HomeMy WebLinkAbout2020-01-04 TranscriptionsPage 1
Council Present: Bergus, Mims, Salih, Teague, Taylor, Thomas, Weiner
Staff Present: From, Monroe, Andrew, Fruehling, Bockenstedt, Fleagle
Others Present: Knoche, Hightshoe, Matherly, Miller
Budget Overview and Highlights:
Teague/ Well good mornin' and welcome to City Hall, um, on this early morning on Saturday,
and we really appreciate everybody for comin' out. Uh, today is City Council budget
work session, um, and we're gonna be talkin' about the fiscal (mumbled) 2021 proposed
budget, um, here at City Hall and so .... um, thanks for everybody that was able to make it
to the, uh, 'breakfast on a budget.' Really appreciate it, um, the opportunity to mingle
with, uh, many of you, as well as the other Councilors I'm sure appreciated that
opportunity as well. We're gonna get started I think with Mr. Geoff From, our City
Manager!
Fruin/ Yes, thank you, Mayor, and thanks to the members of the public and staff for comin' out
tonight, or this morning (laughs) uh (laughter) .....long day! (several talking) We have,
uh, we have about 60 slides to get through in this introductory presentation, so it's gonna
take an hour, hour and a half, uh, to .... to go through this, but hopefully, uh, it'll give you
a good sense of, uh, a big picture overview of where we .... where we sit with this physical
year 21 budget proposal. Um, this is going to be a .... a long day for the Council and I
wanna thank you in advance for the extra time that you're puffin' in to consider this
budget proposal. Uh, you can certainly handle things how you want to. Um, what I have
encouraged in the past and I think what works well is, um, avoid getting too deep in
discussions about particular items. Otherwise you might find yourself here till the .... the
evening hours. Um, but if we can flag those items, uh, staff 11 keep notes and then we can
revisit those at work sessions. Certainly you can deviate from that if you see fit and you
wanna get it into the specifics of an issue, we can do that. I just caution you, especially
early in the day to .... to get, uh, too deep into those issues. Um, that said, uh, it is
important that you have a good understanding of .... of what you're going to be asked to
approve in March with this budget. So if we're moving too quickly throughout the day
with this presentation or any of the department head presentations, uh, just ask us for
clarifications or ques.... uh, ask us any questions that you have and, uh, we'll slow down
and back up a little bit. Okay, with that, uh, we're gonna get started, and ... and, uh, I'm
going to kick things off, and Simon and Ashley are gonna take a few, uh, sections of
slides as well. So, uh, to start with the budget review schedule, uh, up on the screen here,
there was a change in the State law this past year that has added a public hearing to the
process. So now we have two public hearings, uh, the fust one, uh, that you will see is on
February 4th. Actually we'll be setting the public hearing on .... on February 4th, and
that's a ...... a hearing on the proposed maximum property tax rate. So for you what's
important to know there is, uh, really because we have to publish that agenda the
previous week. January 28th is a .... is the last date in which you can really make
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget
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decisions that will impact the tax rate. If you wanna raise that tax rate, you .... you need to
know what that maximum level is by the 28th. After we have that public meeting, you
can always have a lower tax rate. You just won't be able to go any higher. Uh, so ... we'll
help you through that process, and as you identify issues that you wanna talk about today
for future discussions, we're gonna prioritize ones that may have an impact on that tax
rate. The, uh, ultimate adoption, uh, takes place on March 17th at your Council meeting.
We'll have a second public hearing at that date and ask you to adopt that. We do have to
certify with the County Auditor, uh, no later than March 31st. Uh, again with the new,
uh, State law, one thing I wanna mention, um.....any growth of 2% or more in our
revenues requires a super -majority vote of Council to approve the budget, and I can tell
ya in a growing city like Iowa City, we're pretty much always going to have more than
2%. Uh, that doesn't keep up with healthcare, pensions, uh, basic staff (mumbled) uh,
expenditures. So do know that, um, it will, unless you wanna really scale back our .... our
operations, it will require a super -majority of vote now to pass this, uh, budget. Uh, the,
uh, budget document itself is 684 pages. I applaud you if you got to even a quarter of the
way through that over the holidays. Uh, it is a lot to take in. Um, and what, uh, this slide
does is hopefully gives ya a key, a few key areas to .... to key into as you get into your, uh,
your review of the budget. The transmittal letter is essentially the Executive Summary,
uh, kicks off on .... starts on page 9. We go through some of the economic trends. Those
will be .... many of those will be, uh, talked about this morning on page 36. We'll go
through fund structure, which is basically how, you know, what the accounting structure
is here, uh, with our budget. Some of the financial and fiscal policies, this gets at debts
and.... and how.... basically how we're using our .... our funds that are coming in. Some of
the long-range financial planning, and then the bulk of your discussion will probably be
with the general fund. That's.....that's where we have the largest, uh, kind of
discretionary, um, abilities is within our general fund. So Pd encourage you to look at
that general fund summary. Of course encourage you over time to look through the entire
budget, and staffs always here to help ya through any sections that, uh, you have
questions about. So I do wanna get to the fund structure here that's on the ... on the screen.
Um .... the general fund is the first one listed on the top left and again that is ... funds the
most, uh, kinda the basic core services that we have. You're gonna have your police and
your fire and parks and general government in there. That's where we exercise the most
discretion, largely property tax funded. Uh, and where the Council will spend the bulk of
your time throughout the year reviewing, uh, matters. Special revenue funds is the next
kind of column over, with the long white list. Uh, these I like to describe as .... as pots of
money with strings attached to them. Uh, so there's rules for ut.... utilizing these funds
and a couple examples would be the road use tax. Those are the dollars that the public
pays at the .... at the pump when they're filling up their vehicle. Those go to the State, and
the State distributes those to cities. Um, we are restricted in the way we can use those,
okay? Those have to go towards, uh, road maintenance activities, uh, so we account for
those separate. So each of those boxes are somethin' that we account for separate. Uh,
there is one addition this year, which we'll spend some time talkin' about I imagine, and
that's the use of the emergency levy. Uh, you can see that listed under special revenue
funds, and we are proposing, uh, the emergency levy to help fund the climate action
initiative that, uh, Council has previously talked about. We'll get into that a little bit, uh,
later with this presentation. Working across the top, debt service, uh, fund. That's exactly
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget
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what it sounds like. Those are property taxes that are coming in for the specific purpose
of retiring our bonds, basically what we borrowed or we levied property taxes to pay
those .... those bonds off. Enterprise funds are, uh, business accounts. Uh, each of these,
uh, operations you can think of, uh, as individual businesses that the City operates,
absent, uh, a profit motive there. So a good example would be your utilities, your water.
What we charge in water rates pays for our water operations and our water infrastructure.
We don't use property taxes for water and likewise we don't use water revenues to pay for
parks or anything like that. Uh, you can see the, uh, list of enterprise funds there. Capital
projects, this is something that we'll get into on Tuesday. Those are the major
construction projects that we undertake in .... in any given year. Could be roads, parks,
public facilities, etc. And then an area where you don't spend a whole lot of time is our
internal service funds. Uh, these are, uh, funds that just kinda work within, uh.... uh, our
.....our department structure. So a equipment, uh, for example. Each department pays
into the equipment fund. That equipment fund then, uh.... uh...... uh, covers maintenance
of vehicles and replacements of vehicles. So it's just an internal accounting structure, uh,
that we use in those various areas. Some of the funds are highlighted in yellow. Those
are indicated as major funds. Uh, that's just a .... a financial designation, uh, based on the
size of the funds. The assets and liabilities in the fund impacts the type of audit that, uh,
that those funds receive throughout the year. Any questions on how we're structured
here? Okay, I do like to always, uh, remind the .... the public and the Council, uh, that
we're operating in a era of pretty robust growth for Iowa City. So what this slide shows is
that, uh, from 2010 to 2018, which is the last census estimate that we have, we've added
8,428 residents, and that is more than the previous two decades combined. So if you look
at all our growth in the 90s and the 2000s and ya added those 20 years up, uh, it doesn't
quite equal what the eight-year census estimate is for this current decade, and that has
large implications on our services, and we're going to talk about staffing pressures that we
have, and we've talked about those in .... in previous meetings as well. Uh, there is a
strain on operations throughout the City right now, whether it's call volumes or number of
contacts with customers, waste routes, all those things, um, our staff has had to, um,
pretty much use the same amount of resources over these eight years, uh, to .... to deliver
those services to a .... a .... a quickly growing population. I added just, uh, some.... some
building numbers for ya, some five-year averages, to give ya, uh, a .... a, kind of a sense of
what this kind of growth means on the built environment from the residential sector. So
last five years we've averaged 159 new single-family homes, and 476 new multi -family
units. So those aren't.... buildings, those are actually units within the buildings. Just to
give ya a sense of what we've been averaging there. So we kicked this budget session
off, uh, the budget off on August 20th with you. Uh, we had, Council had a budget, uh,
work session where we asked for your priorities and there were a number of topics
discussed. This .... this list isn't inclusive, but, um, these are the six items that we felt
there was strong consensus on, uh, with .... with all Members of the .... of the City Council
and we're gonna get into each of these. So there was a desire to respond to the climate
crisis declaration. Now at this time we didn't have the 100 -day report, but we anticipated
it. Uh.... we wanted to, uh, continue to match the million dollars that we've done the last
three years for, uh, affordable housing in the community. We wanted to continue the
effort to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour for our temporary, hourly staff. Uh, so
this .... this budget reflects the second step in that to get us to 13.25. There was a desire,
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uh, to address what I was just talking about, which is to .... to try to alleviate some of the
strain on operations by investing in new permanent staff. Uh, there was a desire to, um,
continue to reduce the overall tax rate, recognizing that it would probably be a moderate
reduction, given some of these expenditure priorities that are mentioned. And then
forward looking, a desire to start thinking about the upcoming transit study
recommendations and, um, the, uh.... uh, roadway study recommendations that'll be
coming out. So, uh, this budget doesn't necessarily address those, uh, two things, but
we're gonna get into that a little bit cause there are some strategies that ... that we can
move forward with mid -budget year, uh, after those reports come out. So let's start, uh,
with the climate action of the 100 -day report was released in, uh, November. The
Climate Action Commission that you recently appointed, uh, is reviewing that. We
expect that that review will .... will take another month or so. That commission will
forward their thoughts to you and we will eventually ask you as a City Council to, uh,
adopt that plan, after modifications as you see fit, and then based on however that plan
turns out, uh, we will use, uh, largely the emergency levy, uh, with your approval to fund
the activities in that report. Uh.... the, um..... emergency levy will generate just under a
million dollars, at 24 -cents per thousand, uh, which is what we've recommended. And
you can see in the yellow box there the types of activities that we expect to fund with that
million dollars in fiscal year 21. There'll be some education and awareness campaigns,
uh, incentives for .... for, uh, property owners to reduce energy consumption or to invest in
renewable energy. Uh, increased tree planting efforts, that could be both public and
private. Uh, expanding, uh, climate action grants, uh, and these are grants that .... that we
give to various organizations in the community who, uh, have a shared commitment to
climate action. And then continued promotion of alternative transportation, waste
reduction, and our natural areas efforts. So, um, we don't have a specific breakdown on
how we'll use those. We have a general idea, but we wanna wait till that report comes out
to .... to really get detailed. Obviously we think that the, uh, just under a million will be
needed to fully carry out those short-term, uh, activities as were proposed in that plan.
Uh, this does, uh, this budget does also create the division of climate action within the
City Manager's office, which was discussed in that report. There are three positions that
would, uh, make up that .... make up that division. Uh, those positions are all existing
within the already approved budget. So there's no new staff for this. We're.... we're re-
tooling, uh, existing staff positions a little bit to, uh, make up this, uh, this division.
Moving on to, uh, our social justice initiatives. As previously mentioned, uh, this budget,
uh, has our second step in moving, uh, to a $15 an hour minimum wage. Our fust step
was approved with the current budget and that got us to 11.50. This move to 13.25 an
hour, uh, will cost about $275,000 in fiscal year 21, and then looking ahead to next year,
uh, as we move ahead to $15 an hour, uh, that step will cost about $400,000, uh, so, uh,
we .... we were able to accommodate step two and we anticipate being able to
accommodate step three, should that remain a Council priority. We've continued funding
for the racial equity, uh, social justice grant program. Uh, funding for the expansion of
Kirkwood Community College's English language learning program, which was
discussed, uh, last year by Council, and then, uh, some of the more routine stuff that
we've been doing for several years, which is, uh, expanding our translation, uh,
expanding our offerings of cultural outreach and training and that sort of thing. And then,
uh, a .... a continued heavy focus on accessibility improvements in the community, uh,
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with our parks and public facilities and sidewalks. Also in social justice, wanna talk to
Aid .... wanna talk about the Aid to Agencies, uh, program. Uh, Council's aware that last
year there was a mid -budget increase in the, uh, Aid to Agencies grant program. So I've
high .... I've highlighted up here the, uh, past support, the general fund support. It ... it has
been about 250,000 plus or minus a little bit since 2010. It's really stagnated since 2010.
And that was a large reason for increasing it to 501,000, uh, mid -year last year. Uh, when
we talked with the Council in August about the Aid to Agencies program, um, there was a
desire on Conn..... amongst Council Members to raise the, uh, general fund support for
the Aid to Agencies program, uh, but the .... the takeaway that I had that keeping it at this
501,000 level wasn't necessarily a .... a Council priority. Uh, so what our budget, uh,
recommends is, uh, moving this up to 345,000. Um, it's a 25% increase in general fund
support. Now if you do the math it's actually a little bit more than that, but we're also
shifting.... it's kinda gettin' in the weeds a little bit, but we used to have some of the utility
funds — our water fund, our sewer fund — pay for a little of the Aid to Agency, uh, grants.
It was about 30,000. It's probably more work internally on the accounting side
than .... than, urn .... uh, it needs.... needs to take place, so we're recommending just
shifting those utility funds to the, um, general fund as well. So, um, that's why you're
seeing a little bit more than 25%, but um.....the.....the overall impact to those agencies,
those legacy agencies and emerging agencies that'll be applying for these funds is a 25%
increase. Uh, that is, uh, just above a 2% inflation factor, so we went back to 2010 and
applied a 2% inflation factor and .... and the 25% increase is .... is a little higher than what
that, uh, inflation factor would have produced, and we can go back and look at the
consumer price index and how, if we would of, um, targeted that, uh, to this, uh, this
grant program, it would be quite a bit higher than the CPI increases, uh, from 2010 to
2021. Uh, so again, uh, 25%, uh, Council, in your information packet, uh, you've seen a
letter, uh, a memo from staff indicating that the Housing and Community Development
Commission has requested a joint meeting with you to discuss, uh, the Aid to Agencies
funding. Safe to say that they, along with the, uh, agencies that have relied on these
grants would like to see those funds, uh.... uh, continue at last year's, uh, budget amount,
or .... or mid -year budget amount at that $500,000 range or more. Uh, so they've
requested that and, uh, you'll need to decide if you wanna try to schedule that meeting
before you're making budget decisions, um.....um...... going forward here. Any questions
on that one?
Teague/ I do think that, um, and I know we're not gonna get in the weeds on this at all. I wanna,
uh, really thank you for, you know, goin' back and doin' the 2% inflation, what it will
look like. Uh, that made a lot of sense and trying to figure out what it, urn .... considerin'
all of what Council wanted, what could that increase look like, you know, around the
100,000. So the 25% increase does seem, um, approp.....appropriate and logic from the
takeaway from the meeting that Council had. I think we really should kinda, um, from
my perspective, meet with, um, and .... and just have a conversation about what they
would like to do. I think it's important for us to listen to them and for us to have a walk-
away, um, so that's what I would propose is that Council really consider to .... to have a
meetin' with HCDC. And we can definitely, uh, have greater discussion after that.
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Fruin/ Sure. We can .... we can walk through, uh, potential meeting dates maybe on Tuesday,
your work session. Affordable housing, another priority, uh, for the Council, uh, and in
July of last year we gave you, we gave the Council an update on .... on affordable housing
efforts from fiscal year 15 to present, when it really, uh, rose to the top of the list for the
City Council and just as a reminder, more than $10 million of the City has been invested
in affordable housing initiatives since 2015. You can see some of the stats there. We've
assisted more than 450 affordable units, and this does not inclou.... this does not include
our .... our federal program, uh, our .... our, um, our housing choice voucher program and
public housing. Um, we've leveraged nearly $7 million in outside funding because of our
strategic, um, targeting of low-income housing tax credit projects and that's.... that's
pretty amazing. As a reminder, uh, the .... the bottom half of this slide lets you know what
the current Council policy is on spending the dollars that we transfer into the affordable
housing fund. So, uh, this is a million dollar, uh.... uh, transfer this year. Uh, and those
funds would be used as described below — 70% to the Housing Trust Fund of Johnson
County, uh, 20% of that 70% would be reserved for LIHTC projects, and then 7 1/2% of
funds go to the opportunity fund, uh, go to our City's healthy homes program. We have
10% reserved for a new security deposit assistance program that we're working through
right now, and a community risk mitigation fund, uh, project as well. Uh, those are both
kinda in the design phase, uh, with several of, uh, our social service and governmental
partners. 5% continues to be reserved for emergent situations. These are situations in
which we have tenants in the community that find themselves suddenly displaced, out...
outside of the City's control. We at least have some funds to assist them, should the
Council, uh, make that determination. From a, uh, budgetary perspective, uh, you might
recall last year we indicated that we have 650,000 of the .... of the million dollars really
kind of built into the budget, and it should be safe from year to year, and we're actually
supplementing that with 350,000 in one-time funds, or essentially using surplus dollars
from our budget, uh, to get to that million, and .... and that's important because i£..if times
do get tighter and we don't have as much resources, those one-time funds shrink and
you're really back to that 650. Thankfully we've had some good, uh, surpluses over the
last few years and we're able to ... to bolster that number up to a million dollars. Roadway
investment, uh (both talking)
Salih/ (both talking) ...before you go to the roadway, I just would like also here to propose that
we should think about the (unable to understand) affordable housing that is coming up
and if we .... I.....I know that we don't know now how many houses need to be wider or
all this kind of information, but is really good idea to put money aside just in case if we
have interest in the Council that we gonna do this, and I don't know, you know, this is
should be in the affordable housing fund so we can .... like have it later if we want to, uh,
just if we can have that, discuss that more in work session or something like that.
Fruin/ Sure, we could list that. Yep. Okay! Uh, roadway investment remains a, uh, priority for
the Council. What I wanna show here is our, uh, this is our annual resurfacing program.
So we're gonna talk about two different ways in which we invest in road — our annual
resurfacing program. You'll notice those projects, they typically would, uh, take a, uh,
layer of asphalt off and replace, uh, replace it with a .... a fresh layer of asphalt. That's the
majority of the resurfacing, uh, that we do. There's also some concrete work that ... that
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happens as well, but we've really had an effort to grow that program. You see down
in .... in 2014, we were under a million dollars a year in investments in our roads and... and
over years, uh, the Council has made that a priority. Urn .... the, uh, current budget, uh,
that we're in right now sits just over two million, so we've doubled that in ... in a few years.
Uh, this budget proposes a one-time spike, uh, of $800,000. That'll be in Tuesday's
discussion. That's a CIP item, but I wanna show you that. Um, it's.... it's, uh, a one-time
spike, due to again some, uh.... uh, some funds, some one-time funds that we have. Um,
and then .... uh, we'll drop back down. We projected not .... not to maintain that level, uh,
so we'll drop back down to that 2.1 level or so going forward. Uh, the road use tax fund,
we'll get into that a little bit, is not a fund that we project a whole lot of growth in. Uh,
it's been pretty stagnant the last few years, and as vehicles become more fuel efficient, uh,
and, um, electric vehicles are introduced, uh, gas prices remain low, all these variables
have, uh, an impact on how much tax you're paying at the pump, and unfortunately we
just don't see a lot of growth in this ... in this fund, which is why, uh, we're gonna ask you
to think about some alternative revenue sources for roads, as we get through this
presentation. We have a lot of other road construction projects that we do, uh, and here
are some of the major ones, uh, that are planned for the next few years. Uh, again this list
is not, uh, all inclusive, but gives you some of the highlights. So this coming year we'll,
uh, be able to finish the McCollister Boulevard extension to Sycamore. We also have, uh,
the First Avenue and Scott Boulevard intersection, and American Legion Road projects
coming up. Those are kinda of, uh, on the fence right now of whether the bulk of that
work's gonna fall in 2020 or get pushed to 2021, and uh, it's likely that some of our 2021
projects will .... will get bumped to 2022 as well, as we just work through the design
challenges there and land acquisition challenges. It's natural that you might get a couple
of these to....to fall back down, but you can see there's a .... a major slate of roadway
projects that are upcoming. Um, these projects that you see here are largely funded by,
uh, borrowing, our general obligation bonds, and as that road use tax stays flat, and our
needs for roadway investment increase, you really right now only have the one option,
which is to borrow more funds, and .... and those funds then are ... when we borrow more
for roads, that's less that you have for public facilities, uh, for quality of life initiatives
like parks and trails, and we're starting to see that in our CIP, where more and more of our
CIP is .... our property tax borrowing is .... is dedicated to roadway, basic roadway, and
again, uh, that's a little concerning for staff because I think we're eventually going to find
ourselves where we don't have, uh, the same resources available for park improvements,
trail, public facilities, and again some of those quality of life initiatives that ... that make
our community great. Uh, we do remain committed to our bike and park master plan
implementation. Uh, these are some of the highlights for the upcoming year, but we ... we
track these, uh, every year to make sure we're stayin' on schedule, at least, uh, pretty close
to on schedule, and I think we've done a .... a really good job the first few years. Uh,
we're completing up some of the larger playground improvements right now at Lower
City Park and Willow Creek Park. Uh, coming ahead this year we have improvements at
Wetherby, Fair Meadows, Scott, and Napoleon parks, and then we have some
exce .... accessibility improvements, uh, at Harlock, Ryerson, Black Spring, and Oak
Grove Park, some of our smaller, uh, parks. Uh, there's a lot of bike lane projects and
bike infrastructure projects that are planned. Those are listed there. I won't go through
all those. Urn.... unless you have questions, but uh, you'll continue to see an increase
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in .... in painted bike lanes throughout the community. Uh, another Council priority, and
we're very thankful that you expressed this as a priority was, uh, changes, um .... uh, to
support staff, and so we'll go through three ways in which this budget supports staff. Uh,
the fust is that bump in minimum wage, and again we mentioned that 13.25 an hour,
$275,000 impact to the budget this year. That's an ongoing expense, right? That's not
something you commit to once. That's.... that's built in to the budget and we'll continue to
move forward going ahead. Uh, last year the Council had extensive conversations on
converting temporary positions to permanent status. So that's taking hourly staff and
moving them to permanent, uh, benefited, uh, positions. Um, the fiscal year impact of,
uh, the Council's, um, directions as well as one staff addition that we're recommending
with this budget is this 272,526. So let me go through those positions. On the green
chart up here, these top five positions right here, these are ones that the City Council
decided to move to permanent, uh, from temporary status last year. We did that mid -
budget year. With this budget we're recommending, uh, one additional, uh, full-time
employee move from temporary to permanent. That's in the Housing Authority. We feel
like we have the, uh, capacity in our staff, uh, funding there, uh, to .... to bring that
position to a permanent status. Um.....the ones that remain unfunded from the list that
we previously gave Council are listed in blue. We have, uh, positions at the Library,
Senior Center, and uh, Recreation, Parks and Recreation department, that, uh, we're
recommending remain hourly, uh, but have been discussed to be moved into permanent in
the past. Uh, if you wanted to move all these positions to permanent status, that's about
$430,000. And again, uh, there's benefits to doing that. It's not, um, staff is not tellin' ya
that there's not benefits to doing that, but ultimately we have to look to ... to prioritize
these funds, and what we've tried to do with this budget is invest in, uh, significant new
permanent positions and that's covered on the next slide. But.... any questions on this?
Salih/ Yeah, could you just tell us exactly how much it cost for salary? Not benefit,
because.... and for the benefit of the people just benefit. It will come from the levy. Can
you tell us exactly how much that salary?
Fruin/ Yeah, we ... we can maybe get that info at a break and .... and bring that back. We have it,
just not right in front of us. Uh, the bulk of this 430 expense, as you could .... as you
could guess by looking at the FTE equivalents, uh, is that Rec, uh, operation with seven,
uh, full-time positions that would be needed. That's about 280,000 total and we can get
you the breakdown, uh, again, uh, from salary and, uh.... and the benefit side of things.
Salih/ Yeah and also like if we, for the benefit of even the new Council and the public, if you can
explain, uh, how, uh, you know, like from where we can get the benefit..... and the benefit
for the positions and the salary, and break it down will be great, so we can exactly have
an idea.
Fruin/ Sure!
Salih/ Thank you.
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Frain/ Okay the next slide gets at what we're recommending for new positions in this budget. I'll
go through each of these fairly quickly. We're recommending one new police officer
position, and this is really to .... to be able to con... continue to have a focus on our data -
driven justice initiatives. So, uh, most of you aware of Officer Schwent's work with the
DDJI program. Uh, that grant that's been funding his salary for the last few years is
expired. We're using the last of those funds. We found incredible value, and I think the
community's found incredible value. We'd like to keep him in that specialty role, um, but
uh.... uh, we're gonna need a new position to be able to do that, so that's that
recommendation. The maintenance worker, uh, in Forestry. We're recommending two to
expand our urban forestry initiatives. These are directly related to the Council's climate
action, uh, goals and, uh, continued emphasis on tree planting in the community. We
simply need staff, uh, to be able to ... to do anything more in the Forestry operations. Uh,
we're asking for another building inspector position, uh, this position would allow us to
enhance our energy code inspections that take place, uh... urn .... uh, in that division. Uh,
also gives us some capacity to transfer some inspections that are bein' done by
firefighters, over to the NDS Department to try to, uh, lessen, uh, the inspections load on
the Fire Department. Uh, Council has already approved the associate planner increase.
We had a vacancy in our half-time associate planner, and you've approved moving that to
a full-time position. That position's actually posted right now, but is shown in this budget
for the fust time, this proposed budget. We have a new civil engineer position. I think
most of you are familiar with the, uh, the workload on the Public Works Department right
now and we could really use another engineer to manage some of those projects and keep
them on schedule. You've already approved the .25 increase in our operations supervisor
for Transportation Services. This gives us a little bit more evening, um, oversight in that
department. We have a data analyst position for Transportation Services, uh, that ... that
we feel pretty strongly would really help the decision making in that operation. Also
takes a lot of burden off some of our top level staff. There's a ton of federal, uh, data
reporting requirements for, uh, transit, and right now, um, our .... our director and assistant
director spend considerable amount of time, uh, just working through data, and uh, we
think, uh, a data analyst position could better support, uh.... uh, those services. Uh, this is
one example, again, this is not a general fund position. This is funded by, uh, Transit and
Parking. So this is not in competition with say police officers or parks' employees or
firefighters or anything like that. Uh, likewise our customer service, uh, staff. You may
or may not know that, uh, the .... the, what's mostly thought of as our Parking customer
service staff also handles customer service for the Landfill, Refuse, and our Transit
Department. Uh, so increasing, um.....uh, a point, basically a three-quarter time position
there to help with some of the call volume, uh, that .... that's coming in .... in those
operations. Another maintenance worker in Parking. Again paid for by revenue
generated by our parking decks and meters. Uh, this gives us a little bit more customer
service abilities, uh, in the evening hours. Right now we just don't have a whole lot of
support in the evening hours, and as there becomes issues in decks, we're finding that, uh,
it's taking us longer and longer to get our employees from deck to deck to help, uh,
motorists or .... or people that may be having some problems with equipment in ... in our
decks. Council, uh, already approved the Housing program assistant. This was, uh, an
opportunity afforded to us because we were successful in getting some more vouchers for
the community That comes with some staff, uh.... uh, support as well, so that's been
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done, and the Senior Center receptionist has been done as well, and that was kind of tied
to the ... the temporary to permanent positions there. Uh, as we, uh, moved a temporary
staff person to permanent, we had to adjust, uh, some permanent staff positions as well.
Just a slight uptick in hours there. Uh, so we're lookin' at nine and a quarter new FTEs in
this budget. By far the .... the biggest investment in new staff that's been made since I've
been here in nine years. I think, uh, in previous years, uh, certainly early on in my tenure,
we were in a reduction mode. Um, the last couple years we've added one or two or three
positions here or there, uh, as we've been able to. Uh, moving to nine is a significant
benefit for this .... for this organization. Uh, it doesn't really come close.... if you were to
ask every department head that comes up here today what they need, um, nine's gonna
seem like a drop in the bucket. I can tell you we had 42 staff requests from departments,
uh, going into this budget, uh, and .... and I feel really good (laughs) about being able to
recommend nine, um, but .... you know, I think .... I think this is a responsible request. Uh,
hopefully in .... in the next couple of budgets we can continue to add a few more. I don't
think we'll probably find ourselves at this number, uh, but if we can get a ... a couple more
in the next few budgets, we'll probably be in a good spot.
Mims/ Geoff, could I ask for clarification on a couple things that you went through?
Fruin/ Yes!
Mims/ You mentioned that some we had already approved. I was just trying to mark'em to make
sure. Was that the associate planner, the Transportation operations supervisor, the
Housing program assistant, and the Senior Center receptionist?
Fruin/ Yes it is.
Mims/Those four we had already approved?
Fruin/ Yes!
Mims/ Okay, and would I be correct that the ones that are not coming out of general fund would
be the Transportation operations supervisor, the data analyst for Transportation, the
customer service representative, the maintenance worker for Parking, and the Housing
program assistant?
Fruin/ That's correct, and the .... and the other one I'll mention is that, um, our building
inspections operation is funded from the building permit fees that come in as well. So....
Salih/ Which one?
Fruin/ That would be the building inspector.
Mims/ And we don't consider that part of general fund?
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Fruin/ Uh, it .... it's a general fund position, but it's financially supported by (both talking)
property taxes. Yeah, it's pretty unique.
Taylor/ And, Geoff, just a quick question just to clarify again. You sort of touched on it. These
recommendations came from department's heads that felt that they (both talking)
Fruin/ Yes, all .... all the positions were recommended by department heads. So we had .... we had
42 positions, uh, that were recommended, and .... and the 42 positions includes what I
covered on the previous slide. It includes the temporary to permanent conversions, um,
so we had those positions. Uh, the budget team sits down with the .... the department
heads and we try to prioritize, uh, the best that we can.
Taylor/ So if it's not on the list a department head might not of recommended. Pm thinking, uh,
say from Fire. They .... they didn't recommend that they (both talking)
Fruin/ Oh no, they .... there was recommendations from Fire. Uh, there was a recommendation
for a fire inspector position and what we did, uh, we certainly recognized the pressure on
the Fire Department and we're making some changes, um, to try to lessen the inspection's
demand. So this building inspector position will enable us to take some of the workload
off Fire and put it in NDS. Uh, the other thing that Council recently approved, you may
recall that we, uh, changed our agreement with the University so that we do not have to
inspect their facilities twice a year. We only inspect their buildings once a year now.
Those two things will have an impact. It's not the same as having a fire inspector
dedicated to, uh, those issues, but I think it'll have a positive impact and what I would
like to see is us to go through fiscal year 21 with this new arrangement and see what the
impact of both those changes are, uh, before we give more consideration to the fire
inspector position. Looking ahead in the Fire operation, uh, you know that we've ... uh,
have a purchase agreement on property on South Gilbert. Uh, you know that we're
actively looking for a.....a.....an east side fire location. Uh, there will come a time, and
this will .... we'll cover this in our facilities section, there'll come a time when Council's
gonna have to look at a major bump in fire service. We're talking 11, 12 staff members in
one year, to fund a new fire operation, and uh, you know, that's a million dollar plus, uh,
easy investment in new staff that will.... that will come, uh, and we're preparing for that
on the facility side right now. We're certainly not able to make that investment in... in
Fire personnel right now.
Taylor/ Thank you.
Bergus/ Geoff, I just wanted to ask, in the larger budget document, I think the full-time
equivalent additional staff number was somewhere north of 14. So Pm just wondering
about this, uh, total (both talking) about nine and a quarter.
Fruin/ So yeah.....that.... that adds this, uh, 5.78 (both talking) here.
Bergus/ "Thank you. Thank you.
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Fruin/ And, uh, and then the 9.26, and there was actually a. 13 reduction in the Library as well.
We had a Library staff position that I believe was, uh, reclassified up and then the hours
were taken down, is that right? So a loss of .13 in the Library and that's how you get to
the 14 91.
Bergus/ Great! Thank you.
Fruin/ Okay, so that's some of the .... the highlights really tied to your August work session. I'm
gonna turn it over to Simon right now. He's gonna go through, uh, some (mumbled)
Andrew/ Good morning! Uh, before we get into revenue and expenditure, the next few slides
will walk you through some of the long-term planning concerns that we see, uh, items
that are mostly out of our control, uh, that have a significant impact on the budget. Uh,
so the fust you see, uh, six issues here. Really they fall into three categories. Uh, we
have what, uh, the total value of property is, uh, what percentage of that property we can
tax, and then significant expenditure items that fluctuate quite a bit from year to year, uh,
fuel, healthcare costs, and the like. Uh, so the fust one, uh, the next few slides will all be
tied to, uh, property tax reform that we saw in 2013 that we, uh, talk about every year.
We're still in the midst of that being phased in. Uh, the most significant impact to us was
the reclassification of apartment buildings. Uh, so prior to 2013, these were taxed at
100% of their value. Uh, they were considered commercial properties. In FY13, uh,
that.....or 2013 for FY15 that was broken out from commercial into its own property, uh,
class, and each year a lower percentage of that property is taxable. So for FY21, uh, that
will be 71.25%, again down from 100 just a few years ago. Uh, for one year, uh, just for
FY21, uh, the approximate impact to our budget is $2.5 million, and there is no State
backfill tied to this whatsoever. Uh, and so that will drop each year until FY24, uh, that's
when it will match what the, uh, residential, uh, tax ability is currently. Um, the
(mumbled) through fiscal year 21, uh, is over $8 million. hiitially we projected a 10 -year
loss of $15 million, uh, for this one provision of property tax reform, and we are
exceeding that. Uh, right now we're tracking to be, uh, north of 16 million, um, but that
will potentially be, uh, greater by the time we get to FY24 as well. Uh, so I talked a little
about the residential tax ability. This fluctuates from year to year. It's tied to a number of
things, including, uh, overall growth statewide, uh.... somewhat inexplicably the value of
agricultural land is tied to this as well, uh, and so, uh, it's really a number that we have no
control over and does fluctuate from year to year. Uh, in fiscal year 2009, it was as low
as 44%. So if you think of the residential between FY23... or the multi -residential rather
between FY23 and FY24, uh, dropping from 63% to match whatever this is. Uh, we
don't know at this point whether that's gonna be 44% or 58% or, um, what have you. So
it could be a very significant drop in the multi -family, uh, tax ability in that one year, uh,
that we are doing our best to prepare for. Uh, so that's what this next slide is as well. You
see the FY21 numbers there. Right now residential properties are taxed at 55%, uh,
multi -family is at 71%. So if it were, uh, the year where that would drop off, uh, to
match, uh, today, that would be a 16 -point drop in multi -family tax ability in one year.
Um, and that again will hit in fiscal year 24. So we're half way through property tax
reform right now. Uh, the State does backfill some of the dollars lost from property tax
reform. Uh, this is not the multi -family piece. This has to do with the, uh, commercial
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properties, went from 100% tax ability to 90%, and have stayed at that 90% six ... since.
Uh, right now, uh, that's about 1.5 million, uh, that the State reimburses the City annually.
Um, but there have been pieces of legislation introduced in the last couple of years that
would phase this out, uh, for us. So we have to make sure that we're preparing for at
some point in the future, uh, the potential loss of $1.5 million a year, um, into, uh, largely
our general fund, and you see the breakdown of, uh, all the, uh, levies that that would
impact. Um, the equivalent of that in a single year, that's 36 -cents on our property tax
levy. Um, as an order of magnitude, we're very proud that we're able to drop our levy this
year, our proposed levy this year, for 6 -cents. So 36 -cents is obviously very, uh,
significant. Uh, and the equivalent on the expenditure side would be 13 1/2 FTEs in
Public Safety. Um, so that, you know, Geoff just talked about needing to open up a new
fire station. That would (coughing, unable to hear speaker) staffing cost for an entire new
fire station right there. Now again on the revenue side, um, we have had, uh, incredible
growth in recent years, which has helped us weather the property tax reform provisions,
especially the multi -family piece. Uh, this both, uh, increases the value of property in the
city that is taxed. So, um, our revenues have been growing commensurate with that.
There are also building, uh, permit fees, which we just mentioned fund staff positions.
So, you know, for instance in 2016, uh, that growth in, uh, construction and the permits
associated that.... with that was something around a million dollars in the general fund
that we can use, um, to support operations, or uh, grants or what have you, and we have
some averages broken out here, uh, over, um, different eras. Uh, 2016 is not represented
in those averages because it was such an outlier, uh, close to $400 million in construction
value in a single year, um, but you can see that we're, um, falling down a little bit above,
but kinda plateauing, uh, closer to the 2012 to 2015 averages, and we would expect, um,
if anything that to drop a little bit in the coming years, but certainly not to get back up to
that 388, uh, million dollar range, um, and there is a note on the bottom of how much of
this is non-taxable. This does include, say, uh, School District buildings, um, that we do
not collect property taxes on, so .... um, it .... it's still construction growth in our
community but not all of these new buildings, new facilities, are taxable for us. And then
finally on the expense side here, before we get into specific revenue and expenditures.
Uh, we have a lot of volatile costs from year to year that we cannot predict, um, or we
cannot predict, uh.... uh, very well. The first one there — fuel. This one has been on the
positive side lately, but you see the note there that, um, five years ago, uh, it was three-
quarters of a million dollars more, uh, for fuel costs in a single year than we're seeing
today, and it would not be surprising to see that go back up. So we have to maintain some
capacity, some flexibility, to be able to, um, weather that if, uh.... uh, if that were to
rebound to the higher prices. Uh, snow and ice management, the last couple of years this
is, uh, obviously something that we've all been very aware of, but uh, that's something,
the weather, we cannot predict. That impacts our construction projects. It impacts our,
uh, snow, ice, leaf removal operations, urn .... so for 2018, 2019 snow season, uh, the salt,
sand.... salt, sand and overtime costs increased $100,000, uh, over an average year, and so
again that's something that we can't predict year to year, so we have to make sure that we
have the capacity to pay for that. Uh, that's something that we have to do regardless of
what the cost is. Similar to fuel for our buses. Price goes up — it is what it is. We still
have to run our buses, we still have to clear snow from our roads. Uh, the last one there
is the most, uh, impactful from the last several years. Over the last five years healthcare
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costs have increased by 47%. Uh, you know we've talked about the ... needing a super -
majority vote to exceed our .... our expenditures by 2%, you know, this is something that
when you work it into the personnel costs that, um, is incredibly significant, and again,
can't be predicted. Um, we did have a few years of positive, uh, healthcare costs, but
being self-insured, you know, we have bad claims history, um, and that can increase
significantly going forward, so.... Um, that is .... those are some of the items that we need
to plan for going forward, we need to be cognizant of, and I'll turn it over to Ashley now.
She can talk about the revenues. (both talking)
Salih/ ....if you go back to page 20, I just wanna understand the residential rollback is .... is
changing. Is this like the ... a six-month value of the houses or this is being changed by the
State, I don't understand it.
Andrew/ Sure! Uh, think of the assessed value and the taxable value as two different things. So
you have your home's value, say it's, uh, $100,000, $200,000.
Salih/ Yes.
Andrew/ Um, if it's a single-family home, of that $200,000 value, uh, in this year, only 55% of it
is taxable. Uh, so to make the numbers easy, let's say it's a $100,000 house. We'd only
collect taxes on 55,000 of it.
Salih/ Yeah, I understand that, but that ... my question is, why is changing from year to year, you
know, like (both talking)
Andrew/ That is the State (both talking)
Salih/ .....because assessment is changing, that's why you know .... the value's changing, that's
why, you know, the taxable value is change as well, right?
Andrew/ That taxable value is tied to a number of things. Um, I think of it as kind of a black box
(laughs) that the State feeds a bunch of numbers into and it spits out the taxable
percentage. It's tied to, uh, the increases in agricultural land. Um, it's tied to statewide,
uh, residential homes can't increase more than 3%, um, from one year to the next, uh, so
to try to keep the actual tax bill for people relatively flat. Uh, what it came out of was in
the 70s we had seen, um, such rapid, uh, inflation that, uh, values.... valid values of
homes were increasing and thus the taxes were increasing so quickly that people,
especially on fixed incomes, uh, couldn't, uh, afford the increase in their tax liability. So
the State tried to flatten out how much of that could change from year to year, um, but it
is based statewide. It isn't, you know, in Iowa City residential values increase 9%, so
therefore we're going to draw back the, uh, tax ability of it. It's a statewide number. It's
tied to what happens in Council Bluffs or, um, any other city in the state, so, uh, and there
are a couple other things it's tied to. It's, urn .... yeah, the....the State gives us that number
annually, but it's not the (both talking) local assessor.
Salih/ Okay. That's good. Yeah. That's what I wanna know. Thanks!
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Andrew/ So I will turn it over to Ashley now!
Monroe/ Okay. Great. Well as Simon said, I get to talk about, um, revenues and expenditures
and some of the trends we're seeing here. Uh, so we have just a basic chart that provides
an overview of our, all.....all of our funds, uh, and the revenues that, uh, go into those
funds. Um, Johnson County Auditor performs a property assessment in odd years. So
every two years we see kind of a .... a new fluctuation or increase in property values. Um,
so this year's valuations over.... overall increased by about 11.8% and typically it's close
to about 7.5. So you'll see this increase of percent change of 9.3 and so that's where that
increase in property tax, uh, valuations are coming from. So despite the .... the rollbacks
Simon talked about, our tax reform impacting the multi -family properties, we still see
that .... that increase. Other city taxes, see a slight drop there. That's mostly due to a drop
in TIF revenues, um, and ... that generally fluctuates over time. It's been a recent trend.
We've seen a little bit of a decrease. Uh, licensing and permits, we had a good year in our
building permits, to see that little uptick in growth. We have use of money in property, so
that's a decrease in income from interest. Uh, we have inter -governmental.... which is a
decrease in state and federal revenue, so just based on our capital projects and the things
that we're doing there. We just have seen a .... a decrease this year there. Uh, we have
charges for services. Those are our parking fines and fees, Library fines, um, just a small
little bit of growth, and that's mostly due to administrative internal charge -back, uh,
changes. Then we have other financial sources, and we see another, uh, close to 10%
decrease there, and that's, um, due to a decrease in home sales from our UniverCity
program. So, um, the carrying costs and those things from our .... our housing, uh,
contribute to that revenue source, and when we have fewer properties than we've had in
prior years, we see that, uh, we see that change there. So overall we've got a .... a decrease
in revenues of about 3.8%. There's a .... a picture visually of all of our funds, and ... and
the sources that they come from. Pll just hit on the fact that it shows the proportion of
our revenue sources. Um, we have charges that includes, uh, utilities, water, solid waste.
We have inter -governmental revenues. As I said it comes from a lot of, uh, state.... state
grants, entitlement funding, like CDBG and Home, and the road use funding. And then
the bulk of our funds, as you see, are made up of property taxes. So digging a little bit
deeper into our general fund revenue sources. That's our discretionary fund. Um, we are
seeing a .... a slight increase, and we'll dig a little bit deeper into the hotel/motel, uh, tax.
That's kind of that teal area on the left, uh, for 5%. It's a nice source of revenue, but as
you see it makes up a very small portion of our general fund expenditures. Um, and that's
split, of course, between our Convention and Visitors Bureau, about 25%, 25% to Parks
and Recreation, and then about 50%, uh, allocated to our Police Department operations.
So, um, we have 7% inter -governmental. Those are our grants, our... our agreements with
other government agencies. Um, we also have our charges for service make up only
about 2%. So a lot of those can be explained because they go towards our enterprise
funds. So the .... the waste, utilities, all of those things. Uh, we have miscellaneous
revenue sources, so that's, urn .... charge -backs to our CIP in enterprise funds, or as I said
our Parking fines, uh.... those sorts of charges. And then, uh, we're heavily reliant on our
property taxes, as you see it's 20 .... it's two-thirds of our general fund revenue. So when
we think about, um, our ability to .... manage our .... our funds, a lot of that comes from
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Page 16
our fluctuation in what those property taxes look like. Um, it really depends on .... you
know, the State rollbacks and .... and other factors. So I'll orient you a little bit here.
When we're talking about property tax trends, uh, the green bars here show, uh, the
growth in taxable valuation, year over year, and then the thin gold line shows our
property tax rate as we have set it since fiscal year 2012. So we see a relative pattern
here, and uh, the even years are non -assessment years. So, um, where you would expect
the valuation to increase less than in years of .... of, uh, assessment, so years, uh, 17, 18,
19, 21, show considerable growth compared to the even years, 16, 18, 20, and uh, we do
anticipate a drop in ... in growth again in fiscal year 22. So usually that drop would be
about 2 to 4% or so, or .... or stabilization I should say. Um, but over time you see we've
made this (mumbled) you know, very intentional, uh, move to reduce that property tax
rate, and this chart does a really nice job of showing.... what.... what that actually looks
like. Okay.... we've got, uh, our overlapping tax rates. So, uh, we're not the only ones in,
on the tax bill, and uh, we're just one component, and ours is made up of the .... the School
District, Iowa City Community School District; our Johnson County; and Kirkwood; um,
very, very small percent for the State of Iowa, a special levy. So, um, we have dropped
our rate, our property tax levy over the last eight years and we make up 41% of the .... of
the tax bill. Uh, so here it shows, again, um, year over year a look at what this tax rate
(mumbled) this trend looks like. Uh, the boxes show the proportion of who .... who
makes up that tax bill. Um, so we are on the .... the top portion of that and, uh, the School
District is the larger on the bottom. Uh, so the line shows the dollar amount and the
percent of that tax bill. So you see we start kind of at the top, towards the left, and have
over time trended downward as the percentage of our tax bill, and we project that the City
will continue to see a drop over.... continued drop over the next couple of years, but
probably won't see as significant a drop as we .... as we have come from. Uh, it'll likely
stabilize over the next couple of years. So here we have a .... we're talking still about our
property tax levies. Um, a comparison between Iowa City and the other large cities
throughout the state of Iowa. So, um, the column on the left, or I should say the mo ... the
most left numbered column are our most recent tax rates. Uh, the middle is showing
fiscal year 2012. That's the height of our property tax levies in .... in recent year, and um,
it's just showing the percentage change here, um, showing that we've had the highest
decrease in .... in property tax levy over that period of time. Um, we have come towards
the middle of our .... of our taxes, and um..... So again, we might see a drop in future
years, uh, below a couple of the other cities, but we won't see a big drop. Um .... we'll
move on to the levy breakdown. So, um, we have a combined general fund tax levy
shown in the chart. That includes our property taxes, tort levy, transit levy, uh, the library
levy in that fust box, 9.61. Uh, we have our employee benefit levy. Uh, this year we're
proposing a 10 -cent increase in that, uh, levy for employee benefits, due to a lot of like
we talked about the pension costs, uh, increase in staff, to help cover that. Uh, the
emergency levy is now listed there, uh, going from zero rate to, uh, 24 -cents. And then,
uh, the debt service levy. We're dropping from 2.978 to 2.578, 40 -cent drop, leaving us
with a .... a decrease in total, uh, levy of 6 -cents. So more information about the
emergency levy. Uh, the State permits a emergency levy of up to 27 -cents after our
general tax levy is .... is fully utilized. Um, it's a generally common tax throughout the
state of Iowa, um, it's used by 45% of our cities here. So, um, varying in all sizes of
community and um, those closer to us in our community, over 50% are .... or I should say
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50% of the cities in Iowa over 50,000 population were using the max. We don't see any
cities that are utilizing the emergency tax and not max .... uh, maxing that tax rate.
Mims/ Quick.... quick question! In this, uh, chart you've got the general fund tax levies all
combined into one and I know there's multiple ones. Are we maxed out at that 9.61?
1....I know there's a (both talking)
Fruin/ The bulk of it is maxed. We're maxed in transit, we're maxed in the library, we're maxed
in the, uh, general fund. General fund's 8 10 of that.
Mims/ Right.
Fruin/ We're 9.6. So I would say yes, maybe the tort is, which is a really tiny levy, we might
have some capacity there but for the most part you're locked in at that number.
Mims/ Okay, that's what (both talking)
Fruin/ .....correct, Dennis (both talking)
Bockenstedt/ And I'd say the tort liability is limited to what we're spending that upon (both
talking)
Mims/ Okay.
Bockenstedt/ ....which is right now pretty much even, so there's not much capacity to raise that.
Mims/ Okay.
Bockenstedt/ ...unless those expenditures would increase as well.
Mims/ Okay. Well I just wanted to clarify for the public and for Council is that we don't really
have any room on that general fund tax levy, I mean that.... we're basically maxed out
there.
Fruin/ Yeah, the 8 10 levy, which generates property taxes for the general fund, has been maxed
for years.
Mims/ For years, okay. Thank you.
Monroe/ Okay! Moving on! We have meter revenue sources. Uh, as I said the hotel/motel is a
nice, um, is a nice place to find revenue. Uh, we see small growth here. Uh, towards the
right of the chart, the fiscal year 2020 is when we saw the closure of the Sheraton Hotel
to renovate for the Graduate Hotel. So since it's been open, um, over this past year, we've
seen a nice bump in, uh, revenues generated, and urn .... future revenues are gonna depend
on the influx of the new hotels coming on, the market for hotel rates on a .... on a daily,
uh, on a daily basis, and urn .... we'll just see where the competition for the ... for those
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average nights, uh, leaves us. We expect that it'll probably be .... aro .... around this much.
We're not expecting a .... a big jump in hotel/motel growth. We got our major revenue
sources. Here's our utility franchise. There's a nice comparison of .... of our utilization of
the utility franchise fee, uh, in comparison to other cities. We're at 1%. Um, you see
a .... a fluctuation in the bar chart, just, uh, typically we see fluctuations based on weather.
So, uh, the colder winter is the higher your utility franchise tax revenues might be, uh,
and vice versa So as we look to, um .... as we look to modify or alter the.... the, um....
ability for homes to .... to use different energy sources, that may also, uh, change what we
see a little bit in our utility franchise revenues. Finally we've got .... go ahead!
Salih/ I have a question. For the utilities, the 1%, is that the one in the like the..... l% usually we
use it for ...what kind of, that's called like a (mumbled) fund or something like that?
What's the ... what's the name of the fund that l ....that 1% utility we charge on the bill.
Fruin/ Uh, it's the utility franchise tax and the Council can designate how that is used. Um,
currently we use the bulk of it, uh, it was passed to help fund the addition of Fire Station
#4. So at the time we opened Fire Station #4, there needed to be a revenue source to pay
for those firefighters, and this .... the bulk of those funds do that. I think there's some that
go to Forestry and, uh, is there some road maintenance (several talking in background)
Bockenstedt/ ...electrical undergrounding (both talking)
Fruin/ ....electrical undergrounding, uh, but yes. That's a .... that's a tax that the Council can, uh,
authorize, uh, so you can increase that to .... up to 5% and specify the use for that.
Salih/ That's will lead me to the question on page number 32, where you said the emergency is
plus .24 -cent increase. That for the ... for the, uh, climate (both talking) Okay, and there
were emergency sometimes, like one time, but this not gonna be one time, right? This
will be like over years.
Fruin/ Yeah, the .... the (both talking) set annually (both talking) You can scale those, uh, as you
see fit. So if .... if, uh, next year, in two years out, in three years out, whatever it may be,
if you decide you wanted to scale back the use of the emergency levy, you can. Uh, you
can repeal a utility tax and you can add a utility tax too. Uh, so Pd say they're both
scalable. You're (both talking)
Salih/ You mean if we, just for example, if we increase the .... the utility tax from 1% to 2%, we
can also use that money for the climate action.
Fruin/ You could, and that was something we considered. We .... we could of recommended
moving this to 2% and not using the emergency levy. We opted for the ... the property tax,
but um, if Council would rather, uh, move to a utility fund to fund .... the climate action
initiatives, you certainly could. We liked the, uh, property tax one because it's not as
regressive as the utility tax, and .... and two, um, it .... you, it is .... I.....I maybe say more
scalable from year to year. You could go from 24 -cents to 20 to 15 to 20, you know,
based on the specific actions of the climate, uh, you know whatever we .... whatever
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actions we have coming up, from year to year we can scale that, um, that levy a little bit
easier. When it's 1%, it's 1%. You're gonna get the 900,000. You're gonna get the
million, whether you need it or not. So we like, especially early on with our new climate
initiatives, having the ability to .... to scale that. You k now, if we shoot too high this year
and we really don't think we need a million to accomplish our plan, we can come back
next year and only ask for 500,000 or 750,000.
Salih/ Yeah, sure.
Fruin/ (mumbled)
Salih/ Yeah, just was trying to see like what the public would like better, is to increase their
property tax rate by 24 or just increase their utility tax by 2%.
Bergus/ I think it's really important with the levy breakdown, cause there was some reporting, I
think, that was incorrect about this as well, but the fact that our overall property tax levy
is going down by six cents, because of significant, um, debt service reduction. So even
though our adding that 24 cents, the overall levy is going down, which is pretty
impressive.
Salih/ Yeah, of course (both talking)
Weiner/ Do we have any idea what, um, what the School bond issue is going to do to the ov.... to
the overall tax rate? I mean I know that one of the reasons that ... that ... I think one of the
reasons that we're working on continuing to reduce the levy is keeping something like
that in mind, so the property tax rates don't jump.
Fruin/ Yeah, that's certainly been on our mind the last few years, after the bond issue was passed.
I don't know where the School District rate is going to go. Uh, they're certainly
benefiting from the growth in assessments, just like we are. Um, we anticipated, after
the .... the, a referendum passed that their rate would go us, and thus we felt if we could
bring our rate down and balance that out to .... to the point you just made, that .... that's
better for the public, um, but at this point we don't know what their rate's gonna end up.
Salih/ Uh huh. Thank you.
Monroe/ Got just a couple more for you. Uh, we've got our table (mumbled) cable TV franchise.
Uh, just a ... a chart showing the decline overall in the last several years of that revenue
source. Um, historically the franchise fee has been used to support our cable TV
operations. So about five years ago we began working this revenue into our general fund
and uh, combined our cable TV operations with our Communications Division. Um, and
you know, the incorporation of their operations into Communications has gone very well.
They do excellent work. Um, they've been creating a lot of good projects and have a lot
of beneficial, uh, cooperation. So, uh, we'll continue to invest in our .... in our Cable and
Communications, uh, despite this decline in .... in revenues they are seeing here. Um, we
also .... note that, um.....you know, recent changes in the, um, FCC has also made what
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these revenues, uh, look like in the future a little uncertain. We've got our revenue
sources...... the road use tax Geoff, uh, touched on thas .... this and all I'll say about this
chart is that between 2015 and 2016 fiscal years, uh, the State gave us a 10 -cent bump.
That's why you see that kind of jump in .... in revenue there, and it's been fairly flat since
that time. We're really hoping that the Census information that comes in, uh, Census
results will give us another bump here in our road use tax. Got our local option sales tax,
uh, this is a summary chart showing the large cities in Iowa; uh.... not on the chart but
also included is Cedar Falls. They .... they use their, uh, LOST taxing for road use
majority. Uh, this past year Des Moines passed a LOST and it made us the only one of
the largest cities without, uh, this revenue source. Uh (mumbled) State law, it's a new law
that requires 50% go to property tax relief and, uh, as you see in the chart, the bulk of
these large cities use their revenues for street repair and some other infrastructure repair.
Teague/ Is there a reason why.... or overall reason why we did.... don't have LOST? After the
2013....
Mims/ We tried, and it was voted down. And I would encourage us to give serious, serious
consideration to it, um, as we go through our budget, to look at putting that on the ballot.
I think, um, when you look at the fact that we're the only large municipality in the state
that doesn't have it and the .... how it's going to .... the.....it's going to increase in difficulty
to lower our property tax rates. Um, we're kind of, I think as Ashley has mentioned and
Geoff has, we're.... we're getting pretty near the bottom of how much we can reduce our
property tax rates, uh, without some other significant revenue source. Um .... we went
through a lot of things, but I think we should seriously talk about it and I think explain to
the public that this is nowhere as near as regressive a tax because of all the exclusions.
Um, so without going into the weeds today, I just hope we'll make that a serous
discussion as we go through the budget.
Weiner/ I would agree with Susan. Uh, among other reasons because every time we go
somewhere else in the state, we are paying into their LOST funds, uh, but we are not
getting any funds from others who come here.
Monroe/ All right. On to expenditures. (mumbled) quickly. Um, so this chart, just simple,
showing the categories upon which we .... we project our expenditures. A lot of attention
is paid to the efforts. You know, we talk a lot about our economic development initiatives
or cultural initiatives, those types of things, but you see that they make up a very small
portion of .... of what we're spending our .... our funds on. Um, the bulk of it is, uh, on our
operations, the column on the right. Uh, our major projects, our capital projects, and on
public safety, on the far left there. Here's a better breakdown. Another visual breakdown.
You see we're a very, uh, labor intensive organization, so we can't do a lot of the work we
do without people to do them. Um, and it's showing that (mumbled) end points and times
where we might find difficulty, um, in .... in keeping our budget. It's really difficult to cut
meaningful dollars without cutting personnel and .... and positions in that ... in that case.
So here's a more specific breakdown of our expenditures. We've got, um, the uptick in
personnel that you see is, uh, due to the salaries, benefits, pensions, uh, health insurance
spike over the last couple of years, urn .... then we have the slight decreases in our
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services, supplies, and capital outlay. Um, it's not necessarily due to reduction in, um,
our needs for services, our .... our vehicle rentals, our... you know, those... those types of
activities, major building repairs. We still have all of those things going on, but um,
it's .... a lot is due to carry -forwards from a prior year. So things that we didn't get to this
year, need to carry over into the next year, and so really our budgets are
a .... approximately equal, but um, you see that decrease, which makes it look like we're
spending less. Um, and then we've got, uh, just explanation for financial uses. That
decrease there is due to the .... the homes sold to the UniverCity program. So by reducing
the number of homes we're carrying and... and working on, um, we see that decrease in
that other financial uses. Uh, contingency is just assigned as 1% of our .... of our general
fund. We've.... finally I'll talk about pensions and, uh, our contributions to there. Uh, it's
been pretty steady over the last couple of years. We haven't seen jumps in our pension
contributions, like were required and, you know, kind of you see that big increase from
2012 to 2015. Um, the markets have been fairly.... fairly good and .... and leading to us
contributing a little bit less, but um, when we add staff or the market fluctuates at all, uh,
we see changes in our pension costs as well. This is ... this shows, uh, police and fire, by
the way. Um .... and overall the percentage change in our costs are about 3%. So.... Uh,
finally we've got the IPERS contribution, and uh, we've seen growth in this area in recent
years because of, uh, again added staff and increase in those pension costs for IPERS.
Um, the usual increase is about 3 to 4% and we're looking at, uh you know, we had a big
jump last year, about 12%. Ibis year is projecting about ... close to 6% increase. So,
um .... I'll leave it at that!
Andrew/ Okay, uh, just, uh, three quick slides on debt service. Um, I think the main thing to take
away here is, and Laura mentioned this with, uh, the emergency levy, uh, compared to the
debt service levy. Uh, it's important to note how much of what we've been able to do on
City Council initiatives over the last several years has been done on the back of, uh,
reduced debt service costs. It's lowered borrowing. It's restructuring and refunding, and
a lot of what we've been able to spend, especially on one-time initiatives has been on...
by reducing our expenditures in debt service. Uh, basically by reducing the amount of
interest that we're paying the banks and putting that money into services. Uh, so for this
year we're recommending a drop of 40 -cents in the debt service levy, uh, which
accomplishes the 24 -cent, uh, climate action, uh, levy, and the 10 -cent increase in the
employee benefits levy. Um, here are, uh, three indicators. We have three numbers that
we look at, um, when we are looking at the debt service levy. Um .... uh, one is a state
cap. We cannot, um .... uh.....have a debt service levy ...or we cannot, um....
Mims/ We can't borrow (both talking)
Andrew/ ....we can't (laughter) borrow more than 5% of our total taxable value. I'm sorry!
(laughs) You'd think I hadn't done this before! Right now we're under 20%. That's a .... a
very low number. That's a lot of capacity there but again, um, you know, it .... that doesn't
make it wise. 5% is the state limit. If you start gettin' close to that then you're in trouble.
So, uh, we're comfortable around the 20% level. Uh, Moody's has a benchmark that they
use, um .... uh, for total outstanding debt at three-quarters of a percent. Uh, we're closer to
1% right now. This number has fallen significantly over the last few years. Uh, .75% is a
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low target to hit, but we're getting much closer to it and the (mumbled) here is this is an
internal policy that the, uh, debt service levy will not exceed 30% of the total property tax
levy. Uh, right now we are at about 16%. This has been closer to the 30% even in the
last eight or nine years. Uh, we were talking about this morning, since, uh, ov.... over the
last nine years, uh, we had to increase this. When I started with the City, our internal
policy was 25% and we bumped that up to 30, uh, but now we're falling back to, um, a
better, a more comfortable, uh, level for us. Next two slides are just our Moody's, uh,
rating compared with other cities in the state and the country. Uh, the first one is
nationally, uh, and these ratings that you see here are only investment grade ratings.
There are a number below, uh, BAA3, um, that are considered junk bond status. Uh, a
lower percentage of cities in those. So if you add up the percentages across the bottom, it
may not equal a hundred, um, but we are, um, in the top 9% in the country. We're one of,
uh, 238 cities, uh, in the country that Moody's rates as triple-A. Uh, and it is important to
point out that, uh, we don't necessarily have the profile of, uh, a typical triple-A
community. We have a lower median income, uh, than most of the cities that have this
rating. You typically see them as kind of bedroom communities, suburban areas, um, so
we're very proud that we've been able to maintain this, uh, triple-A rating. Uh, next one
is for the state. We are one of only three cities in the state, uh, that currently has a, uh,
triple-A rating. The other two are West Des Moines and Clive. Again kind of that, uh,
suburban, higher income, uh, community. Um .... so again we're very proud that we've
been able to maintain this and uh, we think that with continued responsible budgeting
we'll be able to do so. And so I'll turn it back over to Geoff for final analysis.
Fruin/ Okay! Home stretch, here we go! (laughter) Uh, this is our enterprise fund balances.
Okay? So I'm going to try to orient you to the slide here. Um, again these are, uh, a
sampling of our business accounts. These are the ... the operations that we run. The fees
that they, um, charge are what support their operations, and what we're lookin' at here is
basically the long-term health of these. So I'm gonna .... I'm gonna focus in on a couple
here. We don't need to go through all of these, but Transit is somethin' we're gonna be
talkin' about quite a bit in the coming year. Um, you can see that, uh, we are running a
surplus in Transit. We have been for some time, a few hundred thousand dollars, and you
can see we're carrying, uh, two different fund balances and the difference here is we have
a restricted fund balance which means that that savings that we have, basically it's our
savings account in Transit, is dedicated for a specific purpose. In this case it's for a new
facility, and we're hoping to use this $5 million to leverage a federal grant, uh, to pay for
a new transit facility. So if and when that grant opportunity comes, we can say we have a
20% match, 25% match, whatever it is, and hopefully have a more competitive
application. The unassigned fund balance, uh, would be discretionary to use within the
Transit fund, so as we maybe need to invest in, uh, new buildings or you want to make
switches to electric vehicles, uh, you can use this, but think of this as kind of your one-
time funds, right? So we don't have 1.7 every year to spend on Transit. We're generating
that kind of $300,000 surplus right now, urn .... that's kinda your ongoing. So Transit's
pretty healthy and we feel pretty good about that, but you're gonna see a lot of pressures,
uh, a lot of demands asked of you, uh, when it comes to that time to discuss the transit
study. Uh, our Waste Water and Water below them, I think they're both pretty healthy
funds. Um, I wanna talk about Refuse. You can see Refuse is kind of the opposite story
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right now. We're bringing in under four million and we're spendin' more than four million
on Refuse. There's a deficit there. Now it's not necessarily an operational deficit. We've
been buying a lot of carts lately, a lot .... a lot of carts (laughs) so, um, we won't have
to .... these expenditures will come down. Um, but with this budget we are recommending
a 90 -cent per month increase in our recycling fee, because, uh, there has been a
significant boost in recycling with the changes that we've made, and the 90 -cents will
help support, uh, some additional staff resources there to .... to, uh, help with that. Uh, the
next one, uh, where we have a fee increase is the Landfill fund. I'll point out the Landfill
fund. Uh, looks, uh, if you just looked at the aggregate fund balance, you got $25 million
in savings out there. But we're required to keep 24 million, so there's... there's closure
requirements for Landfill. Basically when it comes time when your landfill's full, uh, and
it can no longer be used, you have to have savings to properly close that, uh, and that's,
uh, addresses a lot of environmental, long-term environmental concerns. So most
....most of the... the, uh, Landfill, uh, savings can't be .... can't be tapped into. Overall we
feel really good about where we stand with our .... with our business accounts.
Mims/ Geoff .... I'm sorry, before you go on .... uh, we've got a pretty large... in my perspective,
restricted balances both in Waste Water and Water. Can you comment quickly what those
are in reference to?
Fruin/ Yeah. Dennis, is that....
Bockenstedt/ Yeah, uh, those represent a coupe of things. Um, the one that's the most restricted
there is our debt service fund. So when we issue revenue bonds, we're required to set
aside funds, uh, for the repayment of those and the security on those bonds.
Mims/ Okay.
Bockenstedt/ Uh, so that represents a good portion of that balance, and then somethin' that, um,
we just started doing that we had not done, that's new to this budget, is the creation of
essentially depreciation and replacement reserves. So, um, somethin' that, uh, we've not
done is actually set aside funds to replace infrastructure....
Mims/ Right.
Bockenstedt/ ....and replace buildings, and therefore then you have to borrow funds, uh, to
replace those in the future. So we actually have, uh, started to create those replacement
reserves so that we do not do that in the future.
Mims/ Okay. Thank you.
Frain/ With this budget there's a few user fee changes that, uh, that we're recommending. Uh,
we, uh, with last year's budget there was a two-year water rate increase. So actually we
already have a 5% water rate increase that will take effect July 1, without any further
action by Council. We also have a 90 -cent, uh... uh, fee increase for recycling. Uh, that's
a monthly fee there, and then a tipping fee increase of $2.50 at the Landfill, and again a
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tipping fee is basically the fee you pay when you come in to dump, uh, your waste there,
and that will help support the operations out there. We talk about growth. There's also
growth throughout Johnson County, and remember our Landfill is a countywide landfill.
So they're not only dealing with the increase in waste recycling, compost from Iowa City,
but Coralville, North Liberty, and all the other cities in Johnson County too. Uh, property
tax impact, uh, so we're gonna start gettin' into the impacts of some of the, uh, the levy
decisions that you need to make here, and I'm gonna just call your attention to these first
two, uh, slides first. So when we use $100,000 assessed home, just for simplicity
purposes. So you can multiply that as you need to ... to estimate a ... a housing impact. So
we have last year's budget and this year's proposed budget. Same value house, $100,000.
The taxable valuation, that's that rollback figure that Simon was talking about. It went
from 56% to 55. So with this new budget, residents are actually going to pay a .... a
smaller percentage, uh, taxes on a smaller percentage of their home. You can see our levy
rate decreases too. So if you assume that the value of the home stays the same, the
person living in that home will pay $32 less per year to the City of Iowa City. Again I
can't speak for what the School District and County and Kirkwood may do with their
levies. Okay? So we typically give you this comparison, but because we've had such
high valuation increases, we added the second column here, and I've highlighted it in
blue. Uh, we took the average annual assessment and that was about 9.1%. So that
$100,000 home is now worth 109, on average in Iowa City. Still got the benefit of the
rollback, but they're gonna be paying taxes more, cause that valuation has gone up, and
despite the rollback and despite the levy reduction, you're gonna.... they're gonna be
paying $47 more, uh, per year, uh, in taxes. So while it's great that we're able to reduce
our levy, I don't want you to walk away from this meeting thinking that residents will be
paying the City less. Because assessments have gone up, that more than counters the
drop of only 6 -cents to our levy. Uh, so I think probably the more accurate representation
is that you're gonna be asking with this budget, the City will be asking, uh, homeowners
to pay $47 more per year, uh, for those City services. Does that make sense?
Thomas/ Geoff, what ... what's the median, what... what's the City's median house price, or
assessed value I guess I should say.
Fruin/ 200.... double 200 (both talking)
Thomas/ ....double this ... $100 a year is what.... yeah.
Fruin/ So as you think about the levy and what you're comfortable with, just.... just kinda keep
this in mind. Uh, what we do with this slide here is we add in, uh, the utility cost too. So
we try to look at the bundle of costs that the City charges. We have property taxes, and
we go to storm water fee, refuse fee, sewer, water. So from fiscal year 20 to 21, um, in
this slide we're assuming no growth in the house, right, for simplicity purposes and
comparisons year over year, uh, it's a .... basically a wash from year to year. Now again,
you can add, knowing that .... that residential assessment growth.... you know that, um, the
property tax number will go up, as we talked about on the last slide. So it's probably
more of a, uh, a 4% increase with average assessment growths, uh, from fiscal year 20 to
fiscal year 21. This does show the increase in the refuse. So the recycling fee is gonna
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cost you $11, uh, roughly, uh, next year, and then the water rate increase, uh, will cost
you about $20, uh, that ... that we have planned. Per year. We, uh, we talk a lot about
building, uh, critical reserves, and I'm .... I'm really proud of..of the work that the Council
has done over the last several years to .... to increase our reserves. We do have an
emergency reserve that was created about maybe 2014 or so. Our balance is 5.2 million.
Uh, we've used this in recent years to acquire some properties in .... in the flood plain that
we couldn't get state and federal assistance for, but here are the list of uses. Council, you
can ... you can use this, uh, for any of these purposes listed above, uh, disaster response or
mitigation. Uh, if we were to suddenly lose the backfill, uh, we could plug that hole, uh,
with these funds in order to avoid laying off staff and taking other drastic actions. Um,
any really sharp spikes in those volatile line items that Ashley and Simon talked about,
you know, you could plug those holes with this and then any other emergencies that come
up, you could tap into this 5.2 million. Uh, we've also created a facility reserve. This
was new with last year's budget, and with this year's budget the balance would go to four
million. Um, you know we've talked about this in the past. It's really difficult for us to,
um, move forward with a lot of our facility needs, uh, because there are significant .... in
many cases referendum requirements, where you have to get 60% of the voters to .... to
approve that. So when you think about a new equipment maintenance building, it's going
to be really hard to go to the public and say 'we need $20 million for a new equipment
maintenance building.' It's hard enough for elementary schools and rec centers. Uh, it's
going to be really hard for police and equipment and .... and facilities like that, so we're
really making an effort to build our facility reserves, um, not to eliminate the need for
referendum, but hopefully if and when that time comes, the public knows that we have a
good portion of that saved and our ask, uh, has a .... a reduced impact on the public, right?
So if you're looking at a $20 million police station and you have to ... communicate to the
public what that.... during the referendum process, this is what it's gonna cost you as a
homeowner. If you can cut that in half by saving through this reserve fund, it's.... you're
hopefully gonna, you know, pick up a few more votes and get closer to that 60%. Um,
because of the growth that we've experienced, the, uh, need for facility replacement and
renovation is .... is growing pretty rapidly. Uh, we're very thankful for the Council's
support with the new Public Works/Streets building. I've listed here, as I look at 10 years,
here's some things that we're going to need to address. Uh, we don't have anywhere else
to put new police officers, uh, new police support staff. Uh, we've got one officer workin'
out of the .... the Rec Center, uh, our community service officer already right now. Uh,
Transit, I think you all know of the need to replace there and equipment maintenance.
Those are on our old Public Works' campus. Signif.... significant rehabilitation needs at
the Senior Center. Uh, we've talked to you in the past, uh, to expand Fire services, with
two new stations. Uh, one would be a replacement station and one would be a new
station, but those are, you know, probably $4 to $5 million a pop, uh, pretty easily there,
and then, uh, pools and rec centers too. So there's probably more facility needs than we
can handle here, and $4 million is great, but $4 million isn't going to pay for much of
anything on this list. So, urn .... I encourage ya to stay committed to that, and I think in
two, three, four, five years, if we can get this number up, we can make some significant,
um, headway on these facility needs, and .... that not only improves services to the public,
but it improves working conditions for .... for your staff, uh, and right now we have some
operations, uh, that .... that just don't have, frankly, very good working operations. I'd
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encourage ya to, you know, come along on some tours when we offer'em to equipment
maintenance or to, uh, Fire Station #3 or the Police Station, and... and just take a look, and
I think that you'll see that they're.... they're just no longer meeting the modern-day needs
of .... of employees and .... and the public. So (mumbled) talk to, kind of wrap up about
next year's budget. Um, we .... we won't see the type of growth that we saw with this
year's budget. Uh, again as Ashley mentioned, it's not an assessment year, so we won't
see the growth in taxable value, uh, that we would see in... in this year, and as I've
communicated to you, we are seein' our growth numbers start to... start to go back down
to normalize, and that's pretty evident with the way the market is right now. We think the
utility funds are pretty stable. You're not gonna see a sharp, uh.... uh, spike there. Debt
service, there may be a little bit of wiggle room in there, but we're talking pennies and
nickles now. We're not talking quarters and half -dollars like we have in past years. Uh,
the facility reserve we talked about; uh, climate action, again we've got kind of a
placeholder figure in there now. We need to find our groove. We need to get our team
assembled. We need to get the Commission's input, the Council's input, and we'll have to
figure out if that million dollar number's where we need to be or not. Um ... we will have
adequate funds to continue to carry out our .... our master plan initiatives. We've very
careful about trying to present master plans that we think we can afford, uh, and I think
we've done that with the parks and bike master plan. Uh, but you'll continue to see
pressure. The growth in this community's happening and we're still playing catch-up on
that in a lot of staff operations. There's two items, uh, that you know are coming your
way, uh, that I think you'll need to take up mid budget year. I don't wanna wait till next
budget session to really tackle these two. Our transit, uh, study recommendations will be
out this summer. Uh, they're gonna be like largely, uh, or likely recommendations for
Sunday service, expanded hours, um, fare -free, all those things Council needs to consider.
They're going to be very costly. Uh, it's going to be very difficult... it's gonna be
impossible really to meet those within the current financial parameters that we have for
the Transit. So we're gonna have to make some changes if we wanna meet those service,
uh, demands. It could be increased property taxes. Now our Transit levy is maxed out
but we could look to the general fund and employee benefits levy and things like that to
take up some of the slack. Uh, you could look at your utility tax rate. That's that 1%.
Um, but where I would encourage you to look when the time comes is our parking fees,
and I really think that we could generate, uh, some.... some money through our increase
in parking fees, uh.... uh, to .... to pay for expanded transit service, and I think there's a
good nexus connection, uh.....uh, between those. So, uh, we'll get into a little bit more of
that, uh, but understand that's where staff s mind is right now, that if you wanna do the
things that I think you wanna do with Transit, you're gonna be having.... probably have to
think long and hard about, uh, some increases in our.... in our decks, in our meters, and
our monthly parking fees. Uh, we are, uh, very close to finishing up our roadway, uh,
maintenance study. So it's a .... uh, it's a, uh, condition index review, uh, that we've had a
consultant do. It's gonna present to you, uh, how our road conditions stack up and what
the projections are, uh, going forward, given certain levels of funding, right? So you can
think of a, um, a study that's gonna say 'these roads are in good, fairly good, average,
poor condition,' and then if we wanna keep that level, uh, study or increase it, uh, it's
gonna tell you how much more you need to put into roadway funding. Uh, I've seen the
preliminary draft. Um, surprisingly to me, our roads stack up very well compared to the
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10 largest cities in Iowa. Um, they all do ... the State does condition index for .... for every
city, a roadway condition index, and, uh, I think we're only behind one other of the larger
cities in how our average road conditions stack up. So we're not alone in fighting the
challenge that we have, uh, cause clearly we know that our roads need quite a bit of work.
But the... the.... the study's also clear that, uh, if we just stay status quo, we're loosin'
ground. So you're not gonna be able to hang on, even to what we have, with this $2
million in resurfacing and occasional use o£..of, uh, CIP dollars to .... to do that. So, uh,
Council's gonna have to weigh.... what's your appetite for, uh, another revenue source,
and ... and as, uh, we've hinted and .... and, uh, afew Councilors have mentioned, local
option sales tax is probably something that you should consider. I think the public could,
uh, get behind that for roads, uh, and potentially other uses as you see fit. Um, and it's
certainly something that other cities have proven to be, uh, successful with. Uh, couple
just, uh, summary highlights. So with this budget, uh, we continue the affordable
housing funding at a million dollars, which is .... which is really impressive. It feels
routine now, but I'm tellin' ya, it's not routine. You're not gonna find other cities in this
state that are putting the money that this Council is towards affordable housing. We've
increased the Aid to Agency program 25%. You'll have to decide if that's sufficient or
not, but certainly staff feels that that's a significant boost to this program in one year. Uh,
it aggressively funds the climate action and adaptation efforts, which the community and
the Council has called for. Makes a huge investment in .... in staff, and again I can't
(mumbled) I can't tell ya how appreciative staff is, uh.... uh, of you for actually listing this
as a priority and for considering these recommendations. We talked about minimum
wage, temporary to permanent conversions, new staff, and .... and with the facility,
uh.... uh, reserve, uh, increase, an effort to save to improve working conditions for ...for
our staff, and then the master plans that we've talked about. This budget also includes
stronger reserves. It helps us avoid significant spikes in utility and user fees in the future
by .... by tweaking a ... a couple of those fees in a very small way. And it continues to
reduce the tax, uh, levy rate. I should say tax levy rate, uh... uh, bringing us more in line
with those other, uh, large cities, which, um .... has been a Council priority, really since
2012, when we really.... our rate was second highest in the state amongst comparable
cities and second only by, you know, only .... by not... not too much. We've really brought
that down and while there's not a whole lot more room to go down, Council should feel
really good about that long-term effort to get where we are. Thank you. Appreciate it.
Uh, we can answer questions. We've already got a list working on other items you wanna
discuss.
Salih/ Uh, I have a question. (unable to understand) ....we are increasing this year the...
employee benefit tax levy 10 -cent. Uh, last year we reduce it and this year we increasing
it 10 -cent, and correct me if I'm wrong, that's almost we generated like 500,000, right?
Frum/ It's about a penny per 40,000 (both talking)
Salih/ Yeah, roughly (both talking)
Bockenstedt/ ....40,000, 50,000.
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Fruin/ What was it?
Bockenstedt/ 40,000 or 50,000.
Fruin/ Okay.
Salih/ Yeah. If we said 50,000, that's 500. And uh.... I know that we adding like 9.26 employees.
Are you budgeting that for this employees or for the 14.6? Because increasing it 500, and
we have new employees. (both talking) ....5.78 and we have the 9.26.
Fruin/ Yeah, so the increase. it...it covers a whole range of, uh, of .... of those costs. I don't think
we necessarily separate it out. We kinda look at an accurate.... aggregate, what are the
benefits projected to be, and then we, uh.... adjust the levy rate as needed.
Salih/ Okay.
Fruin/ Dennis, is there any....
Bockenstedt/ No, that's correct. We don't break out ... by individuals, like this is for temp, this is
for permanent. We look at the costs of all those benefits and what is needed to fund
those, um, and ... and so that's how that rate is determined.
Salih/ No, I don't ask if you are doing it for the temp or for the full-time. I'm just, uh, asking you
is this enough for the new employee that you already projected for the newer .... like you
said this is will cost the hiring of those people. That's why you raise it 10 -cents.
Bockenstedt/ That.... that's all incorporated into there. So when .... when, you know, those levies
are set and the budget's prepared, we look at all those costs for everything that's put into
the budget. So everything that .... that Geoff mentioned in that presentation is funded
through the proposed revenue sources and property tax rates.
Salih/ Okay. Like if we approve all those, we don't need to (both talking)
Fruin/ Right....
Salih/ ....add any more taxes to the employee benefit.
Fruin/ Correct, and ... on the flip side, if you decide you don't wanna add that many staff, we could
probably bring that levy rate down a couple of pennies.
Salih/ Yeah. Okay. And we did not budget the .... the 10.6, which is the temporary (unable to
understand)
Fruin/ Correct. So we .... go back to that slide, sorry.... it's at the beginning here.
Salih/ It is 14?
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Fruin/ Uh, the top half of that is what has been approved, uh, both mid -year from Council, uh, so
the ones in green here, um, are what (both talking) approved and this one, this is the only
new one with this budget.
Salih/ Sure.
Fruin/ This was .... when you looked at this last year, this position was down here with all the
others. These four we're not recommending moving forward on, um, here, and that's
what that cost is there, that 430, and we'll get you a breakdown how that ... how that
(mumbled)
Salih/ Yeah, sure. Thank you.
Teague/ All right, well thanks to all of you, um, for your presentation. Are we gonna move
forward with Eleanor? Are you ready?
Fruin/ Yeah, you can .... move forward with Eleanor and then take breaks as you see fit, but staff
(both talking)
Teague/ ...at least through Eleanor, if that's okay with you all and ... um, cause we have (both
talking)
Dilkes/ It won't take long!
Teague/ All right, you got 15 minutes or less! (laughter)
General Government Program Budgets:
City Attorney:
Dilkes/ Okay. So, my budget, and it can be found on page 137, and then you also need to look al
171. Um .... because one .... one of the attorneys in my office is funded with the tort levy.
Um, so we've got, um, a total of 6.5 full-time equivalents in my office, 4.5 attorneys, a
paralegal and an administrative secretary. Um, as you can see .... almost all of my budget
is personnel expense. Um .... I have a .... experienced staff, um, all of which are at the top
of the pay scale. Um .... we provide legal services to staff, Council, boards and
commissions — with the exception of the CPRB. The CPRB has their own attorney. Um,
you can see there's a line here, we don't .... we don't generate much revenue in my office,
but there is a little line there for, um, intra -city charges and those are project, when we
have projects, such as TIF projects or property acquisition projects, um, we actually bill
our time back for those. Um, we do, um, almost all the litigation that the City has.
(mumbled) tort litigation, uh, because we have a $500,000 self-insured retention, i.e.
deductible per occurrence. So we are almost never over that amount, so the litigation is
done in-house as opposed to with outside counsel. We also do the, um (mumbled) like
Planning and Zoning items, etc. Um, the City does use outside counsel for a few
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specialized matters. Um, the public finance issues, bond counsel, um .... we hire a
separate at ... an attorney to do our, uh, collective bargaining contract negotiations and we
also have a separate attorney, outside attorney, for worker's comp. Um, my...I
occasionally hire outside counsel, but very rarely. Um .... when I ... there's a conflict issue.
So my office can't.... can't, um, represent in a particular matter, then we'll hire outside
counsel, and very rarely I hire outside counsel when I need exper.... when I think the City
needs the expertise that .... that my office can't provide. Um, some complex construction
litigation that we've had in the past, although our construction contracts provide for
recovery of attorneys fees, so we have not paid out attorneys fees on those matters, and
probably the most recent example is when the ... when Mediacom sued us over our
relationship with ImOn. I did hire outside counsel for that. I can answer any questions
you might have.
Teague/ Don't see there's none. Thank you so much, Eleanor!
Dilkes/ You bet! Have a great day.
Teague/ All right. So, Councilors, are we thinkin' we want to take a break? (mumbled) 10
minutes to 10:00 or do we wanna ... uh, hear from Kellie?
Fruin/ We, uh, since Kellie and City Manager's office will be here all day, we'll probably just
skip through those. We don't need to address those now, we can do those at the end, and
we can get some of the staff folks that are here on their way, if that's okay with you,
Mayor.
Teague/ Sounds good .... so do we wanna go forward with one more person? (several
responding) All right! So .... Dennis gonna be here all day, as well, and that's gonna be a
long presentation (laughter) All right, so .... we'll go to the Police Department. Come on
up, Chief.
Public Safety Program Budgets:
Police Department:
Matherly/ Good morning! (several responding) As most of you know, I'm Jody Matherly. I'm
your Police Chief, and I've been here for three years. Um .... I will say that it's been a
good three years. We've had peaks and valleys, um, but certainly a lot of support from
the community and a lot of support from the City Council, and uh, I know with the new,
um, Councilpersons that are in place, it's gonna be a .... a learning curve, but uh, I think
you're.... you're in good hands here with everybody. Um .... our budget is mostly, uh,
personnel driven. Uh, it's $14 million. And, uh, so we ... we have a lot of things going,
but it's less project driven and more person driven, uh, because of that. So if you wanna
flip over to page 48 .... you'll find the .... the first part of our budget there. All right, so, uh,
it's labeled the Police Department and I'll, uh, go through a little bit of this and then we'll
get into some of the other pages as well, but on page 48, um, you'll see.... we're gonna
bring our org chart up in just a minute. Uh, and we'll go back to that, but in the middle of
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the page you'll see a mission statement, and that's a brand new mission statement that we
did, uh, this year, and it was the result of a couple grants that we received. We received
$750,000 in a couple grants. One was DDJ, which Geoff mentioned earlier, the data -
driven justice, um, and that came from Arnold Ventures, which is a .... a foundation, um,
that .... that gave us the funds for a two-year grant, um, and as a reminder, the data -driven
justice grant was, uh, designed to reduce the amount of services and the amount of needs
that ... that some of the chronic homeless people had, um, not just in arrests and police
response, but also hospitalization and ambulance and .... and social service entities. So
we .... we saw good improvement in that area, and I think an increase in quality of life for
those folks and for those involved. The other grant was from the IACP, the International
Association of Chiefs of Police. And that was to, um, address gender bias and domestic
violence and sexual assault. And that was a two-year grant as well. And so we've .... we
developed this mission statement, uh, and it reads to work in partnership with the
community, enhance trust, protect with courage, and empower victims of crime through
excellence and service, so now you'll see on the side of our police cars the excellence in
service logo to remind, uh, not just the community but our officers that that's.... that's our
mission every single day to be fair and consistent, and to have excellence in service, but
also to empower victims. So our budget is really a plan to continue to address those
issues, and I think that's important to bring up. Uh, you'll see in the, uh, the bottom
paragraph there, the number of personnel that we have. And .... (mumbled) goin' up?
Fruin/ We're tryin' (both talking)
Matherly/ Okay (laughs) (both talking) No rush! Um .... so sticking with that, that's 107
personnel. You'll see that there's 85 sworn police officers. That's the ones that actually
go through the Police Academy, are sworn in, and can enforce the laws, and then 23 non -
sworn, and that's the civilian staff that we have, um, and again this is all on page, uh, 48.
So .... those are the support staff and that 107 individuals do a nice job in making things
happen. Uh, going off of this for a minute and just talking about what our .... what our
future holds. Uh, we continue to prioritize our disproportionality, minority contact
studies into a .... a, make some corrections there. We've had some successes in the last
year, as .... as most of you know. Um, and not just in the stops itself, but also the
outcomes. We're seeing, uh, finally parity in citations. We're not likely to write a person
of color, uh, any more than we are a white person once we stop them and write them a
ticket. So we're at zero for that, which means there.... there's no disproportionality
anymore, and that was a huge asset for us, um, to .... to accomplish. Arrests in the last
five years, we've gone down 26%, uh, on .... on arresting, uh, blacks, uh, and down...
six .... uh, 12% for Hispanics in the last five years. So we've seen some successes there
also. But there's much work to do, and this DDJ, uh, the .... the training that we're getting
and the initiatives that we're doing will continue to address that and Pll talk about that
more in just a minute. But the next priority is reducing crime. Obviously everybody
wants to stay safe, but we don't want a shotgun effect. That is we don't wanna sit there
and stop everybody (laughs) and try to reduce crime, because we know it doesn't work.
Uh, going out on fishing expeditions is not good. So we're going to prioritize in, um, in
working, uh, smarter and not harder, and ... and part of that DDJ position that Geoff talked
about earlier will help us accomplish that, and accomplish the goals with the ... that the
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Council has set for, uh, social justice and racial equity. Uh.... and then the, uh.... the
violent crime itself, we saw a slight increase in 2018 of 9%, but overall crime, not just
violent crime, but overall went down 8%. So there was some success there. And I will
tell you, and this is preliminary numbers, but for 2019.....this is not in your book, um, but
for 2019 we're seeing decreases in thefts, sex offenses, motor vehicle thefts, and
robberies, but slight increases in .... in assaults, weapons, and burglaries. Uh, and those
are always concerning, so..... When you read the headlines you know the ... the shootings
or the drive-bys or the weapons arrests are increasing. That's a concern, not just for us
but nationwide and we're working with the U.S. Attorneys Office in addressing those
issues as well. So that's kinda where we're at there. Um.....let's jump over to page 185.
We'll talk about some of the .... the budget increases and requests. So page 185. And
while you're turning to that Pll just describe what our organization looks like, uh, as we're
going through these. So .... on the chart you'll see that we have a .... a field operations,
which is your.... your investigations and your uniformed officers and patrol. Then we
have support services. That's kinda the .... the support unit, if you will. It's not the
officers and the staff that are out doing the calls, but it's actually the ones supporting and
getting things done in the backside so the uniformed officers can go out and do their jobs,
as well as the investigators. Um, it also includes Animal Services and things of that
nature. But in the .... in the budget you'll see a third one called police administration.
Now that's a very small office. It's me and .... and Jen Dahm, the Administrative
Assistant. Our office parties are kinda boring and small (laughter) um, but that's the one
where we get the 30,000 -foot view and.... and so there are some .... some budgeting that
go in that. So on page 185 you'll see some of the financial highlights for that, and one of
those is $50,000 for a space needs study. Now Geoff just talked about the fact that we
need to start looking at a Police facility. We are, hmm... really maxed out on space.
We've, uh, gone off-site for several things — our property room. We're looking to do it for
our friends.... digital friends (mumbled) so as we're bursting at the seams here we're
havin' to go off-site and that's not best case scenario for any type of, uh, law enforcement
activity. It's better for it, you know, housed together for several reasons. So we really
need more space and we need to update our facilities. We need to make it, um, more
efficient and think about how we want to do work in the future, um, and not how we're
doing work now. So ... we're excited to get that space needs study in place, so that's one of
the increases there. And if you jump over to page 189 .... so that was Police admin we
were just on. This is support services that I just talked about. And again, a lot of the
administrative things happen in support services. So page 189, um..... in the middle
you'll see staffing, and in that box you can see in FY19 we had 26. We went to 27 in
FY20, and so we're looking at an increase of .... of 2.26 staff for FY21, and I'll describe
what those are in the next paragraph down. Two of those positions you're already aware
of, and Geoff talked about'em earlier and the Council dealt with these this past summer,
and that was moving, uh, two temporary positions in the Animal Services unit over to a
full-time status, um, permanent.... permanent part-time. So, uh, that's the 1.26 persons,
two of those. We put them in what's called an 'animal center assisted position,' and those
are folks that sit up front, uh, as you walk into the Animal Services' building, and they do,
uh, they greet visitors. They do animal intake, adoptions, cashier, licensing, lot of
administrative things, lot of moving pieces, probably the busiest part of the operation,
short of the animal care itself. Um, we had one person there. These two individuals are
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really going to enhance that. What we wanted to do was boost somebody up to a
leadership position, to help coordinate things up there. Not a supervisor, but somebody
that can make sure that it's ticking properly, and so we did that and posted that, and so
that's called an animal assistant too, so the increase of 1.26 were those two temporaries,
moving to permanent part-time, and then again this was mentioned this morning. The
other full-time position is that police officer position for DDJ, uh, Officer David Schwent
is in there now, um, we've seen success there. And so, uh, this position specifically will
be David's position, and he'll move into the support services side, and continue DDJ....
and we're going to add to that, uh, some crime analyst things, urn .... some, what's called
social networking, uh, things, where we can identify violent criminals and .... and deal
with those, instead of, like I said, the shotgun effect, where we're just trying to figure out
who to stop and ... and try to solve crimes that way. So you use technology, get better at
what we do. Be more efficient and .... and have, uh, more of a strategy, strategic strikes
on dealing with violent crime.... instead of tryin' to figure it out from .... from a broad
view. So we're excited about that position. I think that's going to reduce DMC. I think
we're going to see, uh, it reduce violent crime, and.... and do things better and smarter, uh,
with less inconvenience for the good folks that are out there, which should entail, um, our
phone ringing more often and reporting crimes, cause they .... they have better
relationships with us. So we're looking forward to that position. So that takes us, uh, to
80, uh, 85 sworn officers from the 84. Uh, any questions on that? Okay, and ... and, as a
reminder too, Animal Services, they (laughs) sometimes get left behind, but the increase
in that was very important. As a reminder, the Animal Services building serves, um,
under contract, Johnson County, University Heights, Coralville, and uh, the University of
Iowa Everybody but North Liberty. So .... um, they .... they have a lot of work out there
and they're very busy, so .... we appreciate the support on that. Let's jump over to page
194. This is field operations, so it's the... other half of the org chart, um, and again .... it
involves investigations and patrol and the uniformed folks that you think of every day,
um, with .... with police operations. So they sit staffed at 78 this year and they'll continue
to sit staffed at 78. So no....no increases there for personnel. We do have some financial
highlights you'll see in the last paragraph on page 194. And, uh, one of those is, uh,
63,000 for the replacement of tasers. Um .... tasers have been around for many years and,
uh, I will tell you fust hand that they serve a great purpose for us. Um, you know,
we've.....we've trained in crisis intervention training, we try to de-escalate things. We
try to keep things scaled back and use less force. Um .... when we have to use force, the
taser has been a nice inter.... intermediate, uh.....uh, device to use where we use less
force and get things under control a little faster and reducing injuries to the, uh, to the
suspect and also to the officers. Uh, we have videos of folks that in a crisis situation,
clearly mental health issues, that have turned violent. Family members are calling,
motorists are calling. They want suicide by cop. These folks are in bad shape. And
we've been able to utilize the taser to get them under arrest with no injury, um, and I
watched one last year, or I'm sorry, last summer, where it was a young man who wanted
to be shot by the police. He had a knife. After we tased him, got him into custody, he
thanked us. So .... the.....these really serve a valuable.... valuable, um, tool for us to use,
and so this will upgrade our.....our program to where it needs to be to get the newer
devices and make sure they stay current, cause the ones we have now are outdated. So....
be money well spent! Then you can see $291,000 for the replacement of cars. In staying
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with our climate action plan, uh, we .... we're going to start moving some of the
administrative vehicles, uh, including investigations, uh, to a hybrid electric vehicle....
type .... type vehicle to, um, to reach the mission of our climate action plan. I will tell you
I'll be back here next year (laughs) in the future to ask for other things for climate action.
One of those being online reporting, so we don't have to go out and take reports from
folks if it's somethin' where no suspects, no arrests, no witness, you know, somebody
rifled through my car last night and stole change out of the ash tray or, um, some other
crimes like that, maybe my child's bicycle, that they can report it online and not have to
wait for the police. It reduces fuel. It reduces time. And we still get the same
information to make it more efficient, so .... we will be pushing toward that. Um .... and
....and along with climate action we're trying to digitize things. We'll be back at the, uh,
capital improvements, uh, meeting to talk about that, but, um ... we're working in that
direction as well. That's the Police Department.... in a nutshell. Short and sweet. Any
questions on anything?
Teague/ I guess I have a con ... um, maybe just a couple of comments, and that would be with the
data driven justice position.
Matherly/ Yes!
Teague/ Um, I know I've been involved in and had an opportunity to talk to, um, Officer David
(both talking)
Matherly/ Schwent.
Teague/ ....um, yeah, David Schwent. Um, and that seemed like somethin' that is really
progressing, uh, in the positive way, and so I would really encourage Councilors to really
support their recommendation for that, um, because the grant has ended, and so now it
would be a .... option for us to continue that program through addin' it to the budget.
Matherly/ Yes, and let me make one clarification. The grant we thought was going to end as of
January 1, we ended up extending it six months cause we had some extra money. So we
were... we're segueing in to.....which worked out well for us (laughs) uh, but .... but he is
finishin' up the next six months doin' the same thing and then when he segues back onto
our budget. So...
Mims/ I would agree, Bruce. I've worked with Dave on a lot of different things, from the access
center to being on the stakeholder committee for the DDJ, uh, grant, and he is an
incredible asset to the City and to the area in terms of the work that he's doing and to be
able to continue that is really, really important.
Matherly/ Yeah, he's as sharp as they come and .... and he's doin' some good things. Uh, you
know we intend to fully utilize that .... that position internally too to help us with .... is our
staffing put where it needs to be to be the most efficient we can. I always hate to come
back to you and say, `Oh we're only 1.2 officers per thousand and the state average is 1.7.
We need more cops.' Well, can we just move them around and lessen that need. So this
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will allow us, having David in that support position, to .... to look at all that, so .... we're
excited about it.
Teague/ I appreciate you talkin' about the Cl, uh, CIT, um ... do .... now that I know that most of
our police, except maybe some oncoming, uh, new ones that's been sworn in, have the
CIT trainin'. Is there any follow up trainin' for them?
Matherly/ You know, we .... we have not, uh, had actual classroom follow up training, cause it's
so fresh, but that is certainly going to be in the works, and .... and those discussions
continue, but this is somethin' where, you know, they .... they continue to fine-tune their
skills while they're utilizing it, but we need to keep goin' back to the well and having
them sit in a classroom setting. Um, matter of fact we have what's called, uh, MATS
training comin' up this month, and we have CIT. So they're all gonna get exposed to, and
Eli Ghoul will be there. I think it's two hours. So I ... I kinda spoke too quick. They have
two hours of (mumbled) coming up, uh, later this month, um, for CIT, and we'll continue
in that .... that fashion.
Teague/ And I've told you in the past, I've seen a huge difference, um, just with some of the
individuals that I serve and the approach from the officers, and so I know the CIT has
worked. Um, and I just, you know, wanted to know about that ongoin' training.
Matherly/ Yeah, it's amazing. I wish I would have had it 35 years ago when I started. Uh, itis
amazing!
Teague/ Thank you! Anyone else?
Matherly/ Thank you very much (both talking)
Teague/ Yes! All right, so .... how bout a break? All right, we'll be back Um, let's say, what 10
minutes, 15? Ten minutes! (BREAK) We're gonna have the Fire Department come and
talk to us now. So, welcome, John and Eric! (several talking) Momin'! (talking in
background)
Fire Department:
Grier/ John Grier, Fire Chief. With me today is Deputy Fire Chief Eric Nurnberg. He's the
numbers guy so if we have numbers' questions, he'll be able to answer for us. Thanks for
the opportunity to be here. Uh, we're on 198, page 198 in the big book. We've got four
divisions we'll go through here. I'll touch on some of the highlights, and if you have
questions as we go .... we'll certainly, uh, answer them. But, uh, fire administration is
basically, uh, Eric and I. Uh, Jody has Jen, I have Eric. (laughter) We are, if there's
anything that's done administratively, we do it. We do the bills and the time sheets and
all that sort of thing, so we're it! But, uh, the Fire Department overall, we're 64 folks,
spread through four divisions, four stations, and we'll get to some of their emergency
operation numbers, but uh, we operate out of those four fire stations, which are located
throughout the city. Uh, I .... I heard Geoff talk earlier about, you know, a couple new
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stations and uh, rehab of one. So we're certainly looking towards the future, and if we
look at our response times and our maps and you can see where those areas are.
Something that hasn't been discussed in this venue before, but we'll, uh, certainly
looking forward to the future and uh, fillin' those needs. Fire administration, uh, some
things that we've done over the past.... year, and we're goin' back to 2018. We kinda got
our books .... are, you know, pretty much a year behind, but we did get, uh, reaccredited.
We're a accredited fire agency, which .... this is our third time going through that process
and thing about that process is it allows us to stack ourselves up against other folks
throughout the world, and against the set criteria of how well we do operations, and we
came through this one and we're reaccredited, so that's good. We're up in 23, 2023, for
the next cycle. So ... we're always looking to do that. It's continuous improvement, uh,
model, so we're always looking at how we can do things better. So .... we were able to do
that. We're always looking at different ways to do our data better and look at things, and
put, uh, data out to our folks and the City. Uh.... as a ... whole, and we've been working
with (mumbled) over the last year to try to get a .... a model that will do that, and I think
we're just about there. Eric was saying in our staff meeting the other day that we're
about ready to roll something out. We're able to have a dashboard where you can see
numbers that are, uh, pretty much current, usually a month behind, but current numbers.
So it (mumbled) what we're doing and how well we're doing it. Uh.... other things,
we're also involved in that peer assessment process, so I'm scheduled to go to a Naval air
station here in May to be an assessor, so I can see how somebody else does it and it's
always nice (mumbled) how somebody else is doing something, you bring that back. So
we're doin' that. But yeah, we're keepin' busy. Eric is doin' the community leadership
program right now. And, uh.... I graduated from that, gosh, that seems like forever ago,
cause it was. (laughter) But, uh, yeah there's.... that's pretty much what we're doing here
in administration. We do have some things that we're working on. Been working with
Communications to get our strategic plan update and part of that is doing community
survey and, uh, we're hoping to do that here this month! And then we'll do some internal
things and get that put together. So we're .... (mumbled) strategic plans and, uh, our risk
assessment, how we're doin' that. So that's a big part of what administration does. Also
under administration is the weather alert sirens. I think it was .... I think we're in our third
year of updating all the weather alert sirens throughout the city. We did not add any sites,
but we changed the model to get coverage of the entire city, and uh, where we expect it to
grow. So we're slowly doing that, but uh, that's something that's been approved and
we're moving through that, uh, process. So that's the capital outlay you see in the
budget. We've gotten all our paperwork submitted as we were supposed to and, uh
(mumbled) looking forward to continue to work through our accreditation process.
Emergency operations, much like the police, is where the bulk of our money is.
Personnel is our big cost. Personnel and widgets. We have lots of things that we use.
You know, lots of apparatus and lots of specialized equipment that we use, so... We do,
uh, fire suppression, EMS, we are not.....we're a non -transport agency. We assist the
County ambulance service in that. Uh, technical rescue, so if there's anything that
somebody can get themselves in trouble doing, we're trained to help them get out of that
trouble, and then we also, uh, as a contingent of the Johnson County hazardous materials
team, we respond with that. That unit is housed at Fire Station #2 and our personnel do a
good job of keeping everything up-to-date and, uh... making sure that all the, uh, monitors
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and everything are working just the way they're supposed to. So if you'll back to 2018,
we ran 7,022 calls (mumbled) numbers for 19 are 7,426. So we had, certainly had an
increase, and over the past few years we certainly see that number continuing to go up. I
think as the population rises and city increases, we're going to have those calls. Luckily
a good number of those calls remain .... to not be fire calls. So we're doing a good job of
keeping our fires low, but we are certainly experiencing more call volume. Um, and as I
said in a couple interviews the last couple days, yeah, if .... we understand that that's, uh,
we need to find ways that we can reduce that and we are doing that. Uh, we revised our
contract with the University, which you all approved. That changed to where we used to
do inspections twice a year, and we were responsible for all their buildings in Johnson
County, which has not occurred since I've been here, and uh, so it's just more
streamlined, more up-to-date, so that'll help. We do have, uh, looking forward to 21,
using, uh, position that is proposed in NDS to help us with some of our inspection load,
which will allow our inspectors to be more involved in the fire operations and, uh, make
more training opportunities and that sort of thing. Uh, we're looking at ways to reduce
false alarms through public education or through the Fire Marshal (mumbled) make sure
those systems are maintained and updated, and uh, working.... and in working order. And
then another thing that we've (mumbled) working with our, uh, medical protocol, our
emergency medical dispatching. We go on a number of calls that we eventually get
canceled on, so we're looking to see is there a way that we can reduce that number of
calls. We'll certainly go on every call that we need to, but uh, with a focus on getting out
the door the fastest we can. Sometimes we get out and they don't need us. So we're
trying to find that sweet spot, and what's an acceptable time and if we get the dispatcher a
chance to ask one more question, would that help, you know. So, might add a little bit
more time to the call but would also reduce some of the other things. Uh, yeah we do
have automatic aid agreements in place with Coralville and North Liberty. Coralville will
come and help us with anything on the west side of town, from Mormon Trek over. And
we'll go into Coralville and help them. That's an automatic dispatch for a confirmed
building fire, and then we also have some agreement with North Liberty to help with
some of their stuff right up by the interstate, and anything in .... our downtown and west
with anything of significance, uh, those departments are automatically dispatched to us.
We've gone, I think we've gone back and forth with helping each other. It's been a good
thing. We were just over at Old Chicago the other day and (coughing, unable to hear
speaker) their fire, and we've had them help us on the west side a couple times. So we
continue to be involved in a lot of things operations wise. We do have lots of things
going on with the University. We help with football games, football game staffing, and
any event that's held in town we're certainly involved in. We, uh, continue to see
cooking fires as a major cause. It's, I think if you looked nation wide that that would be a
thing. We have a lot of unattended cooking, or I came home and I put something on the
stove, and I fell asleep sort of thing. So .... certainly working on, uh, making that less of
an impact on what we do. Uh, we do still have a number of overlapping calls. That just
means when a unit is out on a call, we have another call for service, and may not be in
that district, but it's just a metric that we use to how many calls are we getting and how
busy are we. And as it notes in here, Station #1 is kind of like the police, we're jam
packed into. If you've ever walked through out bay, you can see that it's pretty tight. We
have equipment spread all over the place. Good things that we do have coming up is that
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the training center that you allowed us to purchase and set erect is about ready to be
opened. Uh, the tower is up. We just have to ....a punchlist that we need to get taken
care of and then that warm storage building, we're going to take that over for our training
part. So that .... we certainly appreciate that, and the (mumbled) uh, Station #5 on South
Gilbert Street. Uh, training.... oh, we'll do fire prevention. So fire prevention, we have a
Fire Marshal who is in charge of reviewing all plans, uh, systems, all those sorts of things
that you equate with, uh, Fire Marshall's office. Also in charge of fire public education.
We have a very well engaged group of folks doing a number of things throughout the
community to help with public education (mumbled) We have `fired up about reading,'
we do the youth camp. We go to a number of just.... anything, we pretty much go to. So
we always try to get the message out as to how, uh, you could be more fire safe and then
we also try to carry those messages from the City, uh, now with the climate action
message, you know, here's how you can help with that. So I mean we're always out there
trying to make, uh, the community safer, but now we have lots more things that we can
talk about. So that ... that's certainly out there. Uh, the, uh, public education folks are
busy. We get into schools at least once a year. We work with the University on their RA
program. We also, uh, will do a number of tours throughout the year. So .... if you wanna
come over for atour, feel free to do that. We started using a .... a service called the
compliance engine, which allows us to auto -generate letters, uh, of infractions to folks
with fire alarm systems or hood systems, that sort of thing. So that .... that's certainly
helping us. Uh, Fire Marshal Greer is, uh, looking forward to getting some additional
training this year, certifications. He's been in his position long enough he qualifies to get
some training. So that'll be certainly somethin' to (mumbled) And then moving into
training, training is our life blood. We train all the time. As you might expect, what we
do is dangerous and we want our folks to be prepared. Uh, so we thank you for the
equipment and the apparatus that you help us get. And the money you provide for us to
do our training, uh, it's a constant thing. We have certain requirements (mumbled) every
year and, uh, having the training center in the city will be great. Uh, using .... Coralville
was kind enough to let us use their facility and it worked out, but this will just .... this will
help us, uh, in.... in the long run. So we're looking forward to that change. Part of the
capital outlay I think you have in the 21 budget is to add some additional things to our
training. Not having a training center for a number of years, we've kinda not had to
purchase a certain number of things. So now we're getting that little boost, I think the
next couple of years you'll see an increase of us needing certain things and then it should
even out, but the, uh, containers that are included in this budget will allow us to have a
low level, uh, roof simulator and then also have some storage, but ... we're certainly
looking forward to that. So .... that's kind of a quick, broad overview, and we can
certainly answer any questions you might have.
Weiner/ You mentioned, uh, the one sorts of calls that you were trying to figure out how to
reduce is when the .... the people who end up not needing you.
Grier/ Uh huh.
Weiner/Um, do you have a strategy to deal with.... with people who repeatedly.... call?
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Grier/ Certainly. We certainly do. Eric's involved in, uh, a committee that reviews those type of
events and so if we have a .... a known person who maybe just needs a little, uh, assistance
from an outside agency, they have a meeting where they try to put them in the right ... in
touch with the right people. So, yeah. We do have a number of those folks, but I think
we've been pretty successful in getting them the help they need and reducing our
incidents going to their....
Weiner/ Thank you (both talking)
Grier/ We have ... and this is a collaboration between, uh, you know, not only really county wide
emergency response agencies, but also, you know, the social work, uh, resources and
public health folks. Um, it's a good team approach.
Teague/ Well I got the opportunity to work, uh, hand in hand with your department through my
renovations. I had no idea how involved you all were with the renovations here in Iowa
City, you know, with a property that's bein' renovated. So definitely, uh, Fire Marshal,
uh, Brian Greer, um, was .... his wealth of knowledge and just walkin' me through a lot of
that as well as, you know, many of the fire, um, individuals with.... within your
department. So, when you say that NDS needs to assist you with your workload, I totally
get it. Totally! So thanks for all that you all do. And, yeah, and you've been here since
early mornin' (laughs) so thank you as well, Brandon! Yes! Anyone else?
Fruin/ Just note, uh, an item that doesn't show up in the budget, but is on our radar is, again, we
are actively looking for land for an east side fire station, um .... we hope to bring you a
purchase agreement, uh, in this next calendar year, in 2020. We feel like we've got a
good prospect and we're still workin' on that. So, um .... you kn ow, expect that, again in
the next calendar year, and that .... that really sets us up from just a land acquisition
standpoint. Then the hard part happens, where we've gotta figure out how to fund the
capital and ... and the even harder part, how to fund the operations, uh, the operational
side, and uh, that was a ... a big struggle for those of you who were in Iowa City, um, when
we opened Station 94. You know, that there was a lot of talk and debate about that and
how to get that million, 1.5 million, needed to annually operate that .... that new fire
station. So stay tuned for more on that discussion.
Grier/ Yeah, I just kinda glazed over that one. I just threw that one in with the (mumbled)
(laughter)
Teague/ Well thank you both. (several talking) You aswell! All right, we're gonna transition
over to culture and leisure program budgets, and we're gonna go to ... the Library first!
Come on up, Ellsworth!
Cultural & Leisure Program Budgets:
Library:
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Carman/ Good morning, uh, thanks so much for giving us time to come and speak with you
today. Um, I'm Ellsworth Carman and I've been here almost exactly one year. I think
I've been here a year and two days. Um .... uh, it's a great place to be. Uh, I'm really
proud to be here and working with ... with the City and with this library, and I thank the
Council very much for supporting the work that we do. Um .... our details start on page
240 of the budget document. Um, for context, the State of Iowa, there are three levels of
accreditation for public libraries. This past year the Iowa City Public Library was
reaccredited at the highest tier for another three years. Um .... we've been a top tier
library for ...for a long time. The library is governed by a semi -autonomous nine -member
board of trustees. Um, led by a director and a leadership team, which is made up of six
departmental coordinators. Each coordinator is responsible for a work unit, um, made up
of varying levels of direct reports. We also have many volunteers that work with us, and
their efforts, um, truly impact the work that we do. Um, we would be in a difficult place
without our dedicated volunteer group. Everyone at ICPL is fiercely proud of the work
that we do with our community to connect users with information, materials, and services
they need and want. Our budget is about 3 to 4% of the City's overall budget, and we
take stewardship of those resources extremely seriously. We work really hard to
maximize the resources that we have to work with. Um, ICPL is open 67 hours and
seven days a week, and welcomes almost 2,000 people a day. Our bookmobile allows us
to provide services around the community, uh, both through strategically scheduled
regular visits and special stops at festivals and community gatherings. Uh, our services
are available to everyone and we strive to offer exceptional services to every patron we
interact with. We're an unofficial, but very enthusiastic, welcome center for the
community, and are often the first City department that newcomers establish a
relationship with. Our upcoming budget does not include any significant changes, but
there are some things to note. We're almost six months into being fine -free to children's
and teen's materials. Afull report will be generated in July, which is when we'll have a
full year's worth of data But community response and staff feedback so far have been
really positive. We're currently working on a six-month report from the board and while
we have limited data to work with, comparisons show that there's no difference in the
number of materials lost compared to last year and year before, which is a strong
indicator, and that was a major concern for some of our stakeholders. Removing the
barrier of fines for these collections was certainly a positive move, but I believe we
should be evaluating extending this to all collections. On a regional and national level,
public libraries are moving swiftly to a completely fine -free model and I think that when
we have the .... the full suite of information from our first year, it's gonna be great to work
with Library administration, um, the board, and the City to figure out can we design a
way to serve all of our users without the barrier of overdue fines. Um .... after many,
many months of hard work, the student access to information materials card (mumbled)
be called an AIM card, has been launched. Uh, this is a new card type that allows any
student in the Iowa City Community School District to check out up to three books, or
audio books, from ICPL, Coralville, or North Liberty Library. Students can also access
databases and digital items. These cards are fine -free, um, and do not have replacement
costs associated with them. So they're really designed to offer youth, um, access to more
materials with fewer restrictions. We see lots of youth who ... a barrier to using the library
is not having the adult support in their lives to return items. So this gives them the
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support of their school environment, where they can return items from the Public Library
too if needed, to kind of help foster that relationship. We do not anticipate a budgetary
impact immediately, but we are watching.....we'll be watching very closely to see how
this will impact, uh, purchasing decisions and.... and any loss rate moving forward. As
noted in our budget documents, uh, the landscape of e -publishing is becoming
significantly less friendly to libraries, and this year is going to be a learning experience
for even the most skilled staff. Publishers are using embargoes to limit when and how
many copies of new e -books to be published.... can be purchased by libraries, which
makes it impossible to meet community need. Additionally tariffs and global paper
shortages are impacting production and shipping costs for physical materials. So it really
feels a little bit wild west in the collection services department. We've got multiple, um,
big challenges. ICPL is lucky because we've got a truly skilled and strong team, who
have a .... a planned approach, are very plugged into what other libraries are doing, what
our professional organizations are suggesting, so I'm confident that we'll come out, um,
in a good way, but it .... the.....the budget arc may look very different, because spending
choices will be different throughout the year. Traditional uses of public library
collections and spaces are changing overall, and we're working on creating a culture
evaluation and assessment within our library. Um, as we design a new strategic plan,
which we're working on right now, one of the things we'll be looking at is how the
physical building may need to change to reflect new community needs. I look forward to
sharing ideas and concepts for making our service areas more flexible and future ready,
as we develop them. Finally I want to make sure to communicate how eager Library staff
are to participate in and support City level initiatives. Personnel from all different work
areas are truly delighted to take on the challenge of climate change awareness in the city
and other work that we're doing collaboratively, and we look forward to using their
resources to amplify with our own work, and the work of our colleagues throughout the
City. Um, thank you so much for your time and I welcome any questions.
Mims/ I have a quick question. Because I've been reading about the change in the a -books and
how, you know, that's being handled. Once that first eight-week period, if I remember
that right, once that eight-week period has gone by, once a book has been issued, are they
kind of taking that embargo off, in terms of how many licenses you can buy?
Carman/ So typically what's happening (mumbled) I think it's eight months.
Mims/ Oh, eight months!
Carman/ Yes.
Mims/ Oh wow!
Carman/ So just to break it down for folks who might not be following this, um, certain
publishers right now are saying, okay, we have a new a -book coming out. So public
library systems can buy one copy. So it doesn't matter if we're ICPL, you know, or
Waterloo, Iowa or L.A. Public Library, one copy of that book, can be accessed by one
user at a time.
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Mims/ Right.
Carman/ For eight months. And you buy that copy and you get a perpetual (mumbled) access.
So that copy can be checked out as many times as you want, you have it forever, you
know, whatever that means (mumbled) um, and then after that eight months, you can buy
....right now it's.... it's pretty much unlimited number of copies, but they have limited
access. So either (both talking)
Mims/ Oh!
Carman/ ....only 32 people can check them out and then they (both talking)
Mims/ ...have to renew (both talking)
Carman/ ...or, urn .... you have `em for six months or 18 months, and then you can do a
repurchase.
Mims/ Okay.
Carman/ And .... what the publisher (mumbled) push users to purchase them on their own,
because if you look at a wait list and there are .... 600 people in front of you, how easy is
it just to .... to flip over to your preferred vendor and pay the money. For some people it's
easy, for some it's not.
Mims/ It's not, right. Okay, thank you.
Carman/ And some systems are boycotting. Um, we have chosen to look at items one at.
individually right now, but it's going to be really curious to watch.
Teague/ I'm happy to hear that the fines have been gone, um, active for six months now and
there's even consideration for extendin' that above and beyond the current, um,
individuals that don't have the fines, and I even appreciate the fact that, um, for the
schools, that you have a place in the schools to return it. One thing I would suggest is to
continue to figure out, or um, look at opportunities for if you should, you know, be
successful in havin' no fines throughout, um, for anyone, how is ... urn, maybe some more
easier opportunities for them to return their books. So, um, if that would be grocery
stores or churches or whatever that looks like, um, because I think that'd be very positive
for easy drop offs. Sometimes, you know, gettin' back to the Library might be one of the
challenges, um, so that .... I would just, um, encourage you to think about that. I love the
idea that it's been successful for no fines. Do you have any thoughts on like the return of
the books at this point and what that will look like?
Carman/ So right now it looks like the lost rate hasn't gone up. So when we say lost rate, that
means items that, um, you know, we have a threshold. If they're out over a certain
number of days that we call `em lost. Uh..... and that changed a little bit when we went to
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the fine -free model. The.... the lost period actually shortened, but we still don't see a
bigger number of materials being out. Now it's .... we don't have a great data set to work
with, because we're .... we just started six months ago and we're talking about a system
that would've taken, you know, three months to plug in. So we're... right now it looks
like ... the comparison looks very similar. There's no discernible increase. When we have
our full year report, we'll have a much better sense of what that looks like. Um .... we,
this is a community that's been diligent in fine paying over the years. When I look over
the totals, looking back through fiscal years, compared to other libraries our size, that has
been.....a higher line of revenue than many libraries see. Um, there's different reasons
for that, but it does mean making those shifts and mean making difficult decisions and
figuring out.... does that, what does that mean for the rest of our service and for the rest of
our budget. I love your idea about considering check ... uh, return options. That's really
great. For our strategic planning process we just finished doing some community
conversations and .... general access was easily the number one thing people talked
about .... was between parking and the hours and locations and just the idea of, yeah, can
we have more outlets to receive and return materials.
Salih/ Yeah, L ....in the beginning you confused me, but (laughs) yeah, because I .... my
understanding that the lost, uh, you know ... the lost fees not gone because actually they
have .... well, they have to return that book, and uh, but you extend the time, right, for ...if
you don't return it by this time. How long that time?
Carman/ I think it got shorter (mumbled) um.....
Salih/ Got shorter?
Carman/ So in....it used to, I think it was, maybe it was three months over the due date before
and now it's gone down. I will send you the details of it.
Salih/ Yeah (both talking) I really thinks (both talking)
Carman/ ... the .... the revenue from it. So the replacement fee still stands. So if you lose a book,
you lose a book, we still charge a replacement fee.
Salih/ Yes.
Carman/ Except for the (mumbled) That's the exception to that.
Salih/ Yes.
Carman/ But, um .... the number of materials lost doesn't seem to have gone up.
Salih/ Yeah, but you know .... I know that some people they return it late, and if you already
charge `em for that book even though if they return it, it's not going to work out, right?
Carman/ No, you can get a .... you can get refunded for that.
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Salih/ Even if you mark it .... because I believe .... uh, when you go there and say, hey, now I have
my book, and they say, oh, we already charge you for that and we put new book. That's
why this book is not....
Carman/ No (mumbled) (person responding from audience) We reissue checks for that.
Salih/ Oh! Even if it's been retain more than the time that you request return by?
Carman/ Yes. Yes.
Salih/ Okay, that's good.
Carman/ And similarly, it would be very unusual, but if you came in and you said, hey, I've got a
book on my record, but I know I turned it in, we have a process for that as well. If we
were to find it on the shelf and you already paid for it, or had accrued a fine, we have
systems to take care of that.
Salih/ No, I mean like if they kept it at home for that period of time and you mark it lost, and you
charge them, and later on they came, they find out they .... they been charge for that book
and say, oh, I think I have that book at home and they came and return it, they still can
get the .... that charge taken care of?
Carman/ As long as it's still in usable condition, yes.
Salih/ Okay, sure. All right. Yeah. Thanks.
Teague/ Thank you so much (both talking) All right! Parks and Rec, Juli!
Parks & Recreation:
Seydell-Johnson/ Good morning, everyone! Uh, Juli Seydell-Johnson, Director of Parks and
Recreation. I think today is actually my .... actually is my fourth anniversary (laughter)
One of those people who moved back to Iowa for this job and I love. It's been a great
four years, thank you for all your support to Parks and Recreation. Um, it's been a great
place to work, a great community to live in. So I'll walk you through, uh, Parks and
Recreation. The biggest changes come in our Forestry Division and we'll get to that in a
little bit. Um, starting under the administration area, as you know we have recently
completed in the last few years a park, uh, master plan, a tree inventory, and a natural
areas plan. Um, we've made a lot of progress on implementing those. So in this year's
Park and Rec admin budget you see a request for a recreation and program and facilities
master plan. We'd now like a chance to take a look at our two rec centers, as well as the
aging aquatic facilities, get public input on their uses and preferred uses, along with
programming needs. We know that, uh, the culture of recreation programming is
changing in that families don't typically wanna sign up for eight or 10 classes anymore.
They like, uh, shorter classes and .... and different topics, um, and we know that we have a
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lot of populations in the ... in the city that we aren't serving as much as others. So we'd
like to look at all of that, uh, through that master plan process. Uh, that .... the Park and
Rec admin budget also includes funding for a second AmeriCorps team. We've had the
AmeriCorps team under Parks and Recreation for the last three years. Um, you primarily
see them doing a lot of work outside and a lot of outreach efforts. Um, the current team
will move under the new Climate Action, um, Division and we are asking for a second
team, and this one will focus on work in the natural areas outside. So, um, doing invasive
species removal and doing actual work in the parks and natural areas. It's been a very
successful program for us and we really wanna continue that. Uh, Farmers Market, the
biggest change here has been the use of our token system. Um, and the use of the, uh,
being able to get EBT or the SNAP dollars into coins to use at the market. So we have,
uh, that. We've had a double -up food bucks program so that individuals that have SNAP
benefits can come to the market, turn their .... use their card to buy tokens, but then get
additional tokens in ... um, along with that for buying ... uh, fresh fruits and produce. Um,
we are also very excited to get Chauncey Park back (laughs) and you'll see the market
expanding out into that park next summer. We've had some changes with the entrance to
the Chauncey building, um, and hence some vendors have to switch around, but now
having the space to the west into the park will be very helpful, and you'll see us
expanding programming during the markets out into that area to make kind of the whole
area festive around there. Uh, the next, uh.....area I'll talk about is our cemetery. Uh, the
budget for this stays very similar to what it has been in past years. The biggest impact in
the cemetery has been trees! (laughs) Uh, if you've been out to Oakland Cemetery, lots
of big, huge, lovely, mature trees. Every time we have a wind storm there we're having
more and more tree damage, a lot of ash trees that need to come out, so that budget has
gone up for that reason. Um, and also aging of some of the infrastructure, some of the
older gravestones. We had a mausoleum lose its roof, um, during one of the storms this
....this summer. But in general, you know, access and ... and operations as usual.
(mumbled) like to remind you of all the .... of all the areas that touch all areas of our
population here in Iowa City. It's our cemetery staff. We have three full-time staff
members out there. Um, today they have a very large funeral that they're having, uh, for
a Congolese family, and .... of all the areas that touch .... touch people no matter what their
background is, cemetery is actually one of them and they do a great job out there. Uh,
moving on .... government buildings is under Parks and Recreation. This includes
custodial and maintenance staff for the two rec centers, for City Hall, for the Police and
Fire station here downtown, um, and then helping with the other City facilities. So some
things out at Animal Services, the new Public Works building, the other fire stations. We
have staff kind of going out and about, uh, doing a lot of the maintenance from HVAC
type work with all of that. Um, the challenge here is old ... old, aging facilities, which we
talk about every year. Um, we've got a staff that is very committed to getting things
done, but as this building and the two rec centers continue to age, you'll just see more
and more smaller projects and repairs that have to happen to keep those going. Um,
change in the, uh, personnel in this one, we did have a position approved last year. We
never did fill that position. Instead it has been held and then will go to the climate action,
uh, group. So that's the change in the positions. There actually wasn't ever a person in
the position and there isn't, um, a new person coming on for that. Recreation, uh, as our
recreation program staff this is everything from aquatic to adult and youth sports, social
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and cultural, special events. Our big highlight was our try at having the grand opening at
Riverfront Crossings Park last year. Thanks to those who came out. I wish the weather
would have cooperated. Uh, you'll see another large event out there this summer. We're
working on, uh, doing a new signature event that'll happen every year at that park.
(mumbled) as well as it grows in now, as the grass is getting more stable, seeing other
community groups host events at that park. The other things happening with the
recreation division is our focus from the 2017 master plan to make sure that we are
getting.... getting an opportunity for all kids to learn how to swim in Iowa City, all kids to
learn basic outdoor recreation skills. (mumbled) back here (laughs) safe bicycle skills,
and you'll see more of that, more of a focus on those areas of getting kids those
opportunities, outreach efforts to help with those opportunities, and then activating our
neighborhood parks. Uh, we are going to be expanding on the theme of our Party in the
Park program, which has been very popular every Thursday night throughout the
summer. You will see additional pop-up and one-night community parties at other parks
throughout the community. Um, and more frequently at Riverfront Crossings Park. We
have a trailer now that was donated to us that will be filled with, uh, fun recreation
games, hula -hoops, you know that kind of stuff, and it will actually go out to the various
parks with a staff member and have some pop-up, uh, activities to help really just activate
those neighborhoods around the parks. Um (laughs) we're so lucky to have the nice, new
parks that you've provided for in the last few years. We wanna get people out to use
them now. So you'll see more and more of that. The other things with recreation, we
have a STEAM focus of science, technology, education, art, and math in recreation
programs. Um, our art and craft room over at Robert A. Lee is seeing some renovations
right now, just some simple things on the walls and simple programming changes. So
that it will be a drop-in STEAM space for families coming up yet this winter. Um, we
have a number of programs that support those type of activities that are happening in the
schools. So we're excited about what's happening with recreation. Um ,lot of new staff
there too that are really bringing some new excitement to our programming. And then
finally, Parks, forestry, athletic fields — this is a large area of our department. This is the
area where you'll see two new staff members in the forestry division, as we're supporting
the climate action plan with additional tree planting. Um those forest ... two new members
will also help with the, uh, care and maintenance of some of our horticulture areas, so the
entry areas into the city, along the roadways. Uh, we had about 50,000 new square feet
(mumbled) of, uh, plant.... sorry, I don't have that number right, but .... uh, a big increase
in the number of planted spaces, plus the fact that we have Riverfront Crossings fully
coming online, Chauncey Park coming back online, the ped mall project done now. We
have a number of place where our horticulture staff is being called. So the two new
forestry staff will also help with that, uh, during .... when they're not planting trees in
the ..... in the spring and in the fall. Um, the other thing that comes with that is additional
equipment. So we will actually have two forestry crews. Um, that's important on two
sides of the equation. It's important on the planting and care and maintenance of the
young trees, and then unfortunately it's important on every night that we get a storm here,
and high winds. Um, our forestry staff are some of the first ones called out almost every
single time, uh, because of trees in the right-of-way or trees in the roadways and tree
damage. So I think that .... as we continue to work through emerald ash borer and the
repercussions from that, you'll continue to see damages, continue to see trees down. On
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the plus side we're getting the trees planted again and regenerating the forest at the
same .... the urban forest at the same time. So we have that going on. Um .... I believe that
is the primary things happening in Parks and Rec. I'll answer any questions that you
have.
Taylor/ I don't have a question, but ... since you ended with this, I'd like to thank you for your
attention to trees, cause as I think you've heard from a number of us, particularly John,
the importance of trees, uh, not only for the climate action, uh, but also just the health of
our community. So ... so thank you for your attention to that and your continued attention
(mumbled) and we'll be watching! (laughs) And second of all, uh, if .... if folks haven't
driven by the Riverfront, uh, Crossings Park recently, and particularly at night,
congratulations on that. That entrance is beautiful with that sculpture and the lighting on
it. Uh, it's very, uh, very attractive and... and, A .... um, I think very welcoming to people.
So congratulations on that.
Seydell-Johnson/ Thank you very much, and that's a good point. The new sculptures up. It'll
only get better next summer as the landscaping grows in around it, but wow! Or get there
at sunrise! It's beautiful (both talking)
Mims/ Juli, question about the .... the ash borer treatment of trees. Will.... when do they typically
do the treatment and will there be the opportunity to reassess trees again before they do
treatment again? Cause I assume that's fluctuating from year to year.
Seydell-Johnson/ Yeah, so it's during the growing season. So I believe our contractor said to
come back, um, next ... late next spring, similar to what he did .... or what they did this past
summer. It's a constant re-evaluation. So we have the trees in the tree inventory that
were ... were judged to be questionable. We will go out and look at all those again. We'll
bring in Mark Vitosh from the DNR if we need to again, um, it's a constant re-evaluation
(both talking)
Mims/ Is it an every other year treatment?
Seydell-Johnson/ It is!
Mims/ So this coming season there would be .... not expected to be treatment of, at least of trees
that were done last year, correct?
Seydell-Johnson/ Not the ones of last year. They would (both talking)
Mims/ ...might be some new ones.
Seydell-Johnson/ I will tell you though we're getting to the point where there aren't many that
are still eligible for treatment, so .... we'll see how that goes. It's a ... it's a constantly
changing answer to that question.
Mims/Thank you.
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Salih/ Do you know when the (mumbled) anticipated Willow Creek Park to be done?
Seydell-Johnson/ (laughing) Two months ago I was hoping (laughs) It should be done early in
the spring. The work on the restroom and the shelter is essentially done. Um, they
missed the window on the poured -in-place, uh, playground surfacing underneath. So
there is one layer down. It has to be a constant temperature of 42 degrees and climbing,
um, in order to .... to pour the second layer. So I would assume April, if we're ... or March
if we have another warm spring.
Salih/ Sure!
Seydell-Johnson/ And then it'll be growing. But we should be able to get the playground open as
soon as we get that next poured -in-place layer. (noises on mic) It's been a .... it's been a
long process (both talking) for that. Yeah.
Taylor/ Some of my neighbors have said that ... that (mumbled) they have seen children actually
playing on the playground (both talking)
Seydell-Johnson/ That doesn't surprise me!
Taylor/ It's being used anyway (laughs) (both talking)
Thomas/ What.... what's, do you know what the status is on the coordination with Project
GREEN. in terms of the urban forest initiative?
Seydell-Johnson/ Yeah, we .... we need to have another meeting with them. We are definitely
planning on that and planning on working (mumbled) I see the (mumbled) very similar
that we've been studying as well with one of their, um, neighborhood groups. So more to
come on that, but ... still happening yet.
Fruin/ If I can add to that, um, I know Project GREEN has also been reaching out to the
University, to see if there would be a third partner in ... in some type of program, and
where we really, uh.... would like, what we'd like to explore with Project GREEN, and if
you're not familiar, Project GREEN has for decades, uh, helped us beautify and maintain,
uh, our entryways to the community, and ... and they provide such a huge benefit. We're
so fortunate to have them. But we're really interested in exploring how we can take their
expertise and help move on the private side, because if we wanna meet our tree planting
ro.... goals that are articulated in our climate plan, they can't all be in public land. We're
gonna have to find a way to incentivize private tree planting. So Juli's, uh, through....
through work in previous communities has been a part of a community buy programs and
incentive programs, much like the utility companies used to have, um, and so we wanna
explore that with Project GREEN. We think they have some expertise and some ... some,
uh.... uh, communication channels into the community that maybe we don't have.
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Weiner/ Congratulations on Rivers .... Riverfront Crossings. We've been using it. It has also
outstanding equipment out .... for, uh, for kids of all abilities and ages. Uh, we tried out
Creekside as well, new equipment there is very good. My only question is, and it may be
a way into the future question, is there any consideration being given to looking at, uh,
creating parks in a couple of areas of the city that are under -served currently?
Seydell-Johnson/ So we have a couple park sites, you'll hear more about this during the CIP, uh,
meeting next week. Uh, there are two sites, one on the north side and one on the east side
that are actually al .... already designated as park land and there's some funding three or
four years out for some additions there. Um, and then you'll see renovations at Fair
Meadows, Wetherby, Scott, and Napoleon, uh, which should help serve those areas better
next summer. Is there a particular area you're curious about?
Weiner/ Um, west side is quite (several talking) under -served in my view.
Seydell-Johnson/Yeah, we, uh, we don't have a lot of other land in that area right now. We've
done some work though on the Camp Cardinal area. Um, we actually had some land over
there that we were considering developing into more of a usable park and the neighbors
really wanted it left natural after we met with them. So that's where that's at. Um, and
then there is, uh, one other area that has some potential over there.
Weiner/ Thank you.
Fruin/ In .... in the, uh, CIP process we'll talk about, uh, a sewer that needs to ... to, that will go
under 218 and will open up the property that is, um, west of 218 between Menard's and
Rohret Road. We refer to it as the Carson Farm. Carson is the current property owner.
And, uh, we .... when that sewer goes through, uh, there's already a ton of development
interest in that property. We'll have an opportunity to work with whoever the developer
will be and Juli and I have talked about need for a fairly significant park out there, uh, it
could be .... I think we'd wanna talk to the Council and the Parks Commission about
thinking about a ... a west side rec center in that location, and I know we've already started
talkin' to the School District about what their school needs may be. There could be an
opportunity for another Mercer Park type of collaboration, uh, where you have a .... a
school, rec center, and large park site (mumbled) area.
Seydell-Johnson/ (several talking)
Teague/ Alrighty, thank you! So maybe we'll go to you, Kellie! I should of given you a heads
up! (laughter) Sorry about that! (laughs)
City Clerk:
Fruehling/ Deer in the headlights (laughter)
Teague/ Well, Dennis, I'll be comin'to you next! (laughter and several talking)
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Fruehling/ City Clerk's budget starts on page, uh, 130 and so, um, our office, well the Clerk is
one of the three Council appointees. Uh, along with City Manager and City Attorney.
Uh, Clerk's office has four employees. The Clerk, the Deputy Clerk, there's a license
specialist, and an administrative assistant. Um, one of our main duties of course is to put
together the Council packets. Um, staff, you k now, puts together the majority and we
just kinda get it in order of the agenda, um, and get it put out electronically so everybody
has access to it. And then of course after the meetings and after everything's signed and
the voting results are put in, we put it back out on the internet so that everybody has
access to the final results, and all the documents from the meeting. Um, we're also
responsible for legal publications. So any public notices, ordinances that need to be
published, um, and then minutes that are required to be published. Um, all the open
records requests, um, go through the Clerk's office, uh, and then we send it out to the
appropriate department, it comes back to us, we do a quick review, and send it back to the
requester. Um ... licensing duties, we license taxi companies, the drivers, urn .... liquor
license.... cigarette permits.....and then we have domestic partnership registry in our
office. Um ... we also, uh.... have been working with and have finally completed, um, an
online, uh, public assembly permit application. We worked with IT and so now folks can
go online, do the application, and there's a work flow that it goes through, cause it goes
out to .... probably eight or nine different departments just to have them review it, um, and
then come back for approval or denial. So we're happy to have that done and out there,
and I think it's nice to have the ... the online access. Um ... we also staff, urn .... the
Community Police Review Board, um, and we're clerical support for the Cemetery. Uh,
and then we also, you know, assist City staff with finding records; the public that comes
in or calls, finding records; urn .... sometimes, you know, for them to go through and dig
through all the Council documents when there's large packets is a little tedious, so we
help out with that. Um .... and the budget's pretty status quo. I mean the majority of it's
personnel, urn .... I'd be happy to answer any questions.
Teague/ All right. I would like to say, um, any time I come to your office or request anything
(clears throat) the calmness that your team has is amazin', and the immediate response is
so appreciated, so thanks for all that you all do.
Salih/ I guess I call your office most .... the most office I call in this City is your office, all the
time, even if I wanna call another office, I will call their office (laughs) and they transfer
me (laughs) I want to, but thank you for everything that you .... you guys been very, very
helpful. Thank you.
Teague/ It's all you, Dennis!
Finance:
Bockenstedt/ All right, um, talk about the Finance department. Um, Finance department has six
different divisions,and we primarily serve internal customers, but we touch just about
every part of the operation in one way, shape, or form (mumbled) have the IT services,
Accounting services, Purchasing, um, not to mention Budget. So we touch pretty much
every part of the operation with one ... with one of the things we do. Um ... you know, uh,
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from a .... across the entire department, uh, we've really worked on two areas of focus.
When I say focus maybe over -arching our department and, uh, we were one of the fust
departments for the racial equity toolkit and so we continue to, uh, look at that in our
utility billing operations, our purchasing, um, and other areas to see how we're doing
things that impact, uh, social and racial equity. So that's one of the areas that we always
take into consideration and then, uh, also we had a very active participation within our
department for the climate action initiative. And so right now each of our branches is
lookin' at what they're doing from a .... a climate perspective and what they can do better
and more efficiently, and (clears throat) of course with IT and what they do, um, you
know, we believe that they can support the entire operation and doing things
electronically (mumbled) versus using automobiles, equipment, and staff, uh, to help save
carbon emissions or other things, and so those are two areas that we're lookin' at across
our entire department. Um ... first division is Administration, and that's just three of us.
Or I guess there's four of us (laughs) Jacklyn corrected me! We ... we started an internal
audit division in this past year or so and just to review our policies and procedures, and
just see how we're doin' things and tryin' to improve efficiencies in what we're doing,
uh, but we primarily work on the budget. So the budget book that's in front of you is
worked on, uh, well by everybody in the City, but it was put together, uh, primarily by
our budget team. Uh, we also work on the annual City's (mumbled) issuance and
compliance; uh, we work on the health and dental and insurance payments; reserves;
claims; uh, we take in those claims and different activities (mumbled) with the insurance
on a ... on a really a daily basis. Uh, we also work on the City's employee benefits, uh,
and then of course the banking and investment activities are something that goes on on a
daily bus ... uh, daily, uh, it's a daily activity, and right now we (mumbled) roughly about a
$2 million investment, uh, hopefully (mumbled) and cash investments that we monitor
and invest, uh, really on a daily basis. Uh, another division we have is Accounting. It's
probably not the most glamorous one, but is, uh, incredibly essential as far as, you know,
tracking what's being spent, where it's going, uh, doin' our annual report, um, and other
reporting and, uh, a new activity they took on, uh, last year was the bookkeeping for
JECC, uh, which went pretty smoothly, and uh, it just gives another opportunity to ... to
cooperate with another government entity and .... and, uh, provide a better service to the
general public. Um .... and one of the, as far as climate action goes, you know, one of the
areas we think that we can, uh, kind of a underlying area, can probably have a larger
impact and that is trying to get our vendors and employees all to get paid by ACH, and
um, you know ,we still have a percentage -wise it's growing, a large percentage of our
vendors are paid from paper checks, uh, we still have a certain percentage of our
employees that are paid from paper checks, and just lookin' at the ... the ink, the paper, the
envelopes, uh, the postage, the .... the mail delivery services, take it to the mail box. The
amount of carbon that it takes to make one vendor payment, um, and that's a scenario that
we really wanna continue to focus on is to try and get, um, more of those types of
services electronic. And so that, we think in accounting that is an area that.... it'd be kind
of a quiet impact, but not only is it cheaper, but it's also faster and easier and .... and uses
far less resources to pay somebody electronically than it does through paper. So, um, our
third division is Purchasing and they do certain central services. Uh, they do the postage,
the mail, the copiers, um .... and they're just kinda one of those ones you know you don't
think about gettin' your mail, you don't think about how it gets to where it goes or, you
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know, the copy machines or .... uh, but also through Purchasing, every division in the City
buys .... makes purchases, and really they're the resource there to make sure the contracts
are managed, that, uh, you know, the City saves money, you know, that ... that things are
budgeted when they're being purchased, and so .... you know, they do a lot of the hidden
work in acquiring and making things happen, and that you're hearing about. Uh, the one
that probably most of you are aware of is our Utility Billing division, you know, the water
bills that go out and .... and so this is one division that probably impacts everybody in the
city because just about everybody gets a water bill or a utility bill. Um, and so this is one
that, you k now, we have about 25,000 customers and we send out thousands of bills
every week and we collect them, and uh, this is one that we've focused on in the racial
equity toolkit, and also we're lookin' at, uh, for climate action, cause we think when we
do service orders and work orders, to try and streamline those electronically so they go
out electronically, that they, you know, rather than sending out a guy with a truck or .... or
sending (mumbled) notice and havin' it passed around in paper, that we can try and
streamline some of those services. Um, we're also lookin' at different opportunities for
how we do late fee and shut-off notices to use less paper, use less staff time, and then
consequently possibly reduce those late fees that are assessed against individuals that
maybe already challenged with making their payments, and so those are just some of the
initiatives we're lookin' at from racial equity toolkit and the .... and the climate action,
from a utility billing perspective, and .... uh, they also took on new service last year.
We're now doing the refuse billings for University Heights, which, uh, I think they're
pretty.... pretty happy with, but... um, so far. Um, fifth division is our Risk Management,
our insurance claims. Uh, you know, we are self-insured, and so you know we essentially
by reinsurance. We pay those claims out of our own pocket, and uh, you know, we just
take in claims on a daily basis. We manage claims, um, you know, Eleanor mentioned the
City Attorney's office. We handle all of those things in-house. We do hire a third -party
administrator to also help us with administering those claims, uh, but that's just
something that's part of the organization, that .... that goes on on a daily basis, and also
part of that is we have our safety program and um .... when you look at our loss record for
employees, um, over the last 10 years, it is just continually to be on a downward trend.
So we're seeing fewer lost days, you know, fewer severe injuries, um, it's been really a
good thing. It's been building that culture over that time period, and you know, we
started safety certification program a few years ago to try and encourage, uh, best
practices within those divisions and we've really seen more and more divisions, uh,
adopt those best practices within their operations, and that all builds upon reducing
injuries and .... and improving safety for employees. Um ... and then, uh, last but certainly
not the least is our Information Technology Services division, and um, this is one that just
continues, uh, I cannot under.... under, uh, state how important they are to the City's
operation, in ... in everything we do, um, there's not an operation that does not continue to
become technologically, uh, savvy and reliant, I mean just even, uh, basic maintenance
services these days, you know, through GIS and through, A .... telephones and .... and
technology and radios and.... it just continues.... technology becomes more pervasive in
everything... everything we do, and so just keepin' people connected, communications,
operations (mumbled) see like the tech .... techni.... technological glitch we had here. If
you think about the Police Department, the Fire Department, you know, all of the
emergency divisions, you know, just one glitch and they .... and the technology system
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(mumbled) a fly in the ointment for just about any.... anybody, and so, you know,
focusing on keeping those services reliable, um, and in this day and age with the .... the
cyber attacks, cities being taken hostage, it's.... it's certainly something that's.... that's a
high priority for our IT division and we're lookin' at adding, uh, more protections into
our system, uh, doing more system audits, enhancing that security, um, as well as
building more relia.... reliability into our whole system. Uh, just because, you know,
that's.... that's just something that really -almost any operation today cannot operate
without technology. Um .... one of the new things we're workin' on, um, is wi-fi in the
parks. Uh, it's an initiative that we're, uh, working with ImOn and really delivering, uh,
at the different.... right now we have about a half a dozen ... maybe or eight parks we're
looking at of puffin' wi-fi systems into those shelter houses, into those parks, as an
additional service for the public, and then also I want to talk a little bit about IT and
carbon emission reductions. Um, through our Laserfiche software, we've really taken a
lot of paper forms and created, uh, electronic forms that (mumbled) and you know like
one of the ones we just completed is our .... like the travel training form, and so somebody
could fill that out, they submit it electronically, it goes through approval electronically, it
goes to accounting, and there's never any paper, you know, and .... and used to be
somebody had to pick up a paper and run it down the hall or drive it across the city to
deliver it. The more forms that we can build electronically, uh, that's.... that's fewer
people that have to drive things around the city and deliver them, and so, you know, if
you think about replacing gas vehicles with electronic vehicles, it's a lot faster to send an
electronic blip with the push of a button than even driving an electronic vehicle across the
city, and so, you know, right now a lot of the different, uh, opportunities that we're
lookin' at from a climate action perspective do come back to IT and what things that we
can do electronically, uh, and through the internet, or through wi-fi or what have you, uh,
versus havin' people, staff and equipment, havin' to do those things, and so, uh, that's our
department and what it entails (noises on mic) Be happy to answer any questions if you
have any.
Mims/ I don't have any questions but I just wanna say thanks for taking over a lot of the
bookkeeping and stuff for JECC cause I'm on that board and I think ... as a lot of you
know, when you have a really small organization it's really challenging, the separation of
duties, and so to avoid, um, any improprieties or the view of any improprieties. So
having another totally different set of eyes on that whole process is really helpful. So
basically all the bills get sent from JECC over here to the City now and I believe you
issue all the checks or do all the payments and all that kind of stuff. So it's ... it's not that
the City is overseeing it so to speak, it's just segregating some of those duties out of that
very small organization and I know when, uh, Tom Jones, who is the Executive Director,
kind of first talked about and proposed it didn't know what the cost was going to be, you
know, and asked the City to do it. When it came back he was like, `Oh!' Yeah, this is
definitely (laughs) from a financial perspective was also very good for JECC, yet
obviously the City feels they're covering their costs. So think it's been a real win-win for
everybody, and he's only had very, very high compliments for any of the individuals in
your office that he's worked with, so .... thank you!
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Teague/ You said a lot of climate action initiatives that you all are thinkin' about and so I really
appreciate hearin' that. Has there been any, um, discussion surrounding maybe the ACH
requirements for staff, as well as, um, you know, not receivin' a paper checks anymore, or
vendors not receivin' paper checks anymore?
Bockenstedt/ We've had those conversations and sometimes makin' those types of mandates is
not quite as simple as it seems, uh, and so we've not really thought of mandating it.
We've talked about, uh, different incentives, per se, and I know that ... and I don't know if
it's anymore, but... whether or not from a negot.... negotiation standpoint, whether or not
you could force sort of union staff to .... to go to ACH, but we have tal.... instead talked
about different incentives that we could provide employees to move to ACH that ... that
still like that paper and ... and urn .... you know, the vendors are very open and acceptant...
or acceptant, um, to switching to an ACH format and we keep doing mailers, we keep
reaching out to them, and more and more keep signing up for that ACH cause it's really
convenient for them too, uh, and one of the areas that .... that we have talked about
mandating it, uh, but we've not at this point, is like in our Section 8 voucher programs for
landlords, um, because that does produce a significant amount of checks that go out, uh,
every month to .... for those landlord payments, uh, and...but we ... for various reasons and
we don't... want to cause issues where if they didn't do it, then the landlord couldn't
participate and then somebody might lose a voucher for an eligible landlord. So there's a
lot of little complexities like that that ... that keep us from .... from mandating it, but um, it
is somethin' that....that we wanna be very practical about trying to get more people to
sign up for.
Teague/ Thank you. Thanks again, and we are gonna switch over to the Senior Center, with
LaTasha! Come on up! Thank you!
Senior Center:
DeLoach/ Good morning. First I apologize for interrupting your .... the list! I shoulda walked
faster down the hill! Um, I .... it's my pleasure to present, uh, City of Iowa City Senior
Center department to you all, the fiscal year ...(mumbled) fiscal year. I'm LaTasha
DeLoach, Senior Center Coordinator, um, and uh, we have some really exciting things
that are happening. We also have our challenges, uh, as any department does, um, but
one thing that I wanted to make sure I expressed was, um, somethin' that recently
happened was a, uh, new participant (mumbled) said, um, I never imagined after 30 to 40
years of .... in my career of bein' able to walk into a building and that small desire that I
had to do something different was already provided for me with the classes and
opportunities that you all are providing for me to be able to invest in that, and to find new
learning opportunities and new joy. So that really summed up a lot about what we do at
the Senior Center is to help people find those things that they wanted to do, that they
didn't have the opportunity to do, to get to do it now, uh, later in life. Um, so I'll be
giving you a brief overview of how we operate and some updates. Um, so we had a
recent update on our mission. Our mission, um, currently is the Center enhances quality
of life by creating opportunities to support wellness, social connections, community
engagement, and life-long learning for diverse and growing older adult population. Um,
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as I have mentioned in the past, and some of you all are new, that by 2035 it's projected
that we'll have more people 65 and older than we'll have youth 14 and under, and so, um,
our staff is working diligently on how do we prepare, how do we, um, support those
future, uh, projections now as .... as well as we go forth in the future. So our vision, uh,
has also been updated and changed, (mumbled) continue social involvement for those
folks that are currently involved and to end social isolation, uh, for individuals 50 -plus,
because that is a significant issue. If you talk to Fire, if you talk to Police, tho... there are
lots of issues surrounding what happens when people are socially isolated that they don't
have friends, people who are checkin' in with them, and we want to work hard to end
that. I know in the end it's a lofty goal, uh, we probably will end up on reduce, but I
would rather, um, shoot for the moon and land on the stars kind of situation, so that
people can be safe in our community, and I know we're all concerned about the safety of
our community members. Um, so our department addresses these, um, the different
portions of the community's input on strategic .... uh, the strategic plan goals by ensuring
that it's a livable community, um, not just for our young folks, but also for older adults,
um, and also that we're preservin' a historical building right here in downtown. Um, I
know those are also concerns of community members, um, and that building is being
used daily. We're open seven days a week and given that our members and our visitors,
and our building's in the downtown district, many times they leave our classes and they
actually utilize many of the services downtown, as well as they, um, frequently attend a
lot of our local businesses, so they're supporting small businesses and.....rightthere. So
they're comin' in for classes, they're goin' out for lunch, they're shopping at our local
shops. So that is helping support your strategic plan. Um .... at the Center we continue to
grow and implu.... and ... and implement, uh, inter -generational, uh, programming. A lot
of times we have a unconscious bias about what we believe the older adults do, and who
they take care of. A lot of times we believe that they're caregivers of their parents or
they're caregivers of their, uh, significant others, but many times these folks are also
caregivers of little ones. And so where.... where is that programming in our community?
I know our Mayor recently opened a business to kind of support that, but where can we
do that as a city, um, as City staff and so we want to work to find opportunities to do that,
because my mother took care of my children for our fust three years, and saved us a ton
of money, and I know there are plenty of other families that have also utilized, uh, older
adults and parents in their .... in their lives to help support them with that, so we want to
be able to be, um, creative about programming that we have coming up in the future, as
we said, with that changing demographic happening (mumbled) those projections. Um,
our building is a 24,000 -square foot facility It's a large facility It's four floors. Um,
there's fun, there's interaction, there's exercise, there's all kinds of things (laughs)
happening on each floor, but I also have a really small staff. Um, we have, uh, three full-
time employees, outside of myself, and we have four half-time employees. We operate,
uh, with a couple of, urn .... uh, work study students, and we have at this point almost 700
volunteers, and I am thankful for every single one of them (laughs) because it is getting
close to about 14 full-time employees with the amount of work that they are, um,
providing for us. Our current enrollment is close to 1,800 members, which is almost
more students than there is at the Kirkwood campus here in Iowa City (laughs) So it's
a .... it's a lot of folks. I always pray that they never all descend on us in one day
(laughter) because we'll have some fire compliance issues (laughs) if they do that! Um,
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and we're lookin' at ways to address that because I do believe that we'll reach over 2,000,
um, members probably in the next couple years, that's what I'm projecting, as we
continue to increase and change our programming, and update some of the things that we
have. Um, also I wanted to highlight, um, that with all our fun that we're havin' in our
building, um, it just connects us. It's such a great staple in the Downtown District. Um,
due to some of the block parties and different things that are going on, we've had more
opportunities to partner with folks and get our folks out and... and whether that's our pom-
pon squad .... Pomtastic, so if you get a chance to check them out, please do (laughs) Um,
or if it's some of our different, uh, bands that we house in our building, um, with
cooperation and partnerships with, um, some, uh, inter -agency opportunities with
different local bands and non -profits, um, in .... in our community. Um, we also provide
over 200 programs per season. So if you have seen some of our updates in our new
program guide, people are very impressed with the changes that we've made. We've
made it easier to navigate. We've, um, been clear about what we specifically do. What is
it that we're doing? We're trying to make sure you're well. We're trying to make sure
that you have life-long learning, um, etc. Um, so we're able to do that. We're also able
to provide free tax help for folks. Um, we know that that happens in our community,
especially with our population, that sometimes, um, they can get into situations where
people have taken advantage of .... of the little income that they do have. So we are able
to provide that, uh, at the Senior Center. We also provide senior health insurance
information. So for folks who are 65 and older, we have an intro to Medicare, which is
very popular (laughs) and um, we actually have to do registration and we usually have to
turn people away, just because of space, um, because it's very popular. (mumbled)
Iowa's the second place to retire, um, so of course we're.... we're dealin' with some of
those issues as well. We have been able to address some of our SHIP, or senior health
insurance issues by partnering with local cities, as well as other departments, to be able to
have, um, that program put in other areas and other libraries around the community, so
that people have access, because we have members from Iowa City, but a lot of our
members stretch all the way to Linn County because they don't have a Senior Center in
Linn County. So we're very fortunate to have a Senior Center, because they come down
and ask me all the time, like how'd ya do it? I was like, I wasn't here when they started!
I'm just continuin' the vision (laughs) um, so we're very proud to have that in our region,
um, and also new partnerships with, um, some larger cities that I've been developing this
year to learn some of the things that they're doing, as well as what, um, they're learning
some things that we're doing, so we're excited about those partnerships too! Okay! We
also provide legal counseling, um, free. So we have partnerships with local, um, law
firms that will come in and will provide legal services, um, for things other than criminal.
They don't.... they .... (laughs) they don't do anything criminal, but they will help people
if they're looking for questions in regards to, um .... upcoming changes financially or
homes, etc. So people will reach out (mumbled) excuse me. Um, we also have advanced
care planning, which is very important. Um, it's actually open to anyone who's 18 and
older and actually this year, interestingly enough, we had quite a few young people come
over and actually take classes on learning how to do advanced care planning. So
advanced care planning is for folks who want to be able to tell their families what they
want, when they.... once they get to end of life, um, and so we've been able to do that.
Um .... or if there's like a sudden injury or .... in, you know, 18 and older, anyone that's
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able to utilize that. We provide some in-house agencies. Um, we have a stronger
partnership with Johnson County Public Health that provides us with radon testing kits;
um, that provides us with condoms and, um, because it's .... we have a huge outbreak in
our population with STIs and so we wanted to make sure that we have those, uh, for free
and people have access to them. Um, HIV and Hep -C testing, um, also with our
partnerships with VNA, we have, urn .... uh, flu shots and a foot clinic to help people who
have diabetes or other, uh, illnesses. Um, they can have those services right in our
building. They don't have to leave. They can go to art class and go get a flu shot
(laughs) and, you know, go take tai chi, so I mean those things are all happening, um, in
our building. We also house a, uh, new organization in the last couple years called Trail.
Um, they provide resources for folks, help people get rides to different places. Also are
kinda helpin' address social isolation, if you think about it, cause they might be comin' to
change a light bulb but ... they're also there to have a conversation and be in that space
and .... and to talk to folks. Um, the Senior Center, um, has a .... a unique situation where
we have Senior Center technology and video, um, where we provide, urn .... members
opportunity to learn new technology. Um, we also help .... uh.....older adults who are
having computer issues through some of our tech partnerships with the University, uh,
School of Business. No, College of Business, sorry! I went to the School of Social
Work, so .... (laughs) There's that! Um, and so we are also able to, um, offer
opportunities for pairing of students, um, with seniors to be able to learn, um, some
different techniques on how to use ... if you wanna post to histagram, etc. Um ... the spaces
that we have in our building, majority of them are rentable, obviously outside of our
offices, um, but people are able to come in and rent those spaces, and.... and I'll come
back, cause I know there's questions about (laughs) the renting of spaces, and I promise I
will address that. We have two art galleries and this year was the first year we're actually
able to have an actually art gallery show, um, that was a fundraiser. We had the
opportunity, um, to receive a really large, um, life-long, urn .... uh.... just all (laughs) just
all the portraits and all the poems and all the art from a ... a local artist that worked at the
University and was very successful and bein' able to have that art show and was able to
support us financially, um, for our operations, and we have a .... a really upcoming one
that I cannot spoil, but I promise you.....I promise you, it's so good. I can't tell ya right
now! (laughter) We're still in the works, there's no contracts signed, so ... I can't tell you,
but it's going to be really exciting. (laughter) Um .... we've increased, um, and ... and any
time art is sold, um, outside of when we're putting it on, we do get 25%, um, back. Um,
so that's always helpful. Um, we're partnering more with the Library. We're partnering
more with Parks and Recreation, um, Communications. Uh, with Parks and Rec, uh,
we're... our hope is to increase classes for swim, um, and more water exercise classes, um,
that we can offer as a partnership, as well as being able to utilize, um, more other spaces
during the day, because durin' the day a lot of their population is working, and our
population is lively and out, and .... and busy, and so when we have classes that have
overflow, how do we utilize some of those other buildings? Can we use Terry
Trueblood? Can we use Mercer Park to, uh, address some of, uh, some of our overflow
issues. So we're working to pull that together and hopefully that'll come together here in
the next couple of months. Um .... presently we have been able to, um, purchase
televisions for wayfinding. So if you've been at the building, it has helped significantly.
It also provides opportunity for advertisement. We have new water fountains. These are
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things that were approved in our previous budget, so we're so thankful for them, as well
as .... as the new design for our program guide. Um .... this year, for two days, I was fully
staffed. Really (laughs) I was really excited about that, um, and then we had someone
retire, but that happens. Um, so our hope is that in a couple of weeks (laughs) we'll be
back up and have a full staff again, um, to be able to, uh, keep things going and running
at full speed in our .... our building. Um, one of our .... our goals from you all is to, um,
Finance Department, is to make sure that we have 30 to 35% revenue, and I can say in the
last two years we have hit our 35%, and we're gonna be pushing for more to ... as our
revenue peaks. So I'm really excited about what that looks like, and some of that will
come with our remodeling that we have, because we'll have more rentable spaces. Um...
some of the .... also the work that you'll see us doing, uh, and that we're.... we're doing
now and will continue to do is, um, looking at how we're composting, right? So
everybody has climate action pieces, and some of ours is composting correctly. So it's
not that we don't have some of those things. It's how do we do it and make sure we're
doin' it effectively, that it's not having any negative impacts on our environment, um, and
you'll see us also utilizing some of the, uh, IT skills, with changing our membership
forms into the laser fiche, uh, files, so that we're able to utilize, uh, those more effic...
effectively. Um, so that we have less paper, cause our population, they like ... they like
paper! And I'm just .... that's just.....that's just what it is! And so ... but we're trying to
find more ways to integrate, um, and make that happen, um, so that we can cut down on
our end, but also make sure the folks get what they need, so that they can participate fully
in our community That's what makes it livable. Um .... for our future, um, we know we
are going to go higher in our current membership. We're still working on addressing
under -representation. The way that we're addressing that is we have partnered with the
UI Public Policy Center to do real research on who's there and who's not there. So, in a
couple weeks you'll see.....at the end of .... January you'll see a survey go out community
wide, and these are folks who are not members, to be able to get some samples of surveys
of .... what do you know about the Senior Center? Why are you not participating? What
can we do to get you down here? What can we do to get you connected? So you'll see
that going out, um, in a couple of weeks, to help us reach those under -represented groups.
We'll have things translated to be able to help people participate fully in that, so that we
can be able to serve, um, you all well. Excuse me. Um .... excuse me. We also are doin'
such an amazing job of reaching out in our programming, so our programming has
changed significantly, where you will see more representation of under -represented
groups. There are, um, programming, um, in reference to the art that's in our building.
Also, um, we have some new films out and discussion groups that are happening, uh,
with the new community engagement council that we'll have starting, uh, this is 2020
(laughs) this year. So we're addressing those issues, um .... as well as, um .... our building
assessment. So I know that that's somethin' that is ... is somethin' people are really
thinking about. We have to put out a, uh, building assessment, and it should be put out in
the next few weeks, I believe. Um, and then we'll be able to come back to you all with
some timelines about when that kitchen will be remodeled. Um, it's a much more
complicated issue than we realized. Some of it's the historic nature of the building, but
also the fact that we'll have to request for additional staffing, due to the fact that the
Senior Center's never run that kitchen. So we will have to have someone, we'll have to
create some policies and practices to make sure that we have high standards of people
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usin' that kitchen, if they're going to resell those things in our community, right? So we
need to make sure that we're doin' our part. Um, we will be replacing, from a climate
change, we'll be replacin' 197 lights and lamp fixtures. It will take us a while. That's a
lot of lights! Um, but within our budget you will see that that's in there to support us in
getting that change. We also are looking at, um .... getting ADA signage to be able to
increase because we have a new Braille group that is usin' our building on a consistent
basis. We need better wayfinding for our folks who use Braille. So you will see those
things. So, um ... I don't know, I think that's about all that I have and I'm willin' to take
any questions that you have.
Taylor/ I just wanna say thank you for your report. I think it....it really helps folks to realize that
the Center is much more than just a place for older folks to hang out. Uh, it offers so
much, and I .... I'm proud to say I'm one of those 1,800 members and have utilized a
number of their services, including the SHIP and cholesterol checking, all kinds of things,
and ... uh, you mentioned the inter -generational and I think, uh, the one thing that really
highlights that the most is the Folk Machine. I attended their concert recently, and if
folks haven't ever attended that, they ...they need to, uh, find.....watch your program and
see when they have another concert, because it's amazing to see the little ones as
probably as young as four or five, uh, on .... onwards, uh, together with the older
individuals, singing songs and it's just amazing, and the other thing is kudos to those
1,700 volunteers, with all their diverse, uh, talents and knowledge, uh, and for them to be
willing to .... to share that with people, cause I've gone to several of the classes too, and
it's just amazing, uh, the .... the wealth of knowledge that we have out there. So kudos to
all those volunteers too. (several talking)
Mims/ Um, we've had a lot of good staff in the City, and we still have a lot of good staff. One of
the things I've noticed is, and .... and Linda did a great job with the Senior Center, but also
a new set of eyes, and a new level of energy, I think, can make just an incredible
difference also in an organization, and I think you've really brought that to the Senior
Center, and just really, really appreciate your new insight and ideas, and work that you're
doing there. I think it's just fantastic. So...
DeLoach/Thank you!
Mims/ ....glad we've got yathere!
DeLoach/Thanks!
Salih/ Yeah, I just also wanna add same thing, like I wanna add that you .... I wanna thank you for
reaching out to different communities, trying to tell them about the, you know, the Senior
Center and what you can provide for them, uh, now like a lot people that I know start
knowing what the Senior Center is and I know that you been reaching out to communities
and thank you very much for doing that.
DeLoach/ Sure (mumbled) and we'll do more of that!
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Thomas/ Yeah, I ... I can, I don't know, I can't think of a ... City agency or department which is so
porous in terms of bringing so many different aspects of the Iowa City community,
whether it's private/public partnerships, into your.... everyday activities. It's.... it's really
kind of extraordinary .... extraordinary sort of, uh, clearing house in a sense of all that
Iowa City is. It's really great.
DeLoach/ I have a really great team. This is not all me, I promise (mumbled) Not a lot of people
behind me (laughs) but there's a couple people behind me that are doing this work and
we're being innovative in thinking and .... and letting that, those brainstorming sessions
take us to places that we haven't gone in a while, and so I just wanna continue to
encourage that. Now I have half my staff is new and half have been there for a while, so
it's kind of a nice mix .... that's helping bring some of that in with new perspective, as
well.
Weiner/ (mumbled) remember when it was a Post Office and then it changed to Senior Center,
and what you've done with it is just extraordinary.
DeLoach/Thank you.
Teague/ Well you know I love my active and gray friends over there, so thanks for all the
programmin'that's happenin' and....even the inter -generational, multi -generational
aspect (mumbled) so many programs love it, keep up the good work!
DeLoach/Thank you!
Teague/ Thank you! All right! So we have 15 minutes before, do we want to just kinda end
here, because there's no one else here. So lunch is here. Do we wanna come back at, uh,
quarter till or do we have to wait until 12:30? Cause we don't know if any of the
individuals that are scheduled would be here. (several talking in background)
Fruin/ Yeah, we can .... we can do our budget too, but Tracy should be here, um .... so if you
wanna take a short lunch break and (both talking)
Teague/ Do we wanna do (mumbled) come back? Still do 30 minutes?
Mims/ 12:20 or so, yeah. (several responding)
Teague/ All right!
Fruin/ We have lunch, uh, that City Clerk's office arranged in the room back behind us and
you're free to take it and get outside or stay here, whatever you wanna do.
Teague/ So we'll comeback at 12:20. (BREAKFOR LUNCH)
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Teague/ We'll reconvene the City .... uh, Council budget work session agenda for January 0,
2020, and we're talkin' about, uh, the fiscal year 2021 (mumbled) budgets, and we're
gonna start with Tracy Hightshoe from Neighborhood and Development Services.
Neighborhood and Development Services:
Hightshoe/ Well thank you. Uh, I've not seen you since your last meeting, so congratulations,
Bruce and Mazahir, and then welcome, Janice and Laura I'm Tracy Hightshoe. I'm the
department Director of Neighborhood and Development Services. I thought, you know,
you've been here since 7:30, how can I make it fun? (laughter) ....(mumbled) sorry,
bingo, but (laughter) any .... I got nothin'. So I will just talk with a whole lot of
enthusiasm (laughter) So we area department of about 43, um, individuals, FTEs. We
have a total NDS budget of $18.6 million, and then I was going to go through our three
divisions in NDS, just so that you're familiar with our department. So ... we are on page
262. So there's three divisions, as you see on the screen, Neighborhood and
Development Services... sorry, Development Services, Neighborhood Services, and the
MPO. Development Services is our urban planning and building divisions. Uh, you see
them a lot at the P&Z portion of our Council meetings. They facilitate the development
process. We went through this past year the land use process. So they process
(mumbled) of plans, annexations, zonings, subdivisions, site plans, building permits,
inspections, and we enforce the zoning code in Iowa City. We also are ... are in charge of
the flood plain management and historic preservation. So we did streamline our
processes in fiscal year 02. Our administrative secretary, who had been here for years,
um, left the City so we took that moment to decide what we needed. Whenever you have
a position that turns over after that long a time, it's a good time to decide what facilitates
your department best. We changed that to Development Services assistant. So while she
still has some department wide functions, she also (mumbled) really increasing us with
our building activity. So our water per .... our building permits, things like that. We have
our Neighborhood Services. Neighborhood Services has like three different divisions
within Neighborhood Services. Uh, this is the division I came from, so I started with the
City back in 2001 as associate planner when we were planning community development.
Several years later we merged with Housing Inspections. So that's what brings
(mumbled) Development Services now. So under that Neighborhood Services we had the
Housing Inspection Services. They inspect over 20,000 rental units and this past year, as
we were, uh, deciding what we were going to do about occupancy and not being able to
regulate occupancy any more by familial status, we changed and we now inspect 8,000 of
these units on an annual basis. So the group homes, fraternities, multi -family before
1996, public housing, single-family duplex with more than four bedrooms — all those are
now inspected annually. We go out and we .... we do proactive enforcement now. So
thank .... we thank you that you provided another enforcement, um, wing to us. We've
hired one full-time person. We do proactive enforcement. We have over 3,000 nuisance
complaints a year. We'll probably have more because we have actual full-time person,
um, going after those nuisances that neighborhoods don't wanna see like those type of
complaints. We have the Housing Authority. This is 81.....we have 81 public housing
units in Iowa City. We have almost 1,300 housing choice vouchers, and we cover
Johnson County, Linn Co .... or sorry, Iowa County and parts of Washington County. And
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I always use this opportunity to talk about the housing cause there's a lot of
misconceptions about our housing choice voucher, what people call Section 8. So .... the
....the vouchers are dispersed throughout the county. So if Iowa City has about 60% of
the population, we have about 60% of the vouchers. Over 50% of the vouchers are
utilized by the elderly or disabled households, and of those families, less than 1% report
(mumbled) source of incomes. So the families on our programs are working. They just
don't make enough to afford the housing that's in our market. Our voucher program pays
about 7.8 million in housing assistance payments to landlords and owners in Johnson
County, and we consistently receive a high performance status by HUD for our Housing
Authority. The last division is Community Development. Um, we administer all our
federal funds. Usually the focus is on low to moderate -income neighborhoods. So we
(mumbled) Community Development Block Grants, Home funds. We have various
housing programs. We do neighborhood outreach. We support our neighborhood
associations. We have about 33 in Iowa City. Uh, we staff the Public Art Advisory
Committee. We staff Aid to Agencies. We have economic development programs and we
provide technical assistance to low-income residents. The MPO is our transportation
wing of the department. They are the Metropolitan Planning Organization of Johnson
County. They are the County's transportation planners, but they're also Iowa City's
transportation planning wing. So they plan all modes of transportation — vehicle, bike,
pedestrian, transit. They complete traffic studies, traffic analysis. They prepare and
administer transportation -related grants, and we funnel all our federal and state
transportation funds through their agency. They are governed by two policy boards — the
rural and urban — and they're compromised of elected officials. So our urban....
urbanized area includes (mumbled) Iowa City, Coralville, North Liberty, Tiffin,
University Heights, the County, the U of I, and the School District. And then of course
there's administrative staff, which is me and .3 -time (mumbled) (laughs) So, um ... part of
our budget, we did have two different budget requests. Um, two of `em are already
funded, so...the Housing Authority applied and was awarded 60 main -stream vouchers,
which gives us another budget authority of $381....381,000. Um, those vouchers support
homeless individuals with a disabling condition in need of permanent supportive housing,
and they have to be referred to us by the Continuum of Care, that coordinated entry
process. Because of those vouchers, we hired a part-time person that will be
administering that .... those vouchers as well as our special preference vouchers. We also
had one of our part-time planners, um, resign this year, just in December, and she was
half-time. She ... staffed our Board of Adjustment. So very thankful in December the
request was to make this position full-time so we're in the process of hiring that person
now, so....that person will be hired with a focus on our long-range planning initiatives
and all the other initiatives that the Council would like to see. The new request that we're
making, that has not been funded, is a full-time building inspector. So that inspe... that
inspector will be, well, the department with the aid of one other person, they'll focus on
energy efficiency and climate action initiatives, especially for new development or
redevelopment or significant rehab or rehabilitation. All our inspectors will receive
additional training and the International Energy Conservation Code, and we'll encourage
them to get certified in that code. Um, I think Geoff already mentioned it, but we will
also be able to take over, with that full-time inspector, some of the fire responsibilities,
with regards to inspections. So it just....it just makes sense. We are already out there in a
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lot of these buildings, so now when we go out there we will do the liquor license
inspections, the UI rental housing inspections, Chatham Oaks, systems homes, and then
we'll do the fire part for City buildings. So with that, we will relieve the Fire Department
of those duties so they can concentrate on fire, and we'll do the inspections that we're
already out in these buildings doing anyway. Wanted to go over our critical
accomplishments from the past year cause there has been many, and I kind of lumped
them into our planning field, our building field, and then what I call either care or
community. Under planning, we have .... urn .... completed our analysis of impediments to
fair housing, to identify barriers for fair housing choice. We've developed strategies to
address those barriers. They've been incorporated into our consolidated plan for housing,
jobs, and services. We completed the public art strategic plan. And that City STEPS
document, that consolidated plan, ref .... or plan that I just referenced, is coming to you
just in your next January meeting. That's the guide of how we're going to spend our
federal funds for the next five years, and those federal funds have to be used for housing,
jobs, and services primarily to low to moderate -income folks. There's different eligibility
criteria that you have to do to be eligible those fund .... for those funds. Under build, we
have been very busy with the building part of our department. Calendar year 2019 saw
the division exceed 2,200 permits, with a total construction value of $231 million. Last
calendar year that was 192.8 million. Our 10 -year average is 185 million. Investment in
the Riverfront Crossings District, since the form based code adoption in 2014, there's
been over 328 million in project value. Over a thousand multi -family units will be either
under construction or completed. Um, this does not include 12 E. Court. You're gonna
see that 12 E. Court is coming to you and it's going to go through P&Z probably next...
the last meeting of January. Um, it's for the height bonus that you guys are familiar with.
So our development interest remains strong. (mumbled) large development projects
completed, under construction, or under review in 2019 is the rezoning of 12 E. Court
Street. The December I lb plans that they submitted to us have over 918 units with over
1,700 beds. The Hieronymus Square Hotel at the corner of Clinton and Burlington Street,
the Chauncey that you see right across the street from us, Augusta Place behind us. Then
we were fortunate enough to get two LIHTC — the low income housing tax credit
projects. One on Dubuque Street and one on Sand. Um, the one on Dubuque is 33 total
units with 29 affordable. Sand is 36 units with 32. We also have the residential building
at 225 E. Prentiss Street going up. Um (mumbled) phase three, uh, the crossings on
Gilbert Street by Big Grove. And we approved the rezoning for Capstone. So, as you
can see, we have a lot of building, strong development interest, especially in Riverfront
Crossings. Um .... we incorporated some of the climate action initiatives that we've
talked about. So under.... owner -occupied rehab or rental rehab, we've incorporated the
Green Iowa mo.....Green Iowa AmeriCorps energy audits. The UniverCity program, we
started in 2011. We have purchased and sold 68. So we've purchased 70 homes. We
currently have two for sale right now or we're working on. We've invested three million
in some of our core neighborhoods in the downtown areas that are impacted by the
University. You'll see a cluster of UniverCity homes on Douglas, Burlington, Governor,
Gilbert, and Davenport, and while affordable housing wasn't necessarily the key....
impetus of the UniverCity as a neighborhood stabilization. Nineteen of those homes had
to be sold to folks under 80% of median income. We're making progress on the bike
master plan. We've installed bike lanes on Dodge, Governor, and Clinton Streets. We
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completed the Highway 1 side path connecting Mormon Trek to Willow Creek. And then
in fiscal year 21 those actions will continue. Under the community part of what we do, I
mean our goal as planners is to make sure that all neighborhoods in Iowa City are
neighborhoods of opportunity. To that .... to that end, we've made significant progress on
the affordable housing action plan. Fourteen of the 15 action plans are completed. Um,
we changed the distribution. So we reviewed the plan this past summer. We changed the
distribution formula, which is exciting for us because it includes money for security
deposit. It includes us working with the local homeless cording board.... coordinating
board for the land, um, the .... sorry the landlord risk mitigation fund. We also were able
to finally buy two duplexes in the South District program, without, um, dislocating
anyone. The fust one is done. I think we had an open house for that. We have a buyer,
so as soon as we get our legal paperwork done for the duplex, um, a buyer from the
neighborhood will purchase the fust one. She's already went through the home buyer
counseling. She's gotten pre -approved. So we'll set the closing as soon as we get our
paperwork done. And then the other duplex, we are remodeling right now. Um, I'm also
excited about the Cross Park Place, what our department had to do to enable Cross Park
Place, and I think almost every one of you is familiar with that, uh, project. From
rezoning to allow that use in a commercial district, to initiating a preference in the
housing choice voucher program, so that everyone going in to Cross Park Place has a ... a
voucher. Um, we have a lot of in -progress initiatives and I wanted to talk about that, um,
especially in our urban planning department. So we have been extremely busy on two
things that's been monopolizing our time. One is the implementing the new permitting
software. I was naive. I thought this was like we hire a consultant, we tell `em what we
want, and they do it! (laughs) And then we just implement it! Evidently no. Um .... it
has basically taken Danielle (mumbled) service coordinator. They're here every other
week until March. They're developing from the ground floor up. Um, requires a lot of
input. So she's basically a half-time employee for us right now because she's spending so
much time, and it has to be to get the system we want. We've not updated our software in
20 years, so the things... you know, once it works it'll help us with streamlining,
especially it'll help us notify landlords, developers, property owners. It'll really help our
efficiency, but we just gotta get there and that's taking a lot of time. The second one is
the South District form based code in the Alexander neighborhood. This is a form based
code for primary residential neighborhood, and not necessarily large multi -family like
Riverfront Crossings. It's very different than what we have, so just the learning process.
So our senior planner, Anne, is our lead contact for that plan. It takes a lot of her time.
So we have, out of three and a half planning staff, two staff that are really concentrating.
So we're not able to get to all the initiatives right now. Um, we're implementing the
climate action adap .... adaptation program. We're reviewing co ... well hold on! So all the
things, some of these are planned, some are like .... we're in progress of but they're on
hold until we get the software system down and we do the South, um, South District form
based code. So we have the climate action adaptation plan. So we plan to review code
changes to address climate action initiatives, educate the community, and administer the
programs that are developed. We are currently seeking downtown National Historic
Registry.... register designation. Our planners are working with the County right now
with the fringe area and the growth area update. We plan to present that to you in
February. We have the Northside parking study. We still need a contract amendment
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because this was not in the budget or the scope of the current, uh, contract with Opticos.
We have the district plan review and update. We have a lot of areas that are gonna be
developed, we see, in the near future — the Carson Farms, High Point, Southeast Iowa
City — that we need to update our district plans cause some of `em are very old and we
need to update. We will continue to review land development process, focus on multi-
family design, and open space, and of course we have the continues of the affordable
housing action plan, as we review the regulatory requirements and encourage, um,
affordable housing and we've reviewed the missing middle concept in all our residential
zones. We also have to prioritize and implement the Riverfront Crossings form based
code changes. Um, we had met with stakeholders, Opticos gave their recommendations.
Now we just need to prioritize amongst staff and actually get those done. And of course
the last one is review infill development .... policy in residential neighborhoods.
Personally I also would like to add, um, parking for neighborhood commercial, because if
we're trying to encourage walkable communities, we might have to look at our parking
standards, because right now they're .... in my opinion, in some parts they seem excessive.
If you want neighborhood commercial in neighborhood pockets, um, you can't
build.... buildings that are residential in nature but still have larger parking lots attached
to them. So .... those are the items we have on our plate. Um, there's also things that I'm
worried about as a director for my department, and one of `em is just the complexities of
reviews. We have so many different, um, planning aspects. So for example we have our
current zoning designations. We have conservation, historic districts. We have sensitive
areas. We have design overlays. We have the Peninsula code. We have the Riverfront
Crossing code, which is seven subdistricts and they don't always req .... they all don't
require the same things, and we'll be adding the South District form based code. So not
only for my staff to understand it, but to get that information out to the development
community, so that we all understand it is just complex. So probably in future budget,
you'll probably have me coming back and saying maybe .... can we .... can we revise our
whole code, you know, to maybe.....maybe it's a form based code citywide, but .... I know
our planners take a lot of time, especially in Riverfront Crossings, developers are
contacting them saying, okay, in the existing code you can do this, you can do A, B, C, D.
Under the new zoning you can do (laughs) A, B, C, D. So, it's just taking us a lot of time.
Um, when we get asked `how much parking do you need?' That .... that seems like a
simple question, until you get into our code and you have to go through multiple steps to
get down to where you .... how much parking you can have and where you can have it.
So ... I'm just hoping as we go we .... we simplify and we .....we make it easier for the
community and for us to enforce. Um, our department tackles a lot of complex issues,
from affordable housing to climate action to appropriate land use and the density that
we .... we establish for it, and I'm .... I'm proud of our department, where it ... what steps
we've made, especially in affordable housing, and I'm excited about fiscal year 21 and
the progress we'll make there, um, but that is basically NDS in review so .... I'd be happy
to answer any questions.
Salih/ What is the South District, uh, like (unable to understand) you said one of them has been
done and there is a buyer already?
Hightshoe/ Uh huh.
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Salih/ Uh, how many people they apply for that?
Hightshoe/ I think we've had three applications. One person ... did not go through the financial
counseling, so we're waitin' on that. Another person couldn't get pre -approved. So
we've had three people apply, one person's proceeding, and then we'll start marketing it
more.
Salih/ Okay. Sure.
Hightshoe/ We don't have the benefit of the MLS, cause we're trying to focus the beneficiaries
just on the South District folks, so it might take us longer cause we'll have to go through
like Nextdoor, maybe targeted Facebook for homes, um, the neighborhood association
(both talking)
Salih/ Uh huh.
Hightshoe/ But I'm sure .... at the price that we're selling it for, I'm sure we'll get buyers.
Salih/ Yes.
Weiner/ I don't know if people had a chance to see them. I went to the open house. They're
incredibly impressive!
Salih/ (mumbled) picture only but seem like really nice.
Hightshoe/ We did solar installation, so we expect that the utility bills will be very low as well.
Salih/ Yes! Yeah, that's, uh....
Hightshoe/ So it'll be a affordable home, I mean .... we have down payment assistance, and that's
another thing is federal rules. So we used our local money to rehab it. We're using our
federal funds for the down payment assistance. So I can't just tell you the person will be
(mumbled) 10 or 15,000, cause by HUD rules we have to go through analysis where you
have to, you know, you can't over -subsidize somebody, but you can't under -subsidize
somebody. So they might get 5,000; they might get 15,000; they can get anything up to
25,000. So...
Salih/ It depend to their income (both talking) Yeah!
Taylor/ I think that South District plan is .... is a big feather in your cap because the UniverCIty
program was wonderful and it provided homes for a lot of folks, but it was getting quite
pricey and these are .... a duplex, it's just more reasonably priced and .... and gives more
opportunities for ...for folks of the lower income range, so ... it's a good program.
Wonderful program!
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Hightshoe/ Rehab staff loves it because, you know, when you rehabilitate a 100 -year-old
properties (mumbled) original budget, always something goes wrong. Invariably
something goes wrong, you know, those HD -TV shows are not right (laughter) It's
always over budget, but we're finding homes built in the 1960s and 70s, you know, we
don't have the foundation issues. We don't have a lot of the issues they have so we can
rehabilitate them for far less and quicker.
Teague/ The complexities of like managin' all this and the software that's gonna be comin' I'm
happy to hear that that's movin' forward, because it will really streamline things for you
all. You all are so busy. I look at, you know, just the titles — Housin' Authority, Housin'
Inspection, um, Buildin' Inspection — those.... you're dealin' with community members
that have, um, desires to, you know, do whatever they're doin', but also there's an
opportunity where things are a little complex for them to understand, and then they think
one way and then they learn the code is another way. So .... I'm still happy to always see
you smilin' (laughs) when you come before us, and I've even seen you interact with other
people in your staff as well. So kudos for what you all are doin'. You're doin' a great
job.
Thomas/ In your description of the .... our zoning (laughs) framework, it certainly would be nice
to have a .... kind of a unified zoning code, I mean it's almost as if ... we're literally not
that large a city and yet it's as if we have seven different languages that don't necessarily
translate very well across zones. So it's .... it makes it very challenging. For everyone to
try to understand (both talking) how they all fit together.
Hightshoe/ Staff has to understand it, but then we also have to make sure the development
community understands it. (mumbled) at times we have made mistakes. Uh, it's not due
to malicious intent or...it's just the complexity and something might have been missed,
um....
Thomas/ It's also just very opaque for the community. You know.... something that's really
pretty important in terms of understanding its future, uh, to have a .... a document that's,
well first of all you just have to assemble all of these documents. They aren't in one
form. So just finding the document can be challenging, and then they are structured in
different ways.
Fruin/ Mayor, if I might, we've got a few folks in the audience that are probably interested in the
Aid to Agencies program and we covered that, uh, earlier this morning, but just as a ... as a
quick update on staff's recommendation on that. Staff's recommendation is for a 25%
general fund increase to the Aid to Agencies program. Uh, that, uh, equates to about
$62,000, uh, of .... of an increase to that program, and roughly.... just very slightly ahead
of a 2% inflation factor from 2010 through FY21, and 2010 is where that, uh, general
fund support really leveled off. So again, 25% over that 2010 level, which is just slightly
above a 2% inflation factor. (clears throat) I think the .... the folks in the audience know
that the HCDC, uh, has requested a meeting with the Council to discuss that funding
level, and earlier today it sounded like, uh, there'll be a desire for the Council to meet
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with HCDC. So we'll probably work on getting that meeting set on Tuesday. I don't
know when to tell you that will be, but... probably fairly quickly.
Teague/ Anything else for Tracy? Thank you so much! All right! All right, so .... um, are you
going to represent (mumbled) the Metropolitan Plan.... wait! We're gonna go to
Transportation.
Fruin/ Yeah, we (both talking)
Teague/ ...Transportation Services.
Hightshoe/ I think I did it all (several talking)
Teague/ You did MPO.
Hightshoe/ Yep!
Teague/ Thank you!
Hightshoe/ I mean Darian can help with MPO too so.....(several talking and laughing)
Teague/ All right! Come on up, Darian, and this is gonna be the Transportation Services.
Transportation Services:
Nagle-Gamm/ Hello there! Good afternoon! I hope everybody's doing well. I know it's been a
long day. I'm Darian Nagle-Gamm and I am the Director of the Transportation Services
Department. A little background on me. If you can believe it, those of you who've been
around for a while, it's been two years, um, since I've been in this position. Time is
flying. I know, I had that same reaction when I thought about that. Um, and a little more
information on my background. I came from the MPO, as Tracy alluded to, so I was with
the MPO for just about 10 years, um, doing transportation planning for the, uh, for Iowa
City and also the entire metro, uh, metro area. So, it's a little bit of background. Um, in
real short, I mean Transportation Services, our job is to help get people where they need
to go, um, in a safe, efficient, affordable, clean, and most recently a lot of focus on
sustainable manner. So that's really kind of our core mission. We've got three separate
divisions, um, that I'll walk you through, uh, briefly today. One of course is the public
transit system, uh, that we ... that we help manage for the community. The second is sort
of public parking I would call it and that's whether it's vehicles, bicycles, um,
commercial, short-term commercial vehicles, um, you know, in the downtown, uh, metro
area. And last but not least we also help to manage the maintenance of the Central
Business District. To give you sort of a sense of .... of our sense of scale and .... and how
our employees shake out into each of those divisions, we have 75 overall employees.
Um, in terms of the management staff it's myself. We have an Associate Director, Mark
Rummel. We have six supervisors that help keep our operations, uh, humming every day,
and just, uh, to give you a sense of the scale of the transit operations, over 55% of our
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staff, our entire staff is, uh, transit drivers. So it requires a lot of people to .... to keep our
transit system running every day, because of course our.... our buses don't call in sick. So
we've got.... we've got quite a bit of staff to help .... to help people get where they're
going every day. Uh, to complement our driving staff, of course we have, uh, mechanics
that help keep our buses on the road. We also maintain, uh, and own our paratransit
vehicles, um, although Johnson County SEATS provides the actual service. So that's
another, um, another thing that we do, from a mechanic standpoint. Um, we've also got
maintenance staff who main.... helps us maintain not only the Central Business District,
which I'll talk about in a little bit but also our buildings, our facilities, the public right-of-
way around our buildings. Um, we have a crew of people who work on our buses every
single night until, uh, much later than probably most of us are awake, to help make sure
that the buses are clean and tidy and ready to go the next day. We have parking
enforcement staff, um, in the downtown area and their job really is to help make sure we
have compliance with our .... our parking regulations and make sure we have that turnover
that we need so that as many people as possible can visit, um, our downtown every single
day. And last but certainly not least, uh, these are a group of people we call our customer
service representatives and they're really, um, they're really kind of the heartbeat of our
organization in that they -they answer all the calls that come throu.... and the contact that
comes from the public. So they answer calls, um, they respond to walk-in traffic.
They're located in our parking office downtown in the Iowa Ave ramp. They also
support, um, refuse and landfill, so some part-time they are out at landfill and refuse, and
part-time they're downtown, um, and they're all cross -trained on all of those things. So
they're up on parking. They provide information to the public on parking, on transit, and
on ... on refuse related questions. So they do a lot, um, they do a lot for us and they do a
lot of, uh, back office work as well. Um, I shouldn't neglect to say that because they, it's
not all about the .... the calls that come in, the questions that come in. They do a lot...
they help support our ...our entire department, um, to make sure that we can get all of our
back office work done as well. Um, last big picture item I just wanna mention is that,
you know, the public uses our facilities 24/7. Um, therefore we are staffed nearly 24/7.
We do .... the department sleeps for a couple hours every night, um, except for when it's
snowing, and then we're still goin'. Um, so .... but we do have staff here 20 .... not 24/7,
seven days a week I should say. So there's always somebody on staff, uh, either
downtown or at transit throughout the entire week. So we really are more or less a 24/7
operation. First division I just wanted to dig in a little bit more too, really quickly, is
CBD maintenance and uh, that's our Central Business District, of course, and we are
challenged with keeping the downtown neat and tidy, and maintaining furnishings to
ensure that downtown is safe, accessible, walkable, a place where people wanna visit, a
place where people wanna shop, a pace .... a place where people wanna go out to eat, you
know, hang out, socialize, all of those things, and um, you know, we're.... we're very
lucky that we had this beautiful downtown, uh, pedestrian mall project and part of our
charge is to make sure that it stays that way. Um, of course there's some natural wear and
tear that comes, um, with things, but we wanna make sure that we maintain it to the best,
um, possible way that we can so it stays as beautiful as it is today. We also work very
closely with, um, our partners downtown, um, in terms of events. So we're very busy in
the summer, helping to support all of the events. We work with the Downtown District,
the Summer of the Arts, Farmers Market, Northside Marketplace, uh, and many other
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pride .... many other organizations to help support special events and festivals in our
public spaces downtown, and .... and that's from a planning perspective, that's from an
execution perspective on that day. We always have folks that are, um, that are helping to
facilitate the .... the festivals from a city perspective, and also, um, helping to clean up and
return, you know, back to downtown normal operations, which happens really quickly,
uh, in the blink of an eye after these festivals. So we help to support these events, which
have really become, um .... you know, a great Iowa City tradition during the summer.
There's just lots of great things to do. I'm gonna turn my attention to the parking
division, uh, and give you a little bit of a high level overview of what that ... what that
entails. We have six parking facilities and those were .... you often hear `em referred to as
ramps, um, or garages. We have about 3,700 and some change spaces, um, in those
facilities. What you may not be aware of is that two-thirds of those are north of
Burlington Street, but a full third of those are south of Burlington Street and I think, um,
every opportunity I get I like to remind the public that, um, that there's spaces available
just south of Burlington Street and Court Street Transportation Center is one of them, um,
and it's right on Burlington Street, and then we have just two blocks to the south we have
the new Harrison Street parking facility. So, um, a full third of our parking spaces in
garages or in facilities are, um, south of Burlington. We also have about 1,200 on -street
parking spaces. Um, we have about 800 permits for mopeds and motorcycles, and we
have 21 spaces in the downtown where you can park, um, those smaller vehicles, and we
are continuously hearing demand for more of those, um, small vehicle parking spaces.
So that's something that we're continu ... continuously looking for is how to better support,
um, smaller transportation, which is in the big scheme of things probably more
sustainable. And you can fit a lot more in a smaller space, which is always good. Um,
our enforcement staff, again as I mentioned earlier, is really there to help ensure that we
have that turnover and that compliance with our parking areas so we can have as many
people visiting the downtown as possible. And you can park in all of these places, either
using a credit card or using the Passport app. The Passport app is by far and away the
fastest way to park. Um, you can park on -street with the Passport app. You can park in,
uh, Chauncey Swan across the street. You can park in Harrison Street using the Passport
app. So we really like to encourage that, and every year we ... that we, uh, that we look at
the reporting every year. It's just climbing and climbing and climbing. So the public's
getting the word too. Uh, it's definitely faster than digging for change under your.... your
floor mat in your car (laughs) um, and it's even faster than getting our your credit card
cause you don't really even have to leave your seat or your car, or you can use your app
while you're walking to your destination. It's that easy. In terms of projects that we have
going on right now, um, first one I'll talk about is the Bike Share. So, uh.... uh, if you'll
recall last fall, um, the Council signed a contract, approved a contract with Gotcha LLC,
uh, for an electric -assist, um, bike share, a dockless bike share to be launched this spring.
Uh, we had some conversations with Gotcha last fall and they requested that we do a
spring launch, um, and .... which the University and the City both agreed to because we
were getting sort of late in the year. Not that you can't ride a bike all year round, uh, you
can, and there's plenty of people out there riding every day here, but we thought it would
be best to do a launch when.... when it gets warmer outside. So we're very excited.
We're aiming for April. We will have more information on the exact date. We hope to
have it very soon, but we are in our.... engaging in our launch sequence with Gotcha and
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the University, so we're actively planning for the Bike Share launch, uh, this April. So
we're very excited about that. Uh, another thing I wanted to update you all on is electric
vehicles. This really ties in with all of our sustainability in terms of transportation. It ties
into our climate action planning, but um, we do now have 10 electric vehicle charging
stations in our public facilities, which is great. We just added in the last month a charger
to the Court Street Transportation Center. So, um .... so that's exciting news. Um, we're
keeping tabs on the usage of all those because they have this great back end software that
we can use to evaluate and to .... to understand how many people are using it, and really
our goal in the next .... year or so is to ... to double that, and then keep monitoring and
expand, um, to other locations. Tower Place is the only facility that currently does not
have, um, a charger. So we'll be looking to add a charger there next. And last but not
least in terms of projects, we are beginning now, um, to implement our .... our five-year
plan for our parking facility maintenance. So our .... our parking facilities need a lot of
maintenance to .... to really maintain them and to make sure that they're life is expanded,
their useful life is expanded as long as possible. Um, last year we completed a five-year
plan, uh, and this will be the second five-year plan that we've done in a row, um, where
we have a consultant team come in and do a thorough evaluation of all of our parking
facilities, and then provide five years of `here's the steps you need to go through in order
to maintain these in the best, uh, condition that you can.' So, we've got the plan
completed and really now it's our turn to .... to focus on, um ... uh, the first year of that
implementation plan. In terms of challenges or opportunities in terms of parking, um, as
I'm sure you're all aware, the demand for transportation facilities, whether that's parking
facilities, road, right-of-way space — all of this is .... is really growing as our population is
growing, um, near downtown, but I also think this is a great opportunity for the City, and
I think the City has embraced better enabling more modes of transportation. You could
see this through the bike master plan in the last few years. Now we're turning our
attention to transit. We've, um, you know, we've ... we've, uh, revitalized the ped mall,
which is really, uh, making sure people can walk, um, pleasantly through the downtown
area. So I think that's a big.... opportunity for us to continue to, um, to continue to better
fmd ways to better support all of the modes of transportation, because I think, uh,
communities, not just our community, but communities across the United States are
realizing that we can't solve all of our mobility problems by focusing on one form of
transportation. We really need to have, uh, a really wide profile of ways that people can
get around town and do so easily So, that's always on our mind, uh, and we think about
that, uh, daily how we can better support all of our... all of our modes of transportation.
Um, another challenge we've had is that I would say mobility and transportation in
general is becoming very data -oriented, um, which is exciting, because there's a lot of
opportunities to really do some strategic things, but however our staff doesn't currently
have the time to be able to access all of that data and to put it in a usable form and then to
repeat that to see where our trends are, uh, so something that we've, uh, we've requested
in the budget is a data analyst, uh, for the Transportation Services Department that would
support transit, parking, uh, the bike share that comes in — virtually every form of
transportation that affects the City, and it would really allow us to be more strategic and
provide a better level of service for the community. We've also asked for an increase,
um, in terms of the .... the number of hours that our CSRs can provide for parking and
transit. Um, and I mentioned earlier that we have... growing population, an increase
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number of requests and inquires that are coming in, um, either walk in or email
or .... picking up the phone and calling. So we're hoping ... we're asking for an increase,
uh, a quarter -time increase to get some of our, uh, three-quarter time representatives to
full time, um, to help support that. And last but not least in terms of the parking division
in downtown, uh, is our evening.... we have a request for an additional evening
maintenance worker. Um, we have a lot of work that we could be doing in the evening,
when ... things like painting, sweeping — things that you don't wanna do when there's a lot
of people around, uh, and those things have been I would say somewhat neglected over
the years. Neglected's probably not the right word, but not optimized really. We could
be doing a lot more when there's not people there, and so, um, in short we've asked for
additional staffing for the evenings to help, um, make sure that the ... the downtown is
ready to go, ready for visitors, um, the next day, and also to help maintain and to extend
the life cycle of, um, all of those things we have downtown, whether it's the facilities or
the, you know, the benches, the trash cans, all of those things. So that was
another.... that's another challenge we've had and we ... and we have parlayed that into a
request for additional staffing. All right, last but not least, Transit Division, uh, really
quickly just to give you a sense of scale. I'm sure you all are pretty familiar with our
transit system, but we do have a fleet of about 27 vehicles. Um, we have 14 paratransit
vehicles that I, as I mentioned earlier, we also own and maintain. Uh, SEATS runs the
service for us, but that's a responsibility that falls to us, uh, keeping our mechanic staff
very busy. We have 41 drivers, as I mentioned earlier, and to give you a sense of, uh,
ridership scale, that's, uh... during the last fiscal year we provided 1.4 million rides to the
public, uh, in this community, which is .... which is really great, and that, to give you
another sense of scale, that's about 5,000 to 6,000 people per day rely on our transit
system to get from point A to point B, um, during the school year. It's about 4,000 per
day, little more than 4,000 per day, um, during the summer. So it does decrease, but it
doesn't decrease by .... as much as one might expect, with the University not being in
session. We do this on 30 different routes and at any given time during the peak period,
you'll see about 20 buses on the road. Urn .... in terms of highlights, uh, we were able to
kick off the bus shelter revitalization, uh, project, uh, over the last year, which we were
very excited about. We got some new bus shelters out there. We replaced some old ones
that were in very bad condition, um, very poor condition, and we were able to expand,
um, the places that have shelters. We have another round this spring. We are doing a few
replacements. We're doing more new locations, a few replacements, and then really
we're waiting for the transit study, which I'll talk a little bit more about in a second, but
waiting for that to wrap up so we have a good sense for where all the stops, uh, and the
routes will be. We don't want to get too far down the road. Um, so we're continuing
with that program and there are funds dedicated for that every other year into the future,
and we'll continue to find those locations and, uh, expand that program so that people can
use, uh, transit in a more comfortable.... comfortable, safe manner. Urn .... we are
pursuing funding for a new transit facility. Um, some of you may have been to our transit
facility. If not, feel free to let me know any time you wanna come out. I would love to
give you a tour. The facility itself is solid, but reaching the end of its useful life, I would
say. Uh, it's about 35 years old. Uh, what's ....what's problematic about that is we do
have some .... really old equipment that is built-in that we rely on. Um, we also are not
able to expand, at all. Uh, we could not put another bus in that facility. So if our goal is
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to really enhance and build our transit system to help meet the needs of a growing
population for the future, we're really -we're really kind of hemmed in right now.
Um .... we also have a problem that we can't expand at our current location because, um,
of the ground subsidence issues, um, that we've had for some time. So .... so really a new
facility is what we're, um, what we're hoping, uh, we'll be able to get some federal
funding for. We've .... we did two federal funding, um, grant proposals this year. We did
one the year before. We have not been successful yet, but we are not deterred (laughs)
We're gonna keep at it. Um, so we hope to have some good news in the future regarding
that, but I just wanted to know .... you all to know about that challenge that .... that we're
experiencing. Also if we're looking to shift to, um, no or low -emission vehicles, which is
really kind of the future of transit, um, we're limited in that building because if electric,
say for example, was the direction we wanted to head, um, there's only so much power in
the facility currently, and then you'd be looking at making a lot of investments in a
facility that is likely not .... I mean it's reached the end of its useful life. So those are
some things that are concerns and challenges that we're.... we're thinking about and
we're working through. And last but not least, the transit study. So, um, the Iowa City
Area Transit Study is the official title. We refer to it just as the transit study, but I wanted
to give you all an update on where we're at. Of course this is a strategic planning item of
the Council and the Council helped us to .... a few years back, to articulate a goal of
doubling our transit ridership over the next 10 years, which is a lofty goal but it's a goal I
think we could do, um, with the right planning, and we also, the Council also helped
articulate a goal to transition to low or no emission technology. So really, you know, is
the diesel bus the wave of the future? It's probably not. So let's start looking at what we
need to do to get to cleaner fuel vehicles. Um, in that vein, the climate action plan, of
course, calls for a shift of 55% of vehicle trips by 2050, um, to more sustainable options,
such as biking, walking, or transit. And that's gonna take some imagination and
reimagination of our transit system to help encourage people to ... to park their car at home
and ... and hop on transit. And last but not least, you know we've been receiving, and I
know the Council has been receiving this as well, you know, requests for increased
service levels for our transit system. Um, and to optimize our route system. And we get
that from our own staff too. So I think everybody's in agreement, um, that it's time to
take a deep dive into our transit system and that's where we're at today. So really briefly,
for those of you that may not be familiar with the transit study, um, we are reviewing all
routes, stops, uh, service hours, Sunday service, um, coverage areas. We're looking at
ways we can better coordinate with Coralville and with the University, and we're looking
on .... at how we can leverage emerging technologies, um, things that weren't here a few
years ago. I'm thinking, you know, demand -based, app-basesd service, you know,
how .... and other things (laughs) There's a lot of things under that umbrella, but how can
we leverage those technologies to better provide transit service today. Uh, and last but
not least we're looking at, uh, we're evaluating a zero -fare, uh, a zero -fare system. So
communities across the United States are starting to really take a hard look at, um, taking
away that barrier, whether it's an economic barrier for someone or just simply it's a thing
you have to do, you know, it's.... it's a barrier to people to use transit. So we're
evaluating not only ...we know what our fares are that we receive every year, but ... but if
you remove that barrier, what does it do to your ridership. Uh, all .... all estimates seem to
point that you'll see a significant increase. Well what does that do in terms of labor costs
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and how many more buses do we need, um, and that sort of thing, and that's part of what
the transit consultant team is helping us walk through today is identifying what those
costs are, so that when we get, um, to the end of the transit study we can make some of
those decisions about what we want our transit system to look like for the future. And the
last point I'll leave you with, um, is .... I just wanna give you a heads up of what we've
done this fall, in terms of the transit study. Um, we did an on -board survey of a thousand
riders. So we were able to actually sit with a thousand riders and get feedback from them
on what works well and what doesn't in the transit system today. We had 1,200 responses
to the `design your own transit system' survey, and that was the online survey, where
people can really pick what, uh, what aspects of the transit system are most important to
them, um, and what's least important, and that will help us prioritize recommendations.
Um, we had three open -house meetings, which were very well attended. We had 20 -plus
stakeholder meetings with advocacy groups, um, the schools, University, economic
development groups, uh, operators, transit staff, and we had some meetings with large
housing development providers. And where we're at today, sort of our next steps, uh, at
the end of January, the last week of January, is going to be our next sort of public
outreach week. So we're going to have a series of three open houses, um, Iowa City's
hosting the open house on Tuesday the 20, from 6:00 to 8:00 P.M. at the Iowa City
Public Library. There'll be more information coming out through our typical City
channels very soon. Um, but there will be one, again, at the University campus as well,
and then Coralville will also be hosting a meeting too, and what's... what's going to
happen during those meetings is the consultant team is bringing back to us some ... some
service scenarios. So two to three, I think three. I'll know more on Monday, um,
different service scenarios. So the .... the public will have something to respond to in
terms of routes, um .... and.....and what the service, uh, what the service.... the redesign
could potentially look like. With the goal of taking all the feedback from the public and
ultimately over the spring is narrowing it down to one service scenario that sort of, uh, it
could be pieces of each of the systems that were, uh, presented, but really to .... to identify
one preferred, uh, transit system, uh redesign, and to move forward with that. On
Monday, as I .... on Monday we have our .... our first workshop, so it's going to be the first
time that staff has had an opportunity to really dig into this. So I'll have more
information on what those service scenarios might look like that we're going to present to
the public after that point, um, if anybody is interested, but we expect, um, we expect the
report to be finalized. We're movin' on target and we're on schedule. We expect the
report to be finalized, um, this summer with recommendations. This summer, um, they're
doing two things for us. One is they're.... they're optimizing our current system, under
our current set of resources, which is very important and I think long overdue, and
they're also going to evaluate the enhancements that we could add and what those
associated costs are. So that's what we'll have to work with this summer, um, and then
we'll need to make some important decisions about what we want our transit system to
look like for the future. Um, and some of those things we might be able to implement
very quickly, some of them may take some time, um, that's something we're going to
have to sort through this summer, but that's, um, that's basically the transit study in a
nutshell right now. And I know (both talking)
Salih/ What time is the meeting?
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Nagle-Gamm/ The meeting is 6:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M. and it's at the Iowa City Public Library and
we will also be, um, providing on -demand service from .... on -demand transit service, um,
from the Public Library back to neighborhoods. So because our transit system turns
down service at night, it can be a challenge, but we will be providing service home.
The... the service is very good to downtown, um, during the 6:00 hour, but every half an
hour we will be providing, um, on -demand rides back to neighborhoods. So (several
talking) help spread the word about that as well.
Salih/ Yeah! Nice!
Taylor/ I wanted to thank you. Uh, I was pleased to see the continued line item for the bus
shelters. Um .... and thanks to input from a very loyal transit rider, Mary Gravitt, give her
kudos for that cause, um, our .... our, um, Council over the last three to four years had
been stressing that, thanks to her input, that that was .... that was necessary, and as I drove
around town could... could see what she was talking about. There was either lack of it
or ... or they were in very poor shape. So, uh, I would hope that that continues to be a
priority. I was excited to see when the new ones came on board, uh, the solar roof panels,
uh, and then driving by them at night, it really does light them up and I don't know if
you've received any input on that, but I hope it's been very positive, cause that's a ... that's
a very good thing. Uh, the other thing I just wanted to touch on was that I think it was in
the police report or something, it was noted that, uh, the revenue from, uh, parking
violations was down, but I think you mentioned this Passport app, and I wondered if
maybe that plays a big part in it, cause people don't have to run out to the meters or just
don't go to the meters at all. They can just very easily on their phone, so I would hope
that that, uh, continues and that it can be made as easy as possible for people to use.
Nagle-Gamm/ Yes, and to that point, I think part of it was due to staffing. Um, we had some...
some great staffing issues, and that's when your .... when your enforcement staff gets
promoted to other positions, um, and I think just generally needing more people in the
downtown, and we're in the process of staffing up. So I think both of those two probably
contributed, plus, um, you know, it is easier, it is easier to pay the meter, but you can't
pay the meter. I will say this, so if you're parked in a one-hour meter, you can't sit from
your phone at your restaurant and keep loadin' it up, I mean that's against our City code,
so ... so it probably is contributing on some level, but not as much as one might imagine,
but I think .... I think with our recent staffing, um, with our recent staffing initiatives, I
think we're gonna see, uh, better compliance in the downtown, and that number will
probably look different next year.
Taylor/ Thank you.
Thomas/ So you will have more staff to enforce... making sure that that ... the limits on the amount
of time you can park in a certain space will be enforced? Is that....
Nagle-Gamm/ Yes. So currently .... so.....if somebody is plugging the meter....
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Thomas/ That's... which is the other issue. How will you ... how will you ... making sure people
don't do that?
Nagle-Gamm/ So that's very difficult to do. Especially -we used to be able to chalk tires, but I
wouldn't say most of our chalking efforts were focused on that particularly, but through
the Passport app, we can limit it. So if you use the Passport app and you try to .... you
need to wait for a specified amount of time before you can use the app again for that
exact same space. So that's how we're.... that's more how we're enforcing it, um,
than ... than we have in the past. It's still very challenging for people who pay with credit
card or who pay, um, just with (both talking)
Thomas/ If you just feed the meter, you'd bypass that (both talking)A
Nagle-Gamm/ ...yes! Yep.
Salih/ And how long is that time?
Nagle-Gamm/ I can't recall off the top of my head, but it's under ...I think it's under an hour. I
don't.... L ....I don't know the exact amount off -hand, but I could find out.
Salih/ Uh huh.
Teague/ It's very helpful to have that app. I use it all the time.
Salih/ Yeah.
Teague/ Sometimes I can't see the numbers, dependin' on, you know, where my car's parked and,
um, and ... now that it's cold, I (laughs) never really realized it until now, you know,
there's some cold days. If there's any way to ... with future ones that you're replacing, to
find a way to either enlarge the numbers so that it can be readily seen by people, and I
think I have 20/20 vision. My doctor might say scientifically it's different (laughs) but if
you can just figure out a way to ... you know, enhance the writin' or put it in multiple
places, maybe on the side of the pole, um, or somethin' like that. I don't .... I .... totally
don't know, but um .... yeah, it's a little challengin' at times to see. But it's very useful!
Weiner/ It's also turned into a great regional tool, because it turns out Cedar Rapids uses the
same app. (several responding)
Nagle-Gamm/ ...was not aware of that.
Teague/ With the transit study, of course we're eagerly waitin' to see that, um, you know, staff
costs we already know we're gonna anticipate, but what do you anticipate, and I don't
want you to answer this. I just want you to think about like staffing patterns, because of
course there's a lot of staff from the bus .... bus that is worried about, `Oh, now I have to
work Sundays,' and all that other stuff, and I'm sure you all are thinkin' about that, um,
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but staffin' patterns are gonna be a big thing to overcome, possibly with a few individuals
that has been used to not workin' Sundays.
Nagle-Gamm/ Yes, that will be .... that will be a challenge. If Sunday service is ultimately, um,
and I will say that Sunday service is one of the... one of the items that's come out of the
feedback that we've been sort of collecting and .... and wading through over the last few
months, and Sunday services is close to the top, if not the top, um, item that was
requested. So yes, it's definitely something that's on our minds. Um, you know, we're
gonna ... if that is indeed something that the Council wants to approve moving forward
with and providing that level of service, we're really gonna have to think about how we
schedule all of our.... all of our shifts, from administration to, you know, our frontline
drivers to our mechanic staff. I mean it affects every part of our operation, so that's....
it's going to be a big change, and we're going to have to figure out how to ... how to work
through that.
Mims/ When you have a consultant like this come in and you talk about potentially doing some
major revamping, and as you said, one of the things that's come to the top, or very near
the top, is the Sunday service. And if we implement that, and if we implement it at a ... say
at a service level that we would have right now, on a .... on a Monday through Friday, and
if .... we, and I'm throwing out a lot of ifs, and if we were to find that the actual ridership
is very low, and .... and maybe very concentrated routes, etc., very concentrated times of
day let's say, are you already thinking about a mechanism to make adjustments to that
new service, or do ... to put it in, kind of on a temporary trial basis. So the public
understands from the beginning that if these routes aren't used at a certain level that we
won't continue them, because I think we've all heard the need for that service, but I think
we all can anticipate it may be very concentrated parts of the city, very concentrated
times of day, and the last we want is a bunch of empty buses running around ..... for
climate reasons, for... financial reasons, etc. So ... just I hate to have the expectation of
everybody that, oh all of a sudden we're going to have all -day Sunday service, and then
six months later, a year later, we're like .... 50% of these buses are running empty and we
need to cut back. So just kinda thinking about how we do that is my thought.
Nagle -Gamin/ No, that's a really good point, and it's one of the first conversations we had with
the consultant team. Uh, we talked about is, you know, after implementation, how.... do
we .... how do we go from day one, you know, through the next year, what kind of service
do they provide, and they said it is, um .... nearly 100% of the time there are adjustments
made to service and not full-scale adjustments, but that you have to tweak afterwards. So
yeah, how we position that to the public, um, I think is going to be really important.
Another thing you want to think about, that I'm thinkin' about and the team is thinkin'
about is maybe 40 -foot fixed route isn't the number one solution either, um, and that
really changes your mind, uh, that can really broaden.... broaden your mind in terms of
how do we get service to the people who need the service and .... and do we need fixed
route service, do we need on -demand service. What kind of service do we need to help
support people on Sundays or later on Saturdays or earlier on Saturdays for that matter
too. So...
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Mims/ Yeah, I mean one of the things I've thrown out multiple times is .... is potentially a
voucher type thing. Um, voucher, vans, whatever, because of that where you can fine-
tune it more to the people who need it, when they need it, and particularly to people who
need it for financial or .... or mobility reasons.
Nagle-Gamm/ Right. Yep.
Salih/ What does the like input from the public about Sunday? Do you have like clear input right
now or.....
Nagle-Gamm/ I would say .... so from the .... from the..... (mumbled, away from mic) Wait just
one second here! The .... I would say the first, this is from the.....I believe this is the on-
board survey, but the first .... no, this is your design your own. This is the design your
own system. So this is really where people get a .... kind of prioritize. They only had a
limited amount of money to spend in the survey, and they had to ... had to determine what
means the most to them, what they'd spend the most money on. So in terms of Iowa City
residents, the fust desired improvement, uh, in terms of percentage was Sunday service.
The second was earlier and later on Saturday. The third was later weekday. The fourth
was route stop .... excuse me, route and schedule info at stop. So just having some more
information at the stops. Um, more frequent Saturday service would have been the fifth
thing that was mentioned. And then you get into, uh, more frequent rush hour service.
So again not having to wait as long for .... for buses, increasing that frequency so you
don't think so much about it and you just, you know, you're out there and the bus is going
to appear, and then more buses and shelters, and then there was a few other things —
lighting amenities and things like that, but if that gives you an idea .... a sense of what
we're hearing.
Salih/ Yes!
Nagle-Gamm/ That's really..um, that's kind of a stack rank of what we heard from Iowa City
residents. Or (several talking) people who ride Iowa City transit, I should say.
Salih/ Yes, of course. Have you get any input from the Coralville/Iowa City Convention
(mumbled) Convention Bureau? Because I remember when we met with `em before they
said their .... their Sunday employees.... they are really struggle finding Sunday employees
because of the transportation and they even said sometime they have to have their own
bus to go and pick up people, so they can have that, and this is really affecting Sunday
businesses and their hotel. Uh, I met with them .... that was long time, while I was
running (laughs) for office, but you can also reach out to them and they will give you
feedback.
Nagle-Gamm/ I will. I will reach out to them. I believe we've reached out, um, when we were
doing the stakeholder reviews. I don't know if we heard back from `em. I don't know if
the timing in the schedule just didn't work out for them to ... to meet one-on-one with
our ..... with our, uh, consultant team, but I will certainly reach out as we're doing the
second round.
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Salih/ Sure. Thanks!
Nagle-Gamm/ Uh huh!
Teague/ You mentioned about the parkin' ramp south of Burlington Street. So I heard you do a
presentation here recently, and I honestly never thought about the (laughs) the parkin'
ramps south of Burlington. In my mind it seems so far. I'll drive around downtown,
can't find a park, go to park .... one of the parkin' ramps is full and I just drive around. I
went to one of them, and it literally was two -minute walk. Itis so close. It's somethin'
that I think until you really think about it and try it once, then it'll really make sense that,
uh, when downtown is overburdened with park...with parks taken up, south of Burlington
is a great place to go.
Nagle-Gamm/ Thank you for reinforcing that, and yes, that (mumbled) 10:00 to 2:00 every day is
when we have the most I would say pressure on our parking facilities, although it's
subsiding a bit. I should also mention we had, I think .... in recent years we peaked last
year, um, and when we measured again this fall, what our ...what our demand was and
how full our facilities were between 10:00 and 2:00, it dropped by about 20% during that
time frame. So I'm perceiving that as the receding of the construction traffic, um....
that's... that's leaving town and that put pressure on our meters and on all of our facilities.
So it's better this year than it was last year, um, but if you want a guaranteed parking
spot, it's a two -minute walk from Court Street Transportation Center to the ped mall. It's
five minutes from, max from, um, from the Harrison Street. So ... thanks for reinforcing
that and we're trying to get the word out, so ... the people that don't like the driving
around, you can just go right to a parking spot and it's a short walk. Short urban walk!
Lots of stuff to look at. It's very interesting!
Teague/ Thank you so much. Yes, have a good day! All right, we're gonna go to the Airport
now. Come on up, Mike!
Tharp/ Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor. Congratulations, and welcome to our new Council
Members! I am Mike Tharp, I'm the Airport Operations Specialist. Um, the Airport
operates under similar structure as what the Library does. Uh, there's an Airport
Commission that's in charge of managing the Airport, operating the Airport. Uh, you all
appoint people to the Airport Commission and they in turn hire somebody to, uh, help
manage the Airport on a day-to-day basis and at the moment, that's me! (laughs) Um,
our operating budget is .... is actually pretty straightforward. We operate on a roughly
$100 ... uh, $370,000 operating budget. Uh, we are entering what would be proposed to be
the third year of not having, uh, general tax support as part of that budget. Um, this
would be the sixth year that we've been debt -free. Um .... and a lot of that is ... is, it's been
a lot of work over the years to, uh, get the Airport into that position, but it's a great
position to be in and hope to keep the Airport there for a long time. Um... if you're not
familiar with the Airport, we have two runways — a primary runway and a secondary
runway. The primary runway is 5,004 feet long, secondary one is 3,900 feet, and that
serves the business aviation, personal aviation community, uh, we can virtually handle,
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uh, about 90% of the general aviation traffic. There's obviously larger airplanes that
can't use us, but uh... urn .... they have Cedar Rapids. Um .... uh, one of the ways we track,
uh... uh, activity is through fuel sales. Um, the last couple of years of fuel sales we've
seen some pretty marketed, uh, increases in our activity. Um .... we're startin' to see that
taper off a little bit. We think some of the runway work we have planned in the future in
terms of .... of, uh, projects we've got goin' on, will .... will bump that up a little bit more,
but I think we are seeing kind of the usage of the Airport that has been planned over the
last few years come to fruition. Um .... those plans are contained in the Airport master
plan, uh, the Airport master plan is a 20 -year document that we, uh... uh, prepare in
conjunction with the FAA, and that kind of dictates, uh, what the Airport, uh,
Commission and the Airport community think is ... is how the Airport is gonna develop
over the next 20 years and ... and the FAA blesses that, and .... and that becomes the
foundation of .... of most of our FAA funding for .... for projects. Um ... we have
approximately 90 based aircraft that house at the Airport. Uh, that translates to roughly
30,000 operations a year. Uh, both are .... from our based aircraft and our transient folks
that are coming in to do business. Uh, one of the neat things about the Airport is you can
see the health of the community by virtue of the traffic that is coming in, uh, you know,
we serve as a, uh... kind of a front view of..of, a screen door view of the community. So
one of my goals and ... and continuing goals is always to make the Airport terminal look as
presentable as we can. We've had a number of project... projects over the years to, uh,
kind of rehab, refurbish the Airport terminal. If you're not familiar with that, it's a 1951
building. So it, uh, it's... it's a wonderful building, um, but it does take its ... its toll on ... on
up ... uh, upkeep and... and budgets to make sure everything's running and looking good.
Um, beyond that .... as I turn to my notes (laughs) um.....the majority of our ...our, uh,
revenue that we do get is from our hangar rentals and our ground leases. We get about
10% of our budget from our fuel sales. Uh, we ... we charge 10 -cents per gallon as a
flowage fee to the fixed base operator that is in charge of the fuel sales. Um .... uh, as part
of our operations, annually we host, uh, events with the community. We do a pancake
breakfast at the end of August every year. Um, we do a Young Eagles event in
conjunction with the ... the local experimental aircraft association chapter, uh, that is a
program that gets kids free airplane rides, a chance to kinda spark that aviation interest
in .... in kids and hopefully continue that on. Um, if you're... if you're seen any aviation
news recently beyond the ... the FAA and the Boeing airline issues, um, there's also a lot of
discussion on pilot shortages, mechanic shortages, and ... as an airport, we feel some of
that too, because what happens is the airlines will pick charter pilots and it kinda just
transitions up the ladder, as the airlines are reaching into the charter operators to get the
pilots. Now our charter operators have a harder time, uh.... uh, finding pilots and ... and
being able to conduct their operations. So it's... it's, you know, ever -climbing ladder,
ever -transitioning, and the industry is reacting to it. Um .... um.....let's see, what else
(mumbled) That is more or less my (laughs) my budget! Uh, pretty, again, pretty
straightforward. If you haven't been to the Airport, please come down. Uh, happy to
give everybody tours. Uh, we do have a fixed base operator that's kind of like the Airport
concessionaire. They do, uh, aircraft maintenance, charter services, uh, refueling, um,
we've got the University of Iowa operator performance lab at the Airport. They're a
major research arm, uh, operating under the College of Engineering. Um, unfortunately
they made a little bit of news about a week ago with a .... a drone incident. Um .... uh, but
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the research they're doing is ... is .... is cutting edge, and they work with Collins Aerospace.
They work with, uh, a number of government agencies. Um, we have a couple other
businesses that operate at the Airport that help, uh, our .... our, uh... uh, charter company
and they do medical flights in conjunction with the fixed base operator. So it's a ... it's a
great place to be, uh, certainly active and ... and we hope to keep everything going that
way!
Mims/ What percent of the hangar space is leased?
Tharp/ Uh, right now everything's leased!
Mims/ Do you see in the future an ... any anticipation of wanting to expand hangar space or...
Tharp/ Um, I would love to. Figuring out the financing is .... unfortunately aviation is so
dependent on additional grant fundings, that just doing anything outright with cash or
loans (both talking) rarely work. Um....
Mims/ Okay. Yeah, I know we've talked about it before. It's like the lease numbers are so low it
doesn't even cover the cost.
Tharp/Yeah, unfortunately.
Mims/ Okay. Thanks!
Salih/ Do you have hourly employees at the Airport?
Tharp/ Uh, as far as the City employees, I am the sole City employee. Um, in terms of
everybody else at the Airport, the FBO has roughly about 20 employees, uh, whether it's
maintenance, pilots, uh... uh, refueling staff. Um .... the University has around a dozen,
uh, grad ... you know, uh, students, graduate students, teachers. Um, the ambulance
company that's based at the Airport has roughly a dozen or so.
Salih/ I see.
Tharp/ Um....
Salih/ Uh huh. And also, if there is a group of people wanna do like .... you do like kids tour...
(both talking)
Tharp/ Yeah, absolutely! Uh, the summertime we do a lot of tours, just as, um..uh, kids are in
kind of programs for, uh, occupying their time, uh, they use the Airport a lot for tours
during the summer, but yeah, even during the year, uh, class trips, uh, I've even gone out
to some of the schools as they've done some of their ...their STEM work, and you know, if
they happen to have an aviation chapter or somethin' that, uh, we'll grab a couple of
flight instructors and we'll talk airplanes. We'll talk, you k now, aviation, what makes
airplanes fly (mumbled) lift principle, all of that fun stuff, um .... but yeah, tours, uh,
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absolutely, and they get a chance to take a look at the maintenance hangar, see some
airplanes, see what goes on.
Salih/ Sure. Monday through Friday or could be weekend too.
Tharp/ Um, usually we try to keep it into ... into the week, cause that's when we have normal staff,
um, there and activity there, so it's easier to answer questions and, uh....
Salih/ Okay. Sure, thanks!
Teague/ Thank you so much, Michael!
Tharp/ Thank you!
Teague/ Enjoy your ...the rest of your day! All righty! Do we feel like we wanna break or .... I see
Ron! We wanna go? All right! You're up! Right on time! (laughs) Yes, Public Works
program budget.
Knoche/ Good afternoon! Ron Knoche, Public Works Director. Um, kind of an overview of
myself. Um, I've been with the City 21 years. That'll be 21 years this April. And, uh,
been, uh, this is my sixth presentation as the Public Works Director on the budget. So,
um, came to school here in August of 1991 and haven't left. So .... old timer I guess, if
you wanna call it that.
Teague/ Nice!
Knoche/ Um, the Public Works, uh, budget is, uh, the summary is on page 62, uh, of the budget.
Um ... it identifies it, we have seven divisions, uh, we have nine different operational areas
that we work in. Um, the ... the Public Works department is funded through, uh, general
funds, special revenue funds, enterprise funds, internal funds, and so because of that we'll
be all over this budget document. We're all through it in multiple pages. So, um, Public
Works we have 155, currently have 155 employees. This budget, uh, increases us to 157,
uh, and a quarter. Uh, we have a senior engineer position that is included, uh, in the
engineering budget and then we have, uh, some of the, urn .... uh, the customer service
representatives that are covered in our landfill and refuse budget. So that's those two
positions that are ... that position and a half, that that's included in this budget proposal.
Um, so with that we'll dive in! Um, page 287, uh, is the Public Works administration
budget. Um, there's just two staff members in here. It's kind of status quo. Uh, I think
the biggest change that you'll see with this budget this year is the Public Works facility
operations is funded through the Public Works administration budget. So, um, it ... it's
just, that's just kind of a pass-through piece, but uh, that's kind of the .... the biggest
change that you'll see as far as the dollar amounts in there. Uh, Public Works
administration, uh, obviously we oversee all the Public Works, uh, operations piece, uh,
but then we also deal with, uh, temporary use of right-of-way agreements, um, sidewalk
cafes, all those operation pieces that are happening within the Public Works
administration piece. Um, so, uh.... we're, uh... uh, moving forward in regard to, um, in
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the sidewalk cafe area. We're gonna look at our, um, current policy, we're going to
update that due to, uh, Washington Street, uh, reconstruction and uh, the ped mall
reconstruction, um, but for the most part, uh, the ... the overall program there will remain
the same, but uh, that is, uh, Public Works administration. Um, we have, uh, engineering
services is on page 290. Uh, so this is, um, currently, uh, is, uh.... 16 members, it shows
up as 18, uh, as far as staff members. Part of that, uh, one of those members is our, uh,
front... front desk person. So, uh, that was a conversion from a temporary position, uh,
and then the senior, uh, engineer position in this .... in this group. Obviously a very busy
group. We have, uh, currently 112 active, uh, CIP projects going on, and we have 50
private development projects that are ongoing. So, um, it's, uh, a lot of things are going
on within the engineering division, um, and then the other things that we're trying to
tackle is a part of that (mumbled) ongoing pieces, um, is the SUDAS, the Statewide
Urban Design Standards. Uh, we .... we're able to go through and do the construction
specifications and get those, uh... um, underway. Uh, this next Council meeting we'll
actually be adopting the 2020, uh, capital ... or construction specifications. Ile ... the other
piece that goes as a part of that is the design standards. Um, we ... we've had some
discussions in regards to (mumbled) and some of those other things. The... the big
discussion now that has to happen with that is how does that get incorporated into our
City code, because there's pieces of the design standards that ... that are currently covered
under code provisions, um, so we're.... we're going through that process right now and,
um, figurin' out where, uh, where those pieces are at, and then the biggest part of that is
determining do we go with SUDAS or do we stay with, how we currently operate, and so,
um, that'll be within this 2020 year, uh, as .... as we move forward in adopting those. Um,
the... where we're at right now, from a staffing standpoint, clearly we, you know, with, uh,
almost 200 projects goin' on, uh, staffing ... it .... it's challenge for folks to be able to get
things done, uh, but the other part of the issue is we have no space to grow. So, uh, we're
trying to figure out, you know, where to put people at within the third floor of this
building, um, and so ... um, we need to grow as far as staff goes, but we don't have a place
to put folks. So, that's one of the challenges that we're gonna have to work through, um,
in this coming year. Um, any questions on the engineering budget? All right!
Teague/ I have to say, for the engineers, cause I spent a little time up in their office, one when
you're talkin' about the space, literally when I went to talk to people, you know, I'm
sittin' in the middle of this big room, with other people desks all around, you know,
you're havin' these conversations, you're tryin' to keep your voice low because someone
else is on the phone, so I do understand the space concern. And as far as like all the
projects that you all have on, have goin' on, I was so amazed at the... at the industry, um,
plumbers and electricians that, um, talk about how the City, you k now, when they do an
inspection, they call and then the next day like they ...I mean they really depend on you all
comin' the next day whenever they're done with a pro .... you know, whatever needs to be
inspected so that they can keep on ... on track with their construction. It was unbelievable
(mumbled) faith that they knew that the City would come (laughs) and even though I
know that the City was a burden with so many projects going on, you all made it possible
to show up. I was amazed at that.
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Knoche/ I think you're confused with NDS, as far as (both talking) so NDS is the actual, um,
residential and commercial construction.
Teague/ Yes!
Knoche/ The projects that engineering is overseeing is all the capital programs.
Teague/ Okay! Great! Well (both talking) we'll take that comment to NDS! (laughs)
Knoche/ (both talking) But yeah, I mean it's ... it is, uh, it ... yeah, there's a lot going on, and uh...
um, we have a younger staff now, um, which also makes it challenging because, um,
there's a lot of knowledge transfer that still needs to occur with that younger staff. So,
we'll .... we'll continue on developing that piece of it. Um, the storm water engineering
part is also within the engineering division. I'll cover that separately. That's actually
further back in the book. But, uh, but the next, uh, topic is streets. Uh, so 305 in the
budget book is actually the road use tax fund. Um, that is where, uh, a majority of our
streets division is, uh, is .... well all of our streets division is paid out of Uh, so with our
streets division, um, you know, we're.... they're coverin' all the snow routes, uh, dealing
with all of the potholes, um, working through, um, street lights, signage, um, we
currently, uh, operate all the traffic signals within the University, University Heights, and
Iowa City. Um, so there's, um, coordination that goes on with those outside institutions,
um, to do those things. Urn .... we, uh.... within the last couple years we've actually
grown a snow route. So that's... that's helped in regards to, uh, the response time that
occurs on our.... on our snow events. And, um, with, uh, with Brock Holub as our... as our
Street Superintendent, um, I think the operations has ... has gotten much better in regards
to response to snow events, um, over the last couple years. Uh, we just had John Saboski
leave us, uh, John had, you know, multiple years of experience, and, uh, Dave Gillham
was going to be his replacement, or is his replacement (mumbled) Streets, uh, Assistant
Superintendent. So, um, Brock is gonna get some ... someone who's been within the
organization for a number of years, but um, someone that staff looks up to and have some
support in regards to that aspect. Um (mumbled) there are 32 employees, um, the
....obviously the .... the biggest and the ... the, you know, the best thing that we have goin'
for us right now is our new building. So, uh, we actually got to temporary occupancy, uh,
down there, uh, last week and so we actually have some trucks in the building, which is
nice. Um, luckily to this point winter's been fairly mild so, um, we haven't had any
issues in regards to the trucks out in the field, as far as being outside, but the .... the....
that's.... that's one of the things that is we had the, um, retirement party for staff a few
weeks ago. Um, there's a number of folks that came back that were long-time employees
that, you know, had 30 and 40 years worth of service to the City and, uh, you know, when
they were hired, there was a new building coming. So, um, to actually have that building
built and ... and staff actually bein' able to occupy it now is ... is tremendous and, uh, you k
now, it's obviously the support of the Council that actually made that ... that happen, and
so, um, you know, we look forward to more projects like that, uh, as we build out the
Public Works facility, but uh, I think that's ... that project, um, went very well and, uh,
that's one of those projects that, um, you know, staff that have, um, basically it's the
legacy of those staff members, um, that have ... are retiring here, you know, over the last
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few months and then, uh, the ones that have also been long-term employees for us. So,
um, the ... as we move forward with the new facility, um, it'll open up some opportunities
for us. We'll be lookin' at, uh, salt brine production, uh, here in this next, not ... we won't
be able to do it this year, but uh, next year, uh, a response to snow events. So, um, that
will help from a sustainability standpoint. We won't be spreadin' salt and sand all over
the place, uh, in ... in events. Um, and then, um, it just... it'll help in that response piece in
those snow events also. Um, we're also, uh, going through the process right now in
implementing automated vehicle location systems. So we have that in our snow plows
now. Um, basically it gives us the oppor...the ability in the future to show folks where the
snow plows have been and where, you know, which way they're goin' and where they're
gonna be at and where they've actually placed material. Um, we're not quite refined
enough for that yet. We don't wanna, uh, we don't have any public facing yet, but we do
have the ability to see how that response goes, uh, with regards to, um, the snow removal
aspect. Any questions on streets? All right. The next fund is the waste water fund. So
that starts on page 394. Um .... the .... waste water operations, uh, obviously,
um..... everything that Public Works does, um, you know, is ... is touching the daily lives of
our ...of our, uh, community members. Um, so our waste water plant, um, we're.... we're
treatin' about 11,000,000 gallons of water a day, uh, down at the waste water plant. Um,
we have, uh, about .... what do we have..... 20.....26 employees, um, so they're, um,
there's about.... they're about a third each, so we have a third that are, as far as plant
operations, a third for plant maintenance, and then we have a third that are actually out in
the collection system, uh, going through and.... and cleaning, dealing with sewer backups
that do occur, um, unfortunately, um, and are doing the cleaning and ... and, um, taking
care of those things. Um .... the .... within our system, you know, we have gravity sewers,
we have pump stations, um, obviously the goal is to not have pump stations if we can
avoid `em. Uh, one of the projects we'll have comin' up here capital wise, uh, in the next
year or two is gonna be, we'll be takin' the Windsor Ridge lift station offline. So that's
the Scott Park trunk ... or the Scott trunk sewer, uh, extension on that one. Um ... so that'll
eliminate the, one... one of our lift stations within the ... within the system. Um, the ... the
plan itself, we just went through an upgrade in 2014. Um, that took the north plant
offline and moved everything down to the south plant. But the south plant is still a 30 -
year -old plant for a part of the system, and so we're, um, you know, you'll see in our
capital program, um, and then also in our operating budget, there's... there's various
maintenance type projects that have to occur, uh, down at the waste water plant. Any
questions on waste water? All right! Water division, so the water fund is on page 414,
uh, starting there. Um .... the .... the water plant itself, we're, urn .... in, you know, doing
very well from a water standpoint. Um, you know, we're producin' about two billion
gallons of water a year. Um, basically costs a penny for us to produce a gallon of water,
so it's, um, very efficient in the way things work. Uh, we have, um.... 31 employ.... 31.7,
uh, the current year we have 31.25, in the coming ... so that half a ... a person reduction or
half a FT reduction was, um, Carol Sweeting's position, uh, which is moving to the
sustainability office, uh, with her retirement. Um .... the, we have a 5% increase, rate
increase, proposed with ... with (mumbled) already been approved. So, um, moving
forward there. We have .... um, a plant that's .... that was the first project I started on
comin' here in Iowa City in 1999, but you know, the plant's been in operation now since
2003, um, so we are getting to the point where there's some maintenance type, uh, things
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coming up. The biggest maintenance, uh, item that's out there for us is just cleaning up
the well system and, um, getting those things, uh, basically getting the production back
out of the wells, uh, that we, urn .... need, and...and doesn't hinder what we can produce
right now, but if we got to the point where we .... we're lookin' at needing the ... have full
capacity, we would need those wells in place. Um, the University of Iowa's public, uh,
their P3 that's going on or the process they're going through, um, I think could have some
impact on the water division, just in regards to, um, the water has ..... the University has
their own water plant now, um, but we'll be having some discussions with them in
regards to some various pieces of infrastructure that we have, um, the Bloomington Street
tank which is actually in the, uh, north, uh.... parking structure, and then we also have a
Jordan well that's on Madison Street that we no longer use, um, but the University may
want to use that. So as we're moving forward we'll be having some of those discussions
with the University, um, to .... vacate some space and then also maybe turn over some of
those facilities for them .... for their use. Um, both water and waste water, um, one of the,
kind of the ... the golden lining behind, you know, silver lining on the clouds is that, um,
P&Q um, may not be leaving us, at least not in the capacity that they originally were
thinking. Um, so you know there's... there's, that part of it is ... is, there's gonna be that use
and the need that they have there, uh, in the coming years for us. So, urn .... that's a plus
in regards to how that budget's working out. Any questions on water? All right! Next
budget is refuse collection, 434. So this, uh, this group we have, urn .... this is where the
community service representative position shows up. Uh, we have, uh, currently 18.88,
uh, FTEs. It'll be up to 19.38 in the FY21 budget. Um, we added a staff member in
this .... in this, uh.....uh, budget last year. Um, this year as a part of this budget we're
including an automated, fully automated truck. Um, we are, uh, in a situation where, um,
from a collection standpoint, uh, we're seeing our refuse collection go down, we're
seeing our recycling going up, we're seeing our organics completely exploding in regards
to, uh, how this process is going. So, um, we're, uh, we have carts out, you know, system
wide for refuse. For the recycling, uh, we're probably about 50, 55% as far as, uh,
organics carts out in the system. Um ... and we're to the point now where we no longer
have a waiting list. If you need a yellow, uh, lidded cart, you call in today and you'd
have it basically by the end of the week So, urn .... we're.... we're getting those... those
things out, but um, what we found is, uh, with the $2.00 charge for... for organics, um,
people are using the system very well, and uh, it's (mumbled) gotten to the point now,
um, if you were watching any of the press releases this last week, um, when we have a
make-up day, uh, when we have a holiday and we have a make-up day as far as pickup
goes, we ... we can't catch up in regards to the organic side of things and so those carts end
up staying out on the curb one more day and we're able to basically catch, uh, the one
day that we used to be able to do it in, we ... we basically do it in two now. So .... uh,
the ... with the refuse collection, the AVL system is also, uh, part of this budget also, and
so, um, we're in the process of, uh, getting to the point where, uh, we know where the
garbage trucks are, uh, in the routes. Um, they can also ... they also have the ability, um,
basically the ... the way the system is set up, it can detect when they're dumping a .... a cart,
um, but then they have a button on the dash so that they can hit it when ... if somebody
doesn't have a cart out or, you know, it's just so we know that they've actually stopped
there, and... and... in the system versus the call ins that we do sometimes get that they
didn't pick my garbage can up, you know, and so (mumbled) a way to note that, um, we
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know that our ...our drivers were there, as we start to go through those types of
complaints. So ... all right! Any questions on the refuse budget? Okay! Uh, landfill is
446. So the ... the landfill, um, operations piece, we have, um, you know 16 employees
that are workin' out at the landfill. Um, we're, uh, you know, from a landfill standpoint,
things are... are moving along really well. Uh, you know, we've decreased tonnage. Um,
I think for the first time since I've been involved in the Public Works department that
we've seen atonnage decrease at the landfill, which is tremendous. Um .... the .... the staff
has done a very good job in promoting the recycling, the reuse aspect, uh, of..ofthe .... of
their.... of that operation. Um, we're looking at doing a few different things to try to, uh,
increase the compaction rate, uh, out at the landfill. We're going to a flat -fill method,
um, they tarp it at night so we don't have all the dirt that goes, you know, as far as the
daily cover goes on top of it. Um, and the goal obviously is to prolong the life of what
we have currently built as far as landfill cell and... and what we have permitted, um, here
by the end of the year at the site. So, we imagine with what we'll... what we have built
and what we will have permitted, uh, we'll have between ... 40 and 50 years worth of life
with what we currently have for land at the landfill. The, uh.... um, out at the landfill,
um, they've... they've, we've been doing a very good job of .... of catching up on
equipment as far as the needs that staff have identified and ... and how we're replacing
things. Um, within this budget we will, um, actually be replacing, uh... um, scraper with a
backhoe and a haul truck. So, um, getting kinda with the times with regards to that. Um,
we're also in the process of working through some master planning, um, at the landfill
for, um, dealing with the, um, basically equipment buildings and trying to figure out how
that layouts gonna work for us out there. Um, as a part of, um, you know, ongoing, the
methane study, both waste water and landfill will have an impact on what that master
plan is going to look like, and so we kinda have to wait until we get the methane study
done before we can really finish up the master plan aspect, uh, out at the landfill. Uh, we
do have, uh, a proposed increase as far as the tipping fee. Um, but L.I will point out that
we're still not up to where the tipping fee was 10 years ago, and so you know, we had
decreased the tipping fee, uh, right around that... right after the 2008, um ... flood event,
uh, and we're still not up to what that tipping fee, uh, was at that point in time. Any
questions on the landfill? All right! Uh, storm water fund is on page 466. Um, so
the ... the storm water, uh, utility is actually, um, overseen in the engineering division. So
we have, uh one staff member that's our storm water engineer and then we .... we actually
added a staff member last year, um, that will be our storm water, um, technician and so
they'll be the... basically be able to go out on inspections, review all of our storm water
management areas, and help with, uh, the overall maintenance aspect of those things.
Uh, you'll see in the budget there's actually half a position decrease. Um, that was the
other half of our, um, public information and education tech... coordinator position, um,
was actually funded out of the storm water operations. Um (mumbled) with the ... with
SUDAS and going to, um, the design guidelines as it's called out there, it'll be some
change in regards to the way our storm water management is calculated for subdivisions.
Um, but it...it will, um, we'll actually be lookin' at quantity and quality. In the past we've
just looked at quantity in regards to how the storm water management was working. Any
questions on storm water?
Thomas/ So ... so, Ron, storm water is separate from, uh, storm sewer?
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Knoche/ Correct! So the ... there's overlap in ... in regards to kinda how... who.... who's in charge of
what in regards to if we have complaints, but .... but the storm water utility piece is
actually in the engineering division.
Thomas/ And the systems... the systems are (both talking)
Knoche/ Yeah, yes we ha .... um, I .... we are completely separated as far as I'm aware. We do run
across every once in a while we'll have a cross connect that ... that does still exist, but we
do operate on two separate systems. And .... with that the last, uh, fund is the equipment
fund, page 611. Um.....this, uh.....um, is, um, basically the .... this division or group
oversees all of our fleet maintenance. The only fleet that they don't .... the only part of the
fleet that they're not working with is the transit fleet. So the buses are all taken care of
underneath transpo... or underneath resource, uh, Transportation Services. Um, but we
deal with the fire trucks, the police, uh, cars, and you know, everything else, uh, in
between. They also oversee the radio system, uh, for us for our non.... our non-public,
uh, our non-public safety system is, uh, is managed also through this division. Um,
we're, uh.... I think Dan Striegel is our, um, is our Division Head here. Um, he's done a
very good job of .... of .... as equipment, um, replacement comes up, looking at the
possibility of going to electric vehicles or hybrids, um, and just trying to push forward
that part of, uh, our ...from a sustainability standpoint. Um, one of the moves that we did
make this ... this year was, um, went to a 5% bio -diesel blend on our diesel, um, and that
we'll ... we'll use year round, um, and .... in the .... in the past .... we wouldn't necessarily go
to that based on prices, because, um, depending on what the pricing is, sometimes you're
paying more for bio -diesel than, you know, you would pay for regu.... for straight diesel,
and so, uh, but we've made that decision to go to 5%, uh, across the board for us there.
Um, the ... Public Works facility, um, you know, we ... we already have our fuel facility at
the Public Works facility, so ... so, um, equipment oversees that. Um, we also will have a
car wash and a large vehicle wash as a part of the new Public Works facility. Um, so
we're improving our, um, equipment there and being able to .... folks will not have to go
to, uh, Westport to get their .... to get their City vehicles washed. They'll be able to wash
`em on site for us. Any questions in regards to equipment? All right! Um, just a couple
of highlights here at the end. Um, you know, as ... as we're movin' forward, one of the big
initiatives that we have goin' on right now is asset management. Uh, we ... um, have had
that in the budget for .... for a few years and really have not gotten very far. Um, we're in
the process, uh, bringing a consultant on board, so you'll see a consultant agreement
come to you, um, probably within the next two months, um, to help us move forward in
regards to developing..or selecting asset management program to move forward with.
Currently we have Cartegraph on some ... some of our systems, but across the board, um,
we don't have any consistent system, and when we have, um .... uh, staff members, uh,
that are retiring and will retire at a.... at a quicker rate here over the next few years, we
just needed .... we need to be able to move forward with somethin' to try to download that
knowledge before it leaves us. So, um, we're excited, um, Ithink we have a .... a
consultant selected that I think'll do a very good job for us, um, in regards to developing
that piece. Um, and then we'll figure out from a market standpoint what, uh, what that
operating system looks like for us. But, uh, it's a system that we want folks to .... we want
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communities to come to us and ask us how we did it versus going to them and asking
them how they did it, so....
Teague/ Great! Thank you so much, Ron! Any ...any questions for Ron? All right, thank you!
Knoche/ Thank you!
Teague/ Yes! All right, so I know that we have, um, have the opportunity to listen to a lot of the
presentations and even interact about the presentations. I did wanna remind us all that
we'll be havin' more opportunities in the future to, you know, ask a little more questions
and get into it a little more, but now is a time for us to have any discussions, um, while
we wrap up. I know staff may wanna ... I don't know if you all have any thoughts as well.
Fruin/ Uh.... lots of thoughts (laughter) we .... we didn't make it through the, uh, ever intriguing
City Manager's office budget and City Council budget, if you want us to go through
those we can do that really quick.
Teague/ Do we wanna go through (several responding) All right, we're .... we're gonna do it.
Fruin/ I'm gonna turn it over to these two. They're gonna walk you through (both talking)
Teague/ And sorry about that! Havin' a little (laughs)
Fruin/ We're out of order as usual! (several talking in background)
Andrew/ These first two will be very quick. I'm gonna start with City Council. It is, um, almost
all salaries for Council Members. Uh, if you see a spike in the last couple of years, uh,
the Council pay plan was amended recently, um .... uh, but it's a status quo budget. Uh,
the main discretionary item in there was the welcome letters for UI freshmen, a small
dollar amount that we get, uh, quite a bit of bang for our buck out of that. We get a lot of
appreciation from parents and teachers and students on that. Uh, did you have any
questions on the City Council budget? All right, the City Manager's office has a number
of divisions that Ashley and I will take turns going through, um, the divisions that we're
the primary point of contact for. Um, but we'll start with the City Manager, uh, budget
itself. It's just the three of us. Again almost all salaries. Um, important to call out here,
uh, this is the budget line item where we take a lot of our City sponsored event funding
out of. So, um, there's a significant expense in there, it's year three of our sponsorship of
the University of Iowa's big splash, uh, program. This is the line item that, uh,
Juneteenth funding comes out of, Cyclocross, ADA celebration, those items. Um, but
again, mostly staffing costs in the City Manager's office budget. (both talking) And
again, uh, status quo.
Monroe/ All right, so without wasting any more time, uh, got page 140 starts the communications
office, and uh, communications is a central point of contract, internal, external relations
with staff and the community. Um, they coordinate with media, um, other information,
promotional campaigns, um, they maintain our website, our internet, um, our social
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media, and then they collaborate with all of our City departments to make sure we're
communicating information well. So, uh, cable TV is also stationed within the
communications division. So, um, they're managing complaint resolution with our, uh,
with our media companies. They staff the Telecommunications Commission and they
manage our, um .... (mumbled) track federal and state laws, you know, the .... the
administration federally. Um, they also have special projects. So a couple of highlights
for communications office. They created the branding for our climate action logo and our
climate action at -work program. Uh, they're gonna be instrumental in ... in further
communicating our ...our strategies when we talk about climate action. Um, so despite
our plans to I think in the 100 -day report, uh, talking about, uh, additional consultant to
help us build that strategy. Communications is gonna be a huge part of..of us working
through those things. Um, our social media is growing. Uh, the divisions the ... the
division this year filled in for, uh, staffing vacancy in Parks and Rec, so they took on that
division work, or the department work, to communicate Parks and Rec information. Um,
we've prioritized some translation services at the front desk. We have a bilingual speak
sitting at the front desk to help, and I know that's .... when we're staffing our .... our
communication aide positions, we're, uh.... we're looking for those skills, if possible.
Um, they also helped us plan our climate action expo this year. Uh, we've increased live
streaming. We have a drone certification to allow us to produce better.... better film a lot
of the time, and then we ... the, uh, we're in charge of a podcast. So they're continuing to
produce those and it's gone really well. Um, the division, I'm sorry I didn't say, they
have now, uh, gone from six employees. So there were two full times in
communications, four in cable, and now they have 7.89. So it's that addition of a
permanent, uh, three-quarter time creative assistant that does all of our graphic design
work for the City, and then the communications aides, the two front desk staff that we...
that Council made permanent earlier this year. So, uh, just some highlights — we're
gonna be engaging with, uh, different populations, student, uh, minority populations,
other... others that, uh, we need to reach out to in the community. Um, redefining some...
some priorities in order to better messaging throughout our community. And then, uh, as
I mentioned much earlier today, uh, the 2019 order by the FCC could impact some of our
revenues, um .... from franchise fees. So .... um, we'll be looking towards that. Okay, uh,
the next one we'll talk about is human resources. That's page 146. So just a couple of
pages up here.
Bergus/ Can I just interrupt with a question on communications? Is there a plan in any time the
next few years relating to the City website for an overhaul of that?
Monroe/ (mumbled) Okay, so, um .... part of the budget, the communications budget, is purely
we've just budgeted for, um, maintaining our current website. So we have an agreement
that's existing with the University. So, um ... they've .... they've been managing some of
the web development and maintenance. Um .... we don't have a plan in place at the .... at
the moment to redo the website. It's, I know it's a significant project, comes a
significant, uh, cost. I think we did it a couple of years ago, it was before I got here.
Fruin/ It's probably about four years old and it was, uh, built by Univer...built by the University.
So it's through a .... I think we have a 28E agreement with the University, where they...
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they built it and maintain it for us. Obviously we have control over content but I think
where Ashley's probably going with this — there's some content and design changes
within the current framework that we would like to make, and it's just working with the
University to ... to do that, because it's somethin' that their staff has to do. We're pretty
limited to just content updates. Um, it's ... it's probably time for us to start thinkin' about,
uh, a new website, and I don't .... we haven't really had those conversations with the
University, uh, to determine if we wanna continue to work with them, or even if they're
interested in ... in continuing (mumbled) bit of an experiment, uh.... we probably get
contacted every week by somebody that wants to build us a new City website (laughs) so
there's no shortage of firms that... that, uh, specialize that, in that type of service.
Bergus/ Well just more generally I think that communications can be some of the best bang for
our buck in terms of public education, public engagement, and particularly with climate
action when we know that the City's own, you kn ow, ability to make an impact really
isn't that great but having the public get on board. So I'm really grateful for the
investment in staff and ... yeah, maybe just thought I'd make that website comment as
well. Thank you!
Monroe/ The benefit of some of the recent changes we've been making, um, the, um, up ... the
transition from hourly employees at the front desk to permanent position is allowing us a
little bit more leverage and time and ability to update our intranet, so that's internally
communicating to staff, but also doing some of those minor web updates so that things
are very current, um, and ... and it's just been a little challenging over the last year or two,
um, to manage some of the other page updates that we've been trying to get to, just.. just
based on the ability for staff to spend the time, um, going back in and... and.... revising.
Um, but I know that's a focus of them now that we're getting full staffed (mumbled) Uh,
okay! Any other questions on communications? Okay. Uh, human resources um, they
just a quick overview, they manage our employee and labor relations, uh, for
approximately a thousand employees, both permanent and hourly. Um, they work on our
collective bargaining and contract administration. We, um, have three unions; so
AFSCME is our non-public safety union, police and fire. Uh, they manage our civil
service compliance, benefits administration, recruitment activities, um, and then also
administer personnel policy and um .... other state and federal laws. So ... couple of
highlights. We've had in the last year, uh, completed entry level police and firefighter
testing. Um, we implemented a online training software and learning platform for staff.
So it's made it much easier for us to complete, uh, trainings throughout the organization
and then this also enables us a better system for, uh, for tracking what that training is and
maintaining a training record for our staff. Um, we collectively bargained new contracts
for the fire department and ... and police unions. Um, and we're going to be engaging
again, uh, just in the next week or two with our police union. We implemented a 60 -day
checkpoint program to enhance on -boarding of our new staff. So making sure that not
only are we .... providing our new hires the right information, but also making sure that
once they're... they're here that they're getting the resources and information they need to
feel comfortable with their ...their job. Um, we also... rolled out new employee benefits.
So we have an employee -paid vision, um, benefit, as well as a .... a pharmacy debit card
option, which we didn't have prior. And then they helped with the Federal Transit
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Authority, uh.... drug and alcohol testing program audit. (mumbled) mentioned working
the FTA and HR plays a large role in making sure that they have information and ... and
things they need for those audits, and then upcoming we've got our, uh, promotional
testing for police and fire, and um ... we also have been notified that the Federal Motor
Carrier Safety Drug Administration .... Drug and Alcohol Clearing House, it's a new
program that's federally mandated and HR is really dug into to make sure our
departments are doing what we need, uh, over the next year. Um .... and then the, as far as
the budget goes, it's all fairly static, uh ... information. Any ...any questions?
Weiner/ Um, you have some ... line items in there for ...uh, some of the trainings, it's actually for
us — prevention, drug (mumbled) Are there, is there, uh, is there a fund or is there, are
there separate programs for professional development and training aside from those for
various staff?
Monroe/ Yeah, so in each of our department and division budgets there's a separate line item for,
uh, professional development and training. So, um, we call it a travel and training budget
and each department identifies where.... where they plan to spend that time training. So it
could be regional or national conferences, um ... you know, signing up for webinars, those
kinds of things, and so, um, while HR has this platform that we're, um, we're able to
track when people have attended those things, um, each department is ... is managing their
travel, and then of course HR also gets that benefit. Okay!
Andrew/ Okay, thank you! Next division in the City Manager's office is human rights. Uh,
human rights has two employees. They investigate, oh, and I'm sorry! We're on page
150 here. Uh, they investigate complaints of discrimination, uh, by the public. Uh, they
do outreach and engagement efforts, uh, public trainings, and then staff training and
implementation of equity toolkits. Uh, you've seen a couple of documents come from the
human rights division recently that we're very proud of. It was our sixth straight perfect
score on the Municipal Equality Index. Uh, Mayor Teague was here for a ... a good public
presentation from that organization. Uh, also Stephanie has retooled, uh, made the
information contained in the equity report a little bit more condensed, a little bit more
digestible, uh, and that came to Council in recent weeks. Uh, the division also includes a
budget for sponsorship. Uh, the human rights division provides staff support for the
Human Rights Commission, and the Human Rights Commission, uh, also sponsors, uh,
training, education efforts, uh, public, uh, public engagement. Um .... you'll see a spike in
the division's budget on page 154, uh, in between fiscal years 2018 and 2019. Uh, that is
the, uh, social justice and racial equity grant program, uh, which we, uh, proposed to
continue at the same level. That's a $75,000 grant program that the Human Rights
Commission makes allocation recommendations to you on. Uh, there's also $30,000
budgeted for other agency partnerships, which is again status quo from previous years.
Um ... there's also been an increase in cost in recent years for translation of City -related
documents as well. We've been doing a lot more, uh, translations and ... and posting of
more documents online. Uh, are there any questions about the human rights division
budget?
Thomas/ Will that inclusive teacher's awards banquet be continued or was that just a one-time?
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Andrew/ Um, I believe that that was a one-time thing, but that I'll have to follow up with you on.
I'm not certain the answer on that.
Thomas/ I ... I really enjoyed it. I just thought (both talking)
Andrew/ Yeah, we got a lot of positive feedback on it.
Thomas/ It was a really very moving event actually and kind of ties in, I think, with our sense of
being a place where education is so highly valued.
Andrew/ Absolutely! Absolutely! Okay, the next division is economic development. Starts on
page 155. Um, this is a one, uh, FTE division, uh, Wendy Ford is our Economic
Development Coordinator. Uh, you'll see her present at Council quite often, and she
staff ..she is staff support for the Economic Development Committee of, uh, City
Council. Um .... uh, she manages a number of incentive programs, uh, the big one coming
up that she's been working on is a commercial tax abatement area. Uh, the EDC has
already reviewed that proposal, trying to retool it a little bit, uh, but that will be coming
back to you soon. Uh, she also manages our retail recruitment, uh, consultant agreement.
Uh, that was brought about at a Council request at a ... a previous year's budget, um,
workshop, like we're having today, and um, that project is underway. They are, um,
through the data collection process and are now just starting with their analysis. Um,
we'll also be looking for ...we're gonna lean heavily on, um, Wendy and economic
development in our, um, incentives for climate action, uh, that we're looking at a .... a
mechanism to use TIF, especially in the industrial areas. Our industrial users create a lot
of our carbon emissions and the more we can do to incentive improvements in that area,
um, that'll, uh, have more impact than a lot of the other, uh, things that we can do in
terms of climate action. And I will also draw your attention to page 156, uh, this is the
division's budget where we fund, um, a lot of our culture and arts, um, incentives, uh,
operational funding. Uh, so you'll see the largest one at the top is the Conves.....
Convention and Visitor Bureau operational support. That is 25% of hotel/motel tax
receipts that come in, and then you'll see a number of those others listed on there. Uh,
those are all general fund supported. Uh, the new one for this, the new two for this year,
are the Refocus Film Festival, $7,000 and $25,000 for the Kirkwood Eng ... English
language learner, expansion of that program. Any other questions on economic
development?
Teague/ So I have to tell you that Wendy Ford does an amazin' job (both talking)
Andrew/ Absolutely!
Teague/ And her knowledge is .... superb when it comes down to economic development stuff,
and I ... I've had some time to just, uh, pick her brain at times. Um, one of the things that I
do worry about is, um, our city continues to grow. And we only have one employee
within this department.
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Andrew/ Sure.
Teague/ Um, and I ... I don't know if there's any plans, or been any discussions of increasin' on
any level?
Andrew/ Well I would say that ... all of our department, most of our departments to some degree,
are, um, facilitating, uh, Wendy's work and work in the area of economic development.
We understand a lot of our, uh, cultural work, whether... and parks planning, urn .... as
being economic development drivers. So I wouldn't say that Wendy's the only one
working on economic development (both talking) and we also rely heavily on ICAD as
well, um, we have significant sponsorship of ICAD and they, uh, really it's their mission
to help support that as well. Uh, so while Wendy, uh, is the one FTE in this division, I
wouldn't say she's out on an island. She has (mumbled)
Teague/ Thank you!
Weiner/ It refers to .... retail recruitment for the Iowa City Marketplace and other areas. Is
there... is there any thought being given to perhaps looking at an entirely different
concept for the Iowa City Marketplace, which seems to have some ongoing challenges?
Andrew/ Yes. The challenges in that area are, um, significant and continue. Um, we do have
a ... uh, a TIF agreement that's currently in place with the owners there, um, however,
they've missed their last couple of benchmarks for receiving, uh, their, uh, rebate
incentives. Um, so long as, uh, Lucky's Market still controls a lease on that space, and
we're not seeing additional investment from the property owner. Um, it becomes really
challenging to see how the City can, in the near term, um, facilitate that change. We have
heard some interest from, uh, Kirkwood's Iowa City campus, uh, whether that is, um....
you know, something that that organization would wanna pursue is still, uh, too early to
tell, but certainly there are a lot of natural stakeholders in the neighborhood and certainly
the City has an interest in seeing some movement there. Um, but I don't wanna be op...
overly optimistic for the near term. Uh, I think it'll take either significant reinvestment or
a sale of the property frankly to ... to make that happen.
Mims/ Do we know how long the Lucky's/Kroger lease runs?
Andrew/ Yeah, it was 10 years total. They had a 15 -year lease. If they went dark after two years,
that cut the lease agreement to 10. So they're on year three of 10, uh, that they control
the space, and I'm not sure exactly how that .... legal framework works between the (both
talking) Lucky's, um, whether.. cause you would... one would think that Lucky's would
wanna get out of that lease as soon as possible as well, but I don't know what, uh,
negotiations are going on there.
Mims/ Okay. Thank you.
Andrew/ On that happy note, I'll turn it back over to (both talking)
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Mims/ And I would just mention also for ...for the newer Council Members, just as a reminder.
We're on our second TIF agreement with them, correct?
Andrew/ With, uh, a separate (both talking) ownership.
Mims/ ... sep... separate (both talking) but this is the second time we have done a significant TIF
agreement for that property. So ... the question becomes ... how many times as a city can
we reinvest in the same property if we're not getting long-term improvement.
Fruin/ Yeah, and I would maybe take that a little bit ... step further, how many times can we
reinvest in the same model, which is the ... the suburban shopping mall model. It's... it's
really going to take some, uh, creative thinking and motivation on ... on .... on the part of
the property owner. I think we stand ready to ... to work with them, but um .... they're not
frankly as engaged as we need them to be. They're not local. Um, I think they're
working to fill the space, but they're not necessarily, um .... working as hard as we would
hope, I guess.
Taylor/ You're talking about the property owners as such, not the Lucky's part of that (several
talking) That's not (both talking)
Fruin/ I don't know how ... you know, neither party, from our standpoint, appears to be too
motivated. Which is unfortunate. Uh, we could be wrong. We're not involved in ... in
the ... the private dealings, um, but certainly there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of
engagement, uh, going on from either party, and they both have huge financial
motivations, uh, that should be driving them.
Taylor/ Should be, cause we continues as a Council, I know I do and some of the others probably
do too, to ... to get requests and letters and emails from folks saying `why isn't the city
doing anything about that,' and we really don't have any control over it. It's ... it's these
businesses, but there was some question about.... is that related to the TIF, as far as it
would require some type of grocery, uh, business, or is that...
Fruin/ Currently, yes. Um, but we have indicated to the mall ownership group that don't limit
yourself to grocery stores. Matter of fact the .... the sense we entered into that agreement,
you could certainly argue the grocery markets, uh, changed quite a bit, is perhaps even
more saturated. So what we've told them is, uh, bring us an anchor, um, preferably
general retail anchor that will drive traffic and support the entire area. Um, and ... and
we're open to just about anything. You know we don't ... we don't want the ... the
Halloween pop-up followed by the Christmas pop-up, and that type of thing, but if you
bring us a good anchor, we're more than happy to work with ya.
Weiner/ Yeah, that's sort of what I meant in terms of reimagining the wh... reimagining the whole
area, the whole concept, so that it's not necessarily in the end just a retail area.
Fruin/ Yeah, I think just the way that commercial markets are moving right now. I think we
would really need to be open to some residential uses in there, um, a really, truly mixed -
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use, uh, type of concept, and that's what you're seein' with just about every mall in
America that successfully redeveloped. It's... it's become a ... you know, the word was, the
term was lifestyle center for a while, but it's .... it's really inner -mixing the, um, residential
and retail, office markets.
Andrew/ And in terms of the urban renewal area, we're running out of time for being able to
provide TIF incentives for that without resetting the base to the current property value.
Uh, the current TIF agreement with the mall ownership stretched the final seven years of
that urban renewal area. Um, they're on year four of that seven, and after that's done
then we'd have to reset the base, create a new TIF district for it.
Monroe/ Well perhaps fittingly the very last, uh, division budget is our brand new, newly
proposed, uh, climate action outreach division .... in the City Manager's office. So, um, it
was kind of has been alluded to from several department's reports and our earlier
discussion today, um, this division will be, uh, leading the implementation of our climate
action and adaptation plan. Um, they also actively track our energy usage throughout our
City facilities. So we're, um, currently doing that, we're currently managing those
things, and also, um, charged with ... Brenda Nations is our Sustainability Coordinator, and
um, charged with doing those things. So upon her move to this division, uh, she'll be
joined by a climate action analyst of some kind. So, um, again, tracking those energy
usage, uh, things, perhaps helping with grants, otherwise assisting with ... with initiatives
that we have as part of our climate plan. And then an action ... a climate action
engagement specialist. So this'll be outreach focused, uh, position. So they'll be, uh, not
only engaging with, um, hopefully all populations within Iowa City, but creating, uh,
community partnerships, uh, with those, uh, specific populations. Uh, they will be
working on and with our communications division on, uh, developing those
communications pieces and, uh, facilitating meetings perhaps, um, facilitating specific
community training and educational opportunities. So arranging for our staff or...or
performing those duties themselves. And then also will be responsible for taking on
what... what they're... we're pulling from the water and storm water division is our, uh,
volunteer coordination. So their specific, uh, like creek cleanups that are required, uh, for
us at each year, and so this position will also be responsible for managing those. And,
um, any other interested volunteers for ...for very exciting new climate projects we have
throughout the community. So if it's gathering a group of volunteers to go help plant
trees or...or do additional cleanups or engage in some other, uh, special type of education
activity, that's what this person will do. So we're excited to hopefully bring that person
on and, um, you know, pending support from ... from Council, we're hoping to ... to get that
person onboard. Again all three of these positions are... are currently funded, so we can
move ahead pending support. Um, and then the last couple of things that I'll highlight,
um, the ... the division is going to staff the Climate Action Commission. So Brenda's
currently doing that and ... and they will provide support to the commission. Uh,
we ... have received a grant in the past year for an electric vehicle readiness plan. So, uh,
we're coordinating with four other, uh, organizations or communities throughout eastern
Iowa and they'll be part of, uh, this project. Uh, we're about ready to send out an RFP
for consultant selection to help us build this readiness plan. Um, looking at what a future
with additional electric vehicles and ... and those opportunities looks like. And then, uh,
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we'll continue to administer the climate action grants program. We doubled the annual,
uh, amount from 25,000 to 50,000. Um, we've got some really great applications over
the last year, urn .... that .... that have taken those allocations, the prior year allocations in
full and, um, we're excited to see how amplifying that, uh, grant fund pool will help build
additional, urn ... actions with, throughout the community for implementation of our plan's
objections. Urn .... and then the ... the budget itself really is managing those staff and, you
know, keeping our energy tracking software in place. Um, the commission gets a slight,
um, funding allocation. So if there are activities that the Climate Action Commission
wants to do or introduce, um, there's money for that in this budget rather than waiting for
the emergency levy and ... and other funding.
Teague/ All right (both talking)
Fruin/ Think as you transition to your chat about the overall budget, one of the things we're
anxious to hear from you about is the ... use of the emergency levy and the ... the, um, level
that we've recommended to you of that 24 -cents. Again, the timing's not perfect here
because you all really haven't had a chance to deliberate on the report. That's happening
at the commission level now. So ... the million dollars or so for programming is a bit of a
placeholder, and uh, like I said has been designed to be scaled. So we're just tryin' to...to
gauge, uh, from you through this budget process what your ...what your appetite is for
using that levy to fund these types of activities. And ... it's a ... it's a hard ask of you, just
like it was a hard recommendation for us, you all don't know that perfect amount. This
time next year I think we'll have a much better idea, but uh, somethin' that we'd like ya
to discuss over the next month is just your ...your comfort level with that 24 -cents.
Mims/ So the staff is going to be covered through that million dollars (both talking)
Fruin/ No (both talking)
Mims/ ....through other funding that's already existing.
Fruin/ Yeah, so that's what you see on page 164. That's the general fund supporting the three
staff positions.
Mims/ Okay.
Fruin/ And those three staff positions were in some way, shape, or form approved in other
budget.
Mims/ Right!
Fruin/ So there's no new staff positions here. It's just kind of a retooling, um, and we did that
intentionally, because we ... we don't want future Councils to not be able to have the
freedom to move that emergency levy around, whether that's up or down for climate, or if
another emergency in the community arises, and you need to scale back climate and...
and increase the use of the levy for whatever that emergency is, we wanna give you that
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flexibility, so we intentionally took staff off of that. That way you're not in a position of
having to eliminate positions, should you be put into that tough situation.
Mims/ So they're gonna stay then ... they're gonna be funded actually then through the City
Manager's budget.
Fruin/ They'll be funded through City Manager's, and then the actual programming happens in
that special revenue fund, the emergency levy fund.
Mims/ Okay. I guess part of my dilemma is, and I understand where staff is at at this point, but
really how is that million dollars going to be used and ... I guess ... be more comfortable if I
had more details in terms of..and I, like I say, I get the fact that you folks haven't had a
lot of time to dig into significant details on this, urn .... because when we add ... add 24 -
cents on that one levy and we've .... we've managed to get significant reduction on the
debt levy...part of my concern is as we continue to go forward, um, I mean we've gotten
our debt way down, which is ... which is really nice, but we also have a lot of capital
needs, a lot of capital needs. And while we're being successful at building reserves, you
know, facility reserve, etc., urn .... you know, we may at some point have to go back into
that, and so, urn ... and ... and ideally I would ... I would like to see us get the levy down
more than just a net six -cents, and so I just ... I ... I'm not saying I'm against it. I just feel
like I don't have quite enough information to say that I'm comfortable with generating a
million dollars for one year.
Fruin/ Yeah and we can ... we can give you a rough breakdown of how we arrived at that, um, that
number. Essentially it's looking at the plan and ... those first few activities and tryin' to...
tryin'to guess what those would cost, urn .... (mumbled) (talking in background) So she
can give ya a brief...
Monroe/ So when you think about the ... report and as well as the plan, um, it identifies building
issu... building energy usage and transportation as our big, um, areas of concentration, the
biggest bang for our buck I should say, urn .... so a lot of the things that we worked
through and ... and try to kind of assess a potential program or project for, um,
concentrates in those areas. So the majority of our funding kind of -the ideas about
where those funds'll be spent are .... are in those two primary areas. Um, so ... we're
looking at a little bit, um, you know, there'll be some funding, you know, probably 10...
yeah, a certain percentage, maybe 10%, no more than that, on educational programming,
awareness, advertising, all the things that come with, um, creating this strategy, um, so
it's not like we're gonna spend the ... the bulk of it on ... education classes. Um, the bulk of
the funds would be towards, you know, energy efficiency improvements, the incentives
that might entice, um, people in the ... in the private sector to do this work, um, or
residents and businesses, other non-profit organizations have shown interest in such a
program that would directly benefit them. So, urn ... we're starting to talk about that. Um,
it may be, uh, you know, a portion might need to go towards City infrastructure, um, if
there are other projects or programs, like a public housing rehabilitation where we can
create a zero -energy housing project, um, these funds may go directly to something like
that. Urn .... you know, it all kind of depends on some feedback that we get from the
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commission. They're having a meeting, um, I think on Monday. So we'll get some
initial feedback from them at that time. Uh, we can report back to you. Uh, you know, a
portion might go to events and, you know, special things. We have a climate festival
planned, uh, again kind of smaller amounts of that pool, but ... but that would pay for that
as well. Um, transportation initiatives or incentives, I'm sorry, and um, as well as
communicating about our existing programs, and then finally I would say, uh, I missed
the tree planting. So a portion of those funds are moved to, will be transferred to our CIP
for additional, um, tree planting initiatives, um, both public and ... and potentially
incentivizing private plantings. Um, so those, that's kind of the idea, the ... the scope, um,
the big areas of concentration that we're trying to ... nail down, and I think the... specific
amounts that we want to tailor towards a specific project, I think'll come later, after
we've heard from the commission and heard from you about priorities.
Fruin/ I think you've heard me say before, we can't regulate ourselves to our goals. So we have
to incentivize in large part, and buildings are two-thirds or more responsible for the
carbon footprint. We have to be very aggressive in our building incentives, and when you
think about even just a single-family home. If we wanted to come in and provide grants
for, uh, HVAC systems and windows and weather proofing, I mean, those could easily be
10, 15, $20,000 a pop, depending on how we structure things, uh, so it doesn't take you
too long to start to ... to imagine a situation which we're doing half a million dollars or
more in building incentives for private property owners per year. Uh, especially when we
start to get into commercial and industrial properties. Now, we're gonna look to use TIF
where we can, uh, so that there's not the, uh, pressure on the general fund for ...for a lot of
those. But, you know, the bulk of our community is not in a TIF district. Uh, very small
portion of our community's in a TIF district. So, um, I think of the million dollars, you
can think roughly half of that at least is gonna be private incentives, and that's really that
policy decision — how aggressive do you wanna be in raising the tax rate across the board
for the community and turning that back over into private incentives. That's a ... that's a
good policy debate that ... that needs to be had.
Weiner/ I appreciate the challenges and I appreciate the fact that it's... scalable without knowing
the extent of the incentives that there would be. I can compare it to, for example, the
state mandating, um, children's mental health care and not funding it at all. We declared,
the City Council declared a climate emergency, and I think that to the community it
would probably not look good to put almost no funding into it. So it's, we're dealing
with delicate balance. The question is ... how much we wanna put into it, um, knowing the
challenges that if we then pull it back to ... to fund for something else, will we be able to
leverage other funds, how will that work going forward.
Fruin /And I, our thought is, it's always.... if we start a little bit more aggressive and then next
year, say we don't spend all that and we carry over a couple hundred thousand dollars,
uh, and we decide, eh, it's pretty easy to scale back the levy, right? Let's drop anickle off
that and ... and let's drop a dime off that. That's fairly easy to do, um, when you get into a
situation in which year after year you're raising that levy, that's when there can be some
additional public pressure, um ... on...on the Council. So I'm not saying we start it high
just to start high. We started where we thought we needed to, um, based on the ... the plan
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or the report that we submitted, um but it will be easy to scale back in future years,
should we have, if we overshot that target a little bit.
Bergus/ When we look at the ... scope of this expenditure in the scheme of our overall budget, if
I'm doing the math right, it's about half of 1% of the expenditures, and when we talk
about the importance of our climate action initiative for the city as a whole, it seems very
reasonable to me. I'm comfortable with that kind of initial investment, even though we
don't have it exactly pinned down yet, how it would be spent.
Thomas/ I ... I agree with you on that, and I ... I think it is hard to monetize exactly what we need to
spend on climate at this point because we don't k now .... you k now, how we're doing it
and who's paying for it and so forth, but I mean ... one area where I would have some
sense of the potential cost would be say the urban forest piece. I know, um ... Project
GREEN has a ambition of planting 10,000 trees. You know if you look...if you look at
that as being $200 a tree, you're talking .... you know .... real money, and you know, I
think the idea is ... can the City hopefully in a sense leverage this, and ... with the ambition
of trying to promote private investment as well. But, you know, 25 ... if we were to do
10,000 trees over four years, that's 2,500 trees a year, at $200 each. That's $500,000
right there! So...it....it does ... real money has to be spent on doing this.
Mims/ Right and I don't disagree that real money has to be spent. I ... I also come back to Geoff's
comment about ... you know, a lot of where our carbon emissions are coming from is from
our buildings, and from our transportation, and the need to incentivize, and especially to
incentivize in the private sector, and as Geoff just mentioned, you know, how expensive
some of those incentives could potentially get. So if you .... talk a million dollars
and ... and say, you know, you use whatever, 300 or 400,000 for something of something
education and trees or whatever, and you end up with, you know, 5 or 600,000 that ends
up helping, you know, 10 or 15 property owners or 20 property owners across the city,
how ... how does the general public look at having their tax levy raised by...24-cents to
have, are we not moving enough? (several talking and laughing in background) Um, you
know.... do we end up incentivizing because of the cost of incentivization, are we
incentivizing so few properties because of the cost of that incentivization, that people
look at that and say `you're collecting all this money but you're really not having any
significant impact with the money you're spending.' So that's kind of where I'm coming
from. It's not that I'm against it. It's just a question I raise and a consideration that I
think we have to talk about in terms of how much are we raising and as the commission
comes back with their recommendations, you know, discussing what those
recommendations are in terms of how we're spending the money. So that... that's kind of
the point I'm trying to make. Not pro, not con, just ... people aren't gonna want to see this
levy being raised 24 -cents and ... you know, some incredibly small handful of homeowners
or commercial businesses have been incentivized and they're like, `Really? This isn't
really going to get us any significant way out of this climate crisis,' and we also are just a
small little piece of the whole globe. So that... that's the point I'm trying to make.
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Thomas/ Yeah, I do ... yeah, the public benefit of these, how we spend this, I think, needs to be
very carefully looked at. You know, w ho benefits? And... and how many people benefit?
How equitable is the distribution, all of that has to play in.
Mims/ Yep!
Teague/ All right, well thanks. Anybody else have any comments? For ...for the City Manager's
office.
Thomas/ I just had a ... it came to me when we were looking at this community development
assistance. Where does the funding for the public art program .... fit into this, and is it still
being funded?
Fruin/ I believe we kept it flat from the level that Council raised it (several talking in
background) uh, to last year (both talking) doubled last year. Is that...
Thomas/ So it's still in here (several talking)
Fruin/ $50,000 (several talking)
Teague/ All right. Um .... do Councilors have any more discussion items you wanna do before we
kinda come to a .... adjournment here?
Fruin/ If I could just urge, one thing on ... on Tuesday's work session we start at 3:00 and the first
half-hour really could be any amount of time that you want, we've ... we've listed the first
item as review of Saturday's work session. Um .... I think it would be helpful before we
leave today to try to identify a list of topics you all wanna discuss, but ... because we could
actually, for some of the items, prepare before Tuesday and maybe even get you a little
bit of information going into that meeting on the 7th so you can start that conversation.
I'm just really sensitive to the fact that you all have less than a month to really ...work
through the budget, at least as far as the tax rate goes. You can always scale down, but
I ... I don't want us to find ... I don't want us to find ourselves in a situation in which you
feel like you don't have adequate time to ... to deliberate on a budget like this. So, uh, I
listed, I've got about four things here that ... that Council has expressed a desire to follow
up on. If there's anything else, uh, based on anything you heard today, it'd be good to
flag that before we leave today.
Weiner/ What do you have on your list right now?
Fruin/ So the Aid to Agency funding, and that all, uh, we'll discuss a joint meeting with, uh,
HCDC, uh, on Tuesday. Um, we will get you the estimated cost for, um, shifting the
proposed affordable housing at Forest View to double-wides. We'll... we'll, uh, remind
you of what that cost is and you can determine whether you wanna budget for that, uh,
even if we're not sure we're going to approve it yet. And then, uh, we owe you some
additional, uh, information on the breakdown of salary and benefit cost on the remaining
temporary to permanent conversions. That's the third item, and then a desire to, uh... have
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a discussion on LOST, which frankly doesn't really need to happen within this budget
cycle. Can ... can move to the spring or summer, but .... those are the four items.
Bergus/ There are two things that come to my mind, um, that could have a 2020 budget impact.
Um, at the... on the Library level, the idea of going fine -free, um, is very intriguing. If I,
just off the top of my head I think it was only about $100,000 that they were... anticipating
collecting from fines, but that was just one thing that struck me, and similarly, um,
knowing the transit study won't be coming out until this summer, but of course that's the
beginning of this fiscal year, should the bus system go fare free and what are the
implications of those... those were just two things expenditure wise that struck me in this
cycle. I'm not sure (both talking) what I'm asking staff to (laughs) (several talking in
background) on that but just to be thinking about absorbing those potentially, I don't
know, or just if..if there were more narrow recommendations relating to those and the
timing of them, I'd be interested in hearing that.
Teague/ I think when you (both talking) Go right ahead. When you're bringin' up like the transit
study comin' up and we, um, I heard mention.... that.... we should start considerin' raisin'
up our parkin' fees. And so .... now could be a potential time to look at that, so it can start
in 2021 or be a part of that, you know, proposed increase, because we know that it's
going to be, um, changing. I don't know if it's too premature because the transit study
isn't complete, um, but if we, you know, think about doin' the fines and ... maybe just
havin' some further thought on that.
Fruin/ Yeah, it ... real quick on the transit study You're gonna get the report in the summer, uh,
this upcoming summer, and you can expect probably a good couple months of
deliberation that you'll... you'll wanna have. You'll wanna give the public plenty of time
to weigh in and ... um, it's probably going to take you a few meetings to digest that. Any
significant changes, if you're talking about fare free, Sunday service, um, and you're
talking about adding staff, adding buses, uh, we're talkin' about changing routes, you...
just think about of all the logistics that go behind that, whether it's, um, changing
locations of bus stops and signage and reprogramming software, hiring staff, procuring
buses, um, we'd be really lucky to implement any major changes before fiscal year 22. If
there are some t hings that we can do, if Sunday service is possible or some of the smaller
changes that Darian mentioned, uh, can be done before 22, uh, we do have that
unrestricted fund balance, and again we are running a surplus in the transit operation of a
few hundred thousand. I think we can get a head start on some of that stuff and ... and
even, you know make some good.... some good headway, uh, but I ... I don't think those
changes are gonna come as fast as you want, even if you give us the green light from day
one. There's just so much planning and ... and uh, buildup that has to go into that. I do
think it's important that in some point in time, and it doesn't need to be in the next month
or two, um, we take a look at all the available revenue sources to you. I've indicated kind
of my preference for parking, but we need to present all those options to you so you know
the pros and cons of..of each option. I'm pretty confident that, um, you don't need to
worry about that with this particular budget. Um, but certainly, uh, we could get you
some of that preliminary information if you just wanna, uh, see that. And with the fine -
free Library, tun ... again, they're gonna work on their 12 -month report in August and you
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can probably assume they'll have a recommendation to go fine -free throughout the
system. Uh, if there was a desire to do that mid -budget year, we'd be able to
a ... accommodate that through, um, contingencies and reserves. It's a small enough dollar
amount to where that's not gonna be that big of an issue. So I would .... my
recommendation would just to be to ... to sit on that for a little bit, view the report, and
then make a decision, again, we'll be able to accommodate you, um, at a dollar amount
that we're talking mid -year, if there's a strong desire to move forward quickly.
Teague/ Any other priorities that people ... come to people mind now? All right, well we will see
you on Tuesday.
Fruin/ Yeah, if I can (both talking) should have done this when I kicked off, but the folks that are
in this room, I'm gonna..you know, Ron's here too, but all the supervisors, all the
department heads put a ton of work into the budget, but our Budget Review Committee's
here and that's Dennis and Jacklyn from the Finance department who, um, know this
budget better than anybody, uh, in the organization, and just put in a ton of work, um...
uh, we're so fortunate to have this duo leading the budget process. They do a
phenomenal job and hopefully that's reflected in the document before you and some of
the information you had today. And also Simon and Ashley, uh, from our office. The
four of them are the team that meets with every department. They go line item by line
item by line item. It's a painful process. Um....
Mims/ Not for Simon! (laughter)
Fruin/ Uh, you know he took the position in the middle of the budget process. I can't help but
think that, uh, all the stress of the budget review process maybe, uh, led to that decision
(laughs) but um, they do ... they do a tremendous job and just put so much time and effort
really from, well, Dennis and Jacklyn year round, but Simon and Ashley and the
department heads, you know, August to when you get that budget, and ... uh, they deserve
every bit of recognition we can (several talking)
Weiner/ I can't tell you as someone who's new to this how useful an initial overview it is of what
the City does, what every department does, in detail, uh, coming in thought, well great,
budget first thing. Now I say great! Budget first thing! It's really eye opening and
educational.
Teague/ All right, well thanks to everybody that, um put the budget together and thanks to the
Councilors.
Mims/ Don't forget it's 3:00 on Tuesday.
Teague/ Yes, it is (laughs) 3:00 on Tuesday. We'll see you all then. We're adjourned.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget
work session of January 4, 2020.