Regular Finance Committee Meeting - Second Monday Mon, Sep 8, 2025 · Finance Committee https://santafeminutes.space/meeting/715 == Executive Summary == The Finance Committee addressed several critical city operations, making key decisions on infrastructure, financial management, and public services. A significant portion of the meeting focused on the long-standing utility billing system transition, approving a contract extension with Mountain River Consulting, Inc. to ensure a smooth migration to a new system by October 2026, despite councilor frustrations over the project's duration and cost. The committee also approved a substantial construction contract for improvements at the Canyon Road Water Treatment Plant to enhance water quality. Further discussions centered on enhancing air service to Santa Fe, with the approval of an agreement with American Airlines for direct flights to LAX, supported by a state grant and city fee waivers. The committee also reviewed and approved revisions to the city's internal audit plan for Fiscal Year 2026, prioritizing high-risk areas like procurement and risk management. Finally, the committee engaged in a detailed discussion about improving the city's budget process, particularly focusing on refining public engagement strategies to ensure meaningful community input. == Key Decisions == - Approved the agenda with the postponement of Item U to the next Finance Committee meeting on September 22nd. - Approved the consent agenda as amended, after pulling items C, I, S, T, and V for individual discussion. - Approved a professional services contract with Mountain River Consulting, Inc. for $1,244,156.25 for application and technical support for the utility billing system. - Approved a $23.67 million construction contract with Bradbury Stam Construction for flocculation and sedimentation improvements at the Canyon Road Water Treatment Plant. - Approved an air service agreement with American Airlines for direct flights to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), including a $1 million state grant and city fee waivers. - The Internal Audit Committee unanimously approved the revised internal audit plan for Fiscal Year 2026, which includes a focus on Risk Management, Procurement, and Recruitment processes. == Motions & Votes == - Motion to approve the professional services contract with Mountain River Consulting, Inc. — Passed (roll call vote: Yes from Counselor Cassid, Counselor Falner, and Chair Morth). - Motion to approve the Canyon Road Water Treatment Plant construction contract — Passed (roll call vote: Yes from Counselor Cassid, Counselor Falner, and Chair Morth). - Motion to approve the Santa Fe Regional Airport (SAF) to LAX Flight Initiative — Passed (roll call vote: Councilor Cassid: Yes, Councilor Lindell: Yes, Councilor Falner: Yes, Councilor Merworst: Yes). - Motion to approve an unspecified item (likely related to the town hall amendment or a broader agenda item) — Passed (votes from Councilor Cassid, Councilor Faulkner, and Chair Mworth). == Public Comment == Councilor Lindell expressed deep frustration with the long-standing and expensive contract with Mountain River Consulting, Inc. for the utility billing system, questioning the necessity of external consultants and alleging unethical treatment of the city. Councilor Cassid shared this frustration but acknowledged the contract's necessity to prevent system failure. Public Utilities Administrator Nancy Jimenez clarified the contract's scope and committed to staying until the new system is implemented. Councilor Lindell also raised concerns about the potential for the city to heavily subsidize the new LAX flight if it underperforms, suggesting a review after $800,000 of the grant is spent. Councilor Chavez suggested using "community roundtable discussions" instead of "town halls" for budget process engagement to emphasize interactivity. The City Manager clarified that the airline agreement's minimum revenue guarantee only requires a 40% load factor to avoid city payment, which is a significantly lower threshold than guaranteeing full flights. == Topics == - Utility Billing System - Budget Modernization - Community Engagement - Contract Ethics/Oversight - Cashier's Office Remodel - Airline Revenue Guarantee - Staff Recognition - Future Budget Challenges == Full Transcript == Madam Chair, Councilor Romero, we are live. Thank you. All right. At 5:00 on the dot, I am calling to order the Finance Committee for today, September 8th. If we could get a roll call, please. Certainly, Madam Chair. Councilor Cassid. Here. Councilor Vendel. Councilor Faulkner. Councilor Lee. Garcia is excused. He's excused until he comes back to the chamber. Chair Romero Worth. I'm here. Madam Chair, you have a quorum. Okay. We have approval of the agenda. I think there's one change we need to make. Correct? Correct, Madam Chair. We have a change from staff. Item U on the agenda was postponed at Quality of Life last week to September 17th. So my understanding is that we need to do the same here to postpone Item U to our next Finance Committee meeting, which is on September 22nd. Okay. Any other changes? None from staff, Madam. Right. Is there a motion? Motion to approve as amended. Second. We have a motion and a second to approve the agenda as amended. All those in favor? Aye. Anybody opposed? That motion passes. We have the consent agenda. There were a number of things pulled from consent. Let's see. Where did I do my email? I can do this. Hold on. Madam Chair, I have the list as well if you'd like me to read them off. I can do it. Okay. Item C has been pulled. Item I, Item S, Item T, Item V. Did I get them all? Yes, Madam Chair. Okay. Anything else the committee wants to hear? And I can give you a quick synopsis on any of those if you want to. Oh, wait. Oh, that's a different meeting. Sorry, they've stacked them up on me. Anything else? If not, is there a motion? So moved. Second. Wait. Move to approve as amended. As amended. Second. We have a second and a first. We have a motion. I'm going to get in the groove of this. We have a motion to approve the consent agenda as amended and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Anybody opposed? That motion passes. All right. Here we go. We're cooking now. Presentations. We have a staff recognition. Director Oster, I will turn it to you. Thank you, Madam Chair, and members of the committee. The staff member that we're recognizing tonight from the Finance Department was not able to be here with us, so I'll present her with her certificate tomorrow here in the office. We are recognizing Kimberly Silva. Kim is an accounting manager in our Treasury Department. She oversees our cashier's office, which many people know as the front door to City Hall. In addition to taking payments and doing cashiering, the cashiers also greet people and direct traffic all over City Hall and just generally assist and provide customer service. And it's difficult. The frontline customer service positions in any organization are often the most challenging, and Kim manages the team and the interactions with customers in a very professional way and provides really good support to her team. So, it is my pleasure to recognize Kim Silva. We are very lucky to have her as part of our team. Kim was born and raised in Santa Fe and has been with the city for the past two years, beginning her work with the city as an accounting supervisor. She was promoted to accounting manager in March of 2025. Prior to that, she spent a number of years with the county, and we were delighted when she decided to come over here to the city. She has nearly 14 years of government experience, and she is committed to public service and financial stewardship. In her free time, Kim enjoys spending quality time with her family. And in addition to that biographical information about Kim, I just wanted to share that during her time here with the city, Kim has advocated for a remodel of the cashier's office to improve accessibility to the public and safety. We now have safety glass and panic buttons in the cashier's office. That was something that was really important to me because previously we didn't have those things. And so now we do, and Kim was really good in terms of advocating for the need for that remodel and then also managing the team through the actual remodel, which was challenging. We had to temporarily relocate the cashier's office down here. We used the police substation for a while. We had to actually do that a couple of times during the process. And so, Kim has made a great impact and great contributions during her time here with the city, and I'm really pleased to recognize her tonight and looking forward to presenting her with her certificate tomorrow. It says, "The following award is given to Kimberly Silva in appreciation for performance, service, and dedication to the City of Santa Fe Finance Department." Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Director Oster. Please tell her congratulations from all of us. And I know that that remodel, I think, is a significant improvement for the functioning of that office and for serving the public. So, really appreciate her advocacy and the fact that that was done. Anybody else? Just, yeah. On behalf of all of us, thank you. Okay, we're going to go to consent. From here, the first item pulled off of consent was Item C, request for approval of a professional services contract with Mountain River Consulting, Inc. in the total amount of $1,244,156.25, including New Mexico gross receipts tax for application support, technical support for data conversion, and CIS interfaces to update the billing system for a two-year term. We have our Public Administration Administrator Nancy Jimenez with us, and Councilor Lindell, I believe you pulled this item, and I'll let you take it and ask questions. I don't, we're pretty familiar with this. I don't think you need a presentation. You're, we don't need a presentation, right? We're pretty familiar with this. No. Yes. Okay. So, I'll just turn it over to you. You know, I pulled this, and I just want to make it very, very clear that I think that Miss Jimenez has done absolutely everything within her power to move this forward in a meaningful way. However, this has been ongoing for how long have we had a contract with Mountain River? My understanding is since 2010, Mountain River had a function within the IT Department, you know, since then, pretty much 24/7 for support for the utility billing system. Yeah. So, and that's long before you ever stepped foot into utilities. That's correct. Long before. Yeah. I stepped in in June of 2019. So, yeah, for about nine years prior to you. Correct. You know, I know that this is going to pass and that it's going to go through. I'm just, and we've had this discussion so many times, and I just always want to make it very, very clear that Miss Jimenez wasn't there when this got going. She's kind of, this has fallen onto her, and it's an extremely painful contract for me. We've spent millions and millions and millions with this consultant. And one of the things about it that rankles me is that the person that we have working on this, if I'm incorrect about this, correct me, is a former city employee. And that I can never for the life of me understand why a current city employee would not be able to complete these tasks. And I think that this company has not cooperated with us. I think that on some level, it ethically bothers me deeply what's happened with these contracts, and if I could, I would terminate all of our interaction with that company at 5:15. But as I understand it, we're not able to do that. But this has gone on for years and years and years and years, and it's, I just feel like we've been treated in an unethical manner by this company, and we always hear that we're close. We're close. We're close. And I think that maybe we are. I would have liked to have thought that I would have been able to see the end of this, but you know, they may throw dirt on me. I may have a dirt nap before this is over. I'm not sure. But I just couldn't not pull this and talk about it. It just rankles. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councilor Lindell. Councilor Cassid. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. Yeah, I, I share the frustration that Councilor Lindell has expressed. But I do want to say a couple things. One, I really appreciate that you all reached out to us and gave us the opportunity to sit down with the consultant from Advanced, I believe, and our IT Director, and I know Nancy got pulled away from mine, but Director Roach was there as well to really talk about this issue, knowing that this was such a, this was going to be such a hard pill for us to swallow. And what I said during the meeting, and I'll say this here now, I trust that there is no other option because there is no way that you would want to put yourself through taking this to us again if you had any other route because I know that this has been, obviously, as Councilor Lindell just illustrated, an extremely long process. I know that since I've been on the council as well, there has been hope of, you know, oh, just one more year, one more year. So, what I will ask is that if there is any inkling that this may have to go on longer than expected, and based on our meeting, I'm kind of expecting next October, we should hopefully be done. We have some padding here that that information is shared, and you know, have another one of those meetings that was extremely helpful as to help us understand why this is necessary. We obviously cannot let utility billing just fall by the wayside. And we do seem to feel very shoehorned at this moment with this contract. So, I recognize the tough spot that you all were in. Thank you for, you know, setting up those meetings and being willing to come and meet with us one-on-one. And I really truly hope that this actually is the last, last hurrah of this contract and that we'll be able to move on. Right there with you and probably even more so ahead of you than you are. And especially Councilor Lindell, she's been here really the longest and has heard from day one to day end or to today. So, yeah, thank you very much. One way or the other, October 2026 should, should be. I mean, unless there's, I don't have my crystal ball, you know, sitting right here to let you know any other difference, but yes, we do have a monthly check-in with the city manager and the deputy city manager. We, you know, we obviously stay on track, look at this on a daily basis to make sure that this is, you know, going in the right direction. And I don't know if you all know, but Jesse Roach has announced that I will not be retiring until this program, this, you know, system is done. So, I really can leave tomorrow, but I will stick it out and make sure that this gets done. The city really does need it. It has been tremendously long just since I've been there. So, thank you all, and yeah, we will, we'll get this done. Thank you for seeing this project through. Do appreciate. I mean, Jesse's not going to let you leave anyway, but. Oh, right. But we appreciate, you know, that he's not going to have to change. It sounds good, you know, that he's willing to, you know, stick it out. Councilor Lindell. So, we're, we're talking about October 2026. Yes, ma'am. Why is this a two-year? So, at the end of the moving all of the data over to the new system by October of 2026, there's also potentially the plan of how to archive the information that's in the current billing system. And unfortunately, they know the data the best. So we may, I'm not saying that we will, but we may have to have an exit strategy, including everybody, so that we have the data in the current system that will be basically shut down. But we will need to potentially have the archived system to be able to get the information if something goes awry, if we need to do some deeper issue tracking, things like that. So no, I do not hope that it's two years, but also I want that contingency to make sure that we are covered so that I don't have to stand back up in front of you. It's easier to cancel a contract than it is to bring forward any changes or anything that needs to happen. So, there is a two-year contract date on it, but within that contract, there is a 30-day termination on that. So once we're out of our current system and into the advanced billing system, it should not obviously take two years to get us through 2027, but I do unfortunately have to have a contingency so that if there is something that we have overlooked or missed or something in the archiving of that information, we need to be able to have that available. I just don't find them to be a company that is forthright with us or upfront with us, and if they can drag it on for two years, I'm sure they will. But that's what is in front of us. So, thank you, Chair. **Chair:** Thank you, Counselor. Does that also allow time? I know there's a time period when the systems have to run in parallel. Is that anticipated to be finished by that October 2026, or does that happen after October 2026? No, we should be running parallel in June. **Chair:** Okay. 2026 for three months of billing. **Chair:** Okay. So that we have three months of basically dual bills. Customers will not get dual bills. We need to make sure that what is in our current system, which is accurate, is accurate out of the new system before we say yes, everything's good, and we cut out of our old system and make sure that the new system is running. So June of 2026 should be the parallel testing process. Yes. **Chair:** Okay. And I share the frustration of my colleagues. This was one of the first issues when I was a brand new counselor that I was briefed on, and I remember just being floored by what we were being told and what was happening. And I guess it might be helpful just if you could briefly, we've got a number of things to talk about tonight, but I mean, the issue is this system that we're trying to modernize, the utility billing system, is the, and the reason this company is important, is because they're the only ones who still understand DOS, and that's the basis of our current system. Is that accurate, or is that? Is that partially accurate? Yes. We do have two contract companies, Denovo, who literally created the software way back in 1995. They are on board. They have transitioned us off of the AS400, or the hard drive, into the cloud. Unfortunately, when we moved all of the information into the cloud and we did our first billing, excuse me, we did our first billing, instead of an hour and a half on a Thursday night, it took almost five and a half hours. And what we found was the information once we moved from the hard drive into the cloud, the literal billing system programs have been, we'll just say, modified to meet the city's needs. And when that transition happened into the cloud, those modifications didn't, per se, cross over very easily or very well. And because Mountain River did that reprogramming, we did have to pull them in to assist to make sure with Denovo that our system currently bills correctly. When this happened, we were down for a couple of weeks, and we caught back up. So it wasn't really noticed by the customers, per se, but I cannot have my employees working until 10:30 at night when we're normally, on a Thursday, gone by 6:30. So there were some additional needs when we converted into the cloud in the current system, and fortunately, but unfortunately, Mountain River has that information. And so we do need both of the companies to assist to make sure that we do the transition and we get out and off of the AS400 completely, the systems completely off of the cloud completely, and into a modern advanced billing utility billing system. **Chair:** Okay. I just think it's important that we, to Counselor Lindell's point, we don't have a choice. This is the only people who have this expertise, and we're kind of, as I think somebody said, between a rock and a hard place, even though we don't like it. So, but it sounds like we're close. I think you're, you're a consultant, and the work that you're doing and its involvement, and the fact that you're having these weekly meetings, I'm hopeful that someday soon, and if your retirement is on the line, that's even more. More of a reason to make sure it happens. **Chair:** Motivation. Yeah. I'm sorry. You may have to be here another year if that's not what you were planning. But anyway, I want to also say thank you. I appreciate that you reached out to us, that you took the time to walk us through the issues and the necessity, and just that we had time to be fully briefed on this, because it, as I think Counselor Lindell said, is a hard pill to swallow, or maybe that was Counselor Casset. Yeah. So anyway, echoing that, thank you. Do we have a motion, or is there further comment to approve? Second. **Chair:** We have a motion and a second to approve this item. And we do need a roll call. Thank you, Madam Chair. Counselor Cassid. **Counselor Cassid:** Yes. **Counselor Lindell:** Counselor Falner. **Chair:** Chair Morth. Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. Thank you for being here tonight, both of you. Appreciate it. **Chair:** Okay, we're going on to item I, request of approval of a construction contract with Bradbury Stam Construction for construction services at the Canyon Road Water Treatment Plant in the total amount of $23,673,913.31, including New Mexico gross receipts tax through December 31st, 2028. And we have Engineer Clinton Peterson with us. And Counselor Lindell, you pulled this, I think, right? **Counselor Lindell:** I just can't not pull an item that involves $23 million. I think we need to at least talk about it a little. So, did we have, did this go out for a bid? Can you make, is your, is your mic on? I'm sorry. Is the little? Oh, there we go. **Counselor Lindell:** And then if you stand that little mic up on the edge, on the side, it'll, you won't have to bend over so much. You can, I know. Sorry. We make do with what we have. There you go. Hear me now. Oh, that's beautiful. **Counselor Lindell:** Counselor, yeah, it is a very high dollar item. This is the flocculation and sedimentation project, and yes, it did go through a competitive procurement process. We did, some of the history behind the project. So, we went out to bid around August of 2024, so last year, through an ITB process, and we only got one bid for the project, and it came in at around, I want to say, $24 million, which was significantly higher than our engineers, our design engineers estimate of what the project would be. So we went through kind of the difficult decision to go out to bid again. This time, earlier this year, I want to say around April of 2025, we got three bids this time. One from the same contractor, and then two additional bids. So Bradbury Stam was the lowest bid, and they were pretty close to what our engineer estimated the project would cost back in September of 2024. I see that this contract has a 10% overrun in it. That's correct. **Counselor Lindell:** Is that what we typically do? That would be pretty typical for construction projects. So, for this project, there were some additional bid items separate from the base bid that would be on a per unit basis. So, things like curb and gutter replacement, any additional excavation or concrete work that they would have to do. We just don't know those costs when we're actually, we don't know those costs prior to the construction of the project. So we would have to start the project, things come up. We learned kind of through the Nicholls Dam construction project, some of these unanticipated cost overruns are really helpful. So 10% is kind of an industry standard. **Counselor Lindell:** Yeah. I mean, 10% on this project is not a small amount. Here's a question on a contract like this. So say they, they've contracted and agreed to do this for us. Are they going to come back to us and say, "Hey, well, our costs increased, and we're not going to perform." Uh, no, that, that would not be the expectation. The expectation would be that they would keep the costs within their base bid, and in order to access the unanticipated cost overrun, there would need to be some kind of adjusted justification. **Counselor Lindell:** So, in other words, if they, they have cost overruns, they're going to come back to us for more money. That's correct. **Counselor Lindell:** And how do we oversee that they're careful with our money? Don't get into cost overruns. So, all costs would need to be reviewed both by us, the city, and also by our, we're utilizing construction management through one of our on-call engineers. So our design engineers, Corollo, they would be reviewing the pay applications as they come in. **Counselor Lindell:** Is this the kind of project, see, I, I, I don't know what this work involves or why we particularly, why we needed it or what the outcome is, and I don't necessarily need to. But what I'm curious about is, does it require a company that has a specific skill set for doing this type of work, and have they, is it important that they've ever done that work before? How do we know that they're qualified to complete this job? Sure. So Bradbury Stam is a construction general contractor. They've done commercial construction. They've done work at our wastewater treatment plant with the digester project at PO Rail. They've done similar water treatment plant construction projects, I believe, outside of the state. So they do have experience working with water treatment plants, which is what this project is for. **Counselor Lindell:** Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair. **Chair:** Thank you. And I just to touch on that briefly. The, let's see if I say it right. Uh, flocculation and sedimentation improvements. Did I say that right? That's basically about water quality. Oh, that's correct. It's basically the first half of the water treatment process. Raw water comes in, and it goes through a flocculation is basically, you could think of it as coagulation. Chemical additives get added that causes the particles suspended within the raw water to kind of clump up, and then the weight of those drop to the bottom in our sedimentation basins. And so that's basically getting rid of as many like organic components, anything suspended in the water. And then it goes to our filtration system. **Chair:** Okay. And I, I think you, you pretty much answered this in Counselor Lindell's questioning, but these guys were the lowest bidder, but that wasn't the only criteria you were looking at when selecting them. Correct. I mean, there, it goes to, have they, are they familiar? Can they do this work? Are they, you know, capable of doing what's needed here? Correct, Madam Chair. So like I said before, the project was reviewed by, or the, the bid was, all the bids were reviewed by our design engineers, Corollo. The other criteria that we were primarily looking for was components in their bid versus what we spec'd out in our drawings and specifications. So there were three volumes of specifications that we published within the ITB. And basically, does what they bid match all the elements in our ITB? And so the answer from Corollo was, "No, we're not concerned with their bid. We think they met the specifications for the project. We think they can do the project." So that was the other criteria besides Lois. Okay. Thank you. Anybody else? Is there a motion to approve? Second. We have a motion and a second to approve this item. Can we get a roll call, please? Certainly, Madame Chair. Councilor Cassid? Yes. Councilor Lindell. Councilor Falner? Yes. Chair Marworth, yes. Motion passes. Thank you, and thank you for being here tonight. Appreciate it. Okay, moving on. Item S, request for approval of an air service agreement with American Airlines for air service to Los Angeles International Airport through October 24th, 2026, in exchange for the city making direct payments not to exceed $1,800,000 to compensate for revenue shortfalls from underfilled flights, using in part New Mexico Rural Air Service Enhancement Grant SAF-26-01, and waive receiving fees estimated at a value of $142,387. We have a full slate of folks here. Hello. I'm going to let you introduce yourselves as necessary because I don't know all of you. And Councilor Lindell, you pulled this item. Can you make sure that little green light's on? Thank you. James Gardinho, project manager with the airport. Seast Goss. I'm the project administrator at Santa Fe Regional Airport. Jimmy Gun, Interim Chair, Councilor Dendelle. So, what we got here is we got a grant from the New Mexico State Aviation Department that's going to provide us $1 million. So, it'll cover that portion. With feedback from the constituents around town, we believe that the flights in demand, this is going to be a one flight back and forth, which is like you said, limited seats. So, we should be able to fill the seats necessary and just utilize the grant. There's also an opt-out in the contract in the case that we're not getting the turnout we need. We could opt out of the contract and cancel it to not have to spend any city funds. It does not have to be sold out. It could be, you know, 75%. The way it works is we're supposed to cover the additional seats. So, if it's 80% full, it's only the seats that didn't get filled. And we're also waiving landing fees and extra fees from the airport that helps out. That doesn't get tacked on to the amount as well. Madame Chair, Councilor Endow, not necessarily. That's what the grant is for. So, yeah, so we will pay them, but then we'll get paid back through the state with the grant. Madam Chair, Councilor Lindell. Yeah. Yeah. No, definitely we could ask the airline. Sounds interesting. Definitely. Madam Chair, Councilor Linda, I believe American Online has like a set rate, and it just goes off of the base rate. Madam Chair, Councilor Dendelle, it would be out of operations, but we believe and we're going to keep a close eye on it to monitor to see where we're at with the grant. The way the grant works is they will bill us after, I believe, 60 days, and then that gives us an idea of where we're at with the grant. And then after an additional 60 days, we can monitor it. And if it is getting close to that and we feel like we're not getting as many customers as needed, we could definitely cancel it just depending. But as far as the constituents and what the feedback I've been receiving at the airport, there's a lot of people that are super excited. I mean, we have the film industry here in town and a lot of people moving from California, and especially for the holidays. I don't anticipate us having an open seat till possibly February, but we could actually take a look at the paperwork and see exactly what happens. Madame Chair, Councilor Dendelle, we could bring it back. I mean, if you want to give me a set rate of the max that you would like for us to spend if we get... Okay. Yeah. Madam Chair, Councilor Lindell, I believe that's fair. If you feel there's a dollar amount that you feel is comfortable for the city, being a part of this contract and monitoring it, I could make sure we don't pass that. Madam Chair, Councilor, it sure does. If that's what you'd like, we definitely could do that. It's not a problem. Councilor Lindell, I'm getting reports that nobody can hear you. Can you move the mic closer to your mouth, please? It just seems like, let's keep our finger on the pulse of that because however convenient it is for some people and however very nice it is for some people, I don't know how much money we should really blow through to create that convenience for some population that is not... I mean, if we can fill those flights, that's terrific, but I don't know how long or how much we should commit to subsidizing them. So, I think maybe once we spend $800,000 of that grant money, maybe we should get a report on it and see what it looks like. Should we continue this or not? Because $800,000 out of your operations is a lot. That's all I have. Chair, Madame Chair, Councilor Lindell, can I speak? Sure. So, we will keep an eye on that closely. And what I'd also like to mention is we do have a marketing grant issued as well that not only are we using for our website, but advertising for this flight. And we can actually look and see how those flights are going if we need to put more money into advertising to make sure that those do get filled and spending extra money. I totally trust you guys to... I mean, I know that we just need to not let, if it's not working, let's stop before we drain the tank. Councilor Cassid. Thanks so much, Madam Chair. Thank you, Councilor Lindell, for pulling this. I had emailed some a few similar questions earlier, and I appreciate the conversation around the marketing. I had reached out to Randy Randall about that as well. And he was saying they have some of that, like the intercepting any search flights for New Mexico that they'll like throw the banner up there, but that there's an availability between Santa Fe and LAX. So, that's helpful. This is a one-year contract. Do they have any obligation that if this flight is successful to continue with that, or is that really going to be driven by their market? Madam Chair, Councilor Casset, that's actually the plan to utilize this grant to see if the need is there, and after the year is over, we no longer guarantee the revenue, and they continue using the services, which is nice to us. It's an extra location for us. Okay. And if we are not having success, one thing that I'm curious about, I forget. I think the flight to LA was a midday flight. I think it left around noonish, got in around 3:30ish. What timing would look like? I imagine that a lot of people from Santa Fe may use that as a launch point for connections because obviously LAX has a much wider range than Santa Fe and the Sunport. And I don't know if this is in our control, but that might be a little late if somebody is trying to fly somewhere and they can't quite grab that connection in LA. Have we looked at the timing? Do we have any conversations around the timing? Is that something that we'll be able to discuss with American if we're not seeing the success that we would like to? I am curious if a different time would be more beneficial. Madam Chair, Councilor Casset, I actually did speak with American Airlines manager, and the flight is a little later, and they had concerns about it, and they plan on making it earlier in the morning to be able to connect with other flights. Okay, wonderful. And then the flight back, what time does it leave LA? Madam Chair, Councilor Cassie, I'm not exactly sure right now. Oh, here it is. It's 16:20, 4:20, and then gets back at 5:30. So, yeah, that makes it more sense if somebody is trying to fly in, or fly in for the day, or if they're going connecting back to Santa Fe via LAX. So, oh wait, no, that's, I'm sorry. The origin, I apologize. I mixed them up. So, Santa Fe, it leaves, looks like they're leaving at 4:20. And so, that's the one that we that we wanted to look at earlier. And then it's midday from LAX into Santa Fe. So, that again, I would just be curious about swapping those if we think about how people will use that flight pattern. I know that when I've flown out of Santa Fe, I'm flying to Denver to catch another flight somewhere else. So, I'd imagine that LAX will be utilized for the same way by a number of people. So, if that's something that we could keep a close eye on, and even, I don't know if there's a way to... God, it's really, really creepy what we can do with the internet, but if somebody clicks and searches, do we then get to kind of find out, you know, disaggregated data what they actually wound up booking? And it'd be interesting to see if, you know, they're trying to book out of here and then they wind up booking out of Albuquerque for an earlier flight. So, I don't know how that data gets pulled, and it's a good conversation for American, but just when I think about flight patterns, that that would make more sense to me, and that's all I have. Thank you, Counselor. No. Okay, hold on just a second. So, this is a really important flight. This is a very exciting development, I think, for the city, for our economy. And I guess my question is, we're going to be advertising this flight, and that's not in your wheelhouse, correct? That's more, is that coming from Randy Randall and the tourism folks, or do you, are you all directly involved with the advertising and and developing kind of the demand for this? Madam Chair, we are as well as Randy Randall. Okay. Okay. And I assume, I know that this has been kicking around, and you've assessed the risk of, you know, not having a flight and and or of not being able to make the flights full and what that will cost and being in the parameters that you've outlined here. I think that analysis has been done. Correct? Madam Chair? That is correct. Yeah. So, I don't, I mean, it's a little bit risky, but I think you've also assessed the risk. Correct? Madam Chair? That is correct. And a million dollars, I feel, could go pretty long ways. Well, even if we were at 75 or 80% of that playing, we could go for a good amount of months just off of that. Yeah. But I believe from the constituents, the feedback, I feel like it's going to be pretty popular. Yeah. I I I think, you know, maybe our concern is warranted, but I also think that there has been a lot of work put into getting this flight with American Airlines, and I I wouldn't want us to, you know, micromanage too much because I think we need to leave it to you all to make sure that, you know, you develop the demand for it and and the and the knowledge that it's there. And I don't know as a as a local municipality, I'm not sure how much, you know, how much sway we have in terms of demanding what when when the flight comes in. I think that, you know, that's determined in higher places. But maybe maybe we can request, I don't know. So, anyway, I I understand the concern, but I also think we've hopefully done the analysis to make sure that we are, you know, hitting the target in terms of how much money it may cost the city. And then of course, the advertising and the and the creating the demand and the knowledge of this flight will be absolutely key to its success. And I don't know if you want to add anything to that, but that's, I guess, just a comment. All right. Is there a motion to approve? We have a motion and a second to approve this item. Can we get a roll call, please? **Councilor Cassid:** Yes. **Councilor Lindell:** Yes. **Councilor Falner:** Yes. **Councilor Merworst:** Yes. Motion passes. Okay. Thank you for being here tonight. Good luck with that. I think it's an exciting development. Okay. We are on to item T: Request for approval of a fiscal year 2026 revised internal audit plan. We have our Deputy City Manager Andrea Phillips with us. And maybe online, do we have somebody with Baker Tilly? **Madam Chair:** Yes, we do. Okay. Haley Baker. **Haley Garcia:** Haley Garcia. Oh, Garcia. I'm sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. With Baker Tilly. Sorry. Haley Garcia with Baker Tilly. All right. Councilor Casset and I pulled this item. I pulled it because I think it's important. This is, you know, our internal audit plan is a very important plan, and we're making some adjustments here, and I think it would be really good to hear exactly how the plan has evolved and what it initially addressed and then what it is we're adding in this revision and maybe speak to the importance of all of it. And then I don't know why Councilor Casset picked it. She may have her own questions, but I think it's just really important to bring this up to the surface and visit about it because our internal audit committee is very important to the operations of the city and providing great oversight. We have really stellar people on that committee, and I believe they actually approved this before it came here. So, I'd love to hear a little bit of a characterization about how what their thoughts about it were. So, sort of a big segue to turn it over to you and give us some more information would be great. Thank you, Madam Chair, and members of the committee. Haley Garcia is online here with Baker Tilly, which was our prior firm's name, Moss Adams, and they were recently acquired by Baker Tilly. She does have some presentation slides that if we can pull those up, Emily or maybe Michael can put those up. But while those are being pulled up, just a little bit of background about the internal audit function. It is set up to be an independent arm of the city. We do interface very closely with them, but we do have an independent internal audit committee that looks at internal and external audits on behalf of the city. So their purpose is spelled out within the municipal code, and they do have a pretty wide-reaching span of items that they can look at. Those can include financial audits as well as performance or management-level audits. All kinds of different review scope are within their authority. So each year, we try to develop a plan for projects for them or us to engage in with our internal audit firm throughout the year. The current one, which we'll go over in a little bit, was approved at least a year and a half ago. So, we have had some changing circumstances. We presented this to the audit committee on Thursday at their meeting, and they unanimously approved the changes that we'll go over. As you said, Madam Chair, we do have a fantastic audit committee. They comprise CPAs, folks with a lot of financial and accounting background. Some are attorneys. So we have a really great depth of experience with that group. And the audit committee is responsible for ensuring that the city is engaging in projects that will promote transparency, accountability, efficiency, and effectiveness of city government. So, all of the projects that they have engaged in over the years have been focused on achieving that goal. And when people hear internal audit, sometimes it can set off alarm bells for people, but really this is to help improve our functioning as a local government. So, a lot of the changes that we're looking at making that were recommended in prior audits are helping us do business in a more efficient and effective way so that we can hopefully provide services in a better way for our community. So we do have the slides pulled up here, and I think at this point, I'll go ahead and turn it over to Haley, and then she can kind of run through these, and both she and I will be available to help explain anything further on that. So, Haley, we'll turn it over to you. We've got the slides up here on the screen. Yes. Hello. Can you all hear me? We can, and thank you for joining us tonight. Of course. Thank you for having me. So again, like was mentioned, there was a change to the internal audit plan. This is very common, especially when the committee approves a two-year internal audit plan, which the city decided to do about a year and a half ago, approve it for fiscal year 25 and 26. It is very common that there are changes in priorities, new risks that come up. And so I'm going to present a quick overview today of the internal audit function and then what changed in that plan, which the committee was asking about. If you could scroll down, please. Okay. So the reasons that we had the changed plan were because of that two-year period initially defined. There were some needed changes due to the changes in priorities. In addition, the original contract amount with Baker Moss Adams, now Baker Tilly, was $190,000 per year. However, the approved budget for this fiscal year is $150,000. So that kind of shrunk the internal audit budget a little bit and so required that we needed to reprioritize anyways and see what was most important to be able to include in this year's plan. If we scroll down on this slide, we present the original audit plan that was approved a year and a half ago for this fiscal year and the revised one. As you can see, the main changes are the original two, grants management as well as cash balances, are being removed from this fiscal year. The city is in the process of making a lot of changes in some of these areas, making enhancements, bringing on new personnel. There's a lot of changes going on right now. And so the thought behind this is that it would be better to look at this in fiscal year 27 or beyond so that we're not coming in at a point where the city is already addressing known risks and known challenges and incorporating improvements, but instead, we're coming in as that objective lens after some of those enhancements have been put into place. The risk management operational review is staying on this fiscal year plan. The recruitment process review is staying on this fiscal year. And the only one that was actually added and is new for the fiscal year plan is a procurement process review. And so right now, the city utilizes the state procurement code. And there have been questions on whether that is the most efficient and appropriate process and policies to be following. In addition, we did a project looking at the performance of the procurement function during the fiscal year 2025. So this additional project will be a deeper dive to really look at the process from start to finish and say, is this the right process? Are we using the right positions, processes, systems, and practices as well as the state procurement code? Or should we be changing the way that we do things to allow the procurement process to be more efficient for the city, save in cost, make sure it's compliant, but also effective for a city of your size? Policy and procedure support is also included. We did some of this in 2025. We're including it as an ongoing piece in 2026. The city, like many cities, does have some outdated or gaps in their policies and procedures, which are really important for a city to maintain effective operations. And so we are here to act as a resource and helping provide reviews, templates, examples, or assistance in that process of when gaps are identified and the city could use extra support, we would be able to assist in that function, being able to provide best practices, controls, input, and advice through that process. Those are the changes to the audit plan. If we go to the last slide, I went over most of this in the previous slide. I will just point out the risk management operational review is looking at the risk management function across the city and how they identify and respond to risk on a global level, looking at the staffing, the structure, and the processes. We talked about procurement review, the recruitment process review, which has been a pain point from what we've heard across the city. And so really looking at the entire life cycle, bringing in subject matter experts within this function and looking to identify where are there inefficiencies, delays, and barriers that are impeding the process and what processes should be improved, go away, be added, etc. I'll go ahead and stop talking and open it up to questions. Okay. And Deputy City Manager, if you could just speak briefly. This went in front of the audit committee. They did approve it. Anything you want to share with us about anything that they thought about what's happening here? Madam Chair and members of the committee, we had a really good conversation with them about where we are with the status of the projects that were in the original FY26 plan. And as Haley mentioned, we have had some evolving circumstances over the last year and a half, not the least of which was a reduction in the amount that we thought we had budgeted for this purpose. So, we needed to kind of reprioritize anyway, but we did talk quite a bit about the progress that's already being made in grants management. We have a new grants manager named Erica Luhan, and she is putting in place some procedures and some really great protocols that will speak to the needs that are that were in the life cycle of the grants management project. So, we felt that that would be better, that project would be a better one to undertake once she's got some more time to kind of get her feet under her and develop some of those protocols and train the city on those before we come in and do an internal audit. Same with cash balances. That's still an important function that we want to look at in the future, but it felt like that could potentially be shifted to a later time to give us more opportunity to further dig into our procurement process and really looking at it from a 30,000-foot level to determine whether following the state procurement code and the steps that we have in place for internal controls are the appropriate ones. So we're trying to strike a balance here between ensuring that we have appropriate internal controls. We don't want to throw that out, but we also want to make sure that we're being as efficient in our process as possible. And so to really taking a look at that and determining whether there's some areas that we might want to investigate for some potential changes. And then on the risk management function, this is a very timely one. We are without a risk and safety compliance officer, which serves as sort of the director or manager of that function in that office. So we felt that this would be a really good time to take a deep dive into all of the functions of those safety programs, risk function, and determine whether there's some changes that we might want to make there. I would point out that in the enterprise risk assessment that Moss Adams conducted in 2024, all of these areas were in the high-risk category. So, these are areas that were identified back then and are continuing to, you know, be pain points, if you will, and I will say that staff has been doing a great job of trying to identify those issues and try to make changes where they can, but we do need to have kind of a system-level review of those different areas. Okay. And I think that was my concern, is just making sure that the things that were marked as high-risk categories, we weren't letting go of anything there in this revision, and that isn't where the revision was happening. And then also, I would agree, I think through our regular audit, we do know some things about our grants and where we have the need for improvement. So, it seems like allowing for some of that work to get done before it's looked at more closely would be important, since the regular audit has already kind of exposed some things that need to change. Absolutely. And if I can just mention that Director Oster has been doing a great job of trying to track all of the external audit findings and our progress towards those. We presented a spreadsheet to the audit committee at the meeting on Thursday, and we're going to be doing that on a regular basis. I'll be also working on not really findings, but maybe recommendations that have come out of internal audits. I'll be doing that tracking just for our management purposes internally, but also if we need to share that information to any committees, and certainly with the audit committee, on our progress toward meeting those recommendations. So I think it'll really provide a good feedback loop and a tracking mechanism so that we can ensure that we are making progress, and it's not just a study or a report that sits on a shelf. Okay. And again, the audit committee is fully on board with all this. They approved this. Keep coming back to that. Yes. Yes, they did. And they're very supportive of that. We had a robust discussion about the projects and what they would entail. And so, yeah, there were four members present, all voted in support of the revised plan. Okay. Councilor Cassid, I didn't mean to monopolize. No, this actually covered exactly what I was wanting to cover, which was understanding why the changes were made. You know, making sure that I had a moment of like, is it because some things got better, some things got worse? But as you explain, it makes sense that these are two that were really in the process of already doing a lot. I am very excited to see procurement on there, because that has been discussed quite frequently and has proved to be a challenge. And so, I am really looking forward to hearing the results on what happens with procurement and what we're thinking there, because I do think there's a lot of room for improvement in that area. But also do understand that we do have a lot of restrictions just based on, as you mentioned, our own internal controls, but also there are regulations for the state. And so it is, it's not an easy topic to navigate. And I think it will be helpful for us as well as the public, you know, to understand as we do this deep dive. So that was why I pulled this. So thank you so much. Anything else from the committee? Anything else from you, Deputy City Manager? Anything else from you, Miss Haley? No. Thank you for having me present. I guess it should be Miss Garcia. Sorry about that. Either way is fine. Miss Haley Garcia. Go with Miss Haley. All right. All right. If there's no other comments, is there a motion? Motion to approve. Second. We have a motion and a second to approve this item. Can we get a roll call, please? Councilor Cassid, Yes. Councilor Lindell, Councilor Falner, Yes. Councilor Chair Borth, Yes. Motion passes. Okay. Thank you. Our last item is item V, I believe. Yes. Consideration of Resolution Number 2025, sponsored by myself, Councilor Cassich, Councilor Falner, and the Mayor. A resolution adopting improvements to the budget process for the fiscal year 2026-2027 annual operating budget. We do have Senior Advisor and Public Engagement Coordinator Rod Gould. We also have, of course, our Finance Director here. And I know, I think there's an amendment being worked on, which I don't think is ready tonight, if maybe that's your amendment. Correct, Councilor? Correct. I'm happy to speak to it. And it sounds like it's going to need a little bit more massaging. So getting the brains of this committee is helpful. So we adopted Amendment A that's in the packet. And there were a few places that I wanted to make some clarifications. One was Finance Committee was going to make a recommendation, understanding where that occurs and when. So just putting in that it'll happen at a meeting of the Finance Committee, which leaves it nice and open. I do know how budget hearings can get very congested, and so I didn't want there to be this rush on the last day of the budget hearings that, oh, now the Finance Committee is supposed to discuss and recommend. It can, it can definitely get a little tedious, and I think it's important that we establish what that looks like. Now that very well may be a special meeting. It may be a meeting that day, but I did want to leave it open that there will be a separate meeting there. So we're not trying to smush it all into one. The biggest though, and this is where I'm still struggling, and Rod, I think, you know, if you could speak to this, would be helpful, is around public engagement. And I, you know, we had this discussion of like, how do we make this almost an iterative process? One of my concerns, and actually Councilor Chavez in the audience made the suggestion, of how we describe it as community round table discussions as opposed to town halls, so that we really understand this is an interactive process. It spells out that they're going to be going through, you know, the budgeting exercise that we ourselves will go through, and then really providing feedback information as the governing body sets their priorities and goals for the upcoming fiscal year. I had a couple concerns. One, my primary concern is that with these community round table discussions, we're not going to be getting a representative sample of the population. You know, a lot of times the people that come to these are people that have self-selected in, which means they're paying very close attention, or they have a very special interest that they want to make sure is represented, and they're able to go. And we know historically that that means that people who have more resources, frequently they are older, are able to show up to these meetings. And then I was thinking about the fact that, you know, as councilors, we're not operating in a vacuum. We are receiving emails and phone calls and having meetings with our constituents, and through that, we are getting a lot of information on what those priorities may look like. And if I were to list the priorities of my constituents, it's a pretty broad list. And so, how do we take kind of that information and then use the community engagement process to filter? So, you know, if I were to go in, I would say, you know, my constituents, they care about family-friendly, they want parks, they want streets, they want a pool on the south side. They want to make sure that our pools are currently working. And how do we take those and then almost give the community something to react to as we refine the information that has already come through us through the community, and how that, you know, really judges our thinking. So, I'm still working on the wording of that. Because, you know, as Rod pointed out, we don't want it to be too set, because if you do a community process where the community, you know, it seems like everything's already set in stone, it feels disingenuous. Disingenuous. Thank you. Disingenuous. And so we, and you know, there can be a lot of mistrust there. But at the same time, I know I, as somebody who has to make that ultimate decision, really appreciate the feedback from the community of like, this is what I'm hearing based on what I'm seeing, based on, you know, my knowledge of these core issues, and the things that we're doing, and the things that we need more of, or, you know, maybe things that we're going to have to let go of. You know, are we really getting it right? So the amendment's not ready, which means that we have more time to refine this. Rod, did you want to add any more to kind of that with the discussion we've been having via email around this one? There we go. Is that better? Thank you. And I can speak for City Manager Scott and Deputy City Manager Phillips and Finance Director Oster and myself to say that we are thrilled that the entire council in this serial discussion that we're having seems very interested in budget modernization and reform in Santa Fe. And we're having discussions now about getting the descriptions of what those reforms actually are and when they happen, when they will roll out in the schedule. So, we're, we're very happy to continue this as, as long as until the entire council is very comfortable with what you're committing to so that we can act upon it. To your point, council member, Councilor Casset, the, the council said at your hearing about a week ago that you wanted some type of community engagement prior to or after the council set its own goals and priorities. And, and I think the thinking was this is some of the most important policy you, you do as a council, and so it would be wise to consult a community rather than have a public hearing, which generally leads to a long laundry list of things that cannot be accomplished in, in any city at any time. The, the, the quintessential dilemma being that there are too many community needs chasing too few resources. The thought was maybe ask those who self-select, as you point out, and are not scientifically representative of all of Santa Fe, to come together and begin to think in the same ways that you as the elected representatives of the people have to think as you make your budget decisions, meaning what are the trade-offs? Indeed, you want to do more and better in certain areas, what will you do less of in order to pay for them? How, how will you balance all of these competing needs? And you're absolutely right, as the representatives of the, you're hearing from your, your constituents all the time in lots of different ways, and they're trusting you to use your best judgment based on more information than most residents would ever have about the budget to make decisions that are in the interest of the whole. So to, to your point, does that community engagement happen before or after the council sits as a body and sits, sets its goals and, and its, its priorities for the coming budget year? As I indicated in previous discussions, it can be either, either way. It's done both ways in a number of communities. And each has its benefits. As you, I think indicate, if the community engagement trails the council taking action and deciding its goals and priorities, there may be the suspicion that it's a done deal, that the council's already decided, and so why are you asking me for my free time? And when you do that, you actually lose trust and confidence. So if we were to do it afterwards, we would need to involve other questions that, that force the public to go deeper into the kind of decision-making that you're going to do. And we can design a process like that if you'd like it to follow your own half-day work session, setting your goals and priorities for the 27 budget. So we can work that through, and it's, it's up to the council to decide chicken or egg, which goes first. And, and how to describe it. But I, I, I appreciate the additional work that's been done by the council to describe what that meeting looks like so that people understand what it is we're striving for. Yeah, thank you. As I'm thinking about this and how we would develop those questions, we're going to have a half-day session. So maybe the phrases that we come up with, some of the ideas around goals and priorities or something along those lines. Again, how do we both, it's almost like I want the chicken and the egg to hang out together. I want them to both react as well as really influence, and how do we do both of those? So, it's not ready anyhow. We don't have to vote on anything. As colleagues have ideas in the next 12 hours or so, if you could send them my way, that would be helpful. And Rod, if you have some suggestions on how we might word this to really try to capture that. I both want the opportunity for us as a governing body to be able to represent what we've heard, because again, we hear a lot, and then also be able to incorporate what that community engagement session would look like. And a quality of life, we talked about, this is our first year. We're going to have things that we're going to want to tweak. There's going to be some different ways that we may even look at how we engage the community throughout the year so that when we do get to this process, we actually do have a pretty robust database that we might be able to work with so that it doesn't feel kind of right now like we're trying to shove a lot into a small amount of time, which we are. So that's why I pulled it. No amendment to speak of at this moment in time, but I will yield the floor. Just a couple things. I think the finance committee role or when that happens, that's a good add. Because I think in our ordinances it says the finance committee makes a recommendation to the governing body. So we need to make sure that we're following that in this process. I also had an "aha" that was provided to me, I believe by Director Oster, which is this resolution outlines a one-year process. So what we learn from this will inform whether and how the future governing body goes forward in a second year. And so, Precisely. You know, if we don't get the chicken and egg question correct, or what we learn from that may inform how we mold it for the next iteration. So I think that's really important that this is something we're trying and the experience will help us with how we use it going forward. And you had, so were there three things? The finance committee, the who goes first, and there was, oh, the town hall. How your amendment addresses a little bit more wording around what a town hall looks like. Well, because we had this discussion of quality of life, that town hall was used because it can mean so many things, but we have a very specific vision. And so how do we capture that vision better? And so that's where kind of the community round table discussions hearkening back to our conversations around the pallet shelters. And so, you know, we have these really interactive conversations. We're able to gather a lot of data from the community and a lot of feedback and responses in a way that we do not otherwise. When it's like we talk to them, then they talk at us, and nobody's actually really talking to each other. Right. And I think that's, I think that's also an interesting thing to bring forth. I'm glad you're exploring it because it's, it does go back to this chicken and egg thing. You know, it's helpful, I think, for the community to have something to respond to, but if we don't want to completely decide on things, we do want that, we want the feedback to be constructive and informed by the tradeoffs that have to be made. And I think you're exactly right, that we have so many needs and we don't have the resources to do it all. And so we're going to have to make really hard choices and those choices are going to continue to get harder as the budgets continue to get tighter. So, I just think we want to make sure that it's a productive session with the public. So I'm glad you're looking at that. Anything else, Councilor Faulkner? Just a couple of things. I think one thing that we tend to miss as a city is like we're contemplating these things. We talk about them at the district. I think we would be in a better position in getting the community involved if we were communicating more to the community about what we're doing. So in District Three, we were holding town halls and we were expecting it to be a work session, but the community thought it was a listening session. And so I think distinguishing when we're speaking to the community about like, "Hey, we're going to have this public forum to talk about these things," to say to the community, "This is a listening session. You can tell us what you think we should be doing." Or we say it's a work session, which means we expect you to be part of the process to help us solve this problem. And I also think if we just can communicate that we are doing this, this is a work in progress. So when we talk to our constituents, we don't say, "This is the answer." We say, "We are trying to get to the answer. We need your help to get there." And so being honest with the community about the fact that we don't have all the answers. It's not possible for us to have all the answers. And involving the community in a genuine way where we're like, "No, you're part of this problem solving. Like we're coming to you because we need your help to solve the problem." We've found a lot of success in District Three by having those conversations. And that's all I have. Okay. Communicating to the public about where we really sit because not everybody watches these meetings. You're kidding. [Laughter] Oh, come on. We're so fun. All right. Anything else from the committee on this? Anything else from you, Mr. Gold? No, ma'am. Thank you for their thoughts and we'll keep working on the further amendment. Okay, great. Anything, Director Oster? All right. Is there a motion? Motion to approve. Second. A motion and a second to approve this item. Can we get a roll call, please? Councilor Cassid? Yes. Councilor Lindell. Councilor Faulkner. Yes. Chair Mworth? Yes. Motion passes. Okay. We don't have anything on our discussion agenda. We'll go to matters from staff, Director. Oh, we have our esteemed city manager with us. Matters from staff. Make sure that mic's on. We've been... Brian. There we go. I walked in earlier tonight when you were having the discussion on the airline agreement and I think perhaps you got some inaccurate information on one of the questions and I want to make sure that we have that right. The question related to the minimum revenue guarantee, the $1.8 million minimum revenue guarantee. Essentially, what that means is if they don't operate at a high enough volume on the 12-month period, at the end of the 12-month period, we would owe a payment toward the minimum guarantee. However, $1.8 million only requires something like a 40% load factor in order to avoid any kind of payment. So, you're not, we shouldn't be buying any seats on any airplanes unless the volume is really low. I think the smallest plane, maybe they fly a 50-seater, I don't know, but I think the smallest plane is a 70, and at a 70-seat airplane, you could actually be below 40% and still meet the minimum guarantee revenue guarantee. So when it, I wasn't sure you were getting the right answer on that. Yeah, I think that's very helpful. Thank you. And that's a big difference from guaranteeing a full flight. Big, big. Yeah. Yep. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate that. Director Oster. Nothing from me, Madam Chair. Matters from the committee. I just want to thank the facilities and IT people for getting rid of the horrible high-pitched noise that was coming in the chambers. God bless all of you. Yeah, that was, that was a huge lift. I'm glad they got that fixed. Matters from the chair. Our next meeting is Monday, September 22nd. Really appreciate your work tonight. Thank you, everybody. And thank you to everybody who is here to help us understand the different items that were pulled. Appreciate it. We're adjourned now.