Portland Finance Committee approves Riverton pool bonds, defers shelter relocation

[0:06] April Fournier: You should be all set. Thank you so much. Good evening, everybody. Happy May 14th. It is Thursday. You find yourself in the City Council Finance Committee meeting. I am April Fournier, At-Large Counselor and Chair. I'm so glad to have you with us tonight. I will forego all of the introductions and just ask people as they're presenting their sections to introduce themselves. But I also have fellow committee members, Counselor Grant, At-Large Counselor, and counselor or pelletier district 2 counselor joining us this evening we have a great agenda ahead of us so i will just give you a quick preview where we'll be headed this evening so we are going to circle back to our discussion around the family shelter relocation talk about the riverton pool finish up our work on the city manager's recommended budget do our second public hearing. And I'll give some instructions around that when we get there, as well as consider our potential action to move this forward to the full council. And then we'll talk about our future meeting date. So thanks so much for joining us. We're glad to have you along. So with that, we will just go ahead and plan to dive right in. Our first item on the agenda is just talking about the additional capital needs for the family shelter relocation and the proposal that's in front of us for potentially bonding for that. And so I'm not sure if that is Dina or Brendan kicking that discussion off. [1:37] Danielle West: I'll let Dina jump right in. [1:40] Unidentified staff member: Thanks chair. This, there's a memo attached in the back in the back of materials that answers some of the questions the committee had based on our presentation of the estimated capital costs of a reuse of the 353 Cumberland Avenue building. We had provided an estimate of approximately $14 million for that overall refit. And there were some really good questions that came from the committee about how we might reduce that cost either initially or overall to make it more affordable. Specifically, there was a cost about whether phase construction could offer some cost savings. And there are also questions about whether or not the scope of services and capacity provided at the family shelter at that location could be reduced to one floor instead of two as an additional cost savings strategy. Staff reviewed those questions and the designs with the contracted design firm that had created them for us, as well as a cost estimate, and unfortunately neither of those options would result in significant cost savings. That's essentially because of the conversion of the building from a commercial office space to ultimately an emergency shelter where people will be living and occupying 24 hours a day, and that requires system-wide upgrades to HVAC, electric, and plumbing. [3:15] April Fournier: Oh, Dina, you went on mute. [3:17] Unidentified staff member: There we go. Those were the, did you catch the three systems? I'll go back to that. So the three systems that would be the most expensive to improve are HVAC, electric, and plumbing. And because of the conversion from office space to emergency shelter, they're all necessary in order to occupy it. So I think in total, those upgrades are $7 to $8 million, which account for half of the cost in and of themselves, and we wouldn't be able to forego those. So in thinking about what we could put off, either permanently or until a future date, the playground was one. We estimated it costing $250,000 to $300,000. Another one would be if we did only operate one floor. Instead of the two, we would have some cost savings related to furniture, but neither of those items would exceed half a million. [4:17] April Fournier: Great. Thank you so much, Dina. So I will open it up to fellow counselors on the committee. If you have any additional questions or insights, and then I'm happy to offer my thoughts as well. [4:36] Benjamin Grant: I think I want to hear your thoughts first. Sure. Yeah. You talked earlier. Why don't you [4:41] April Fournier: why don't you take the floor? Yeah, I am happy to kick this off. So, you know, I very much appreciate the thoughtfulness from staff and really thinking about how do we support our families in a location that makes a little bit more sense for the wraparound care that they need. What I am having kind of a competing thought process about is, one, this is a huge investment, of course, that has much longer term financial impact for us and for residents. But the other thing I'm thinking about and struggling with is we also are seeing a reduced census in families that we're sheltering. And I really, as I try, and I think this comes from my very earliest work with Brendan, is when we're looking at projects that we're taking on like this or services that we're providing, or anything that the city's shouldering is the importance of having partners in doing that work to help offset the cost that the city is shouldering as part of that burden. So I'm thinking about like main housing, I'm thinking about other social service agencies that work on housing navigation and work with families specifically. Are there better ways to do this project? And thinking in a kind of another approach, and is this really the right space? space. And I think it, you know, we've done some work to get it here. But for me, it still feels like an incomplete question and something that deserves a little bit more explanation or exploration, a little bit more time. And really looking at a much larger landscape is, again, for the central office property, it requires a huge investment to really get it up to code to be anything. And so it doesn't make more sense to have this go to like our HEDC committee to think about, are we going to keep the property and renovate it and use it for something? Is it a property that we would be interested in disposing of and letting someone else do the development and looking for other places to be able to do family shelter? And so I'm not at this point ain't convinced or inclined really to move this forward, to do bonding, but, again, open to hearing, my other committee members thoughts. And again, just thank you for staff, for putting this together and really being thoughtful about it. I just, I still don't feel like it's ready, for us to move forward. Councilor Pelletier, go ahead. I can go, [7:17] Wesley Pelletier: I'm largely aligned with you. I would like to hear from, you know, the rest of counselors, lawyers, the rest of council on this. I am not really in a place where I want to sell a building. I, you know, I feel like any option is going to build is going to bring an increased cost. And, you know, the issue is, you know, bonding one, you know, this is a very big upfront Fred cost. And I don't think any of us are super eager to put something out, to ballot, which is what, you know, bonding like this would require. Yeah, I don't know. I like, yeah, I,, I also very much hear about the, declining census. And I, you know, I really want this space to be frankly a day space. I, think like it is kind of perfect for that. And that's going to be money too. And the problem that we're facing is we do not know what next year looks like. Do we start to get more help from Augusta? And are these decisions easier to make? So I would like to hear the rest of council weigh in. Everything in me wants me wants to kick the can down the road on this and you know I think that may be what we end up doing but you know I am also very cognizant of any risks or any pressure that might put on our system and on the families that we're taking care of so it's a rough one thank you counselor grant go ahead thanks I've got a couple different thoughts [9:14] Benjamin Grant: Kind of swirling around it's gonna sound like I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth but And I think we're in the exploration phase still at the moment. So on the one hand, I'm thinking, if we're going to sink a lot of money into renovating this building, what else can we do with it? And can it provide budget relief for something else that we're doing? Instead of thinking of it in terms of how small the footprint could be, I've been sort of talked off of that at this point successfully by all these estimates. So now I'm thinking of how can we justify such a big price tag? Could we justify it by moving other things into a renovated building at this cost? Because right now we're sort of trading a couple hundred thousand dollar rental payment for, you know, $16 million renovation. That's whatever, it's over $100,000 a year of debt service plus ongoing costs. Like I'm just trying I'm just trying to justify it financially by seeing if there's other things that could be then moved into this building so that would be one going in the other direction I think I would like to know what does sale mean in other words are we allowed to given the bonding situation I can't remember if that's been addressed maybe if someone on the call has does know that they can jump in here and is it proceeds that must be shared with the schools or could be shared with the Schools or can't be shared with the schools. I don't know how that arrangement would work, so I think exploring that makes sense as well. And then the third thing is back to where Council formula started, is like what other entities out there could we partner with now that the census of these actual individuals is down to like 40 or so people. Like I just have a hard time, I know it's not, if you get into the weeds it's not what it is, but this is probably how it'll be presented as a 16 million dollar project for 40 people. Like that just doesn't add up, so I'm trying to get out of that box by either making it make sense by putting in other services or people into this building, or by not doing it at all and trying something else. So I don't know, that's a series of kind of three different thoughts. Maybe if anyone can address any of them off the cuff, that's great. If not, we've marked them down for [11:39] Danielle West: discussion. The only one that I know I can address off the top of my head is around the sale of the building. You know, typically with tax exempt bonds, we cannot issue those for the benefit of any private use. And so if we were to continue to pay off the bonds, and we had sold the building to a third party, we would need to do some tests to see if any more than 10% of the original bond issue was going towards a private use. The easier path in this instance, since we are now 13 years into 20-year bonds, would be just to redeem the bonds. So we would buy them back from the holders for this particular, for the school building only, and then we'd be, we wouldn't have any tax related issues. All the other questions that I think I heard you say would require a little [12:27] Benjamin Grant: bit more research in terms of proceeds and other things. Okay, so if I take it at a most basic level, it's possible. Yes. Yeah. Okay. See [12:44] April Fournier: the floor back. Great, thank you counselor. So I think my inclination at this point would be to choose, and it sounds like we're in alignment within the committee, to not move forward with this particular proposal. I would love to talk with Councilor Ali as the chair of HEDC about, is this something that comes back to HEDC as part of their work plan? It might not be a 2026 thing, it might be a 2027 thing, but really see can we do a little bit more work on the highest and best use of this property as well as talking with counselor Bullet on HHS for if we're not moving forward for this for family shelter then what are some of the other options there but it feels like this just needs a little bit more work with the full council to be able to decide what is our strategic plan moving forward, both for the building, but also for family shelter. I'm just looking to see if there's any opposition or if I misread you, but it sounds like we're all in alignment and moving that direction. Dina, is there anything else that you need from us from a committee perspective? [14:06] Unidentified staff member: No, I think I'm hearing that there's a recommendation that both these items go back to committee for further discussion and recommendation. [14:18] April Fournier: Perfect. Thanks. Thank you so much. Okay, so moving on from that item, and thank you again so much for all the staff work on that. We have the Riverton pool. We had some questions from our last meeting that we were hoping to address before we decide, do we move forward with funding for that project? [14:44] Unidentified staff member: Tiffany, can I ask that you pull Angela over from attendees? She's filling in for Ethan. Certainly. Thank you. [15:19] April Fournier: All right, I think Angela's over. Angela, are you with us? [15:23] Unidentified staff member: I think I am. [15:24] April Fournier: You are, hooray, good to see you. [15:28] Unidentified staff member: If we could have Rob come on too, [15:31] April Fournier: I think that would be great too [15:32] Bill Weber: because he's in the audience as well. And I [15:46] April Fournier: think I saw Rob also come over. Good evening. Fabulous, great, welcome friends. I [15:59] Unidentified staff member: don't think there were any additional or outstanding questions that the committee had for staff,, but we're here in case any new questions come up or to help the conversation however we [16:09] Danielle West: can. I would just say we slightly reworked the memo and the backup materials to remove all options that are no longer under consideration for the committee. So now that the two options that we put in the memo, and I think the intent was to have a public hearing and vote on this item with a recommendation to the full council, is one would be just to simply put an agenda item on the full council for an addition of $1.6 million in general obligation bonds to support this project. That would be the quickest and most immediate path forward. That does add about $145,000 of annual debt service for 20 years beginning in FY28, which is convenient for our other budget discussions tonight. The other option, which we were asked to come back with, was if we were to reallocate funds from an existing project, what are some candidates? And the one that the department felt like was the most direct match and has not begun yet in terms of going out to bid or being awarded was the Deering Oaks Pond Reconstruction Project. The amount is almost a perfect match. I will note that staff does not recommend this option because that has been one of their top priorities for many years. So if we opted to reallocate funds from that project to fund this more immediate need this that dollar amount of bonds would be coming back in next year's cip the deering oaks ponder wall reconstruction project would be their number one priority and i think all some of the constituency groups who have advocated for this project would be quite upset understood [17:49] April Fournier: So I look to fellow committee members to see if you have any questions for parks and facilities staff on the two options in front of us. Having looked at that direct trade-off, I definitely, I appreciate looking back at CIP to just see, is there something that we've already earmarked that could be reallocated to this project? I also am in agreement. This, the Deering wall, or the Deering Oaks pond wall, because wow, that's really, that's a mouthful, right? But that reconstruction has been at least on my radar for a number of years, and so I'm hesitant to take the funds away from that to cover this. I would be much more inclined to just move forward with moving forward with those funds. [18:38] Wesley Pelletier: Counselor Pelletier, go ahead. Yeah, I think it would be very politically unwise for me to vote to take money away from that pond, so I'm inclined to bond. Thank you, Counselor. [18:54] Benjamin Grant: Counselor Grant, anything to add? No, I will cede the ground on this one. I'm not happy with this because I don't think this is what I asked for, some options. This is an option that I think is clearly not palatable, but I'm not going to continue to be the bad guy here and antagonize people. So I will cede the ground. I will support the option one. Thank you, Counselor. [19:25] April Fournier: And then just a procedural question, Brendan or Danielle, do we do a hearing on this specific item and then it's separate from the second budget hearing, or can those all be taken at once? [19:40] Danielle West: Typically, if we have multiple action items, there's a hearing separate on this topic. [19:47] April Fournier: Okay. So then we will do, for the benefit of the public, we will do a public hearing on the Riverton pool allocation. We are proposing action to move forward with bonding for the additional amount, not reallocating CIP funds. And we're happy to take public comment on that item. And then we'll have a separate, immediately following, public hearing on the full recommended budget. And so just for members of the public, if you are choosing to comment on this specific item, this is really just around the Riverton pool and our decision to bond for that and add that in. If you have additional thoughts about the full budget, we'll do that after this. And so just a reminder for members of the public, for public comment, you have three minutes. We will unmute you and we will start with Stephen Scherf. [20:59] Stephen Sharpe: The unmute button came up late, so just, okay. Stephen Sharpe of Brackett Street in Portland. First, I want to ask a question, is how many members of the public are here at the meeting, which you can answer after I finish my comments. and but in terms of this project my only concern really is not that we're going to need to spend the additional money is that we did not know that we did not know in the beginning what the full cost of this pool would be that 's really concerning in the overall sense of what the city does in doing projects is full evaluations are not done on things quite frankly it probably would have been better to rip the entire pool out and start over it might have even been cheaper in the end we don't know. I can't imagine it would cost one, three or four million dollars to build a pool from scratch in that building, you know. So that's my only real concern, you know, it, the A or B, whether you spend the money, you know, do it bonded this year or bonded, you know, you know, switch projects, it really doesn't matter, you know. You're going to spend the same amount of money, you know, if you do this. So it makes more sense to do it this way than to move on to the, you know, switch projects up. And my only other comment really is I would have liked to have been able to comment on the last piece, but you did not take comment on it. So the last part. So thank you. Thank you, Stephen. [22:47] April Fournier: Just to answer the one question that you had about attendees, there are 14 members of the public in attendance. And I see one other hand up. If you're hoping to comment on the poll, if you could just raise your hand now so I know how many people are waiting. That way I don't inadvertently close comment on this item them early. Next, I have Roe Portland. [23:12] Jen Southard: Hi, this is Jen Southard. I live at 46 Kenwood Street in Portland, and I just wanted to speak in favor of the money being spent on Riverton Pool. I've been a resident for a long time, swimming many of the pools, and know that a lot of people use that for basic exercise. But beyond that, I've become involved with Maine community swimming and the goal to have every second grader able to swim the Riverton pool is really critical in that work. So I just wanted as a member of the public to speak in favor. [23:53] April Fournier: Great. Thank you so much. I do not at this point see any other hands about the pool public comment. I'll give it a moment. I know sometimes navigating on Zoom is tricky. Seeing no other hands, I will go ahead and close public comment on the pool item and bring it back to our council colleagues so we can take action on this item and Brendan we need to vote on this [24:22] Danielle West: one right yes just for the public's benefit so we would if the council votes affirmatively for any action that would involve issuance of bonds we would then advertise a public hearing in the press herald needs to be advertised 14 days prior to any action so we'd likely be looking at a first read on June 1st and a second read on June 15th and their public hearing will be held at that June 15th meeting for [24:48] April Fournier: the full council correct for the full council so we're gonna we'll vote it out of committee and then it goes to full council great so then I'm happy to take a motion for this item to be able to bond for the 1.6 million for the Riverton pool construction project. I think I saw moved by Councillor Grant and seconded by Councillor Pelletier. Did I get that? I don't have a vote. Great. Thank you. Councillor Grant, how do you vote? Yes. Councillor Pelletier? Yes. I am also a yes. So that is unanimous. This will move out of finance committee and go to full council. Thanks so much. Okay. So moving into our next item we have the city managers city managers recommended budget we have a hearing but Brendan is there any additional items you want to cover before we do that second public hearing there are a couple of things I just have [25:44] Danielle West: A brief, I have a couple brief departments, and then we also have, I just have a couple of like summary slides about what appears in front of the council, just to refresh everybody's memory, and a couple other highlight, a couple other key changes in the budget. I did also want to mention about that last item in particular around facilities. We are doing a facilities assessment as part of the capital improvement plan, so hopefully we'll have something for all city facilities in the not too distant future. So we will start with the executive department budget, and I will turn it over to the city manager, who distributed a memo about a reorganization within the department to the council. [26:25] Brendan (Last Name Unknown): Thanks, Brendan. Do you have the numbers that you can put up too? [26:32] Danielle West: Slideshow share. Can you guys, oh, actually, am I in full screen? I'm not sharing. My fault. There we go. [26:41] Brendan (Last Name Unknown): There it is. Thank you. Okay, so thank you, everybody. As you know, we've been obviously going through this budget department by department, and we have been looking across the board for ways in which to save due to the variety of issues that we're facing this year, most especially the second part of this conversation, which will be the benefits budget, but also due to wage increases and cost increases and other things. But so obviously I took that to heart for my department as well, and tried to look at ways in which to save some money and address vacancies, but also to address the council goals and needs that you have talked about with specifically Antara Grossa, who I believe is on here as well, and myself with regard to community engagement. So, this was sort of a compilation of several meetings with you all, either individually or two by two, I would say, where we talked about what you were looking for with regard to community engagement, but what that would look like for each of you. I will say that each of you had different views on that topic, and there was a variety of thoughts on it. You'll see that they are highlighted in the memo and sort of called out and specifically identified. I tried to take, Ann and I tried to take sort of a compilation of all of that and come up with a solution, given those budget constraints that I've mentioned and ways in which we were trying to save as well. So we had three vacancies within the executive department right now. One of them is a position that was formerly held by Bell, who did a variety of things within the department, mostly office manager related. Another was the JDEI associate position and then the JDEI director position. There was also some additional money set aside to explore that community engagement position that we were talking about. And so Ian and I did that internally. So those monies weren't spent. And so we had a savings there right off the bat. But we tried to find a way to address all of the needs and still, like I said, get to a place where we could give you some savings as well. So looking at that, the proposal includes downgrading that position that was the office manager position and making that just an executive assistant position who continued to provide assistance to the mayor and to the council as necessary and perform some other duties and functions. Additionally, we would move the JDEI associate position over to the communications department. And that position would become, I guess I would call it a community engagement specialist position. We would really look to try to have that person focus on a variety of those things that you identified during our conversations, including social media presence and getting out into the public to talk to the public and the community about issues that are facing the council and the city, hear from various groups and really engage with them and with you all and try to really provide that connection on hot topics around the city or big issues around the city. And so that would happen with that switch from the JDEI associate over to that community engagement specialist position. I would also note that position would, I would look for it to connect with other departments that as part of this, we looked and saw that there's a lot of existing work obviously happening throughout the city. So really connect them with the OEO office as well as with the sustainability office, which does a variety of community outreach as well as within just the planning department and other departments, really making sure that there's somebody in each department that's connecting with this person so that there's a sharing of information and really looking at the big picture across the city and really getting that information out to the public and then also getting the information back to the city So that we can help deliver a better product across the board. And then the last thing, as we were doing this work, the JDEI position, there's a variety of things that we're required to do under federal law and some of those we've been working with the legal department and others to address, including Title VI, which has to do with how we deliver services in a variety of ways throughout the city, making sure that it is equitable and meets all of the various requirements in Title VI. Obviously, we have to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, as well as with accessibility laws, which were just put in place to make sure that, for example, for example, anyone who has a visual impairment can read and access our documents appropriately. There's also other equity issues across the board, including diversity-related issues. So I'm really trying to make sure that this position encompasses all of that, including helps us connect on a stronger basis with our sister cities, which we have in a variety of locations throughout the world. So all of those various things would fall under this new position, which I've labeled as the, I think I called it the equity and compliance. I don't have my, I'm sorry, my memo is one step out of my view. Excuse me. I just want to make sure I get the name correct, but it was equity and compliance officer. Officer. So that would really be addressing all of those various needs. We'd be working on job descriptions and hiring for each of these needs. And then I would also note that for the internal portion of this, we still have an existing DEIB position, so diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging position within the HR department that would still exist. And that position would still connect with this new position and work to continue to do work within internal functions, including trainings, and also continue our work that we've been doing with workplace culture, our survey, and making sure that all of those various tasks get undertaken as well. So there's also a recruitment. We have recruitment specialists that are working on diversifying our workforce. So all of that would connect under that DEIB position that we have existing. So I'll just conclude by saying, I think I tried to address, or I think we did address all of the various things that we heard from you all while still trying to meet all of the needs, while also trying to save some money here and address those vacant positions that I mentioned. So Brendan, I think if you could just come back on, if you could just talk about what the bottom line number was when we were we moved around those positions specifically so a couple things [34:31] Danielle West: I'll just note is that overall we're at a slight decrease in the city manager executive budget of about three percent or fifty two thousand dollars and you know a number of departments had to come in below the five percent guidance to offset slightly higher increases that we saw in places like employee benefits, which we'll talk about. The one other thing I did want to highlight with an executive is this is the department where all of our sustainability-related expenses lie. So we have three sustainability positions totaling around $240,000 before benefits, and then we have approximately another $100,000 of expenses in this department for various sustainability-related software, energy bench work, parking, energy procurement, the Resiliency Fellowship Program, and a number of other expenses. Within this department budget, we also have about $128,000 budgeted of renewable energy credit revenue, and that's in line with the Climate Action Fund requirements where we don't exceed a certain amount of revenue from RECs within the budget itself. There's also about $32,500 of electric vehicle charging revenue in here as well from the energy that we are providing to those vehicles. [35:46] Brendan (Last Name Unknown): Thank you, Brendan. I think that concludes this budget. I'm happy to answer any questions that anyone may have. Thank you. [35:56] April Fournier: Thank you, City Manager. Committee questions. I will also note, Councilor Michniewicz for District 1 has also joined, so welcome. I don't see any immediate questions. I just want to say thank you. I think this is a really good realignment. Amendment. We've had a really difficult time trying to find a JDEI director. And I know Councilor Phillips has really advocated to make sure that this is a continued priority for the council. So I think reimagining that position a little bit different, as well as making sure that part of that scope, and I appreciate that you named it, is really being sort of that ombudsman to the public. So having office hours or being a resource for navigating some of the things within the city, which I think is a huge part of that equity piece. But then also having that internal facing position within HR that's really also looking at how are we doing that for our own staff and for the city, which I think is incredibly important. One question that I do have about the sustainability piece is I know we have the you mentioned the fund that we have that the energy credits are going into and so is that going to fund like operational costs and staff or is that fund earmarked for specific sustainability projects so when the council passed [37:33] Danielle West: the Climate Action Fund, one concern that was raised is that some of the revenue that was earmarked to go into the Climate Action Fund was supporting the current operations of the sustainability team. So the compromise that was passed at the time the Climate Action Fund was passed is that we would be able to continue to use only that amount of revenue going into the operating budget, and then anything above that amount would go into the Climate Action Fund. So I think we're approaching the first full fiscal year of the Climate Action Fund. And in the Climate Action Trust Chapter 2 section, it says that a report will be provided on all expenditures and revenues that go into the fund at the end of each fiscal year. So we'll be getting a full readout of all of the revenues, expenses, etc. [38:20] April Fournier: Et cetera. Great. Thank you. I think one of the, and I know I have already talked about, I'm not going to be on the council next year in 2027, but I think one of the things that I'm just really mindful of from the climate work that we've done and really the work that the climate action team has done to advocate for these funds to be able to go to create more sustainability projects and making sure that we're growing the program and growing the projects and using those funds outside of operational. And so just really thinking and being mindful of that is hopefully my forward direction is that we're able to, of course, keep the team that we have, if not grow the team that we have, but also really think about how can we use those funds to seed these projects so that we're we're walking the walk based on our climate action plan. Any other committee questions or other counselor questions? I'm seeing none, so thank you so much city manager and Brendan. Back to you. Or I think there's probably the benefits piece too. Yeah, a couple more [39:38] Danielle West: small smaller budgets. So the benefits budget, before we jump into the health insurance side of the benefits budget, we also have the pension department budget. And we typically just do some trend analysis based on employee headcounts and spending on salaries and wages to project an increase. As you all saw, we do have a decrease in headcount, pretty significant one overall from year to year, but many of those positions were vacant. So the pension budget is being projected to go up by 4.34%. That's a combination of actuals plus changes in the main PERS rates. And I do sit on the main PERS participating local district advisory board. I'm the main municipal associations representative, so I typically have insider info about potential future rate changes. Then the other piece of employee benefits that we have, and the largest piece, is the health insurance budget. But in addition to health insurance, we also have smaller divisions within the employee benefits budget for workers' compensation, FICA liability insurance, and unemployment. And luckily, we don't have any significant expense fluctuations in any of those this year. The real massive big one that we have is the benefits budget. And as you can see here, it's rising by a projected $7.1 million on the expense side, about a 27.43% increase. And we're seeing big increases across the state in municipal and school budgets, and this is one of those driving factors. So I'll just stop sharing and turn it over to HR Director Ann Torregrossa to talk a little bit more about the benefits budget and some changes that we're implementing in the upcoming year. [41:24] Unidentified staff member: Good evening, everyone. I know you've heard from Brendan a few times about particularly our health plan budget. So we are unfortunately passing along the largest increase we've ever had to pass on to staff this year in terms of premiums. They'll be seeing, most tiers will be seeing a 10% premium increase with our employee spouse plan seeing a higher percentage increase. And that's due to the fact that spouses represent a pretty significant and disproportionate cost on our plan. Some of the increases this year are driven by a variety of things. We have more high-cost claimants than we've ever seen. A high-cost claimant is defined as anyone over $50,000 in a plan year, and we have 20 more high-cost claimants at this point in the year than we did for the entire last fiscal year. We had our first million-dollar claimant and it 's been driven by a variety of factors including certain pharmacy spend so on we'll talk about GLP ones in a minute of course that's a piece of it but also autoimmune drugs and things like that but also cancer is one of our highest cost drivers so it's it's heartbreaking for our staff I'm I'm glad that we can provide them excellent insurance to deal with these really challenging health issues for themselves and their family members, but it is a significant expense for the plan. In addition to shifting some of the premiums or increasing the premiums on staff as well, there are some other proactive measures we're taking. We're looking to partner with a company that essentially analyzes our pharmacy spend and only has a guaranteed ROI on their fees. And if they don't meet that guaranteed ROI, they refund their fees. So there's no risk in partnering with this group. We did put our PBM, our Pharmacy Benefits Manager, which is currently CVS, we did put them out to market for this fiscal year. But we are also participating currently in a PBM RFP with the Health Transformation Alliance, which is a national group. And so we are part of a conglomerate with major companies across the country in participating in this PBM and hoping that it will be favorable in terms of results for us in driving down our pharmacy spend. And of course, I think one of the bigger headlines is we are removing GLP-1s for weight loss from our plan, effective 7-1. We were one of the few public employers that covered them. The state does also cover them. And given the changes in the market, it is often more cost-effective for an employee to go directly to the manufacturer to obtain these drugs than it is for us to get them through the plan. And it's unfortunate. We recognize these drugs are changing people's lives and their health, but it has become a significant driving factor in our pharmacy spend. So those will no longer be covered for weight loss as of 7-1. They will still be covered for diabetes, of course, but not for weight loss anymore. And then big picture, long-term, we have an internal working group that's made up of all of our union representatives, as well as a bunch of non-union folks. And we've been spending the last year and a half talking through what they value in the health plan, what they'd like to see changed. And we are working with that group to hopefully come up with perhaps some modifications to our plan to make it more affordable and more practical for both staff and the taxpayers. And hopefully we will be able to implement a new plan land design for 7-1 of 27 that will help mitigate some of these risks. And there's a variety of strategies we're trying to employ that I can't go into more detail, but I know you have a long night. So I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. [45:56] April Fournier: Thank you so much, Anne. Fellow committee members and counselors in attendance, do you have questions for our HR our director it is yeah that is a bleak landscape right now with health care on top of an already very challenging economic landscape so thank you so much for your diligence in trying to get the best coverage that we can for our dollar while also recognizing there's a lot of really challenging costs that we can't control in this landscape okay i'm not seeing any questions. That doesn't mean you're completely off the hook, but there's no questions for now. Thank you so much, Anne. Brendan, back to you. All right. I just want to highlight. So I think [46:50] Danielle West: You're going to be seeing either 15 or 16 different orders coming before the council as part of the budget. Some of them we don't use every year, but that's how many that we typically have. And in addition to the appropriation resolve order, which basically highlights the amount of total budget for the city, the schools, and the amount to be collected via taxes with due dates and interest rates. There are many others that I just wanted to kind of talk about. So there's orders approving the city manager and department directors to enter into agreements to implement the operating budget. There's orders approving fee changes that are listed within the code, and then also associated code changes that are part of the budget overall. There's an order approving the self-insurance liability program, an order allowing the city manager and certain department heads to accept scholarships and trust donations, an order permitting Corp Council to undertake civil actions to collect delinquent property taxpayers an order approving the non-union wage adjustment, and I will note that non-union wage adjustment is three percent, and it also, the order makes it apply to the full council, the mayor, the city clerk, and the corporation council. It also impacts school department wages, and so we gave them the heads up that was going to be our non-union wage adjustment, so they factored it into their budget. There's an order approving funds for specific island services, an order approving the use of fund balance, and then the overall appropriation resolve order. Some of the other changes that you'll see in terms of code, one of the things that is being proposed this year is a change to the procurement thresholds we've used since 2010. Inflation since 2010 has been above 50%, almost 56%. So we're changing the thresholds in the procurement ordinance to basically reflect that inflation. In particular, construction industry inflation has risen at about double the pace of regular CPI. So we're seeing even higher construction projects costs. I'll just briefly share my screen on this one because I've got some stats both on this one and also on PSTEP. So this relates to both purchasing and legal workload in terms of procurements. As the budget has gotten bigger, we're starting to see more and more purchase orders every year. We've nearly doubled the total number of purchase orders that are coming to through finance and legal, and we've more than doubled the total number of bids and RFPs since 2010 as well. The current procurement thresholds are anything over $5,000 requires three quotes. And although we're not changing that particular threshold, we are allowing the quotes to be reviewed at the department level for anything between $5,000 and $10,000. The bid requirement is going to be increased from $25,000 to $50,000. That was last changed in 2010. And again, I noted the inflation since then has been at 56% per CPI, but more than 100% on construction cost inflation using the PPI index. This puts us Thus, in alignment with the bid threshold at the University of Maine and other large organizations around the state, I will note that the state's procurement threshold for bids and RFPs is actually $250,000. Criteria for green energy facility special requirements is increasing from 50K to 100K with clarifying language added to refer to the correct MRS there. Other minor code changes that are being proposed relate to the P-STEP. We talked in this committee about the P-STEP program funding increasing. So the FY27 budget doubles the budgeted funding for the P-STEP program from $300,000 to $600,000. But what we haven't talked about is we're also making a change to extend the deadline for that program. The way it was originally drafted, the deadline to apply was May 15th, and that was a problem for a lot of residents who hadn't even filed their taxes or were asking for an extension. So we're extending the deadline to June 30th to give residents more time to prepare and apply for the program. Those are the big ones. We may also have a budget order related to Casco Bay Lines. We operate a garage that basically specifically benefits the Casco Bay Island Transit District and for our lease with them. They're able to request distributions from those garage proceeds every year. They haven't made a request yet, but I'm encouraging them to get one in. They've had some turnover. So one may be added to the agenda on that one. So I think that's really all I had on our side. At this point, any final questions and answers from the committee and budget discussion? [51:57] Brendan (Last Name Unknown): discussion. Brendan, can you just also just touch briefly on the FAQ, just to remind everybody about [52:04] Danielle West: That? Oh, sure. So as we went over in last week's packet, there is a budget frequently asked questions and answers document in the back of materials. There has been one new frequently asked question and answer, which I think we're going to get into during the budget amendments minutes discussion, but we updated that for this week's meeting with one new FAQ. And that relates to the cruise ship tariff, which I think we'll be talking about in a few minutes. [52:37] April Fournier: Great. All right. So I know there is a potential amendment, like you just mentioned, Brendan, on the cruise ship tariff. So I'm wondering if we want to consider that discussion and amendment first before we do the public hearing so the public also has the benefit of that discussion if that makes sense. Great, so I don't know if you want to tee that up or Councilor Pelletier if you're prepared to. I think you're the, you're the mover on this amendment. [53:09] Wesley Pelletier: If there's anything you would want to tee up. Sure, I guess procedurally we'll wait until we're actually in discussion to move the amendment, but I will be proposing an amendment that basically gets rid of, right now there was a proposed adjustment that would basically create a discount for cruise ships that were docked if they're using, you know, or they are not using scrubber technology and or we're using and or we're using quote unquote, clean fuel. I'm quoting the tariff. So, you know, I think that this was a attempt to sort of try to, you know, meet a lot of the advocates on this one, but I don't think a lot of the advocates we were catering to really thought it was a good plan. Plan. So at this point, it would be better, I think, just to make more revenue. I think Brendan said $17,000, but something like that. I may be under a little balling, but that is what the amendment I will bring when we hit that point. [54:34] April Fournier: Thank you. Brendan, anything to add? [54:36] Danielle West: I will add that, yes. So the amount of estimated cruise ships that will be coming in May and June of 2027, which is the first, the final two months of FY27, which is the budget we're talking about, is 62 ships. Now, what we don't know is how many of those ships would have qualified for this incentive, but just basically using some estimated percentages, we thought, I think it's $12,000 that we'd be adding to the budget with this potential amendment. And when Councilor Pelletier formally moves the amendment, we can have some more discussion about why we need to do it in this fashion. [55:15] April Fournier: Great. Thank you guys so much. Okay, so we will now do our second public hearing on the full budget as presented. And if you are interested on the public side, providing public comment for this, please raise your hand. Even if you're not sure if you want to go yet, if you know that you want to, we just want to make sure we get the lineup of everyone one again so that I don't make sure that I cut anyone short or cut public comment short. There will also be after this budget moves out of committee and goes before the full council will also have public hearings and additional opportunity and there may be some additional potential amendments that come as counselors are working on those and so with that just a reminder for public comment you have three minutes. If you commented in our last meeting we don't typically take comment twice. I don't see any repeat commenters in the lineup so far. So I have three hands that are up. We will start with Bill Weber. And Bill, you should be able to unmute [56:20] Bill Weber: yourself. Good evening. Can you hear me? You can. Go ahead. Good evening, counselors and city staff. My name is Bill Weber and I live in North Deering District 5. I am commenting tonight on behalf of the Portland Climate Action Team, PCAT. With over 100 Portland members, we support the city's climate action plan, One Climate Future. My comment tonight will center on the newly established Climate Action Fund, which was mentioned earlier tonight. When this fund was approved by the council last year, PCAT commented that the transparency must be an important attribute OF THE FUND. THE FINANCE DIRECTOR TALKED TO THIS EARLIER TONIGHT, BUT THE SPECIFICS AND ASSUMPTIONS ARE NOT CLEARLY SPELLED OUT IN THE SPREADSHEET PRESENTED TONIGHT. THE DIRECTOR MENTIONED THAT THE INCOME PROJECTED FROM THE RECTS WILL BE $128,000. I BELIEVE ALMOST ALL OF THAT WILL GO TOWARD THE PAYROLL OF EXISTING STAFF, NOT PROVIDING ANY FUNDING TO ADVANCE the council's climate action goals. The city manager's budget should identify the revenue coming into the fund and how it is being dispersed. It is not clear from a review of the city manager's budget of whether that is indeed occurring. At the finance director's convenience we would like to sit down and review that with him. Secondly, I want to recognize the effort the city and especially the sustainability director, has put in developing the One Climate Future Plan. The plan is a comprehensive document which contains over 60 different strategies to make our city more sustainable and address the crushing cost of energy on low and middle income residents. I often use the analogy that the One Climate Future Plan is like a vehicle, hopefully it's an electric vehicle. The plan can take us where we want to go, but it needs a charge. We need to charge the battery before we can get it out of the driveway. Adequately funding the Climate Action Fund will charge the battery and is a must to meet the Council's stated goals of reducing our carbon footprint. The main intent of the fund is to develop projects that reduce pollution or greenhouse gas emissions and thereby offset the pollution generated by other activities in the city. Director Hipple has proposed a tariff schedule, tariff number 11, on cruise ships, which would penalize large cruise ships if they use dirty fuels. We believe that nominal fee collected for burning the dirty fuel should be directed to the Climate Action Fund. The fund was intended to collect pollution fees such as this. We would strongly recommend the budget reflect that minor dollar amount go into the fund so that it could then be used in the impacted communities that are subjected to the unhealthy emissions from the cruise ships. If we don't adequately charge our or fund our climate action plan, if we don't adequately charge or fund our climate action plan, we will miss our goal in making a Portland an affordable and sustainable city we all can be proud of. Thank you very much. Thank you, Bill, and [59:45] April Fournier: next we have Stephen Scharf. Stephen [59:51] Stephen Sharpe: Sharper Bracketry in Portland. I want to first note that the city council agenda for Monday, it's not on your line. Can we get a timetable to when that's online? It's supposed to be online on Wednesdays before the meeting. The second revenue line in the budget is references local other local taxes and says it's excise and other tax financing. My question there is why is it dropping by 2.3 million dollars and want to get a comment on that tonight as to explanation as to why it's actually dropping by 2.3 million dollars. I'll note that the downtown district provided a budget to you folks, but it was a one-year only budget. There was no look back on previous years. They should be providing a full three-year budget so that you can understand their how their expenses have gone up and down. I support the reduction in the fund balance use except for the fact that the budget document should note that we used 15 million dollars last year to settle the midtown case, and I would encourage us the council to encourage the schools to move away from using fund balance for operational support. The pension bonds obligation bonds went away this year. We actually didn't really see any benefit from them because of the gimmicks that were used to for the some of the final payment years it held this is the full extent of these bonds to the public in those years, and we it was presumed that we would get some benefit in this budget year, but it just sort of like went away. The parking division, it is a hidden cash cow. It takes in $12.3 million a year and on a $2.8 million expense budget. The parking division budget shows an admin side with a revenue of $8.5 million and expenditures of $1.7 million. This appears to be related to the parking meter and parking ticket income. This needs to be broken out into what is truly administrative revenue cost and cost, meter revenue and cost, and parking ticket revenue and cost so that so that the public can see the specific costs involved in the various. I want to note that I oppose increasing the weekday parking hour and adding fees to sunday parking, and I lastly want to speak to the whole public engagement process stuff. It starts right here. You have three you've had three discussions, one in private, about moving the family shelter, yet you have not asked the public for any community input into the project. Steven [1:02:58] April Fournier: and that's time. Can I please finish up? Yep, I'll let you finish [1:03:01] Stephen Sharpe: the thought. Okay. This is one example where you do not look for feedback, and it's very simple. It will not cost you any money. The memo that was provided was very confusing, and we really need a breakdown of the cost. You're the finance committee. You should be looking at the cost of these positions and how they affect the you know, the overall budget. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have DP. Hi, [1:03:35] Regina Phillips: Everyone. Darian Plant, District 3. I noticed on one of the slides we had, I guess, doubled the allocation for the P-STEP program, and I want to advocate that rather than continuing to increase the allocation exponentially, that we start to put in some guardrails and see that money is put toward those who need it the most. At the state level, individuals over 65 qualify for this credit, earning up to $100,000. And I find it really challenging to justify how, you know, our tax dollars are providing a taxpayer-funded benefit to individuals who are not only making above the area median income, but if you're making $100,000, should you be receiving a taxpayer-funded benefit? It. I would also urge the council to adopt a residency requirement. These programs are supposed to be geared to individuals who are longtime Portland residents who have really suffered the impact of drastic hikes from revaluations. Individuals who purchased their properties in the last five years did so at market rate and they knew what taxes they were going to be paying. And same thing for longtime renters. This program should be really geared toward people who are long-time Portland residents. I would also encourage that the program implement a homestead exemption, so any property owner who is receiving this credit for a property and not for rent, they should have a homestead exemption with the City of Portland, which indicates that the residence that they are receiving this taxpayer funded benefit for is their primary residence, not their part-time residence, not their half-time residents. But we should really take a look at this. It expands at the state level every year. They're looking to increase the benefit from $2,000 to $2,500 at the state level. So I think it's time we put some guardrails on and just not continue funding this exponentially and make it more targeted to those who need it. Thank you. Thank you. [1:05:46] April Fournier: For the public, that was the last hand that I have up. So if you're hoping to give public comment on the budget, please raise your hand now. I will be closing public comment to move back to discussion and action. Okay, seeing no other hands, I will go ahead and close public comment and come back to our discussion. [1:06:17] Danielle West: Finance Director O'Connell, go ahead. Yes, for the benefit of the public commenter around the climate action team. I just wanted to note that the operating budget does not include all revenue or expenses related to the Climate Action Fund. The Climate Action Fund is a fund separate from the operating budget. In particular, I wanted to just mention that the REC revenue that's in the budget, so the $127,000, I think I said it was, that's only a portion of the anticipated renewable energy credit sale proceeds. In FY27, and the projection is done by an external entity, but I think there's projected to be over $350,000 of renewable energy credit sale proceeds. So that will leave in excess of $220,000 going into the Climate Action Fund on top of funding the Sustainability Office. And the Climate Action Fund report will break all of that out once that first fiscal year has closed. I think there was one other question around other local taxes. And that does include excise taxes. That does include, it includes TIF revenues. And TIF revenues show up in the budget as a negative revenue because for every dollar that we bring in from property taxes, a portion of that gets sheltered into the TIFs. And there has been growth in TIF revenues as property valuation has risen. So that's the reason for the decline in other local taxes as TIF revenues have risen with the reval. I think last year, the reval numbers came in pretty high. So that is that one. So that's all I had in terms of questions I can answer from the public comment. [1:07:59] April Fournier: On. Thank you so much. Okay, so now we've had our public comment. And so I would love to open it up to committee members for discussion questions. And if you have a proposal for a change, I would [1:08:16] Wesley Pelletier: also entertain that. Councilor Pelletier, go ahead. I would like to move the amendments. [1:08:29] April Fournier: Can you say it again? Sorry, you trailed off. I would like to move, [1:08:33] Wesley Pelletier: I would like to move the amendment previously I previously spoke of great thank you [1:08:40] April Fournier: So moved by Councillor Pelletier seconded by Councillor Grant we can have a discussion now [1:08:47] Danielle West: And do you mind if I just jump in and explain this one a little bit further? Yes, please. So many fees that the city has within the city code are live within the city code, but those are, you know, typically not the fees, like any of the kind of smaller fees that departments charge. It's kind of longstanding city fees. And these particular fees are part of agreements that the public buildings and waterfront division are negotiating with cruise ships entering our port as part of this terminal tariff. And when we talked to Corp Council about this one, basically, he said that operations are the function of the city manager who delegates those to the city's public buildings and waterfront division. So there's no specific item that the council could amend specific to that tariff. However, when we worked this through with Councilor Pelletier, we realized that we could achieve the same thing by essentially adding revenue into the budget, which then tasks the city manager with finding an equivalent amount of revenue in that amount. And after discussing it with the Corporation Council and the manager, what we have basically concluded is if the manager, this budget does pass and it's supported by a majority of the council, the manager would then instruct the department to remove the discount from the tariff for FY27. And I'm just highlighting the FAQ, which is listed as question number 15 in the budget FAQ document. [1:10:25] April Fournier: Great. Thank you. Councilor Pelletier, go ahead. [1:10:28] Wesley Pelletier: Yeah, I'll just add on to that and say, you know, I've got a few other amendments that I'm planning to bring for full Council, but this one seemed, in my eye, non-controversial enough because the people that we would hope would advocate for it are actually advocating against it. And I will send an email out to other councillors just to let them know that I've done this. And if they want to amend it back in, should this pass, of course, then that can be done on the Council floor. But I thought this would be a good one to clear out in committee. [1:11:03] April Fournier: Thank you, Counselor. Director Kirstead, I see your hand up. Go ahead. [1:11:09] Unidentified staff member: Yes, thank you. So when we post the tariffs for the new tariffs, it's a year in advance so that the cruise lines can have a chance to amend or change their rates for their passengers. So whenever we post tariffs, it gives them one year to change their fees for that. So I just wanted to bring that forward for you thank [1:11:37] April Fournier: You other questions or comments about the proposed amendment? All right, seeing none, we can go ahead and take a vote on this amendment. Counselor Pilater? Yes. Counselor Grant? Yes. I am also a yes. So that amendment is passed. Other questions, comments, discussion? I think one of the things I would like to bring forward and I, Brendan, I'm not sure if this is an amendment tonight or if this is something we want to do as an amendment once this goes to full council, but I know and I know my fellow councillors and probably also city staff have gotten a lot of comments, emails, people stopping you to chat about the proposal to extend our parking hours during Monday through Saturday, and then also the addition of Sunday paid parking. And so one of the things I am interested in, and I'm not sure that we would have it prepared for tonight again, or if this would be an amendment as it goes to full council, and we have a more full council discussion on it, is I would be interested in considering it's not an insignificant amount of money that we would be looking at bringing in revenue for those changes. But I also really always want to be mindful of impact. So it's not just about revenue, but it's also about community impact as well. And so thinking about the extended hours, we're going into tourism season, so we know we'll have a lot more visitors, which already impacts our community's ability to do street parking and be able to access some of the spaces that they normally have access to. And plan for. And we've heard a lot from communities that have public parking spaces near churches. And so Sundays where they typically are going and not having to pay to park now, that change would also create a financial impact to a lot of different community members and families. And so I do also want to be mindful and sensitive to that. So I think one of the things that I am interested in pursuing and would support the most is kind of a meeting halfway way between the not making any changes to parking, but also adding extended hours and an additional day. So I would be more inclined to do a staged or a tiered approach where we're first doing extended hours on the days that we already charge for, and then considering in a future year, then adding Sundays, you know, depending on the landscape. And also the other thing I want to balance this with is, as we think about our One Climate Future plan and think about really trying to encourage other ways to be able to get into the city to reduce the reliance on car and the need for those public parking spaces, we're still working on building that infrastructure too. And so part of that is Metro having increased routes and extended hours and doing improvements to our walkable pathways, our bikeable pathways. And so right now that may be the only way for people to get in and out of the city is by car. So those are the things that I'm balancing. I would be much more inclined to do extended hours on the days that we're already charging for, adding Sunday at a future date, but would love to hear from committee members as well. well. So we first have, counselor Pelletier. [1:15:31] Wesley Pelletier: yeah, I am very much ideologically in favor of this, but have, I think been given a great pause by the number of people and like the range of people reaching out. so I want to work with director work is a little bit, And see if we can mitigate some of the impact, especially on residents through some of our technological tools and enforcement tools. And yeah, I think tweaking, I think failing any of that, we will probably need to be tweaking some of the hours. [1:16:12] April Fournier: Thank you, Councilor. I also saw the city manager's hand go up. [1:16:17] Brendan (Last Name Unknown): My hand was up, Councilor. We have heard from a lot of people. obviously we did not do this lightly and it does have we did understand the impacts we tried to take into account all of them but understanding it was going to impact everybody and we truly understand that so we have been talking with staff about other ways to look at this with that in mind and so we can bring that information to you to the full council a couple of the things i believe the brendan will have to quote the total number of revenue increase, but I believe it was about $800,000 for these two changes with the reduction of about $50,000, I believe, for a staff person to help implement and enforce. So it's a significant increase. It was something that helped us balance and meet our goal of sort of diversifying funds and not just have everything coming from property taxes. But we can look at that. One of the changes as we talked about was potentially time changes on Sunday, or if we want, we'll add in what you just mentioned, Counselor, which is, you know, other either phasing it in or something like that, and we can bring that in materials to you to at that council level that [1:17:28] April Fournier: sounds great thank you [1:17:30] Benjamin Grant: Counselor Grant, go ahead. I don't have anything really substantive to add other than I support the direction that Chair Fournier is going here. I think the expansion on existing days makes sense as a first step. And I mean, I appreciate what the staff is doing. And I think this served as a little bit of a trial balloon for the Sunday thing that we ought to step back from for now. So I will support that direction from both my colleagues, actually, from Wes as [1:18:00] April Fournier: well. Thank you, Councillor. Brendan, so it sounds like this is an amendment that we can work on for the full council, but I think what would be helpful would be to see the, we already have the present or the information about the extended hours and adding Sunday, being able to see then that second scenario of extended hours and then later Sunday, and then just extended hours. I think that would be helpful for us to make that decision. Okay. Great. Any other discussion or questions? I would also encourage, and I know we don't have all of our colleagues here, but as we say every time when we are working on amendments to any of our budget work, the sooner we have the information the better, being able to work through that and have heads up before we get to that full council meeting so that we have the benefit of not only working with staff to craft those but also giving notice to the public to be able to see what we're contemplating as we're looking at changes for the final budget project. So I will just see if my colleagues have any other questions, comments, or concerns. [1:19:21] Benjamin Grant: Councilor Grant, go ahead. Yeah, I just wanted to level set again on the tax rate we're looking at, you know, of what we're passing out, just setting aside any amendment work that's just been discussed. But just remind us, Brenton, where we are on the tax rate overall, if you wouldn't mind. [1:19:38] Danielle West: So right now we are at a tax levy increase of approximately 5% and a tax rate increase of $0.60, from $11.98 to $12.58. Let me just pull up, I know I have it in the city manager's recommended budget letter, just to show the actual tax rate computation, I can pull it up. Budget [1:20:18] April Fournier: season is always hard because you have 26 windows open. I get it. Yeah. [1:20:26] Danielle West: Sorry, I don't have it right in front of me, but let's see if I can share now. This breaks it down of where we are for FY26 final and FY27 estimated. Let me just pull a quick percentage on that total tax rate increase. Great, yep. So exactly a five percent increase on the rate as well. Okay, which is back to that level, I think, after a slight increase from the schools. Okay. [1:21:12] Benjamin Grant: Yeah, I just wanted to level set on that, make sure we were remaining in the range of guidance that we set out earlier. So that's all I have for the moment. The [1:21:26] Danielle West: actual appropriation resolve, I typically advise not directly quoting these numbers, but simply as the city manager is presented, you can see the sum of 363,927,435 is being appropriated for general municipal purposes, and the aggregate tax levy is 121,722,845 as amended. That would actually, the tax levy would drop by twelve thousand dollars. So rather than try and quote it, I would say just as presented by the city manager, amended by Councilor Pelletier. [1:22:08] April Fournier: Great. Thank you, Brendan. Any other questions, comments, or concerns before we are ready to take action to move this out of Finance Committee to full council? Seeing none, so I'm looking for a motion to pass the city manager's recommended budget, as Brendan was mentioning, and associated total appropriation, total amount to be collected from property taxes and associated budgeted orders, and also noting Councilor Pelletier's amendment. So moved. Thank you. Moved by Councillor Grant, seconded by Councillor Pelletier. Councillor Grant, how do you vote? Yes. Councillor Pelletier? I am also a yes. So we have unanimously agreed to move this out of finance into full council, where we also, I think, will be considering additional amendments before we take final action. I just want to, as we've done that work, say a huge, ginormous thank you to Brendan, because you do the lion's share of this work, but I know it is also a total team effort. Really, all staff, all departments have to have really, hard conversations about keeping city services going, keeping staffing going, and all of the things that the city of Portland does. So really just a ton of gratitude. This is so much work. And so thank you for spending your evenings with us to go through all of these different departments. I know we are not across the finish line yet. We still have a few more public hearings and council action to go, but just really just want to say thank you. I know it's a ton of work, but we are very appreciative. All right. So Brendan, what do we have ahead of us for our next meetings and when can the public win again take a little bit of a pause on Monday [1:24:12] Danielle West: night with a workshop and then the full council meeting with the first read so that's the 18th and anyone who public commented at the committee can comment again at one of the two city council public hearings so you'll have the chance to comment again at either the 18th or June 1st we have not yet set a date for the next finance committee meeting but things that I anticipate We will be talking about a potential continuation of this discussion around shelter relocation and also around the public art and land bank, 0.05% of the CIP, and some of the nuances and problems that conflicting guidance causes. So we'll look at that, and we'll look at the overall debt management policy as part of the committee as well. [1:25:02] April Fournier: Great. All right, friends. And, well, with that, thank you so much also to the public for joining us. There are additional opportunities to comment on this budget when it goes to full council, and we'll make sure we get all of that published. I don't have anything else for this evening, but great job, everybody. And with that, I will take a motion to adjourn. So moved. He's so quick, Wes. He's so quick. [1:25:30] Wesley Pelletier: I thought I had it on that one. [1:25:33] April Fournier: So moved by Councillor Grant seconded by Councillor Pelletier Councillor Grant how do you vote yes Councillor Pelletier yes I am also a yes we are adjourned at 6 27 p.m thank you so much everyone thank you we'll see you next time bye