Finance Committee - Budget Hearing - Meeting #5 - Aug 26, 2026

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to meeting number five to review the fiscal year 2026-27 city of Jacksonville budget. We'll start off with introductions to my left with Ms. Collins. Kathleen Collins, Budget Office. Mike Weinstein, Mayor's Office. Philip Peterson, Council Auditor. Brian Parks, Council Auditor's Office. Mary Staphopoulos, Office of General Counsel. Good morning, Rory Diamond, District 13, The Beaches. Good morning, Chris Miller, at Large Group 5. Will Lane, District 3. Good morning, I made it. Terrence Freeman, at Large Group 1. Mike Gay, District 2. Randy White, District 12. Nick Howland, at Large Group 3. Ron Salem, Group 2, at Large Visiting. All right, good morning, everyone. A couple housekeeping things. So I know Council Member Freeman is going to have to leave us this morning at some point, and then Council Member Diamond will have an excusal starting at 1030. So when we get into the CIP discussion, if we aren't to District 13 by about 10, which I don't think we will be, we will jump to District 13 since the District Council Member will be here for that. And I think with that, we do have a number of finance committee wrap-up items I want to knock out at the end of today. I don't think we'll be here too late today after lunch. So there are a number of committee items I want to wrap up so we can get all of our items done ahead of wrap-up day tomorrow when I expect a number of visiting Council Members to attend. So basically I want to get to a point, hey, we are done as a finance committee. These are what our numbers are when we wrap up because, again, one of the things I've been trying to communicate to our other council members is if you bring in requests tomorrow, really the two questions are going to be, is there an offset and how much of your CBA budget do you still have remaining? So with that, I don't see anyone in the queue, so we will go ahead and turn it over to Mr. Peterson. Through the chair, Ms. Brochet, I believe, is going to give you a presentation on the debt affordability study. Good morning, Ms. Brochet. Good morning. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, Finance Committee. Anna Brochet, CFO. I am going to walk through the debt affordability study, which is the presentation that you should have in front of you. It will be on the screen, but also for you to have in front of you because it's such riveting work. I also have with me Chris Cicero, our city treasurer, and Alan Getz, our senior debt manager. Who help us manage our debt profile and portfolio. We are here to present the budget update version of the debt affordability study, which is an update to the baseline version. You got the baseline version in May, June, and you received the budget update version of the debt affordability study on August 3rd. I know that Council President Howland and Mr. Chairman have been very vocal in their desire to reduce our total capital improvement plan numbers so as to manage our impact on the outstanding debt that we have. I appreciate our collective effort to manage our debt profile responsibly. And the debt affordability metrics that you'll see in this presentation allow the city council to see the big picture of the impact of the decisions that you're making when you approve the CIP. One final point before I dive into the presentation, it's important to note that all three of the independent rating agencies affirmed our strong AA credit ratings with a stable outlook after considering Mayor Deegan's proposed CIP and the data underlying this particular presentation. So with that, I will move on to page two. Feel free to ask questions as we go along. So what's different about the update report, the baseline versus the update? This update layers in the potential borrowings from the proposed CIP. That's different from the baseline. We didn't know what the CIP would be when we issued the baseline in May. Now we do know what the mayor proposed, and that's what's in here. This report does include conservative assumptions related to the estimated borrowing timeline. Which can certainly stress certain ratios, but should moderate because the actual takedown of the debt doesn't happen in accordance with how we estimate that it's going to happen. And that's been pretty consistent over the years. Moving on to page three. This is a snapshot of the debt affordability ratios all on one page. This summarizes the calculated ratios for the update report, and you'll note that all of the metrics are currently in green, which indicates that we're in a favorable position related to our targets. Moving on to page four, this table here illustrates the outstanding debt over the next five years, the projected outstanding debt, and includes potential debt issuances and paydowns. Starting with the balance beginning of $2.5 billion and ending at $3.7 billion due to the potential issuance of $2.1 billion of debt. It's really important to note, it should say in that top bullet, $2.1, that prior to this five-year CIP that you have in front of you, we already have $1.1 billion worth of previously authorized projects. And so we track that because we want to make sure that the rating agencies know that we have a lot out there that we haven't done, which is why Mr. Weinstein always says that we won't get everything we already have done in the CIP done in the period of time. So we're being careful about what we add. There's also the $1 billion of proposed borrowing in the CIP that is before you, offset by $811 million of total paydowns over the same period of time. If all of that $2.1 billion of debt issuance actually occurs, assuming during this five-year period debt would peak in 2030, which you can see on that table. Moving on to page four is our first metric shown individually. This is the city's overall debt as a percentage of full market value. We are well under the target over the next five years. This measure compares debt levels against the property tax base, which is the city's largest source of revenues. And this metric does include all city debt plus the overlapping debt from the school system. Moving on to page six, which is our GSD debt service as a percentage of GSD revenues. This is also currently under our target but could potentially exceed the maximum in 2030 and 2031 if we issue the $2.1 billion of debt as assumed. This graph assumes a 2% growth rate. Moving on to the next slide, our GSD debt service as a percentage of GSD expenditures. This is a newer metric that you added to the debt policy and shows a picture of potentially exceeding the maximum in 29 and beyond if the debt is issued as assumed. Moving on to page eight, the unassigned general fund balance, including emergency reserves as a percentage of revenues. This metric is strong and presented on an actual basis. Moving on to the slide, page nine, the same metric but excluding the emergency reserves and we're still in a really good position. Moving on to slide, page 10, the 10-year principal pay down for all city debt. We continue to be above our targets and our minimums. Moving on to slide 11, the 10-year principal pay down for GSD debt. We remain near our targets as well as above the minimums. Moving on to slide 12, this is our debt per capita, potentially exceeding the maximum over the next several years and then coming back down as we pay down the BJP debt, the school board debt, plus the amortization of other city debt. So this is assessing the burden on taxpayers. Moving on to page 13, this is a comparison of Jacksonville to other similar cities and counties which show the current metrics compare favorably to most of other cities and counties in Florida. And in closing, when you approve the upcoming five-year CIP, you're only authorizing additional debt for that first column, FY27 column of that five-year plan. So, therefore, each year that the debt affordability study gives you an opportunity to take a fresh look at what our projected debt metrics are and the impact that we are making with respect to future potential annual debt. And I'm happy to take any questions that you have. Thank you, Ms. Brochet. I have no one in the queue. I got a number of comments, but I just want to make sure no one wants to hop in the queue before I have some notes. Council Member Salem. Thank you, Chair. Ms. Brochet, what about this concerns you the most as you review this? Are there aspects other than the fact that we're going above potentially in the out years? Is that your biggest concern? I would say that's the case through the Chair to Councilman Salem. I also note that some of those metrics have shown that for a number of years. And I kept cautioning or conditioning my statement to say that if we issue in accordance with how we've projected that it's going to happen, you know, as you know, we only take down debt when we actually incur the expenditures after the fact. And therefore, we only have so much capacity to get things done. And so the reason why those have continued to stay in the out and we always seem to be a little bit more okay is because of the actual pace at which we do the projects. But certainly that is of concern that we will continue to monitor and watch in partnership with you. If I can continue, I guess the only way to potentially reduce that is just not to issue any debt for any new projects going forward for some period of time. Well, there are certainly strategies with respect to PAYGO, if that's what you're meaning, and managing how much debt. That's a very important part of the process of making sure that we work and manage that debt portfolio in concert with the consultants who have a much broader picture of where we sit in terms of making sure that no one generation is paying for certain significant infrastructure that we're building, that we're spreading that across a number of generations. So PAYGO is certainly an opportunity to consider in the future. At the same time, you're looking at the CIP, we're issuing debt in accordance with what you've approved that we are able to move forward with in the past. And so if there were a desire that we, or a desire to come together and make sure that, okay, we're not going to put more projects in the CIP, then that would also be part of the equation. You probably saw that we have zeroes in columns four and five, last year it was just column five, this year column four, with the concerted effort and very specific intention of making sure making sure that we're resetting the idea of what a normal CIP year looks like. As long as we have one that still has 400 plus million in the column, I think we haven't accomplished that resetting. And we've communicated that to the rating agencies as well. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. All right. Thank you, Ms. Brasche. So a number of comments here. First off, I always like to compare what it was a couple of years ago, because that's one of the things I say when I leave office. I want to make sure we're in a better financial place than where we were when we began. And I've often commented how, starting in 2021, I believe it was, we had kind of a step function change in what our normalized CIP rate was. But really, I mean, overall, it's positive news if you look at where we thought we were versus where we were at versus where we were three years ago. Our overall net debt as percent of full market value has stayed flat. Debt service as a percent of our revenues has stayed flat. The percent of expenditures, that is a new one that was in the legislation I introduced earlier this year to add that as a measure. So we can't really compare that to prior years yet. And then our general fund balance as a percent of revenues has roughly been flat. And then what is it? The debt per capita has essentially been flat. It's rounded to 2,700 for the past three years. But the CIP, and again, I've talked about this a lot. We should expect the next few years that the CIP plan submitted is less than what the prior year's was, like this one is. Next year's our last stadium budgeted amount, I believe, and it's at a less amount than what this year's was. And then so we should continue to see us getting down to that normalized rate. We've had all these generational things at the same time. And it's a lot of stuff that doesn't even make the news. A hundred million dollars plus for downtown bulkhead replacements, medical examiners, downtown parks. But all these things that are going to last 40 or 50 years happen to be in this five-year period or so that we've seen. And I'll just say it now. Last year, one of my frustrations was the mayor submitted a CIP plan, and it left finance committee at a higher dollar amount than what was submitted to us. And I'm not going to go into why that was, but I just want to say that as finance chair, I want to make sure whatever leaves finance committee is not higher than what we got submitted to us this year. So thank you, Ms. Barchet. I think we are done with you. And on to Mr. Peterson. Mr. Weinstein. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to say just a couple of things. The rating agencies, full-time, nothing but evaluating communities like ours. And they find us to be, as the CFO said, stable and in good shape. Also, as the CFO said, every year we come. So every year you'll have an opportunity to adjust if adjustments need to be done. So not only are we in a pretty good place, but we also have the ability every year to adjust if we find that we're not. So we're pretty pleased with where we are. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And I thank you, Mr. Getz and Mr. Cicero, for all the work that y'all put into managing our cash every day. Thank you. Thank you. We're on to you, Mr. Peterson. All right. That takes us to page five of our handout today. We are in the CIP-related portion of the handout. This is the city's debt management fund. It is found on page 77 of your budget book. And this fund houses all the activity surrounding authorized borrowing and the debt service repayments from the various city departments and funds. You'll see a total budget of $562.5 million for this fund. Within the internal service revenue of $118.9 million, this is the repayment of debt from user departments. There is only a slight increase in this due to a change in the budgeting methodology that better aligns new debt with how the debt is actually structured upon issuance. And then you'll see in the debt funding, $443,573,000. That is the net new borrowing based on the projects that are in the budget this year. That is almost $453 million of new authorization, slightly offset by $9.5 million in excess capacity from completed projects and those that have been switched to PAYGO being removed. Within the expenditures, there's $118.9 million of debt service. This is directly related to the internal service revenue. And then the payments to fiscal agents is the actual dollars being loaned to the various city agencies for the debt in this year's budget. We have a table for you breaking out the debt between general CIP, solid waste, city venues, which is the stadium, and technology CIP to show the full $452.98 million. And then estimates on annual debt service at those fully issued amounts. Turning to page four, we've included the chart that Ms. Brochet just went over that would show if the CIP as proposed for all of the three years that are included in it, along with the previously authorized $1.1 billion of CIP dollars or of debt, what it would look like each year as your outstanding debt. And then we've included an overview of recent CIPs. This kind of goes to the same point that Ms. Brochet was making regarding our increased CIPs beginning in 1718 was the first big jump, and then again in 2122. And we've stayed at those $500, $600 million numbers. We do have a note that if, but for the BJP swap, these debt numbers would be much larger over the last three years. And then you've heard this from our office before, but a continued concern on if we keep going down this route of significant CIPs being able to pay for it, essentially. That's when the debt becomes issued, that debt cost just continues to be higher and higher and eat away to the available funds that the city has. And then Mr. Parks and I were talking the, if Amendment 3 were to pass, these numbers look a lot worse because the revenue stream is significantly lower. We have no recommendations on this fund. Turning to page six, this is the Better Jacksonville Plan Fund. It's on page 67 of your budget book, $83.4 million budget for this year. Local option sales tax only showing the $76 million. That's what's needed to balance the fund. We do expect significantly more in this revenue stream. And then investment pool earnings, about $7.5 million are being used to fund projects this year. Debt service, the decrease of $75 million. I believe we've talked about this, but there is a scheduled decrease in debt payments. The last large, I won't say large, but a significant debt payment is being made in the 25-26 year due to a scheduling of the debt that has occurred previously when there was consideration of ending BJP early. And that's the reason for the significant decrease. And then the transfers to other funds of $50.3 million is to fund projects that were added to the work plan, and they are being funded with PAYGO. There are no positions in this fund, and we have no recommendations. Page eight is the Art and Public Places Trust Fund. Our ordinance code requires that 0.75% of budgeted cost of vertical construction projects for city facilities be added to the Art and Public Places Fund. Of that amount, 80% is to be dedicated to public art, 10% to maintenance of the art, and 10% to administration and community education. The transfers from other funds represents that 0.75%, but we do have a recommendation to increase that slightly. Within the expenditures, professional contractual services, that's the 10% for administration, which is overseen by the Cultural Council, 10% within other operating expenses for the maintenance of the art, and then $302,400 is the 80% for the art. No employees in this fund, but like I said, we do have a recommendation to increase the contribution by $2,888. I got a motion and a second on the recommendation. Known in key, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. Recommendation passes. All right. Taking to page nine of the handout, this is an overall look at the CIP by funding source and then by type of project. So, the first box is their general capital projects, total CIP of 344.9 million, a decrease of 54.5 year-over-year. And on the next, I don't know, eight or nine pages, we'll walk through each of the different funding sources for the general city venues, solid waste, and then stormwater. So, I think it would be helpful to look at page nine while we walk through the rest of the pages. Ms. Brochet kind of hit on it that the CIP presented to you have zeros in years four and five as they try to reset what a normal CIP would look like. I do think we need to consider that there are minimums that will be needed in those years for roadway resurfacing, sidewalks, just kind of the general capital items that we see every year. But taking that into account, the municipal code specifically mentions that the annual focus will primarily be on that fifth year of the plan as new projects are added, and so that will need to be a consideration as we move forward into how that first new year that's zeroed out hits when it does. So, within the debt management fund, this is for general capital projects, new authorized debt of $214.2 million. There is a total of $11.9 million in debt management funds being deappropriated as part of the CIP. Within the fuel and bed tax, a budget of $22.4 million. This represents the city's portion of all local option gas taxes and a five-year road program or constitutional gas tax. Prior year revenues of $27.3 million are made up of a number of sources, $23.9 million in mobility fees, a contribution from the Jaguars for the Bay Street Safety Improvements Project of $3 million. There's some sidewalk and curb revenue of $180,000, Jack's Beach Pier lease revenue of $169,000, and then also a transfer from the Hanna Park Improvement Fund for a specific project at Hanna Park. We do have a recommendation to reduce the Zone 5 mobility fee appropriation for the Chafee Road Project from $9.5 million down to $2.2 million based on available funding, and then reduce the expenditure appropriations for city-owned land from $5 million to zero, and construction from $4.5 million down to $2.2 million. All of this is a total decrease of $7.3 million, while also moving $2,960,000 from a debt line for construction costs to a debt line for right-of-way acquisition. This has no impact on total borrowing, special counsel contingency, or operating reserves, just an impact to the current year's funding of the project. I got a motion in a second, so we'll go ahead and take that one up now. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. It passes. I do want to take this time to recognize Council Members Carlucci and Johnson, who have joined us. Mr. Peterson, are we done with page nine now? Through the chair? No, sir. We have multiple recommendations as it relates to the prior year revenue, and then we'll get into grant funding and each of the other lines. Okay. Thank you. So, recommendation number two for prior year revenue is to reduce the Zone 6 mobility fee, which was being $13.5 million down to $4.9 million for the Old Middleburg, Herndon, or Brandon Field project, based on available funding, and reduce construction expenditures by the same amount. I got a motion and a second on the recommendation. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. It passes. Through the chair, we recommend revising Schedule A-1 of the budget ordinance to reflect the $3 million contribution from the Jaguars as grant funding rather than prior year revenue. Got a motion, second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. Recommendation passes. And then lastly, for this category, reflecting that the Hannah Park Improvement Fund as PAYGO transfers from other funds rather than prior year revenue. Got a motion, second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. It passes. Mr. Peterson, I did want to point out we talked about PAYGO, but if you look at the slide, I was pleased by this slide because compared to last year, we are going to take out a significant less amount of debt-funded projects, and PAYGO has increased fairly significantly as well. So, I'm hoping that's the trend we continue to see. Less debt, more PAYGO, and lower overall CIP. All right, looking at the next category of grant funding, $4.5 million. This is reflective of a million-dollar deappropriation of grant revenue for the James Olden Johnson Park Project. This is actually going to be handled administratively by the administration, and then $5.5 million in CDBG grant funding from an ordinance that you have previously passed. We do have a recommendation to remove the deappropriation of the million dollars as it's not part of this budget. Got a motion, second, no in the queue. All those in favor, the recommendation, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. It passes. And we will specifically talk about the CIP project, which we essentially added a million by deappropriating that, but we'll talk about that project as a whole when we get to that district's CIP exhibit. And then another recommendation to remove the Edward Waters University Shell Suite Center project as this is not a city-owned building and doesn't meet the definition of a CIP project. Council Member Johnson, you're in the queue. You're recognized. What do you mean, through the chair, what do you mean it's not a city-owned building? Through the chair to Council Member Johnson, it's a facility owned by Edward Waters? It's not owned by Edward Waters. That building is not owned. I was there when the building was built. I was an elected official at the time. This building is a long-term lease. There's something going on right now with us negotiating the lease with the general counsel's office. This is not a building that's owned by the city of Jacksonville because the city built it and has not been turned over to Edward Waters. So let's not do this right now. This is not correct. Can we table this item and then, Mr. Weinstein, whoever the right person is to answer the debate between the auditors and Council Member Johnson as to who really owns the building? All right. Moving on to the next category, PAYGO transfers from other funds of $23.2 million. This reflects $10 million from the general fund, a little over $1,069,000 from solid waste funds, $6.2 million from the CISO Commerce Fund, a public buildings allocation of $2.5 million, and then the city's required match for the three FIND projects that are included in this budget of $3.5 million. We do have a recommendation as it relates to CISO Commerce Center. You might recall when we discussed that fund last week, there were a number of projects that due to the sale of the mega site, we were reducing or deauthorizing the debt that had been issued to then carry forward the projects with these dollars that had been received from the sale of land. And we have one more that needs to be handled in that same manner, so recommend deappropriating prior debt management proceeds of $3 million and revising the $1,227,779 deappropriation from the transfer of the CISO Commerce Center Fund to an appropriation of $1,772,221. Like I said, this replaces previous debt with PAYGO, has no impact on the project itself. Got a motion to second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. The recommendation passes. All right. The PAYGO transfers from BJP is the $50.3 million we just discussed in the BJP fund. This is to fund all of the previously planned projects in the BJP work program. And then the PAYGO fine grants of $2.9 million, this is the portion of the projects funded by the fine grants, the dollars that the city contributes towards the projects are in a non-departmental line item. On page 13 of your handout, you can see those three fine grants with the grant dollars and the associated city match totaling $6.4 million between the three projects. Councilmember Carlucci, you're recognized. I was just wondering, is there another place that shows what all those projects are left on BJP? Or if this is not the right time to ask, I withdraw the question. I'm just curious what all is left over. Through the chair, we do not have that as part of this handout. We can get you a sheet that shows all of the projects that are being worked on since we did the kind of switch, if you will, with the BJP funding. Do you know about how long it is before they are paid for and completed? Through the chair, the funding, when we switch the funding to do these projects that had previously been in the CIP, that takes the projects through 2030 as was originally intended when BJP passed. As to when those projects are actually completed, I'd have to defer to Public Works. Maybe Public Works can send me that list. But anyway, I'm just curious, Mr. Chairman, I would like to know if somebody would like to provide that to me, but I know the auditors are up to the ears. Maybe Public Works can supply those. Thank you. And so we need a motion on recommendation seven, correct, Mr. Peterson? Or is that not a recommendation? Not a recommendation, just making you aware. All right, on to number eight then. All right, this is into the city venues and capital improvement projects. Debt management fund of $214.5 million. $220 million of that is new debt authorization with a deappropriation of $5.5 million for two previously approved projects, one of which is going to be switched to be funded from the overage of the subsidy related to ASM's operations. And then we do want to make you aware that the fiscal year 2526 CIP included funding in 2627 for $500,000 for the Jacoby Hall Performing Arts Center project, and that was not included in the proposed budget. As it relates to grant funding, $6.6 million. This is the repayment from Legends or ASM related to the overage of the subsidy in fiscal year 2425. We recommend reflecting this as prior year revenue instead of grant funding. It has no impact to the project. I got motion second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. It passes. Mr. Peterson, remind me, do we need to do anything right now on the $500,000 issue at the symphony? Through the chair. Through the chair. We'll cover that when we get to the, I think it's in downtown projects, the specific page similar to the council district. Okay, thank you. I couldn't remember what we had decided on Monday, so we'll tackle it there. Thank you. All right, moving to solid waste improvement projects, showing a budgeted amount of $8.85 million. That is all being debt funded this year. And then in the stormwater capital improvement projects, funding of $11.2 million. This is all coming from the stormwater fees. And you can see on page 14 the projects that are proposed to be undertaken with this funding source. For those who might not be aware, our municipal code requires that the annual budget shall include the greater of $4 million or 15% of the revenue from stormwater user fees for stormwater capital projects. And then at least $6 million to go towards drainage system rehab citywide. So based on a request from, well, I take that back, the 15% calculation was not met in the budget. So working with the budget office, we have the following recommendations. To move $1.6 million of debt management fund proceeds from the Hopkins Creek Regional Stormwater Improvements Project to Drainage System Rehab Project. Also move $1.6 million of stormwater funding from Drainage System Rehab Project to the Hopkins Creek Project. And then move $281,923 of stormwater funding from the Drainage System Rehab Project to a new project, which is the Benton Street Drainage Improvements. All in all, this adds $281,000 to a new project for Benton Street and takes away $281,000 from the Drainage System Rehab Project. I got motion to second. All those in favor of recommendation number nine say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. Recommendation passes. All right. Through the chair to the committee, page 15. Page 15 identifies the recurring capital maintenance needs. In 2015 or possibly 2016, the council adopted a list of capital maintenance areas that had suggested minimums to be included in each year's budget along with targets for each of those items. So we've put together a chart identifying those suggested minimums and targets along with the amount that was included in 25-26 and what's proposed as of 26-27. I will note that this chart was created by the finance department and includes some projects within each category, not necessarily all projects. Once the minimum had been met or exceeded, they may not have included all projects going forward. And then you can see off to the right-hand side whether or not each funding of project meets or exceeds the target. Flipping to page 16, we have a number of recommendations. First is to recommend the recurring capital maintenance table be revised to correct the amount for the CDBG sidewalks project from $200,000 to $500,000. That reflects what was previously approved and will revise the total up to $6,050,000. Got motion second on recommendation 10. No one in the queue. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. Recommendation 10 passes. Through the chair. We have four more recommendations and I'm happy just to go through all these and you adopt them at once. These are just in general CIP items. First is to the budgeted de-appropriation for the combined 9-1-1 communication center facility. Be budgeted within a different fund, fund 3-2-1-1-1 instead of 3-2-1-2-4. The budget de-appropriation for the concourse flooring replacement at the arena. Be budgeted within center 1-3-3-2-0-4 instead of 1-3-3-1-0-3. The budgeted appropriation for the veterans community center be moved from fund 3-2-1-2-4 to fund 1-1-5-1-3 to align with the existing budget that's already been appropriated for this project. And then lastly correcting the current year and previous funding amounts on schedule A-1 of the budget ordinance to match amounts previously approved by city council. Ultimately these have no impacts on project funding, total borrowing, or special council contingency. Got motion second on recommendations 11 through 14. No one in the key. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed to say nay. Recommendations passed. Okay, moving to page 17. These are recommendations we have as it relates to the CIP book. The CIP book's 300 plus pages that has the scopes, the council districts, the areas of impact. And going through that book, there's a number of them. I don't necessarily think you want me to walk through each of those. But these, in working with the budget office, we've identified these next three pages that have areas of, that need to be corrected. So they'll be incorporated into the final CIP book that is published on the city's website. I got motion second. I'll talk slowly just so everyone can flip through all three pages. I doubt anyone will have any concerns on these. No one in the queue. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. The recommendation passes. One thing we did want to point out is the project information sheets in the budget do not consistently show the operating budget impacts for a new facility, i.e. the Veterans Community Center. So we build it, but obviously there's going to be ongoing operational costs. We did receive from the administration operating costs for the Brentwood Branch Replacement Library Project, the Ocean Way Library Replacement, and then Riverfront Plaza. And we can work to incorporate those if you would like, but it's something that's not consistent across the board and should be a focus for future CIPs so that you have a true idea of it's not just a, i.e. $10 million building. It's going to come with a $1.2 million annual operating cost. Thank you, Mr. Peterson. And I mean, that makes me immediately think of downtown parks. And so however we can better get into the practice, because again, real world, when you're building a business case, you have ongoing OECOS as part of that decision. And there's been a number of projects that we've approved without knowing the full real operating impact once they're complete. So encourage those efforts. Mr. Peterson, are we on page 21? Because I wanted to note something. We actually have two more recommendations on page 20. These are very technical in nature. First is just correcting the project name of the MOSH Relocation Construction and Park Design Project. And then also providing our office along with OGC the ability to correct any projects, names, numbers, or other funding amounts for schedule presentation purposes should these be discovered after the hearings have been complete. I got a motion and a second on those recommendations. No one in the queue. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. Those recommendations pass. Mr. Peterson, what I wanted to point out, we talked about this in our pre-meeting. So we just took a lot of actions. But essentially the CIP that was proposed was 586. It'll now be 571, but that's only due to some of the moving parts we just approved. We did not just free up 16 million dollars of cash. So I just want to make that abundantly clear if anyone saw that it was proposed as 586 million. And now the CIP on page 21 as a result of those amendments is 571 million. But that was mostly timing. We did not really just cut 16 million dollars out of the CIP. So don't want council members thinking there's a bucket of money we just created to add things in. Thank you. And then also, Mr. Peterson, I think just for my colleagues, pages I believe 22 through 28 are simply reconciliation sheets to page 21. So even though all the new projects, projects removed, projects with scope changes are on page 22 to 28, we will talk about each one of these projects when we actually get to the district page. So my desire would be let's not get bogged down pages 22 to 28 because we'll be discussing them all again once we get to the district exhibits that are in there. Through the chair of the committee, that is correct. And so do want to point out to you from this point forward, all of the pages include corrections and the recommendations that our office had on technical related things. So that those are all reflected in these pages. Do also want to point out previously mentioned, but I think it's very important. There's no funding in years 29 and 30 and 30, 31. And so those columns have been cut off of these five-year pages. On page 21, as the chairman stated, this is a reconciliation to get from last year's year two look. So the five-year CIP moving year two up to year one, as you would expect. We'll just look at the general capital projects box, $277 million was what was included in last year's CIP. Then we account for projects that have been added, projects that have added funding to previously approved projects, projects that have funding reduced, projects that have been removed, and then projects that have been deauthorized to get to the amount that is in this year's CIP. And that's what these next 30 or so pages do, district by district. So if you want to turn to page 29, we can jump into district one. And the projects are broken down by council district, and then as well as city buildings and downtown projects. Council Member Salem, you're recognized. Thank you, Chair. Through the Chair to Mr. Peterson. If projects are removed per council district, is this the time where the finance committee supports their removal, and then it goes to the full council for approval, and it's up to the district person to weigh in as they see fit? Through the Chair to Council Member Salem. That's correct. If you look at page 29, I think this is a good representation of what we'll see over the next 30 or so pages. So in council district one, no new projects have been added. No projects have been removed. Then we have a category of projects that were funded in prior CIP plans that now have additional dollars. And that specific project is actually one of the three FIND grant projects. And then we have a category of projects that were in 2526 and 2627 that have changes from one year to the next. And so the change in that project for the Arlington Road Bridge is the 2526 budget had a million dollars that was planned for 2728 that has been advanced up a year. Same million. So the total project cost did not change, but the timing did. And then there's a one other category that would be on the next page that is our projects with no or minimal changes. So basically the project is proceeding as was proposed to you or approved by you last year. That's perfect. Thank you. That's very helpful. Yeah, and I appreciate the way your team broke it out like this, Mr. Pierce. I think it's going to help us go through these quickly. I also want to point out to my colleagues, the category that says projects with changes, changes can also be time, not just dollars. So a lot of them you're going to see simply a timing shift from year to year, not a dollar impact. And with that, unless anybody has anything, I think we're done with District 1 because there's really nothing new to talk about in that. Okay. District 2. I know someone that lives there. All right. Page 31, District 2. So no new projects have been added. There is a project that is deauthorized that was not in a prior CIP plan of $1.5 million related to Fire Station 66. This funding was for land acquisition, but the property is now being provided by the Parks Department. So it's taking away $1.5 million from that project cost. The next section are projects that were funded in prior CIP plans that now have additional dollars added. So you'll see $8 million being added for the Ocean Way library replacement. $2.75 million being added for Sisters Creek Dock Extension in Bathhouse. That's one of the FIND grant projects. And then $1.1 million in next year for Cedar Point road bridges. The next section are projects that were in last year, moving to this year with changes. And so you'll see the Alta Drive Bridge total budget increasing by $2.6 million year over year. All slated to occur in next year's budget, meaning 27-28. And then the New Berlin Road project increasing $10 million with that funding three years from now. Council Member Gay, any comments or feedback, or are you good if we move on? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I had a couple meetings with Public Works about the projects in my district and hoping that some of our big projects, our roads, get moved a little bit quicker and the funding comes quicker because of the need. So we'll definitely be next year's budget hoping things kind of change around. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Council Member Gay. I'd also like to welcome our Council Vice President, Joe Carlucci. Mr. Peterson, do we have time to cover all of District 3 before lunch? I think we can. Page 33 is District 3. And ultimately, you'll see that there is no change from what was shown last year. All right. Thank you. I really am bringing him the bacon as finance chair this year, but I also really am trying to lead by example. Minimal CIP, and I will have no enhancement request tomorrow or throughout this process. Council Member Diamond. Thank you, Mr. Chair. You can't say it, but I can, which is to say $390,000 for an entire district. And you haven't asked for anything else, which I absolutely respect. I just hope in 10 years when your district, because so much is new and it's a blessed district, but in 10 years when things are starting to break, I hope people remember that District 3 sent tens of millions of dollars to the city of Jacksonville, and so did District 2, and got basically nothing these years. So when you do have the needs, we'll all be gone, but I hope somebody remembers that you all paid a lot of money and didn't get anything back. And I will say two of my highest infrastructure needs were actually going to be covered under the resurfacing list. So those were two items that all of our resurface, there is a separate resurfacing list out there. Reach out to Ms. Sickler if you haven't seen it. But that also covers a lot of our kind of core infrastructure needs for a lot of our districts. How about, let's do 4 and then 13, because we're getting close to Mr. Diamond's departure time. All right, page 34 is Council District 4, and the only change here is that 800,000 was being added to a project that was in prior CIPs, and that will be slated for next year based on construction estimates received by Public Works. All right, no one in the queue for District 4, so we're going to go to District 13. And that will be found on page 51. And Council Vice President, the reason we're doing this, Council Member Diamond has to leave in a few minutes. Take care of his JTA liaison duties. All right, on page 51 you'll see that District 13 has three new projects that have been added. $174,000 related to Hannah Park campground improvements. And then that $74,000 that's in 2627 is being funded by a transfer from Hannah Park. A Neptune Beach Kings Road roundabout of $2.22 million with the majority of the funding next year. And then Neptune Beach pedestrian crossings at $190,000. Projects that were funded in prior CIP plans with additional dollars is the Jacksonville Beach Pier, $169,000. This is for routine maintenance at the facility, and it is being covered by lease revenue generated at the pier. And then there are projects with changes year over year. The Penman Road Complete Street project is just a timing change. The total project costs remaining at $20.5 million, but the $5 million is being pushed out to fiscal year 28-29. And then the Hopkins Creek Regional Stormwater Improvements Project increasing $1.6 million. And that's all being funded in the current year through the stormwater fees. Councilman Diamond. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Obviously, I've been frustrated that Penman Road keeps getting pushed out and out. And we've had a lot of deaths, including kids dying at very busy intersections. But we're getting there, and I'm glad that we're getting roundabouts put in. So hopefully these kids on these electric bikes will slow down and we can save some lives. I do have an enhancement request that came from the city of Atlantic Beach regarding Dutton Island. This is not a surprise to the Chair. I told them I would introduce something and to run this by OGCE. But this is not for this year's CIP. My motion is to put in one year out, so $27,000, $28,000, $980,000 for the Dutton Island project, which is essentially connect Dutton Island to Mayport Road. This is a section of District 13 that rarely gets any investment, but the park access out there for everybody else is really bad. With the passive park that's being built on Mayport Road, plus this connection to Dutton Island, it's getting us a little closer to providing relief for that neighborhood. So that's my motion, if I can get a second. We got a second. Anyone in the queue? I got a couple questions, but anybody else before me? Okay. So Councilman Dime, just to understand, it's a 2728, not 2627. So this would essentially be a placeholder for two years from now. And it is the first time I've had this level of detail. Is Atlantic Beach, are they going to be, it looks like they're going to fund ongoing expenses as part of this, assuming it does get built? Yeah, two things. First of all, they've already dedicated funding for design, and then, yes, it'll be their responsibility to maintain. And then, of course, I won't ever be landing this plane. This will be my successor in office. I'm putting the placeholder in so they can do it down the road. Okay. I will say we talked about Hannah Park the other day, and so me and you are district, we share a boundary, right? And so I have three of the 400 parks. I think you have a similar small number outside of Hannah Park, which pays for itself. My biggest park, Patton Park, is essentially, I think, a dollar a year lease, and then the entity that takes care of it pays for all the expenses as well. And so I do appreciate that we would have an investment more kind of in our part of town. I have a feeling if this was downtown, we wouldn't bat an eye at the dollar figure. But if this is something that can enhance, I know where Duton Island is, and I know a lot of my constituents use this area as well. So with no one else in the queue, we'll take a vote on this. We do need to take a vote on it now, correct, Ms. Mary, since we have it? Okay. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. It passes. And enjoy your JTA liaison duties. Mr. Diamond. Mr. Chair, I do appreciate the flexibility from everybody. This is terrible timing at JTA's board retreat right now, but we've got to do it. So thank you. Councilman Freeman. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and unfortunately, I too will be leaving a little earlier. I thought she was having her surgery at JOI and just found out that it is over by UNF. And she just got rolled back, so I'm going to need to head out. My apologies. Ms. Mary, can you remind me what quorum we need for the remainder of the meeting? Mr. Chair, so if you have two or more excused absences, then you only need four. Mr. Freeman's is for a medical reason, for a relative. So that doesn't count towards your number of excusals. It's an additional exception for an additional absence. When Mr. Diamond leaves, assuming that you have excused him for that absence, then you would need four. Okay. So four for the remainder of the day and the council president counts as well. The president can also count towards your quorum, of course, as long as he is here. Mr. Chair, depending on the calendar over in Jack's Beach where they're having this retreat, I'll try and make it back if I can. So please just keep me in the loop and I'll do my best to bounce between the two. All right. Thank you. On to Mighty District 5. All right. So that takes us back to page 35. There are two new projects being added to the CIP. One for the current year, St. Augustine Road bicycle improvements at 885,000. And then the second, a drainage project at Gadsden Court, putting 700,000 out into 2829. No projects are being removed. There is a project that is adding funding to a previous project, 3.355 million. This is downtown dredging. We saw that in District 1. It's also in District 7. And then there is a project with significant changes, the Nature's Hollow Way drainage improvements, 300,000 additional dollars being added to the project, all within 2627. And then on page 36 are the projects with no or minimal changes. Councilman Carlucci, did you have anything you wanted to say to the committee? Oh, yep. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, I hope you all don't have, like, a heart attack or anything, but I want to add another project in here. And here, I'll just pass this down. Well, I'm going to go ahead and request to add it anyways. No, just look through the pictures there and everything. But, yeah, go ahead and fill me in on what you said, because I asked a couple people before I came in here what the stance was, and I've gotten mixed answers. Yeah, so, I mean, and I've said at every committee meeting just ideally that you can identify an offset. Councilmember Diamond had essentially a placeholder in outer years. So that is what we just approved, was not a this current year. So his project that we did just approve was for the outer year. I want, at the end of the day, I don't want to happen what happened last year that the mayor proposed a CIP plan and then it left council with a bigger number. I do think we'll have some subtractions as the day goes through, but just the order that we're doing everything, it's a lot easier to take them up as we go through each district for now. But I kind of want to manage it to where we're not, at the end of the day, saying, ooh, we need to actually go back and rethink about some of these, because we've now exceeded what the proposed number was. So, yeah, to the chair, then I guess the question is, how would you propose new CIP projects get added? I mean, I say we do it right now by district. Yeah, okay. And again, the awkwardness of it is, by going through the district, which is how we've done it, I think it's still the most efficient way, but it may be a couple districts before there's something. Or we may get to the county-wide items, which is where I think we'll probably have the most discussion, some of the specific venue-type things. So we may very well end up approving things before we go back down and removing things as well. So this, to answer your question, now is probably the best and most efficient time to discuss a district enhancement request. Okay. Understood. So what we're doing right now is we're, or what I'm doing is passing out some pictures of the project scope that I'd like to offer for consideration. It is, and I've talked to Nina Sickler about this project as well, and it did come together actually very recently. We thought it was in the CIP under another project. I don't, actually no, we thought it was in a DSR project for a similar street that's close by, but it turned out that it was not included. This scope was not included in that DSR project, so once we found that out, we had kind of wasted a year thinking this was already, quote unquote, in the pipeline. It turns out that it's not. So this is an area off San Jose Boulevard where there's no drainage, there's no curbs, and the roads continue to look like this after, you know, five minutes of rain. And this is a project that this neighborhood has been waiting for for a long time, and it's back all the way until my predecessor's predecessor. So with that, I mean, my, the number that we have from Ms. Sickler is $250,000 for design and survey, and if you want her to come up and explain why that number is the number, we can. But I'll pause right there because the project is a fairly sizable project near Wolfson. Thank you. So you have $250,000. Is it a this budget year item, or would it be a following year? Sounds like you want it in the current year. Yeah, $250,000 design in this current year, and the only, there's three funding sources basically that I've considered. I just don't know what else is out there. There's the Council of Strategic Planning Dollars, which got swept into, or I guess temporarily moved into reserves ultimately at this point. There's still some left, I believe, in the JRA funding, which also got moved into another contingency. So the Council Auditors, if y'all want to speak to, and then there's the debt refinancing or whatever, I think that's exhausted. But through the chair to Mr. Peterson, if you can go through those. I can make it real easy. We still do have money in the special council contingency, so we did not put all of it away. And that's one of the things, between today and tomorrow we'll be revisiting some of those items. And I guess my question, probably for Ms. Sickler, we have a lot of buckets out there for ditching, resurfacing. I just want to make sure you tell me that you couldn't absorb this $250,000 within one of those countywide buckets you have. Good morning, Nina Sickler Public Works. So for the countywide buckets, there are typically a prioritized list, and that's one of the things I spoke with Councilmember Carlucci about. However, there are likely a few projects within the Councilmember's district that I would work with him to see if he'd like to offset those funds for projects that are going to potentially complete under budget. And so if that needs to be an offline conversation, because I'd like to speak with the mayor's office in terms of have they accounted for any of those project closures already. Okay, thank you. Council Vice President, just to make it easy, I say we just take a motion to put it in the CIP for now, and then let's settle the ultimate funding source if there is an alternative to use something else. And again, I did not make that motion, so a committee member would have to and get a second. But I think that's the most, I got a motion in a second. Okay, I think that is the best way to handle it now. Let's get into the CIP, and if there is an additional funding source, we can allocate against that. But at least it'll be there one way or another. Yeah, no, and I appreciate that, Mr. Chair, and look, I usually come way more prepared on CIP Day to offset it. I've done it every year almost, and I'm fairly confident in my ability to do that. But as the timeline just kind of happened, we got these pictures, we got this notice we found out, so it just got pushed up until today. So I just said, okay, well, let's start the conversation, let's get it added, and we will figure out how to make sure that it's offset one way or the other. Mr. Peterson. Through the Chair, we just need to identify the funding source for this 250, so whether that's the Council Strategic 2.2 million that's still sitting there, or if we pull from Special Council contingency, we just need to identify that. So my desire for now is, first of all, this can be CIP, right? It's a survey, it's not a capital asset, but we can still put this as CIP. Thank you. Through the Chair, it is a CIP item designed for all construction projects are included in the total CIP cost. One thing I also think we should include is a future year's number, so that we're not having an add next year, or whatever your intention of construction is, that it's already baked into what would be included. Okay, so I guess, and again, I kind of want to revisit it to see where we are once we start talking about the remaining Council contingency. Should we just have the motion be debt funded for now in the CIP, and then we can come back to this at a later time if we want to discuss an alternative. So that is motion, 250K in the CIP, debt funded for now, but just remind me to bring this back up for discussion when we do that. But either way, it'll be somewhere. And I'll work with them on that, Mr. Chair, just so it takes it off of your plate. You've got a lot to keep track of over there. You have my word, I'll work with them to find the offset for that. And then, as far as the actual project itself, are we just going to push that down the road and figure out that next year, or do we want to add that as a placeholder for year two? I think, can we just stop at the 250 for now for current year? Because I don't think we're going to have a rough estimate until that survey is done, right? We have the estimate, but we can wait. Okay. Let's do that. We'll pause on that, because I don't want to scare everyone here. All right, thanks. Consider me scared. So, with that, all those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. The amendment passes. I am going to start keep a tally, though, so we are up 1.25 million with our actions so far on the CIP. But again, I think especially when we get to some of the more county-wide lines, we will have a conversation on potential removals from the CIP. Council Vice President, anything else CIP? Nope. Just wanted to say thank you, and I appreciate all the lack of CIP projects in District 3 that can help me find mine. Thank you. All right. District 6, Mighty Mandarin. All right. District 6 has no new projects added, no projects removed, no dollars added to previously approved projects, no projects with changes, and then there's the list of projects that have no or minimal changes. So, that's about as easy as it gets, I think. All right. District 7. All right. District 7 has no new projects being added. Two projects are being removed, the Bill Brenton-Murray Hill branch replacement as well as the Dallas-Graham branch replacement. The library is currently going under conducting a master plan, which they hope to establish what facilities are needed after that plan has been conducted. And so, for now, these two projects are being removed. There is a project that is being deauthorized from the CIP that was not in your prior CIP plan. It's the Ritz Pocket Park of 1.3 million. This project was scheduled to have private funds donated, and those funds have not materialized. There are projects that were funded in prior CIP plans that are now having additional dollars added. The Main Library Collaborative Spaces project at a million. The Downtown Dredging Fine project, which we've already discussed. Riverside Park Duck Pond, 700,000 being added to the current year. The Veterans Community Center, 9 million being added, 400,000 of that in the proposed year. And then the $3 million from the contribution from the Jaguars for the Bay Street pedestrian safety improvements. Flipping to page 39, there are projects that have changes year over year. First is the Brown Eastside branch replacement. This is being reduced based on the library master plan forthcoming. James Weldon Johnson Park, increasing total budget by 750,000. In addition to this, this is related to the million dollars we discussed earlier. 6.75 million for the proposed year. The McCoy's Creek Branch Project, increasing roughly $5 million. With $7.5 million being allocated in next year's CIP. And then the Hamilton Street box culvert extension project, an overall $1 million increase. And then on page 40 is the projects with no or minimal changes year over year. Alright, no one in the queue. Two items I want to make sure we have discussion on. The, on page 38, this Parks Preservation Land, the Ritz Pocket Park, has the city, that $1.3 million that shows as previous funding, is that previous city funding? In other words, have we put $1.3 million against this project already? Through the chair? No, the city has not put money towards that and is being deauthorized. So it's removing the budgetary capacity for that project. Okay, gotcha. I just want to make sure I understand that. And then Council Member Peluso is in the queue. Council Member Peluso, I'll recognize you and then I want to have a conversation on James William Johnson Park. Thank you, Chair. Yeah, I just wanted to re-verify that the 1.3 is being taken out. And the expectation is that gets to help properly fund the duck pond. So that's one of the reasons why that was added on here to finish that project. That's been many years in the making. And I've spoken to folks at the Ritz and Urban League about that pocket park and it frankly wasn't making sense anyway. I do also want to offer up a, how do I put it, olive branch? A give back, a budgetary give back is the proper nomenclature. There are two projects in my district, the traffic signals for the rebuild of Oak Street and Bars, as well as the Stockton Street and Oak Street traffic signal rebuilds. Those are actually being done now and these can be removed from the CIP list. So that would give you an extra 1.6 million. It's my understanding and perhaps Nina can verify that. But it's my understanding that those are getting done at this moment and that this is kind of a misprint in the CIP. So happy to give that back so that my colleagues see that I'm here to be the fiscal responsibly, the fiscal responsible council member that you all know I am. Mr. Peterson, were you following as that real money to reduce the CIP by? Through the chair. So the two items he identified are on page 40. They're the two traffic signal projects towards the bottom, the rebuild Oak Street and Barr Street and Stockton Street and Oak Street. So not, you don't gain dollars in the current year, but it does reduce the overall CIP by 1.6 million as those have, each have 800,000 in out years. See? Okay. So it was, it was an outer year project. So we are lowering, it's a real 1.6 million lowering of the CIP. It does not change our 570 million-ish figure for next year though. Okay. So can I, we need a motion on that, I assume then. Ms. Sickler. Good morning, Nina Sickler Public Works. Those are actually not the ones that we're talking about. There are two on 21st, which are on page 40, 46, and they're each 600,000. So we're close, but those are, those two are 600,000 on 21st Street, and those are the ones that, that traffic engineering was able to use current year's funds to get moved forward in recent legislation. So just wanted to make sure it's clear in terms of the, yeah. Belay my last. Thank you, Ms. Sickler. Counselor Peluso, I think I am thoroughly lost now. We just jumped ahead to a district 10 item. No, it was. No, I'm looking for clarification right now. So if I followed Ms. Sickler's comments, Mr. Peluso and Ms. Sickler were talking about two separate projects. So now my concern is, is Mr. Peluso cutting money on a project that is not being done? Go ahead, Nina. Go ahead. This will do traffic engineer. Through the chair, we have several signal rebuild projects. We have a couple on Oak Street, which are coming up. But currently, the ones we have funded with this year's money are on 21st Street at Liberty and 21st Street at Boulevard. Thank you, Mr. Liddy. Thank you, Mr. Liddy. So yeah, if those are out of my district, then I am not going to suggest that we remove those. So through the chair, one of them is split on District 7 and 10, and then one is strictly in 10. That would still be along the same lines as what Mr. Peluso was talking, but at 1.2 million in out years. Thank you, Mr. Peterson, and I think you are following better than anyone else right now. Could you verbalize the motion that we need to make on this? Sure. Through the chair, it would be looking on page 46, the traffic signal rebuild 21st Street West and Boulevard Street with 600,000 out in 2829. And then the project right below it, traffic signal rebuild 21st Street East and Liberty Street North, 600,000 out in 2829. Removing those two projects from the CIP. I got to move, or someone moved it. Can I get a second? And then Council President Howland, and then I got one more question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will support this motion when it's passed, but I would say let's just wait until we get to District 10 on it. So that, thank you, Council President. That was going to be my question to Mr. Peluso. We started off talking about District 7, and now we're removing two line items in District 10. Maybe Mr. Peluso could find us $1.6 million that he talked about pulling in. Through the chair to the Council President, I will not be doing that. No, it was my understanding that these were projects in my district that I could do. I apologize. I don't want to pick on District 10. If those projects are getting funded, though, I understand what your intentions might be. I just want to make sure that it's shown as a good faith effort from the District 7 Councilmember. All right. Mr. Peluso, did you have anything else before I ask my questions on James Weldon Johnson Park? Nothing more than to say that James Weldon Johnson Park, I've been the liaison for a number of years. We've been working on that project for quite a bit. It's at the footstep of our city hall. It's going to be an incredible project. I ask that we make sure that we execute on this and move it forward. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Peluso. So, a number of comments and concerns on James Weldon Johnson Park. The biggest one is we've made it a million dollars more expensive. Plus, it added $750,000 year-over-year. So, if I'm following correct, the real impact is kind of 1.75 million, I believe. There was a project cost increase of 750, and we lost a million dollars. And the biggest thing is this is not part of the $190 million for downtown parks that are still under construction. So, I'd like to get committee members' thoughts on James Weldon Johnson Park. My understanding is this $8 million, what this is specifically for, Mr. Peterson, they actually haven't started spending on whatever phase of this would be. And if Mr. Joseph is out there, I kind of just want to know, like, what are we doing with the $8 million at this park? So, through the chair, $1 million has been spent. That was related to the grants that will not be received. So, that is a million-dollar sunk cost that has been spent. What you could do is cut the $6.75 that is proposed to be covered or to be funded in the $26.27 budget. The million that has already been spent is gone. Sorry, $1.25, I apologize. $1.25 has been spent. The $6.75 that is included in the budget is all new money. And that's all for this next fiscal year? That's correct. So, the motion would be to either remove or move that money. Council Member Peluso. Thank you, Chair. Just a reminder that the Ritz Pocket Park of $1.3 million is being defunded this year. I would ask that we not... The Jamesville and Johnson Park is going to be an incredible park. I understand that some of the concern might be, hey, you know, dollars have gone up over the past couple of years. I think it's just in the place we are in this economy right now. I don't know if Daryl wants to come up and speak about what the project is going to look like and the work that we're going to do, but... Mr. Joseph? The net increase is, what, $300,000? If you say that the 1.3 from the pocket park can be used to kind of help offset it. Mr. Peterson, my understanding, though, the Ritz Pocket Park, isn't that just deappropriating money because we didn't get the private matching funds that we thought we would? Through the Chair, that's correct. Okay, thank you. So, Mr. Joseph, really just the brief, what are we actually going to do for a $7 million, I guess, not $8 million, since that part's already been spent out in Jamesville and Johnson Park? Good morning, Daryl Joseph, Parks Department. Thank you for the question to the Chair and to the committee. As it relates to Jamesville and Johnson Park, one thing I will say, all of our park projects start with community input. So, we've actually had three open house opportunities where the community can come in and tell us what we want to see in those public spaces. So, we lead and make our decisions, starting with that, to get that level of public engagement. As you can imagine, I mean, there's a lot of infrastructure that has been left for many years. There's restrooms that are still left underground at Jamesville and Johnson Park. There's fountains and pump motors from the fountains that were previously there that have never been removed. So, there's work that's going to happen below grade that needs to happen over time. Over time, you'll start to see settling of that park, which costs more from a project standpoint over time. So, part of this is, again, making the park nicer. We're going to use the tree fund where available to actually green it up. We're going to get rid of the pavers and really provide something that we all can be proud of. Council Member Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Joseph. And I have to say, in looking at the park, I have to agree with the council member for this, Council Member Peluso. So, we can't just look at this as, okay, we're cutting funds. While I understand that we do need to make sure that the budget's in the right place and that 1.3 million was from the pocket park, the Urban League Park, Ritz Park, was contingent upon a match or was a part of a match from my understanding from what he just said. But this James Weldon Johnson Park, Mr. Chair, when I served on the La Villa Gateway Project as well as the Civil Rights Task Force, besides the fact that there are structural things, as Mr. Joseph just said, that need to be handled, this is also a park that's already been slated to be, if I'm not mistaken, from those meetings designed by Walter Hood, which would put us on a very huge national prominence of what this park is supposed to be. And as Councilman Peluso said earlier, this is the entrance to City Hall, but it's also a very historic park and some of the happenings that are there. So I do think we have a responsibility, as I've shared with some of my constituents recently, who've asked, why are we doing capital projects? Why are we spending money on these things? I think as members of this Council, and not just fiduciaries, but keepers of our city and its most pristine real estate, I think we have a responsibility to do what we need to to this park. Remember, the last time this park was fully renovated was 1977. There have been little piecemeal pieces put on the park, so we're talking about 50 years of, in a way, deferred maintenance. This is the time to move it, because we may not have this opportunity in the future. Thank you. We're going to go to Council President, Councilmember Gay, I'm going to say something more, and then Councilmember Peluso. Council President, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think this is a great conversation, because we've got to remember we can't think of one park in isolation. It's kind of like when we talk about affordable housing and we cut 4.8 from Affordable Housing Act, Affordable Housing proposed amount, yet nonetheless, we've approved well over $10 million in affordable housing and $100 million in bonds to support affordable housing developments. You can't just look at one and argue for it without looking at the whole. And in this case, $8 million does seem crazy for that size park. Now, Mr. Joseph makes good comments about some of the structural things that need to be done, but I still don't have an idea of what it is. It sounds to me like it might be over-engineered and we might need to take a value engineering approach to it, just like Emerald Trail. When you look at $190 million in riverfront parks, $150 in Emerald Trail, you looked at River's Edge, Lift Every Voice and Sing, all these parks, you've got to always keep in mind that we're spending hundreds of millions of dollars on these things. And we need to value engineer everywhere we can to make sure that we're not using taxpayer dollars frivolously. And I think this might be a case. $8 million, I'm still not convinced that that park needs $8 million to remediate things that have been done there and put together a park that is impressive and would suit being in front of City Hall well. Maybe you can convince me more, but that's where I stand on this. $8 million does seem like a lot. Councilor Ngay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Through the Chair to Mr. Joseph, the utilities and pumps and all that you were referencing that needs to be removed, have you all line-item budgeted that work? And I really want to focus on the needs and the wants. And so what is the need that we need to do to facilitate that so we don't have any collapsing of the ground or any structures over there? Through the Chair to Councilman Gay, thank you for that. So, yes, we have looked at it from a line-item standpoint. I can get you that actual cost to remove those infrastructure components. But also we have value engineered this project. This project was up to about $12 million, and we've actually reduced it down to make sure this fits within the budget that we have available. So we have gone through that. Again, a lot of this comes from when we actually do these public comments and public opportunities, trying to listen and make sure that we do provide what the citizens are asking for. But there is a balance from that standpoint as well. The other component that we've looked at is the maintenance component to it. So we've actually looked at it from a standpoint of how do we reduce the ongoing maintenance of what this facility, so we won't have some of the plantings that you see at some of the other riverfront parks. Still going to be beautiful, still going to be natural, but there's opportunities that we've already taken to reduce down our cost on this. All right, thank you. Thank you. So I would like to get a better understanding of what our need is to do there. And you mentioned the tree fund. Is that included in this figure or is that in addition? Through the chair, part of that we'll have a better understanding of that once we get into the construction phase of it, what we can use for tree fund. We know we want to be able to use that. There's some water oaks that's within the park that are beyond their useful life that will have to come down. So the ones that we can mitigate for, we will. And where we can actually replant and put larger trees in to take advantage of the tree fund, we'll do that as well. All right, thank you. So to the chair and the committee, I'm more inclined to see what the need is and what we've got to do to keep the park structurally sound. And the tree fund will be something that's up and beyond of what we're looking at here. So that's where I kind of want to look at spending the money. And as the council president said, you know, it's district council members all around. If you put it in the balance scale, all the parks accumulatively is weighted heavy downtown. So we've got to justify that throughout the city as well. So I just think we need to look at a logical approach of what is the actual need. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Councilor McGay. And looking back, for those that were on finance first year, we had a big presentation on the downtown parks. I wish we could go back in time and say include this within the $190 million figure. Because I know, Mr. Joseph, you did some work to get the three downtown parks at the dollar figure when we had the huge year-over-year increase. A couple questions. Mr. Peterson, can you confirm that this is a debt-funded project? To the chair, that's correct. Okay. So, again, it's a debt-funded project. Mr. Joseph, from what you've described, it seems to me unrealistic that you would spend all this money next year anyways. Like, do you envision a point to where you're starting and then spending all the, whatever the incremental was for next year all in that same year? Or is this something we can at least push out a couple years? To the chair, so as it relates to this project, we look to, we've gone through the design phase of the project. Once we go through our bid process, this is about two acres of work. So all of this would be able to be spent within next year's budget. Okay. Thank you. And Council Member Johnson hit on something that's a concern of mine. We just view it different ways. My constituents, far from downtown, see it as an $8 million park spent right outside of City Hall. Whereas I'm in a district with three parks that the biggest one is self-sustaining with the lease we have, and then two other small parks. So, again, I'll entertain any motion to change the timeline, change the cost. It's just, it is a lot of money for another downtown park that is now going to be $198 million that we will have spent on downtown parks. I'm going to go, Council Member Salem, you dropped off. Was that intentional? Okay. So I'm going to go back to Committee Member Johnson, then Peluso, then Council Member Carlucci. Thank you so much. And I must push back a bit against that. While I do understand it in these self-sustaining parks, something that was said earlier is that parks are something everyone can enjoy. And let's be honest. It doesn't particularly specific benefit District 14 or the constituents of people that live in District 14. But James Weldon Johnson Park holds not just historic significance but location significance for the entire city of Jacksonville. It's like the Central Park in New York. If you live in the Bronx or Brooklyn, you may not go to it every day, but having Central Park in New York is central to what New York is. Well, that's our Central Park. It is the Central Park of the city, and it shows who we are in Jacksonville, which is one of the reasons. I'm not going to bring up past actions that happened there, but that's one of the reasons why there were so many eyeballs on it, because that park is Jacksonville. My question, I know through the chair, we spoke, you spoke earlier about the agreement, and I think I saw a preliminary plan. Two questions. One, has an agreement already been reached with the vendor for reformatting whatever it is? I think I saw the plan, if I'm not mistaken. It's been a couple of years ago. Where are we on that plan? I see the chair to Councilmember Johnson. So there's legislation going through City Council currently to move the Friends of James Weldon Johnson Park up under DVI. That should be in committee next week. So, but what about the park plan, though? The park plan? Yeah, so the park plan. Well, the actual restructure, the Walter Hood thing. Yeah, the Walter Hood's designed for James Weldon Johnson Park. Again, we've been working on that design through the park rename. But one of the things that we have at this point is, with the value engineering that's taken place, the final step of that would be providing that final design and then putting the project out to bid. So we actually have a concept of what that park will look like, value engineered, making sure it meets the needs of what we actually want it to do at the reduced cost of what we actually have available to us. Both structurally and aesthetically. Yes, sir. We, I believe Ms. Edgecombe is in the room, but I have a question. I know she was at one point with DuPont. Now she's over with us. Is this, I know that was one of the initiatives of the DuPont Fund. She's with DVI now. DVI, correct. Is there some kind, or do you know, is there something that the fund or another philanthropic organization is helping us to realize the vision of the park? No, sir. So at this point, with Lift Every Voice and Sing Park, DuPont Fund actually played a role as far as providing funding for that location. This location has not had that funding of support. And no possibility they haven't even, because I thought at one point, again, I'm talking about meetings from years ago, but they were looking at helping because that's one of their initiatives. Right. I can follow back up with the DuPont Fund. We don't have an existing agreement with them on this. Gotcha. I may have other questions. Thanks for listening, Mr. Chair. That's what our police say. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for allowing for us to continue talking about this. I just want to take note, and I'm glad that it was brought up, that JWJ does have its own nonprofit that's about to be put into DVI. It was established and created to help make sure that we revision the park, right? This is a carryover from the prior administration, from the Curry administration. Obviously, they saw this park as the doorstep to our government, right? On top of the fact that it's now in a critical location, given the amount of economic success we're seeing in downtown, with the Pearl Street project, everything else. I mean, this is one of those, we've been working on this for years. And I think it's just really a horrible cautionary tale to everyone that we're going to put in all this time and effort and taxpayer dollars, including into the JWJ Park Organization, where we put a lot of public dollars into it over the past several years to help imagine this new vision. And now we're going to cut it off at the last minute. It's just, you know, we've put in so much time and effort already to do it in the last year. And I understand we want to maybe split some of the funding to prior, or I'm sorry, to later out years. But it sounds like we have the means and the contractor and the work done now that we just got to cut the check and the work gets done. And this is a park that we've been working on for a very long time. It has a lot of history in this city. And it's now named after one of the greatest sons of this city. And we want to make sure that it is the incredible realization that we can have it. And I was on the board when we did cut the cost because we knew, and I provided the recommendation at the time to board members, hey, our finance committee and our budget hawks are not going to love this number. So we did value engineer. If anything else, I ask that we do a presentation just on this park so you guys see what it does look like. But this is an incredibly important park. It connects a lot of public buildings together. It connects MOCA together a lot better with what the park, what the vision of the downtown is. It's just, I think we're kind of nickel and diming here. I think you saw what I was trying to do earlier. I was trying to make sure that we cut other costs to make sure you saw the value of making sure we put money into this. But I would encourage us to keep the dollar number now. A lot of work's gone into it. Let it move forward. Thank you, Mr. Peluso. I'll note there's a lot of nickels and dimes to get to $8 million. Councilmember Carlucci, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have served years ago on the Friends of what was then the Hemming Plaza or the Hemming Park not-for-profit organization. So, and my wife, when she was a little girl, used to take the bus. She got dropped off at then Hemming Park and she would go visit her mama who worked at Sears. And so, anybody who's lived in Jacksonville for a long time has a connection to that piece of property. And it does sit right out in front of City Hall. It's symbolic. I would like to ask, through the chair, some questions to Mr. Joseph. And Mr. Carlucci, if I could say one thing real quick. And Councilmember Peluso mentioned to Mr. Joseph about a presentation. I feel like whichever direction we head, you're probably going to be coming to finance pretty soon to give us a presentation. So, just wanted to let you know that as well. But, Mr. Carlucci, go ahead with your questions, too. Thank you. And I hope you don't cut me off at exactly three minutes. Please start the clock. Okay. Ha ha. The, Mr. Joseph, is one of the biggest expenses all of the old, decades-old utilities under the park? Through the chair to Councilmember Carlucci. So, as far as the expense for the utilities and the restrooms, yes, that is one of the line item expenses that is pretty substantial at this point. I mean, again, as you know, when you get into infrastructure, getting underground, there's unknowns. So, we've actually accounted for those unknowns as well. I'm a huge proponent of making sure that we take care of the tax dollar. So, we don't need it. We're not going to spend it. But I don't want to have to come back and say, I need additional. So, some of that is probably crumbling because it is decades and decades old. And then that's what creates a problem in the foundation of the park. Well, correct. So, right now, we're not having settling. But that is something that can take place when you do have those infrastructure. And Public Works can speak to this a little bit more. But when you do have those infrastructure facilities underground, especially with all the development that we're having, there's going to be a lot of tractors and equipment moving on that site. So, those are some of the concerns that we have to address. So, decades and decades ago, back in the 60s and 50s in Hemming Park then, were restrooms. And some of them went underground. So, there are, if you could somehow x-ray below what's underneath the ground there in Hemming Park, I think we would be amazed at just what we would see. And so, I think that is a big concern. And I think that's probably part of what needs to be pulled out of there. The second thing is this park has been piecemealed and redone and band-aided for years. And it was Hemming Park originally. Then it became Hemming Plaza. And then they put all these pavers, or not even pavers, 1960s paver type, large pavers in. And then it wasn't really a park anymore. And it just, it never really looked like it should. And it never has for a long, long time. And because of the historic nature of this park and the way that it connects to our city hall, to the courthouse, to the museum, and to so much of our central business district, I just believe it needs to be done right. And I just hate to see us reduce the amount by two million or three million, and then we can't really do the job right. It needs a lot of underground work done so the work we do on top doesn't eventually begin to crumble, begin to, you know, collapse, and that we get a park that actually looks like it's supposed to be, a park, that it makes sense. And I just don't think it's worth saving a few million dollars just to say that we're not putting everything into another park downtown. This is an important one. They're all important. They're important in your district. They're important in every district. But this, this is a really important park downtown, but it has suffered from so many different versions of it over the years. And, and y'all won't remember this because you probably weren't even born, but there were restrooms, literally, that went down below the ground. So there is no telling how much old cast iron, you know, pipes and infrastructure that is down there that needs to be dug up. And just, it's just got to be kind of redone and let's do it right. So I, I just urge you to try to move past this idea of, of cutting any amount out of here. It's, it's in the CIP as budgeted, I guess. Is that true, Mr. Chairman? Let's just bite the bullet and do it. There's been people, citizens who have been giving and giving and giving hours to see this project through so that we can finally have a finished project. That will last, that will make sense, and that will make our, our community proud. And so that's just my two cents for what it's worth. I don't think it's worth cutting back on again, because then we'll just be right back trying to make it right. And, and Mr. Joseph, is what I'm saying, I guess this is a loaded question, but is what I'm saying make a little bit of sense with regards to the infrastructure I'm referring to, sir? Through this chair to Councilman Carlucci, yes, makes sense. One, one thing I will say, the mayor's office has provided parks with everything that we need to make sure that we're successful. City Council has provided parks with everything that we need to make sure that we're successful. We're talking about $750,000. I'll work with the budget office, the mayor's office, and we'll come up with a game plan to cover or find that $750,000 to make this project whole, if that is of the pleasure of the committee. I'm going to recognize Councilmember Salem and then Councilmember Howland, and then I'll get back to you on that, Mr. Joseph. Thank you, Chair. This kind of, I've been quiet just listening. This kind of reminds me of the discussion we had, I believe it was two years ago, when we found out the riverfront parks had an extra $20 or $30 million in them. And we went through a process, and I'm sure you recall that, Mr. Joseph, where we pulled out 20, I think $20, $25 million out of the, particularly on the metropolitan area and those types of places, and said, you've got to live within your means. From my standpoint, I don't know how you make a decision without a presentation. I want, personally, for me it will be budget night, but I want to understand what is the infrastructure, what is the non-infrastructure, and how is it broken out, et cetera, et cetera. So, my thought would be if you can punt this in some way out of this process to get that presentation, or you do it tomorrow or sometime soon so that everyone can be comfortable with what it is, because I remember when those bathrooms were underneath. You know, as a kid, I remember that, and I'm sure you do too, Matt, so, but I personally am not comfortable today with what we're talking about. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Salem. Council President, I've got one question for Phillip first. We could table this until the second Finance Committee meeting of September, theoretically, correct, or do we have to make a decision before it goes to the substitute? Through the chair, since there's funding attached to it, it's tied to Bill 504, and so while it is in 505 that you'll take up that second meeting in September, I think we need to address it before getting to budget the first meeting in September. But we could have Mr. Joseph come and give us a great 15-minute presentation this coming Tuesday and then include it in the substitute, correct? Mr. Joseph, are you in town on Tuesday? I will be. I didn't cancel some huge vacation, did I? I'll go. Okay. That's where my mind's at, because, again, just making the point, I've said it many times, $198 million in downtown parks investment. And, again, the further away you go from this park downtown, the conversation turns towards more, why are we spending $198 million on downtown parks? I hear that way more than I hear about specific downtown parks and how great they are, which they are great. I've said it before, Riverfront Plaza turned out fantastic, but it's still a highly concentrated, very high dollar amount concentrated in a very small part of our town. Councilman Howland. Yeah. Chair, thank you for saying that as clearly as you did with numbers, $198 million. And, Darrell, thank you for saying maybe we could figure out how to live within the means. Maybe that's what we do here is we say, hey, for whatever was approved in last year in the five-year plan, which you can actually see if you turn to page 55 and you look at Riverfront Plaza, Shipyards West, that's 153 of the 198 that Mr. Landon has mentioned. Whatever we approved in last year's plan, that's extraordinarily generous of taxpayers to give almost $200 million towards fresh rehabilitation of our city's parks. Maybe we just, moving forward, live within that means. If there's something that has to change, if inflation drives cost increases, or if there's something that has to be overengineered, well, we value engineer somewhere else. And we live within that extraordinarily generous means of $198 million that taxpayers have already given. And so that would lend itself to Darrell's comment that let's look at it and see where we can find that $1.75 million increase for James Weldon Johnson from another place. Thank you. Councilman Johnson, and then I'll wrap it up. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wasn't going to say anything, but I had to push back a little bit on what you said. With all due respect, maybe you need to look at other sides of town, maybe not just your side of town or my side of town, but all over the entire city. I've traversed all 875 square miles going to CIP meetings and other things, and to me, I don't hear that same sentiment. The sentiment, as was said earlier by Councilmember Carlucci, I do remember coming to Woolworths as a child and coming to the places in downtown Jacksonville. While there is a historic nostalgic element, I mean, come on, we have one of the great sons of this city, Congressman Charlie Bennett, who is enshrined in this park. We're not on the edge of economic development. This is the center of economic structure in our city. So for us to just look at it as yet another number or yet another park, I still hear people who are proud of downtown. I can't tell you how many people I hear. Now, I don't know what you hear, wherever you're going, but I can't tell you how many people that I hear say, why couldn't we have kept the Jacksonville Landing? People who live on the edges of town, but there was a pride about having this riverfront space that was iconic for Jacksonville. We don't have that anymore. James Weldon Johnson Park is now that central place that all of us can be proud of. I don't know whether you went to the fireworks this year, but I did. I was there, and I can't tell you the pride of people from cross-sections of Jacksonville, from the beaches to Baldwin, from Mandarin to Middleburg, who came in, and they were there, and they said, wow, it's amazing to be downtown. And kudos. I see Alex Alston in the audience. Great job on the fireworks this year for the fourth, our sesquicentennial. But I will tell you, seeing people who were proud to be in Jacksonville, to be downtown, that's what development is about. And so for me, it's not just about saying, I've got to cut it. The money has to be there. We've got to look at the people component. And to have a Jacksonville that has this kind of thing downtown, we are asking people to live downtown and work downtown and businesses to stay downtown. Let's make sure that we continue to invest downtown. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, and again, I said it, that park turned out great, and yes, I was there watching the fireworks. All right, so this is what we're going to do. I don't want to take any action right now. Mr. Joseph, it's going to be a very long finance meeting on Tuesday already. Because we're going to have all the budget bills up for action. Ten minutes, could you tell us, hey, it's not just there's the making it pretty part, but here's the infrastructure part of the park. Because to Councilmember Gay's comments, I think that's a big part of the cost. If I follow Councilmember Carlucci, what he was saying about the historic infrastructure. So I would like you to lead with, hey, here's the infrastructure part of it that needs to be fixed. And, oh, by the way, this is the design that that's going to include. At the same time, Council President Howland mentioned year over year, I think it is the $750,000 you were talking about. And so similar to like what we did with the three other downtown parks, maybe we discussed should we cap it at what the prior year's capital plan was. So just think in your mind, what does it look like if we said, hey, we're keeping you flat to the prior year, which I believe is the $750,000 number you were referencing. All right. That was a lot of discussion and no action. So. Thank you. Councilmember Peluso, you good? All right. And I never thought I'd say this, but you are invited to finance on Tuesday. All right. Are we on District 8 now? Anything else? District 7. All right. District 8. All right. District 8 is on page 41. There is a new project, and this is reflective of actions you took earlier in the meeting related to stormwater funds, adding that $281,923 for Benton Street drainage. No projects are being removed. No projects that were added, no projects added that were funded in prior CIP plans. There are four projects that have changes year over year. First is the Angel Lakes sidewalk project, increasing by $2.1 million to be funded in the 27-28. Budget, the Armsdale Road project, increasing $500,000 to be funded next year. Dinsmore area sidewalks being increased $3.4 million in future years. And then the New Berlin Road that we discussed in Council District 2. Flipping to page 42 are the three projects that have no or minimal changes year over year. Well, District 8 was a little easier than District 7, I have known in the queue. All right. District 9 on page 43, no new projects added, no projects removed, no projects added that were funded in prior years. There are two projects that have changes year over year. First is the McCoy's Creek Branches project, which we did discuss or covered in Council District 7, increasing by about $5 million. And then the widening of Lane Avenue North, that project is going down in budget, roughly $1.2 million. Funding was transferred to the fairgrounds relocation project during this year out of this project. And so that's now reflecting that change. And then there are projects on pages 43 and 44 with no or minimal changes. And no one in the queue for District 9. District 10 has a new project, the T.K. Stokes Boat Ramp project. This is a fine grant or a fine grant project, so that will have funding in the proposed year. No projects are being removed. A project is being added that was funded in prior year, $7 million in the budget for the Brentwood branch replacement, library replacement. Projects with changes, Lonnie Miller Regional Park going down in funding just a little bit in the 27-28 budget. There's the widening of Lane Avenue again. And then Fire Station 67, decreasing $1.5 million, similar to what we saw in another Council District. Property is being provided by parks, so there's no land that needs to be purchased and deappropriation of $1.5 million. And flipping over to page 46 are the projects that have no or minimal changes year over year. Thank you. I have no one in the queue. So we are at District 10 now, and that's where we said we would table these two items that Mr. Ladue talked about. Ms. Clark-Murray's not here, but it sounds like we're reasonably safe removing this money based on what Mr. Ladue said, so we're not really canceling a project that's been completed, is my understanding from when he got up there. Okay, so with that, again, this is essentially administrative, although it will have a real impact. Could I get a motion to remove traffic signal rebuild on 21st Street West and Boulevard and to remove the rebuild on 21st East and Liberty Street North? I got a motion and a second. Council Member Johnson, you're in the queue. I just want to identify, you said Council Member Clark-Murray, I think you meant Council Member Pittman. I apologize, you are correct. And I said her earlier when we were talking about it when Mr. Peluso was down here, so I apologize. So it's Ms. Pittman that can't be mad at us for doing this because this is administrative. So we have no one in the queue. She'll still be given. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. We have all ayes except Council Member Johnson, who was a nay. Council Member Miller, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Through the chair, I just wanted to, and he doesn't have to come forward, but Mr. Ladue, are there others that are in a similar situation to what we currently just went through, you know, that are being funded and taken care of in these projects you're mentioning? Are there any others in any of the districts? Okay. Just wanted to check. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. That is a great question. I also want to point out that right now we are at a number that matches what the CIP was proposed to us at. We've essentially offset. Again, although it was administrative, that is a real $1.2 million that will come out of the CIP. District 11. All right. This is my second favorite CIP plan of the day. All right. District 11. No projects added, no projects removed, no projects funded in prior years with additional dollars, no projects with changes, and one project that is staying the same. I do want to point out, Council Member Arias, he did a lot of work with his CBA dollars on his parks, so I think that was a big need he had for his community, and so I appreciate him. I think he was one of the first ones, as soon as it was available, had multiple pieces of legislation that impacted multiple parks in his district, so I look forward to shortly using my CBA dollars to do something similar. Council District 12. Page 48. No new projects added. There is a project being deauthorized, $2 million. The project is complete, and the remaining funds are being moved to the 711 Liberty Street renovation project. Projects that were funded in prior years now having additional dollars, the CESA wetlands center project, equestrian center, having $8 million added in the current year, and then the forest trail drainage improvements, $300,000 in the current year. There are additional changes on page 48 for Council District 12 projects. First is the CESA megasite rail spur project, which we discussed when we were going over the CESA commerce center fund. Logistics lane road extension, you handled that earlier with a recommendation. Tyee Brown regional park improvements, we discussed that when we were talking on the solid waste funds. Chafee Road, that reduction there is related to the mobility fees not being fully available as proposed, and then the old Middleburg-Brandonfield road project being reduced for the lack of mobility fees. Flipping to page 50 are the projects with no or minimal changes. Thank you. And I do not see Council Member White in the CESA. I assume we are all good, and we'll go on to 13. All right, page, oh, we've already done 13. Oh, I'm sorry, we're on 14. That's right. It seems like forever ago. All right, 14. All right, page 53, District 14, no new projects added, no projects added that were funded in prior years. There are two projects that have changes. The first is Collins Road, Blanding to Pine Verde. The change is the funding being pushed out a year, actually two years, the corresponding 6.7 and 8.1 million. And then we see Old Middleburg, again, as that splits Council District 12 and 14. And then the one project that has no or minimal changes, the upstream Fishing Creek drainage project. Okay, and I do not see Council Member Johnson in the queue, so we can go on. All right, that takes us to projects that are classified as downtown projects. This is on page 54 of your handouts. New projects being added are both within the Vistar Veterans Memorial Arena, 815,000 for freight elevator modernization and a million for HVAC upgrades. There is the project that we discussed earlier that was removed from the CIP, the 500,000 for Jacoby Hall at the Performing Arts Center. If you wanted to add that back, that would be an action needed. No projects are added that were funded in prior years. And then two projects with changes, concourse flooring replacement at the Vistar Veterans Memorial Arena, which that funding is being reallocated up to the two projects up above, the freight elevator and HVAC upgrades. And then the North Bank Riverwalk bulkhead project decreasing by about $6 million based on bids received by Public Works. On page 55, you have projects with no or minimal changes, and then that also carries over to page 56. Council Member Johnson. Forgive me, Mr. Chair, and just for some clarification, the funds for the Jacoby Hall project, is that split now over two years? Is that what I'm seeing? I'm a little confused on that. Yeah, I'll let Mr. Peterson explain. Long story short, there was a budgeting error, and we approved this last year, and it was not included in the CIP. However, we do have to take a motion to put it in the CIP now. So I was going to ask for a motion, but I'll let Mr. Peterson explain if I missed any of the pertinent facts there. So let's move to put this in the CIP, please. Thank you. We got a motion and a second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. The motion passes. And again, it's a huge capital plan, right? Not everything's going to be 100%, so that was something that was brought up to me at our pre-meeting to put back in, so the symphony has what we committed to them last year. All right, so I did have one thing to point out. So if you look on page 55, what the council president was alluding to, and I think it was two years. I can't remember if it was under the Salem or Howland tenure as finance chair. It's all kind of blurred together. But we basically said, okay, there was a huge year-over-year increase in the cost of the downtown parks. I want to say it went from a little over $100 to $190 million. And if you note that Shipyards West and Riverfront Plaza, year-over-year, no change, because at the time we said, okay, we are going to engineer and build what we can within. And we're going to let you keep the big year-over-year increase, but you're going to finish them within that new figure. And that's what Mr. Joseph has kept his word on and delivered one of them already, and then Shipyards West and Met Park remain to be done. But I'm sure they'll be great as well. All right, no one in the queue. We went through downtown fast. With no one in the queue, we'll move on then. Mr. Chair, I don't want to stir up a conversation that doesn't need to be had, but you had a specific question on a project on page 56, maybe no longer relevant. Oh, yes, the Emerald Trail. Thank you, Mr. Peterson. So, again, the Emerald Trail, my understanding is this is, I believe, for Section 9. We talked about this yesterday, Mr. Peterson. This basically goes from the river around the stadium, that area. It is completely disconnected with any Emerald Trail segments that are going to be JTA-funded and managed, correct? Okay. So that was my question, the reason I asked Mr. Peterson that question. Thanks for reminding me, because I want to share this with the committee. Obviously, the local option gas tax, we've been talking about that a lot. I think Council Member Diamond is going to lead the way on how would we reprioritize the projects that were previously approved. So, Navi, Emerald Trail, a few others. So, I just want to make sure we weren't giving money to something that also had to be JTA-funded to completion. So, Mr. Peterson answered my questions on that $30 million piece. There's also no change. This is the original budget. And I don't know if the right person is here. Maybe it's you, Ms. Sickler. As far as you are aware, we are still on budget with this section of the Emerald Trail. Okay, great. Because I can tell you it would be hard to probably get more money, get consensus to get more money from the city for that portion. But for now, no motion on the Emerald Trail. We're keeping it in there for the full project cost of $30 million for the city's portion. Council President. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I think this is segment nine of the trail, if I'm correct, with a little bit of a spur to just cover the creek to get down to the riverfront path. Okay, the ones that I've been mostly focused on are the outline spurs of the Hydra that is the Emerald Trail, and that's four, six, seven, and eight. So, I'm happy with this one as long as Public Works can verify for me and everyone else involved in Emerald Trail that this is not $30 million that's going to, you know, I always say that we need an Emerald Trail. We don't need a trail line with Emerald, so this isn't going to be over-engineered, and this is best estimate, best value at $30 million. Yeah, if you don't mind, just so you put on the record, Ms. Sickler, that this is for segment nine, which, again, I would consider, I think we've talked about six, seven, eight, and four are kind of out there, and they're not started. This one has started or is about to, and it's much more core to the stadium, sports complex, all that stuff. Agreed, and I guess my question is reasonable estimates, line-item estimates, and have you appropriately valued and engineered this $30 million spend? Nina Sickler, Public Works, so appreciate the conversation about this segment. Yes, this is segment nine. This is not part of the JTA's responsibility. This happens to also be the segment that goes behind the proposed Veterans Center. So this is an anticipated section of the trail that is designed, that will be handled by the city, and we will be working very closely with our designers to make sure that it is designed to budget and that we stay within the funding that's allocated to us. Thank you. And let me switch screens back to the queue real quick. Councilman Carlucci. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was distracted for a minute handling a business situation, but on the Emerald Trail, is the Finance Committee and the budget fixing to come back later, though, to address the Emerald Trail budget? Is that what I'm hearing? No. As of now, we are approving what the mayor submitted in its entirety in the CIP. Okay. Unless you want us to remove it. No, I don't. But I have to say, at times I hear comments about, you know, that not being a priority or taking money away from that, and I just wanted to make sure, because there are actually businesses along the trail and developments along the trail that are in the planning stages in anticipation of the trail being built out. And I just don't want to see us cut the legs out from underneath that. And also, as an at-large council member who knows the area where all the trail goes, that that trail is not only going to provide mobility and connecting those neighborhoods together, just by its nature of cleaning the areas up where the trail will go, it's going to really greatly clean up a lot of those urban core areas. That's going to bring great relief to those neighborhoods. And that's all I wanted to say. So I just wasn't sure where we had headed while I was trying to take care of an insurance claim for a customer. Thank you. Thank you. And I want to say myself, Council Member Salem, and the Council President have probably been the three most vocal on the Emerald Trail. And so if I could just summarize every conversation I've heard over three years, it's support through the segments that are either already done under construction and close to the core, it's segments six, seven, four, and eight is where the concern lies, because those are the ones that had a large portion, if not all, local option gas tax funded by JTA. And so the conversation is going to be, hey, can we use local option gas tax to fund operations? I mean, we're talking about an entity. They had to take out a line of credit to become current on their accounts payable, which is not a good thing, about the most scary financial thing I've seen since I've been here on council. So that's going to be the conversation that Council Member Diamond is going to spearhead. Can we use this to keep JTA solvent? And again, six, seven, four, and eight are the segments that there will be a lot of discussion on. And, Ms. Sickler, my understanding is six, seven, four, and eight, none of them have started yet? Design money. So for those segments by JTA, they have completed what's called the Project Development Environmental Study, which is the NEPA study required for federal eligibility. In addition, they've moved to 30% plans. So they are at the beginning stages at this moment. Thank you, Ms. Sickler. And, again, so we still are able to make a go or no-go decision because the only thing that has been spent is design. Nothing's mobilized. And, again, this will be not a decision or discussion we're going to have next finance committee meeting. But I do know that Council Member Diamond said he was going to try to work on it with some expediency so we can get that situated out. Council Member Carlucci, sorry, my cue went away. Okay, that's all right. And I don't want to belabor this, but I just want to also say that before this group was on the – some of this group was on the council under the Curry administration, and we were debating the gas tax, I went to almost all the town meetings supporting the gas tax, as I pledged I would to Mayor Curry, because he needed that gas tax, because he needed that gas tax in order to complete some of the legacy that he wanted to leave in place as a mayor. And that was my pledge to him, and I kept it. And as a part of my support of that, I put out – put forth the amendment that allowed half of that gas tax to be used towards the Emerald Trail, which, in fact, helped the gas tax to pass, because I took it from the Skyway portion and the Navi portion of the gas tax. That gained huge support amongst the public at the time, and so that was a commitment that I made to the people, that those dollars would be used for that. So you can see where I'm coming from when I made that amendment, and within 15 minutes, the mayor publicly supported my amendment, and that's when the council supported the amendment. I'm not – I don't think it was probably 19 to nothing, but it was pretty darn close. So I just don't think we need to be flippant with that. That's maybe not be the right word, that the Emerald Trail, that we just take that money away, because – and that was one reason I asked the JTA the other day if they had to, you know, where else they had to go in order to keep their operations running, and the answer I got did not seem to reflect that they would have to, you know, take money from any of their projects to keep their operations going, that they were going to work their way through it. That was the idea that I got, and I asked that question simply because it went back to my original support of doubling the gas tax and towards the Emerald Trail. And at the time, I was supporting NAVI. Now, if their board wants to reconsider some of that, I mean, I think we have to listen to their board first. That's why consolidation made them an independent authority, not that we can't weigh in, but their board is the one that makes policy. So I just want to be mindful that we remember that as we move forward with this discussion. Thank you. Councilman Salem. Thank you, Chair. I supported the amendment that Councilmember Carlucci was talking about in Lenny Curry's second term. However, the world's changed. We lost the federal dollars. I think we all were shocked at the position of JTA, as we heard a few days ago. I particularly like the Council President's position of let's having JTA get involved in our accountability committee, and so we better understand their position. But the first priority is we've got to get JTA on solid financial footing. I mean, you can't do anything beyond that. And just the world's changed. I like the Emerald Trail. Would love to see it completed. If I were them today, I would probably cut back on any expenses on 6, 7, 4, and 8. I mean, I won't be here. Councilmember Carlucci won't be here. Several of us won't be here. But I think there's a message being sent that we're very concerned about those segments and their viability long term. So just like we would in our own household, maybe you hold back a little bit until this becomes better clarified by the position of JTA and their board, et cetera. It only makes sense to me, and that's what I would do. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. And I'll wrap it up. And, again, that's a great way of putting it. The world has changed. When that vote was taken, JTA was solvent, right? I mean, it's – and Councilmember Gay mentioned it, too, on Friday. I was frankly surprised how little media attention that conversation got with JTA. But in a year, they have used all their reserves, and they are paying their accounts payable, which went $15 million late. They're paying their accounts billable on a line of credit right now. So with every repayment to that, they're now paying interest on their accounts just to become current in their accounts payable. So, again, I think the goal is to see what are our options with the local option gas tax. And I do hope that's something that, Councilmember Salem, the committee you chair, could potentially be a big part of this to help us figure out as well. Councilmember Johnson. I certainly understand what you're saying, Mr. Chair, that the world has changed. I was the JTA liaison during that time. But I also understand that we made a promise to this community about the Emerald Trail. And while they – JTA is not the only element here, right? We're also talking about groundworks. We're also talking about other organizations that have really put and invested into this. And so I also do recall if I – and I'm not – I don't have the specifics in front of me. I wish I did about the grant funds possibly – there's a possibility for the restoral of those grant funds to come back because there were just some language in the initial grant that there were issues about. I say all that to say if we're going to put these things in, while I certainly respect Dr. Salem and everyone and their position funding-wise, I do think this is a proud project for Jacksonville. And I just want to make sure that we are doing the right thing and not looking at it as just stripping these funds away because if indeed – I know a lot of this is because, you know, the world has changed and amendment that we could pass, which I don't believe it will. But regardless of that fact, if we are looking into this, now is the time to make these kind of expenditures so that we are prepared and we can at least make manifest on what we said we would do as the council. Thank you. All right. On to buildings. Mr. Peterson. All right. COJ buildings on page 57. Five new projects added. 7-11 Liberty Street building renovation at $5 million. The JSO warehouse consolidation project that we've discussed at $10 million. Water Street garage maintenance and repairs, $1 million in 26-27 as well as $1 million in 27-28. The public safety and security infrastructure project at the courthouse that the chief judge spoke about, $1 million in 26-27. And then the public safety and security infrastructure project on the first floor of the Ed Ball building, $2 million in 26-27. There is one project with additional funding that was approved in prior years. That's $500,000 for the Ed Ball chilled water conversion project being included in 26-27. Flipping to page 58, there are two projects that have changes year over year. The first is the building inspection build-out of $360,000 that is being included in 26-27. We'll touch on that later today when we get to building inspection. But that is a reduction, if you will, from the project below, the Ed Ball building fire marshal's plan review. So, it's just a switch between those two projects. Then there are four projects with no or minimal changes for the COJ buildings. Council Member Salem, are you on buildings? You are recognized. Thank you, Chair. Can someone, the JSO Warehouse Consolidation, $10 million, can someone give me a minute explanation of that? Is that the move from Bay Street to Florida Blue and all that stuff, or is there something else involved here? Mr. Weinstein. Thank you. Through the Chair, JSO has a number of warehouses throughout the area for cars, for material, for evidence, and what have you. There's a plan to consolidate all of the warehouse activity they have into one warehouse. The $10 million is to purchase that warehouse, the one that will house and get them out of the multiples that they're in with more capacity than they have now. Through the Chair, will that be in the downtown area? Do you anticipate that, Mr. Weinstein? Yes. Well, it's how you'd find downtown. Definitely not core downtown. If you take sort of Beaver Street going west, not too far west, yes. Okay. Has this price been firmly estimated, or is this sort of a placeholder and we're going to estimate it at some point? I had specifically asked that for fear that the price would change, but they have an agreement, JSO does, with the owner that that price will not change. So that is, I'm sorry, through the Chair, that's to purchase the building only. Is that $10 million to purchase that building? Yeah, I think the ultimate goal of all of the consolidation of it is probably twice that. I was going to say there's going to be expenses. It's the start of what needs to be done for them to be able to adequately handle all the warehousing that they do of a variety of different things. I'm sorry, Chair. Are the buildings they're using now, are they city-owned buildings? Are they paying leases on those spaces presently? I think some are and some aren't. Okay. Okay. That just seems like a lot. I can try to get someone here tomorrow from JSO to give more details if you want, Councilman Salem. It'd be helpful to me. I'd like to hear more about it personally. You know, it's up to y'all. Councilman Gay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Along that same lines that what Dr. Salem was referring to is I'd like to see what, you know, we're getting out of leases of buildings, seeing what we're going to be saving, just the total accounting that we're looking at here and what the projections are. And so, yeah, if we could get somebody to bring us this information, that would be helpful. Thank you, too. Sure, and they did walk me through it, but it feels like weeks ago, but I will reach out to Tyler Rappert. I think he's probably the right person to see if he can get us some additional information, so it's fresh in everyone's mind. Also, as a reminder, that is going to be handled through one of the two bills that I'm going to be introducing with some of the pieces of legislation that we broke out from the original budget proposal that I'll be submitting. That'll be then simultaneous running with the budget process. Councilmember White, you dropped out. Did you want to say anything? Yes, I just wanted to add to what I remember. I think they're out of space also now on warehousing. This will solve that problem because they have to, sometimes if it's a murder case, they have to keep a car or whatever for four or five years. It cannot be disturbed, so they are out of space, and this will fix that problem. I'm going to go to Mr. Peterson real quick. The chair just wanted to throw this option out there. The bill that you'll be introducing will cover this, so that will be up the second cycle in September. If you wanted to have a prolonged discussion at that point as well. Just wanted to make you aware. Councilor Salem, since it is not an urgent item as it relates to our bill that we will have the substitute and finance committee next week, let me see if I can get them to come give a brief presentation at a September finance committee meeting. If I can just add one point, it makes complete sense versus having nine or ten places where you've got records and not sure where everything, to put it into one space. Just want to understand better what they're giving up. As Councilmember Gay said, what leases are we giving up? What city property are we giving up? What's happening to those pieces of property? Are we going to sell them? I mean, just a lot of questions that I haven't heard anything about, personally. I'll ask my executive council assistant to remind me to put that on my list of things to add to the agenda in September. I think we're done with buildings and on to countywide, Mr. Peterson. And then I'm told lunch is here, so once we are wrapped up with this, I think we will take a break and then get on with our afternoon session later. I think we are going to be done. We're going to wait for lunch until we're done with CIP. We're down to a couple pages. Okay. All right. Page 59 is the countywide projects. There are three projects being added. The first is the master plan for the libraries to better identify location expansion and opportunities of serving new customers at $750,000. And then two projects that are being funded from CDBG dollars that you've already approved, just being included in the five-year CIP. Flipping to page 60, there are a number of projects with changes year over year. So I'll try to hit those. The major outfall ditch restoration, a million dollars being added to each of the next three years for a $3 million increase. Roadway resurfacing going up roughly $30 million, a $10 million increase each year. Roadway safety project increasing $250,000. Sidewalk construction new going up $500,000. And most of these are just general CIP items that you would kind of expect additional dollars to be added. Sidewalk maintenance construction increasing $179,000 being included in next year's budget. Sidewalk curb construction and repair, that's roughly a $12 million increase. What was planned for $2 million in each of the out years increasing to $6 million each year. St. John's River bulkhead assessment restoration, a million dollar increase with some of the funding moving up in the years. Traffic calming increasing about $700,000. Traffic signalization countywide going up $500,000. And with the majority of that in next year's budget, the water wastewater system fund, also known as septic tank phase-out, increasing $30,000. And that is a $15 million, or sorry, $30 million, a $15 million increase in 26-27 and a corresponding $15 million increase in 28-29. And then drainage system rehabilitation, increasing a total of $5 million scattered throughout the next three years. On page 61 and 62 are projects that have no or minimal changes year over year. Thank you. I have no one in the queue. I did want to point out that there was general consensus on a bigger road resurfacing budget, so we were all appreciative to see that being built into the budget. I'd like to welcome Council Member Carrico, who will be joining us for the five minutes before we break on lunch. Council Member Carrico, we did review District 4 already. No changes were made. I didn't know if you were here due to that. Okay. All right. I have no one in the queue. What's left on CIP? The only thing that is left, Mr. Chair, is pages 63 through 75. And there's no actions for you to take, but this is the schedule of projects that still have funding, previously approved funding, still available for these projects that the departments can move forward with, but wanted to put this in front of you. Don't expect you to read it today, but if you wanted to peruse it, just to make you aware of what is still out there. Thank you. I definitely encourage all district councilmen and women to review that list in detail. I did have a conversation with Ms. Collins. Council Member Howland, if you remember our first year together, that was one of the questions. How many projects are out there that are done, they finished under budget, and we could just take that money back and use it somewhere else or save it. It is a quarterly process now that they go through to make sure projects really are closed and the money taken back if needed. And you're also recognized. Yeah. Now's a great time for that. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Everyone might recall that the finance chair, Layden, was generous to allow CPACs to come present ahead of the first two budget meetings, sorry, the first two finance committee meetings of August. And CPACs one, two, five, and six presented. And CPAC one specifically presented two CIP items that relate to public works and an additional CIP item related to parks. And CPAC six presented a CIP item related to parks. I'd like to, if possible, call up Ms. Sickler. CPAC one, which is urban core, talked about some drainage issues they had. And I wanted to see if this is reflected in this 586 million of CIP. The drainage issues, they had two things. The drainage issues first were related to Davis Street North, 8th Street West, Davis Street North, 18th Street West, and Davis Street and Boulevard. Have you been able to find out in a short period of time whether these are on the list? And if not, is this something you could take home and come brief us? And, you know, I think we're going to get a chance to make any further changes to the CIP budget in the next finance committee meeting, right, when it's up for action. So through the chair to Council President Howland. So thank you for sending me the list of CPAC requests. And we have reviewed them this morning. The drainage projects, we have been made aware of those, and we're looking to work through some of the technical issues associated with making those happen. So we can provide additional detail separately. But those are being evaluated. Fantastic. And then the resurfacing projects, Perry Street was a project that was on our list. Great. And so we will be looking at how, you know, how we can potentially implement that based on available funding. And we will be looking at Clark Street as well. So thank you for that. Fantastic. Thank you, Nina. Those, the resurfacing you mentioned were the second recommendation of CPAC 1. And that was specifically from SPAR, where they said repaving of Perry Street and Clark Street. So thank you for acknowledging those. So we can look forward to maybe next finance committee meeting, hearing a little bit more on where they are on the priority list. We will put together a briefing of what those are and where we are status-wise. Thank you very much. And then if Mr. Joseph is here, I'd like to, if he's still here. Thank you, sir. I don't know if you've had a chance to go through the list with your team yet. But CPAC 1 had a recommendation on Brentwood Park revitalization. I don't know if you've had a chance to look at that one and how it figures in your five-year CIP plan. Through the chair to Council President Howland, as relates to Brentwood Park, we've actually done a tremendous amount of improvements, new playground, new walking trail, lighting. So a lot of the things that I saw in their requests have either already been completed or in the works already. Fantastic. And then finally, CPAC 6 recommended renovations at Ray Green Park. Did you have a chance to look at that one? Through the chair to Council President. So as it relates to Ray Green Park, one of the recommendations was building a new building for community meetings and things along those lines. Adjacent to Ray Green Park, there is a library that actually has meeting space that we responded back that there would be an opportunity to use that as opposed to building a new facility at Ray Green. From a recreational standpoint, there's a school, so we are exploring to see if there's an opportunity for joint use agreement for that gym as opposed to building new infrastructure on park property. Fantastic answer. Thank you for hearing the CPACs, for evaluating with you and your departments for how you can meet their needs. And if there's anything else you want to add, we have next Tuesday a finance committee where you can bring it up. Thank you both so much. Mr. Chair, thank you. And thank you, Council President, for the idea. I think we can safely say we gave every CPAC an opportunity to come present. We heard their feedback. We confirmed with Parks and Public Works if it was on their radar as well. And we will have another opportunity if those two department leaders bring something to our attention between now and next week. Councilman Salem. Thank you, Chair. I wanted to just clarify a statement that you made because it's very important to me and it came up during the Doge effort. On a quarterly basis, Public Works, Parks, et cetera, are now reporting on projects that are completed and they're looking at what's left, dollars that are left over in those accounts and that's being accounted for. Is that correct? Ms. Collins, you got so close to not having to speak. So close. Through the Chair to Councilman Salem. So we are doing a project closure process quarterly where they're bringing to me the projects that they believe are ready to close and then we're going through that full process which you found out was very cumbersome with going through accounting, making sure everything's really paid, but they are getting put on a memo once we find out if they are truly closable, but we are looking at it quarterly. Perfect. Thank you. All right. With that, so before we wrap up CIP, again, I said my goal was, I didn't want to repeat it last year, I want to stay at or below what came to us. By my math, we are pretty much flat. I'm not counting the symphony because that was, I mean, that would have happened one way or another. I think we added about 1.2 and we took out about 1.2 by my math, if that is directionally correct. So again, I think that's a great place to be because I think as a finance committee, if anything else is brought by other council members, we can say, hey, we went through CIP day and we are pretty much where we began. Minimal changes made to the CIP plan. I think there is a chance we may take 750,000 out once Mr. Joseph gets back to us to see if there's a way we can keep that budget flat from year to year, like we did the riverfront parks as well. But either way, we are close to what we got submitted. And I think it's a CIP that addressed many of the issues that we wanted to attack in the next couple of years. Anybody else in queue before we take a lunch break? All right. So let's have a goal of starting again at noon. And we are completely done with the CIP book, I believe. And we'll be continuing with the other stuff in the afternoon. Good afternoon, everyone. We'll go ahead and get started. We are at quorum as a committee because it's only four of us. We have more visiting council members, I think, than finance committee members right now. Councilman Carlucci, you are recognized. And then we'll get into the agenda. We're actually completely switching packets now. We should be on page one of meeting number five, non-CIP related portion. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Pearson. Sorry, Mr. Parks. Yep. All right. Through the chair to the committee, I'm actually going to spend a second on the table of contents just to outline how we're going to talk through these. The first two funds we're going to look at are the city venues, city, and legends. This is the non-stadium portion. We are actually moving those into two new funds based on the renovated stadium whenever the new lease kicks in. And so those will come up. The stadium portion will come up on pages 14 through 17. So whenever I get into this first fund, we're going to talk about the first two funds together, and then we'll talk about the rest. So all right. So on page three of our handout, page 257 of our budget book is the city venue, city side. As I mentioned just a second ago, this is the non-stadium portion. Legends Global is the entity that manages our seven public facilities, which does include the stadium, the arena, the ballpark, the performing arts center, the Prime Osborne Center, the Ritz Theater and Museum, and the Flex Field. That contract was approved via Ordinance 2022-321-E, and it goes, in fact, through September 30th, 2027 with one additional five-year renewal period. This fund contains the costs directly paid by the city-related venues. Once we get to the next fund will be the pieces paid by Legends Global. Within the revenue, the charges for services are going from $100,000 to zero due to the revenue for the parking fees at the stadium being moved to the newly created stadium city fund of 47106. Miscellaneous revenue is going from $7.5 million down to $900,000, again, due to moving the stadium lease rent into the new fund. The decrease was partially offset with lease and naming right increases per their contracts for the ballpark and the arena. The investment pool earnings is going down from $200,000 to zero based on there not being enough cash available within the fund. Accounting is working on making some corrections, so hopefully that will be actually fixed in FY26-27. Transfers from other funds is going down from $34.5 million to $10.3 million to balance the revenue and expenditures within this fund. The decrease is mostly due to moving the stadium operations out of this fund, and within that fund there will also be some decrease due to less events going on. Within on page four, we have the expenditures. Internal service charges is going down from $310,000 to $110,000, primarily due to decreases in computer systems and maintenance due to a change in allocation methodology previously discussed. Since there are no employees in this fund, there are minimal charges. There will be some adjustments to this in the next year's allocation. Insurance costs and premiums allocation is going from $4.3 million down to $1.4 million, mostly due to the property insurance costs of the stadium being moved to the new fund. Professional contractual services is going from $1 million down to $887. This is a decrease of $142,000 in contractual services for the stadium that were moved out. The remaining pieces is mainly the budget for the contract with Legends for the non-stadium piece, which has a fixed incentive fee of $160,000, which is up to 3% of the contract, and then the performance fee of $727,000, budgeted at 2.6% of the total revenue. It's capped at $820,000 whenever you combine it with the stadium portion. Other operating expenses are going down from $6.8 million to $4.3 million due to electricity and water expenses for the stadium being moved to the newly established funds. The remaining piece covers the utilities for the remaining venues, such as electricity, water, and chilled water. The capital outlay is going down from $605,000 to $500,000 due to the stadium portion being moved out. On the next page, 5, you will actually see the breakout of the cost by the different venues. These amounts were determined by Legends. Just so you know, on the Prime Osborne, that is a transportation that's for a cargo truck replacement. Chair, you had asked about that at our meeting on Monday. Transfers to other funds is going down from $28.3 million to $4 million due to the stadium operations being moved to the new fund. The remaining portion shows a $3.9 million transfer to the City Venues Legends portion and $66,000 to the Veterans Memorial Arena Trust, which represents 10% of the annual naming rights fees paid by Vice Star for the arena. There are no, sorry, the stadium stuff being moved out of this fund is impacting service level, but other than that, no changes. There are no city employees within this fund. We have no recommendations, but if you would let me, I would like to go ahead and just present the Legends portions of these funds as well at this time. Go ahead. Again, so same as the prior, just the Legends operation. So the charges for service here is going down from $16.9 million to $16.8 million. There's a $1.4 million decrease in contractual services related to the stadium operations being moved to the new fund. The decrease was significantly, though, offset by incentive and club and suite fees with parking and contractual revenues based on recent actuals. So $855,000 increase related to the arena, $350,000 for the Performing Arts Center, and $220,000 for the Convention Center. Just so you know, on the contractual services, that is the reimbursement from the event organizers for labor, advertising, and production costs. Miscellaneous revenue is going down from $12.1 million to $11 million, primarily due to a decrease of $1.4 million related stadium operations being moved to the new fund. The decrease was partially offset with an increase of $300,000 related to an arena concession and rental fees. Transfers from other funds is the $28.2 million going down to $3.9 million due to the stadium operations moved to the other fund. We will have a recommendation to have this money come directly in from the general fund down below. Salaries are dropping from $9.8 million to $6.7 million based on the decrease of $3.3 million related stadium operations being moved to the new fund. This was partially offset by an increase of $196,000 due to a 3% salary increase for employees. There's no changes to the cap of Legend's employees. There are no city employees in this area. The pension cost is going from $233,000 to $170,000 based on the stadium operations being moved out. Similar thing with the employer-provided benefits. On insurance cost and premiums, that is going down from $1.7 million to $1.3 million, driven by a decrease of $500,000 related to the stadium operations moved out of this fund. This was partially offset with an increase related to Legend's global general liability insurance rates going from $0.90 to $0.95 per person per event. Professional contractual services, that is going down from $29.7 million to $16.4 million related to the stadium operations being moved to the new fund. This was partially offset by an increase of $2 million due to the increases of $1.1 for JSO and JFRD based on the events being held at the arena and other venues. And then $940,000 in contractual services based on the number of expected events for the non-JSO and JFRD costs. The other operating expenses is going from $11.2 million to $5.4 million due to the stadium operation costs being moved out. Capital outlay is going down to zero due to a one-time cost in the FY25-26 budget. Again, no service level changes, employee caps, there are none in this area. We do have one just technical recommendation of having the funding from the general fund of $3.9 million being transferred directly to this fund instead of flowing through the city venues, city fund 47101. This has no impact on special council contingencies. I got a motion to second on the recommendation. No one in queue. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. It passes. And to my colleagues, I meant to say at the beginning, there are some pretty significant year-over-year swings in all of our city venues. Not only did we create a new fund, but the fact that we then are budgeting to not have a home season next year. So if you're looking and notice those wild swings, I appreciate that Brian Parks and his team, they went through to check for reasonableness when all the funds are combined just to make sure it is consistent with what last year was. Which one are we on now? Page nine, right? Yes, sir. If there are no questions, we go on to page nine, which is the Capital Project City Venue Surcharge. It is in your budget book on page 261. This fund includes the budget and ticket surcharges authorized by the Municipal Code. They are at the Everbank Stadium, the Ballpark, the Arena, and the Performing Arts Center. So the charges for service is going down from $4.4 million to $3.7 million. Again, this is the same thing as before. There's less games going on here. This is going from 11 budgeted games to seven, so that's reducing the NFL ticket surcharge. And then some of the other revenue at the stadium. Miscellaneous revenue is going up slightly based on the rental fee. We do have a recommendation, though, to correct that amount. That's for the baseball stadium. Capital outlay is going down from $4.5 million to $3.7 million. On page 10 of our handout, you'll see the breakout by venue. There's no city employees in this area, no service level changes. We do have a recommendation of decreasing both the miscellaneous revenue and capital outlay for the ballpark by $3,443 to align with the rent schedule. This will have no impact on special counsel contingency. I got a motion to second. On the recommendation, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed to say nay? The recommendation passes. Page 11. On to page 11. This is the city venue's debt service. This is on budget book page 263. This fund accounts for the debt payments related to each of the city venues. The revenue there for the bed tax is going from $11.1 million down to $10.9. This is to better align with current revenue collections. This is restricted to being used for debt on the football stadium. The investment pool earnings are going down based on available cash. Transfers from other funds is remaining flat. This is the transfer from the sports complex capital maintenance fund to cover debt fund repayments for the amphitheater and covered flex field. We have the transfer in from debt service. This is going down from $37.6 million to $14.4 million. We've mentioned previously in other meetings how the BJP, there's been some pay down on debts that happen. And so this is where you're seeing that decrease for the upcoming 26, 27 year. On the next page, I'll show you where that is exactly. We have the transfer from fund balance, which is helping to cover some of the debt in this area on the physical and other debt service pages expenses is going from $46.1 to $18.5 million. So within the stadium on page 12, you will see that $11 million total principal and interest that is in line with the 2526 budget. The Vice Star Memorial Arena and the ballpark are both going down based on the BJP funding being paid, paying down the debt in 2526. So in 26, 27, we are budgeting 5.9 million versus 27.7 million on the arena last year. And we're budgeting 1.6 million compared to 7.3 million in 2526. On the next page of 13, we have the debt management fund repayments going up slightly. This represents the payment for the amphitheater and covered flex field and 13.4 million for the stadium. This has a one time where it's not going up by as much as we fixed kind of the, some of those debt budgeting that we've previously discussed during Doge and in these meetings. Next year, you'll see a step back up as we get more, a full year cost of the stadium debt coming online. There are no city positions associated with this fund and no recommendations. Excuse me, no one in the queue. On to page 14 of our handout. This is the city venue stadium city portion. This is in your budget book on page 265. Overall, there is a decrease in revenue and expenditures based on budgeting for 11 NFL, I'm sorry, seven NFL games versus 11 in the prior year due to the playing away next season. The charges for service, the budget amount of 90,000 is for the parking fees at the stadium. This is a reduction of 10,000 from the current year. Miscellaneous revenue, the budget amount of 6.7 million aligns, with the current rent payments owed by the Jaguars, the transfers from other funds, is to balance the budget within this fund and the next of 15.6 million. The internal service charges, the budget amount of 28,000 is the estimated billings related to fleet. Insurance costs and premiums, the budget amount of 2.7 is for property insurance for the stadium. This amount is decreased by 140,000 based on the city getting a lower property insurance policy overall. The professional contractual services, the proposed amount of 142,000 is the contractual amount for the city will pay legends global for the management of the stadium. This includes the fixed and incentive fees. On page 15, we go into the other operating expenses. The proposed amount of 2.2 million represents the utility expenses for electricity and water, which is a decrease of 600,000 compared to the current year based on the reduced number of events. The capital outlay is staying consistent at $105,000. Transfers to other funds is to balance the budget within the stadium management fee. I'm sorry, stadium management fund, which we'll discuss next. Again, we have the service level changes due to the reduced number of events, including also not having the Florida-Georgia game at the stadium. This fall, the employee cap changes are no city positions in this area, no recommendations. And if you would let me go into page 16 to just talk about the legends portion of the stadium at the same time. Okay. All right. So we're on to page 16 of our handout, page 267 of the proposed budget book. This is the legends portion of the football stadium. The charges for services, the budget amount of 900,000 is a contractual service revenue, which consists of reimbursements from the event organizers for labor, advertising, and production costs. This is a reduction of 1.4 million due to the less number of events. Miscellaneous revenue budget of 256,000 consists of rental revenue, concession sales, and miscellaneous revenues. This is a reduction of 1.4 million, again, due to less number of events. The transfers from other funds is 17.1 million coming from the prior fund. We'll have a recommendation below to have the portion that comes from the general fund to come directly into this area. Salaries amount of 3.3 million is for the salaries of employees of the stadium is consistent with FY2526, as is the pension cost and employer-provided benefits. Insurance costs and premiums, the amount of 330,000 is for the operator's general liability insurance, which was budgeted at 576,000 in the current year. The decrease is due to fewer events, as everything else. Professional and contractual services, the amount of 8.2 million is a decrease of 7.2 million from the 15.3 budget in FY256. The other professional services remaining flat, contractual services, is decreasing by 3.5 million, and the JSOJFRD costs are decreasing by 3.6 million due to the fewer events. The other operating expenses, the amount of 5.4 million was budgeted at 5.8 million in the current fiscal year. The decrease is, again, event costs. Service level change is previously discussed. Employee cap, there are no employees, no city employees in this area. We do have the technical recommendation to have the funding from the general fund of $15,574,241 be transferred directly to this fund instead of flowing through the Stadium City Fund 47106. So, this will have no impact to special accounts contingency. I've got a motion. Can I get a second? I've got a motion and a second. Council Member Salem, I'm going to recognize you, and then we'll vote on this recommendation. Okay, we're going to vote first. All in favor of the recommendation say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. The recommendation passes. Council Member Salem, you're recognized. Thank you. Through the chair to Mr. Weinstein, I know the Jaguars at some point can take over management of the stadium. Can that occur now, or is that when the stadium is completed? Can you tell me? Through the chair, the lease that goes into effect in 28 basically controls that, and the Jaguars have the option to operate it themselves. Right. If they choose not to, then the operator is chosen jointly by the city and the Jaguars. So, I've had a number of conversations within the last couple of weeks about that topic, because it's getting close to when they want to begin to make a decision, because whoever operates should get involved sooner rather than later. But that's basically, officially doesn't take effect until the 28 lease takes effect. But they are going to start working on it. But I don't know what their decision is, and I don't think they know at this point what their decision is. That was my second question. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Councilman Johnson. Forgive me, and I don't want to prolong this part of the discussion through the chair to Representative Weinstein. I thought, because I was a big part of that discussion with the management company and the Jaguars, and we were in negotiations during that time. I thought, from my recollection and the work that we were doing, was that they had agreed to allow the current management company to manage it for the first year and then decide on an option. Was that not what you recall from those discussions? Through the chair, I don't recall that. I don't think that's – I think whoever is ultimately going to operate it needs to get involved pretty quickly, and it would be, I think, a disadvantage if they have somebody doing it the first year and then bringing in someone else. So I don't think that's going to happen. Okay. I just remembered in the discussion they did agree. Mega and Mark and everyone that was sitting in front of us, we literally had that discussion here. So we may want to revisit that before we go trying to bring in other people, especially when we have people that are adept at running that facility. Thank you, sir. And also just to know that the Legends will still obviously be managing the facility this season, but they also have the responsibility to manage it through the end until the August because it needs to be kept up. It can't just be sitting there. It needs to be taken care of. So they're in at least until August of 28 and has a possibility of being on after that. Thank you. And to my colleagues, the Jaguars agreement, as part of the contract, it did have something specifying periodic updates to the Finance Committee. And through Mr. Weinstein, I've requested them to come at some point in the fall to give us an update, and that would be a great question to ask at that time as well. So no one else in the queue, we passed the recommendation, so page 18. Yes, sir. We are on to the Sports Complex Capital Maintenance Enterprise Fund, which is on page 18 of our handout, page 255 of the budget book. Ordinance 2009-817 mandated the convention development tax collected pursuant to the municipal code be allocated to Sports Complex Capital Maintenance Enterprise Fund. These funds are to be used exclusively to construct, extend, enlarge, remodel, repair, and improve, or maintain the sports complex, which includes the football stadium, the arena, and the baseball ballpark. Pursuant to agreements with the Jaguars, the city will use part of the convention development tax to pay the principal and interest for the north end zone and video board improvements, as well as the 2015 improvements, respectfully. This is an all-year fund, so once money is appropriate, it stays there. Note, once the new stadium lease takes effect, this revenue stream will be dedicated exclusively to the football stadium, so it will not be covering capital for any other area. Currently, after debt is paid on those items I just mentioned, 70% goes to football stadium, with the other 30% being split between the arena and ballpark, so that will change going forward. That was factored into the analysis at the time that we knew that was going away this way. The bed tax is going down from $10.1 million to $9.8 million to better align with current actuals. This is split with the beaches and balled ones, so that's why this is a little bit less than the tourist development tax. The debt management fund, there is a $10,000 item that is just a cleanup. Capital outlay is going from $4.6 million to $4.5 million due to the decrease in the revenue that mentioned above. On page 19, you will see the actual capital by venue. And so, again, the Everbank Stadium, you'll see the $3 million, that is the 70% calculation. Then you have the remaining for the arena and ballpark. Capital outlay debt funded is just a cleanup again. The debt service of $3.1 million is what went to the city venues debt funded fund we just talked about for the scoreboard electronics and infrastructure debt service. The transfers to other fund, again, is also going to that same fund that we just discussed. There are no city employees in this area, and we have no recommendations. And note in the queue. All right. We are on to page 20 of our handout. This is the Veterans Memorial Arena Trust, which is on page 176 of your budget book. This is Section 111. 255 requires the city annually deposit 10% of the city's annual license fee revenues for the BiStar Arena Naming Rights Agreement into this fund. The purpose of the trust fund is to provide periodic funding to support veterans programs and initiatives for veterans residing in Duval County. The Veterans Council of Duval County will evaluate eligible programs and initiatives and make funding recommendations by April 1 of each year. So within the transfers from other funds is the $66,505 coming in, which represents 10% of the revenue of the Naming Rights Agreement. On the expenditures, you will see the $46,500 by those listed entities that were made awarded by the Veterans Council of Duval County, with the $2,500 remaining in a contingency for them to be used. And then in contingencies, that is $17,505, which is subject to future legislation. There is currently $206,000 in contingency already. This is just adding on to that to bring it up to $223,000. There are no employees in this area, and we have no recommendations. And we have no one in the queue. All right. Turning to page 21, this is the Office of Sports and Entertainment General Fund portion. This houses a sports entertainment administration division, and then special events is in its own fund that we'll get to next. Budgeted expenditures of $1.1 million is down $20,000 year over year. Within salaries, $590,000, an increase of almost $40,000 to account for an increase in overtime based on recent experience, and then the 3% increase for permanent salaries. Within internal service charges, there's a decrease of $20,000. A portion of that's related to building cost allocations, related to the Ed Ball building, a decrease in their IT charges. And then these decreases were partially offset by an increase in their OGC charge based on actual usage. Other operating expenses has a budget of $180,000. These are for contributions to support, mostly related to contributions to support events, and those events can be seen on page 22 of your handout, identifying approximately $96,000 reduction year over year. There is a $22,000 food and beverage line item for sports entertainment. Ultimately, no service level changes. The employee caps remaining flat at six positions and no recommendations. No one in the queue, so we'll move on. All right, page 23 is the special events fund that falls under the Office of Sports Entertainment. And within this fund, each event is activity-driven, so it allows for better tracking of event revenue and costs related to each event. Their total budget is $7.9 million, a reduction in $3.4 million year over year, and most of that is related to the Florida-Georgia game not being played here this year. Charges for services going down to zero. This has represented ticket sales related to the Florida-Georgia game, but due to the no game, no revenue. Miscellaneous revenue down $390,000. This revenue normally includes reimbursements from the Jaguars for temporary seats related to the Florida-Georgia game, but once again, no game and no need for those seats, so a reduction in revenue. The transfers from other funds of $7.8 million is a transfer from the general fund to support operations within special events. Salaries are increasing $193,000 due to overtime costs of $146,000, $39,000 related to the 3% salary increase, and overall the net impact of employee turnover promotions and other salary changes that occurred during the year. This fund has its own calculated vacancy rates. Employer-provided benefits are increasing, first related to the group health premiums, and then also due to or slightly offset by changes in employee elections. Insurance costs and premiums decreasing $205,000. Most of that's related to the Florida-Georgia game not being here. Professional and contractual services is increasing $64,000 for an increase in security guard services. Other operating expenses is going down $3 million due to the relocation of the Florida-Georgia game. Equipment rentals, the temporary seating, miscellaneous services and charges, and then various advertising. There's also a decrease of $35,000 due to the removal of the Hispanic heritage initiatives, and a decrease of $25,000 removing Jack's Beach fireworks subsidy. Within the budget is a contribution to Florida and Georgia of $1.5 million to each team, so a total of $3 million, even though the game's not being played in Jacksonville. That's based on an MOU that has been entered into by the administration and the universities. There's also $300,000 for the city to put on the Hall of Fame luncheon. We will have a recommendation as it relates to this, as no agreement has been approved by city council. The grants, aids, and contribution, $184,875, is for the Bob Hayes Track event to be held at UNF, which moved over in 22-23 and had a corresponding increase in that event cost. On page 25, you'll see all of the events that Special Events puts on and their corresponding charges, as well as a comparison to last year's cost for each of the events. Overall, the $3.7 million decrease, most of that related to the Florida-Georgia game. Page 26, they have a $34,000 food and beverage request. Service level, obviously, the Florida-Georgia game. There are no employee cap changes, 13 full-time positions, and our recommendation is to put all funding related to the Florida-Georgia game below the line until a contract is approved by city council. Council Member Salem. Thank you, Chair. To Mr. Peterson, I'm sorry I lost you on we're paying Florida and Georgia something this year, and can you explain the Hall of Fame luncheon and what's happening with that? Through the Chair, to Council Member Salem, so the budget includes $3 million for the teams, $1.5 million to each team, and $300,000 for the Hall of Fame luncheon as an incentive, for lack of a better word, to bring the game back here when the stadium is complete. That's based on an agreement, a memorandum of understanding entered into by the administration and the teams. Ultimately, that will have to be put into a contract and be brought to you, and that's our recommendation to put it below the line until that time. Thank you. Thank you. It's my understanding on our Monday meeting, when we have that agreement, it could very well be an in-and-out emergency because at that point we could be very close to the event anyways. And I had the same question. That was part of the agreement, that even though it's not here, I think it's less than half what we normally do, but we are giving both the teams. And they were told I could not amend it to give Florida more than Georgia, so I will not be doing that. So with that, I also want to point out, colleagues, page 25 in years past sometimes this becomes a discussion item. I just wanted to point that out to you. I'm fine with it, but I do know it's been a topic of conversation in the past. With no one else in the queue, I have a motion. I didn't hear a second on the recommendation. Okay, so we've got a motion and a second. All those in favor of the recommendation say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. The recommendation passes. All right, so that does it for sports and entertainment. That will now transition to public works. Mr. Peterson, I was going to call Mr. Alston up, and a very important thing to see if he could give us a brief update on our efforts to get an Army-Navy game to Jacksonville. I think the mic's off, Alex. How was it off? How's that? That's great. All right, great. It was just a little low. I think it was because Ms. Sickler's been up here so much. So I do want to echo Chairman Landon's sentiments. We are going to be bidding on Army-Navy. The RFP will be released, we anticipate, sometime in September, maybe early October. Some of you also may have received an email that we had our partners at Jax USA put together to really garner some corporate support. This is going to be a very competitive effort that will be a highly sought-after type of event, and we know it's going to take all of this community coming together to really pull this off. So we're excited about the opportunity. As we have more information, once we receive that RFP, we will be, the administration will be putting together a competitive package that we will work with our partners at the Jaguars and Visit Jacksonville, the Sports Foundation, et cetera. I'm happy to answer any questions if anybody has any, but I'll have much more detail after we receive that RFP. Councilman Carlucci. I think that would be the coolest thing if we could pull this off. And we certainly are a Navy town and a military town, so we have that going for us. Just how much will our new stadium, and when will this game be played? When's the proposed? Through the chair to Councilmember Carlucci, the bid will be for, we anticipate, five years, which will be 28 through 32. So you will be bidding on each year and awarded one. That's the idea. But it would be after the stadium renovations, correct? Correct, correct. It's definitely an example of what a newly renovated stadium can do for our community in putting us on the map to be competitive for these types of events. So that would give us, you know, a real competitive advantage. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. You know, this is what I think our community really needs to hear, because when they hear about the new stadium, they just simply think of, you know, of our great NFL franchise. But the stadium belongs to us. It's our asset, and we are leveraging it. And, boy, if we pull that off, I just think, because I love to watch that game and to have it here in Jacksonville. That would be just so great. So I'm glad to hear that's going on. Thank you. Councilman Salem. I misunderstood you. You said there are going to be five years they're going to put it out for bid. Correct. And cities can bid on any one of those years. Correct. And you bid on multiple years. Or are they going to try to provide five different cities? Through the chair, I would anticipate that if you're aggressive and want to bid on as much as you could, that they wouldn't say no to that. I anticipate them, though, awarding each of the five years to different communities. They've shown a propensity to go back to some of the same places. It's been in Philadelphia, obviously, for a very long time, and they've just started to open that up to different cities. So, again, we don't know what that structure is going to look like, how they're going to position it in terms of how they would rotate it around. But, like I said, once we get that RFP, we'll know. But we anticipate bidding on having it for one of those five. But I believe you could do however you want to structure it. It would seem to be an advantage to us that they're putting it out for five years that you would hope you would get one of those five, if you have a competitive bid, obviously. Yes. I think for sure, through the chair, it definitely gives you the option to be flexible, but it also gives you the ability to incentivize and skew your bid to the year that you might want more than another year. So, once we get it, we'll strategize with all of our partners to really figure out how we want to put that together. Thank you very much. Great idea. Great idea. Yeah, very exciting. And this has been at least a year in the making. And Alex has been working with a lot of shareholders, obviously, my alumni association as well. Navy's athletic director was a Jacksonville resident, so we got that going for us as well. And Army-Navy, it's always in an NFL stadium and it always sells out. So, it would be absolutely fantastic if we could get that here, maybe in my eighth and final year on council. That would be a good way to go out. So, just kidding. Bet on every year, like Council Member Salem did. So, thanks for that update, Alex, and thank you for being here to review all of your other budgetary items. And, Mr. Peterson, I think it's time for Public Works. All right. That's page 27 of your handout, page 334 of your budget book. Just a reminder that the Public Works Department consists of the Office of the Director, Development Services, the Engineering and Construction Management Division, Mowing and Landscape Maintenance, Real Estate, Right-of-Way and Stormwater Maintenance, and Traffic Engineering. They have projected revenues of $8.5 million. That's up almost $100,000 year over year. Permits and fees represent right-of-way filing fees, the decrease of $61,000 based on recent collections. Intergovernmental revenue reflects the state DOT funding for mowing, litter removal, tree trimming on public right-of-ways in certain state roads pursuant to contractual agreements. Miscellaneous revenue of almost $7.4 million is increasing, and this is related to reimbursements from FDOT for the maintenance of traffic signals and streetlights on state roads. The proposed amounts are pursuant to agreements between the city and DOT, which were set by the state. These increases are offset by a $50,000 decrease in the contribution loss deductible. Within expenditures, a $69.4 million budget, an increase of $5.9 million year over year. Within salaries, there's almost a $900,000 increase related to the 3% increase for non-public safety unions, increases resulting from pay increases and the net effect of employee turnover. There's also the one-time lump sum payment for their non-public safety union employees, as well as an increase in overtime and part-time salary dollars to a better line with what they're currently experiencing. Pension costs are going up based on the increase in salaries. Employer-provided benefits going up based on the contribution for the group health premiums. Internal service charges increasing to $582,000. They have increases due to OGC charges, fleet parts, oil, and gas due to the increase in fuel costs, IT systems charges, and then a $100,000 increase in their building maintenance allocation. Insurance and premiums is increasing $376,000 due to general liability insurance based on claims and then the actuarial projections. Their professional and contractual services line of $24.8 million is increasing $796,000. This is mainly made up of contracts for mowing, tree trimming, and streetlight maintenance. Their other operating expenses of $15.7 million is mostly utilities, electricity costs for the streetlights, which are increasing by $1.3 million, and this is due to what they're experiencing and then the increase in JEA rates. Capital outlay is budgeted flat at $200,000 for the purchase and installation of new streetlights as needed. And then a large part of these costs are allocated to other departments for activities that occur within building inspection and then also the engineering construction management division to capital projects. There is a divisional summary of these seven divisions broken out for you on page 29, but similar to other areas, unless there are questions, we'll move to page 31. They do have $120 food and beverage line, no real service level changes within the public works, and then employee cap is staying flat at 287 positions. We do have a recommendation to increase the supervision allocation allocated to the development services division from the building inspection fund by $107,633 to properly reflect budgeted salaries of building inspection employees. There is an offset of supervision allocation from the engineering division to capital projects to better align with the proposed budget. Ultimately, no impact on special counsel contingency. I got motion to second. No one in the queue. We'll vote first, then I got a couple comments. All in favor of the recommendation, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. Recommendation passes. I just want to point out on page 28, I had asked a lot of questions when I saw the landscaping going up by about $800,000, but that is not an enhancement. It's simply what the amount is due to a multi-year contract that they already have. And so I just wanted to put that on the record. It is no change in scope. It's simply the change in the contract with the new contract year. With that, on to the next one. All right. Page 33 is the Tree Protection and Related Expenditures Fund. Budget of $1.2 million can be found on page 310 of your budget book. Just to remind you that the ordinance code only allows for 25% of the amount that is budgeted for tree maintenance within the Public Works Department to be pulled out of this fund for tree maintenance. Miscellaneous revenues of $1.2 million is the monetary contributions that provides for the activity within this account or this fund. Salaries at $380,000 is an increase of $171,000. Large part of that is due to the addition of two new positions in this budget. A reclass of some positions, a vacant position being filled at a higher rate, and then a 3% increase. Pension costs are increasing as a result of the increase in salaries. The internal service charges are increasing due to the full cost of purchasing two new vehicles for the two new positions, as well as last year's vehicles being fully included in this year's budget. Other operating expenses of $502,000 is mainly for the tree maintenance that represents that 25% match of the Public Works General Fund dollars. There are the two positions being added. They will be city arborist positions within the Parks Department, and if you are in agreement with adding these two new positions, we need to waive section 111.760 of the Municipal Code. That requires the tree commission to opine in a memorandum to council and the mayor regarding the necessity of each of those positions. However, it's my understanding that the tree commission is in support of these positions. No impact to special counsel contingency. We have a motion second on the recommendation, and like Mr. Peterson said, we confirmed it, that the tree commission is good with this, so I am good with it as well. All those in favor of the recommendation, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Say nay. The recommendation passes, and on to beach erosion. Beach erosion, page 35 of your handout, page 69 of your budget book. This fund sets aside money each year until the big beach erosion project is undertaken. The city partners with the Army Corps of Engineers, and historically the state has contributed to this project, although they are not a party to the agreement. $500,000 is just setting aside for future reserves to cover the beach renourishment cost. No positions in this fund and no recommendations. And no one in the queue. Thank you. All right. Page 36 takes us to stormwater services. This schedule provides a breakdown, and I would recommend using this as we walk through the stormwater fund. A total budget of $36.9 million is an increase of $1.36 million year over year. The majority of these fees are based on the impervious area of a property. And for a typical homeowner, that's not just the house itself. That's patios, walkways, driveways, where the average homeowner has a $5 charge per month. And then non-residential properties are charged based on the calculated amount of their impervious area. There is a credit provided to 501c3 organizations and economically disadvantaged families, and the general fund picks up that portion of the fee. Within Jax Citywide Activities, investment pool earnings at $1.7 million. Transfers from fund balance of $239,000 is what's needed to balance the fund. Within the public works, the stormwater user fee, there's the $34.9 million that is collected. That's a net increase of $740,000 that is consistent with current growth. Within the expenditures, the citywide activities, pension costs are increasing $66,000 due to the employees that are associated with this fund. Debt management fund repayments are for stormwater projects that were authorized after the stormwater fee went into place. In October 1 of 2015, it was decided that debt would no longer be issued for stormwater projects, and they'd be fully funded by the – or no debt would be associated with this fund. We do issue debt in the general fund for stormwater projects. Transfers to other funds of $11.2 million. We talked about this earlier in the CIP. This is the funding for the capital projects required to go towards drainage and stormwater capital projects. Within the Office of Administrative Services, they do provide some service to the stormwater fund in relation to the stormwater management system program. The city has an interlocal agreement with FDOT that provides grant funding as it relates to the Environmental Quality Division's activities. That grant funding is an amount of $380,000, and that's reflected in the grant schedules later on in the handout. Salaries within Administrative Services, just increasing $8,500. That's for 5,000 part-time salaries and then the 3% increase. Within Public Works, there's an expenditure budget of $23.7 million. That's a $1.5 million increase. Public Works allocates employee activity and related expenses from the general fund and the stormwater services fund. Salary increases are increasing $189,000 due to the 3% increase, overtime, and then the one-time lump sum payment. The employee cap of this fund only includes employees that are 100% charged to this area, although there are other employees in the general fund that allocate a portion of their time to this area. Internal service charges, increasing $272,000 year-over-year due to increase in fuel costs and then fleet vehicle replacements. Professional and contractual services, $8.8 million is an increase of $260,000. These are the contracts for roadside ditch cleaning, landscape mowing, herbicide spraying, and other contracts related to managing the city's stormwater system. Other operating expenses, increasing $58,000 for repair and maintenance supplies based on contractual price increases, as well as $20,000 increase in equipment rentals due to the rising demand for barriers and barricades. There is a supervision allocation from the Public Works Office of Director. You'll see in the B1A grants, there's the $380,000 grant that Environmental Quality will receive or hopes to receive. There are no proposed changes to the employee cap, although 1,040 part-time hours are being added. Ultimately, no service level changes and no recommendations. Council President. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Through the chair to Philip, can you explain to me again what the transfers from fund balance 239054, what that is? Through the chair, that's funds that have been just either not spent or collected through the fees that are sitting in this fund able to provide, cover some of the services for this year. Okay, but that's transfers into revenue from elsewhere, right, for 239? It's from this fund itself. So, all the dollars that come into it, if there's, so when we think about the quarterly summary, we talk about positive variances. Any positive variances fall to this fund's fund balance. And it will sit there until it's appropriated at a later time. So, we don't bother with small numbers, but when a decent amount has accumulated, the budget office will propose to transfer that in as a revenue source to fund current year operations. So, is the Stormwater Service Fund 100% self-funding? Through the chair, there are no general fund dollars coming into this fund. Now, I think there is possibly a need for discussion at a future time that we do a number of stormwater projects that are not capable of being funded from this fund. So, while the fund is self-funded, ultimately, if we threw all stormwater projects into this fund, it could not sustain itself. And so, that stormwater fee went into place in 2008, I believe, and has stayed flat since 2008. While we have continued to add additional stormwater and drainage projects to our CIP that otherwise could be funded from this source. Understood. Thank you. Councilman Johnson. I'm sorry to belabor the point. If, through the chair, Mr. Peterson, if you said it's self-funded, but then you just said to the Council President that you got to put in money to augment the fund, then that would then, at least to me, seem that it's not completely self-funded. Help me understand. I'm sure there's some financial principle that maybe I'm just not getting, but help me understand that, please. Through the chair to Council Member Johnson. So, this fund pays for all of the employees and all operations of the stormwater fund. It also covers about 11-plus million dollars worth of capital. So, in that nature, it is totally self-funded. The city, the city council, and the administration have chosen to do additional drainage and stormwater projects in the city that could be covered by this fund if there were additional revenue dollars. There aren't. And so, instead, we fund those through the general fund. So, that's a choice to do those additional projects. They probably are needed. But this fund covers what is required for employees and then the approximately 11 million dollars that are required by the ordinance code to be set aside for capital projects. Okay. So, long story short, it's not self-funded. I hear what you're saying, but I just, that's really confusing when I'm hearing it's self-funded, but then I'm looking at it and we've got to put money on to do things that are necessary improvements like drainage. So, anyway, just putting it out there. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. No one else in the queue. So, you may proceed. All right. Page 41 is the public buildings fund within Public Works, a budget of $58.1 million, and all of these costs are billed out as an internal service charge to the various occupants of the city's public buildings based on their occupied square footage. Internal service revenue at $54.9 million is what is needed to balance the fund. Miscellaneous revenue of $115,000 is for tenant revenue related to occupants or non-city occupants of city buildings. The decrease is related to a tenant moving out of the Ed Ball building. And then transfers from fund balance of $2.75 million is to fund two Ed Ball building projects that we talked about as part of the CIP. And then there's a remaining $250,000 that is set aside on an annual basis to address emergency unanticipated repairs request or emergency issues that arise during the year. This does require approval from the chief financial officer or the chief administrative officer pursuant to the budget ordinance. Salaries at $4.3 million are increasing $180,000 related to the 3% increase and the one-time lump sum payments. This fund does have its own calculated vacancy rate. Internal service charges are increasing $402,000 related to additional utility costs. Building maintenance, guard services that fund the multi-tenant buildings. These costs can be allocated or are allocated out to the occupants of the buildings and allow the city to understand the cost of each building. Insurance costs and premiums going down $136,000 based on the city's property insurance premium. Professional and contractual services budgeted just over $12 million. That's mostly in janitorial services of $5.3 million and security guard services of $3.6 million. The increase is related to contractual increases as well as adjustments in the minimum wage for the janitorial service contract. Other operating expenses of $22.8 million. $18.1 of that is in utility costs. $3.8 million is in repairs, maintenance, and supplies. The net decrease is to better line costs with current costs. Capital outlay at $57,000. This is to replace broken and outdated AEDs within city facilities. And then transfers to other funds of the almost $3 million. $2 million is for the Ed Ball project. $500,000 is for the connecting Ed Ball to the JEA chilled water. And then almost $500,000 for Ed Ball building debt allocation. The general fund loan repayment going down to zero is related to dollars that were paid off related to a loan from the general fund in a prior year to smooth out the cost of the JEA chilled water connection. There is a cash carryover of $16,815. That's the budgeted excess revenue over expenditures. No employee cap changes, no capital outlay care affords, and no recommendations. Counselor Boylan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm not certain who can answer this question. I'd like to hear of the allocation of funds specifically towards the pretrial detention center. As you know, we threw a significant amount of money at that a couple years ago to bring it almost up to par. I'd love to know what numbers, where the numbers are, and how much we are allocating for any necessary improvements or repairs at the detention center. And I believe it was one of the line items we did not discuss during CIP, correct, if you can elaborate on that? Through the Chair to Council Member Boylan. In the CIP, I believe the number is $2.5 million for cell door replacement within the pretrial center. That's an annual amount that's included in the CIP to repair, replace all the cell doors. Otherwise, the charges from the building inspection fund would be in the Sheriff's Office budget. So if I could, through the Chair, someone from JSO or from the buildings department to talk about the specifics of what other needs are not being addressed at the detention center. Does anyone here can speak to that? I don't know if we have anyone here. I do know that throughout the budget cycle, it never came up to me as a concern other than what was proposed in the CIP. And the $2.5 million is the current year. I think if you added it all up, there's a significant amount of outer years funding, too. So it's not just that. I think it was over $10 million if you added it all up. And I think that was what we approved a year or two ago as far as continuing capital maintenance for the next couple years. I appreciate it, Mr. Chair, if at some point in time we can get an update on that, that a finance committee meeting. I'd love to see where we are in that process. We are years away from a new facility, and we need to maintain the existing one. Council Member Palouse, or sir, do you have something to add to the conversation? You can speak if you want to. Yeah, Roy Bibble, Chief of Public Building, just to answer any questions on the pretrial. As far as the allocations, the $9 million, we're about 90% done with all the improvements. What's left is the sell door, some of the sell door improvements. If I may, Mr. Chair, through the Chair, are there additional needs there that are not being addressed at this point in time? Not at this time, sir. I hope so. Thank you. All right. I'll consider your question answered then, Council Member Voiland. Council Member Palouse, then Salem. Thank you, Chair. Nina, if you don't mind coming up. I know that I've spoken to you in the past about, you know, especially when it comes to these public buildings that obviously the city owns. Do we have, like, a survey of all the properties of the city that we own and kind of their occupancy and vacancy and all those buildings? I think CBRE has, like, a statewide contract with the state of Florida that we're able to tap into if we needed them to kind of go in and kind of help us kind of look at that. You know, we wanted – I think we wanted an inventory of all the public buildings, see which ones only have, you know, 25 percent occupancy and see what can and can't be surplused at a later time. I just wasn't sure if there's any progress on that. Go ahead, Mr. I'm here to Council Member Pelluso, Nina Sickler, Public Works. So that has been a discussion point. We have made contact with two different entities with different models in terms of how that type of analysis would come about. The company that you mentioned, there are different ways, either with an upfront fee and then potentially from a commission standpoint, which may not be the model that we're looking for in terms of how to evaluate our public buildings to determine the best use of occupancy. But we are continuing to work with the administration to determine which model we might be looking for and whether that comes out as an RFP or whether that's something that we do in a different way. So we'll continue to have that discussion. We agree that it's a worthwhile effort to make best use of our public buildings. We don't have the exact model or the path forward yet, but we certainly are having discussions about that. Do we have – I mean, for one, is that budgeted for? Are we okay to – do we need to increase the budget for that purpose? Or – I feel like we've been talking about this for a while, and I just want to see why we haven't executed on it yet. It is not currently budgeted. Again, I'll speak with the administration to see if that's something that we – we just don't know the model yet, so we don't know what to budget towards it. So we need to talk about what the best way is to move forward on that. Understood. Councilor Salem. Thank you, Chair. Just to follow up on Councilor Boylan's question, we allocated – he chaired the committee, and we allocated $9 million plus. And as I recall, those dollars were to catch the jail up. What do you need to get to where you're sort of current with all your maintenance? And that was over $9 million, and I think the gentleman said that that had all been spent, but just one little piece had not. So I think it's incumbent upon the sheriff or whoever's running the jail, if there were other critical needs to get us through the next four or five years, at a minimum, until a jail is built, they need to come to us because I think we all want to maintain it just enough to get us through this period of time, not be excessive on repairs. But it's got to function appropriately. So I hope that helps. I have no one else in the queue. All right. That takes us to our Building Inspection Fund, page 44 of your handouts, includes an overall view of the Building Inspection Fund. We have already touched on the Fire and Rescue portion when JFRD was up, so we'll cover the rest of the Building Inspection Fund here. I would recommend using page 44. Those are the numbers that I'll be referencing. This fund does have a transfer from fund balance of $7,214,976 to balance the fund. After this $7 million transfer, we estimate that the fund will have an ending balance of $10 million at the end of next year. And as we have drawn down on the dollars, which was needed as we were nearing the state level of dollars, the maximum amount that could be held in this fund. But if we keep up with this rate, we will eat away at this fund balance very quickly. So just not something to be concerned about this year, but going forward in future years, something to definitely keep an eye on. Within Public Works, there's a budget of a revenue of $21.1 million. $4.1 million is related to permits and fees for building permits. And then there's an increase of $32,000 in the plans reviews fees. Inspection fees are budgeted at $15.8 million. That's a decrease of almost $500,000, resulting to changes in state law that allow licensed third parties to perform those inspections. This is slightly offset by increase in building inspection fees based on recent actuals. Within the JAX citywide activities, expenditures, pension costs are going up $236,000. This is related to the unfunded liabilities attributed to building inspection fund. Transfers to other funds, last year was the transfer for the group health fund at $889,000. And then also for a project at the fire marshal's plan review office, $360,000. And a transfer related to moving the renovation of the building inspection space to the CIP. That is not occurring this year, and thus the zero in this year's budget. Within public works, their total budget of $25.2 million. That's an increase of $3.4 year over year. Salaries are going up $505,000 related to the 3% increase. An increase in part-time salaries for additional plans reviewers. And then the one-time lump sum payment. This fund does have its own calculated vacancy rates. Employer-provided benefits going up for the change in group health premiums. Internal service charges going up, mainly related to IT charges. There's a small increase in legal charges. And then $52,000 in vehicle replacements being billed for new vehicles they received in the prior year. Professional and contractual services budgeted at $1.9 million. And a net increase of $293,000 is related to a recurring increase of $300,000 for the purpose of hiring a consulting team to provide training to permit applicants. This fund does have a supervision allocation for the services that are allocated to the development services division. There is a one item on the food and beverage expenditure list, $300. The service level change would be that $300,000 for the hiring of the consulting team for training permit applicants. Part-time hours are increasing by 752 hours. Full-time positions at 182 are staying flat. And we have no recommendations. Known in the queue, the balance transfer was a big topic when we met on Monday in our pre-meeting. So you may recall, for a couple years, this fund kept on going up and up, but now it's going the other direction. So, again, not an immediate concern. I do feel good that the administration is working on this as well. But it will go from $17,000 to $10,000. And then if it's the same size as this year, it would be another $7 million next year. So just wanted to make sure that is on everyone's watch list and that we stay ahead of that before it is a financial concern. I think that is it. All right. That concludes... Council Member Miller, you are in the queue. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I had a question, an update question for Ms. Sickler, if you don't mind coming up through the chair. We have passed, this body passed a private provider bill. I just wanted to get a quick idea of where things stand as far as the implementation, projected start of the provisions of that bill. Absolutely. Through the chair to Council Member Miller. So we have been working actively to get the process in place. We are working on the affidavits and the training modules that we discussed during the committee as the legislation was being passed. So we are looking at an October 1st start date to have everything implemented and ready to receive private providers. That's great. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. You're welcome. And if we could go back and talk about the jail real quick. I believe I'm interpreting this correctly. We had $2.5 million this year, next year, the year after, and the year after. So $2.5 million has been budgeted for needed capital improvements for the next four years. And that was included in the CIP as proposed. All right. Where to now? That concludes Public Works. So on page 48. Thank you, Ms. Sickler and team. Is the Journey Forward Fund. This can be found on page 159 of your budget book. Total budget of $2.26 million, which is an increase of $260,000 from the prior year. The revenues are all a transfer from the general fund of that $2.26 million. Within professional and contractual services, this is $100,000 for the Journey Forward Board to adopt a strategic plan and community outreach efforts. This is remaining flat year over year. Grants, aids, and contributions budgeted at $1.66 million. And you can see the four direct contracts that are identified right there on page 48. We will have a recommendation. Within the contingencies, $500,000 is being put in a contingency that is included in the separate KHA Bill 2026-511 for a new teen program. So that $500,000 is a service level change as the Journey Forward Board tries to address the unstructured teen gatherings that are occurring around the city. There are no employees, no city, no employees within this fund or part-time hours. We do have recommendations to the Family Support Services of Northeast Florida Center of Hope Community Term Sheet to be amended and replaced. The budget schedule, you know, service details to be consistent with other KHA contracts. And then also that the term sheets and applicable budget ordinance language be removed for the Managed Access to Child Health Hope Court, the UNF Jax Source Program, and the Youth Crisis Center, Residential Crisis Center, Transitional Living and House and Hope Emergency Shelter Program due to those contracts already existing and having authorized extensions. These recommendations have no impact on the council contingency. All right. We've got a motion to second. I think we could take these recommendations first, correct, and then have some discussion. All in favor of the recommendations, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. The recommendations pass. No one in the queue. Mr. Peterson, can you remind me again on the $500,000? My understanding is it was submitted below the line, but then it comes out of the contingency with the way KHA's is proposed? To the chair, that's correct. So it's in a contingency within Journey Forward and in the budget. When you get to Bill 511, which is the conflict bill for KHA that will be taken up the second cycle in September, it is being brought above the line. So if you wanted it to stay in a contingency for future discussion, you would need to amend that separate Bill 511. Okay. Thank you. And again, we can't take a motion on that today. But that $500,000, I'm not saying I'm not going to support that effort. It's basically the teen takeover avoidance strategy or some words to that effect. But I will want to keep that below the line until we hear what the actual plan to use that $500,000 is because that is new money for that. So, okay. Anything else on Journey Forward? All right. All right. Page 50 is the Kids Hope Alliance Fund, $57.8 million, increase of $678,000 year-over-year. And within revenue, they have $607,000 in investment pool earnings. This is going down based on the current cash balance and then the timing of when they receive funding from the general fund. And then there's the transfers from other funds, the $57.2 million is a transfer from the general fund to balance the fund. Salaries budgeted at $3.9 million, which is a net increase of $38,000. That's related to the 3% increase for salaries. And then that's somewhat offset by a decrease of $42,000 in part-time salaries. KHA has their own calculated vacancy rate. That falls in line with how other vacancy rates are calculated. Professional and contractual services budgeted at almost $500,000, increasing $121,000, mostly due to ongoing community needs assessment project for Journey Forward. The rest of the funding is used for a digital legislative management tool, a contract management system, and the development assessment of a security and privacy framework. There is $80,000 that's a new item within library materials to purchase library books for the River City Readers Program. Debt service is going down just $13,000 related to the debt service payments on the Don Brewer Early Learning Center. And then grants, aids, and contributions budgeted at $250,000. This represents a direct contract with the Cathedral Arts Project. When taking into account, sorry, there's also a $215,000 direct contract for the Angel Kids Foundation. That was a part of the day one non-departmental line items. And then we'll have recommendations as it relates to those. And then the contingency is $49.8 million. That's what's set below the line and then is included in Bill 511 to be brought above the line for KHA funding. It does not include the $2.6 million that we just discussed as part of the Journey Forward. And when looking back at the budget from last year, this includes direct contracts for all but $475,000 of items that were approved last year, Elevate Jacks at $100,000 for the purchase of VAN, walk-off charities at $300,000, and then the Family Nurturing Center at $75,000. Below in that table, you can see a comparison year over year of the five essential service categories within KHA. And then the transfers to other funds of $242,996 is to the Kids Hope Alliance Trust Fund, which we'll get to in just a second. And then the Youth Travel Trust Fund at $50,000. They do have one food and beverage line at $2,500. There are no employee cap changes. Do want to point out that the service, due to the contingency amount staying flat year over year, KHA does not anticipate any service level changes. And it has indicated that all services are going to continue at their current level. However, they are not increasing the unit of service reimbursement paid to their providers. And so those providers will have to absorb any operating cost increases or minimum wage increases. Those three direct contracts that I mentioned are not part of the KHA budget this year. And then there's also the $80,000 enhancement for the River City Readers Program. We do not have any recommendations now. We will have the three recommendations that are included on page 53 when we get to Bill 511 in a couple weeks. But I wanted to go ahead and make you aware of those. And then the revised Schedule M, which is KHA's budget schedule, is included on page 54 for you. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Peterson. So we cannot take action on the recommendations today. We could take action on the contingency dollar amount today. Is that correct? Through the chair, you can take action on reducing the contingency. You can take action on the operating costs of KHA that are not included in Bill 511. Those are your options for today. Okay. Thank you. Councilman Salem, I'll recognize you first. And then I'll review what I had my ECA pass out to everyone. Thank you, Chair. I'll let you touch on that. I've said this for the last two or three years, and I'm going to say it again because I think it's important as this area has grown significantly. I think, and Mr. Weinstein can maybe correct me out, but I think Mayor Austin started the Jacksonville Children's Commission. He's nodded his head, yes, back in the 91 to 95 time frame. That was the children's entity that was created. Jack's journey was started sometime after that, I believe during the Payton administration. Again, I'm getting a nod from Mr. Weinstein. And we had two separate children's programs, both that were growing. During the Curry administration, I think a good decision was made, and they combined those two. And the philosophy was we're going to have one entity for children's programs, and we're going to call it the Kids Hope Alliance. So the Jacksonville Children's Commission and Jack's Journey were combined into that, and that was the one entity we had for children's programs. Since then, in recent years, we have rebirthed the Jacksonville Journey to Journey 4. So now we have two separate programs, both of which are growing, and Councilman Lane, in a minute, the chair, will explain to you how they're growing. The KHA has grown, I won't say exponentially, but very significantly, and I think going forward, we're going to have two different programs that are going to continue to grow, and I don't think that's good for this government, and to control expenses. I would prefer one entity and let the experts determine which programs are funded. If there are great programs in Journey 4, they should be funded, but it ought to be one entity, and we as a council, I think, should set the limit of what those funds are and say, you got $50 million for both those entities, and you determined which programs you're going to fund, and that's it. That's what I'd like to see done. I'm not involved this year, but I think philosophically, this council and this administration, and all of us are going to have a problem if we don't figure out a way to control this in a way that makes people decide what are the best programs, what do we want to fund, because this is the limit that you're going to have. Thank you, Chair, for allowing me to say that. Thank you. No one else in the queue, so I'll say what I have to say. So what I passed out before you, and again, I have made numerous comments about my concerns of just this growth. You go back four years, and KHA was $35 million, and it's very close to doubling in size. In fact, if you look at the proposed budget, the $60.5 million, it's really going to be that plus $5.2 million, because an additional $5.2 million that we had for the Youth Empowerment Committee that Council Member Freeman led that had $5.2 million designated, there was legislation to roll that into next year. So again, $35 to $65 million, that's a tremendous growth rate. There's really nothing else that's grown like that within our city budget, and I compare that to public safety. You've always been very forward about how we have a very public safety-focused budget. This is the first year that public safety is actually now over 60% of our budget. And just for comparison, if KHA had grown at the same rate as public safety, which when you take KHA out, is the other fastest-growing part of our budget, it would be about $52 million if you compared them apples to apples. I don't want to reduce it that much, but I know that KHA, they did do a 10% reduction scenario when they went with me. So I would entertain a motion if there was the appetite to reduce it by $5 million. Okay, so I do got a motion in a second on discussion of reducing the KHA contingency dollar amount by $5 million, which would be 10%. Council Member Johnson, you're recognized. Mr. Chair, I'm doing some rudimentary math here. I'm not understanding, when I'm looking at the amount of children that are here in Jacksonville four years ago versus now, those numbers have changed, which means we should be putting additional funds. I just really balk at the comparison that we can come in and say, well, these numbers must meet these benchmarks when things are changing in a different way. And so I think we need to take a look at that as opposed to just trying to look at numbers only. And I've said it since I've been on this committee, that every number is a person, and that's how I'm looking at this. Thank you. Council Member Carrico. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm not really allowed to discuss any details on KHA. They pull it out of the budget. I can't really vote on it. So I'll just say that the things that are really in public, that are important to me and most of us, are public safety and kids, which are our future. So just think about that hypothetically or however you want to take it. Thank you, Mr. Carrico. And, again, I meant to say that I fully support all the work and all the programs and all the impact that KHA has on kids. My concern has simply seen this stick out from any other budgetary item we have as far as the growth we've seen in the past four years. Council President. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So for clarity on the motion, $5 million cut is 10% of the contingency amount, which is basically all of the grants that are set out, correct? But it's $5 million from the total budget? It's less than 10% of the budget. It's $5 million from that line, which is the programming line. So it amounts to about 10% of that. Okay. That doesn't mean that Kids Open Alliance has to take it from the programming amount, right? Because when I add up all of their expenditures, I'm looking at over $8 million that they spend to run this organization of $58 million. Through the Chair to Council President. So budgetarily, it'll all come from that line. They do have transfer authority under the Mayor's transfer powers to move dollars around. If it exceeded the $500,000 within a single line, then they would come back to Council for that request. But they could move dollars around up to that $500,000. Okay, because I'm inclined to support the Chair's motion, because when I do look at the expenditure line from salaries all the way down to grants aids and contributions and above to debt service, really it is this entity is costing $8 million to run a nearly $60 million entity, and it's largely the vast majority of the expenditures are a pass-through to other organizations. So I wonder if we're getting maximum lien efficiency out of the administrative aspect of this. That said, I've never looked at it in depth, but I do note that Mr. Landon's reduction of $5 million still is about less than a 10% reduction, and it still leaves KHA growing at much faster than the pace of public safety. So you can't say that we haven't prioritized kids' issues. We're just kind of pulling the brakes on them just a little bit or kind of forcing them to look and make sure that they're allocating their grant amounts the right way. And I'm sure we'll have related member projects that actually potentially contribute to the issue as well. Mr. Salem said something also that's important too, and we keep having various initiatives that all are around the same thing, which are kind of public safety prevention and after-school kids programs. So it is good to have them all in one place, but it's also good to potentially pump the brakes on what looks like, we always hear that public safety from many folks in the community has had runaway growth. This seems to have even higher. So I would support that measure with this vote right now. I'm going to go to Mr. Peterson, then Mr. Weinstein, then Mr. Carly – I'm sorry, Mr. Peluso. Mr. Peterson. Through the chair to the committee and to Council President Howland, Mr. Parks correct me. I forgot KHA has different transfer authority within their budget bill. That actually gives them more capability of transferring between the essential services plans categories. But that could be further tweaked if you wanted to give them more authority when we got to Bill 511 later on in September. Okay. So what I'm understanding, though, is the $5 million, if this motion passes, doesn't have to come out of subgrants to organizations supplying the services to kids. It could also come out of administrative costs as they get leaner. Through the chair to Council President Howland, right now it has to come from a specific line item. And so that is – I won't say the easiest, but that is a taking out of a single line item and then asking KHA to reevaluate their budget knowing the new dollar amount is something that they can do. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Weinstein. Thank you, Mr. Chair. To continue sort of on the conversation we had Monday, the arbitrary number of the $5 million, basically you're looking at a trend line of growth, but you're not tying it to anything that results from the monies that are being provided. If you are adamant about potentially reducing their budget, I would suggest that you put the $5 million under the line and require them to come and illustrate what they would do differently with that reduction and see how it has and it may have an impact. Year after year after year, Council, this one and others, always provided additional money to KHA as the year goes by because they come in and they say, this is how many kids won't be serviced this summer. This is how many of this. So I would suggest strongly that the movement that you're considering may be the appropriate movement, but I would suggest you get more information on the impact of that rather than just arbitrarily say we're going to cut a certain percentage because they're growing in too much of a percentage without really evaluating the impact of those dollars. That's all. So, Mr. Weinstein, just to clarify, your suggestion was we would put it below the line so we can get an update on what exactly the $5 million impact would be. If you're hell-bent on reducing it potentially by $5 million, I would take it in two steps so that your final step is much more appropriate after an evaluation. That's all. Okay. Thank you. I'm going to go to Council Member Peluso. Thank you, Chair. And just to the body, you know, I mean, I understand the exercise that we're going through and I understand, you know, the reason why there's some logic on cutting some stuff. However, to the point of what I think Mr. Weinstein was making, let's make sure we get folks to come up here and explain where those dollars are going. Good administration means the programming gets done better. Right? As I look up what Hillsborough County has, and Hillsborough, by the way, almost every major county throughout the entire state of Florida, the largest ones, all have their own independent taxing authority. Right? We tried to do it with the Children's Commission. If you look back, I think 1999 or 1990, it was like 91 or I think it was, I think it was the year Tommy lost. Yeah. So, so we tried to do the children's. Through the chair, gentlemen. Thank you. My apologies. We tried to do an independent taxing authority. It didn't work. However, that's when Ed Austin decided to create the Children's Commission. Today, say again? Yes. Through the chair to Council Member Salem, I believe that's accurate. Point being is every other major county does have one. In Hillsborough County, which has a population of about 1.52 million people, it's about $80 million a year that they have right now based on the millage that they assess. In Pinellas County, which has less than a million residents, it's about 126 million. Right? These are dollars that they're putting into their youth, the future workforce, and investing in the future. As we're about to go into potentially a very tough economic time in this country, and we all know the chaos coming out of D.C., we all know where gas prices have gone, now is the last time that we should be cutting anything involving children's programming, whether it be administration or the programming itself. Because you affect one, you affect the other. So I prefer, if anything, some stuff goes below the line, but we should not be cutting or considering that by any means. This is the population we want to grow up here and remain here in Jacksonville and not leave to go somewhere else. It's just something to consider. A lot of other counties put a lot of emphasis on young people, and I just fear that this city might be going in the wrong direction. Mr. Carlucci, for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So crime is going down. I think what we're doing right now might be working. So that's something to think about on both ends, the preventative and the enforcement. But I'm always a little hesitant to start cutting a budget of another entity without hearing from them, to Mr. Weinstein's point. And so I don't know if anybody is here from KHA. Okay. Raise your hands. Okay. Yep, yep, yep. They're here. But, you know, Mr. Weinstein is warmer to what my thoughts are, and I don't think we're at the place where we should go perhaps to a full-blown justification of why their budget request is what it is right now. But I'm just hesitant to cut a budget until we know why their budget request is what it is. And then we take $5 million out. They came up with that. Obviously, they put a lot of thought into that. And then they just take $5 million out. And I understand what you're trying to do. You've done a great job with this committee. I mean, you have done a great job. I'm very impressed with it. So I know you're not trying to just play to cut for no reasons. But I just, I know that I learned a long time ago, before I cut somebody's budget, you know, it's best to know what they say and why they put it together. So I suggest we do that before we cut it, or if so, put it under the line where it can be easily retrieved after we've heard from them. Thank you. And just to clarify on that, I did meet with KHA. They walked me through everything, including the fact that they had prepared a 10% reduction contingency plan in case there were cuts. They're very well aware of my concerns on the growth we've had. So the $5 million is not on a whim. It's after meeting with them, understanding what sort of scenarios they had put in place. It is something they have off the shelf already. So, again, we'll see where the conversation goes. But the next step on this may be to have them come back and present what that 10% reduction plan looks like. But, again, this was not on a whim, and it was not without meeting with KHA first. I would not do that to an organization, just come up here on the dais and out of the blue, pitch a $5 million reduction. Let's see. I'm going to go to the council president, and then I think Council Member Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I know you and I always often get criticized for thinking too much in numbers, but I do want to note, Dr. Johnson said something. You've got to consider population when you're doing this, not just arbitrary numbers. But recall about a year and a half ago, I asked the auditors to prepare a spreadsheet analysis of 2017 to current year growth by department, by line, across the whole general fund, compared to the sum of inflation and population growth. I wanted to see what departments went higher, what went lower. Kids Hope Alliance, JFRD, and JSO were considerably higher. I want just running CAGR numbers on the sheet that Mr. Landon has handed out. Roughly the sum of inflation and population growth is a little bit north of about 5%. If you look at these numbers here, the compounded annual growth rate, the CAGR of public safety is roughly about 8% from 2021 to 2026. That means it exceeds the sum of population growth plus inflation. CAJ here is over 11% CAGR, compounded annual growth rate. That is far exceeding the sum of population growth plus inflation and far exceeding public safety's growth. If you take the $5 million haircut that Councilman Landon has proposed, that brings it down to 9%, which is still a compounded annual growth rate higher than public safety and still much higher than the sum of population and inflation. So it's, by all means, even with this growth or this $5 million cut, if it's indeed something that KHA can sustain with its 10% plan, we as a Council are still aggressively investing in children's after-school services, actually to the tune of 9% on a compounded annual growth basis, more, actually, than we are even public safety. So thank you. Councilman Johnson. I do have some questions, and I would like Dr. Krznar to come up, because I do have some questions specifically for you. But as she comes, I want to say, you can't look at this, while I certainly understand it, and through the chair to the president, I get what you're saying. I certainly understand those numbers. But you cannot look at those numbers in isolation, because the kindergartner and the 12th grader have different needs. And that's what I'm talking about when it comes to growth. I cannot just say all kids. And one of the former council presidents reached out to me to remind us just now that, remember, for us to just say, oh, kids are involved with Journey, stick it with the Kids Hope Alliance. They're two different things. The Journey was a prevention program. While it does involve children and young people, and maybe, you know, as we talk about it, it can be a portion of what they do, but remember, the Journey program itself is for more of an advocacy program to keep kids from going down the wrong path, to stop crime in our communities. And so I don't think you can just lump those in together. Additionally, and I just, again, want to remind you of that, that the kindergartner and the 12th grader have different needs, and those needs change over time. That's what I'm talking about when you begin to aggregate increases of what it takes, especially when it comes to education. Also, we can't just lump it in and say, well, public safety didn't get greater. At the end of the day, with public safety, everyone's not having public safety needs every day in the same way that kids are needing these kind of programs to move forward in life. You may not need an ambulance. You may not need a fire engine. But every day, kids are going to need after-school programming. And so that's why you see these needs increase, and we have to look at it that way. We cannot look at them siloed. But I need to understand, first of all, my question for you through the chair to Dr. Kriznar, when you went to the NBRC to propose the budget that you did, and not to take anything away from the mayor's office and the work that you all have done, was the number that was presented to us the same number that you presented to NBRC, and what was the reduction, if that number? Do you have that information? The number, so first of all, Dana Kriznar, the very proud interim CEO of Kids Hope Alliance. We were recommending flat funding this year, no increase in funding. It was the same as the mayor's budget. So is the number that, the number you took to NBRC was the number that we see here? Yes. Okay. The next question, the rationale, this is, and I do have another question for you, but the rationale of the 10%, is it strictly, Mr. Chair, because we believe that the Kids Hope Alliance growth doesn't match growth in other places? Is that the rationale for the 10%? Well, going back to, again, I don't think there would be the appetite to increase it all, or decrease it all the way down to match the same rate as public safety the past five years. That's the 8 million that's on the spreadsheet. But when I met with them, they said they had already done what a 10% reduction scenario would look like. And so that's why I went with the 5 million, because I knew they had done a scenario reflecting that already. But it shows a reason, but to me, and I had this debate recently in the mayor's office, reason versus rationale, I'm not seeing, it's because there's a number, and because they have done this, but is it, at the end of the day, and it leads to my next question through the Chair to Dr. Kriznar, and I don't know whether you can quantify this or ask this, maybe this is rhetorical, how many fewer Jacksonville children will be served because of this reduction, number one, and what kinds of reductions, if this 10% reduction is put in place, what kinds of things can we see disappear from the work that's happening right now? Sure, thank you for that question. And I also want to point out that we have board members here, our CFOs here, our CAOs here, and the new CEO that begins in September is here. So I hope I can phone a friend, I'm new. So to the first point about reducing the budget via staffing and the operational budget, we are not going to get anywhere near enough money to hit $5 million. Ten years ago, we had 60 staff members, 60 full-time FTE, today we have 42. 42. Even though our budget's gone up, our staff has gone down by about 33%. So we don't have any wiggle room in our operational costs. Most of those are determined for us through health benefits, through funding that we have to pay to the Office of General Counsel, all those kinds of things. Those are fixed costs. Our building costs are a certain amount of money. So we're not going to get any of the money from there. There's no way we can hit this $5 million without reducing seats. And so, Dr. Johnson, to your point through the chair, we currently have 11,237 after-school seats, and those aren't imaginary. Those are kids in seats now, and many of our programs already have waiting lists. So we would have to reduce seats by 10%. That would be a reduction of about 1,100 seats in after-school programs. In summer camps, which we've already had for this year, so this money is already expended, 11,616 students, a 10% reduction would be 1,160 seats. In juvenile justice, we served 1,755 students directly, and another 5,000 indirectly through services like Hope at Hand and Pearls of Perfection. So that would be a direct reduction of 175 students. In early learning, we serve 4,000 children, and that would be 400, would be a 10% cut. In special needs, we serve 11,100 children and families. That would be a reduction of 1,100. And in teen, preteen, we serve 3,500 youth. A 10% reduction would be 350. So that would be a total of about 4,310 seats that we have children currently in. I also want to say that we have not increased reimbursements to our providers. We don't provide direct services. We have a number of providers that provide those services for us. And they've not received an increase in reimbursement rates over these last four years of our contract, even though they've had increased costs. And they over-enroll in programs. So if they're funded for 40 seats, many of them actually serve 50 students. So they're already increasing seats. They're already maximizing your dollars. They're doing their own fundraising. They're applying for their own grants. And so you're getting more than you pay for. And I would say that if we cut their budgets by 10%, in the past, perhaps they might have been able to pick up that slack. But there's no slack left. We're in year four without increasing reimbursement. So on behalf of the providers, I have to say there's no slack. So we would actually have to cut seats. So while we did the 10% budget reduction exercise, understanding that it's a tough year, I do want to say that there's no way that we can do this without cutting surfaces for children that are currently in seats. And like I said, we have wait lists already in many of our programs. I've reached out to some of our providers. And so I just want to clarify that. Thank you, Dr. Krisner. And to the chair, that's why I was – those are real numbers. 4,300 young people that would get a reduction in services. And I am – I still do not understand why we are even trying this exercise. When we have more kids who have more needs, we cannot police our way out of moving our community forward and taking care of our kids. We have all seen the teen takeovers. I used a portion of my community benefits agreement dollars to fund a summer camp. Thank you, KHA, for helping move that so quickly. And I've just gotten the metrics on those which we're going to share with the community. We have done the work. But we as this council cannot sit back. And, colleagues, I hope that you will understand that, that we have an opportunity here to not just show up after an incident has happened, but to put the work in to ensure that these kind of incidents don't happen. And yesterday, for just to give you an idea – and this is just one of the providers, because I was involved with this – the Made Away Foundation, which there was an issue with this group, which we needed to bring them off of the noncompliant list of – it was simply a mistake in understanding what they needed to do. It was over $9,000. We got them off of the noncompliant list with a vote yesterday. That organization, which would be one of these that is affected, still was doing the work, even though they couldn't receive the KHA funds, to try to increase what they were doing because of the belief of what they have to do in the community. That's just one example. There are dozens of organizations that are doing this work to make sure that we don't have to send a police officer or, worse, to take care of situations. This is something that we must hold to and not – I certainly understand Mr. Weinstein, Representative Weinstein, and will agree to that. But to just come up with a cut across the board, I believe, colleagues, is irresponsible. Thank you. Councilman Mercerica. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, I'm not allowed to really opine or give my opinion, especially when I'm sitting right next to my attorney. So because there are so many people out here, maybe I'll let someone else speak and use my time to let another person come to the podium. First, Dr. Kirshner, thank you. Great explanation. As being the interim, you were the interim superintendent, too, so you know how to do that. Good job. I see so many people from KHA, but I see providers out there. And one person that just stands out to me is Mr. Leon Baxton from the communities and schools who runs one of the largest operations. So if you wouldn't mind, just come to the podium and tell your elected members what you think a 10% decrease would do to your programs. Again, not my opinion, and I'm not doing anything but let people speak. Leon Baxton, communities and schools. First of all, if I look a little rattled, it's because there was a bad fire today with some young people, and they were students. And so my whole psyche has been thrown off. But when you reduce seats, especially when the students in our after-school programs have been performing academically, their attendance is great. Their reading score is up. Everything is going well. The school system is a double A. Even the superintendent has given us credit for the work that we're doing. But what's more devastating, as everyone has mentioned, with the inflation, the rent increases and everything, the food deprivation, when we lose seats, these are students and families that don't get that academic support. But the other thing that's important that hits me at heart is that they don't get those snacks after school that they provide. They don't get that hot meal. And many a times these are parents that are dependent on these meals for these students. And then aftercare is so expensive. So it is devastating. I've had many sleepless nights. And us, CIS, Boys and Girls Club, Mal Washington, all of us just want to do the work. And we're doing it. But it's a sleepless night. And Jacksonville, let me say this. And I know most of you. We are one city that has one of the best after-school programs ever. And this city has responded and supported them. We're the only city that has maintained the 21st century sites. So again, on behalf of our students, our families that are suffering out there, that are struggling, it is hard. So I just ask and put a face to it. It's hard for me to have to go back and say to my principals and to my staff, which one of these students who have already started the program are we going to say, you can't come back? How many of my staff do I have to say, you can't come back and work? That's the part that makes us sleepless. So again, I hope I've answered your question. Thank you, sir. Mr. Salem, or I'm sorry, Mr. Weinstein and then Mr. Salem. Thank you, Mr. Chair. A couple of things. First of all, you mentioned the 10%. We have all of our departments do that exercise. So we're prepared for things to come if things go bad. A couple of comments. You know, we talk about ROI. We talk about return. The best investment we're making is with the kids. This is where we're really investing in the future. Most everything else we do is taking care of things that are happening today. And a lot of our public service grants are taking care of people that need things today. When I would go out and make presentations, I would try to inform people that we can provide a lot of nonprofit dollars to take care of people's needs. But the only one that really takes care of all their needs is what we do with kids in education and literacy. So if we're going to make investments, the best investment in the future is with the kids. Councilman Peluso mentioned we did try to do a referendum when Ed Austin first came in, and we'd lost by just a tiny bit of percentage to do a sales tax for the Children's Commission. Basically, we are at the low end of our comparable cities as to what we do with children. Most of the programs that Leon was talking about and Dana was talking about, they're recurring. You know, we always try to do one-time money with one-time needs. When you give money to KHA, they go out and make a program and kids get in it, and it's more recurring than most of the other things that we do. And the last thing that I want to say is that the picture of us basically, the two biggest cuts we may do is affordable housing and kids, children. Bad image. Bad image. And we've been through this last year. It's just a bad image. That's all. Thank you. Council President, and then Mr. Salem. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to say this narrative about when this city council is trying to kind of pump the brakes in the face of revenue uncertainty, the fact that we're unfeeling about kids issues or affordable housing, or last year I think it was Meals on Wheels, it's just disingenuous because the city council increased Kids Hope Alliance by $10 million in 2021, by another $10 million in 2022. So if you're giving us heck for trying to be prudent with taxpayer dollars in areas that have grown considerably at the same time that we're spending more than we have in the past and we've dedicated city funding to growing these areas, it's not going to encourage any growth for any other areas again because then you can never step on the brakes again without being just taken apart for being unfeeling. So all you can do is present the numbers and you can show where you've invested, where you've invested considerably. You can show where your constraints are, and you've got to show where you can put on the brakes. It's not because of lack of emotion. It's simply because what areas have grown tremendously and what areas we can prudently look to cut back. And if you're saying that affordable housing and kids' programs are the only ones, they're not. We've taken a look at every line, line item by line item, to address where we can afford to invest and where we can grow. Don't forget that we have put records amount into public safety, records amount into critical infrastructure, records amount into indigent health care. I just want everyone to remember that before they go start accusing council members, any one of us, any one of the 19, of not showing proper care for kids or for affordable housing when they're looking at the entire $9 billion of budget spent across the consolidated government of Jacksonville. Thanks. And colleagues, if I may, before I go to Dr. Salem, I may not have articulated good enough in the beginning, but if this $5 million amendment passes, next year will still be the most money that's ever been distributed by KHA because we rolled over the $5.2 million. Dr. Salem, sorry for calling you Mr. Salem. I've been called much worse. I've been accused of being a numbers guy my whole life, and I try to work on my touchy-feely side, but at times it's a struggle. We have, as a council, a fiduciary responsibility to keep this budget in place. We've got uncertainty in the future, clearly. We don't know what's going to happen in November, and we don't have unlimited dollars. If we had unlimited dollars, this would not be an issue, but we don't have unlimited dollars. We have a fixed amount, and we have to decide. We've got roads that need to be paved that aren't going to get paved this year. We've got drainage, flooding that is occurring. We've got good citizens that walk out of their house up to their knees in water because we can't do everything all at one time. It's got to be incremental. This budget was at $35 million in the 21-22 year, and we have since, as the chair said, we've got the $5.2 million from the CARACO plan already, and we've started the Journey Forward thing, and they have no employees. Those programs are run by KHA. Don't think that KHA is not involved in their programs. So we've got to, on occasion, we've got to look at these things, and I think the Finance Committee is on the right track. There's philanthropy out there. Go out to the private sector. Government can't do everything for every single person. You've got to look to other sources as well. And Mr. Weinstein, I agree with him on one point. We have been guilty of this as a council when it comes to summer, and we hear about the kids, and we pump more money into it and more money into it. He's right. We are responsible for some of this, and it pulls on our strings, and we feel like we need to do something. So it's a tough call. You know, no one's going to feel good about this, but if you look at the numbers and how they've grown, and we've got Journey in addition to that that's out there, that is new over the last couple of years, I think it's pretty clear to me. So thank you, Mr. Chair. Council Member Gay for the first time. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Kisner, could you come back up? I'd like to ask you a few questions over to some of the items you discussed. You referenced at one time you all had 62 employees. In fiscal year, Dana Kisner, Kids Hope Alliance, in fiscal year 16 we had 60 full-time employees, and currently we have 42 full-time employees. All right. Thank you. Through the Chair, Ms. Kisner. So you went down in the number of employees. The services that is done, performed with KHA, those are contracted out? Yes, we do not provide direct services. We contract out our services. So our employees are generally financial, contract managers, technology specialists, so they manage the contracts. You went down in a number of employees, but the amount of contributions have been increasing, and basically you all are subcontracting all the actual work out. So it seems to me that we were paying a real top-heavy to have a lot of services done that I need to get a better, my head wrapped around this a lot more to see a justification for reducing personnel and KHA not providing any services other than just being a coordinator. So thank you, Chair. Council Member White, for the first time. Thank you. Through the Chair. Chair, this is, we'll pull on your heartstrings, and, of course, everybody knows I'm public safety first, and this ranks right with that. I would implore you, maybe I like the idea of putting it below the line so they've got six or seven or eight months, nothing changes, and then they can start looking at what would change if the cut had been there, and then it would be up to us to decide in six or seven months if we want to stay there. So I'd like to see it go below the line so it gives us a chance to look at it deeper. So we've got a motion and second to amend the amendment to put the $5 million below the line. Mr. Peterson, isn't that where it is right now? So I guess, do we vote on this or do we ask for the amendment to be removed? What's the proper posture? To the Chair and the committee, I think the best would be acknowledging what you're going to do when 5.11 comes up in three weeks because that's where the change will actually occur. Okay, so again, we have time. And, Ms. Peterson, you said the new CEO is here, correct, in the audience? Yes. Can she come up? I guess she's not getting paid yet, so it would be very rude to ask her to come up and face this. Okay. She is still in her current position with the Y. But may I clarify one thing? Sure. We have increased the number of contracts, but we've decreased the number of employees, so we've actually become less top-heavy. I just want to correct that. So each of our contract managers handling more contracts, not less, if that makes sense. We went from 60 to 42 employees handling more contracts. Oh, gosh. I'd have to count it up. Hundreds, yes. Through the Chair, Mr. Weinstein. Right. Sure. Mr. Weinstein. Thank you. Two things, Councilman Gay. The ordinance that created KHA specifically says you cannot do direct services. Even if we wanted them to, they can't deal with the children. They have to go through nonprofits. Basically, if I remember, there was 90 different entities with about 200 different contracts, and they do contract management. And the contract managers are the ones that keeps us out of the headlines with nonprofit money getting misused. And their sole responsibility is to make sure that the deliverables that the contracts have, how many children, how many hours, how many meals, all that stuff is submitted, and it's reimbursable. All the grants are basically reimbursable. So the data comes in, and the contract managers have to determine that that many children were serviced, that many meals, and what have you, before the nonprofit gets the reimbursement. So that's what those 40 or 45 people basically do. They manage all those contracts. And to further, I've got 32 pages of contracts here. These are all of our contracts and all of our service providers, and it's 32 pages of Excel spreadsheets. Mr. Gay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So to you, Ms. Chris, through the chair to Ms. Christner, yes, I don't doubt you've got a number of contracts that you're dealing with. My point was 60 to 42, and to get a better understanding of a decrease of personnel with increase of budgets, to bring that correlation together is what I'm needing to get to better understand where y'all are at. And that's where I said it seems to be top-heavy. And so that's where I want to get a better understanding of that. And through the chair and Mr. Weinstein, the topic that I was referring to is what the actual protocol was with this organization to clarify that they are not the actual providers. They are just a pass-through entity. And so we can get a better definition and clarity of where the money is being spent at. And so that's what I'm going to be looking at to make sure that, you know, I'm comfortable with, you know, how we're handling, you know, going from 60 to 42 people, what we're paying, what we were paying, what we're paying now, and getting all that balanced out. So that was my reasoning for the question. So thank you. All right. Thank you. So, again, just to regroup here, we do have an amendment to the amendment, which is to keep it below the line. I'm going to go to Ms. Staphopoulos first so she can clarify a few things. Thank you. Through the chair to the committee. So I just wanted to try to get you all in the proper posture. So the amendment to the proposed motion to put the money, the $5 million below the line, is unnecessary because it's already sitting in a contingency. So the effect of your original motion, I believe your intent, Mr. Chair, was when we take up the appropriation of the Kids Hope Alliance budget in 5-11, the contingency being appropriated from would be reduced by $5 million. So the appropriation of their budget would be a number that is $5 million less than what was originally proposed. What I would recommend, Mr. Chair, that you can do to account for this amendment that's been proposed that I don't think is proper here is you can, when you get to 5-11, make a motion to appropriate the budget, the proposed budget, less the $5 million and leave the $5 million in the contingency in 5-11 when that bill comes up. And then that would accomplish keeping it below the line but the rest being appropriated through that budget bill. But for the here and now, what do we do with the current posture? Do we need to do anything? Because there's been two amendments. I don't think that you do to accomplish what it is the committee has been talking about. So we don't need to do any action, including withdrawing the amendment? The amendment could be withdrawn because the money is already sitting in a contingency, so it doesn't change anything. You can act on your original motion, which would have the effect of the amount of money that's left to appropriate in 5-11 in your second cycle is $5 million less. You can take that up now, or you can make a motion when 5-11 comes up, and as the committee's intent might be at that point, to make it all go into that $5 million go into a contingency. Instead of appropriating the full amount of the proposed budget, you appropriate the dollar amount minus the $5 million and leave that in the contingency. And that would mark the, that would meet the spirit of Council Member White's amendment, I believe, which is let's not cut $5 million but rather educate us on what that would mean, and we revisit it down the road, essentially. Okay. So, so I think after all of that, the right action right now is to do nothing, I'm hearing. If you would like to just put on the record that the motions pending, including the amendment, and your original motion are withdrawn and there's no objection, then we would take all of this up as part of your discussion on 5-11. So for the record, the amendment and the amended amendment is on hold until 5-11. And I will say, I still got a few speakers in the queue. For everyone out there, I mean, this, this is our job up here. When we see something that has grown like this, if it was any other department, we probably would have reduced it this budget cycle. But to the new CEO, I'd love to, to meet you in person because, again, if we're not going to cut, I at least want to know how we can at least stay flat or close to flat the next couple of years just to stop this, this cost curve that has seen just tremendous growth the past couple of years. I'm going to go to Council Member Johnson. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. And that, Mary, I just want to make sure that I'm in the right place to the chair, Mr. Fopoulos. We, so right now, in order for us to be in the right posture, if this body chooses, I know you're not giving advice, I just want to make sure where we are, we would need to withdraw the current motion and then we would do any other needs. Well, I didn't hear anybody say withdraw. Did we withdraw it? Mr. Chair, I think you had indicated you were tabling it. I think that was tantamount to a withdrawal and there was no objection to that. Okay, so. This was a new one for me too, but we've essentially tabled it to another bill. Which means, can you do that? I would recommend just withdrawing. Yeah, because that's confusing. Because you're tabling a matter on a, on a different piece of legislation. So, you're tabling the discussion, but with respect to the motions on the floor, I would just recommend those be withdrawn unless you do want to vote on them. To you, if I may, to my colleague, Councilman Miller, through the chair, to me, because that's what confused me when we said tabling it and we're talking about another piece of legislation. I do have something else, but Councilman Miller, I respectfully would ask if you would withdraw that. That way we at least have time for the Kids Hope Alliance and the others to present data that we can use to vote on when 5-11 comes up. I'm going to go to Councilmember White. Yes, sir, I will withdraw my amendment. It was me, Mr., Dr. Johnson. Yes, but the initial bill came from, the amendment can't work because it's already, it's null and void. It's the bill that, I mean, the motion that must be withdrawn. Councilmember Miller, will you withdraw your amendment at this time? Yes, I will do so. Thank you. Second. All right, so we have withdrawn that amendment. That was a long conversation to be right here. Let's see, I'm going to get back to Councilmember Johnson. I wasn't, and what I wanted to say was, and I just had to put this on the record, I know we're talking about we're dealing with less money, but I just want to reiterate that a year ago, while I wasn't on this committee, I did sit here and fight. We literally heard from public safety, both police and fire, who stood at that very podium, to beg us not to lower the millage rate. We heard dozens of community residents who came to us to say, keep my $12, keep my funds, so that we won't have to do things like this. And this is what comes from it. I just want to put that on the record. Thank you. Mr. Peterson. I couldn't, Parks. Yeah, I couldn't get my request to speak to work. I did want to just point out from an admin cost. Back in FY21-22, which is the beginning year you're showing, the admin cost was roughly $6.4 million. It is now $7.7 million. They had 42 employees then, and it's 42 employees now. Just so everybody, for the period of time that we are comparing, I just wanted to get that out there. So, Mr. Parks, in other words, their admin growth has been modest. It's been the programming cost that has been significant. That would be a fair statement. Okay, thank you. Okay, so we, there is nothing pending on KHA right now. It'll be taken up again on 5-11. So I think the task for both committee members, as well as those in the audience, are get with those you haven't met with yet. Educate us, let us better understand what putting 5 million either below the line or completely out. And again, like our job up here is to be good fiduciary agents for the city. And so when we see things like this, our auditors help us to identify what parts are growing faster, slower than average. And that's why I at least want to have the conversation and also want to work with the new CEO just to see what we can do to at least try to keep this flat, because it is unsustainable, the rate at which it's been growing the past four years. I have Carlucci, White, and Miller in the queue. Okay, Council Member White is out. Council Member Miller and then Carlucci to wrap it up. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Through the chair, I won't be long. I've been taking it all in and not because I'm the vice chair, but I couldn't be any more in line with you and your stated positions than I am. Um, you know, we have a responsibility and when that growth is way beyond any other organization that we see as we go through all the budget items, um, it would be, that's what would be irresponsible is to not give it more scrutiny and do something about it. Um, that's when we end up with, now we're up to 1,060 nonprofits in Jacksonville and Duval County when we used to have 500 and some. Now we're up to 1,060. And when we, when we keep letting things go, even if it is a very emotional type of matter, which this certainly isn't, it's very important. And I would put these, these children's programs, um, on a level with public safety and importance of prevention and helping them on a better trajectory. Absolutely. Um, but at what pace, at what pace to be fiscally responsible, uh, as well, we wouldn't let any other organization go through this process unchecked. Uh, we wouldn't, regardless of, of what it was. So, um, to be responsible with and be good stewards of taxpayers' dollars, that's what this is all about. It's not, um, assessing whether or not these programs and the people with good hearts, uh, in these programs mean the, for the best for, for the youth. They, I'm sure they certainly all do. Um, what, what I'd like to see going forward, separate from the budget effort, efforts, since we're going to give this more attention. Um, I believe when I met with Dr. Krizner and Kriznar and, and also board chair Oliver and a couple others, we haven't given any guidance on focus from this body for, I believe, somewhere around eight, nine years. Um, I think we need to all think about that. What do we want them focused on? Um, they're focused on the guidance that was given to them some time ago. So, as we go through this process, let's, you know, let's think that through and then be able to help and work closely with them on that guidance for prioritization and, and associated with the funding that comes through. Um, I'd also just, one more thing. I just want to say, you know, where does all the funding come from? There are a lot of enhancements for reading programs coming through different sources. There are a lot of enhancements for afterschool programs, different sources. Um, you know, the more we can bring them together like KHA, uh, Jacksonville Journey Forward, it seems to be, we want to add more, add new, add new, add new, um, Juvenile Justice Intervention Program with KHA. Where does that belong? Um, are there ways we can streamline things and put them in the correct buckets when Jacksonville Journey Forward didn't exist for a long time? Now it does. So, can we do some things to, to become more efficient and effective and put things in the right buckets, uh, that may not be right now? And, and the answer can't always be more, more, more, more, more at a rapid rate beyond everything else, or you don't care about kids, or you don't care about whatever it is. That's not the case. That's not the case for any of us. We all care. Um, but we also have a responsibility, um, so we have to balance that out. Uh, so that's, that's all I have. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chair. Councilman Carlucci, then we're doing the recommendations, then we are going on a 10-minute recess. Mr. Carlucci. Okay, thanks. Boy, this has been the best advertisement and, uh, in conversation to convince people not to vote for Amendment 3. We've taken all this time and we, we, to cut $5 million and put $5 million under the line. Can you imagine if we were up here trying to figure out $300 million? Oh, yeah. It would never happen. I mean, we'd be here forever. Look, um, we can be for numbers. There's a good place for numbers. And there's a good place for people's hearts. But the best place is for results. And right now, our crime rate is down. So something's working. And it's got, it's, it's not gotta, just gotta be enforcement. It's gotta be prevention and intervention. And that's what the journey, the Children's Commission, and our JSO is doing. And I just don't want to see us go back. One question for clarification. Because I'm just not quite sure where we're at. And I will make sure the audience knows. Mr. Chair, um, a nice job on conducting this exercise. But where is their budget at now? Is it still the same place it was when it was prepared for us? So they're not down five. They're not up five. Same place until we take up something. Uh, when, and when are we gonna do that? Yes. So off the table is a $5 million reduction. Uh, we will get to the KHA bill, which is 511, I believe. That's the KHA bill, in committee next week. Okay. And I believe at that time, if I followed the conversation. Oh, it's the second committee. Okay. Oh, so I got three weeks. Okay, three weeks instead of one week. Uh, three weeks, the committee meeting before the final budget is when we'll take up 511, in committee. And based on how the conversation has gone today, what I would expect is, uh, Council Member White may introduce his amendment to keep it below the line. Okay. Uh, pending learning more about the organization. Okay. Uh, so that's where we're at. Nothing, nothing has been cut by the finance company today. And, and, uh, thank you. Thank you for a nice job in being fair and square across the board. Uh, I, I don't know if we know what date that is, but I, I want to make sure that, uh, the folks in the audience know what date that is and what time to be here for that. The 15th. Mr. Chair, that would be your committee meeting on Tuesday, September 15th. You are correct, Mr. Carley. At what time would that be? The committee meets at 1 p.m., I believe. Yes. And that'll be a very busy day with all of the budget bills, I believe, or at least most of them. With the exception of the millage bill and 504. Right. Which those two you will take up next week because you have to present those to the council to take up as the tentative budget. Tentative budget. So those will have to be up. Okay. Thank you very much. And, uh, the audience, September 15th at, uh, uh, one, one o'clock, one o'clock. Make sure that y'all are here. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it. Okay. With that, uh, Mary whispered in my ear, there are no actionable recommendations because these will be on five 11. And so we are going to take a 10 minute recess. I think when we get back, we probably have less than an hour of work to do. We have a quorum and we'll get started. Uh, Mr. Peterson, I should have knocked through this last one. I realize now because we did not a hundred percent finish KHA. So page 53. All right. Page 55. Is it 55 or 53? Oh, that's right. We did not have to take action on the recommendations. So 55 is where we're at. Still KHA fund. Yes. Uh, um, page 55 is the Kids Hope Alliance Trust. Um, this is on page 164 of your budget book is staying flat at $200,000, uh, through this trust fund, KHA provides, uh, mini grants, uh, which can be awarded up to $25,000 to small providers. Uh, there are, are investment pool earnings being budgeted this year. And then the transfer from other funds of 194,999 is from the general fund to meet the $200,000 planned for this, uh, fund. It is put in a contingency and brought above the line in the cage bill 511. No service level changes, no, no positions and no recommendations. Council president. Oh, it's just a really loud projecting voice. Okay. The, um, thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, Philip, does this mean that, uh, Kids Hope Alliance does, um, collect donations and contributions? Through the chair to council president, it means they have the ability to collect donations and contributions. So they could really run a philanthropy drive for $5 million if, if they wanted to. I mean, because we're not the only source of revenue to supply these grants, I'd imagine. Um, DCPS, I wonder if that could be a source of revenue too. They could contribute to that fund as well, couldn't they? Um, if they so chose, yes, they could contribute. Yeah, so we gotta keep forgetting that it's just taxpayers that are sources of revenue for all these initiatives we wanna support. Thanks. No one else in the queue. All right, page 56 is the Youth Travel Trust Fund overseen by KHA. That's on page 166 of your budget book. Um, the annual appropriation to this fund may not exceed $50,000 per Suant 2, Section 111-850. It is an all-years fund. Uh, KHA, uh, can accept and consider requests up to $25,000 from an organization with this funding covering no more than 50% of the total cost. Uh, there are interest earnings in this budget of $2,003. The remainder to get to the $50,000 comes from the general fund, and this is, once again, put in the contingency to be brought above the line in 5-11. Uh, no positions in this fund and no recommendations. And no one in the queue. All right, and the last fund overseen by KHA is the Jacksonville Upward Mobility Program Fund. Uh, it takes, uh, 1% of previously approved economic development, uh, incentives that are outside the geographical boundaries of a community redevelopment area and included in the next budget, uh, to be appropriated towards this program, uh, which are used for apprenticeship, pre-apprenticeship, and skilled workforce training programs. Uh, the CEO of KHA is authorized to make the grants and, uh, expenditure recommendations, um, to be approved by city council through the annual budget process. Uh, so that 1% equates to $328,275 being transferred from the general fund, uh, and it is put into other operating expenses for contract renewals, uh, no positions, and no recommendations. And this is one of the funds I was hoping Councilman Freeman would be back in time. I did, uh, hear that his, uh, daughter's surgery went well, but, uh, this is one of his, uh, legacy items he will leave with us, a good program for the city. So, uh, with that, Mr. Peterson, I have a whole list of wrap-up items you helped me with yesterday. Should, uh, should I just start chugging through that list? All right. Uh, so first of all, let's talk about tomorrow. So, JAA is going to be here. Uh, we scheduled 90 minutes for them. It's their budget. But what I think will be an even longer time is they got a Cecil Field presentation on all the, uh, stuff that's going on out there, uh, as well as, uh, obviously our council president was integral in that work to, uh, get that, uh, set up. Uh, so let's go through the list here. So the first thing, uh, lapse. So I am going to hand off the gavel to Council Member Miller. It'll be just easier if I make this motion. So Vice Chair, I'd ask to be recognized. Mr. Chair, you're recognized. Thank you. I'd like to make a motion for a 3% lapse based on the three largest departments of public works, libraries, and parks, which would be approximately, uh, 4.8 million, subject to Mr. Peterson's confirmation, to be placed as a non-departmental extraordinary lapse. And if I could... We have a motion in a second. Thank you. So overall, this is going to be a smaller lapse than what we put last year. Uh, and the reason I picked the big departments, there is a lot of legislative work if we just went across the board, every department. So your 2% is way smaller than other departments' 2%. So I'm with the three biggest departments. I talked to, uh, uh, the administration about this as well. So we started this practice last year with, uh, Council, uh, Council Member Salem. And this is continuing it. And my philosophy, too, is like, this has nothing to do with November 3rd in my mind. This is just a good target for them to come in under budget. And at the auditor's recommendation, it will be placed as a non-departmental, uh, not expense, but a lapse within that. So, uh, Vice Chair, you need to recognize. You'll recognize past President Salem. Thank you, Vice Chair. Just to clarify, either through the auditors, is, is this very similar to the 2%? And it's those areas that can be cut. We're not looking at pensions and, and those items that cannot be cut. Through the chair, if I can. Vice Chair, could you recognize, Mr. Parks? Excuse me, Mr. Parks, please. Yes, so this is very similar to last year's. The only difference is that he's actually looking at the total budget, but we're putting it non-departmental, so, and looking at whole. So if you remember, last year's was about 5.8 million. This is coming in at 4.8, so it would still be able to be managed citywide throughout all of the mayor's departments and everything else. So it is based on a different amount because it's only looking public works, public libraries, and parks and rec within the general fund. So it's slightly different, but if you, as he mentioned, the dollar amount is going down. Okay, so it's, it's, it's less than the 2% that was across the board. This is 3% just for those three departments. It's based on the budget for those three, but they can be managed by the mayor through any of their departments. So if they have savings within finance and admin, that would help meet this. And so that was the point of putting it non-departmental. And so it's not like it's, that you're saying we're reducing public libraries or we're reducing parks. It's within all of the budgets they can manage that. He still has transfer authority to move around whatever, up to a half million dollars. Correct. And you're actually not reducing the line item in any budget. So it doesn't even have to be transferred at that point in time. They just need to come in overall. It's exactly how we do the salary and benefits lapse, which goes non-departmental and through the vacancies that come up throughout the year that we meet it that way. So that's, it would be holding this lapse in the same manner. Thank you. On that subject, Mr. Chair, you're recognized. Thank you, Vice Chair. I was told it's actually 5.2 million, not 4.8. So I'll acknowledge my first math error of the budget season. Council Member Johnson, you recognize. So much. And I'm still working to understand some of these finance principles. This, well, the first question I have is, I guess, to Mr. Weinstein through the chair. Where does the administration sit on this request? Through the chair, I see this as an appropriate aspirational goal, as was the one really last year, because there was a mechanism to relieve any stress. And as you know, at the end of each year, we tend to have more revenue and less expense than we anticipated, or at least less expense, sometimes less revenue also. So package the way it's described at this point is okay. Yes, I am. She was trying to make sure I was clarified on what we're talking about. And I get it. Again, aspirationally, it works. But we're talking about reality. And so in reality, for me, this just doesn't work. I'm still trying to figure it out here. But it doesn't seem like this would give the result that we're trying to do. And again, I'm still looking for a rationale. Just because it was done last year, or just because it seems like the right thing to do, is it? And these across-the-board cuts, I don't know. If we're, you know, I was under the impression that we were kind of surgically going line by line to, you know, through the chair, through the vice chair to the chair. I was under the impression that we were going line by line. So if we were going to make surgical cuts, they could be for specific things that we knew, not an across-the-board, let's bring it down to this amount. Whether they be large departments or small, I just have a belief that if we're going to do it, it should not be in these raging swaths of, we just need to bring it in lower. There should be a rationale. And right now, I have yet to hear that. Thank you. Mr. President, you recognize? Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. The reason for it is what I consider budget discipline. I think it worked well last year, the LAPS program that was instilled at 2%. And this is getting more specific. It's learning lessons from last year. It's drilling it down from across the board to several specific departments, the largest. And it's also giving the mayor additional flexibility through the non-departmental reason to allocate that LAPS as they see fit. So I'm fully on board with this motion. Thanks. No one else in the queue? Proper posture-wise, do you want me to call for the vote? Okay. All those in favor of the amendment that the chair introduced, please signify by saying aye. All those opposed, nay. Nay. We have one nay. The amendment passes. That nay is Council Member Johnson. Back to the chair. Thank you, Vice Chair. The next order of business, I'm going to have my assistant, Mr. Crozier, pass out a table that we saw on day one. And again, this only needs to go to the finance committee members, although if interested, you can have it as well, visiting council members. And then I'll explain what this table is and see if anyone will entertain a motion. Okay. So, colleagues, on day one, you may remember that we reduced our Council Strategic Initiatives funding down to $2.2 million. The reason I chose $2.2 million at the time was because there was an exhibit on the first day materials that had basically a table that showed direct contracts that were funded last year that were not funded in this year's budget. And I knew a lot of these were ones that we as the Council added into the budget last year. So, I wanted to make sure we would have room to discuss these as well. So, basically, what this table is showing is these were the items that were City Council initiated last year. The yellow ones were items that were simply for one-time use. And the green are items that were for recurring operations. I'd support all of these if someone wants to make a motion to include these again in this year's budget. The green, yes. The green and then the total green, which is the recurring operations initiatives we had in last year's budget for the total of $725,000. I got a motion to second. I got Council President, then Council Member Johnson. Yes. I would concur with these, except for the Salvation Army job placement. There's a quote here, would need Bill 2026-0666 withdrawn. Thank you, Council President. Thank you for reminding me, actually. Council Member Carlucci, we did have this note here. The $150,000 was funded through the budget process last year. You submitted a bill, I believe, not knowing we were going to entertain it, but again, we can't do both. We're not going to do $300,000. Would you withdraw your bill if we simply approve it through the budget process? Yeah. If this is the additional $150,000 that I wanted with my bill, then what I would like to do is defer my bill until this passes through the budget process, and then I will withdraw the bill. I'm not looking to double dip it. I just wanted $150,000, but if somehow it got taken out of the budget, then I'd want to leave my bill in, if you understand. If you're okay with that, if you need me to withdraw it at the next committee cycle, I'll do that. But I'd be totally fine as long as you deferred it, if you wanted to do that, until you know for sure it's approved in the full budget. But then I would ask you to withdraw it because, again, I don't want to accidentally give double the amount of money to the entity we gave last year. No, no, no. I wouldn't do that. Last year's Council President did, I think, $250,000, something like that. I spoke to Salvation Army a year ago, and I wanted them to get close to $500,000 by the end of this year, and that's why I proposed this because that's what they eventually needed. Thank you. Council President. And I'm sure you've already thought, Chair Lehman, but I guess we've established we're going to give them $150K. It's either continuing $150K they didn't spend from current budget year or putting $150K in the budget. Is there a benefit to just keeping his bill open and not approving it today? What do you prefer? My preference would be we budget it with our budgeted dollars only because he had an alternative funding source, and so I'd rather keep it clean with the budget revenue. That would be my preference. Again, we're going to get to the same place, either or, but this saves us time on having to debate a whole additional bill from a whole different funding source, so I think this is just a cleaner way to do it. Understood. Thank you. Councilman Johnson. Thanks, Chair. My question, so this would be, just want to make sure I'm in the right space. This would mean that the contingency that we have, if this does pass, would then go down to 1.475? It'd be reduced by about, yeah, that's approximate. I think the auditors are looking. I just wanted to see if they can give me some. 1.475, okay. And, gotcha. And these, the only reason I'm kind of bringing this up is while these are specific, the contingency, from my understanding, and I am going to put it on notice, I don't think that was the move that we should have taken. I don't agree with it, but I certainly will hope that we, and I'll tell you why, because I do believe that our colleagues as a whole, they're specific district-related projects that they may need help with, and so this is one of the ways that these projects can get taken care of and can get heard. So, while I do support the projects that are here, I also support my colleagues who are not on this committee, who should have a voice in this process. So, I'm going to vote for this, but I will also be moving to return a significant portion of those funds back to the council contingency, because I do think it's necessary. And, if I could, Council Member Johnson, again, I myself cannot do anything, but where I think it would be better is, let's see what other additional items are brought up, because we can always, all we did was we moved it from one contingency to another. There is still the special council contingency that you can propose things out of. Basically, we, once we go past 2.2 million, if we go past that, we're then taking from items we previously cut at that point. So, Council Member Carlucci, did you mean to get back in the queue? Yes. Okay, Council President. Mike's not on, thank you. Did Dr. Johnson's comments through the chair? Yeah, we have 2.2 million left in there. After this, it'll be whatever you mentioned, 1.45. But I would council district council people to be cautious about bringing up new projects without finding another funding source. The main funding source being generally in everyone's coffers of all 14 districts except for Mr. Gaze, there's about 1 to 1.1 million dollars. They have the money to do what they want. And if there's something they want done in another district, they can perhaps call a notice meeting and have another council member or district member use their $1.1 million to support it in return for someone else's. We all have money except the at-larges to do these projects as we need to see fit for our districts. And, you know, the at-larges, I would say, if you want a special project, find an offsetting funding amount for it. We're in an era of, again, uncertain revenues, and that's just the appropriate and, I think, the responsible thing to do. Thank you. Councilman Johnson. I've got to push back just a little bit, Mr. President, because I don't want anybody just calling us because that's what happens. All of us are not sitting on $1.1 million waiting to disperse it for districts, I must say. I know that came out when Mr. Peterson sent the report, the discretionary report. Many of those funds are already encumbered. Obviously, there are more projects, as we discussed earlier in the CIP program or CIP discussion, that there are more projects on the list than we can get to. But I just don't want people thinking, oh, we're sitting on these pots of money that we can dole out and get in special projects. Because I know in my case, I'm working on a project right now with Ms. Sickler, and Mr. Peterson didn't realize this. Right now, that project is going to cost roughly about $300,000. That's just one of the several projects. So the majority of those funds have already been spoken for, but I get it. I just want to make sure that everybody, it's more than, it's much less than $1.1 million that we're sitting on waiting on for all of the other things. And I believe that is par for the course for my colleagues as well. Thank you. No one else in the queue. All those in favor of approving the four items highlighted in green on the spreadsheet say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. These items will now be included in the budget, and I will note none of them are incremental to what it was in the budget last year. Mr. Peterson. Through the chair, just want to make sure that everyone's okay with this. We'll need term sheets for these four entities. I think Mr. Carlucci's will probably be easy since he's already got a corresponding term sheet. But the others, we will put in a designated contingency. All right. We could leave them above the line. If we don't get a term sheet probably by early next week because we'll have to file the finance substitute next Friday, we would need to move them below the line so that term sheets could be worked on and they'd be brought back above the line after October 1st, which is matching what we've done in prior years of finance hearings. Okay, thank you, Mr. Peterson. I will add that to my list to make sure the appropriate people at these four organizations are contacted if they're not watching even. So, walk-off charities, FOP Foundation, and Family Nurturing Center of Florida. Got it. Okay. Next item. So, Council Member Diamond is not here. He has said it in the sunshine many times that he was going to introduce this, and I believe the administration is in alignment with him on the Hogpen Creek study. That is my understanding, at least. He, I don't know if he'll be back today. But with that, could I have a committee member? And I think in finance we've heard about this study for a year now. Do I have anyone that could introduce the $250,000 for that study? It's the Hogpen Creek study. This is the one we've had lots of civic participation in as far as what the long-term future of that would look like. Council Member Johnson. Where, is this coming from, strategic? Okay, thanks. I seconded Council Member White's motion. Council Member Carlucci, you are not dropping out of queue. Did you intend to speak on this one? Okay. Okay. No one in the queue. All those in favor of approving the Hogpen Creek study for $250,000. Say aye. Aye. Any opposed to say nay. We're about halfway through the list. My understanding is he had already committed his. I'm not 100% sure. We can ask him. That would have been a good question if he was here. So, someone remind me to ask him about whether CBA is an opportunity for that. Council Member Gay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do recall Councilman Diamond when he was talking about funding the Jabari Park, and that was one of the questions I asked him about using his CBA dollars, and he said it was already promised or committed. And so, he don't have the CBA dollars for this. And I think we were talking about CBA dollars, and to Dr. Johnson's point, like, my CBA dollars haven't been spent, but they've been committed for two years. So, it does take a while to get everything up and running. Council Member Johnson, do you want to speak again? Still, I'm trying to. If we could, just a point of information, during this process, if the auditor's office could just keep us a running tab so we know where we are since these funds are coming out of strategic right now. I have 1.225, probably in some change. But if you guys can just update us, if we're going to pull from that. I did not know we were going to do it in this way and pull from strategic because there's obviously going to be so much less in strategic funds, which is why I want to put those funds back because they're things that we do need. But I just think you can keep that running total. Thanks. All right. Next up, Council Member Boylan, do you want to explain what your, I hate to call this an amendment or something new, it's something we essentially have to do as it pertains to the Jacksonville Housing Authority, and was that what you were in the queue for? Actually, sir, I was just going to make a suggestion in the context of the process. Just as many of you know, two weeks ago, you approved $750,000 for our dredging at Deep Bottom Creek in my district, and that's my CBA money for that. But one thing what we did well in advance two years ago, as a matter of fact, is create a special taxing district so that the neighbors then would be responsible for maintaining the basin thereafter. I would certainly encourage that as part of this process. Having a special taxing district created also allows some having an entity in place to work with, you know, Public Works or whomever does the contract work on that project. I would just want to offer that if I could. Okay. So I transition into. Transition now into your amendment, which I do want to point out after learning more about this. This is not a Council Member Boylan had this idea for an enhancement. It's just with the way health benefits were budgeted at the Jacksonville Housing Authority. I've got a handout here real quick to pass around to all the folks. Jacksonville Housing Authority, as you probably well know, is one of the best kept secrets in our area. They provide over 23 public housing units to the underserved in our communities, over 8,000 housing choice vouchers. I learned from Mr. Peterson and Mr. Parks that many of the departments within the city, because of the significant increase in insurance premiums, decided to roll that into their budgets so they would absorb it so the employee contribution to the premiums would be covered in this initial year. What you see in the spreadsheet is an opportunity for us to do a similar thing for JHA, for the 109 employees who take advantage of the premium or the health coverage that the city offers. All I'm proposing to do here is to help cover the cost for the employees' contribution for this one year to keep them on par with what the departments within the city have done. So it's $90,000 that I'm looking to see secured for the purpose of providing this employee coverage for this one year. Committee members, could I have someone move Council Member Boylan's amendment? Got a motion to second. So my one concern when I heard about this was, are we going to open the floodgates of every independent authority? After tracking that down, JHA, and correct me if I'm wrong, but from our conversation we had, they're the only entity of the independent authorities that share the city's health care plan. So this is essentially preventing them from having premium hikes while the city of Jacksonville employees do not this year. And I know that, I believe the administration supports this one as well. Maybe not. Maybe I shouldn't have asked. Well, the only thing, they could have taken it, I mean, the entity could cover it like we're covering it. You know, I mean, that's the only difference. Yeah. Council Member Boylan. True, but I also noted in the entity itself is looking at a $580,000 increase of its own accord in this process. I will tell you that they are going to be shopping this to try and take it in the future, going out of house to see if they can get a better rate thereafter. But for this year, they are pretty much locked into doing this and securing additional money. Council Member Salem. And then Johnson. We're not doing this for our friends at Northeast Florida Regional Council because they're not city employees. Is that why we're not doing it? I agree with the chair. Are we setting a precedent here for those entities that are getting hit? They're all going to line up and say, please do what you did for the housing authority. Mr. Peterson. Through the chair to Council Member Salem. Council Member Boylan, as the liaison to JHA, is the only one who has approached us about this thing. So I'm not aware of there being any movement towards North Florida Regional Council or Career Source, I think is the other entity. But through the chair, are they considered city employees? They are not. They are not. This group is. This group is. They're not considered city employees, but they are an independent agency of the city. And they are also on our general employee pension plan. So there's some more overlap with this entity than there are the other two. The other two are not in our pension plan. So, Mr. Parks is confident Northeast Florida is definitely not. Career Source, we're going to look. I don't believe so, but we're going to check. I see Mr. Weinstein smiling. I'm smiling too, because I think we're going to have two other groups up here very soon. Mr. Boylan, I would like to table this just for a little bit more research, because I guess the question was answered, yes, it's the only independent authority. But I have no idea how many employees are at the other entities. I don't know if we're talking about doubling, tripling the number. I can't imagine there's 109 like there are at JHA. You're recognized, sir. To your point, yes, there are 109 employees at JHA. I can't imagine that the Northeast Regional Council is even 10. I don't know about Career Source. So the impact, if they happen to come forward to do this, you know, I look at JHA, you know, and they do God's work here. And, you know, the job isn't all that pleasant. You know, they're going to lose employees dramatically, because any kind of increase is going to be rapidly absorbed by the premium they're going to have to pay as individual employees. So I just think it's an undue burden and expect to have the organization be impacted drastically by the number of folks who are going to walk away from that job, because they're actually taking a pay cut. Mr. Peterson. Through the chair, to answer Council Member Salem's question, Career Source is not on the city's pension plan. It's city employees, JEA, the Housing Authority, and then the North Florida Transportation Planning Organization are the participants in the city's, or the general employee's pension plan. So I guess if I heard you correct me, JEA, what are they doing the same thing? They have their own health care plan. Okay. So, again, just bringing in what I've heard, Northeast Florida Regional Council is the only other possible entity, based on what you just said. So, the JHA and Northeast Florida Regional Council and Career Source are all on the city's health plan. JHA is also in the city's pension plan. The other two entities are not. So, it's my understanding that employee services and the administration notified the three agencies, being JHA, Career Source, and Northeast Florida Regional Council, sometime in June, that they would be increasing the premiums. And if you wanted to stay with the city's health insurance, you would need to pick up that cost. Council Member Boylan, being the liaison to JHA, has been working with them and came up with a covering $90,000 of their anticipated $600,000 plus increase in health plans. Council Member Johnson, then Salem. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that. And I kind of echo what the sentiments of Representative Weinstein's face and Councilman Salem's face when it's like this could be open season for us to get these kinds of requests over and over. My question is there, and this is through the chair to the auditors, is there another fund? I don't mind this. This is, I think we need this. We want to keep people healthy and working. Sherron, or Ms. Corbett, does an amazing job with the Housing Authority. We're fortunate to have her. We're fortunate to have that team, but we also understand we can't just keep grabbing money out of the strategic initiatives or there will be nothing there. That's something. I mean, and it feels like we're just pulling every six seconds out of it with all of these amendments, which I was told we weren't having an enhancement process. This is an enhancement process. That's exactly what this is. So I'm a little disappointed that it almost seems like the deck is stacked and we didn't know we could get into the stack of the deck to advocate for organizations. It feels off to me. But is there another fund, Mr. Peterson or to anybody from the auditor's office, that perhaps these funds can be realized from as opposed to coming out of the council strategic initiatives? Through the chair to Council Member Johnson. So as part of the budget process, y'all have created a special council contingency pot, which has a balance of, don't have my glasses on, 8.6 million. 12.7 million is slated to go towards reserves. There's this 2.2 million, or there's always the operating reserves of the city. Those would be the available options that you could pull from. Otherwise, you would need to cut something else in the budget to fund initiatives. What is that fund, again, that is going to the reserves? So y'all had to cut items throughout the budget process with the intention of sending $12.7 million to the reserves. I think the largest portion of that is what was cut out of the councilor strategic plan at $7.8 million and then the $4.9 million that was proposed to go towards affordable housing. The combination of that is what makes up that $12.7 million. Okay, so out of that fund, not these strategic dollars, because I'm still going to have my eye on that, because my colleagues, I'm advocating for the others who are not on this committee, do need to have access to that for projects in the district. But I recommend, as an amendment to the motion, that that particular fund be used, where the $12 million, what is the name of that fund, Mr. Peterson? Mr. Peterson, if I may, at the end of today, we're going to have a wrap-up amendment, because we've got money in three separate places right now. So we're going to simplify it at the end of the day. Thank you. So the fund, we'll call it fund two, whatever. And if I may also, Dr. Johnson, that's why it's kind of indifferent as to where it comes from, whether we call it the remit. Well, yeah, we cannot be agnostic to where it comes from, because when you're telling me that I'm paring down and now in the fund that we are using as a strategic fund, those numbers are going down. We can't be agnostic to that, right? That's $1.225. Maybe I wasn't clear, but I think I was very clear we would be revisiting that on the last day of finance committee. This table that I passed out, that's what the $2.2 million was based on. But there were other things besides that table that is pulling from that fund. So that's what I'm saying. I propose, since we want to move this now, since it was brought up, and since the council member brought it up, I certainly support it. I want our colleagues over at the Housing Authority to be able to have their health care needs met so they can take care of our citizens here in Jacksonville. I just say that the $90,000 that is requested by Councilman Boylan not come from the council's strategic dollars out of that pot, but from the other strategic funds that were put, I guess, below the line. That is my – so if I can get a second to that, please. I just don't think this is the right way to do it. I'll second it. It's a moot point because, like I said, at the end here, when we've got a few more moving parts, it's all going to be rolled up. So – and just to clarify, Council President, were you saying you would find it without us taking action on it today? In other words, let's not take the $90,000 motion today? If I can, Mr. Chair, I have – when you're ready for me, I've got a motion that's going to fund an enhancement and with an offset that's about $170,000 more. That $170,000 is going to go back into this 2.2 contingency, and it could cover all of Councilman Boylan's request. So if I could ask the members, let's just withdraw both the amendment and the amendment to the amendment, and then I'll turn on Council President Howland to go over whatever he's going to make a motion for. Okay. Okay. I'm going to try to get you funded here, Michael. Okay. So budgeting, we all know, is a matter of priorities. And I believe if you have a priority that's higher than another, you've got to take from the other to support your higher one. That's just what you have to do in the face of revenue uncertainty. And it's the same thing the Chair has been saying for a while. If you have an enhancement, find an offset. Well, I have an enhancement with more than enough offset. And what I'd like to do, Mr. Peterson is well aware, is I'd like to start with the funding that I want to find an alternative source for in the budget. The first one is $464,409 for Gator Bowl. The next one is $55,000 for Florida, Florida State. I would like to fund those two in the operating fund from TDC's million and a half that's sitting there unused for several years for international airport, international route marketing. So let me talk about that real quick. TDC has a contingency fund. In it, they have a million and a half dollars that's been sitting there for several years to be spent when we get an international route so we could market that route. It hasn't happened for a while. It's not going to happen for a while. So my thinking is use that pocket of value now to support initiatives. So I want to take a total of $519,409 from that TDC contingency, fund those two initiatives, the Gator Bowl and Florida State, and then in turn, and sir, if you don't mind handing out the enhancement, I have an enhancement that I've been thinking about for some time. We did this last year in Mr. Gay's district. This is in Ms. Pittman's district, but she doesn't have the money in her million dollars right now. Her CBA funding is obligated. I don't have a CBA fund, so that's beholden on me. If I want to do an enhancement, I better find an offset. This is requesting $350,000 for the Police Athletic League facility on the north side at West 33 Street. The $350,000 would include $25,200 for educational resources and technology, $123,000 for facility infrastructure and safety, $8,800 for youth programming, $148,000 for operating systems and efficiency, and $45,000 for facility renovations, with a plan to increase student engagement in that area. As you guys all know, PAL serves as a critical bridge between law enforcement and youth across Jacksonville. This is an appropriate day to bring it up because we've talked both about sports venues and after-school care for kids, as well as crime prevention. So I would like to move that we take $519,409 from TDC's contingency. We fund the Gator Bowl and Florida, Florida State. That leaves $519,409,000 to be otherwise spent, and I recommend we put $350,000 to PAL, and we'll do a direct contract, and $90,000 to JHA. That altogether leaves $59,409 that we can add back to the 2.2 remaining special city council contingency. Is that math correct, Phillip? Three moves, but an overall two enhancements covered and a plus-up to the council contingency. We've got a motion to second. Mr. Peterson, if you want to explain the motion, if you're clear with it. Through the chair, so the council president has identified two items that are non-departmental expenses in the general fund, Gator Bowl, Florida State baseball game, totaling $519,409. Those are allowable TDC expenditures that will, those items will be moved over to the TDC fund, still paid out just as they, if they were under the general fund. That then frees up $519,409 in the general fund, of which the council president would like to allocate $350,000 to a PAL direct contract, which then still leaves $169,409 for funding that would go into a council contingency for other purposes. Oh, sorry, I missed the JHA. Okay, so that would then do $90,000 for JHA, so it would be $79,409 that would go to council contingency. Exactly, so it's like hopping a few things in the checkers board, I guess. We've got a motion to second. I have council member, I'm going to go to Mr. Weinstein first, and then Salem, then Johnson. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Two comments, new things, we weren't going to do new things, we weren't supposed to do new things, but, you know, that's okay. But, also, we're not deleting anything, we're just taking money from a different source. So, you've got two things that we're trying to stay away from, that's all. Council President, I believe in your position you're also Chair of the TDC Board, correct? I am, and I checked it with the Executive Director of TDC. Plus, you know, you've heard me drone on and on for several years about pockets of value. Sometimes, I think, if you're going to support something, particularly in an enhancement, like Mr. Boylan wants with his 90, or like I want for Police Athletic League, if you're going to find it, find a pocket of money that you can use to offset it, particularly if it's a new thing. That's what we've done here. And it is a new thing, investing in the 33rd Street facility, but last year we did invest in the facility up in Councilman Gay's district. I forget the name of the park, and it's unit about 500 for Powell. I forget what it was. All right. I promise you you're next, Dr. Salem, but, Phillip, did you have something for us first? That's right, Austin. Through the chair, just wanted to add, similar to what we talked about with the items in green under that 725, if we're not able to get a term sheet worked out prior to next week, that this will go into a designated contingency for Powell. Councilman Salem. All right. Thank you, Chair. I'm sorry. I have an enhancement that I've spoken to the chair about, and I want to make sure, hopefully, it gets funded. Daryl and I are working on it. We'll have a sheet for you tomorrow, so I just want to mention that. But let me go back to Mr. Boylan's proposal, JHA's proposal. Here is my concern. We are, and I'm looking at Mr. Weinstein when I say this. We're already subsidizing parking for city employees and have done it for years, and it will never go away. Now, the administration has committed to all of us that health insurance rates are going up for the employees in some fashion, and I see Kelly out here as well, in some fashion next year. Whether it's tiered or not, I won't be here, but they've committed to that. I am concerned with what we're doing here with JHA. The employees are going to say, now the city cover it in some fashion. You know, pay for it yourself. We don't want to pay for it because of the precedent we're setting here. So, I just, I am worried for you guys, because I won't be here, that we are setting a precedent that's going to come back and bite us big time when we try to increase premiums for 2,000 employees and their dependents and such, which haven't been increased in 11 years, 12 years, 11, 12, 11. 11 years, and they're going to say, well, you covered it for JHA, now cover it for us. Thank you. And my enhancement is 250. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Dr. Salem. All right, so we're back to the Howland Amendment that has been moved and seconded, and we're even, with that, we're actually adding money back into, did we specify which contingency it's going to go to? Special council contingency. Okay, all in favor of the Howland Amendment, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. Okay. We've gone up by 79. And Council Member Staley, oh, he's talked to someone. All right. Council Member Boylan, you're in the queue. Thank you, Mr. I just want to clarify, the city is already taking care of the employee contributions for this year. All I'm trying to do is make JHA in the same position that they are in. That's pure and simple. And it's not setting a precedent. It's merely allowing them to have the same opportunity the existing employees of the city have. It's a one-time ask. As I said, they're already shopping it. I don't expect to be part of the health care process next year. Okay. Okay, thank you. Okay, so I think the next thing up, and this is definitely administrative only. Mr. Peterson, can you go over the action required on the Homeless Commission contracts? Through the chair. So, the fire department made us aware of requested increases for Salvation, no, I take that back, City Rescue Mission and Trinity Rescue Mission as it relates to the homeless shelter provider contracts that are in the Homelessness Initiatives Fund. Salvation Army received an increase in their rates in the prior year, but Trinity and City Rescue Mission have been held at a lower rate, and so they have requested to increase their per-day per-bed rate to $35.54, and City Rescue Mission would also add an additional 10 beds to bring the total number of beds at City Rescue Mission up to 36, and the total beds between the three providers up to 120 beds. Ultimately, this has an increase of $229,846 that would come out of the funding that is in the Homelessness Initiatives Special Revenue Fund. There is $1.3 million that is sitting there unobligated for anything, and so that was a request made from the Homeless Initiatives Commission and the fire department jointly. Okay, Council Member White moved it, Council Member Miller seconded it. I have no one in the queue for questions, and again, this has no impact on the budget one way or another. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. That amendment passes. Council Member Salem, are you able to join us tomorrow? Okay. Because what I'm going to try to do, and again, to Mr. Weinstein, I think that is, we've added a very small amount of things here, and I believe we had the money available to fund them from somewhere else, so I just want to make that point. I only have one more item. It's going to be to kind of wrap up everything into one contingency account, because to your point, Dr. Johnson, we have three separate sources of money out there, so we're going to wrap it up into one. I'm expecting we're going to have visiting council members tomorrow after JAA, and so I want to have one defined funding source that we will then take up items one by one to debate to see if we want to fund. So, again, all the visiting council members, if you're watching, tomorrow after JAAs, we'll take those items up. Anybody else have anything before I go over what this fairly complex amendment will be? Council Member Johnson. Mr. Chair, so does that mean, in that space, do those visiting council members need to get a sponsor, since they aren't on the committee, by a committee member? They would have to have someone on the committee move it, correct? To move it. I would encourage, if I may, and I think, and this is the general council thing, just, I like to be prepared, and I kind of want to put this out there so that we don't end up with a barrage of these requests. If there are visiting council members who are not here on this committee, and I want to ask this through the chair to Ms. Staphopoulos, could they send a one-way communication requesting it that we don't respond to, to at least somebody on this committee, because that way we would at least have tonight to be able to do some research and not just willy-nilly have to make a decision, because in some of these cases, even today, I feel like I'm forced to make a decision on the fly without the requisite research. Is that okay? Is that permissible, based on Sunshine, for your knowledge? I'm going to chair to Council Member Johnson. So, one-way communications are allowed. However, and I will reiterate counsel I've given to other council members who've asked this question with respect to this budget process, our office discourages one-way communications because they invite a Sunshine Law danger area with inadvertent replies or replies to all. So, we always recommend that, to the extent possible and feasible, you bring your items to the meetings so they can be discussed in the Sunshine, but if a council member does choose to send a one-way communication, they just need to be very careful by labeling it as such, and a council member should not be responding even to confirm receipt to those emails. So, our office's recommendation is better not, just best not to put yourself in that danger area, but if you do, it's a one-way communication only. And I thought I would have at least gotten a thumbs up, hero cookie kiddo, because each time I send it, I literally say at the top, one-way communications, following your rubric, in red, yellow highlighted. But, and I certainly understand that. I just want to be prepared. If there are members that want me to get behind something, I'd like to be able to try to research it tonight, if at all possible. I do have amendments or enhancements, whatever we're going to call them this year. Would it be best to do them all? I'm not trying to prolong the time today. Would you prefer, Mr. Chair, is it your pleasure to do them all on tomorrow for wrap-up? At this point, that would be my pleasure. And again, that would be my request. Something I said on day one, as well as in finance committee, and Mr. Weinstein just reminded us that I've said, hey, nothing new or find an offset. So I'm hoping visiting council members, especially tomorrow, have been listening to us say that, because it hasn't just been me, it's been us, the majority of the finance committee. Hey, we've talked about, is it core, is it duplicative, and do we have the cash for it? And I said, with revenue uncertainty, I want to make sure we enter the year with building up our cash reserves. And we're there right now. I don't want it to be, okay, we have 19 separate ideas, and next thing you know, we've added $10 million back to the budget. I get it. I just, I was, I'll be honest, I was blindsided. Today, I did not know, and this is no offense to my dear friend and brother, Councilman Boylan, I didn't know that was coming. I didn't know this other list was coming. I'm literally trying to keep ahead of all of this. And so when I understood from the beginning of the process that there would be no enhancements, I thought everything was going to happen on wrap-up day. And that's what I've been working toward. And again, I said on day one, we would revisit this. And this was the math behind what I reduced the strategic, whatever we call that. I got it. But I thought when you said we would revisit this, and I just want to make sure that that's clear, that it was my impression all of those things would happen when we wrapped up. This is not wrap-up day. And so now we're getting visiting council members putting stuff in. We're getting, no offense, but you putting stuff in. And so now that number that has been dwindling has dwindled even further. Thanks to the council president for his initiative through TDC, the number did go up by 79,000. But I just want to make sure it's not only about the funds. I'm just thinking about those projects that are in these districts that have needs that exceed what's already been appropriated. Thank you for letting me say that. We're going to go to Ms. DeFopolis, then Councilmember White. Mr. Chair, just another reminder to the committee members and those listening and visiting that if you have handouts with respect to anything that you're going to bring tomorrow, please bring sufficient copies so that all the members can receive a copy in addition to legislative services, OGC, council auditors, and research. Each of those individuals or groups must receive copies of any handouts. Thank you. Councilmember White. Yes, we're thanking you, Chair. This is not an enhancement. It's just changing something where we've got something sent to another place. The 50% telescope money that's below the line, I'd like to make the amendment just to put that in the amendment three bucket and stay out if I get a second. So motion is second. And this is, from what I remember, we approved 750 right away and we put it the other half all the way below the line. Yes. The other 750 was below the line. And I'd just like to move it to the amendment three bucket. Your amendment is to put it in the amendment three bucket. Yes, sir. I'll support that. I do think there's going to be a council member that was probably going to introduce, bring it all the way above the line. Um, so, um, so, well, I mean, I'm, but I'll, I'll support this. I think this is a good compromise and we've had council members on the dais say it during the meetings, by the way. So, all right, we'll be at the compromise. I'll stand on my amendment then. Okay. So I think this is a better landing place to where it'll get more votes as far as where it ends up. So all in favor of the wide amendment say aye, aye, any opposed say nay. So what we've done is we've moved the second $750,000 payment into the amendment three, uh, referendum bucket. So, uh, councilman Carlucci, are you in queue? And I apologize it, uh, whenever you speak, it doesn't go away. So I don't know when you're really, uh, in queue. No, it's, it's okay. I, I've, I've been trying to give you a lot, enough space. And, and now after hearing the committee, uh, you may tell me to, uh, you may give me my marching orders to wait till tomorrow, but I'm just raising a little flag, uh, to see if anybody will salute and make an amendment, uh, or a motion. We have a city hall museum that's around the corner in the hallway over there. And I thought, um, we're, it's painted. It's kind of ready to go. So I wanted to put 25,000, uh, from council contingency, uh, towards that little museum, city council, city, uh, city hall museum. So up to 25,000 for furniture and anything we need, uh, in order to build it out, uh, some monitors, um, and so forth display. Uh, so I'd love to see that thing, you know, come to life before I leave. Uh, city council. And, um, if you want me to wait till tomorrow, I'll do that, but it's so easy and it's, it's not much. I didn't think anybody would fall out of their chair, but I just would need your permission if we could take that up. And if so, then I'd need somebody to make a motion, at least as a courtesy for consideration, if you're willing. Thank you. And, uh, my, my preference would be that we take it up in the morning because, uh, uh, to council member Johnson's point to, um, everything we have done, at least in my view, was things we had prior talked about. Um, so. I'll wait till tomorrow. And again, I don't, I don't want to get ahead of ourselves, uh, until we have, uh, any other colleagues here. Okay. Should I ask Mary to put something together on that for me? Can Mary? Mr. Chair, and through the chair to Mr. Carly G, I don't, I don't think there's anything I would need to put together for you, um, to the extent that you want to, I don't know that you want to restrict exactly how the funds would be used to specifics, because I don't know that you have sufficient information. So I think we've previously appropriated for that project in the past, and I don't think we did more than just place it in an account to be available to outfit the museum as needed. Or Teresa to make her decisions on. So I'll bring my, my humble, lowly request to, uh, finance tomorrow. Thank you, sir. All right. With that, before I do my wrap-up amendment to bring all the contingency accounts into one place, does anybody else have anything for the committee? All right. Uh, I think it's easy if I just, Mr. Fopolis, do you have something? Yes. All right. And I'll explain this after, I'll ask you to be recognized. You recognize. Okay. I need a motion, or I make a motion to move the funding remaining in special council contingency to be combined with the funding that is slated to be sent to reserves to be set in the designated contingency for the one-time public safety enhancements, not to exceed a total of $26 million. We have a motion and second. Okay. I'm going to explain this. So, uh, previously we mentioned that I will have a bill that'll be fully funding the $26 million that we took out. Uh, this $26 million is the $14 million JSO lease pay down, the $10 million JSO warehouse consolidation and the $2 million JFR DCO2 that we removed last week. And, uh, what this bill will do, sorry, let me get to my next page of notes, uh, after talking to the auditors, it's more ideal not to pull that directly from the reserves, because if we pull that from the reserves, it counts as a pull this year, which would then limit the next year's impact of what we're now calling the Layton bill, which pulls any recapture dollars to fund completion grants. So in other words, we'd be hurting ourselves more financially this year, if we pulled it out of reserves now, rather than a designated contingency. So what this will do, this will put all of our money into one spot. And so tomorrow, if this motion is approved, which we need to, to move along the budget process, if we're drawing anything, it won't be special contingency. It won't be this, it'll be that public safety, uh, overall, which is going to be a pretty good sized number. And whatever we draw down from that, my bill, when I submit it, will compensate for whatever is there, the difference between the $26 million that we need versus what we have. So in effect, it's minimizing the use of operating reserves now. So we have that available as we capture dollars next year. And Mr. Peterson or Mr. Parks, if I did too poor job explaining, or if you wanted to, uh, jump in to better explain my amendment, have at it. Please, Mr. Peterson. So through the chair, um, I don't think you did a bad job explaining. I'm just going to give the exact dollar amounts that's across those three funds, the strategic reserves and special counsel contingency is a total $22,655,097. $22,655,097. And through the vice chair, if you can recognize me, vice chair. Mr. Chair, you recognize? Through the vice chair, Mr. Peterson, and that does not include the amendment $3 amount, correct? That's correct. The amendment $3 bucket is staying as is, except for the change that just happened related to telescope. Through the chair to Council President Holland, it's $8.35 million in that amendment $3 bucket. Okay. Uh, we'll go first to Council Member Johnson, you're recognized. And I want to make sure this, these funds that are in the $22.6 million that are in that strategic number bucket that's on this amendment, um, at the end, if those funds, post-finance wrap up tomorrow, those funds will still be where, what happens to, if, if we don't use or allocate them in places, because I have a couple questions about, on that same line item, where, what happens to those funds? Through the chair to Council Member Johnson. So they'd stay in that public safety contingency, uh, for appropriation as part of what Council Merlainen has indicated when he will introduce a bill to appropriate $26 million to the $14 million, uh, Florida Blue lease buy-down for JSO, the $10 million JSO warehouse consolidation, and the $2 million JFRD CO2 removal system projects, he will take the balance that's in that, whatever's left in that contingency. Which at this point, based on what you said, would be negative. No, it's, well, it's at 22, if, if you approve this action, there'll be $22.6 million, then whatever happens at wrap up tomorrow and throughout the remainder of the budget process, he will pull that balance, plus whatever's needed to get to $26 million from operating reserves to fund those projects. Let me ask, with those projects that are put together, those, that, when, when, if that, those dollars need to come down from that, and I don't remember the vote threshold, what's the vote threshold from that fund once we're outside of this process? So through the chair to Council Member Johnson, until the budget is approved, it's a majority, a majority at Finance Committee, and then a majority at Council. Ten, yeah, ten. But it's not an appropriation until it has been happened. So right now, it's just, you're just making motions to the budget. Once that budget has been passed, then it's two-thirds vote. Got it. Thank you. Even from that fund? It's, it's because it's in a contingency, and so the rules of Chapter 106. And just to ask, if, is there, okay, no, I can ask the general counsel separately. Thank you. Thanks, Mr. Chair. On that subject, we'll go back to the chair, you recognize. Thank you, Vice Chair. And again, just to reiterate, this is actually an idea the auditors had, and they convinced me it was the best way of doing it, because it would have a negative impact to the following year if we drew out that much money from reserves now, rather than, and again, that 22.65 million, that reflects the work that the Finance Committee has done. So when we are done here today, that is the result of us prior to wrap-up day. And so, Vice Chair, if you want to recognize. So we'll go next to past President Salem. You recognize? Thank you, Chair, or Vice Chair. I understand everything. So it sounds like you're prepared if we spend a million or a million and a half tomorrow on mine or anyone else's, you're prepared to make a motion to pull that difference to 26 out of the operating reserves. Through the Vice Chair. So again, my goal tomorrow is that we have the same principles we've had through the Finance Committee when we're evaluating ideas. But yes, I pragmatically know we'll probably take some from that. But this was the easiest way that I saw to consolidate everything ahead of wrap-up day. So Finance Committee, we can say we are done. And then it's listening to our peers on what additional incremental, if we all agree, that would be the funding source. And again, like I said, it was, they convinced me this is the way to go. Use whatever's left over as part of the $26 million. Otherwise, we're hurting ourselves with taking it out of the reserves before 9-30-26. I agree with you 100%. I'm just, I just wanted to hear from you that you were prepared to go into the reserves. You're going to have to go into the reserves for at least three and a half because you're at 22.2 now. Through the Vice Chair, I absolutely understand that. But a week ago, if you recall, I was going 100% into the reserves. No, no, no. I agree with you. So you're going to have to go into the reserves to some extent. You want to limit what you go into reserves for. I get that, too. But, and I'm going to speak for myself. I'm an at-large councilman. I got no CBA dollars. So I think that, and it's my last year. So I think I deserve some priority. And no, they're not going to do that. Anyone else would like to speak on this issue? I don't see anyone else in the queue. Otherwise, we'll go to a vote on the Landon Amendment. Okay, all those in favor of the Landon Amendment, signify by saying aye. All those opposed, no. The amendment passes. All right. So with that, anything else from any members of the Finance Committee, OGC, Mr. Weinstein, auditors? We are good. So, again, just to reiterate, as the result of the past three weeks, Mr. Peterson, can you just read the numbers again, what we've now placed into the public safety contingency plus amendment, excuse me, I think unanimous. I got a Dr. Johnson eye. So through the chair to the committee, we now have one pot of funding, $22,655,097 in what we're calling a public safety contingency for the three projects that have been discussed since day one. There is also $8,350,000 in what we're terming the Amendment 3 bucket. That should Amendment 3 fail, those dollars will move to their specified purposes as approved by Finance Committee. And that is all that is remaining. Okay. Thank you, auditors. And I do think that'll streamline it going forward. Because, again, Council Member Johnson, we referenced, we had multiple sources everywhere. And I just want to highlight, so as a Finance Committee, we are done. And ahead of tomorrow, at $22.65 million, we're essentially at a flat budget year over year. And I think it's been a while since we've had a flat budget year over year. If Amendment 3 passes, that'll immediately flip us to under $2 billion. So we will have a lower year over year budget. And again, that was one of the things that I've been stressing that, hey, we know we've been growing. Let's kind of rest on the plateau this year and see what happens in November. So I do think that we have responsibly prepared ourselves for the unknown. And again, just for all the visiting Council members, if you're watching tomorrow, we want to help you find ways to get your enhancements. We want to help thinking about different funding sources that may not necessarily be just taking it from our contingency recreated. And also, to the auditors, I'm just going to put on the record, this is not the same in case FOP or IFF are wondering. We extended the deadline of that. This is the money that will be used for the JSO and JFRD items that the mayor proposed. And we will fully fund just TBD on the exact mix between what's going to be in that fund and what will be coming from reserves. To the chair and to the committee, that is correct. That $26 million that was approved basically at last year's budget will carry over through 2-9-30-2027 to go further would require additional action. All right. With that, we are adjourned.