Bangor Council to Use Adjusted Property Values for 2026 Tax Bills

[0:02] Susan Deane: We are live. Good evening, welcome to the city council budget workshop. It is June 10th, 5:15. We're in council chambers. Around the table we have City Manager Carollynn Lear, City Councilor Deane, City Council Carson, City Council Walker, City Council Bloom, City Council Betty, City Councilor Fish, and City Councilor on Mallard, and I'm because the council. We have just one person not coming in this evening, and do you want to go right to the evaluation or yes, let me go right into the assessor evaluation update, and I'll just know as he's walking the topic that we usually have on the school board. Oh, that's right, so keep that in mind as we're doing our work. Is the chair there for you or [1:02] Lisa Goodwin: that has the ejector button? [1:07] Bill Drew: You might want to use it today. Good evening, Bill Drew, city assessor. So I think I would start the meeting by saying there will be nobody from KRT here to give us an update, only because I can read the email that I received on Monday, and it says I am still working through the commercial industrial, large apartments, multi-units, and exempt properties, which I will need a solid two or three weeks to complete them. I didn't receive this a month ago. Surprise. I received it a month ago. So there's nothing reliable that they can really give us today. Day, unfortunately, it's been 37 years that I've worked for the city. I've come before this body in June and given solid numbers for budget purposes, and because to stay elected not to do their work timely, we don't have those numbers available to us. So the numbers that we do have, through the normal process of assessing, we modify last year's values based upon market adjustments to the best of our ability. And that has occurred every year. So we have our estimate. So on the real estate side, we're about $4.2 billion, which is up from $3.8 billion. So those would be new construction and market adjustments, and then a protocol property usually is about $200 million on the taxable side, and that has stayed the same. So I believe tonight being assessed numbers should reflect about $4.4 billion of that, which would just be my numbers modified from the previous year, as I've always done, because usually I come to you and I've got nice sheets that lay out the values, and there would just be I think a lot of confusion to try to present what KRT has so far. So I believe they will come in higher than 4.2 billion on real estate, but I just don't know, not when they tell me oh three weeks out, and it's not so my response to that email was at least to include the provision vision in our agreement of the thousand dollar today yes I like that doesn't do anything for us tonight no but I think the big issue for us is the two to three week period that has to be extended. So when we looked at the project completion date of July 24, so that's not likely to be until about August 13 now. And that's only a month away from tax due date. Yeah. And I just don't see any compression of the time from the delivery of reliable valuations. I can start reviewing the residential, but commercial is 50% of our value and quite critical, so that review period really needs to start when they've said the numbers are delivered to you complete search and review, so they cannot beat the GEP deadline and they didn't meet it for residential. So I think I'm gonna be able to review the numbers tomorrow on the residential side. I think I think they will be well ready for any conversation with the public next week. I think I've seen sufficient work and with the email today. So there shouldn't be any confusion about the process used by the revaluation companies, so that we can inform the public on that process and that they understand it. So questions? [6:24] Susan Deane: So I think we probably should just make sure two things are clear. We will be proceeding, meaning us, to use the values from last year with market adjustments for purposes of estimating the budget impact on this year's mill rate. Correct me if I'm wrong, but we are pretty confident that we will also be using those values for tax billing this year. Is that correct, that it is very unlikely that we will have those reval numbers in time for the billing, or is that a step [7:13] Bill Drew: if the council accepts a mid-August delivery of tax bills then we could use the new numbers, but if that's not acceptable then we would have to use my adjusted numbers that I currently have [7:32] Wayne Mallar: completed. What does the Charter say as far as the date we have to set the tax [7:40] Bill Drew: does it have a bill question or not? I think it's I think it's within, I think generally the manager's budget applies the due dates. Yeah, that's right, yeah, and then it's up to council either to modify those or accept those due dates, so it's not in the [8:01] Susan Deane: charter then, right? Yeah, and I think if we were to modify the due dates we'd then be having conversations about cash flow and you know those sorts of things. That's okay. My other concern is [8:15] Carolyn Fish: is that the two to three weeks will come and they'll say they want another week or two so i think we need to make an affirmative decision so we can move on and then if we have to modify or adjust later make a plan b but i think phil's been pretty accurate and i think that 's a better plan for action plan today and to wait for perhaps another extension and then we're really in some mess there's [8:50] Bill Drew: Very little information that comes from them to me. On Monday I asked for a modified timeline. There's been no delivery to me of a modified timeline. There's just this oh I'll be late. That's very concerning, or who knows what progress I could see all the work that needs to be done. So I've already, my staff and I have reviewed last year's top 25 taxpayers, and there are multiple accounts that just have overrides. That means they just show my number from last year, no work from them on properties that Total over 100 million dollars, and so it's unsettling, and that again they've pushed this important work to the end. That was not my expectation to perform as well if [10:00] Susan Deane: We go with your numbers, which I know are close but not perfect, what happens when we get the real numbers? Do we make a modification for the six month bill, or does it not come until the following [10:12] Bill Drew: Here I would think that the council could consider that, and then I would think that most communities would just elect to hold those numbers over till [10:25] Susan Deane: The following I need the credit or however it goes. It could be either way [10:30] Bill Drew: Just hope just literally hold them over to the April 1st 2027 values, just defer them, basically. Okay. From [10:44] Susan Deane: My perspective, that's the most seamless experience for the CAPS here, is to just hold it over. And [10:56] Bill Drew: If it did happen, and they were able to at least generate values, they would be known to the public earlier than we expected this year. [11:27] Susan Faloon: So, in that case, if we do that, we go with your numbers, we proceed for this year, we hold those, would taxpayers get that notice once you get that information? Would that letter come out like still sometime this year, letting them know what the value will be, or would they have to wait until next year to find out what their revaluation amount is? [11:48] Bill Drew: I think it's probably an important timing issue, just so that we don't send up tax bills with values and then immediately send out a notice showing a different value. So I think that would be an important decision for the city manager to wait until this time next year. [12:15] Susan Faloon: Correct. I guess I'm saying, like, would we let them know once the city knows what their value will be for [12:22] Bill Drew: the next, for next year? I'm not quite sure. I mean, I guess it would all depend on the impact because we just don't want any confusion. Yeah, that's all. Well, the value will be there because [12:41] Wayne Mallar: you'll be updating the files. So if you want, if a person wanted to look, they can look and see what the valuation would be once you get the information. Right, you'll update your file. [12:53] Bill Drew: Correct, because we currently run two systems. We run the Patriot software where the values by KRT will be generated, and then we import those numbers into our Trio software for building. [13:10] Wayne Mallar: So yes, evaluation will be there. They just have to go over their chart and look. [13:15] Bill Drew: And I see on Monday that I was able to at least say, hey, success, successfully converted the data or paper software into the city's billing software without any issues. Issues. So meetings with departments that had a difficult time, it did take us six months to get the process written in such a way that we could do the conversion. That at least is seamless when we are able to use it. [14:05] Michael Beck: Has the public information meeting happened [14:09] Bill Drew: yet, or that's still upcoming next week? Will what we learned tonight, will that be part of that presentation for the public about, so the, so the public presentation will cover all the residential type properties, mobile homes, mobile homes in communities, multi-family, same family home under PUDs. So it's basically gonna, they will lay out their process, they will display, lay all the homes that sold that were considered as valid sales, and will show the statistics, how the values are generated and how accurate they potentially will be. So that's really the intent of that meeting, just wanting the public just to know what the process. So KRT came to town, they did a bunch of inspections, they got current property data, they looked at sales, the sales helped to inform them on how to create the model to estimate the values. So that's what we're going to cover. [15:26] Susan Deane: So one more question, just to be clear, so the residential values will be your numbers or KRT's numbers? [15:32] Bill Drew: It sounds like they're going to be my numbers. [15:36] Daniel Carson: Okay, thank you. Carson, what was the date that they were supposed to be where we started assessing [15:48] Bill Drew: So they were supposed to be complete Monday and available to me for review, but their final drop, that final completion date, is July 24th. So they've already told us that they're going to, you two or three weeks, yeah, beyond. There's half a position right there. So right here's some shady. [16:13] Daniel Carson: Outlook positions, there's half of them right there. That's my house of the day, silver lining. [16:37] Bill Drew: Well, do [16:40] Susan Deane: you have anything else? He's just hoping they're going to show up next week. [16:52] Bill Drew: I think probably the most important part is, you know, the fact that the excuse that they gave me, they said, well, converting your current data to our new software is rather difficult. But just to inform you, there are two types of revaluations. One is we simply go low budget and say, well, revaluation company, we've got a bunch of data. Why don't you use that and do your best and come up with new values? Or the other approach is a full measure, every property, list every property, collect the data, come up with new models, and that's what we paid for. We didn't pay for a conversion. So don't bring this lame excuse at the last hour as why you're late. You're late and [17:55] Lisa Goodwin: thank [18:08] Susan Deane: you. Thank you. Thank you. All right, so this is what my plan is for the next hour. And first, I want to go over the memo that was in your packet with some of the more in-depth questions that staff was asked over the course of these budget workshops. Then I was hoping to just go over at a high level what I plan to produce for you on Wednesday day to sort of start the real heavy-duty decision-making, and then hopefully if you have sort of thoughts, guidance, goals that you would like to bring up to inform what I bring you on Wednesday is the starting point to have that discussion now, because I think of what we can have on Wednesday is as it can be. That will help us go more quickly through the process and really hone in on the real debates and decisions. Does that sound okay for an approach? Okay, so in your packet, you had Forge, Page, Memo. And I'll just sort of go item by item at a very high level, presuming that you've read credit and see if you have any questions. So the first item is when we talked about the request for a new attorney in the legal department to focus on vacant fillings, Councilor Beck had asked the question, you know, what is the return on investment for this role? And I sort of laid out for you sort of the financial impact of the work, either in the first instance if someone registers the vacant building, how much we can expect to collect on a yearly basis. It's, you know, most expensive it would be about eight thousand dollars for property per year here, and then also laid out a recent example of an actual vacant property and tried to sort of estimate the tax impact of that property being revitalized. And that tax impact was as much as $1,000 a year. We aren't really able to do a pure math calculation and say, in 10 months, this position will pay for itself, but certainly over time the end result of that position's work is to generate taxable property that didn't exist previously, so it does over time help. At least could that work be done by a paralegal or does it need to be a full solicitor? Ultimately it requires appearances is in court, so it would require an attorney, but we have a paralegal now and she certainly is very capable and does do a lot of the underlying legwork for these sorts of things, preparing the cases, and the city solicitor did also ask for a paralegal as a new position to help support this attorney. I recall it was just 20 hours, it wasn't full time, so I was just wondering the comparison, because sometimes a good support person will allow the other people to do their job and free up a lot of time without having to spend. And his current paralegal is only part-time. I think he would tell you that she's worth her weight in gold and productivity for him and the current assistant solicitor, which is why he's looking for another part-time person. He'd really like to keep her, she doesn't want to go full-time, she's late career, but very productive. [22:40] Michael Beck: And Sylvain? In looking at this too, I think one of the things that go into things you can't measure with the math is the fact we just need properties activated. We need the housing, and they're making progress currently, and if this is going to help make more progress, I think you know we can see that some of the costs we offset, but the actual benefit to the community as a whole, you know, factors into this as well, and then you know down the road, you know, this council may have a conversation about, you know, what do we do about vacant commercial properties, and that's going to take more manpower, you know, so that's all worth, I think, for everyone to consider whether or not to give this grant this request are [23:25] Susan Deane: There questions I'll move on to item number two in discussions about the clerk's office request for two additional clerks. We had an in-depth discussion about the amount of interest that is foregone during our busiest check processing periods when checks tend to sit for longer. I won't go into all of the details of the math, but the end result is that we estimate that the city loses approximately 75 to 110,000 in interest based on the current rate that we're paying. And then Lisa noted for us that we probably lose out on rental car registrations because oftentimes they're looking to get those cars once they purchase them, they want to get them out, and so if they're experiencing slowness from us, they'll just register them somewhere else. But that would be harder to find an exact impact there, but I think this is one of those ones where you actually can really show that the positions would essentially pay for themselves. And I was actually having a conversation Stephanie today about whether, you know, if those positions were approved, whether we want to actually recognize interest income in the budget. We didn't plan anywhere, but it was part of the conversation. Could we be assured that one of these new hires would be dedicated to this process? Because if we hire people and they're pulled in other directions and we still have checks in our being cashed, then we're still going to be, yeah, losing out on that money. I think Lisa and I have a really vested interest in not being called to the table just not being processed timely this spring for sure. I think the hard thing is, I mean, I think, and I hate to speak for Lisa, but I think she would say, you know, her staff are very impacted by absences and vacancies. If she loses a couple people or someone goes out on an extended did leave, it would be hard to make a promise that we would see this revenue because she would then be sort of back where she answered the [26:02] Wayne Mallar: question. Well, I'm just thinking if it's only for a short period of time that we have the big influx, what's, how does the cost of temporary help affect? I mean, how much would it cost us the temporary health as opposed to permanent? Yeah. [26:17] Susan Deane: Do you want to come up and answer that question? I think the training and the mistakes become an of an issue with temporary help, but we're going to have a training issue too. [26:29] Lisa Goodwin: Go ahead, Lisa. Yes, so with the temporary help, there is a huge learning curve for them for all of the processes and the procedures that they have to follow, the laws follow. With a full-time person that's there all the time, they're going to learn that, and then they'll grow in that position. [26:48] Wayne Mallar: Excuse me, I'm confused because I thought we were talking about just depositing checks and handling checks that came in. I'm not talking about all the other activities that go on here in your office are too many for temporary help to do that. [27:01] Lisa Goodwin: And that's not, it's just that processing of the checks and it was also for someone for succession planning for the tax collector, something should happen to the tax collector. there 's no one that knows that position and can step in and do it so there's there's that we're trying to protect that so the main job of this of one of these people is just to do the rentals and the all of the mail that comes in on a daily basis and [27:38] Carolyn Fish: I think the problem isn't just tax season because I know year-round we have closings and as you know the attorney by federal law, we can't really prepare the numbers until like within 24 hours. So they need to get those figures from the clerk's office and the seller may say they paid the taxes, but two or three weeks ago, and it hasn't cleared. It hasn't cleared. So it puts the closing off and sometimes there's deadlines and locked in interest rates. So it really impacts a lot and there's closings every Friday, say, you know, 10 tons of them. And it's a common problem. So it's just not the tax time issue. It's a regular ongoing need of help. Yeah, that's right. The lost interest is specific [28:29] Susan Deane: to busy periods. But the busy periods also relate to other things. I mean, election season, you know, Fridays and Mondays when this lobby is massively busy, because that's when everyone [28:46] Wayne Mallar: What does it what would it cost us to use a lockbox system for a for a mail [28:54] Lisa Goodwin: We have looked into that Janelle and Stephanie looked into that and with the lockbox what happens is the check is mailed to the wherever it's going and usually it's at a state so it goes there, they will deposit the check, make a scan of the check and the envelope. And they'll give us that scan. We then have to input all the information. Nothing gets inputted into our system. We still have that work to do. And one of the problems with it is the envelope and the check are separated. So we don't know whose check goes with which envelope. And a lot of the taxes and utilities is based on it, you know, the interest rate is based on when that is. So it would take a lot of work on our end to try to figure out if we even could what the postmark was for that particular check, because some of them don't have a, you know, a return name on [29:57] Susan Deane: it and that's not a unique issue. Having done tax administration for a decade, the postmark issue is why the Department of Revenue or any state tax agency doesn't use a lockbox either, because that envelope is critically important for tax processing. [30:19] Wayne Mallar: So you're saying no one else in the state uses a lockbox system in the municipal area? Portland doesn't, Augusta doesn't, Lewiston, Waterville? [30:30] Carolyn Fish: I can't speak for [30:31] Susan Deane: other municipalities, but departments of revenue for tax processing purposes do not, because of the post -market date is decalculated. [30:46] Wayne Mallar: If we hire a person, we still don't have any guarantee that the deposits are going to be made on a timely basis. If you had the lockbox, at least you'd be getting your interest. Your interest was based on deposits being made and put in the bank. With a lockbox, that would be much quicker. So you would benefit from your interest. You would. [31:12] Susan Deane: But timeliness would probably suffer further as far as, but when that system would reflect, which I think would exacerbate some of the things that Counselor Fish is concerned about as far as real estate closings and other transactions that need to come to date, we [31:35] Lisa Goodwin: do our deposits the very next morning before anything is processed the day before. Now there was, when I took over that department, it was a lag, and it was a big lag of deposits sitting there for weeks on end, and that doesn't happen anymore. It's the very next day, so [31:55] Michael Beck: then so the question I have too is about things we can't measure, is I know that, you know, I think I'm pretty wrong, I think, in the past with the discussion on some of the long burnout and in the department, you know, things and you, if we lose employers, that's expensive training time and everything else, you know. By having two extra hands, would it be safe to say that would reduce, hopefully reduce some of that burnout, and we would see the benefit back and not having to have as much turnover in Training because what I'm looking at there, and one thing I appreciate is that there's a tangible number that at least it will be offset. And then, you know, and I was the one who originally brought up the lockbox issue, box issue. And you know, while I agree with the other counselor there, I worry that we end up spending that interest and trying to do all the reconciliation ends up being a net nothing. So no, I appreciate having this information and knowing that there's other intangibles and unmeasurable that all add up to making this a valuable proposition. [33:03] Susan Deane: I [33:06] Daniel Carson: know we didn't ask this question, but is there a way to estimate what we've lost out on rental car registrations, even anecdotally from staff? [33:17] Lisa Goodwin: That would be hard. They have a contract that they have to register so many with us. So we get a certain amount of excise tax from that. But if we are doing things faster than South Portland can do it, they're certainly going to come to us and we can have somebody that they know that we're going to get them turned right around. And we've been really working on that lately to try and, of course, it takes somebody off the window so it backs up, you know, the lobbying. But we've been really trying to focus on that to keep up with their demands because this is a really busy time for those. And I'm [33:57] Susan Deane: am I correct they come in with like a stack of them? Yeah, it could be, it might be seven, it might [34:02] Daniel Carson: be 70. So we never know what it's going to be. I just want to follow up with the comment, Madam Chair, that I think, you know, we asked the question about interest. This isn't the only source of what could be gained back, but I think just in the interest alone, and this is only a short period where we've calculated this. So I'm, for me personally, I'm fairly confident that between that, for all the other period that's not calculated there, plus rental income from the rental registrations, I think two positions are pretty adequately paid for just what I'm looking at. [34:45] Michael Beck: And you know, just thinking out loud here too, you know, with the online payment system coming online too, you know, as time goes on, you know, we may see, you know, the benefits of that as a briefing for us too. I mean, it's really to tell, you know, be interested to see how this plus that, you know, kind of alleviates things [35:03] Bill Drew: in the department that [35:06] Lisa Goodwin: has helped already because before they would do the online payment, we would come into the office the next day and then somebody had to process all of those. We don't [35:16] Bill Drew: have to process them. Yes, there [35:25] Susan Deane: Are no more questions on that? Move on to the next one, which is, I believe, Counselor Fish had asked a question seeking information about where the community connector was seeing an increase to ridership, and so the memo list of places in part Black or Orino, Stillwater Ave, and Old Town are the root, the root, sigma most substantial annual ridership increase since January this year, which we anecdotally at least attribute to gas prices. The next on the list is the library social worker position, so Council asked the library director and I to reach out to the county to see if the county was interested in continuing to fund one-third of that position. You'll recall that the county was paying for one-third from their ARPA allocation and we were paying for two-thirds. We did meet with the Penobscot County Administrator to discuss the possibility of financial support and he was unable to commit to funding any portion of the library social worker role, primarily because they've already completed their budget process and we did not feel like you could find additional revenue in the county's budget at the moment supporting that, so we were not able to walk away with a commitment to fund that position. However, the county administrator did have an interest in receiving a request in the next budget cycle to continue funding a third, so that doesn't help us for this budget but potentially would help us in coming budgets if you were to approve the social worker position. The [37:25] Wayne Mallar: question I have on the social worker is supposedly we have an abundance of non-profits that are providing services. I think it's time for one of them to step up and provide a service for the library. I'm tired of them taking all their money and using it for administrative purposes. We don't see the fruit of that. It so I'm not in favor of funding the social worker position to the library [37:53] Michael Beck: From my perspective, you know, with the homelessness committee coming on board, I'd be loath to hold a plug on this before they've had a chance to, you know, look at our overall strategy, but you know, obviously they're just now getting started. I would be interesting interested before we make a decision on this particular position hearing from the homelessness this response manager and understanding how the dynamic works and how it's helpful to the community or maybe not happen to me whatever their opinion is with this position you know because you know again we 've got issues working on we've got the homeless community coming on board i'd hate to you know pull the plug on it and put the library back underwater with the issue you know before we've had a chance to really get our hands around it [38:45] Carolyn Fish: I agree that we have a great deal of non-profits, many of them that I, you know, mentioned before, concerned and curious, you know, what they're doing and why we don't have registration process where we have a better handle on what they're doing. Maybe with our homeless committee that might be something they can do to identify by partnerships, but I think when we look at our budget and we look at the infrastructure of our departments and what we are in great need of and where that was an opera temporary opera position to begin with and they knew they had two or three years to plan and they have a lot of partners that they have a great relationship for. I feel, I feel that I, as much as I love the library and I love the job she's done, I'd rather see them find that funding elsewhere where we can better apply those funds and we might need them more in time. Okay. [39:55] Wayne Mallar: And council, I mean to that point, I would [39:58] Michael Beck: say this, if there is going to be an alternative discussion about it, I would like to see something in place first, you know, if it's, you know, making sure that we have aligned a non-profit that would be willing to sit in there and do outreach instead of a paid position by the library. I just, my fear is if we pull the funding and then there is just nothing because, you know, let's face it, I mean, the library is bailing water because of our community's policies. I mean, we set the policy and they're doing the best they can, but you know, we haven't solved the issue and then we're just telling them that's, that's too bad. I just, you know, again, I'm open to other alternatives. I just want to make sure something is put in place before we say no. If I say no to this, what am I saying yes to? It's on. Thank [40:53] Susan Faloon: you. I would agree that I would at least like to hear this coordinator and or Ben Treat from the library on what pulling that position could do and I'd hate to pull it and have unintended consequences that could require some kind of emergency response that could be even more costly. I can make [41:19] Susan Deane: sure that Ben is here on Wednesday of next week. Will we make a final decision [41:27] Carolyn Fish: That's okay. I'd also not like to know what their plan is. I mean, this can't be a perpetual forever position, so I'd like to hear from the library themselves. I mean, we're going to go right to kind of the horses mouth, sort of say the providers that already have a good relationship, so obviously they're going to advocate to keep this position. So I would like to be fair and balanced and see what kind of advocation we could get for where these funds might if we pull these funds into five and if Something else we need is bad. What are we giving up in place of that position that might be convenient? [42:06] Daniel Carson: I just lost my thought. No, I didn't, madam chair. I am interested. I think when we had this discussion the first time, this was pre when we put the police officer, the extra police officer in the area and change the rules for the park. I think that the discussion that we had about the number of interactions that the library was having took place before we had made those changes, and I would be interested to hear an update if Ben's coming. Yeah, I would be interested to here if there's a change in the actual traffic, the activity, the number of interactions that person in the library is taking, because that it may be a completely different set of numbers at this time. And then my question is just because I don't didn't have it in front of me, this position was funded previously through ARPA. This conversation is now about us funding it because those funds would no longer, right, okay, just want to make [43:11] Susan Deane: sure I remember that's our gain. And then council beck, could you refresh me as to the amount of benefits? I've tried to find it. I don't know if I have that just hand out with me. I believe it was less than, but I can't, I don't have that feature. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. It's a lot easier especially figures you're talking about. I think they should know what that is. Yeah, I'll bring it for our own for Wednesday. Yeah, I'll bring it for Wednesday. Sure. [44:52] Michael Beck: And again, just in the spirit of looking for alternatives, you know, maybe this would again be through the homeless response manager, but also, you know, does the Hub 7 coordinator have any ideas about, you know, if we don't fund this position, you know, it's a significant source of outreach, you know, would they have any input about, you know, their way that they can organize some kind of rotation there to have outreach workers you know schedule or something where they take a shift or Something you know, so again, I'm open to alternatives. I just want to make sure that if we say no to this, what am I saying yes to? Yeah, I think ultimately that [45:26] Susan Deane: has to be something that Ben brings to you, because he is independently sort of board managed. That would ultimately be their decision how to respond if this decision to go, unlike most other [45:45] Daniel Carson: departments, I can't make that promise. I would be interested if we know, because I think I have to be maybe careful about how I ask this question, because our economy, I don't know if it needs some part of something. My question is, I'm wondering if anybody knows or has heard about any potential awards where the total funding will not be completely spent and then therefore [46:13] Susan Deane: returned? It's a phenomenal question. At this point, if anyone does not spend their money, it will be returned directly to the federal government. Ah, okay. I think we had until December of 2025 to make reallocations, and I think in my brief time we did do one or two of those. Questions all right, more on that one step. So next on the list is more on the emergency management position. I thought we had a really good conversation about the city's need for a dedicated resource to do emergency management planning, and since our last discussion we've continued to explore those options. That exploration has included some discussions with the county over using their staff to do some planning and training work for us. Unfortunately, that planning work would still come at a cost of what they estimated to be about 145 000 per year. Under that model, the county would maintain our written plan, do training and exercise coordination, readiness, preparedness, but the fire chief would retain sort of the operational authority over emergency planning, I think, both because of recent transitions at the fire department, but also because it wouldn't save us very much money. I'm not at a place where I could recommend to you that county collaboration. Collaboration, and so you know it's not in, it was not funded in my proposed budget. I think one option would be to fund it in a non-specific way, yes, to budget some amount for emergency management services without indicating it was going to be for a county collaboration or an in-house position, or instead we could just fold off and I could come to you outside of the budget process and we could continue those discussions, but I'm not yet at a place where the county collaboration feels like the right option. [49:04] Susan Faloon: Councilwoman? Thank you. I think we talked about this a little bit about the potential for like some grant funding for this, and I don't know if anyone has dug into that. Like, I know there are some grant managers at the main emergency management agency that might be a good place to start because a lot of those like FEMA grants go through MIMA. I don't know, I know there's been cuts at the FEMA level so maybe there's not anything, and I know that money is always tight through MEMA, but there are grants for things like that. I mean, that's where a lot of those positions at MEMA are funded, or at least partially. [49:51] Susan Deane: So yeah, I think we've done a lot of research in the sort of grant landscape, and we already use a lot to do our existing activities, a lot of grants. I think what is hard is I don't know that we could rely on them for budgeting purposes. I think the benefit would be once we have someone who's doing the work and then evaluating, oh, there's a grant, we need to update our plan, there's a grant to do that, and then going to get the grant. But I don't think we could proactively say this $150,000, half of it, we can guarantee we'll get grants for. I think that's the challenge as it relates to this conversation. [50:35] Daniel Carson: I also just would add to that piece that 's also going to be a moving target right now because the FEMA commission just came out with its findings and there's going to be a large, it'll be bipartisan, I guarantee it, a huge bipartisan effort to actually implement the recommendations of that very, that years long process. I think that will continue to be a moving target. It I have some apprehension towards personally towards committing that amount of funding for a partnership with the county specifically because in a in an event where there is an emergency that is a Bangor only that would be where that relationship would be the most beneficial but at a time where an emergency were widespread and beyond Vancouver the county's resources and the way that they would operate right it's almost like a first come first serve you know your ducks in a row kind of a thing And that could then I think put us at a disadvantage for an amount of money that is approaching the amount of money that we would spend to do this in-house. I don't have any, I think my particular opinion right now is with, you know, with the costs of everything and this not necessarily having been funded in the city manager proposed budget, it would be very difficult for us to do, I think, right now. But in lieu of that, I would love at least at a minimum for a political body to receive regulatory training on emergency response. Because at least we would start to get ourselves in that mindset of knowing what we might have to do as a political body when something unfolded as we were sort of looking towards the future of being able to build this for ourselves. [52:33] Susan Deane: And if I could, I'll note, so you had mentioned that when we talked about this last time or someone did, and the hangup has been that there's been a shutdown and FEMA is doing no non-essentials or for a long time was doing no non-essential services. So I did actually at that time, look and see what we can get for some sort of training package for all of you now that they are no longer shut down. They should start resuming those non-essential training services shortly, council. [53:10] Carolyn Fish: Official council effect, I agree. I don't think the county idea doesn't sound like something I'd be interested in either, and I think a minimal emergency plan that we could keep in mind or have now and keeping in mind also that we would like to budget how we might for next year look at budget. Meanwhile take a little more time to see where those monies might come from and maybe other partnerships that might come as an opportunity. So I think for right now I'm not comfortable kind of agreeing with this aside for this year, but if you know we have to have some minimal plan [53:50] Bill Drew: but maybe not a monetary budget like that 's okay you know i also do imagine that's that we're [53:59] Michael Beck: not the only municipality having this discussion, and I wonder, you know, the likelihood of an emergency is only going to get greater as time goes on with climate change, and you know it, I wonder if it would behoove us to use our new legislative committee to make this, we're making noise in Augusta to say there's something the state level, you know, to help municipalities like ours to fund a position like this or to make the resources available. [54:34] Daniel Carson: Well I actually went to that point and you mentioned the legislative committee, but I also thought, you know, there's outside of the, you know, the county is not the only other entity right here, and we have our good friends right across the river and the likelihood of an emergency that but impacts us is pretty similar to them. So perhaps we could even explore the possibility of partnering up with Brewer to do something to adjust together for our two sides of the river. [55:05] Susan Deane: I think importantly, as part of this conversation, the city is in a good place from an emergency response perspective. When an emergency happens, we have very experienced and talented department heads who are well-equipped to manage an emergency response. That's not what we're talking about here. This is more sort of the underlying planning and training that should take place to maximize our preparedness. And so I don't want, as part of this conversation, to anyone panic and think that if something were to happen we're not equipped to manage it. We certainly are, but we should have a plan on the books that's regularly updated and trained on. All right, with that I'll move to the last page, which is more discussion on public platforms. So you'll recall that at the last GovOps meeting we talked about some data on public restrooms to help Council make some decisions around the two hundred thousand dollars that's in the park and rec budget to support those public restrooms, and the end result was that you asked Tracy and I to come up with an affirmative purgative recommendation to you. I'll proactively invite Tracy up if you would like to come. You have that recommendation here, which is to keep the public restrooms at Cove and Cascade Parks. Those are the restrooms that have the loose number of cleanliness, repair or public safety issues to remove the units on Broad Street and at Abbott Square. I think there's sort of a staggering number in here, which is not a graphical error, that 170 hand sanitizers and those two units have been replaced since July 1st of last year, eight paper dispensers, five doors, and the frequency of cleaning, graffiti removal, and other issues at those two locations. We would recommend that the two units be located at the City Forest and at Wessex Woods. We don't think that those are going to be high problem areas and there's a need there. And I think importantly our recommendation is not that we try to relocate those two at other downtown locations, and Tracy I don't want to speak for you because you've lived sort of public input process for this the last go around, but I just don't sense from you that there's a high likelihood that there are alternative locations that would be both acceptable to the public and likely to be more successful than what we've experienced with the two units that are difficult [58:28] Bill Drew: Praise to a live Parks Recreation Director. Yes, agreed. Those of you here at the table that remember those public forums we had back in 2024, live robust discussion each of those. We held three of them, Fairmount's one at the Fairmount School, one's Cohen School, and one at the public library. Specifically the public library discussion, that was the focused downtown discussion. The locations we arrived at, Broad Street and Average Square, were much result of that conversation at that forum. And relating to city property, that the city property and trying to be cognizant of locating on City property with respect to other downtown areas. So long would have saying yes, those forums are still fairly recent, and as the same measure indicated, perhaps the next path, the recommendation is to have a large discussion about something different or a different path, and rather just to redeploy what we've been using. [59:37] Susan Faloon: I guess my concern is like what happens when we don't have these downtown, because you know like what's going to happen with local businesses. I mean moving them to those places, yeah, there's a need there too, but it's a different need, and this is a more high traffic area where they are, which I understand that's why they're seeing some of the things. And then I don't really know how to delicately ask this question, but how did like do we have any indication that those two units are being used for their intended purposes as well, like you know what I mean, like are we just seeing vandalism or are they being, they're actually there for the [1:00:22] Bill Drew: answer to that specifically, we certainly we're not monitoring them 24 7. What I best can respond back to you is with the information city manager provide you in the memo. Certainly we are seeing higher instances of receptacle replacements, we're seeing higher instances of maintenance and cleaning, we're seeing high and higher instances of damage to the units themselves. So without specifically saying who is using them, how are they using them, each time I can refer back to the information city manager providing a memo to indicate those two units at the higher frequency of perceptible replacements [1:00:56] Susan Deane: damage, cleanliness, etc., not attended to normal use of a restroom, I think it's fair to say. [1:01:04] Bill Drew: Yeah, go. [1:01:07] Carolyn Fish: Ahead, I'm sorry, go ahead. That's a freshman council thing with relocating these with less, I'm sure, less time and attention and maintenance from Parks and Rec. Do you have an idea of how many hours or costs or how it would free up some services as a result of how much time and attention and repair these need? Do you have any idea of how much time this would help free up to dedicate to other things you guys could be doing? [1:01:43] Bill Drew: So the dedicated time from a Parks and Rec perspective, we try to incorporate as best we can into the normal routine of both of our maintenance staff, have specifically are rubbish runs as well as park rangers. To quantify that for you tonight, I'm not prepared to answer that. I can tell you that our rubbish truck driver would not need to stop at those two locations as part of the regular rubbish run. What I can tell you that might be potential will be savings along the way with our contractor with not having to replace a number of receptacles, repair the damage, do the extra cleanings, spend the time on the extra cleanings, etc. As the City Manager indicated to you, we're asking that original budget amount stay so that we can be ensured that we have enough going forward if indeed the two units were deployed elsewhere. Again, as we talked about, the activity that we're seeing, the repairs that we're seeing, the maintenance that we're seeing is the highest at some point potentially might be some savings along the way [1:02:55] Susan Deane: of the remaining downtown restrooms that are available are they available evenings and weekends and if not could we extend hours if we don't have anything else available i can speak [1:03:09] Bill Drew: to specifically to the harbormaster building and the one i'm going to refer to as the service building, the stormwater overflow tank that we saw on the waterfront. Those are open and available each time we have a park ranger on duty. Generally speaking, a park ranger is on duty seven days a week until 6.30 p.m. In addition to that, the Harbor Master Building specifically, the park ranger is available and keeps that building open during events at the may city amphitheater generally until about eight o'clock because that's generally the time when doors most patients have gone into the facility and their shows have started there is an opportunity as i think we alluded to in the memo to increase staffing in some of these locations to help accommodate extra hours so that we can indeed leave them [1:04:04] Carolyn Fish: as well but are they being used [1:04:06] Susan Deane: For the intended purpose, yes they are, so they're in good condition, people are comfortable using. [1:04:14] Daniel Carson: For me personally, that would be the route I think that we should go. I appreciate what was attempted here. In fact, I was one of the people who came in to talk about how much I believed in testing this idea, right? I think it's very difficult to live in a society where you can't do human, basic human things unless you have money to spend in a business to be able to go and do that work. And I think about people with disabilities, right? There's all sorts of reasons that people will need to have access to a bathroom in public. So I appreciate that piece. And I think that it's very important that we have those opportunities. I think that this particular set up lent itself to some of the troubles that we have. Probably it would be fair, I haven't even asked, but I'm gonna just on the spot, it would be fair for me probably to assume that the restrooms that we have available that are attached to things like the bus station or here at City Hall or the Harbormaster building right where there are things going on probably are not experiencing the types of difficulties that we are in these other places. That is correct, yes. And so to me that would be the balance of being able to have the opportunity of public restrooms that are important for everybody without the, if we're gonna spend money on something, right? Or restrooms that are clean, but I think the staffing to make sure that they're available, if we're not experiencing those would be more beneficial than to continually try to repair. And if I might also, and I'm sorry, another question, but this is a follow-up maybe from the last time that we talked about it. I have this in my brain, so correct me if I'm wrong, but so it's not just these issues but the restrooms themselves even with being cleaned are not really in a condition where people other people want to use them, right? So we would probably need to even increase the money, the budget, if we were going to clean them in a way that would make people want to access them. [1:06:26] Bill Drew: Very much, I [1:06:29] Susan Deane: Was just also going to know, I think one of the other options that we had talked about was, are there, you know, should we place signage to make it clear where the remaining public restrooms are? I think there are things that we could do to get people to the resources that are working in lieu of maintaining the ones that, I was going to say the exact same thing, and I have been in Vancouver 40, 50 years, until I was a counselor, I didn't even know we had public restrooms. I've never used a public restrooms anywhere before. So I don't think we even know where they are, and tourists certainly don't know. So I think that's really important, because it is important for people to come into town. They need to use facilities, which will bring more people in, which means more maintenance, but it's worth a shot. So good. [1:07:24] Michael Beck: I'm just thinking about the hand sanitizers. Is it just like they're stealing the inserts [1:07:29] Bill Drew: it starts out or they're like ripping the whole unit off the wall essentially removing the [1:07:35] Michael Beck: entire unit. Goodness, okay. You know, to the point about you're not knowing about the bathrooms, you know, I would also, there's a way to kind of get the word out to outreach workers, as you're talking to folks who frequent downtown and working with them, it's mentioned, do you know where the nearest bathroom is, do you know, because and again, I don't know if we have any data on this, I can only go anecdotally, but before the bathrooms were installed, I remember all kinds of complaints about finding human feces, and not, it's still happening now, but not anywhere even close to what we used to hear about, and I worry if we don't have, you know, the education place, and also not at the sufficient places, that we're going to be right back to that problem as well. In regards to the alternative of having the different, you know, units that are exists, I know for example the transit bathroom. They have, I don't know what the name of it is, the Hero Sensor, the Brave Sensor, where if someone's in there, they stop moving. They alert someone. Do the other bathrooms have that? No, they do not. [1:08:38] Bill Drew: In the lobby of the Harbour Master building, there is a camera so we can at least monitor the lobby. The mechanical building down, the stormwater tank is part of a budget request now and in the fiscal year. We're currently in, we're adding cameras along the pathway, so not a motion sensor with any unit specifically, but at least a monitoring capability. If I may continue the other piece to the larger discussion, and I can go back to the conversation, at least at the library was the choice between something of a more common nature versus the experiment, so it was part of a larger discussion what to do next. Yeah, I [1:09:34] Michael Beck: mean based on the statistics i mean it's clear that it's not sustainable what 's going on those two locations i'm just i'm assuming there'll be some kind of overlap before they're either removed you know when signs would go up and then hey you know there's a transition coming but just going back to the sensor idea i mean just Because I, like everybody, I don't like the idea of that activity of, you know, injecting these drugs in the bathroom. I don't like that at all. But it is a reality. We are talking about people's lives. I think it would be worth, in my opinion, just what would it cost to make sure that is available in the other bathrooms? You know, because it may save a life. And again, I get it. No one likes that 's happening, but it is happening. And I just would hate to think that 's the difference between, you know, a tragedy or helping somebody and the system at the transit center seems to work pretty well. [1:10:32] Carolyn Fish: Along with that idea, I think we should get a legal opinion about if we do that and the light goes on and no one's around because 24-7 people and staff are not around. So if there's light on and someone's in crisis and we didn't as a city, we had an alert mechanism and no one responded, what kind of liability? So I see it, but that might again be the homeless committee, maybe an outreach first group, that it might have more liability coverage because that's their expertise. They might want to partner, but we as a city doing that, I'm just concerned about we have an alert mechanism and we didn't respond to the alert, what kind of liability, right [1:11:15] Bill Drew: since they may be making carbon, so yes, we can follow up on other things. Another thing I would mention to you as an aside, council commissioned two pieces of artwork on each unit. I just want to let you know that if indeed we're deciding to remove the unit on Broad Street, that is where we would locate the work that is on each of those units as close to proximity as we could to those current locations. For example, the artwork on the unit on Broad Street, we'd leave it at Broad Street Park. Park and then the yard work in Abbott Square. We try to find a location nearby. That's where, now I mentioned that because that was commissioned by the council. I have no questions. [1:12:06] Susan Deane: I'm so happy about it. All right, so next up I was hoping to just chat through with what I hope to bring to you on Wednesday and provide you the opportunity to provide me guidance and feedback. That so in your budget book you have a tax rate calculator that shows figures as they existed when the draft budget was presented in early April. There have been some adjustments to the school budget. You'll recall that they got some good news about their health insurance, so their expenses went down. If you go pushing the general funds tab and then the very next page after that from the very beginning. Yeah, so that first page, so this is the page that really tells you in real terms what the tax impact will be for the taxpayer. The city had got, the school had gotten some good news about both school expenses going down and revenue going up, so there will be some adjustments to that section in a revised version that I will bring you on Wednesday. I am, there will also be some adjustments to the towards the bottom where the total assessed value is listed as a result of the conversation that Bill had with you today. Those are not smiley face adjustments. Those are sad face adjustments because the tax base will be lower than what we were estimating when we assumed that we're going to get that assessment timely. I plan to make a few other adjustments proactively, plate, unless you yell at me otherwise right now. One of the major adjustments is to use approximately 2.8 million in unassigned fund balance to offset the tax rate. And so we are statutorily or by ordinance, I'm sorry, by ordinance required to maintain an unassigned fund balance of between 11 and 22 million based on our budget. Under my proposed budget we were keeping an unassigned fund balance of roughly 18.8 million I believe. So I think it's prudent to point us at right in the middle between 11 and 22. And to do that we would use 2.8 to effectuate a positive result on the tax rate. Another item absent is to make an adjustment to salaries and wages to assume a prudent basis. So we have historically budgeted salaries and wages at 100%. We assume that every position that you authorize is going to be full for the whole year. And so I would like to make an adjustment to salary and wages to assume a prudent vacancy. I don't think it makes sense to go from zero to 100 in one. So, you know, we might actually have a 10% vacancy rate on a normal year. I don't think we should assume 10%, that would be a massive swing. So I would like to arrive at something a little bit more conservative, but will avoid us from over collecting for salaries and wages. What you will see next year is that will then hopefully cause our unassigned fund balance to not be so high, which I think is, we like, we love an unassigned fund balance, it gives us security and safety, but if it's too high, that means that we have collected too much in taxes from our risk. And then the third major thing that I plan to proactively present to you, absent you telling me otherwise, is that for all of the new positions that have been included within the budget that are currently vacant, so for example, the homeless response manager, we have that person, so we wouldn't do it with this person, but for all the other positions I plan to modify the budget to budget those at 75 to assume that we won't hire those folks until October 1st, because realistically if on June 22nd you authorize me to hire a new position or several new positions, it is going to take us some time to hire those positions, so it does not make sense to collect tax dollars to fund those positions if we're not going to have them for the whole year. [1:17:41] Wayne Mallar: What's the school department going to do when they're new hires, but obviously we have no control? Yeah, are we [1:17:47] Susan Deane: going to suggest that to them? I can certainly take that suggestion back to the superintendent. I think the caution I have with the school budget, just as me talking as someone who does a budget, is I feel like there's a high level of unknown with the school department right now, given the situation that they're managing with the fair amount of school, the potential costs that they're going to incur to effectuate this move. Move, so I would be hesitant to ask them to start cutting only to come back to us in a couple of months and say we need some extra now because we're managing this really challenging crisis, but I can certainly make the ask on [1:18:40] Michael Beck: the school budget, the changes that you're talking to with that about was that since they came to us because the memo they gave us at the time they were saying that the local share of their increase was like around $800,000. [1:18:54] Susan Deane: Yeah, so the changes that are in this book, so they made changes in your presentation that didn't make it in. [1:19:02] Michael Beck: So that was accurate. Okay, so it's still running on. [1:19:05] Susan Deane: And then I, full disclosure, we also caught some errors as well, that were positive adjustments. Thank [1:19:17] Daniel Carson: you, Madam Chair. You said unless we yell at you. Yeah. I think these are all wonderful ideas. We're going to do the opposite of whatever [1:19:24] Susan Deane: you like. I'll take a high five on that. Thank you. [1:19:35] Susan Faloon: Two questions, if I may, Chair. One is, will we have an opportunity to see those revisions before the meeting so we can sort of read [1:19:48] Susan Deane: through them and absorb them? Well, I'll include an updated tax rate calculator sheet in your packet [1:19:55] Susan Faloon: for Wednesday. Okay. Yeah, that will get like on Friday. Yes. Okay, perfect. And follow-up question, I had mentioned a while back like that I'd love to see sort of like a prioritization of like the positions, you know, like the new positions. All right, this is the one that I, we must have, and this one I'd really like to have, and this one, you know, would be nice, but, you know, like not necessary. I will make sure that I include that in the packet as well. Thank you. [1:20:30] Carolyn Fish: Thank you for these suggestions. I think they're great. You mentioned them. I know for commercial businesses, whether you have an income producing or you're doing performers, farmers, you always have to have, you know, a fluctuation rate in there for, even though we're really off on your calculations or vacancy or unforeseen, is always a percentage in there that there's a methodology of having a more accurate figure what's going on for this. I love this idea. And I think on the positions, I think when we went over each one, there was one like I highly recommend it and I don't, so I know after how many meetings we've had, it's kind of hard to use, lose, you know, that was three weeks ago, and I did take some notes, but, and I'll have to review them all between now and a couple of days to have that. Thank you. And [1:21:30] Susan Deane: so at this point, if there are other things that you think as a council do coalesce around and want to proactively actively have me incorporate that change into what I bring you on Wednesday, I'd be happy to [1:21:45] Daniel Carson: hear it and do that. With the adjustment down to 75 percent, will that also impact the new program request for the Community Connector, since that request is to bring people towards that full-time mark? [1:22:06] Susan Deane: But I would anticipate that going to full-time for those existing employees would actually happen pretty quick. So Counselor Carson can ask, oh, you're sick, did you hear the question from back there about the new program? Of course, Community Connector. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, we can make it work. It'll be okay. And in fact, actually, we would prefer that than like nothing. Well, yeah, it will give us the flexibility. And similar to what Manager earlier said, it's going to take us a little bit to actually implement. Moving toward full-time anyway. And so, yeah, that, yeah. So is that, is Kung Fu interested in effectuating that as well? But I, that is not a change that I had anticipated, so I can certainly incorporate that. [1:23:06] Daniel Carson: and personally i'm very interested in bringing our system full service yeah and i know that 's i mean it's important to people in the community it's a cost to us of course to be able to sort of have more access they think my teeth into how we could do that [1:23:28] Susan Deane: i think that the this sort of changes will actually get our mill rate below where it was last year just to sort of gauge what you should expect to see it will still be an increase because there are increased values but it will be so you were looking at an 1807 mill rate in my proposed budget it will wind up being below 17 the [1:24:02] Wayne Mallar: problem is going to be we don't know what the assessed values are, so [1:24:06] Susan Deane: the potential of an increase in taxes is great. So I mean, the end result of the conversation that we just had, please tell me if you read it differently, because my anticipation is that we will not have the revaluation in time for tax billing this year, and we will actually be going with exactly what we are using to calculate the mill rate in the budget. If a miracle were to happen and we were to magically get those values early enough that we were comfortable to bill on them, it would only reduce the mill rate, but it would not increase the amount of taxes we collect. But [1:24:50] Wayne Mallar: the assessed, so the success values you had were higher than his, correct? [1:24:56] Susan Deane: Yes, we're going to adjust those. That was the first item I mentioned. We will adjust that to reflect what we think we're going to be using for tax billing this year. So theoretically, this will be like every other year in that you will have certainty in your mill rate. I think we would leave open the door that were you to get those values in time, and you wanted to go with them, we would present that decision to you, but you will have already authorized a budget, so we can't collect more money. We will have to adjust them a little bit. The [1:25:40] Daniel Carson: other one that I just thought of was the fire department request, but two versions, the one with four, the one with eight, thinking about the re-evaluating, [1:25:52] Susan Deane: Would that also be included? So in my proposed budget, I included four. If it is your guidance to me to include eight, then I can do that. Or I can present it to you with the four and then we can talk about what the impact would be to do a as part we will go through all of the new positions so there will be an opportunity to discuss exactly that if we don't have to go out and we are close they aren't they weren't bad enough to forget no but they will be they will be all right so that's what I'll bring you on Wednesdays and then we'll go from there all right thank you as soon as that's all things don't come pouring.