Regular Finance Committee Meeting Mon, May 12, 2025 · Finance Committee https://santafeminutes.space/meeting/281 == Executive Summary == The Finance Committee met to finalize the Fiscal Year 2026 operating budget, with a significant focus on reallocating funds to improve city parks and open spaces. The committee approved two amendments that collectively moved approximately $633,900 to the Parks Department, primarily from sustainability programs and the City Manager's Office contingency funds. This reallocation aims to enhance park maintenance, weed and litter removal, and address public concerns about the condition of these facilities. The Mayor and councilors acknowledged the difficult choices involved in budgeting, emphasizing the public's strong desire for better parks. The Parks Director presented a plan to use these funds for a pilot program, contracting out median maintenance to free up internal staff for a "Parks Action Team" to address urgent issues. The committee stressed the importance of tracking metrics to measure the success of this pilot program and ensure the funds lead to tangible improvements in service levels. Ultimately, the committee approved the amended budget resolution, reflecting a strategic shift in funding priorities towards immediate public amenity improvements while still acknowledging ongoing sustainability efforts through other avenues. The detailed discussions highlighted the city's commitment to responsive governance and efficient resource allocation. == Key Decisions == - Approved Amendment A to reallocate $525,400 to the Parks Department for park and open space improvements. - Approved Amendment B to reallocate $108,500 (recurring funds) from the City Manager's Office contingency to the Parks Department. - Approved the Fiscal Year 2026 operating budget resolution as amended. == Motions & Votes == - Approval of Agenda — Passed unanimously. - Approval of Consent Agenda — Passed unanimously. - Motion to adopt FY2026 Budget Resolution — Passed (setting the stage for amendments). - Motion to approve Amendment A (reallocating $525,400 to the Parks Department) — Passed (Counselor Cassid, Counselor Lee Garcia, and Chair Marworth voting yes). - Motion to approve Amendment B (reallocating $108,500 recurring funds from City Manager's Office to Parks Department) — Passed (Counselor Cassid, Counselor Lee Garcia, and Chair Marworth voting yes). - Approval of the amended budget resolution — Passed (Counselor Cassid, Counselor Lee Garcia, and Chair Marworth voting yes). == Public Comment == No public comment period was held. Discussions were primarily between committee members, the Mayor, and department directors. == Topics == - Parks & Open Space Funding - FY2026 Operating Budget - Sustainability Initiatives - Budget Reallocation Process - Parks Maintenance & Operations - City Manager's Office Funds - State Green Bank Program - Performance Metrics & Evaluation - Public Feedback & Priorities == Full Transcript == here. Hello. Can we go live when you all are able? Mayor: Madame Chair, Councilor Romero, we are live. All right. At 5:04, I'm calling to order the May 12th meeting of the Finance Committee. And if we could get a roll. Certainly, Madam Chair. Councilor Cassett, here. Councilor Lindell. Councilor Faulkner is excused. Yes. Councilor Garcia, here. Chair Marroworth, I am here. Madam Chair, you have a quorum. Perfect. Do we have changes to our agenda tonight? No changes from staff. Madam Chair, is there a motion from the committee? I move to approve. We have a motion and a second to approve the consent. Oh, no, no, the actual agenda. All the Let's see. We're all here. All those in favor? Aye. Anybody opposed? That motion passes. On to the consent agenda. I don't believe there were any items pulled from consent. Correct. Correct, Madam Chair. Are there any items the committee would like to hear? And if not, is there a motion? Second. There's a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda. All those in favor? Aye. Anybody opposed? That motion passes. All right. So with that, we are on to our action items, our discussion agenda, which is the consideration of Resolution Number 2025, which is sponsored by Mayor Alan Weber, who's joined us tonight. Thank you, Mayor. It's the resolution that formally adopts the Fiscal Year 2026 operating budget for the city. So the title is a resolution adopting the City of Santa Fe's Fiscal Year 2026 operating budget for the City of Santa Fe. We do have our Finance Director here, Emily Oster, our budget team in the back, and other city staff that might be needed as we look at the two amendments. Just to refresh for those who may be watching, we did spend nine days going over each department's budget for the next fiscal year that starts July 1st. We did postpone the approval of that budget by the Finance Committee because we do have two amendments to help with parks, and those amendments needed time to be drafted. So at this time, I would entertain a motion to adopt the budget so that we can entertain the amendments. Move to approve. Second. We have a motion and a second to approve the FY2026 budget resolution. And then I will move Amendment Number A, which is an amendment sponsored by the Mayor and myself to move money. Well, I don't know. Mayor, do you want to explain this? Maybe I'll just give you the floor. We're going to move some money around to increase the ability of our parks team to do the work that's necessary to keep up. So, Mayor, maybe it's Let me I I'll move the amendment. Let's do this first. I'll move the amendment. Is there a second? We have a motion and a second. So, now we'll go to discussion about what the amendment does. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity just to provide a little context. I think I said this at your last meeting, but I'll repeat it. I think the hearings that you all held were incredibly informative, and they really did bring to light a number of things about the way the city is operating and areas where we need to do a better job and can be more immediately responsive to public priorities. And one of the things that Councilor Cassett asked about in those hearings was she had noticed the $500,000 plus, it's I'm not going to rounding I'm not going to go into, you know, more than a round number, that had been previously allocated to continue our focus on sustainability and the Solarize Santa Fe and other sustainable programs. And I personally very committed to that agenda. I think it money was there previously because I specifically made a request to make sure we could address our sustainability agenda, and I don't feel any diminishment of that commitment. But I think we all acknowledge that this is a very constrained budget, and we have to make choices. And as our City Manager has pointed out in his comments at the start of the budget, everything involves trade-offs, particularly when you just are having to make tough choices between equally desirable things. In this instance, I think the felt need to do more for parks and open space, to utilize money that would make a significant improvement in the way our medians and parks and other public facilities perform, how they look, I think is a really clear public request. And the fact that we can redeploy that money, and I think there's a second tranche that Councilor Cassett has identified that will be up for a vote as Amendment B. I think what we're saying if we approve these reallocations is that we've done our due diligence in the course of these budget hearings and come up with a trade-off that we're prepared to make that would benefit the public and recognize what we're hearing regularly, which is there's more work to be done in the parks. I also think that I want to give credit to Melissa McDonald, Director McDonald, who does a always does an outstanding job and never complains or makes excuses or pretends that anything than her best is what we're getting. But to her credit, when asked what it would happen if she had a new allocation of about $625,000, what that could do for us, she's very quickly and effectively responded with an action plan that would really provide an action team for weed litter removal, high priority, high-traffic parks, trail areas, graffiti removal, a higher rate of service based on the reallocation of this money. So, I think the fact that we have a Parks and Open Space Director who can respond so directly, immediately, and with a clear action plan tells me that this is the right path to go on with this roughly $625,000 reallocation and that we're responding to everything we learned in the budget hearings. So, there are actually two two actions. Action A would be to take the money that was previously allocated for the so-called Green Bank, even though that's a bit of a misnomer, and apply that. And the second would be Councilor Cassett's amendment, which I'll leave alone and let her speak to when the time comes. Thank you, Mayor. So that lays it out. We do have Director McDonald in the audience if there are questions about how she's thinking she'll be able to utilize this money, which might be interesting. But I'll just stop here and open it up to the committee for questions. And I'll just also say just one other quick correction. The second amendment that adds money from a different part of the budget is also referred to as Amendment B being sponsored by Councilor Cassett and myself. So, but let's stay on Amendment A. And are there questions or yes, Councilor Cassett? Thank you so much, Madam Chair. I also, and Mayor, I'm not sure if you can speak to this. I think that as in considering this amendment, as you said, there are trade-offs, and sustainability is still something that's very important to this city. That does not mean that there's nothing in this budget that is supporting these our goals around sustainability. Can either I know that we don't have the department here, but can somebody speak to what that is just so we we are clear that that does we're not taking away everything that speaks towards sustainability? Well, thank you for the opportunity to speak to that because I do think it's important that we don't look at this as a zero-sum game. One thing that is pending that we didn't undertake through the budget process, but that will be happening going forward, is a reorganization that pulls together conservation and sustainability into a new unit. And that that's something that has been recommended to me by staff who are in that area and who are saying we we really need to constitute a more all-hands-on-deck coordinated effort to make sure we get the most out of these connected but but not yet integrated efforts. As far as what's already in the budget, I think a lot of what is there continues our effort for things like water conservation, the enhancement of the all of our utility efforts where we're tracking water use and doing a much better job of expanding the eye on water utilization by our residents so that the numbers have gone up in terms of adoption of that app. I think it's gone from something like 11% to 21% market penetration. Still not as high as we'd like it to be, but a significant improvement. All of this is because of the efforts that are contained in the in the staff operations under utilities. In the area of sustainability, we continue to focus on migrating our fleet to electric vehicles, using we still do this. It's not a change, but it's something we should all be proud of. The way our our environmental services team uses GPS and software to delineate the most energy-efficient routings of our trucks is a national model that significantly improves both energy use and also service delivery to the customers around trash pickup. The list is a very long and comprehensive one where we we really do have a a sustainability and conservation mindset in Santa Fe that covers energy, water, vehicles. What what the previous use of that money was for, and I was very pleased we were able to do it. When Neil Denton was here, he was really a champion for solarizing, using the money to help provide low-interest or no-interest loans to lower-income people who wanted to solarize their residences and drive down their energy use and their energy bill. And in particular, Neil crafted a really wonderful partnership with the school district that made some money available to school employees in particular so they could take advantage of a way to get into the solar market. We're not done with that, but I think the immediate utilization of these dollars for the benefit of the parks and trails and medians will show up right away. And then as the City Manager has said repeatedly, we'll look at how the economy performs, and we'll look at whether a reorg leads to renewed impetus for using that money to help people solarize their their residences. Yeah, thank you, Mayor. And if and if I'm not mistaken, correct me if I'm wrong, but the state has since implemented a similar program. So it's not something that the state has gone far. So, yeah, you're if it's a really good point. What what originally we were trying to do was to provide funding, seed money for a so-called Green Bank. Not really a bank, but rather more of a low-interest revolving loan fund. They exist in many well, a number, a handful of states around the country. And after we put this into the city budget a couple years ago, a real strong and successful effort was made at the state level to establish a fund that has in fact been been brought into law, staffed with a new board of directors, gotten some dollars from the state. So there will be revolving loans for exactly what I was describing. The focus of the state so-called Green Bank is lower-income families, rural parts of the state, and tribal communities. I think the philosophy or the the the purpose is pretty clear and I think worthy, which is a shift to a sustainable energy future should not be reserved only for people who have money and that the opportunity to drive down your utility bill by more conservation measures, better insulation, solarization, all of that ought to be available to people regarding regardless of where you are on the income level. And the so-called Green Bank statewide makes that a real possibility. And and in a way, we could put that in the future if we wanted to if we had a reallocation of money for the city, we could park some of that money in the state Green Bank and have like an an account there. But in the meantime, I think what you identified and I think we all agree is the immediate need for the city is to apply it to parks and open space right now. Mayor: Thank you, Mayor. I do think that it is an important point. I also would mention, we have Tree Smart Santa Fe, we have the green stormwater infrastructure. There's still a lot that is happening, work being done with facilities. I know it's a trade-off and I know that it can be a little concerning for some individuals, but I do think the fact that they're leveraging the work that the state is doing to make sure that we're doing the work that we need to be doing is something I am a really big fan of, especially when we do have to make hard choices in a tight budget year. So, I just wanted to lay out some of those decisions and my logic around this one for supporting this amendment. Thank you. Mayor: Other questions, comments? Councilor Lee Garcia. Councilor Lee Garcia: Thank you, Madam Chair. So, reallocation of $625,000, and this is from the Green Bank. Good explanation. I think that where did that lie? In what budget was the Green Bank? We're pulling that from where? That's probably a budget question. Director of Budget? Director of Budget: Yes, I'm happy to answer that, and we can also have Andy address it. While Andy's coming down to the mic, it was in the Public Utilities Department, and the Environmental Services program was where the Green Bank was. Andy: Madam Chair, Councilor Garcia, yes, that money was originally moved into ESD in the FY23 budget. There was a little bit of difficulty getting stuff off the ground. There were, pretty much, over the couple of years since then, we did end up spending about $125,000 out of that account. This was when Neil Denton was here, I believe, and overseeing it. There was an additional amount, there was $500,000 transferred in FY23 and an additional transfer of $150,000 made in FY24. So, what you're saying, that $525,000 is the remaining amount that was not spent, or the main amount that was transferred in. It was all transferred in from the GRT Fund 216 time. So, that was our revenue stream, the GRT. Councilor Lee Garcia: Madam Chair, Councilor Garcia, yes, one-time funding from the GRT funding was put in there from fiscal year 23 and then fiscal year 24, correct? And then that will be put into parks, right? I don't know if Director McDonald is here. I can ask her a couple questions. Welcome, Director. This is Melissa McDonald with our Parks Division. Back to you. Director McDonald: Thank you, Director McDonald, for being here. So, the $625,000 we pulled out from what was the Green Bank into your division, that'll be parks. And our intent is for park beautification and open space efforts. Madam Chair, Councilor Garcia, this is really to answer the question that came up during our budget hearings, which is, how can we improve our level of service goals? And right now, we're operating at a level three, and we were shooting for a goal of a level two. So, I went back to my team and said, "What can we do to get to that next level? What do you need?" And one of the main things is that a lot of times our folks are taken off jobs to accomplish things that come up. So, heavy litter problems or just there's disruption where we have weeds that grow at excessive rates because we don't know where it's going to rain, and we have to deal with a public safety issue. So, there's these types of things that happen throughout the city over time. And so, what we came up with was the idea that we could contract for a year with our median crews that are working on our medians and kind of have that really a routine that's really going well. And move our internal staff to do what we call a Parks Action Team. And this team would be a floating team that went around the parks to different locations and kind of dealt with more of the CRM, the customer, I want to say relations, I forget what it is. We say it all the time. What is it, Emily? You must know. The citizen complaint. Anyway, our CRM or customer concern line. And so, this way we can address those types of concerns without pulling people off their kind of already done tasks because when you have that type of activity happening, you're working in fits and starts. So, this would be a team that could start to address these kind of more urgent things that need to be done that allows us to get further in our park maintenance. And I think this is something we've wanted to try, and I think it's going to be a great program or a great pilot to see if it works. Councilor Lee Garcia: So, this money is going to be spent more on contractors versus on our own creating another team to address some of the issues that we're facing. Is that correct? Director McDonald: It's redirecting our existing teams into things that we need to do. But we are part of this. This is going to help with our contract labor that we already have. It's increasing it so that we can take folks that are working on the medians and pull them into the parks where their services and the higher level understanding is needed. Councilor Lee Garcia: I just wonder how much of that $625,000. I mean, obviously, we do need a lot of attention in our parks, and I think that's something that the public has continually reached out to just about all councilors in regards to how can we keep these parks maintained, and I know it's difficult. I think that the direction that I would like to see is how do we, obviously, contractors, I can see the reason for using contractors. But I would like to see the direction of creating a specific team that can address these that would be continual. I mean, obviously, working on our hard dollar versus the soft dollar, which is, we can contract everything out. And I'd like to see the resources in the department to be able to address these issues. So, I think that's all I have for you, Director. I just want to make one comment in regards to we had these amendments kind of almost ready last Tuesday, from my understanding, a couple of hours, and then we just barely got them now, about a half hour before the meeting or so. So, not really a whole lot of time. I want to, for the sake of being able to go through it, I know we'll still have an opportunity at governing body. But, you know, addressing some of the different changes, didn't have enough time to really go through all the changes and think we'd be here for another quite a few hours if I started asking all the questions that I had. But with that, I will cede the floor for the time being. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mayor: Thank you, Councilor. I think an important point around this money is that it's one-time money. Can somebody speak to that? And that's why we can, you know, kind of give a shot in the arm to our, as Director McDonald already said, the contract labor that we already have to help. And it's one-time money. It's, I think as was described, a pilot. Let's see how this works. Let's give some extra muscle to a problem we're all very familiar with. And Director Oster, if you could just confirm to me that's, you know, we can't hire additional positions for an ongoing parks team because this is one-time money. It's not recurring. Director Oster: That's correct, Madam Chair. Like our budget officer Andy said when he was up at the mic, the bulk of this money came from FY23 and FY24 one-time funds that were allocated to environmental services for the Green Bank program. Mayor: Okay, thank you. Councilor: Madam Chair, yeah. One quick addendum, because I think Melissa McDonald mentioned it, but this is what I like about this is that we've had on our radar screen this idea for a couple of years now. I think Izzy was a champion for it out of constituent services, saying we get these requests for SWAT team response, and we just don't have the wherewithal to summon it. So, while it doesn't create a whole new level of employees, it does redeploy the existing asset of human asset, talent asset, to areas where we are often called to help, but historically we've just been unable to perform, understaffed, if you will. So, it's a, again, it's a trade-off within a trade-off between bringing on more people versus redeploying the existing dollars so that the city employees can be an action response team. And I'm very eager to see how it, assuming this were to pass and it becomes part of the budget and you're able to redeploy the money, I think this is a tremendous pilot experiment because we do have these things that occur and frequently come through the constituent services team, and everybody wants to respond, but there's not bandwidth, and this would provide the bandwidth, and we'd find out really what the response time to these urgent requests from the community, what we're able to do to perform against that. So, I'm very excited about what this would enable, and I know it's been on the radar screen for a couple years at least. I remember talking to Izzy about it and talking to you about it, and we could make it happen. I think there'd be a, the public would be well served by it. Thank you, ma'am. Mayor: Thank you. Hold on just a second. Councilor Lindell, did you have anything on this? All right, back to Councilor Cassid. Councilor Cassid: Thank you so much, Madam Chair. And on that point, with it being a pilot, I think one thing that will be important, especially since this is one-time money, we do not know, of course, with our unstable primary revenue source being GRT, and we've already had all these conversations about the unknown of what's going to happen with our economy. I, tracking it is going to be something I would really like to see so that when we do get to budget next year, you know, we get to have this conversation around how much was really needed for this. You know, was this the right amount of money? And then also, what are those metrics that we're looking at? So, is it going to be how frequently the parks are serviced by the contractor? Is it going to be how quickly parks is able to close out CRM? You don't have to answer those questions right now, but I think that that will be an important thing for us to take a look at, and I know it's a short timeline. You know, pilots, we normally like a full year, and budget hearings will be before then after you actually get the dollars. But I think that that piece is going to be incredibly important. And I know that you all do have a way of measuring, you mentioned going from a level three to a level two. Metrics involved with those, but I think really reporting on how this infusion impacts all these areas that we're looking at will be very worthwhile to see in early calendar year 2026. That's all. Thank you. Mayor: Thank you. And I guess I would just, and Director, don't go away. I think some of the things that you are going to focus on, and I can, I'll flag a few and you can tell me if I'm kind of in the ballpark. I think it was weed and litter removal in high priority, high traffic parks and trail areas, especially where conditions pose safety risks or exceed typical maintenance levels. Then graffiti removal and rapid response to vandalism, which we all recognize are chronic things. So, maybe you could help, you know, help me understand that that's sort of going to be the focus. And just to Councilor Cassid's point about how do we look back and know that we've, you know, used this money and made some progress. But then also if you could speak a little bit more to the level of service. You have a, I believe, I don't know what to call it, a plan review, something that kind of outlines, you know, here's the kinds of things we could do, and this is with the resources we have, this is the level that we can provide. Can you just talk a little bit about that? Because I thought when that was presented to us a while back, I think it was very helpful in understanding the nature of the problem, just with what we're trying to improve, but also with the resources we have to improve it. Thank you, Madam Chair, counselors. That's a lot of questions in there, and I'm sorry. That's okay. I appreciate the willingness to understand this because it can get complex. So, thank you. And I might lose you, so reel me back in if I do. So, one of the things as you're growing a division, and our division is a growing division, every time we add a park, every time we add a trail, every time we add a subdivision that we are responsible to take care of, we have to figure out how that's going to happen. And so we look at national averages, so the National Recreation and Park Association. But it's very hard to take national numbers and equate them to every town or city because every department has kind of similar things, but then they also have different things. And so you really have to kind of look at it case by case. So, about three years ago, we started a time study, and we went through all of the parks and the trails and the medians and started ranking them and understanding how much time it takes to get a park to a certain level. And so the parks that are at the higher levels that we thought had favorable responses, we calculated what was done there. And then some of the parks that maybe get a lot more complaints, we calculated what was done there. And from that point, we had a really good baseline of saying, "Okay, if we want a park to look like Park A, then we need to make sure that we're putting in the time." And there's a lot of factors like size of park and other things, but it gives us a kind of nice baseline for really looking at the needs that we have, the staffing needs that we have. So, it kind of all started out with that. And what we came up with is that we were basically—these studies are all based on how you care for a park. So, how often you empty the trash, how often you weed it, how often you mow it, how often you check your irrigation systems. We have all of these factors that the more you do of something or the more preventative actions that you do, you get a higher level of service goals, right? And we looked at all of them, and we came up with that most of our parks were being done at a level three. And so if we wanted to get up to a level two, we would have to do more. So that's— And the scale is one to what? One to five. Okay. And one is the best. Yes. Okay. Yes. Yes. So that's where this all started. And from that, we've been making decisions about how we set up teams and how we want to approach this so that we can get all of our levels up. So, going back to why did this work? I mean, it's a complicated thing too when you add staff because you then have to add vehicles, you have to add training, you have to add office space, you have to add—there's huge amounts of overhead when you bring in new staff. So, while we all want new staff, is it practical? Does it make sense? At this point in time, we don't really have a lot of space to put new staff members in. Crews are a little different because you can have—they're out in their trucks and they can have their tablets. So, we've kind of been weighing that a little bit too. But in order for us to add more services, we actually have to have places to park the trucks, you know, things like that that we're really short on right now. So when this kind of was being talked about in budget, that's why, Counselor Garcia, we went to, "Hey, what can we do that would allow us to try this out to see if this added staff would get us up to that level two?" And that's where we came up with the idea, "Let's do the contract on the medians and then move some staff to work in these other capacities that will start to really look at this." Is it really going to make a difference? And I think, quite frankly, we need to do this because we are going to be taking on new parks and expanding, and we all know that we're not hitting the level of service that some people in our community want. So, it's really good for us to understand how is this going to help us when we really do have to bring on new staff because there will be a point as soon as South Meadows comes on, as soon as Swan Park is built out, the splash pad, all of that stuff requires more people, right? And so, what is it that we need? So, I'm very excited about this because it's going to allow us to look at how many people do we really need and what is it going to produce. So, it's not necessarily—it is helping do additional things. So, when we're kind of, as I was explaining, if you have a crew and they have a to-do list, if you get pulled off, just like when you're cleaning your house and somebody comes to your door and you have to go talk to the canvasser about PR, you get distracted and you can't finish the job, right? It puts you behind. So, what we're trying to do is help our crews have their to-do list and get it done, okay? And that this crew would kind of pick up the things that are falling through the cracks when we make those kinds of choices. So, it's really saying we need to deal with these critical things or these—any kind of growing thing expands. There's different types of services we need. So, I think what we'd like to see is if we don't get interrupted and we have this crew, how much more can the existing crews do? Are we going to be able to get to that level two? And I think we will be able to. So that's what we're really kind of testing out here. So it's finishing the jobs, it's doing more pruning, it's doing more weeding. If you take a park, we try to deal with the edges first and then working quadrants around a park. So when we go to a park, you just don't do everything in one time. We have to drive around the city and go to all the parks. So, we have these lists and we're kind of moving around the city doing a little bit at each park every day, and that's how we kind of get our overall park things. And there's certain things you do like mowing at certain times. You know, there's different activities that occur at different times, but that's basically how we're approaching it, and that's really the industry standard, right? And in that study, was there like what level two and what the various levels created, like how many times you could empty the trash or how often you could frequent the park to do X, Y, or Z? Is that something at your fingertips? I just—at my fingertips, I'm embarrassed to say. Okay, well, maybe we can talk about it Wednesday night. I think it just, you know, level two, level three, like, "Okay, we're going up a level, that's good." But it might—I think it would be helpful for the public to understand, you know, exactly what that means possibly to their park, right? So, something for Wednesday, I think it might. Absolutely. Yeah, just to see that. And thank you for taking my very long list of things. But I guess, you know, in terms of knowing whether the dollars were well spent, if we can—how close we got to a level two would tell us or what might be necessary to get to further. I thought it was a basketball game. That'll be one way to look at how these dollars were used and what they achieved. Okay. Mayor: [Laughter] Maybe there's an off button. I'm glad I'm not alone. Sometimes that happens to me. Oh, it totally, totally happens to me. Okay. Other questions on this? Counselor Lee Garcia. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for that dialogue. I think that it piqued a couple of more questions. Hopefully, they're not too long. But in our medians, how many crews do we have working on medians? Right now, we have about 16 people. That would be including the crews that are working. So, are they also working on parks? No, we have dedicated median crews. So, the crew that's going to move over is five individuals who are city staff, and then we have 10 that are contracted laborers. Okay. So, in medians, you have 16. And how many— It's 15. I'm sorry, I misspoke. It's 15. And how many individuals are on a specific crew? I'm sorry. How many—so, if you have median laborers, how many people are on that one crew? It kind of goes between in twos, threes, and twos and threes. So, it depends on the truck and the medians that they're working on, but we tend to have in groups of twos and threes and those kind of iterations. So, in a bigger stretch, you might have six, two groups of three. It's based on vehicle size, but you have to move people through the job site, right? Okay. And we have a lot of medians, we have a lot of parks. I think that, you know, alluding to how we adopt parks and when new developments come in, and I mean, that's always been a concern of mine, especially in on the planning commission and even going forward when you see, you know, on Park Phase One, Phase Two, Phase Three. You know, and I'm just looking on District Three, the new, is it El Prado or the one that's on South Meadows? Is that what it's called? That, you know, we're going to have to do that one. I mean, and there's already quite a lot of other parks that need attention. So, I see that. I mean, it's similar to our public safety efforts and how we grow as a city, and it's like, how do we provide these amenities that people expect to have, not just think they're going to have, they expect it living in the city? And so, that'll, you know, I just a couple of questions that piqued my interest. I think that, how do we qualify for our levels? I mean, who grades that? So, if we're level three, how do we get to a level two? How do we—who puts out the metrics and how is it qualified? Madam Chair, Counselor, actually that is a team of people in parks. There's other ways that you can do that, and we kind of did this as a beginning of how we do this assessment, but it's myself, it's our operations manager, and we actually go out and we grade the parks with the park staff, and then we have the park staff also grade, and then we look at those and say, "Hey, are we meeting up?" And then that kind of gives us a lot of good information. Do they think they're doing their job? Do we think they're doing their job? And then that's how we get to it. It does also look at the metrics, like how often was the trash taken out. So, it's a combination of things. Like, you can prune a park and mow a park, but if you do a bad job out of it, it'll be lower than if you, you know, did a good job out of it. So, there's some gray areas, and then there's some actual metrics that say, "Yes, I mowed this park three times in the last month." And then that way we know, "Okay, this was mowed three times. This is the results that it got." So, it's kind of an independent and our evaluation. Some municipalities do, you know, have a third party that comes in and does it, but we haven't—we want to get our metrics down right so that we're able to do that in a—so we're not wasting money. You know, this is all something we just started in three years. So. Okay. Thank you. And I guess one last thing, I would be interested down, you know, in the future, and I this is not to take away from, you know, city employees versus contract labor, but, you know, how obviously I made the statement earlier of working with our hard dollar, the people who work for us. We're taking care of our stuff. We take pride in beautifying our parks. In regards to efficiency, when we're contracting out, how quickly is a contractor turning around the work on a park versus us doing it internally? I think that would be something to keep an eye on because obviously, it may cost us more to contract, but we might be getting the job done faster. I don't know. I think it would be something to look at from a data perspective. Those are just my comments. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Counselor. You created a question for me, which is that our contractors are dedicated to this work. Correct, Madam Chair, counselors? Yes, we give them very specific tasks. Contract labor actually, we always try to do in-house labor whenever possible. We only use contract labor when it makes sense to do so or if there's a specialized type of service. So on the medians, it's a more specialized type of service. They have a very set thing that they do. There are different types of equipment. Our priority always is to use our staff first. Okay, thank you. Other thoughts, questions? I think this is a good, kind of, laying some foundational information about what it is we're trying to do with this shot in the arm for parks. Mayor: I just, once again, I'm dazzled by our team. The idea that for the past, we don't talk about this in governing body meetings, and I don't sit down with Director McDonald and go over it, but to learn that for the last three years there's been this process that has been both a grassroots level with the employees evaluating themselves, and then management level, and then a parallax view of the performance. I think that's stunning management by our team, and I continue to be impressed by all the things that the budget hearings are bringing out in the way of really exceptional managerial practices that are below the radar screen most of the time and don't rise to the level of, "How do you do it?" But you guys are asking, "How do you do it?" And we're getting a tutorial on the nuts and bolts of running the parks operation. I think it's very impressive. I have every confidence that if this money is moved, we'll get our money's worth, and we will see an improvement in the outcomes. I think the director will be able to provide actual evaluation that, to your point, Counselor Cass, tells us what we're seeing in the way of improvement. Maybe it's citywide, maybe it's only among certain kinds of situations that you go from level three to level two, but I believe they'll be, because of the way she's been approaching this with her team, I think we're going to be able to evaluate the actual performance that we get in terms of the priority responses that she's laid out for us. I'm very, very impressed, and I appreciate it. Thanks for asking those questions. Yes, and again, I was impressed when the Public Works Public Utilities Committee heard the level of service study. That's what it was called, I believe. I can't remember, it's probably a year ago, maybe. I think two. Yes, but I remember, to the Mayor's point, it was very illuminating to see kind of the forest, because usually we're just seeing the CRMs that are coming or the constituent complaints or the why, or we've done in District 2 meetings at parks with constituents who are concerned about the level of service or how often the park is, like, pocket parks are weeded or the trash is taken out and that kind of thing. I think that that study really helped, and then what you were talking about tonight in terms of how you approach a park and what it takes to actually move through it with your crews. I agree that's very illuminating to see kind of from a higher perch how we have been working consistently to try to improve something that we know is a problem, which is why I think I'm excited about these amendments to move money that again gives parks a shot in the arm to, I think, make some progress. So that's exciting in my book. Madam Chair, counselors, I want to thank you very much for your consideration of this amendment and all of those who are putting forward this as a possibility. I know my crews are very excited about it as well. So thank you so much, and I'm happy to answer any other questions. Great. So this first amendment, Amendment A, moves $600,000. The second amendment moves another $105,000, and we can talk about that in a minute. But are there any other questions on Amendment A and what we're trying to do here? Counselor Casset, did you have something? I think the numbers, this one moves $525,400, not $600,000. Sorry. All right, somebody. And then the next one is $108,500, I believe. Yes, I'm looking at this right now. Okay. Yes, I went back to it. Okay, so this one moves $525,400. Yes. Yes. Okay. Sorry, I saw the $600,000 at the top. Okay. Are we ready to vote on this amendment? Can we get a roll call, please? Director Oster: Certainly, Madam Chair. On the motion to approve Amendment A, we have the motion made by Counselor Marworth and the second made by Counselor Lindell. Counselor Cassid, yes. Counselor Lindell. Counselor Lee Garcia, yes. Chair Marworth, yes. Motion passed. Okay, thank you. So then, we need a motion to do Amendment B. Counselor Casset: Move to approve. We have a motion and a second to approve Amendment B, which would move, let's see if I get the number right, $108,500, correct, for the same purpose. This one is coming from the contractual services line item in the City Manager's Office. I don't know, do we have, you all understand this one and what's happening here? Counselor Cassid, maybe you, this is, I co-signed on with you, but you really have taken the lead on this, so maybe you want to speak to it. Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. I do think it is important to speak to this. So this goes back to the conversation that we were having around those dollars that were called out in the budget book that were miscategorized in the budget book, but had been these kind of contingency funds in the City Manager Department. I do want to say that this again, this is a trade-off, and this is one of those things that we are gambling a little bit because this does mean that if there are things that come up within the City Manager's Office, that those contingency funds will not be there. Based on how high of a priority they are, that does mean that there might be the need to find those dollars elsewhere, or maybe GRT is going to be doing better than expected. We're not sure. But the reason I wanted to do this is that again, as we just spoke about, parks is a really, it's one of the number one things that we hear about, and the community, to Counselor Garcia's point, they expect a higher level of service than we are providing at this moment. One thing I will say, back to the accolades for Director McDonald, is not only are you able to come forward with a very kind of clear-cut, "This is what we think these dollars will do based on this research," but one thing I've always appreciated is when we've had conversations about parks, you've been very clear of, "That sounds great. I don't have the money. I don't have the staff." Not in a cranky way, just in a very matter-of-fact of, "This is what we can do with what we have. If you would like more, that's a conversation that we need to get into." I really appreciate that because it has been very, very easy to understand what that means. I think that we've been seeing that with some of our other departments as well, that they've come forward and said, "Hey, with this money, we've been able to do X, or we see this to be able to do X." But Director McDonald's been doing this for a long time, and I do really appreciate it because it does call to the forefront both what I hear from my constituents and from community members citywide, as well as a very clear understanding of what is something that we can try to really address this need. So that's why I felt that this trade-off was worth it. These are dollars that we know have been rolled over. These are reoccurring funds. So that is an important note that this is a slightly different color of the money. Am I remembering that correctly, Andy? Sorry to make you get some more steps. It's my public health nature. I just want everyone to keep walking. I don't know. Andy: Madam Chair, Counselor Cassid, I'm not sure I understood the question. So we know that the funds that we moved over from ESD were one-time funds. If I'm understanding this, are these reoccurring dollars, or are these also one-time funds that have just been rolled over repeatedly? Madam Chair, Counselor Cassid, these would actually be considered reoccurring funds. Okay, so again, something important for us to note that these are reoccurring dollars. That means we get to have this conversation again. Something for us to remember next year. But it also speaks to if we decide that this is a really good investment that we want to keep making, potentially there's a pot of dollars that we have already identified to move forward if we need something that is more permanent. So that was all I wanted to provide with this. The rest is very much the same conversation that we just had for the last amendment. Yes, and I'd only note that this is $108,500, which as reoccurring is great, but it's probably not enough to fund a whole team, or we'd be doing it permanently. So there's that. Okay, any other thoughts, questions? Are we ready to vote on the second amendment? Can you take the roll on this? Absolutely. Counselor Cassid. Yes. Counselor Lindell. Counselor Lee Garcia. Yes. Chair Merorth. Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. All right. So now we have the budget resolution in front of us. It's been twice amended, and we do need to vote on it, but I don't know if there's additional questions, comments, thoughts. Now would be the time. If not, if we're ready to vote, we'll have Director Oster call the roll on the amended budget resolution for FY26. Certainly, Madam Chair, on the motion to approve the resolution as twice amended. Counselor Cassid, yes. Counselor Lindell. Counselor Lee Garcia, yes. Chair Maroworth, yes. Motion passed. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes a lot of work by this committee, a lot of hours logged. But to the Mayor's point, I think we've learned a lot, and a lot of interesting information has come up to the surface about where we are and the work that's being done, and much of it really excellent, and the work we want to do and the nature of the problems. I know I always look forward to these hearings because we do learn so much about the state of city government. So thank you all for the work you put in here. We do not have, I guess we need to go to matters from staff. Madam Chair, none at this time. No matters from staff. Matters from the committee. No matters from the committee. Matters from the chair. Our next regular scheduled Finance Committee meeting is Tuesday, May 27th. And with that, we're adjourned. Thank you all.