Regular Finance Committee Meeting - Last Monday Mon, Jun 23, 2025 · Finance Committee https://santafeminutes.space/meeting/293 == Executive Summary == The Finance Committee addressed several significant items, including proposed changes to the city code regarding the Deputy City Manager position, contracts with community service providers, and the progress of a major renovation project. A key discussion point was Bill Number 2025-16, which seeks to amend the city code concerning the Deputy City Manager role. While the City Manager acknowledged an initial procedural misstep in appointing a Deputy before code changes were proposed, the committee ultimately moved to approve the necessary code updates to remove outdated and impractical provisions, despite some councilor's reservations about the process. The committee also reviewed service agreements with Interfaith Shelter and St. Elizabeth Shelter, focusing on accountability and the effectiveness of funding for homeless services. Concerns were raised about ensuring tangible results from these contracts and the broader strategy of incentivizing providers to join the 'Connect network' for comprehensive service delivery. Additionally, the committee discussed delays in the Lamplighter Inn renovation project, attributing them to state-level funding issues, permitting challenges, and rising costs, with the developer expressing confidence in a 13-month completion timeline now that permits are ready. Finally, the committee debated an Employee Wellness Pilot Program, with significant discussion around its impact on productivity, equitable access for different employee types, and the inclusion of part-time employees. While a motion to move an unspecified project funding item passed, the employee leave program item was moved forward without a recommendation, indicating ongoing concerns about its financial implications and the need for more data. Questions were raised about the program's costs and its long-term benefits, with a call for further data collection. == Key Decisions == - Approved a motion to move item UU to be heard first among pulled consent items. - Approved the agenda unanimously. - Approved the consent agenda as amended (with items C, Q, I, U, and W pulled) unanimously. - Approved changes related to the City Manager's deputy appointment clause, with a vote of 2-1 (Councilor Lindell: Yes, Councilor Garcia: No, Councilor Romero: Yes). - Approved the service agreement with St. Elizabeth Shelter unanimously. - Approved an unspecified item related to project funding with a vote of 3-0 (Counselor Lindell: Yes, Counselor Garcia: Yes, Counselor Mworth: Yes). - Moved the employee leave program item forward to the next stage without a recommendation, with a vote of 2-1 (Councilor Lindell: Yes, Councilor Garcia: Yes, Councilor Marworth: No). == Motions & Votes == - Motion to approve the agenda — Passed unanimously. - Motion to approve the consent agenda as amended (with items C, Q, I, U, and W pulled) — Passed unanimously. - Motion to hear item UU first — Passed unanimously. - Motion to approve a change related to the City Manager's deputy appointment clause — Passed 2-1 (Councilor Lindell: Yes, Councilor Garcia: No, Councilor Romero: Yes). - Motion to approve the service agreement with St. Elizabeth Shelter — Passed unanimously (Councilor Garcia: Yes, Councilor Romero: Yes, Councilor Lindell: Yes). - Motion to approve an unspecified item (likely related to project funding) — Passed 3-0 (Counselor Lindell: Yes, Counselor Garcia: Yes, Counselor Mworth: Yes). - Motion to move the employee leave program item forward to the next stage without a recommendation — Passed 2-1 (Councilor Lindell: Yes, Councilor Garcia: Yes, Councilor Marworth: No). == Public Comment == Councilor Lee Garcia expressed concerns about the procedural handling of the Deputy City Manager appointment, stating it set a problematic precedent despite acknowledging the need for the position. She also questioned the accountability and effectiveness of funding for Interfaith Shelter, seeking assurance that funds genuinely supported needed services rather than compensating for a terminated lease. Regarding the Employee Wellness Pilot Program, Councilor Garcia raised concerns about its impact on productivity, customer service, and equitable access for all employees, especially those in less flexible roles. Councilor Lindell suggested a future broader review of problematic clauses in the city code and stated she would not support the wellness resolution as written due to the inclusion of part-time employees, proposing an amendment to remove them from the two-hour weekly benefit. Jeff Curry, the developer for Lamplighter Inn, provided details on significant project delays, particularly a two-year hold-up at the state level regarding funding legality. == Topics == - Deputy City Manager Appointment - Employee Wellness Program - City Code Updates - Fiscal Responsibility - Staffing Shortages - Employee Morale/Retention - Transparency and Process == Full Transcript == Michael, we're ready to go live. Madame Chair, Councilor Romero, we are live. Thank you. At 5:06, I'm calling to order the Finance Committee for today, June 23rd. If we could get a roll call, please. Of course, Madam Chair. Councilor Lindell. Councilor Lee Garcia. Here. Councilor Carroll, I am here. And then Councilors Cassett and Falconer are excused. Madame Chair, you do have a quorum. Okay. Do we have changes to the agenda this evening? No changes. No changes from staff this afternoon. Okay. I do want to do a little moving around. Let me just see here. I'd like to move, well, let's see. Let's wait until we get to consent. Okay. Can we get a motion to approve the agenda? Second. We have a motion and a second to approve the agenda. All those in favor? Aye. Anybody opposed? That motion passes. On to consent. We do have a number of items that have been pulled tonight. My understanding is they are items C, Q, I, U, and W. Am I correct, Madam Chair? You are correct. Anything else the committee wants to hear? Move to approve as amended. Okay, hold on just a second. Yeah. All right, let's do that first. Okay, so we have a motion. Councilor Lindell, anything else you wanted to hear? Second. We have a motion, a second to approve the consent agenda. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? That motion passes. Okay. What I'd like to do is I'd like a motion to hear UU first. Can somebody make that motion? I move that we change the agenda so that we hear item UU first. Right. Do we have a second? Which one was that? That's the one on the deputy. Second. Okay. We have a motion and a second to move UU as the first item under the consent items that were pulled. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? That motion passes. All right. So, we are going to take item UU, which is consideration of Bill Number 2025-16, adoption of Ordinance Number 2025, sponsored by the Mayor. A bill amending Section 2-4.6 to remove the 60-day timeline for the City Manager to hire a Deputy City Manager and update the section consistent with the charter. Councilor Lee Garcia, I believe you pulled this item. Did you want to have an explanation about it or? I would like a little more context over the whole deal. I mean, we did have an introduction at governing body, but just some context would be perfect. So, we do have the City Attorney, Erin McSherry, with us tonight. City Attorney, Madam City Attorney, if you could just provide a little bit of background about what this bill does, that'd be terrific. Thank you. Sure. Thank you, Madam Chair, Councilor Lee Garcia. It does a couple things. The first is remove the 60-day timeline from the powers and duties of the City Manager. It also removes a section that was conflicting with the charter, which is about being responsible for the preparation of the annual budget. So that section has essentially already been struck by the charter because the charter says it took that out of the City Manager's duties and put it into the Mayor's duties a while back. And then it specifies that the minimum qualifications of the deputy shall be at least those required for the City Manager. That came from an interest when folks realized that the prior deputy didn't have the minimum qualifications to be City Manager previously. So this would avoid that concern. And then it takes away the requirement the position description be approved by the governing body and then essentially that is the replace text that allows the minimum qualifications to be required to be the same as the City Manager. So those are the three things it does. Councilor Lee Garcia, did you have questions? Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, City Attorney McSherry, for a quick kind of synopsis of what we're doing. I think the main reason I pulled this is, I'm not in disagreement with the need for having an Assistant City Manager. I mean, there are some things there that's not in my wheelhouse. I need to trust in the fact that our leadership is asking for something. It seems to me as we are pushing through this that it kind of goes against our normal process. We're doing it backwards. I feel we should have changed all this first and then gone through the motion of hiring somebody. Now that being said, I think that from my perspective and the way I'm looking at this is that many times we bring forth something and it's stated that it goes against our normal practice in our procedural rules of sort. But if it's the will of the governing body in this case, you can do it differently. You can all agree to do it differently. And that's where I'm having some issues with it. I think that having hired somebody already and not who I believe is qualified for this position, we're having to go back and say, "Oops, we got to change things around." And so that's where I'm having some issues. And I don't know if you can give me other instances where we've done something like this. If we were to, if we had a standard procedure to follow in other departments and if this was allowed to happen in those departments, would we change things around or would we say, "Nope, sorry, you can't do that"? And I guess that would go to our own HR rules and procedures of how we do things. I mean, I don't know if you could speak to that. City Attorney or City Manager, I just, as one clarification, I know, City, can you make, I'm sorry. Can you make sure your mic is on? I just wasn't close enough to it. So, in this case, you're not doing something that's contrary to law and then fixing the law. So you are avoiding doing that. Or the City Manager is, right? But it's something that's been done and then we're being asked to go and fix it is what's happening. So we have City Manager Mark Scott here to further answer your question, Councilor. And just the air conditioner or something's on. So, if you could just really speak into that mic. You can also, one of my favorite tricks is to do exactly that because you're a tall guy. Get it up closer to you. Someday I will learn this system, Madam Chair, Councilors. I just want to make it clear. We are doing something backwards here in the sense that I would never have made the appointment if I thought I was violating the code. I didn't think I was. And once I had done that, made the appointment, and then after that it comes up that we have a code provision that as far as I was concerned, it wasn't relevant to this. It had to be changed or it merited being changed. I mean, I think if it, if it still didn't make sense, if I had made an appointment and governing body looked at it and said, "Well, we never should, the City Manager never should have thought about filling that position that was in the budget and had been filled before." Then yeah, then it would not be appropriate to fix the code to cover up the fact that I had made an appointment prematurely. In this particular case, I didn't think that this was a relevant provision. I thought that this was a provision that at some point in the past somebody had changed the word "shall" to "may" and had failed to take out the 60-day provision. I had looked and seen that the city has repeatedly over years made appointments to commission and board memberships where the code says 90 days and it's made way after 90 days. I looked at a situation where the last Deputy City Manager had been hired longer than 60 days. I did not think this was a provision that anybody took seriously. There are a number of provisions in the code that need to be updated, not just these. So, yeah, I would, I wish we could go back and I could do this in the other order. That would have been the right way to do it. So I don't, I don't take issue with what you say. That's correct. I appreciate that response, City Manager Scott. And I guess that just tells me that we have a lot of work to do. It sounds like, I mean, not just at this level but throughout. And when you come to asking for, when it was caught that, "Okay, there's something wrong here." And I, this isn't like a gotcha moment. I'm not about that. That's not what I do. But when it was, I don't get what word I'm looking for here, but when it was known that, "Oops, we need to do something." You know, that's where this whole, on down the line, I think we get into situations where we put ourselves as a government entity in situations where we shouldn't be in. And which opens us wide open. We're wide open for people to put grievances or unfair stuff. And so, I, Madam Chair, Councilors, the one thing I would say is that as soon as we realized that it wasn't, that that code section actually still did apply. And I thank City Attorney. And I thank Andrea Phillips, who I had already appointed to the position, who had already moved to town. I thank them for being helpful, cooperative. I appreciate the governing body being responsive to this. As soon as we knew it was wrong, it was identified and we took action. I literally suspended the appointment and that, I mean, that was a dagger through the heart as far as I was concerned. But that's what we did because it was the right thing to do. Thank you. Yeah, I, you know, I've gone back and forth whether I'm going to support this because of the nature of the example that it's setting. And so, not necessarily, I'm not in a disagreement with your need for an assistant. I think that with good proper management in this city could help our organization tremendously. And I think that, I know you're still fairly new to the whole position and so, but yet, you know, when we hire especially at high levels, we expect high levels. And so, I think that's where I'm at with it. I don't want to labor it too much. But I do appreciate you guys for being here and standing for my questions. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor. I have a, Councilor Lindell, did you have anything? I'm got a couple things on this. But I'm happy to go after you. Okay. I just want to be clear about a couple of things. City Manager Scott, couple quick questions. Sorry, should have flagged you before you sat back down. I just want to make clear to the public that, and you said this in response to Councilor Lee Garcia, you made the appointment and then you have suspended it. The candidate has taken another position with the city in the interim. So, while we decide whether we want to do anything about this rule or let it stand, can you, that, that's correct, right? That's absolutely correct. And is that mic on? I'm so sorry. What is the mic on? Yes. Okay. Yeah, there you go. You really have to be right close to it. That's absolutely correct. That's okay. That's what we've done. Okay. So just, I just want to be really clear that you, you didn't, you, you did appoint this person but it was prior to understanding that this rule applied and then once you realized the rule applied, you suspended the appointment and this person is here because they'd already moved to town but they are filling another job at this point. They are not your deputy at the moment. That's correct, Madam Chair. That's correct. And she's being paid for the other job, not for the Deputy City Manager job as of right now. Okay. Hopefully, we are live and it has been recording. Okay. Just another question. I want to set all of that aside and I want to talk about the rule itself. So, and I'm going to read what we're getting rid of. So, it says here, if I'm looking at the bill, let's go back up to the top here, that the City Manager, there's a in the code, there's a bunch of things that it tells you you're supposed to do: be, keep the governing body informed, formulate, recommend to the Mayor and City Council the adoption of such measures as the City Manager may from time to time deem necessary. Make recommendations with respect to purchase on the behalf of the city departments of materials, supplies, and equipment. Ensure that the city's collective bargaining management team and the governing body hold a meeting and executive session for the purpose of broadly discussing issues of collective bargaining. I'm paraphrasing some of this, and the one provision that we're talking about is, "may, if desired," it is added language, "may appoint a Deputy City Manager within 60 days of being appointed City Manager, and prior to the appointment of the Deputy City Manager, the City Manager shall present a job description to the governing body for review and approval." Now, I think the part I want to focus on is, when we talk about governance, it's really important to think not with regard to personality. So I want to set all this stuff about who's coming in and where they's sitting, but just the rule itself and whether that's something that's appropriate for the good functioning of the city. So maybe you could give me a little background on your personal experience of your first 60 days. It would seem that your job is such that you were probably drinking from a fire hose just trying to figure out the lay of the land before you were able to even decide whether you needed a City Manager. So maybe you could speak to that a little bit. And I just pause really quick. Are we having technical difficulties? Are we still streaming? Madam Chair, Councilor Romero, we are still streaming. Okay. All right. Perfect. Sorry, the screens in the, in the, in the, whatever this is, this chamber, just went out, so I wasn't sure. All right. So, just, you know, talk about your first 60 days and whether that's an even appropriate period of time to figure out if you need a deputy. Madam Chair, yes, I'm still drinking from a fire hose. I mean, this is four months in. This is a very busy city with lots going on. Certainly within the first couple of weeks when I took the job, I wasn't even thinking about my first priority being hiring a Deputy City Manager. So, I, my guess is that originally somebody had drafted this section of the code assuming the necessity of a Deputy City Manager. I mean, if you really read that code, it said, it literally says, "The City Manager shall," and then there's A, B, C, all the way down to M, right? And so, technically, it says, "The City Manager shall may appoint." I mean, it literally says "shall" and then "may." I think it probably originally said "shall within 60 days" on the assumption that the position is so critical that it should be hired. And somewhere in the drafting process, somebody said, "Well, maybe it's not necessary. Maybe it's a 'may'." And then didn't take the 60 days out. That's my guess as to where this all came from once upon a time. But once you get into the job, I waited to find out what kinds of applicants we were getting because we had, it had been posted before I arrived. And eventually I got some applications, along with everything else I'm doing, tours with counselors, getting to know department heads for the first time, getting some sense as to what we're doing with the budget because I came on at a point where the budget was becoming critical. It was anything but the first thing on my mind that I was trying to accomplish. And then, as you know, once we figured out that the applications we were getting weren't going to fill the position, we eventually decided to go out and get a recruitment firm to work on this, which required we go out and get three quotes. We did that process. We went through the process of getting a contract. By that time, my 60 days is pretty much up, and we hadn't even started interviewing people. So, yeah, it's, it's a very, to start this job and to be able to deal with that from scratch in 60 days was a virtual impossibility and certainly not something I thought anybody was expecting me to do. Right. So, so just, I mean, the 60 days might not even be a reasonable period of time to, well, one, figure out the lay of the land well enough to know if you need a deputy. But then two, what you've just alluded to is the process you've gone through to find one. Having to go to a search firm. That search firm, of course, had to go through the RFP process, or you had to get three quotes. Then they have to go out and search. Then you have, then they, you got to give time for people to apply. Then you got to review, you got to interview, you've got, they've got to come to town. You know, all these things probably is not happening in a 60-day window. And so, I, I, I think it's, it's just really important that we think about the rule on its own if this is something that, that we want in our governance structure. And I, I guess I'm a little bit worried, and I too am, I, I too am curious about the legislative history of this, and we don't, I don't think we have great legislative history in the city. So it's hard to know, like, when this came in, why was it tweaked? But it is sort of curious, what, how did it come about? But so I'm going to set that aside too. But again, back to the rule, if you had to hire a City Manager, a Deputy City Manager, in 60 days, and that your feet were to the fire, you might not be making the best hire that you could because you, because you're under this kind of arbitrary deadline. Is that not something that, that it's a possibility? Madam Chair, absolutely. I, I would not make a hire for a position like this if I didn't find somebody that I felt was qualified to do the job. Wouldn't, wouldn't be fair to the city, wouldn't be fair to the candidate. So if I had thought that this provision was really truly relevant, then I'd have been doing what I think Councilor Garcia was suggesting and bringing forward the change to the code before moving forward. That would have been the preferable way of going had I thought that that was a relevant consideration. Right. Right. Which we've already established. But it just seems like, you know, if you're in this hurry up, you know, to hire somebody, you may not be taking the time you need to vet and, and seek, seek and vet a candidate that will best serve the city under this arbitrary 60 days, which we have no idea why it was in here to begin with. And I guess the other thing that I want to point out is, if you, if we leave this in place and you don't hire somebody in 60 days, then that means you can't, right? So, and what if we need this person? And regardless of who this person is, what if we need a deputy? And, and this provision says, if we're, if we're taking this law literally, you, you, you missed the window. Sorry, you can't have one. Isn't that true? The way it's currently written, that's the, Madam Chair, that's what I'm being told is, is what the intent of that provision would be, which, as I have said, to me was nonsensical. But that's what it would effectively do. Right. And, and I guess the other point I want to make about this is, like, okay, what, let's say, let's say you had found somebody in that 60 days. Let's say in the pool of initial applications there was the perfect candidate, and you had offered them the job within the window, and let's say something came up for that candidate. I don't know, a health issue, spouse needs to move to a new job. I mean, we can, we can, we can do what-ifs forever. Decided to take a better job. Decided, actually, on second thought, I don't want to work for the city. Whatever. And then they go away. And let's say you're, I don't know, on day 59. What do you do? Like, that means then again, you can't hire somebody because the clock is ticking and it's running out, and then you're done. You're done. You, that's correct. Can't, you can't hire that person. So again, I just want to, I want to illustrate a little bit what you're saying, which is, it's a nonsensical rule. But here are some illustrations of why. I don't, and again, we don't really know. And if somebody has an argument for why we would want this 60-day window in here, I'd love to hear it. But I, I don't know why we, it doesn't seem like it serves the city. It doesn't serve you. It doesn't serve the candidates. So, I, I, I just, I think it's important that we look at this rule on its own without regard to the, to the players right now. And just see, is this really a rule we want to have and, and, and, and judge our voting that way? So I just wanted to spend a little time on the rule itself. So I appreciate you indulging me. Yeah, I'll do the updates. You, I, I think it, we've got, you're, you're coming into the chamber anyway. All right. Is there anything else you want to add? I want to go to Councilor Lindell. If you have, yeah. No, the, the other, it's still on Zoom. We're having issues with the AI system. You hear that? Yeah. Good. Yeah, I think we're good. He needs to mute. Councilor Lindell, did you have anything? No, I really don't have anything. I just want to get this moved along and, and, you know, get it corrected. I don't think that there's anything nefarious going on here. We need to correct this. And, in the future, when you and I aren't here, somebody needs to grind through and find all the other instances of where we need to take care of this because this hurts us. You know, that's all we need. We need to be fully staffed and with the best people possible that we can hire and move on. We have plenty of work to do. So, you know, let's go. Okay. Any other questions, thoughts, comments? Is there a motion? Move to approve. I'll second. We have a motion and a second. Can we get a roll call? Uh, yeah, we need a roll call. Sorry. Roll call, please. Certainly, Madam Chair. Councilor Lindell. Yes. Councilor Garcia. Uh, no. And I'll explain my vote. Thank you. Councilor Romero. Yes. That motion passes. Councilor Lee Garcia to explain his vote. Uh, thank you, Madam Chair. You know, I, I, I get all, all of the reasonings and, and, and I'm, I'm in agreement actually with the reasons why this needs to change simply for this. Uh, I, I'm just, I voted no because I, I feel that, you know, we went through this already with the previous City Manager's appointment. And could we have looked at that in that period of time? And we've been without an Assistant City Manager for quite some time now as well. You know, and with all due respect, City Manager Scott, you know, it's a lot of work. I, I, you know, I, I can't imagine the amount of, uh, information and stuff that you're having to go through. But, you know, we've had a lot of staff in their jobs for quite a lot of time already, and it could have been brought to your attention way before that, that this was going to be an issue. And now that we have somebody hired, we're having to change it. And so, you know, respectfully, that's, that's where I did not support this, and, and I'm going to go forward with it. Uh, thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Councilor. Okay, we are now onto the rest of the items pulled from consent. I'm going to take them in alphabetical order unless there's somebody on the committee who wants to flag a different order. The next item is 6C, request for approval of a service agreement with Interfaith Community Shelter Group, Inc. for the purpose of providing overnight shelter, life-stabilizing services, and navigation services in the total amount of $320,000, including NMGRT, through June 30th, 2029. We have several people at the podium to answer questions. I'll let you all introduce yourselves. Councilor Lee Garcia, I believe you pulled this item as well. Did you want them to speak to it first, or did you have questions right out of the gate? Yeah, I mean, I don't think we need to belabor it too much. I just have some questions. I know this is something that, if you go through our consent calendar here, you're seeing a lot of money that's being proposed to go to many other organizations as well. I know that this one is just one of them. It does happen to be money that would go to the Interfaith Shelter, which we just had a pretty long and extensive meeting on and actually terminated, at least with them. I just have questions in regards to the money that's being appropriated and what the intent of that is. If we're approving the money, we kind of need to see what we're getting for that, or what services are they going to be providing, how are they going to utilize this money? They're still an organization. I know they're still providing services, and I want to support them. I just want to know what they're going to be using this for. Madam Chair, Councilor Lee Garcia, I'm joined by Program Manager Christa Hernandez, who is first and foremost just an absolute asset to the city, and we're lucky to have her. Secondly, she manages the Connect program. I think it's hard to have a conversation about these contracts without zooming out and understanding the bigger picture of why there are 19 contracts that are divided up among 19 community providers and what the overall intent of that is. So if you'll indulge me for just a moment, I'll give a little bit of the big picture and then answer the specifics regarding Interfaith. Is that okay? Yes. So effectively, the Human Services Mission Committee has recommended pursuing contracts with 19 providers, but there's a bigger strategy here, and that's what I'm hoping to speak to, which is $1.2 million a year gets appropriated through this committee. What we effectively do is we acknowledge that there are many, many organizations in our city that provide really essential services to community members. The city can in zero world fund all of those organizations fully. But that said, what we do expect is that all these organizations play nice in the sandbox together. By that, I mean an individual—this is based on what we call the social determinants of health—an individual's ultimate health outcomes are a function of needing a variety of different things met in their life, whether it's food and nutrition services, transportation, education, a variety of services. If an individual goes, for instance, to the Food Depot, but they also need housing support and substance use treatment, but they only can get access to food services at the Food Depot, then we're only really getting at a small piece of the problem. So what we do through this committee is we fund organizations to do two things: one is provide navigation services, and the second is to provide life-stabilizing services. Christa very uses the terms navigation and safety net, and it's kind of like the how and the what. The what are the safety net services. So that's things like bags of food, or an overnight stay in a shelter, or getting immigration legal advice for immigrants. Then the how is the navigation. So we basically are incentivizing all these 19 organizations, plus we now have over 80 organizations in the Connect network, to basically, by providing them with what I would call a pretty small amount of money when it comes to the overall picture of how each organization needs to function, we use these funds to incentivize them to join our Connect network and require them to be part of this Connect network, which makes referrals so that if someone does show up to the Food Depot to get food, they are also going to then be connected and made a referral to whether it's shelter services or legal aid services. Basically, we say you don't only get the one type of service you show up for, you get access to the full suite of services in our community. This is how we get people to play together. So that's a very, very quick overview of why there are 19 contracts in front of you. It's an incentive mechanism to make sure that all organizations are contributing to coordinating together as well as providing their services. Do you want me to pause there, or do you want me to talk about specifically Interfaith? Specifically to this contract, and I get it. I really like to see when we are supporting these organizations, all well-intended organizations and what they're doing. But how is the money being spent, and how are they really truly helping us to move the needle in our efforts? What specifically are they going to be utilizing this funding for? I know that we are still—is it the bathrooms, the mobile hygiene unit? What are the services? Madam Chair, Councilor Lee Garcia, that's correct. So in addition to running the shelter at 2801 Cerrillos, which they will no longer do after July 31st, they still provide a handful of services in our community, and we expect Interfaith to continue to provide and want them to continue to provide those services in our community, including the mobile hygiene program, as well as they run a motelling program which serves 25 individuals, and they provide life-stabilizing wraparound services to 25 individuals, mostly older folks, who live in a hotel as a transition into permanent housing. So most directly, this funding will encourage them to continue that work and do it in two ways. One is to make sure that they are actually providing the "what," the services, the meals that come through those services—those are the life-stabilizing services—but also the "how," which is the navigation. That means that they not only will be providing those services but making sure that they are connecting those individuals that they're serving to other services in our city, and that's part of this contract. Thank you. You use the word "encourage." What type of metrics are we asking and results for what they're doing? I don't want to just say, "Here's some money, use it," and we'll see if it works. But what kind of metrics are we asking back for them to see what they're providing? Thank you, Madam Chair. Councilor Lee Garcia, that's a great question. We have specific numbers and metrics identified within the contract. So I'm ensuring that those numbers are met for this contract moving forward. They will serve 10 unduplicated individuals through navigation and 400 individuals as part of the safety net services. They are required to submit mid-year and end-of-year reports where we identify the numbers served, types of services provided, demographic information, and so the report templates that they are provided with are very comprehensive. We have a very good understanding of what they're doing with these funds and ensure that they are using them in the way they are supposed to be. I do—we actually just received the end-of-year reports from all our current grantees, so I'd be happy to share what that looks like for the current contract we have with them. That would be helpful. Again, I'm a firm believer that we also need to, when we look at things, what are your goals and your objectives? How are you actually achieving those goals? Are you actually achieving the goals, or are you putting it in a report? Sometimes the results of what we're seeing aren't necessarily a true picture of what the reports are showing. We could say we're moving the needle, but then we don't see an improvement. I think this goes to all of the organizations that we support. I really truly feel that could we have five organizations, super organizations, and not have 20, and make a bigger difference? But we continue to go down the same path without actually requiring results, not just reports, but requiring results. I don't know how we do that, but I mean, you can get a feeling when something's working and when something's not working. Feelings don't necessarily support actual data, but data can also sometimes be a little bit misguided. Now, I'll leave it at that. I don't want to belabor this again too much longer, but I just kind of wanted to know, being that we did terminate that lease, I know the organization is still there. I hope this isn't just, "Well, we're sorry we terminated your lease, and we're going to still give you some money." They are providing services to our community that's in need, and that's really what I want to see. I don't have any other questions. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Councilor. Other questions from the committee? Just really quickly, Interfaith, again, to be clear, is doing a couple of different things for us. One is the—and I hadn't heard you describe it this way—motelling, which is a model we've been using where we, you know, it's another, it's another way of providing, and let—stop me if I'm using the wrong term—transitional services, getting people off the streets, getting them stabilized, and hopefully moving them on to something more stable. Interfaith is doing, and aren't they helping with the mobile hygiene unit too? Can you—I thought there were three things they're doing they continue to do for the city. Madam Chair, thank you for the question. So the motelling program, and I guess I can turn anything into a verb, or is that an adjective? I don't actually know. I wasn't very good at English. So yes, that is—you described it excellently. It's in the continuum of types of services for unhoused individuals, the more, the lower kind of on that continuum, so to speak. So an emergency low-barrier shelter is essential for life-saving, but at the end of the day, it's not the best mechanism to get people stabilized. They're competing with resources for other people in that facility. It tends to be a little more chaotic. Again, deeply necessary, but the goal is to move people into kind of stabilized situations. You want to find means of putting them in more tranquil types of environments, having independent space, getting more direct care. So that's what this program is, and we are funding them to do that work. So that will continue with these. Also, with regard to the mobile hygiene unit, I believe they currently do that three days a week and serve tens, if not hundreds, of individuals a month through that program. As for the third, yeah, I thought there were three, but maybe I was making that up. They also are very active users of the Connect Network Payments program, which is a really important way of—a lot of programs that we do are intended to put cash in the hands of people's hands. Cash is king, right? Let people, if many of our programs are designed to provide housing assistance or automobile assistance if there's a mechanical breakdown, or rental assistance, things like that. And the Connect Network is a means of transferring those resources directly into people's hands. Interfaith is an active user and promoter of that program and that capability. Okay. And I think that's just helpful. My background in terms, so if people are in a motel, if they're in the pallet shelters, in the micro communities, those are more stable places where they can begin to get services to address maybe addiction issues, behavioral or mental health issues because there's wraparound services with these things. Correct. And then in addition, maybe they need paperwork, maybe they need whatever it is, driver's licenses, the kinds of documentation that they need in order to function in society, a place to put their stuff. If you're in a congregate shelter and you're getting kicked out on the street all the time, that's really not helpful to getting stabilized so that you can begin to address the reasons that have put you on the street to begin with. And so these are important, this is important work that they continue to do, and this is the kind of work that we still need out there. Am I grasping this correctly? Madam Chair: That's correct. Excellent articulation of it. Okay. I just thought we'd spend a little time on that. Any other questions, comments? Is there a motion to approve? We have a motion and a second to approve this item. Can we get a roll call, please? Madam Chair: Councilor Lindell. Councilor Garcia: Yes. Councilor Romeworth: Yes. Madam Chair: That motion passes. Thank you. Okay. We are going to item Q, request for approval of a service agreement with Solace Sexual Assault Services for the purpose of providing navigation and safety net services in the total amount of $240,000, including NMGRT through June 30th, 2029. We still have with us Director Henry Hammond Paul and our program director. Why can't I, I'm drawing a blank. Krista, right? Okay. Sorry, Krista Hernandez. And again, Councilor Garcia, I believe you pulled this. How do you want to handle this? Did you want more background or do you have specific questions? Councilor Garcia: Just a couple questions. And this is with the St. Elizabeth Shelter, not the Solace on Q. Madam Chair: That is correct. Oh, did I read the wrong one? Yeah, I was thinking, did I pull, did I pull the wrong one? Oh, I had Q. That's P. Anyway, Q is St. Elizabeth Shelter. I can read that off for you, Madam Chair. Yeah. But I'm sorry. I thought we had pulled Q. Q is, and not, I did not have R. You read P. I read P. No, I read P is DACA. Q. I read the Solace Sexual Assault Services contract. That's not the one. But I don't know that we pulled our, Madam Chair: No, Madam Chair, we pulled item Q, which is a request for approval of a service agreement with St. Elizabeth Shelter. Madam Chair: Okay. Well, that's weird because on my agenda, oh, you know what? I'm looking at the wrong agenda. That's my problem. I'm in quality of life. Okay. That would make sense. All right. So, Q. So, sorry. Let me get there. You wanted to pull Q. Yes. Okay. So, here we go. Scratch all that. Request for approval of service agreement with St. Elizabeth Shelter. Correct. Yes. For the purpose of providing homeless safety net and navigation services in the total amount of $320,000, including NMGRT through June 30th, 2029. Krista Hernandez and Henry Hammond Paul are here to answer questions. Back to you, Councilor Garcia. Councilor Garcia: Thank you, Madam Chair. And again, I believe another very vital piece to the puzzle of what we're dealing with here. The only question I had was in regards to, I think it was, and I'm just going off of, I believe what was out there in the media, which was their nonprofit status. There were issues with that. Have we looked into that? And are they back on track? How does it work with us giving an entity that may have had some issues with their nonprofit disaster status? Madam Chair: Councilor Garcia, I believe that the organization you may be referring to is Esperanza Shelter, which is a domestic violence shelter that recently their 501c3 status and now has a fiscal sponsor, which is the, so separate, separate item, but that organization now does have a fiscal sponsor, which is the New Mexico Coalition for Domestic Against Domestic Violence. Councilor Garcia: Okay. So, that is on there as well, but, okay. Thank you for that clarification. I'm glad these are all things that you're already here for, so we didn't have to bring you for something else. And with that, Madam Chair, I'll make a motion to approve unless there's other, Madam Chair: We have a motion and a second to approve item Q. Any other discussion on this? And if not, can we get a roll call, please? Councilor Lindell. Councilor Garcia: Yes. Councilor Romero: Yes. Madam Chair: And that motion passes. Okay. Is WW one for the two of you again? Let's see. Wait, let me go there. Are you guys done? WW is for HR. Okay. All right. So, you all are taken care of. I was going to move it around if you weren't. Okay. So, we're on to item I, I, I, H, I, J, K. Okay. Request for approval of amendment number two to professional services agreement item 23-0541 with Bellos Apartments 2022 LLP to extend the term to June 30th, 2026 for construction and renovating the Lamplighter Inn. We have Johanna Nelson, Office of Economic Development. She's also the interim of the Office of Affordable Housing. And we have a number of other people in the audience should they be required. Councilor Garcia back. Madam Chair: If we do also have a presenter for this item on Zoom. You will not be able to see him on the TVs at the moment, so it will be an audio only. Madam Chair: And who is that person? Madam Chair: That is Mr. Jeff Curry. I believe he's the developer. Madam Chair: Okay. All right. I think I'm going to turn it over to Councilor Garcia. He pulled this item. I don't, I don't know. Again, I'll ask you. Do you want some background on this? I think kind of familiar on it about it, but maybe you want some background or do you want to go right to questions? Councilor Garcia: Maybe just the question that I have and the reason that I pulled it, and then you can go into presentation if you like. You know, I, this is a second amendment. I just kind of want to know, you know, what's, what's the sticking point? Why are we going to be in another asking for a third amendment to the extension? And what's the hold up on it? I, I, I don't know the full details of, you know, what, what's holding us back? Is it funding? Is it issues with construction, approvals, permits? I mean, the list could go on and on. I just kind of want to know some of those details why we're here for a second amendment. Madam Chair: Councilor Garcia, Councilor Romero Worth, and Lindell, thank you so much for the question. This is a really important question on a really important project that has been going on for a while. So, we do have Jeff Curry, I think, on the line if you want to get into the details on the delay. There are a number of funding sources from the state federal, including two of our funding sources that we have kind of gone, well, the developer has gone back and forth trying to hit deadlines for other funding sources. And there have been a number of delays, including permitting, financing at the state level, construction cost rising, as well as finding a contractor. So, I'd love to turn it over to Jeff if he wants to go into detail there. The good news is this amendment is being asked of you all in confidence based on the feedback from the contractor that he is confident that the project can get completed in 13 months. This, this inactivity, or the, the, the request for the amendment is not due to inactivity where it's, it's just sitting there. We have been moving slowly, little by little, and now the pieces are in play to have a high level of confidence that it can be completed. And I'm happy to turn it over to Jeff to really get into the details of the whys for some of the delay if helpful. Madam Chair: Great. Thank you, Jeff. Are you there? Jeff Curry: Yes, Madam Chair, council members. Madam Chair: So, remind me Jeff's last name. Curry. Curry. Yeah. So, is Mr. Curry available? Jeff Curry: I am online. Madam Chair: He is online. It looks like he's trying to speak. If we could get it to make sure that that audio is going to be allowed to play. Jeff Curry: Hi, this is Jeff Curry. Can you hear me? Madam Chair: In the meantime, I can bring up an email that we have it in writing, too, if that's helpful. Yeah. So, my understanding of this is that it was because of the multiple financing, the multiple sources of financing. It's, there's been a lot of, well, different jurisdictions that have had oversight around the funding and there's been some holdups there. I think my latest news was that we almost have all the permits out of land use as well. Am I correct in that? I think there was one, one that was pending. Is that one done now? Madam Chair: Councilor, from my understanding, and I know we have Director Lamboy in the audience. We have all of the permits and do you want to say anything, direct? Yeah. So, I know it took a while for it to get through the land use process. That, that was another area, a sticking point. I know the Department of Finance and Administration at the state level held it up for a while for some legal concerns. So, it's, it's definitely been a project with lots of pieces, but Director Lamboy, since you're here, maybe you can help. And while we wait for Mr. Curry to have audio, maybe you could just speak to the land use process. Director Lamboy: Thank you, Councilor Romero Worth. Make sure you're talking into that. If you're not right on top of it, you're not, we're not hearing you. All right, there. Better. Okay. Thank you, Councilor Romero Worth. Members of the Finance Committee, there were a lot of amendments that were required in order to, it's very difficult to comply with current code with an older building. So, a lot of the amendments had to do with ADA compliance and other, you know, building requirements in terms of construction type and so on. So, those have all been ironed out. The last permit was available June 4th. The applicant has been invoiced. The only issue at this point is that they need to have a contractor to be able to pick up the permit. So, I don't know what the status of a contractor is. I know that they were looking for a contractor. Mr. Curry might have additional information on that, but the permits are ready to go as of June 4th. Madam Chair: Okay. Okay, that's helpful. And I know, do we have Mr. Curry? Hi, John. Madam Chair: Madam Chair, we do have Mr. Curry. We're going to try connecting to him on the phone and seeing if any feedback happens, but unfortunately it is not able to get up on, Madam Chair: Yeah, I don't know, you know, if, well, Councilor Garcia, what, what do you need here? Councilor Garcia: While you're doing that, I guess I'll just ask another question. And so, you know, it sounds like the approval processes have been moving forward. I, I believe from recollection this was ARPA funding that we received. Correct? Madam Chair: Councilor, I believe this is the capital outlay capital project. We have two contracts. One was ARPA funded and then this is the capital outlay. Councilor Garcia: Okay. So, I, I just want to make certain that this isn't, I mean, is the holdup, has it been with in the way that the money was appropriated and used? Was it earmarked for this? Were we having issues in that area? And I, if you have, I, I'm happy to, I'm happy to talk. I know I have Jeff on the speaker phone. So, there were three considerable delays. The first one was in the contract at the state level and they were dealing with, which Councilor has mentioned, they were dealing with, I don't know, Jeff, if you want to, if you have an eloquent way of explaining the holdup at DFA. You want to try to speak, Jeff? Sure. I'm not sure if they can hear me, but okay, this is Jeff Curry. You may need to right next to the microphone. I think we can hear you perfectly, actually. Great. Well, the first award of $4.2 million from the state kicked off this entire process. Unfortunately, at the state level, they were not happy with two consecutive grants, one from the city and one from the county that we used to purchase the land. There was a long disagreement for almost two years while we worked through issues of making sure that everything that we had done was legal. Eventually, everything was resolved. It was decided that, yes, we had acted appropriately, the money was spent appropriately, and we were allowed to move forward on that. So that was the first major delay at the state level. And if I'm Johanna, what was the second item that you wanted to cover? Jeff, Jeff, counselor was asking about the specific delays. Why the why's? So this has just been an incredibly difficult process to line up all of the sources of funding correctly. Are we still on the line? Yes. Okay. So lining up all the sources of funding correctly was incredibly difficult. As a couple of years went by, we had to find new sources of funding. Once we felt satisfied that we did have sufficient funding, we were going through the design approval process with the city. That took approximately eight months. Then, after we completed that, we went into the permitting process. Now we have a contractor selected. We went through the correct federal procurement process to get a contractor in place, and we are going through the value engineering process now, where the contractor who bid on the design has looked at the plans and is offering up products and alternatives to try to bring the price into range so that we can move forward. We're very close to being able to start construction, and this is a key piece of financial support that the project needs to be able to make this last step of starting construction. Thank you. So again, I just, I think again, it goes back to funding. It's very intricate ways of how you're pulling all the monies together. I do have fears that the longer we wait, the more expensive everything gets: construction, everything else. And so going back to coming to a third amendment, hopefully we can get this done within this time period. I think this could be detrimental to the success of the project if we don't get moving on this. So those are my questions. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Counselor. Other questions from the committee? Is there a motion? Second. We have a motion and a second to approve this item. Can we get a roll call, please? Madam Chair, Counselor Lindell. Yes. Thank you. Counselor Garcia. Yes. Counselor Mworth. Yes. That motion passes. Thank you. Thank you all for being here tonight. Thank you, Mr. Curry, for joining us. Thank you. Okay, we're on to WW. That's our last item. WW, a resolution updating the terms of and extending the pilot program supporting physical and mental well-being of city and Santa Fe employees. We have with us Alvin from HR and Counselor Lee Garcia, you pulled this item. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think some of the major concerns I brought forth when this was introduced. How have we worked on any language that, you know, I think some of the concerns that I had was there's a handful of employees who, just because of the nature of their job, will have a difficult time utilizing this. They can't just stop what they're doing in the middle of a route or whatever that may be and take the time. The other concern is that the more and more that we continue and taking the, how does this affect the way our personnel produce and their productivity? Because I know from a perspective of customer service that when you don't have people there, there's a less level of customer service that's provided. In order to achieve that same level of customer service, you have to have more people, which is then therefore a higher cost to us. So I think those were some of my major concerns. And you know, I think that how are we also handling those that are here part-time versus full-time? If you can just kind of explain some of those areas, please. Okay, Madam Chair, Counselor Garcia, thank you very much. I think to answer those questions, we'll start off with the usage options of, it sounds like we're talking about the two-hour weekly part of 13.92. Correct? So there are four options. There are the options where you can do the four half-hour segments over four days at any time you choose, the two full hours either in the morning or the afternoon over two days, or do the entire two-period one day a week. Right? So, if we have individuals that work graveyards or on shifts that are ESD heavy operators, bus drivers, people like that we're speaking about, we can allow them to use their two hours at any point during the work week, maybe before, after, or extended breaks that would calculate up to it. There's an idea of ensuring it into the scheduling system to accommodate for those hours. So you build your schedule for your bus drivers or your ESD operators, whatever, around their scheduled breaks would be a possibility. And then I think providing access to facilities like the ones we built over at Transit, to build more of those locations, would make it more accessible to those handful of individuals who don't have the option to use it like they would like to. All right, that's number one. I think we would need more resources to apply that. But I think there are also virtual online resources that are available that we could start offering to them, right? You're on the bus break, you're taking your time, maybe you can do a mobile telehealth meditation guide or something like that. There are options for them. We just have to find them. And those are some of the solutions. As for business productivity or good quality service, I don't think it's the amount of employees that you have there on site. It's the quality and the care of the employees you have on site. So you do have to apply and request for the flexible work arrangement. It has to go through your supervisor, your manager, your department director, and so on and so forth. If it doesn't meet operations, they don't allow it, right? We don't allow you to do that. I think there's a specific department within the City of Santa Fe that doesn't allow for this flexible work arrangement because of that worry. But I think if you have good quality employees and you're correctly scheduling, it could be allowed and it could work well. Thank you. Thank you, Alvin. You know, in departments where we're already short-staffed in a lot of areas, and we continue to say we're short-staffed, you have a department that has four staff members, and well, they're budgeted for four staff members, but they only have two. And then one is out, and that leaves only one. And one might be, another one might be the two staff members that you have, another person's out because they're sick. Again, I just, you know, I get it. I wish I had some way of knowing how this really truly creates a workforce that is, you know, in my Spanish community they say, "a la 100%," you know, driving, moving, doing what the citizens need, which is why they're hired. And so I just have, you know, I did support this as a pilot program. And I just have those concerns of, you know, you continue to reduce the amount of available hours that people are actually servicing the community for wellness, which is very important. I know that mental wellness for your own person, for your own body, I go to the gym at 6:00 in the morning because that's the only time that I have, and I only have 30 minutes to do it because I got to get back, get ready, and go. And I can't go after work because I've got a committee meeting, and then there may be hot dinner waiting at home. And so I get the challenges of finding a time in your day, and it's really well needed. I just wish I had a better understanding of how truly, because some of the people that I've talked to that utilize the program, man, they love it. But there are also some out there that are just like, I just, I mean, I'm glad they can take advantage of it, but I can't. And you know, the what-ifs of, well, we could give them after hours, or, you know, we'll take those that are on a 4/10 shift, but they already get off on Fridays. And I know that they're not at work, but that gym time right there, or wellness time, or whatever it might be. And so, you know, and others are working the full five days at eight and a half hours per day with a break in the morning, a lunch, lunch hour, and then another break in the afternoon, and they're all entitled to that, and then we're adding on that another X amount of time. Those are the heartburns that I'm having. Not that I don't want, I don't, you know, I don't know that overall the benefit of this program for everyone is equally across the board. Those are my concerns. And so I'll leave it at that. I don't know if counselors have other questions. I'll yield the floor for now. Thank you, Alvin. Thank you, Counselor. Other questions from the committee? Counselor Signey Lindell. Thank you, Chair. So, I'm not going to support this the way that it's written. I think that it's overreach that we're doing this with part-time employees. That's giving people 10% of their work week off. That doesn't make any sense fiscally to me. And you know, I'm typically the fiscal conservative on this council, also known as Cheapskate. I just, you know, I'd be curious how many private businesses, how many private small businesses give their employees this kind of time off? I don't think very many do. I think that I just think that this is a little bit of a far reach, but I can consider it, but I'm not going to support it with the part-time employees included in it. That's 10% of people's work week. That doesn't make, that makes, that's why small business owners don't like government things like that. And it's, I don't think that it's, I don't think it's good policy, so I'm not going to support this today. I'll bring an amendment eliminating the part-time, but that's where I'm at, Chair. Thank you. Thank you, Counselor. Alvin, can you help me understand? So when I look at this, the only thing the part-time employees get, if I'm reading this memo correctly, is just one wellness day each calendar year. They're not getting the two hours, too, are they? The memo is a little confusing. It says that the two hours per week is for classified full-time, exempt, and term employees who are eligible. It doesn't say anything there about part-time, but it does say that part-time, that actually allows classified full-time and part-time exempt and term employees one wellness day each calendar year. Is that, am I reading that correctly, Madam Chair? That is correct. That is the way it is written. Personnel Rule 13.91, where you get the one wellness day, is for part-time employees. It does include it with your full-time and exempt and term. And then Personnel Rule 13.92 does not include part-time. So they do not have the option of doing the two hours per week for physical and mental wellness. Councilor Lindell, back to you. We talked about this before. We were told that part-time employees were included. That's not the way it was written from my understanding, that they don't get the two hours during the week where you get the option to choose four half hours or two half hours, or the full two hours per week. So it's only the wellness day that a part-time employee should receive, according to the way the resolution was rewritten. So, can I continue? So, part-time get one day off per year. Yes, ma'am. That is correct, Madam Chair. And last time we discussed this, we said that they were also eligible for the two hours. Do we know if they've been getting the two hours? I don't believe they have, ma'am, but I would have to go back and look and check, madam. Okay, that's fine. Can you just clarify? Because the way it's written, it looks like they don't get the two hours a week. And I don't know why they would, because they're only here whatever the equivalent of part-time is at the city. I'm guessing 20 hours. But having a wellness day doesn't seem to be completely horrible. So if you could get clarification on that, and maybe let the, probably need to let the whole governing body know what the answer is. Okay. Madam Chair, Councilor Lindell, I will definitely look at our current participants and make sure that it's, if we're allowing or not allowing part-time employees. That'd be great. All right. Anything else on this? Councilor Lee Garcia. Thank you, Madam Chair. We did go through with a little bit of statistical data the last time that we discussed this. Can you tell me the percentage of our employees or workforce that has used it, and the percentage of our employees who have not used it? Madam Chair, Councilor Garcia, I don't know if we had percentages, but we did know that the initial FY24, which is 7/1/2023 to 6/30 of 2024, we had a total employee enrolled amount of 305 employees. As of a half hour ago, we had 159 employees. At around that time, we had 1,300 and some employees. So we've increased greatly within that time. But out of those 305, almost every single employee utilized it, at 303. So it was almost like 99.3% of the employees who actually enrolled did utilize it. Do we, and just to kind of going back to my initial concerns, was it admin staff? Was it people that are back to our bus drivers or trash truck guys or firefighters or those that are on call there that don't? If I remember correctly, we had individuals or employees in each department across the entire city. Everything from finance to police, fire used it, our ESD, we had it all across the board. Thank you. And then going back to this, the fiscal report, let's just say for example, 100% of our staff take advantage of this. What does this cost us every year in money? Because obviously time off is still valued as what an employee could be there, and they're being paid, but they're not there. Madam Chair, Councilor Garcia, I don't know what it would be at 100% of usage due to the, there's different departments that pay different levels of salary and coverage. I can give you some data that we did collect from that time, and you can get an idea from that if that would work. Sure. Okay. So we saw from healthcare in FY23 to 24, the overall claims for healthcare was about 16.8 million. And then in FY24, it went up to 19.3 million. But this was during the time that we went from COVID to regular premiums. So we would expect an increase at that time. COVID was health, everything was telehealth. There wasn't as many visits. So we saw those low claims. That was the first time we ever saw our health insurance plan in the black. This is where we, that's where we saw the turnaround. And then for sick leave usage, we used 23 and 24 to compare. And in 23, employees used 25,000 hours. And in FY24, they used 32,000 hours. Once again, this was COVID to regular work. So during COVID, all employees were given 40 hours of COVID leave. And this happened multiple times over those years, three or four times. So over that amount of time, each employee had about 120 hours of COVID leave that we paid out as a city. So this, you would see, you would think to see a higher increase in sick leave, and we only saw it was about 6,800 hours more. And then the overall cost of that paid leave. So with in FY23, we paid out 763k. And then in FY24, we paid out 1.02 million. So there was more paid leave at that time, but once again, it's COVID. So I think when they requested that new one more year period to test this pilot, was to see if now that we're in normal years, will we see a difference? And you have to note that I think long-term cost savings, it's going to take a while to actually see those. And so I understand your concerns are valid. Is it good for the people? Is it good for everyone? That's a hard question to answer, right? Because a lot of, not everything's perfect for everybody. And but we do have to find a middle ground or maybe find what does work for most of the people and then find solutions for the other. Is there a perfect answer? Absolutely not. But if we want to see what the savings will be, it's going to take just some time to see where they emerge. If we do it another year, maybe we can get a better picture and you can reconsider at that time. Thank you. Yeah. And I think you'll need to gather data over a longer period of time in order to really see if there is an effect with this. I really believe that. I don't know if there's any further questions. I think I know this went to Quality of Life. It sounds like there's some concerns from both myself and Councilor Lindell. I don't know if it would be in the best to maybe move this forward without a recommendation, just because I'm also at this point in the probably the negative, but bringing it forth. Is that a motion? It's a motion. All right. So we have a motion to move this forward without recommendation. Is there a second? I'll second. We have a motion and a second to move this forward without recommendation. Is there further questions, conversation? Can we get a roll call? Certainly, Madam Chair. Councilor Lindell, yes. Councilor Garcia, yes. Councilor Marworth, no. That motion passes. Okay. That item is going forward without recommendation. And that is the last thing we had on our consent agenda. We have matters from staff next. Madam Chair, there are no matters from staff this evening. Okay. Matters from the committee. Matters from the chair. Our next meeting is coming up. I believe it's, it's not on my agenda here, but I believe it's July 7th. And with that, we are adjourned. Thank you all.