Budget and Tax Levy Approval Second Reading   4/13/2021

So I thought everyone's here.

So I call this meeting to order.

Ms.

Ms.

Mayor McGill?

Here.

Councillor Hill?

Here.

Okay, thank you.

So next up, we have a resolution establishing the 2021 tax year tax relief percentage.

One reading.

Yes, ma'am.

I didn't know if you need me to say anything or anything at all.

Good afternoon, council.

This is the sort of the thing we do every year where we determine the amount, how we divvy up the state's portion of personal property tax relief.

This year we're going to set it for 40%.

It was at 42% last year.

I don't know if you have any questions about this or how it works out.

Are there any questions?

Okay.

Ms.

Yes.

All right.

Thanks.

Next up, we have the ordinance for adopting the annual tax levy for 2021.

This is the second reading.

I will just be glad to introduce this.

This is to the right page, the tax rate and tax levy ordinance.

There will be no increases for either the taxes or the fees associated, different from FY21 to FY22.

Thank you, counselors.

Are there any questions, comments?

All right, Ms.

Thomas.

You want a motion?

Okay.

Ms.

Vice Mayor McGill?

Yes.

All right.

And I know the next one was the ordinance adopting the annual budget, but we need to finalize the council budget correct before that conversation.

So I know there were some emails going around, but I didn't get a chance to read them.

OK, Mayor and Council.

Yes, we can handle it a couple of ways.

We've got to approve the final budget.

And as part of that, you can either amend

that motion with the changes that you would like regarding the council's discretionary account.

Well, actually, that is how we would need to do it because the council's discretionary account would have to become part of the budget.

We had just some placeholders in there that I believe all of council wanted to amend.

Is the only issue that we have remaining to decide the question of the council budget?

Is there any other issue and controversy at the moment?

We at least have heard nothing.

Don't want to be presumptuous, however.

So I guess I sent out my budget request yesterday.

Mr. Boyle sent out one that he and our staff put together.

And then as of now, none of the other four of you put out.

I sent something in on Friday.

You did?

Okay.

I just sent it to Tina, I believe, because that's, he was, I mean, it was up to $1,000 that we had talked about at city council meeting.

I sent in, I think, $7.54.

Okay.

So I guess it just needs to be alignment on the amount, whether it's the thousand, the 2200 or the 10,000 or some other amount.

And then if the line items, um,

Yeah, and I was comfortable with the version that was sent out later in the afternoon.

I just didn't have strong feelings.

My main thing was just not feeling like the speaker piece.

I think that's something that council as a body could participate.

I think any of these things council as a body can allocate funding to, but if we're going to be doing individual discretionary funds, and I agree with

Having meetings and events by individual counselors that include refreshments at the $500, meeting and events for other purposes at $250, and then constituent communication and outreach at $250, recognizing that we can certainly change that and a council vote can provide additional funding as needed.

Karen Hollweg, There was a revised version after getting feedback.

Karen Hollweg, That's Karen Hollweg, Okay, I haven't seen Karen Hollweg, And let me just say I continue to believe that this is not a very good idea, but if we Karen Hollweg, You know, obviously, I was out voted on that Council if Council wants to do it, I would say, let's do what we said last time and have $1,000

and essentially $1,000 per the $500-$250-$250 proposal sent out by council.

I would have sent out by the staff later on today is fine with me.

Again, I personally think that the idea of paying people to come speak at council meetings is not a wise idea, but I can see some benefit

to having food and refreshments and events and outreach and that kind of thing.

And again, I just think if we're going to, if there's any major outreach that we want to do, I can see a lot of that being done in collaboration with staff.

And we've certainly, and then we think about the, our town hall meetings we used to, that were had before even I was on council, that those are pretty robust and certainly meals are provided and involved a lot of engagement and a lot of staff, but that was done through the city manager's office in conjunction with council.

And so I think that those things are still things that we can do and things like them.

And those will continue to happen.

I just see that this is just a specific thing for

An individual counselor wants to coordinate something on their own.

What other funds will we be dealing with as electeds?

I mean this whole notion that we are voted in at large and that it means the same thing just because there are no districts awards is just absurd because we all know that that is not the case.

all the activities that we're talking about, we can do at greater amounts than what we're talking about here as a body.

In my

My main thing is I want us to take this opportunity to make sure we're addressing something that was an issue that's been an issue for a couple of years.

And we have this chance of also making sure that we're putting some thought into it

We're not gonna get it right the first time.

But this is exactly, I know we're taking this, we're back and forthing a lot, but this is exactly the policy changes that we need to be making.

10,000 is almost as much as Richmond delegates get and they have four times a budget as we do.

So I can't go there.

I don't think that's right.

We do know that we're in the pandemic still and we're not going to be doing a lot of this probably for a while.

So I'd like to think start out with this area of I like where we're starting with staff suggestions and that as we go through stuff, if we're finding it's we need more money, then we come back and we vote on it together about, hey, this is what we're finding.

We need to change it.

That's where I'd like to see this going because I think this is an opportunity to take some new eyes at some very old policies and rectify some issues.

I don't really have strong thoughts.

I mean, again, I think

This is a specific area that's allowing expenditures under state law that was not allowed before.

And this is one part of the overall policy.

I don't really have strong preferences on the dollar amount.

I'm fine with either the proposal that I think was $1,000 or the initial proposal, if I'm remembering correctly, from yesterday that was $2,200.

Even if that is removing the speaker piece and just readjusting that amount to other areas, either I'm fine with.

So don't really have a strong preference or thought either way.

And I guess in either case, that money is coming from the strategic initiatives because it's above what's already allocated in council's budget.

Okay.

Correct.

Yeah.

But I guess of the proposals we've received,

acknowledging that they can always be revisited and changed in the future.

I guess my thought would be just that $2,200 one, even if it may make more sense to just remove the speaker piece and reallocate the rest of that money to the other areas.

Because I just don't anticipate realistically the speaker piece being more likely than the other line items.

So it seems that there is agreement for the $1,000 budget proposal from staff.

All right.

I, no.

Thank you.

I appreciate you asking.

I just, I don't think we're going to get this right the first time around.

I think we're going to need to be altering this because it's the first time we're doing this.

But I just really think it's a good start.

Yes.

Wait, what happened to the 2200 that was getting reappropriated?

That was, yesterday there was a proposal for 2200 that included 1000 for speakers.

Karen Hollweg, The $2,200 is actually in the budget appropriation.

At 1.43 PM if you're looking through your outlook.

Karen Hollweg, I can't even get there.

They hold on.

Karen Hollweg, I think I'm on that.

It just breaks out, so like you gave Takina your breakout for the thousand, it just breaks it out slightly differently.

So the meetings and events for food and refreshments, it gets $500 per counselor.

Meetings and events for other needs related to meetings and events are $250, and then constituent communications and outreach is at $250.

So I think Ms.

Yeah, I was more curious because I thought we were voting on $2,200 with a thousand taken out of the speakers and reallocated to the other things.

But again, we can always come back later and ask for more to be put into it if we need to.

So I'm just, I'm good with whatever.

Okay.

Are there any further council discussion?

So I just want to make the same comments I've been making the entire process.

As someone who attended budget sessions for a lot of years and watched them very closely and participated in it regularly since early 20, since 2012, I think that hopefully moving forward there will be

just a more inclusive process and that we get a better handle on the staff request and have some sort of system available for ranking those requests.

I had a lot of hope, Counselor Hill, when we went through the Vibrant Community process, changing it from the ABRT

Knowing that things take time, but I think this process is slower than it needs to be.

And it's not changing as quickly as it could change.

And I hope in the future that that is something that works better for citizens.

What was my third point?

The council dollars, I thought originally that by us voting on these expenditures in the past after asking some former council members that the line item that we had allowed us to do things

that we requested, we wanted to do individually.

Again, I use authoritarian and paternalistic a lot, and I feel that way today.

And even just now, just the ask of whether how the proposals

what we wanted to do and the fact that Counselor Snooks even changed it for $2,200 to $1,000, which is still pretty insignificant in a very active year.

And so I just hope there's a lot of, I think, work that can be done.

I know that we had some major staff

changes, but there have been staff members who have been consistent.

And one thing I know that we don't have money for, but I hope that we find some money since the council engagement part, you know, was limited.

I hope in future budgets that we see that sort of engagement from a staff level being expected from the community.

And we still have to review the boards and commissions

and the partnership with the city manager on how to pay people for their time.

It is unethical.

We look around at our boards.

It's not a lot of diversity.

I think the AVRT Vibrant Community Board was the most diverse board that we have ever had in the city.

And those individuals did not get paid for their time on that board.

But I think it was a good representation of individuals and hopefully we can get more boards

what, you know, like that so that we can be truly hearing from individuals throughout the city and not just people who have the time or resources.

That's it.

Any other comments?

All right, Ms.

Thomas.

Vice Mayor McGill?

Yes.

Councilor Hill?

Yes.

Did you hear him?

Yes.

All right.

All right.

Is there any other

Anything else that we need to?

Okay.