city management is really informative about where the city is going talks a little bit about what's happened in recent but it's really a forward looking discussion after our report there's on pages thirteen through twenty two or thirty two is the management's discussion and analysis and that is written generally by your finance staff and it's their summary of your financial statements and tells what happened during the year what were the key important issues that they thought or what did they think was important in these financial statements and so I think those two documents the transmittal letter from city management and the management's discussion analysis from finance I think are really informative without having to dig into all the different schedules of your financial statement if you really want to understand where the city is has been where it's going there's a really important document now you hire our firm to come in and express an opinion on your financial statement your staff draft the financial statements we come in we do a lot of procedures we look at your records see how the records are being maintained are the numbers supported what are the estimates and so forth and then we opine on these financial statements you all received a clean opinion which is the best you can do the city should be commended for that if it's not all governments get that so you should definitely be commended for that it does have an emphasis paragraph that points out about the restatement of $110 million which is in every government financial statement this year so that was something that but brings it to the reader's attention there was a restatement but in all it just again the city should be commended for this just having the records to be able to have a clean opinion on your financial I know that most governments ask the question what's our fund balance so we'll talk about the general fund fund balance that is about $34 million at the end of that fiscal year which is about a $4 million increase from the prior year and that's just the general fund and $21 million that was unassigned I'm not going to dwell on that because I know you've had access to these numbers for a while and the other important page page 102 which is your budget natural presentation again is general fund your revenue was over budget and one of the big areas was in grants you actually had more grant money than you budgeted and on the expenditure you were actually under budget in most areas which is unusual so that's again you budgeted a basically a zero about budget and used I think about $3 million of fund balance and actually had a surplus of about $4 million which is great as far as that goes remember again which one last one you budgeted a zero you got a $4 million increase into your fund balance and the general fund narrow that down also go down back in here in Ternan right now I just want to make sure Mr. Palin heard that to pass to the city manager on the way to Mr. Palin and that none of it went that way I only focused on general fund into oh I know I know he didn't hear you well it is important to understand that your fund balance does have certain restrictions on it so even though you had $34 million and only $21 million that's unassigned so keep that in mind so you all make commitments and those have to be reflected I'm about to fill out one of those forms right now the city has been challenged with a number of can you get that Theresa? please continue I don't want to have one other area I wanted to mention the findings and material weaknesses and reportable conditions or significant deficiencies last year the city was dealing with seven different material weaknesses, non-compliance significant deficiencies 2017 was not a banner year for the city as far as having funds I have to commend the staff because you have no findings this year the fact that they addressed when you get that letter you will see what was addressed were these things dealt with and absolutely staff did deal with issues that were outstanding from 2017 and there were no new findings your staff needs to be commended for that can you provide us what y'all did I think it would be good for us to know that and one thing is the challenge is the timing of the audit when we do an audit we look at a 12 month past and often were 6 or 7 months into the subsequent year so to get all those things fixed you're dealing with a very short window and that is the issue with findings I've got a question I'm not trying to raise a red flag the of course the government or city government have a liability or a responsibility to provide services for the residents that live in the city compared to other city our size what did the acquisition cost per customer or per resident when it comes to Columbia or Charleston or whatever it is I'm just curious I don't know that would be an interesting thing to look at it would be I think it's something to do with us you're talking about attracting people to the area how much money we spent per person and per resident that would be an interesting number to see if you could gather this is all you look at it will be interesting to see that it would be acquisition cost per resident to keep them here well that's two different things acquisition to me is a track retention is a totally different issue acquisition is to bring them in Charleston for example they bring 45 50 people per resident I live in Somerville traffic is horrible that's what I heard that's what I heard you talking county I think they're talking about the entire Charleston metro it's definitely not this MSA and I think they're actually talking about the low country the whole three counties there's a lot of people I've not heard a quote in a dollar about how much it's costing for those people to come there that would be interesting that's really all I had I wanted to thank the staff for their cooperation and their professionalism I admit our firm was kind of behind the eight bulb Bud stayed as long as he could he stayed actually past his point so that we could try to get this job finished and that's his focus was getting the finance finished I came in and finished the single audit so you will actually see that there are two different dates when you get the second set of reports but staff was very cooperative and very professional about it and I appreciate their efforts and again I want to congratulate the city where you made a lot of efforts in fixing those prior year findings and also to continue to achieve a clean opinion every year it was commendable thank you last year because I remember I thought we said last year this would be it but it's already already out this is already especially direct questions what a quick question is this going online is it already about that oh you mean it's done I always tell folks city hall because we're doing the budget we're talking about spending them they don't the caffer is online the other report would be on the smaller I had a list of questions but I'm not going to ask them all I'll get with you privately but there are two or three things I would like to ask for the edification of the council and the public that might be watching you're so thoughtful if you look on page 127 there is a chart page 127 in the middle of page 127 there's a chart deals with county services fund from 19 from 2015 through the present year there's been a negative balance in the county services fund is the county services fund the fund that we use the fire department we fund the fire department and we fund half of 9-1-1 okay so for the last four years we've had a negative balance in that fund does that mean that the city residents are paying more than their fair share for 9-1-1 exactly what it's made well I just wanted to hear something right I don't know how to read these things too good you know how to read it so over the last few years it's about 10 million dollars if you add it all up this is a this balance is so it's cute yeah thank you cumulative at the end of 18 it was about 3 million dollars okay so it's cumulative it's not up each year so the county really owes us about 3 million dollars we're spending on the fire and the 9-1-1 3 million dollars in the city should be spending the city residents maybe get a double tax for that I wouldn't say that there's a double tax but we are we're owed the money and Howard if you recall from years of every year we've had that discussion with fire contract that's always been one of the sore spots in the problems and you know we got those folks digging through it but yet we asked for one document we can't get it this is why hopefully we're having a new day with some new council members I think that number is something the new council members need to understand they do need to understand it we need to be whole on it my next illustration is on page 132 turn to page 132 and the bank part of this is very interesting for this statistical stuff and it's got all sorts of good little things in it 132 it lists the principal property tax payers in the city and the number 2 tax payer by this ranking in 2018 was Providence Hospital so Providence Hospital is a tax paying hospital for the city is that correct and there's the number 2 tax payer for the city of Columbia and they provide hospital services just like all the other hospitals for the best of my knowledge this cross examination I just wanted to get it on the record here what we're talking about I mean they have been for years that's always been the argument why we need to move forward on some other so let's be clear though on Providence they have only begun paying property taxes in the last I think it's two years maybe three years they were a tax exempt they were a non-profit and then they were purchased by for-profit companies so they just began paying taxes in the last three years that's a good piece of it for my last illustration my last illustration if you'll turn to page 145 which is operating indicators of function and property I will skip over the top of it to talk about public safety and I'll run down to the middle of the page where it talks about Pothole so if you see in 20 2009 we filled 2,757 Potholes here we're going to fill 843 Potholes what happened to our Pothole maintenance program? maybe we have less Potholes I'm all filled up before progress I don't even want to start this conversation because my blood pressure is going to go up when I ride through the other day and I watch a neighborhood whose street was not even close to how bad my street is Pothole paid and they came in packed this is the state, not the city but it just shows there's a big problem these charts in the back are very interesting I recommend all of you read that and I'll get with Jan and ask for more specific questions I know we have a follow up I like 142 the demographic information I was in I was just wondering on 142 the demographic information where it looks like shows the increase in our population and then kind of a slight increase in personal income and I'm just wondering do we have any assessment of the whether or not that personal income growth is equal to population growth it just seems like the personal income growth seems to be low yeah oh I know I just didn't know if we knew in relation to other cities people always talk about growth we don't non-tech things non-tech things tax payers non-tech things yeah 43 7, 8, 9 I'm going to look it back I'm going to show you also the number of prosperity now and kind of maybe just so we can have a good understanding as to where we are with personal family you know what's weird about the statistics is the unemployment rate is lower than a whole percentage of the population that doesn't make sense do you know that doesn't make sense that was interesting the next page it may not seem like half of it is probably the most interesting and exciting reading it really is well that's why I think it's great we do it and I think any community doesn't does a disservice it will bring confusion sometimes on things you thought to be the case but it's just good data and that does do a fantastic job pulling it all together yeah thank you I need to add a contractual item I'd like to move upstairs after I'd like to make a motion that we go into executive session discussion and negotiations and propose contractual arrangements pursuant to 30 days to capital city city magic ice little league convention center city legal advice covered by attorney client privilege 30 days business license discussion matters or expansion of industry pursuant to 30 days 4-8 receipt of legal advice pending a threatened potential claim pursuant to 30 days 4-8 city of columbia upper voting center city and personnel personnel matters pursuant to 30 days 4-8 just personnel yes you did second discussion none for the previous question hi yes hi


I don't open any discussion. I turn to the next speaker because I see that John is ready to intervene. Andre has the floor. Yes, thank you. In his introductory notes, Jean-Claude mentioned about the embedded negative risks for the financial system. Number five was cryptocurrencies. So I thought I might make a comment on financial innovation in general and its impact on finance. We're starting with cryptocurrencies. Looking at the numbers, they are not a systemic risk. The numbers look huge. Actually, it's about roughly 1,000 billion, so 1 trillion euros. That sounds like a huge number. Roughly one half is Bitcoin, one half is the other cryptocurrencies, Ether, and so on. But if you look at that number, it's only half the balance sheet of BNP Paribas. So, well, yes, I checked the number. So it's not a systemic risk. So it is a different kind of risk, of course, because of fraud, the mafia, and all this. It's speculators' money, basically. It's not money, by the way, because it's not a payment system. Actually, it's not really as secret as people think because if you want to spend it, the only way to do it is to go to a broker and get dollars or euros. So then you get into the system. Anyway, but looking at the financial innovation, I think there's another one which is very important, which started really in 2008 with the launching of the smartphones, which is payment systems. That's a major change because now electronic payments represent the major part of retail payments in every form, through credit cards, through your phones, through the internet, and so on. And clearly it's been an open field for the GAFAMs and, of course, for a number of startups in that area. The reason the GAFAMs entered that field is because, first of all, regulations for payment systems are not as strict as regulations for banks. As long as you're not a bank, you can operate. Second, they get huge amounts of data, and data, of course, is money for them because of the advertising which goes with it. The moment they get into banking, then they get an avalanche of regulation in many ways. So in a way, that's a barrier to entry to banking, which protects the banking system. On the other hand, the innovations are used by the banking system, going back to cryptocurrencies. As you know, they use a blockchain, and there's a number of cases of private banks using blockchains for their own purpose. So that is positive and negative. To conclude on payment systems, I must say that it is indeed a threat for retail banking, but all banks have joined the crowd in terms of offering that system. And also, as you know very well Jean-Claude, it gives ideas to central banks. And the code is C-B-E-M, central bank electronic money. So far, it hasn't been put in motion. Of course, bankers are really saying, if you really do it all the way, what do we do as banks? So it may happen, I think, from what I understand, but it may happen only to cover the problem of inter-bank, inter-country payments, international payments, for small amounts, which are indeed an area in which progress is needed. So it's a different subject from all the macroeconomics we're discussing. But it's a very important impact. Again, cryptocurrencies not a systemic risk, a moral risk maybe, criminal risk, but not systemic. And on the other hand, payment systems, a major revolution for retail banks, and not banks insurance, fund management, the whole financial industry. Yes, you did. André, you were concise and luminous. I have to say that as regards the cryptocurrency that would be issued by central banks, the BIS is working, like you know, very, very actively on that. I take it that they consider that a major constraint is not to destabilize the banking system, that's clear. So to try to have this electronic crypto money exactly as the equivalent of the notes, which of course calls for also for certain limitations, but it is the start will probably be in this domain and they are very close to start the thing. I mean, technically, of course, it has been totally explored. The blockchain that you mentioned is very well in order. And you have several concepts, you know that better than anybody, but there are many, many concepts that can be utilized. You were a little bit benign on the so-called speculative instruments. It seems to me that we really have a problem of fraud, of, I would say, illegal behavior, criminal activity, financing of terrorism and so forth, which remains underlying. And I hope very much that the authorities will regain control because there has been a period of benign neglect, which was over exaggerated. Anyway, okay, thank you very, very much indeed, André.