Finance Subcommittee

I said it would be okay. Welcome, everybody, to Friday, May 19th. Subcommittee. There are some members of the public. Is there any public comment on any non agenda items? Seeing No. I'll segway over to two and three. Items two and three should have been actually combined. So as part of the 2324 budget update, we also take a look at where we're at for fiscal year 2223 in the current year. So go ahead, run this next slide. Right. So I want to kind of do these first couple of slides. So there's any point where you want me to stop and you have questions, Please, please let me know. But again, the timelines vary. The budget really starts January, February, where we start developing the next year's budget. In March. We have the departments to start assembling their list of wants and desires in April, we bring the draft before the City Council, which we did. We also had a finance subcommittee meeting in May, which where we're at now. We have a budget workshop or I'm sorry, May 1st we had a budget workshop with the City Council. And this again today is a look at where we're at. As you recall, we had some adjustments to make at that point. We're substantially complete. There's just a few little items that we still are are tuning out. And then in June, trying to unite people, we're presenting it for consideration and adoption. Next slide, please. So again, the budget process is almost complete. General Fund has had one revenue adjustment to make. Again, this is to provide a snapshot of the nonstandard budget estimates and there are some adjustments to be made to ensure proper reserve levels in several of our non-major sites. And we're also yet to incorporate our list of capital improvement projects. Next slide these. So again, just as a brief summary of how most expenditures go get appropriated, primarily it's done with the upcoming current or the upcoming budget year. Most most appropriations are adopted with the with the with the budget adoption in June. However, throughout the year, you know, we like to refer to the budget as being a living, breathing document. So there are changes and estimates or new expenditures that come up that aren't in the original budget. So those are brought throughout the years circumstances arise or they can be brought as part of the mid-year budget process, during which adjustments are made to achieve a more accurate budget in the current fiscal year. Slide Thank you. So you hear me kind of drawing on for about operating surpluses versus a total surplus or total debt deficit. The goal is to have our revenues cover our current, our everyday recurring expenditures. So we want to have at least a break even budget in that regard. We don't that's known as a structural deficit. Happy to report that we don't have one. However, we can go into a deficit position where what that means is to go into the reserves for non-operating expenditures. So a lot of times we will have said, you know, we have been banking money in the reserves for for projects over over multiple years, and then we'll be within reach in there and spend it. That's will take us into the current year deficit position, but something that's planned for. Next slide. So nonoperating expenditures such as private project costs can be paid from current year operating surplus reserves or in the example of our water treatment plant issue. Issuance of debt where we issued about $45 million of water revenue bonds. Next slide. So I'm happy to report citywide we have about a $5.8 million surplus, but the operating surplus is about $8 million. Reaching into again with non-operating revenues and non-operating expenditures is about a $2 million deficit for a total surplus of about $5.8 million. So so with regards to the general fund, as you can see, we have a net operating surplus for the current fiscal year 2025 of 2.7 million spending or appropriated money for projects, particularly for Measure M in some 20 2021 surplus, about $7.7 million of projects with the total and net deficit of $4.9 million for 2020 for the upcoming fiscal year. We have about a $1.4 million excuse me, $1.2 million surplus operating surplus. Again, reaching in for this $1.4 million is primarily a couple vehicles and non vehicle equipment and a police server. So about a break even, but total deficit of about 149,000. And I can tell you that that will probably be right around it'll be a slight surplus because we went back and reviewed and we found an adjustment for some property taxes that we need to bump up just a little bit. So next slide, things. So our total annual revenues for 22, 23, 23, 24 are about the same. Just a slight increase right now for property said property tax, sales tax, paid taxes and franchise taxes and motor vehicle loosening. So the two years are pretty pretty even intergovernmental and other fees and permits a slight decrease in the primary reason for that slight increase is that we if you look at 2022, are 8.2 million versus 7.7. And what we're doing there is community development within the permit center. We are now accounting for an item that was previously a scrap, previously classified as revenue. Now we're using that to just directly offset expenditures or developer fees that are reimbursed. So it's more appropriate to identify this as a contra expense. That was at the request of the department, but I wanted to point that out in case you said it will get a little bit of a decrease there and transfers in from other city funds is a little higher from last year. But overall, other revenues are about the same. So total revenues for both years are just over $61 million, about $300,000 increase for 2324. Next slide. So looking at in general plan expenditures by category, total departmental expenditures are up from 56 million in 2223 to $57 million in 2324. We whittled that down or the departments did by quite a bit as from where we were at the last meeting. Non-Departmental That looks like a big like a big decrease. But what happens is as the year goes on, then miscellaneous non-departmental expenditure has a negative expense in their budget called attrition because we know we're not going to be for we budget, our departments is fully staffed, but we also know that we're about 92% staffed. So there's an eight or whatever the percentage was that causes the non-departmental to be a smaller number when it's first budgeted. As a year goes through, as we go through the year and departments are recording their actual expenses there, their salaries and benefits come in lower and then then that attrition number goes away and Non-Departmental all I could jump in just a really amount of things that departments because what you see there is from a $56.5 million this term fiscal year expenditure next year we're showing just under 57 million. That includes $2 million approximately of salary increases and equity adjustment step increases. And really the departments worked very hard to trim all the other expenditures to keep the numbers basically in that structural positive and so on. I really do want to thank all of their efforts in terms total workforce. We're back to pre-COVID numbers. Yes. And even getting pretty close to what they was. It was in 2012 when we had the real downturn. Yeah, we're about there. We're at three 20%. So any kind of clawed back up took us about ten years. Thank you. Next slide, please. So looking at the departmental, here we go On staffing expenditures. There's a there's as you had mentioned, about $1.6 million in cost of living adjustments, a hundred thousand of equity adjustments, and then schedule merit increases of about $345,000 and then a change in position. Their position request classifications, upgrades based on class areas and classifications. Three classifications settings. Next slide. Thank you. So we're only requesting at this point one new position. It's not within the general plan for the it would be within the geological and hazard geological hazard abatement district for maintenance work one. So going through the departmental expenditures. As you can see, there's city council is pretty much status quo from 145000 to 153000. Next slide. And again, please stop me if you have any questions. Again, this is kind of going to be a recurring theme back to the city council, city councils with No. 117 health care. There was additional health and other expenditures. It was a change. Thank you. I think we've done a six decades of. But since 1982 it's 506 something and you can't and will say no. City councils can give themselves a raise. You can you can give yourself a raise. But it's for the next council of the current city. More about. But yeah, in 1982 it was, you know, one raise since 40 years, city treasurer departments pretty much status quo. I get as much as you get, the Treasurer gets as much as the council, which is also stupid. But I'm not. I may have stood in front of the council and said that it was stupid to give the clerk and the Treasurer the benefits health insurance and the council said, Oh, you're like, that's stupid and you're taking it away. So we gave you something back. But I am not stupid enough to stand up there and tell you that you shouldn't pay me hundred dollars and so on. And within that department, that hourly, our city treasurer, that also includes regular line staff hours and distributed between the city clerk, city treasurer per city clerk, finance, city manager's office, for example. They're allocated about 15 different ways. So next slide, please. The city attorney, as you can see, there is an increase in salaries and raise range range primarily, and it reflects a change from there's a positional change of a staff member going to have a question. It's a question I always I have to ask that question of the council, not. Thank you. There's a positional change from a half times employee to three quarter paralegal position and then the primary increase from 2122 going forward to 2223 and 23, 24 is or is some potential outside legal litigation costs for 2023 and 2324. Is there something I can answer or no work and I'm commenting over here how they city manager expenditures, as will point out in that department, and it went down from 22, 23 to 2324. So that was significant increases. And really what I was remiss in pointing out our two benchmark years that are their 2021 and 2022, those all reflect reduced expenditures due to the pandemic. So as you can see, you know, 22, 23 was the first post-pandemic year. And rather than those that's increased because it's really it's in throughout the city wide, it's really moving back to pre-pandemic levels. Next slide, Finance Department, the primary change in finance, I mean, you look at the top revenues, $146,000 is 50 $500. But we had a change finance and communication in the permit center. An employee went from finance and the permit center is now and the licenses support that department gives to take that share of the revenues. And then the position also moved over from the finance department to the permit center. So next slide, h.r. Again, a pretty status quo budget between 2223 and 2324, in fact, a slight decrease. And again, 22, 23 and 2324 reflecting post-pandemic funding levels. Next license. So recreation. And that really points out that we are at the counsel request. I mean, two years ago and this year restarting or continuing pre-pandemic recreation programs. So we're happy to say that the kids and the seniors are immediately we serve now also within the Recreation department, although I'm not, I'm sad to lose them as my second floor neighbors. They are ecstatic to be in their reporting arena and we're all excited about that. It's really important. But and get out of their collect it. Next slide is okay code enforcement and this reflects, again, full staffing in 2324. As you can see, 2223 in prior years, they weren't on staff. And that's really the primary increase. And in the 2324 budget over 2023. Next slide. So planning. So this is where I was talking about. If you look at the revenue out there, 1.1 million down to 322 500 that's because of project recoveries at request of the department are being shown as what we call it, a contra expenditure. It reduces expenses which actually takes us down into a need for other expenses into a credit or a negative expense. Overall, the primary source of the expenditures in the planning department are salaries and branch tax permit center, formerly known as the building department. Again, you'll see that the revenues increase and that's because they came over or business licenses are now being reported by the permit center department. And then there's also a corresponding increase in salaries and benefits that go right along with that. Next slide, just engineering it. And this is another department where for 21, 22, if you look at salaries and fringe, the lot of attrition, a lot of vacancies in those departments over the last several years there we're projecting that 3.3 million reflects a fully staffed department. Next, I meant and this is the non r excuse me the general fund portion of public works. As you can see, the range, the the bulk of the increases or the other expenditures are are lower this year than they were in the past couple of years. Any abatement or graffiti removal program. Again, reflects an effort on the part of the city to really jump on the nuisance of graffiti and make sure that it's abated. But we and we're hoping at some point that to start generating revenues, if we go on to a private castle and B, we may start charging private businesses for that. Next slide. Things this I mean, I'm pretty amazed the Chiefs, it's just a fantastic job with his budget going from 36 million to 37.6 million total expenditures. And the bulk of that, again is the salaries and fringe increases. They're doing a lot with what their staffing levels are, even if they are so where they're at. But this would reflect that they have several folks in the academy now getting ready to come out, and we're hoping to have a fully staffed police department, and this budget reflects that. Next slide, please. So either finance and actually if I could jump in, although I made light of her as she came in, as I mentioned, director of recreation with her, her budget, there is an increase. But as we pointed out, the Marina center, we have senior center and a full complement of youth programs, swimming programs. Roughly how many employees and programs do you have that you're basically trying to implement council and city priorities over the summer? We typically hire up to 60 just to run our normal operations assembly of all or community activities and events, small art and all of that. In addition to that, we have 20 to 30 that we are employing as part of youth parks, which goes into basically it's an umbrella as a partnership between have an ongoing element where we take those kids, we hired a modest operation leaders and we farm them out to come and support the business community for up to 200 hours. And so that's about 90 youth in that respect. And addition, we've got a number of programs that are getting off the ground right now at Reyna Center, which are new programs we haven't had in over 20 years. We've got a step up step plan which is available for young adults and above that we just started advertising and they maxed out their class in 24 hours. So we're moving them from the classroom into the gymnasium. They start on Tuesday. We've got some community classes which again, we haven't been able to provide in years. We have pickleball dancing. So we've got our pickleball courts were just installed this week, so we went to pickleball. We have facility rentals that will be going on around the center. We also have as Habitat this weekend. So just a number of different programs without in the parks. We look for grant funding to supplement some of that. So for instance, we have subsidized some lessons for those who qualify and we also applied for grants from our families to do things that are out there, which just happened last week in the senior center. That's an annual event. So just a number of different events, activities, programs, classes and anything else that we can do. So there are no sites which is starting out this week which is measure funded, and that's what it's starting this week. They're in summer, but they are operating. They are their interviews this week, and that's a youth employment program that does job training, not actual paid jobs for job training. And then we've got a chess Wizards camp in the summer and a basketball camp. So just trying to provide a little something for everybody in my community of all ages, all backgrounds and all financial applicants. Thank you. Next slide, please. So the following slide showed the city's major funds, including the beginning of reserve balance reserve level from the last audited year, which is June 30th, 2022. This slide represent shows the internal service funds, including information services, the maintenance, building maintenance. Next slide, please. And I guess I'll jump in every now and then. I'll jump in. Notable. I really want to credit Public Works and John and his team for fleet maintenance. You'll see there were a $4.4 million revenue and $5.2 million expense. And they really looked at what they're doing and they're down to 2.6. So again, we're really appreciative of John coming on board and really taking a fresh look at public Works engineering. So this is why you're seeing some of the budget numbers be a lot lower than maybe some of the other increases that we traced. Then next slide, please. The citation ranges and these are internal service funds, the pension Trust, OPEB or other post-employment benefits and liability insurance. Next slide, please. Enterprise funds include water operations, sewer maintenance, waterfront operations, Marina Island Energy in the Pittsburgh Power Company. The amended Budget. I want to point out the amended budget for the Water fund. If you look at it, Scott, it reflects 87 and $87 million of expenditures. But that does account for having spent down the money, which we haven't budgeted in that manner. The water treatment plant, when we issue $45 million of bonds, we had to spend anything near that yet. Next slide, please. So as you can see, it's very power and an energy in the marina operations center. As you can see, they've got pretty healthy beginning reserve balances. Next slide. These are some of the city's major special revenue bonds, including economic development, citywide lighting and landscaping and the solid waste fund. Next slide, please. Also, the housing authority corrected that spelling and Section Housing Reporting, Section eight on. And this is a fund that really won't have much of a reserve balance when we get federal monies. And they expect us to spend on housing on the successor agency housing fund, which does have a healthy fund balance. So continuing to decrease as the successor successor agency ramps up over the next several years, next year. So observations more projecting some healthy increase in our sales tax revenues. Our measure M sales tax revenues are not projected to increase as much due to the fact that there's a point of origination tax, meaning that the cars that are being manufactured here in Pittsburgh, that sales tax goes to where they end up. They were, as you had mentioned, as well. Salaries and benefits are also included in the projects in this budget. So our Jack is beginning reserves at July one and we're going to talk about a little bit in another item coming up shortly. With regards to the budget, the next agenda item, which is the Fiscal sustainability ordinance, sorry, we've got healthy reserves due to that. To do that from ordinance, that policy we've got right now a 49 million, 49% reserve in our general fund, water operating and sewer operating funds that have very healthy reserves. Next slide please. At the other enterprise funds include healthy balances in our reserves as well. For a waterfront marina, Island Energy and Pittsburgh Power. Next slide, please. Here's here's a rebound in their internal service fund that is going to be adjusted upward to get to the 30%. And that's in our information and communications bond. Our spending went over what we were estimating for that now. But I believe maintenance is right at 30%. Building and liability insurance are 30% fringe benefits at short the percentage of reserves. Next slide is so in upcoming dates, of course, today May 19 is our second subcommittee workshop. So again, we're hoping to bring the budget for presentation and consideration and ultimately adoption to the City Council on June 19. And of course, if necessary, additional workshops in the schedule that requested that is my slide show. Any questions or discussion. Okay. And we'll move right on to the next. Can I ask, where does the library fall and which is it Under general fund recreation? Where do you see that? Different cities do different things, so it's going to be perfectly into item by item. But if you want to answer that question, right. So where the library right now is being funded is added measure of because it'll be slotted in under you new. Yes. Which is general fund. So at the request of one of the council members, we wanted to have a discussion on fiscal sustainability. So with this slide show, hopefully we can have a robust discussion. Next slide. So back in 2005, the Budget stabilization fund was created with the intent of having one time savings to be used in the future as rainy day funds to help offset negative impacts caused by economic downturns. And initially there was established a minimum general fund reserve, 50% of the operating budget of the general fund. Next slide. However, during the 2011 12 budget process, staff began working on developing a more robust fiscal sustainability ordinance, which would establish minimum reserve levels for the city's various operating plans, as well as establishing guidelines for the city's budget stabilization fund. This begat Ordinance 12 Dash 363, which was approved on December 17, 2012, establishing the city's fiscal sustainable Ity Ordinance next year. Over the years, as time has gone by, the ordinance has been amended and last time being on October 1st, 2018, establishing the following requirements to ensure that the city's general fund maintains adequate reserves. Next slide. And this is the summary of the ordinance. There is established within the general fund a general fund reserve which shall be used for emergencies, including natural disasters and costs associated with natural disasters, and that each budget cycle, money from the general fund shall be appropriated and deposited into the general fund reserve. That's right. So now the minimum funding level within the general fund reserves shall be 30% of the general fund operating expenses. Next slide. So this reserve component is there are two there's a within that within the region. One reserve, there is a reserve for economic entity and an emergency reserve. And I put this as they were written. And it's that reserve for economic uncertainty is 20% of that 30% minimal level. The emergency reserve is 10% and the 30% minimum funding level. I think the intent at the time because 20% or 30% is always 6%. I think the wording and conferring with the Treasurer, the intent at the time was to be actually two thirds of the 30% is meant to be for the reserve for economic uncertainty and one third of the 5% is meant to be for an emergency reserve. Next slide. And that kind of we update the fiscal sustainability ordinance. So the next time we do verify this, very clear that it's not much more than 3% looks like. And as you can see. So there's within within the reserve and this is how we will make the language for the prior two items. A minimum of two thirds of the 30% shall be held in cash and liquid investments consistent with the city's investment policy. And then an amount of one third of the 30% may be held in real property, which is owned and designated by the city where such property has an appraised value of at least 125% of the dollar amount. Next slide, please. Now, this is you can see this right here at the top first, June 30th, 19, just the cash, the percentage of liquid were at 45%. In 2020, we're at 42% 2021. And that's the year the COVID year, where we had a kind of an austerity budget at our expenditures. And actually, in fact, what happened is revenues came in higher than we were anticipating. We actually had our cash percentage being 72% for June 30th, 2021. And then the last half of the year on June 30, 2022, being about 67%. But then, as you can see, if you go down a little more than half way property as a percentage of operating expenses are ranged from 15 to 16%. And then if you add those, we really have a healthy and robust general fund reserve, although you can't really you know, we want to stress that it's important to maintain as much as possible in cash and this liquid you can turn around and turn the marina center and into cash right away. Where we want to be true. Talking with some city managers at a the mayors conference last month, This city, because of the leadership in this policy, is in a very good position. But there is an adjacent city and it's not to the east. Sometimes we are just that city is having a hard time keeping their reserves at 30%. And so, you know, we are very fortunate to have these employees, you know, staff Council, everyone working together to make sure we stay within budget and keep our operating mean basically revenues positive. Because, you know what I mentioned to a couple of them that we are in 21 at 72% of their jobs from like how are you doing that? And it is something necessary because we have projects and we're going to spend some of it now because we're doing some projects. But there is a strong desire to try and maintain a very healthy balance because we have had some unfortunate years. And so the goal is to use your general fund reserve balance above that 30% and not the two thirds of 30% or one third. You try and avoid that where possible. Thank you, sir. Next slide. So also established the Fiscal Sustainability Ordinance is abated Stabilization fund, which shall provide the city a cushion to absorb costs during economic downturns and or budget shortfalls. And the minimum funding level shall be no less than the greater of $2 million or 5% of the city's general fund. Operating expenditures. Currently, that balance is about $2.4 million, and that's not counted in your percentage. That's correct. So that you could add a 5% into your 70 67% that actually the. Thank you. Next slide. So that other funds which have the reserve requirements include the city's internal funds, enterprise funds. Next slide, please, on. Well, those are the and I may take this as an opportunity to jump in and talk about the emergency amounts. And I will just sum some oops. Yeah. Just page that top edge and smaller. Yes. So as you know, with the storms we had a trip of 67 that's causing we estimate about eight, $100,000 worth of damage. And the way it works with NPA right now, we are going to have to come up with the money appropriately, but we reimbursed. And then we also have BUCHANAN There is a repair that is needed at Buchanan Road, and that is about $2 million and then Willow Pass had a culvert came apart it and so there's another eight in Harbor Street. So we had some flooding at we keep on closing the road that's about at least $2 million that we know of right now. Those last three we are anticipating EMA reimbursement. That takes about four years. And at 75% is roughly what city see now the state as of today. You know, their budget is always a fun thing to speculate on. As indicated, they would backfill the other 25 to everyone impact. We'll see. Yeah, but with all four of these, we need to come up with the money front. And so there are really two areas where we could utilize and we want to hear your comments on the first one could be we could use that emergency 10% that you just saw in the slides a couple of slides ago, which allows you to utilize some of the fund, balance the reserves to pay for that amount, especially knowing that we're going to be repaid and replenish that amount. We could use up to $6 million. We don't need a 3.6 approximately for that. The other fund that we could use is something that's the general fund surplus that we allocated the $9.6 million a couple of years ago for projects. The downside with that is we would be canceling or delaying projects that the council or the community would like to see landscape masterplan restrooms that be candidate City Park, streetlight levee replacement, city entrance fees, you know, some youth programs. So you at least want to lay that out to now on preference. But it's going to have to go to full council for real principal consideration. But we're trying to get a preference as we put this together. So for me, I don't get a vote, but you will share your thoughts. I think the first scenario there is a mechanism where we would get some funding back, but that would be the most optimal for us. So we're not delaying the other projects, the things we need to do in the city as well. So that one makes the most sense to me and that is matching staff's recommendation right now because we're getting paid back. If it was just out the door and there wasn't a chance for replenishment, then we'd be coming to you with ways to delay projects because you don't want to just put a hole in the general fund reserve, even though you have the ability and certainly John is ready to tackle these repairs and he just needs a funding source which would then in turn your resolution that will be 2000. Any other questions about this, John? Does that help as we put this together? It does. So the earlier we can make a decision, there is an urgency to get started on these projects because the goal would be to have these repaired done before the next rainy season. So hopefully our position soon. So John and I will work together on bringing an agenda item to the council for your consideration. This is not on the 1970s. This is going to be in June. Okay. Item five, discussion of the library. All right, Ready? This is the fun stuff. Now. Thanks for that. You're welcome. Okay, so this next item is the library lease. Next slide. So in case you didn't have anyone in the audience who didn't know where the library is, it's right there at 880. Our avenue, which is right across the parking lot. Joining us today, I'd like to introduce Allison Mickey, our county librarian. Hello. Next slide, please. So just to give some background. There were variations of these library leases between cities and the county, and they date as far back as 1940. So to create some consistency in the language. In 2007, from 2007 to 2010, the county librarian then and the Public Managers Association's PMA, they created a subcommittee together with the County Council, city attorneys, and the county's General Services Department work together to create a standardized lease and service agreement, and that's to replace all the varying leases. And then in October 2010, the group of city manager said, Let's go ahead, county librarian, please take it to the county supervisors for consideration. So then it was presented to the county Board of Supervisors. Next slide, please. On November 2010, in which the county supervisor supervisors went through that standardized lease. So since then, each city in this county has been adopting that standardized lease slowly. And amongst the cities, there are three cities who have not done so, which are Concord, L.A. and Pittsburgh. So next slide. So thank you. So this list was brought before the Finance Subcommittee and then finance. While one was a then we still have a current subcommittee member. They are staff. Before we consider this, please, can you tell us if there are other options that we could consider? For example, if the city partner with USD Pittsburg Unified School District or LMC to operate the library? Could the city operate its own library in the city? Hire a third party operator to outsource that library. Apart from the from the county. So staff did some research to find that answer. So this slide is a conversation with this with us. So EOC operates schools with 13 libraries, and each library is school specific. What that means is if it's an elementary school there, resources on books are geared towards kindergarten through fifth grade, and library hours are maintained to match the school hours. And then the staff operates the library. They serve a little over 10,000 students. But they're not they don't have the capacity to run their library system as well as probably operate hours to the public or to their library. And the main reason is safety aside from schools, are resource specific. Adults are not allowed on campus unless they are authorized to for safety reasons. As we all know. So as opposed to an option now. So LSC was then reached. We talked with. And again, their resource is our school specific. The library is open to the public and their materials may be used while using the library. You have to be a student within the Contra Costa College system or staff to be able to check out their resources and their staff student needs, faculty and their students and their class by professionals are the people who run their library and they do not have the capacity to manage another library outside of their system. So that's not an option for the city. So then Richmond, the city of Richmond. Next slide. Here is the only city in our county that operates their own libraries. As a matter of fact, they have three of their main library, which is in their civic center, is the one that they're all focused on because it mirrors kind of our same operation. So their library is located by their city hall and they are staffed with two. So here are 23 full time staff, 18 part time staff, and then they have additional staff to staff their special program. They are they also have two other branches. And then when they do, when they are open a little longer, so then they stagger their time. Next slide, please. The main takeaway I got from talking with Richmond is they operate this one library range and I'm not even counting the two, a two and a $5.5 million annually. 90% of that is general fund. 10% is done through grants and donations. So I asked what would it cost for a startup? They said it could be anywhere from 5 to 10 million depending on what types of resources we wanted to provide to the community. And in addition to that, some other things to consider are, you know, what they what they told us is sometimes the library is used as a child care provider unofficially, because kids who are about eight years old can be at the library as long as they're not misbehaving. There are times that children were not picked up by the time the library was closing, so they had to reach out to PD to get a hold of the parents to come pick up the children. And then more recently, they've had to have they've had to hire security because of things that are happening with some of them in the House who aren't behaving appropriately. So those are the things that are to consider. If we were to operate our own library. The next slide. Thank you. So if we were to outsource this service, apart from outsourcing with the library, what does that look like? So I looked online and there are a lot of if you include just Google library system, library management, there's a lot of different platforms that will manage the system for you. So it'll keep track of the inventory, keep track of the books that are loaned out, keep track of where they are, but there's not really an operating order who manages the actual full operations, that staffing that that looks at inventory, that looks like maintenance. There is one that seems to that the name comes up a lot there on ACMA and I looked online at the different communities in which they serve. They serve let's see here six states, five Multi branch library, 16 single libraries. So I talked with the city of Escondido, who uses them. But just to give you some background of what the city of Escondido looks like, is there a population of 150,000 there, full service city with fire, PD wastewater treatment. One library, their general fund budget this year is 125,770. I'm sorry, 125 million. So you're missing your kids or. Yeah. Messing up your zero 125,105 million. They had they had a staff of 30 full time and part time. But in 2017 they entered into a ten year sole source contract with library systems and services. And if you look, they are like the only company that seemed to be providing that type of service. And for Escondido, it worked out because their annual budget is about $3 million. And what their assistant city manager conveyed to me was this contract, they save about 400 or $400,000, but they still come up with their contract with the with licenses, $2,545,000 annually. And that goes up to $3.2 million at the end of the ten years their staff was hired by the CID. So instead of them staffing the library, they took 90% of a city of Esposito staff and took them on. And then the other 10% either retired on and a few stayed with the city. But that's what they're what that's what it would look like if they were to do it for a city. So now let's look and see what our county does for us. So this slide shows that the Pittsburg Bay Point Library Active Cardholders is almost 17,000 people. And just in April alone, our library had 7024 visitors. When and if you look at their open days, that's an average of about 281 people a day. And then the books checked out is 4337, which is about almost 174 books daily. That is the stats for our library here in Pittsburgh. That's why. Thank you. And this is what the staffing looks like there. So they have they have a manager who works 40 hours. They have varying staff working from anywhere from 20 to 40 hours, as well as aides who provide services back to 65 hours. And speaking of hours, just to give some background. Last year in a subcommittee in the goal session, one of the things that the city wanted to do was to extend the hours of of our library here, go to the next place. So if you look at the the old library hours, did not have any Mondays in them. Tuesday hours were a little shorter. So we extended those, adding an additional 12 hours. So that's what our new library looks like now. And on May 1st, we took an item to the city council so that we could index it and so that we would allocate funding towards those additional hours for the next fiscal three fiscal years using measure hours, starting with this fiscal year. So next slide, please want to comment on that. One of the ways the county has traditionally cut their costs is to cut the hours at the library. So one of the things you're pretty sure of is that your contract doesn't allow them to unilaterally cut hours because they just did it to save their money. And then this business of having more hours and thus adding hours was always a way for them to save money at the expense of our citizens. And if you have this, I don't know what's in this county contract right here. A contract can't allow them to do that without some kind of screening process. And because that's nonsense. Arizona, the county actually increased the number of hours that we contribute as the base level of hours to all cities in 2021. Okay. So we used to do and it's gone up. Okay. Used to be 28. A couple decades ago, 2010, it was raised to 35 and 2021 we raised it to 40 hours a week. So so the county has been very consistent in raising the level of service for the last couple of decades that the standard of our county served. The council was 15 years ago. Okay. So this shows what the cost of our library is to our city. So the cost in yellow is something that we already paid for under the public works building maintenance because this is our building. So we would maintain it, whether it's the library there or another public agency there. So the cost that we are specifically looking at is the cost and. Right. Which is the additional hours for fiscal year 2324, it'll be $111,284. And then there's also the technology that's charged to the city, which would include phone and includes the system where they check it out. I had to get a like a list of what those actually mean. There's all these abbreviations, such as UPS, which is interactive power supply and wireless access points. But there are all the things that you need to read in the library. So for next fiscal year, the cost is $122,030. Next slide, please. And then this is what the technology looks like for next fiscal year. And the reason I show it is because if you look at the charges, the cost to do that, to grow the technology at this library, you're looking at $37,698. But because the county gets a grant, they share and pass that grab on to the city. So that way we get a discount. So instead of paying 37,000, we're now paying just shy of $11,000. So they get a discount in their purchases, they get a discount or they get grants. So whatever they get, they pass on to the mayor. The city's. So if you want to compare the cost between what type of operations that would be available to us and what that looks like in terms of dollars, again, partnering with the school district in the city is a no go. So it's zero. If we were to run our own library, assuming it would cost the same amount as Richmond and this was their budget last year, it's 5.5 million. That's not counting the startup cost. If we were to hire L estimates, it would be anywhere from two and a half to $3 million. And if we were to maintain our our, our operation with the library, it's $122,000 next year, assuming it'll go up by 5% next year, roughly. So you're looking at 122,000 plus annually. So again, the terms of this lease have been agreed upon a decade ago. We are just inheriting. So but we still need to have a standardized lease. It formalizes who's responsible for what. And so I'd like to take this item to the city Council on June 5th. And again, Alison's here to answer any questions, if you have any. As far as our library operations, Pittsburgh Branch and I'm also very optimistic, that's a no brainer. But my other comment is that since I've been retired a while and it's especially the last five or seven years, I've been using the library board and I have lots of times that I can do it. I physically walk in the building and use the library, but what they have access to, there is no way in hell anybody. I mean, every library in Alameda County, every library in Contra Costa County at the tips of your fingers. It's amazing. And when you put a hold on there or one of their books to be delivered from some other library within two days, you know, and within the department, you know, you're number 100, number 430, they can get a book. But within ten days I was number 200 and something. And within another ten days I got the book. But it's just amazing. And now they have these volunteer shows over there to help those of us who are part of this from kids of a high school come over and you get they get community hours for sitting over there and helping those of us who don't know what we're doing to computer. And the kids are helping and they think through the most of the people who work at Gladstein over there who do better. It is much greater as I do. And we get there through somebody asks them to help. And that's just so you know, you were talking about the hours. The library is looking to start a pilot to be there starting in one community, and hopefully it works well to do to add Sundays. It'll be. And correct me if I'm wrong, it's like a library express hours where you will have access to the library. There will be no staff, but you're pre-approved to have access and the resources on Sunday. So for people who need to get in their Sunday school, they have a project that's due. They can do it. They just need to get approved in advance. But that will add another more the more out of it. Yeah, so it's good and questions. So there's a lot of information. I'm like grasping all of this. So this request is about is it just the lease or it's the staffing and release scenarios? There was almost two different when we first brought the lease together. The subcommittee said, Can you examine this, look at what are the other options and to before the city if it were to do what it. And so Maria lost her for a couple of weeks and she you know, called Escondido and all these other places. And and now we're reporting back, you know, certainly staff strong recommendation is work with the organization that gets this done. And you know, just from a dollars and cents, it's an incredible bargain. But this you know and they are have that core service. This is not, of course, service learning or paying for it on the on the outside. But we wanted to make sure we reported back to the Finance Committee as they requested. Here's all the information that I did. I did. If we can go back to the slide, sorry, and I kind of glossed over it. But if you look at the library hours at the bottom of it, just because I wanted to show what the county's commitment to this community financially. Okay. It's what is it going? Sorry. Slide 13. So what what more do. So if you look at the bottom left the county last or this current year, they are spending $653,097 for 40 base hours in our library. That's for staffing, that's for managing the resources. In next fiscal year, they are they'll be spending 706,478. So they do not have a financial commitment to us in running his library. I'm trying to understand how this translates to the scenario or the comparisons. So If if we were to keep what we have with the county library under this scenario where we have these hours, it would cost us $122,030 next fiscal year if we were to choose a different scenario, meaning we hire, let's say, listeners to manager our library, they'll be managing it just like the county would. We probably have to buy the books first, but that is starting. If we were to take the City of Escondido model, it starts at a little over two and a half million dollars. I think last. And NASA's program is beneficial to cities who already run their own library because that's where they see the cost savings. But because we partner with the county, they are able to spread out their costs countywide. So it's a little bit more financially feasible for us. Yeah, I understand that. What I was looking at that number and then the number here was letter that was in addition to the 600 or so hundred thousand that you got on there. But you're saying no, because it's a cost share anyway for the libraries. They're going to service that amount. So that 600,000 is what the county contributes for the 40 base hours. So for instance, before the council voted to fund 12 additional extra hours, the library was only open 40 hours a week. And so the county funded all of that. That's our commitment to every city is I haven't put against those 40 days hours. Got it. Okay, that helps. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? Right. Okay. Item number six, Discussion of Consulting Services agreement with Northpoint Security Services for Park Patrol Services. Okay. Got 7 minutes. Okay, I'll. I'll go quickly. All right. So there an RFP process. Northpoint was selected to provide overnight park Patrol services. The proposed funding for this contract was measure and so on. May 1st, staff presented the contract to the City Council for consideration. At that time. The vice vice mayor, Vinales, asked staff under what category with the overnight Park Patrol fall and staff responded. Public safety. So a concern was raised regarding the use of measure as funds because such dues may exceed the cap placed on measure and funding for public safety. So this item was tabled and then staff went back to research it just to make sure that we're in compliance. So I'm just going to give a brief history so measure em. If you recall, I'm sorry, measure P, when it first was voted in, there were only three categories Public Safety Senior Center and Economic development. So and then please go to the next slide. And then when the voters voted to extend, it became EMS and two other categories were added, which were youth and streets. So during COVID on August 17, 2020, the Finance director reviewed the budgets annually for Measure M from two 2013 through 2021, and also at that time propose some allocations in an action plan addressing measure. And so through the City Council resolution adopted Resolution 20 Dash 1319, established an Allocation and Action Fund for Measure M, So for instance, the budget that was established for 2021 is not touched. It's just keep those allocations where they are so that we have a baseline as measure M revenues are we see Finance subcommittee is to be informed monthly and if there's any moneys that are received that is above that baseline, it would go back to the Finance Subcommittee and the City Council or disposition or programing. It also established a cap on public safety at 2,751,000 and some change if you go back to the to the table if you look right there, public safety's base cap is 2,781,000 606 going back to the first slide out of the next slide. Thank you. Yeah, perfect. And in addition, staff recommended a floor for these amounts. So now here comes the allocations. At that time, staff recommended that public safety be capped while maintaining the ratio 1.1 officer to per every 1000 residents. So if that ratio starts fall, then City council can consider a change in increasing that allocation. If that was needed, then the other recommendations were to restore funding for senior center over time to $350,000 economic development, increasing it over time to $450,000, increasing funding to youth over time at 425,000 and then streets again increasing over time to 750,000. So a few months later, actually almost six months later, we do a budget mid-year review, which we do every year, and it looks like our moneys are coming in higher instead of 3.3 million, our monies are really coming in at 5.1. So next slide, please. Our interim finance director proposed increasing the categories and establishing a new baseline. So if you look here, recreation under youth and senior center, additional moneys are being allocated. Same thing with police, same thing with works and economic development. The new line item that was created or a new category was reserves establishing a $1 million reserve for city council to consider programing at a later time. Next slide, please. So it's a little hard to see. By the way, these are a lot of the screenshots from prior a presentation. So that's why there's like color changes in the funds. I didn't it wasn't on purpose, but I took screenshots because I wanted to make sure I had accurate information. So if you look here, this established the new baseline at $5.1 million. It is public safety's capital point 8 million, and then senior center at three 4480 at four streets 224 youth economic development to ten and then the new category of $1,000,000. It's a little hard to see on your probably on your end. Next slide, please. So two months later, we do a budget workshop. We're looking at it and we're thinking, why not increase all other categories, not public safety and decrease or reduce? The reserve baseline is still the same of 5.1 million, but now reserves at 200. But all other categories will increase, keeping safety the same. So if you look at 21 budget versus 22, the proposed budget baseline is the same. Everybody got an increase except for public safety, and that's what was taken to the city council at the time that the the time that the budget was adopted. And this has been the baseline for and ever since. So these advance to the next slide on May 2nd, as we started seeing what projects were going to be needed citywide for ARPA measure M and general fund surplus. We conducted a goals workshop and talked about the different projects and programs that we're proposing to use those funds. And it was a big list, 72 items. So because it was so overwhelmed at that time the City Council decided not to do anything. Yet the city manager one on one would talk with them about all 72 items in preparation for the budget workshop the following week. Next slide, please. So on May 9th, in an effort to create to make it a little easier when you were reading this, the projects were put in buckets. So the third party contract, which is the overnight park patrol, was placed under the city related projects and then the city council decided to go line by line anyway because it was just easier. And what they did was they gave the thumbs up or a hands up if projects were staying or if projects were going. Next slide, please. These are the buckets that I mentioned. Anything. If you look here, all the tunnels are is really is a screenshot. It's a screenshot. It's screenshot. So when when the one item regarding the Park Patrol service came up, it received four out of the five hands. So it remained on the list. And then but staff still had to come back to the City Council for consideration of the use of those funds. So the Vice mayor is absolutely correct that they're about the cap on public safety. I believe that the confusion been when we placed that particular item in the category under city related projects, because technically city related projects, it's not a category under measure. And so when staff was asked out, said in public safety, because it really is to maintain safety for our community who are using these parks according to the the finance I'm sorry, according to the action that was taken in August, what have happened is that this contract should have been taken to the Finance Subcommittee and then the city council, but instead it was taken to the Community Services Subcommittee, and that was because it was following the same format in which the all the other projects and programs that were budgeted under ARPA, under general fund surplus, under Measure M, there were assigned to different subcommittees so that different subcommittees had a chance to look at the different projects and programs, and not just one specific subcommittee was looking at all 72. Everyone had a say. So that's what happened. But absolutely right. Vice Mayor was correct that there was a cap, but staff felt that the cap, or at least staff assumed that the cap was for anything, a baseline below and anything above the baseline that they would take to the city council and it would not be subject to that cap. I know for pressed for time, but on a side note, this program has been very effective during COVID, when the city's guidelines were not to disturb encampments, these encampments room and we were getting calls from residents, requests about the conditions of our parks. So in April 21, we did this massive cleanup. The contractor alone for that cost us almost $25,000. Staff time for that fiscal year was 575 585,000 for a homeless encampment. Encampment cleanup. We have not had any any concerns raised during our and I t's our neighborhood improvement meetings and talking with public works. The complaints on and on our parks have been reduced by 75%. So it's working. So staff is looking for a recommendation for funding using measure funds that if not measure and something else, because we think this is a valuable program to continue, think public safety is the number one thing and drives other cities. These encampments don't have that have to be kind of clean up was huge but we have photos of it. It was used to talk about building. There were just homeless encampments throughout the creek area. Now, with all what the building looked like, oh my gosh, yeah. That we're concerned about because there was there were fires, not to mention what they were dumping in the creek. So that makes sense. You Thank you. Any item number seven, are there any non agenda items that anyone wishes to bring up? If not, we will. Chair, Thank you for being here. You. That's about nine. I like all the or even I was about to say after elevator.