Work Session

call to order the January 8th meeting of the Kerry Town Council and work session. And I want to first uh recognize that Miss Bush is calling in. I'm going to take a moment to see if she can hear us. And we can hear her. Lori, can you hear us? I can.

Okay, awesome. We can hear you, too. Uh, we've been asked uh to amend the posted agenda to include two council initiated items and I've hope all of the council members had a chance to look at those two items. So, I would entertain a motion to approve the amended agenda.

I'll entertain the motion.

Is there a second?

Second.

Discussion. All in favor, please say I. I.

Any oppose? Motion carries. and we have an amended agenda. So item number two on our agenda is the upcoming meeting schedule review. And I'll recognize our clerk, Jenny Johnson, for this review.

Yes. So we have tonight the work session and regular meeting. Then a standalone work session on the 20th. Um a regular meeting on the 22nd and then going into February work session plus regular meeting on the 5th and then the retreat on the 20th through the 21st and then March as well. So, um, getting back in the routine of things.

Thank you. Any questions for Jenny on the calendar? All right, we'll move right along. I'm going to turn it over to Russ to give us a budget update.

Thank you, mayor. Um, tonight officially kicks off the FY27 budget process with you, the council.

And so, we're excited. And before I turn it over to Liam to go through a presentation, um, I kind of wanted to do a little bit of an intro to that. Um, specifically tonight in Liam's presentation, uh, we're going to go over budget expectations, uh, budget pillars, which was a concept introduced uh, in last year's budget development, as well as a budget calendar. Tonight is really hearing uh, from each of you, and there are no decisions needed tonight by council, and it's really about setting the stage, I would call it, uh, for budget development moving forward. Um, first, a

little background about the budget. um I thought would be interesting to you all because per North Carolina general statutes uh you have to have a budget officer. Um and this is the exact statute but each local government and public authority shall appoint a budget officer. Um how you do that might ask is it's done for you. This statute says that the city manager shall be your budget officer. So that is me. Um, and I want to highlight your attention to that because then in your budget um you have specific ordinances um in in the budget that lead to what the duties of the budget officer are. Um, you adopt these budget ordinances annually and the the I have some excerpts from uh this current year's budget with what the uh budget officer um is to do. Uh you adopt these and talking to Stacy, these have been this way for quite some time.

[snorts]

Uh but they are kind of reaffirmed each year. So um I highlighted them. There's I'm not going to go through all them. I'm not going to read them. Just know that there are certain sections. We put the page number um on the bottom of the slide if you wish to see these because some of them have uh specific roles and responsibilities like reporting back certain things at quarterly meetings if we're going to execute um any authorization between funds. And there was new one new one this year that gave the budget officer and I'll read this one but uh shall be authorized to return or transfer general fund transfer dollars budgeted within capital projects or attributed to the general fund capital reserve to the general fund their originating source upon full or partial closure or via a budget adjustment. We did that and added this one this year because of the capital project work that you did um to close capital projects during that year. Um, a couple more. There's some from the operating budget. Again, if you just want to note the page and look at these. Um, again, author what the authority of the budget officer is. [snorts] Um, and

a couple more from the general capital budget ordinance. These are at the front of the budget document generally or closer to the front if you see the page numbers. But just as we go through a brief review, especially with uh new council and new council members, I thought it would uh be nice to draw your attention to these one last I think it's the last one uh with regards to the utility capital budget. Um, so that's just a little bit of background about the term budget officer and what my role and responsibility is, which ultimately is to deliver you a budget recommendation so that you can vote on uh before the end of the fiscal year, the start of the next fiscal year, which will be in June. Um, actually what I'd like to highlight to some degree is the hard work right now being done by uh for the budget, not only Liam and his team, and I think Margaret is here somewhere. Margaret back here um is the the directors um and every director in here and when I was a director of inspections and permits um I and my team in inspections and permits uh developed the budget for my department. So Liam and team right now have a deadline for all the department directors.

Say hi department directors. [laughter] There you go. Just saying. Yes, they're working on their budgets um and they are due in a week or two um and then we'll be bringing that to you all. So, um there's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes um to get to the point where we can bring you a budget and I look forward to delivering that and to doing it in an effort um that will be uh uh with you a little bit more uh you know from from page to page and looking at over the course of time and I'll interject a little bit when Liam gets to his slide on the calendar. So, with that, I'll turn it over to Liam and let him walk us through his slides tonight. Uh, thank you, Russ. Can everyone hear me? All right, great. Um, good evening, mayor. Good evening, council. I'm excited to be here tonight as we start to really get into the heart of the

budget process. Russ already said this, but I want to kind of reiterate it that we're really looking to hear from you at this point. I don't have a lot of budget information for you. The operating requests are due next Friday, and so as we get more information, we'll be sure to share it. But this is really us at the start of the process, understanding what you want from the process and understanding where your priorities and goals are at. So we're going to be doing three things. The first is setting expectations for the budget process. Then we'll collaborate a little bit on the budget pillars. And then we'll get into some budget calendar thinking, specifically the council budget calendar. And if at any point you see something that doesn't look like what you want, just speak immediately, interrupt me, and we can have a conversation about it. So starting by setting expectations for the budget process, staff have thought up three kind of goals or norms that we want to do better at this year in the budget. And so we want to be clear, we want to be more collaborative, we want to be a little bit more conservative when it comes to budgeting. Um so clear is a commitment to transparency. That's with council, that's with staff, and that's with the community. And so our goal is zero ambiguity regarding where money is going and why. and some of the actions we're going to take. I know that everyone's seen the budget packet and we'll talk about those a little bit more down the line as well as more of a line item review of what is in the budget. Um, budgeting is a shared responsibility between staff, council, and management. Russ talked about that just a little bit ago. So, we want to increase participation and collective accountability on the budget. It's not Russ's budget. It's not Liam's budget. It's all of our carry budget. And so we're going to try to have regular feedback loops between department directors and council through the town management manager's office. And then we're also going to try to be more conservative with our revenue estimates and expenditure estimates to ensure some of that long-term financial security. We're in a good financial spot right now, but we just want to make sure that we're acting responsibly.

So Liam, take it take a second and let council take that in if they have any um comments or questions about any of those. I'll I'll start it off by asking

what kind of information do you want from us? For example, I want to know what ideas you may have to get the public involved. Is this the time to talk about that?

Um, there will be another time to talk about it, but we're happy to talk about it now. Um,

let's

let's wait for the calendar.

Yeah, we'll show you a calendar and how about we do it with the calendar specific to that uh comment.

Okay. Any other question? Another question is uh you mentioned the financial situation is good.

Yeah.

How do we tell which is uh how do you tell it is it is good or we have some questions about or is in a dangerous situation?

Uh I mean can you explain a little bit more about the situation now is good?

Yeah. Um, we don't have a a financial audit at this point, but from viewing the preliminary figures there, our fund balance right now is looking strong.

And then we're in some trends where expenditures are increasing quickly, but our revenue collection so far this year has also been pretty strong. And just

when you compare Kerry to a normal community, um, we still have our AAA bond rating and that's supported by a really healthy economy, um, and a lot of jobs in the community. So that's what I was referring to. and we're tracking revenues versus expenditures and we'll bring you or and continue and will be continuing to bring you information at the quarterly. Um and obviously the um annual financial uh financial report will be coming to you at the next council meeting. But that's really the prior year's budget. Um but um I think the best thing to do is uh ask a lot of questions. Keep asking questions and if we're not delivering something to you, ask and we will.

They will be very com uh very happy to hear everything is being doing good.

Yeah. Thank you.

I think there are still it's obviously going to be a budget process with a lot of tough decisions and we'll have to set priorities but the current year is going well. I think in one of the meetings I also heard and I don't remember who was there but our sales um tax is also more

than what we expected or we calculated right estimated rather sorry

yeah we only have the first three months of collections but I think it was the third month that we saw is up 6% year-over-year and we were thinking it was going to be 1 or 2%. So we don't think that trend is going to hold for the entire year but so far it's been really promising.

Okay. other comments.

Great. I'll move on.

I talked about the budget preview packet that I know all of you have seen and that's something that we're bringing back this year to try to increase transparency and communication. Um, it has in the past included things like financial highlights, a financial summary, key trends, and major budget requests. We're committing to bringing you that packet in March of this year. And this is a preliminary first look at some of the schedules that would be in there. I know you've all looked at the one from 2013. And so I'm going to pause here so you can read through these schedules and let me know if something's missing or if there's something that you want to clarify what would be in that schedule.

We've tried to add the ones um that we've already gotten feedback on that you liked. And this would include several of those graphs from past.

That's the plan.

Budget views. Okay. That'd be that's

data and trends.

Yeah.

Yeah. Specifically that number four taxbased components is one of the charts as well as the general fund operating margin.

I was also um looking for capital projects.

Yeah. So that's I think 14 through 20 here are going to be descriptions of capital revenues as well as the capital projects themselves that were funded in the recommended budget.

Okay. Is 19 an accidental duplicate?

Looks like it.

It looks like it is.

I just didn't know if there was any clarification.

You'll see it twice. Yeah, we [laughter] really like that capital.

Good catch. Well, I I'll just share and I know we had we discussed this in our 3x4 um but not everybody was in that that um I was thrilled with the graphical [snorts]

perspective on the numbers because getting it in a chart is is great and you know I'm not terrible at doing math in my head and sort of trying to perceive a trend in a you know a line of of um numbers but

the graphs that staff has been sharing with us that was part of you know I think it was 23 2013 that you shared with us that is going to bring all of this information for me to life.

Um trends, yes, but really seeing um you know, especially near future trends to me are also kind of that more valuable piece of that that trend um that trend line knowing you know where we are in the immediate future and and what we need in the immediate past and what we need in the immediate future. One of the the um tools that I liked was that spreadsheet where we were able to see where changing debt service or you know differing tax revenues how that affected um the the very large because sometimes it's hard to get a real handle both on the details at the same time as the very big picture. And so to me, a tool like that where we can actually monkey with it and see what our actions will actually do to that big picture number, especially as simplified as it was where it turned red and that turned redder. I didn't really turn redder, but it felt redder when that number got bigger. Um, to me, that's that's something I would really really appreciate. I don't know how difficult it is to to create something like that.

No, we we plan to use that again this year.

That'd be wonderful.

Luckily, once it's created, it's easier to update than create it from new. I I assumed but I didn't want to.

It hasn't been populated for this year yet.

Correct. [laughter] So

So this is going to be for year 2026 the current year, right?

This will be for 2027. So

2027,

but starting in July one of

So then data is going to be from 2026

to Yes. Okay.

And we're going to use that to

past and past years. Yes. Yeah. So, I want to check in with Lori and see [clears throat] if she has any comments [snorts] at this time. Um,

the only question I have is will this budget packet include performance measurements where you show the actuals and how we did it um from previous the last years to the budget so that we can compare and contrast. At this point, um, it's earlier in the process than we would normally present performance measures since those are usually in the recommended budget. So, it's about a month or two. We can attempt to get them, but staff capacity at this point probably isn't in the place where we need to to present them in March. Um, but we can certainly make an effort for them.

And will we have any input, citizen input from um, available? I know the mayor just recently asked about the plan for that, but will we have any of that like from the input that's been given to up to then so that we can hear from our citizens as we go through the budget?

We can share any we get through then. And when we get to the calendar, we'll talk about ways to uh get uh bud budget input, if you will, um different from prior years if that's okay, Lori.

Okay, cool. Yeah, I think u getting it on multiple at multiple iterations would be great. Thank you.

Other comments. Great.

We had our discussion. [laughter]

Um next we're going to talk about the budget foundation which is really a discussion on the pillars. And I know we talked a lot about the pillars last year, but to bring everyone up to speed, these are the tools that staff use to

make all of the budget decisions that we have to make before coming and bringing a recommended budget to you. So, it's really about gauging your priorities and saying, "These are the things that matter most to [snorts] us." So, when you're making a decision, prioritize these over other things. Last year, we came up with the pillars. um staff listened to council conversations and came up with them independently and then council kind of affirmed them through the budget process. This year we wanted to bring you in a little earlier so you could explicitly comment on what the pillars are and maybe give us some ideas on what other pillars might be. This is a reminder from last year as well that um Russ asked me to add in where there are these three things that everyone wants, right? You kind of want stable services. You might want lower density in your community. You may want lower taxes, but you can't have all three. And in a lot of cases, you have to choose two um and then have a drawback. So, right, you want stable services and lower taxes. You might have to have a lot more dense community. You might want lower density and stable services. It might mean higher taxes. So, these are the six pillars from last year's budget. It was having a low tax rate, maintaining service levels, maintaining our carry facilities, investing in our high performing staff, continuing to be a municipal service leader, and maintaining our AAA bond rating. And then we've gone ahead and thought of some potential pillars that you might be interested in. This is by no means an exhaustive list, so if you have something you want us to add, um, Carrie's here and would be happy to write it on our lovely whiteboard. Um, but I don't know where she is. So, oh, there she is. Carrie, great. [laughter] Um, but we can also just have a discussion. But those potential pillars that we thought about were environmental stewardship, affordability, fiscal health and responsibility, service excellence, operational efficiency and innovation, facility and infrastructure maintenance, and community safety. When when you showed the the pillars as we've seen them before, the first thing

that popped into my head was it's going to make it busier if we had a bunch of pillars, but that's okay. We love a really busy infographic, right? I I thought to myself, exceptional transparency in this moment is something that I think a lot of uh citizens are would be really eager to see and I think it's we're already doing it.

Staff is already working hard on that. So, I think that, you know, it is already a a pillar and so being really on the nose with it makes some sense to me.

Yeah, I think I will um have a little pause if we end up with 12 pillars because it just if you have too many, it makes decision-m impossible, but would love to hear your feedback on what's most important for you.

Lori, what do you think?

Yeah. Um, I I agree with what um, Council Member Con Johnson said. I I also can see and feel based on citizen input that much not just the transparency is important but I think we've been talking a great deal about fiscal health and responsibility and community safety u quite a bit and I I would feel that those are very important pillars that that our community would like to see us focus on. The first thing I was trying to do was to match up the current for the potential and the first thing that jumps out is we had high performing staff and then I see service excellence

and I see that to be the same but elevated and explained in a much better way.

Okay. So maybe replacing high performing staff with service excellence

possibly

or adding it to the state combining the two. Yeah.

Yeah.

We're not getting rid of high performing staff. [laughter]

Smart. It's a way of redefining a priority. Yeah.

Liam, can you talk a little more about

municipal service leader? Was this to get at our position in the community with respective to our our neighboring towns and the role we play especially in fire collaboration and our 911 center. Is is that what we had in mind or or am I thinking about it differently? But that was attempting to get at the fact that Carrie historically and currently is a leader in innovating new ways to do things more broadly. Yeah. More broadly that we tried to be at the forefront of innovation.

And so maintaining service levels was really more resident focused and municipal service leader was maybe a little bit more aspirational or reputational.

I think that's true

because they there seems to be some overlap there.

Yeah, I think that's true.

Okay. I think from my perspective I would see that you know there are like some things that I've mentioned like everything that's on that board definitely resonates with me but I think operational efficiency and innovation is extremely important because we have to stay ahead from where the market is and you know continue to improve on our services and um perform the way we do. environmentalu stewardship is extremely important as well. you know um I think Kerry is growing and how do we make sure that we are continuely continuously talking about environment and you know being the leader in that sector I think that's going to be very critical in next one decade

right

I'm trying to match them up still [laughter] so we had low tax rate and now I see affordability that definitely is um a theme carried over and I think affordability is means different things to different people but a lot of people move from elsewhere to this area because it's affordable yet we

also know that it's not as affordable as it used to be so it's you know it's like a relative way of looking at it depending on your situation but that's definitely a high priority still

actually I would agree there that to me those are two sides of the same coin.

Mhm.

And those make sense as a combined sentiment and a pillar to me kind of to what you were saying. [snorts]

What combined?

Both affordability and a low tax rate. So I think you know three years ago this concept was introduced to me which I thought very fascinating and I when I started deep diving into it what you're saying is affordable living but also living affordability. Mhm.

I think these are two different concepts but kind of intertwined somewhere. And what you said, Michelle, kind of makes sense. When people move from somewhere else, like California, New Jersey, they think this is affordable. This is, you know,

but then people who are actually from here, for them, the cost of living is going up and it's just kind of,

you know, it's hard. It's getting harder.

I agree. Any other thoughts?

Would it be beneficial to have definitions of the pillars in a little bit more detail? Obviously low tax rates you don't definition but maybe maintaining service level or what each what we've been talking about need some further detail so that anyone that picks it up understands what our collective view is.

Yeah, I think that's a great point,

Lori.

Unless everybody already is on the same page, but I'm I'm hearing different definitions. No, I I think that's a great point and

as we work through this budget process, especially at the retreat, we can continue to define them exercise,

come to [snorts] a common definition.

So I also think that a little bit uh is uh definition for every category because now we have one, two, three, six pillars and six pillars we have the tax income, our revenue from the tax and we decided how to spend the money. some on the staff, some of the services and some on other recreational like other projects. If we could uh divide all the pillars to different usage like because uh I think the citizens understand oh this if we want to lower tax that means related to the services or related to the staff numbers or the uh welfare of the staff. So I think that will be easier for us to make decision when you get when you see from the pillar this go up this should go down. So we have a balance um maybe easier for us to make decisions.

Agreed. And I was sitting here thinking as Lori was speaking and then you were speaking, one of the challenges is when you say maintaining service levels, what people when you say service

that that may not be the same thing to citizen A and citizen B

and they may think of something wildly different. Um, and having that, again, I'm making this the busiest infographic ever, but just just having having insight into what that really means and why budget dollars are dedicated there and focused there,

um, helps us all be on the exact same page, I think.

Yeah. As you guys are talking too, getting back to the conversation about low tax rate and affordability, in some regards they could be the same thing, but in other ways they could be at odds depending on to Lor's point how we define affordability. Because if affordability is keeping go carry fair

free or summer camps at a level that families can afford, that takes tax dollars to make those services affordable. Um, and so that'll just be thorny. I don't have an answer, but we'll have to think through it.

That's why I think of it as two sides of the same coin. Mhm.

Um, you know, anything. We've dropped stuff off at the Citizens Convenience Center a couple of times over the last several weeks. And that's a great example of a service that I don't think when when you say service pops into your head or you know the the camps are are a great point.

Once I haven't had a school-aged child in a cazillion years, so I'll be completely honest. I don't have a really I don't have an encyclopedic understanding of what is offered. Yeah. But I know a lot of people who do are very very invested in those services and them not and I've met with John Collins and others. I think Ellison met with me as well and I I was like, well, you know what? If we charged more for that kind of stuff, like not not that I was advocating for doing it, just asking, you know, why why do we do things the way we do? And it was a really constructive conversation to make me understand better how people use those things and why we charge the way we charge.

Yeah. um or don't in some cases, you know, maybe there there's certainly not a a revenue stream for us, right? It's a cost center.

Yes.

And that's a values judgment and that's a it's really directly tied to a

budget pillar. Mhm. To your point,

one other quick question I would weigh in on if you don't mind is the the word service. As you said, council member home Johnson is service includes this, you know, our road repaving all the way up to and including the programs that happen at the facilities. So maybe defining what we mean by service in a

little bit more detail might be helpful, right? Does it mean mowing the median every week, every other week? What does that service actually mean?

And a highlight to two of those categories has got the word maintaining in the front of it, which as I remember, past conversations have been um you know, expansion budget being a little different than a maintenance budget. Um so there's probably some specificity to just the way those terms are set out like that. So Russ, what is the difference between maintaining K facilities and facility and infrastructure maintenance? Is there are these two do you think it's alike oneonone or it's

Liam can just came up with [laughter] some uh ideas to just get you to think? Uh it could it could be to replace a term, it could be to add two, combine, whatever. Um those might be a little similar. It it at least that infrastructure you know broadens the term in my opinion.

Agreed.

And do we have a background of our future population and demographic analysis to match the future like uh the budget plan because maybe we future we'll have more young kids or we getting more seniors. Um those services should match our uh car citizens who need these services. I think that's some good information to include in our packet for you in March so we can make a note of that.

Then we've been talking about the impact of um an aging population um on our service levels.

Yeah, I'd like to know if what I mean do we have more children, less children, a lot less children?

We can look at the data.

I've made some assumptions there, but I don't actually they're not data. Obviously, we know about the older population and how we're we're getting by and large older, but I'm I'm curious about

young professionals. Maybe they need a different kind of bars or something like that.

So in my annual address last year, I said we were the oldest of the top 14,

you know, how they at the same time,

we our millennial population was growing faster than the national average.

So I don't know if that still holds true. That's what I remember saying last year.

Well, now that I'm getting much much older, I don't see the millennials as the youngans, right? They're they're the bonafide adults. [laughter] I just I just saw a real today. Millennials do not want to see themselves called old yet.

Yeah. Yeah. [laughter]

Liam's happy with that statement.

I'm not a millennial. Um, [laughter]

you said that so terrific. I'm a little hurt. Liam, [gasps]

uh, I think we're ready to move on.

Yep. We had our discussion. [laughter] Um, and now we're going to talk about the council budget schedule. Russ mentioned that we've as staff have been working since August on the FY27 budget, but now that council's bringing in, I'm going to show you a lot of circles that show a lot of meetings. Not all of them will be budget meetings, but just wanted to give you a sense of what the calendar will look like moving forward. On here, there are two important things to note. The first is that we're planning on delivering the manager's recommended budget on May 7th and then I'll turn it over to Russ to talk about the Kerry budget openhouse. Uh sure, let me first at small group meetings are something we you know introduced with the data and you know concept of uh giving you budget concepts as we get them earlier but it will not be the recommended budget yet. Um so that that's just a way to get you information and talk through information. um are we on the right track? You know, do we need to change things? What's your input? It just gives more input. And then the point, Liam, to make with the work sessions, I mean, last year you started doing more work sessions. So, let's use the work sessions that you have on your calendar to talk about the budget more. We don't have them programmed yet, but um if we need to use them, we will. If we won't,

if we don't need them, we'll do something else. the concept of a having a budget open house um or sharet that we haven't plugged in a date yet, but sometime earlier in the process is a way to get uh citizen feedback and talk about the services that we deliver from a departmental level um at probably a community center or something like that as a concept of something that we haven't done before to try to get um budget input earlier in the process. um having heard from most of you thinking that was a good idea, we'll unless you say otherwise, we'll keep working on that. And then obviously there's um I think you're going to flip to the next side, but there's uh budget public hearings um along the way before we get to adoption. And obviously anyone could come to public speaks out at any time and give us input on the budget just just to highlight that as well. Um so I don't

Is there still a simple pro process to do budget input via email? Liam, why don't you describe what we currently do?

Yeah, if you call 311 or email 311 and it has the word budget in it, then our 311 advocates will tag it and it will come to me and then at every quarterly meeting or more often I share it with council.

Okay, thank you.

Thanks for highlighting 311.

Russ, I have a question about this. Um, does this make sense and this is just like a wild wild idea, you know, but does it make sense to have an advisory group of citizens? I was just getting ready to say that. I call it a focus group.

Yeah. A focus group advising

using your tool using all the information they have. Pretend like they're a counsel or whatever.

Yeah. You know, see what they come up with.

Let them sit with us like you know when we are reviewing this or they have the same level of information that we do. They can advise the council. They can advise the staff. They can provide. They will be our champions. you know if they feel like they are able to see [clears throat] something they they will have their their voices will be heard right there and then this is something you know probably this will help with our you know our our whole objective of bringing transparency and honesty to the table.

So last year as a part of a little bit of discussion and we could do the same thing this year we took it to all the advisory groups. So it was more of instead of creating a new advisory board, it was using the ones that you have.

But we spent like 15 20 minutes in each group. And how much like we to be to be fair and honest like council spends hours and hours with this information and we still don't think we're experts in this.

I just we that they spent well over an hour with both of my advisory boards and I and revisited one of them.

It didn't make it to mine at all.

Yeah. So I think there was varying levels of participation there. So maybe we have a uniform way to engage with do it with every group this year if indeed we didn't get to some.

Yeah.

Um I I did I know I presented for one and it was a long time it and and they were a very engaged group. Um and I don't know if other groups weren't as engaged but yes maybe being un more uniform with it. That's not on the calendar but that's something we did and could continue to do. Yeah,

if you wanted to create some different group of citizens, you're welcome to do that. But we do have boards that have citizens on it that u maybe there's a way to then get that feedback to you all differently than we did last year if it if it didn't work for you all.

And it's a new council.

Yeah.

And the only thing I would caution is I really don't think council should appoint anybody. I think it should be a random drawing or whatever because then it becomes political. we start appointing oh I want my representative you know that kind of stuff

agree I know that that's one of those like that I hear from carry11 graduates a lot like they've learned all this stuff right

right that I think that would be a really ideal pull because they've got the primer on all the things so they understand the budget levers

I like that

and we did do it I can attest we did do the

I was going to ask

and I hear from them all the time they want to do more they want to do more they want to do more right and they that could be a a highly familiar with the budget levers group

that could give really helpful insight.

So could we look into that? I mean I I wonder how big a group [laughter] once you get a group so big then it's chaos and you don't get anything you know but uh if you can have a focused group with background like you said

yeah we can offer this um doesn't have to be council offering but the town can and staff can offer to our advisory boards whoever is willing to step up and be part of that as well in addition to their current role

that's something you know because they're already plugged into the town staff they already understand the dynamic. They have seen this like year after year. It might be easier for us to bring them up to speed and get feedback.

Good point.

So, let us um look at what the groups are, who they are, what we did last year, maybe bring you some options.

If we just put another thing in Liam's bucket.

Yeah, I should [laughter] have to be cognizant.

I should hope not.

It's just one really big thing. [laughter]

I should hope somebody else can. Well, we I think we split up the work a lot last year. I think you did carry 101, but a lot of the directors participated in those um advisory boards.

Yeah,

I have a uh just an idea. I just want to share with everyone. If you go on the website, you decided to purchase a new house, the loan, you can estimate like my uh interest rate will be 30 years of loan. Can our budget the similar make a tool like that if the citizen can get online and put I want the tax rate to be a 0.5%. And then it shows all the services are gone like [laughter] this the different kind of uh like parameters like

similar.

Yeah, we too had

sort of. Yeah, we we that the spreadsheet that I mentioned earlier that we could tinker with and see how our actions or decisions would change either the the revenue we had to work with or the tax rate. They did put that online two years ago. Was it two years ago?

We sort of have that.

So it was similar

exactly that. But yeah, I I know which one you're talking about.

Reverse.

Yeah, it gave you kind of a bucket, you know, like here's what you've got and here's, you [clears throat] know, what works and doesn't work as far as a balanced budget goes.

But you that's an interesting I wonder if that already exists online somewhere where it's,

you know, if you you plug it in, it tells you.

Did we know?

I know the city of Charlotte has done something very similar and there are a couple um

of those out there. They usually contract with some tech company that costs a bunch of money to get it set up, but

but we can't alard the Never mind.

Um, mentioning the open house, there's a way, you know, if you're looking for input, we could have one of the tables or rooms or something possibly to allow people to go through that exercise, which would be different than we've done before. and and [clears throat] now I'm thinking Kerry Community Plan we had the open house but we had the group of 30 that combined all that information and got value out of it

committee for so if we have this uh focus group they could do that

take that information anyway when

one of the other opportunities might be that GFOA has a number of citizen engagement um best practices and portals um where you can work to encourage people to engage through a wide variety. So right now we only take per say the 311 or the budgets or the emails but we could provide other mechanisms as well as as you know all the council members were talking about um maybe leverage other additional reports or like you said like you all said the website dashboard even game there's some game available um providing education you know educational videos that are or other types of ways so that a citizen doesn't have to especially a citizen who is has or resident who has family they

don't have to leave their family in order to participate they can do some things offline on their own time and provide input

and I'll summarize here's what I'm hearing you all are interested in doing a little more citizen engagement

and it sounds like we have at least have alignment on doing more this year and probably learning from that process and continue to do more so if I kind summarize a little bit what I'm hearing and we'll try to um think about those options as we develop the calendar more and come talk to you more.

Sounds good.

Okay,

sounds good. Thanks, Liam.

You're welcome.

I'm going to leave now. Thank you. [laughter] All right. Let's see. Can I get Can we come back to the council initiated item? Yes.

I mean, not next.

Yes. I'm going to do some uh updates for me. And with that, I'm going to um recognize Chief Cooper to give you an update that we're hearing from Wake County EMS.

You didn't want to make him wait there longer. [laughter]

Yes.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. How are y'all doing tonight?

Good. Well, I'd like to thank you very much for the opportunity to talk to you tonight about the Wake County EMS response protocol changes. So before we get into it, I'd like to provide [snorts] just a brief history for the new council members and maybe have a little trivia if we have time. So in North Carolina, uh North Carolina general statute authorizes the county to create ordinances for franchises for delivery of EMS services in Wake County. Wake County EMS has that franchise. Little trivia. Does anyone know when Wake County MS was created?

1976. [snorts] Prior to mergers and consolidations, who used to provide EMS service in other parts of the county? So, there were other franchise agreements even in

Kerry. Can anyone tell me who used to provide EMS service in Kerry? Kerry. EMS.

You're stumping [laughter] us.

I am stumping you. And so through consolidations and mergers, Wake County EMS is now the f the only transport agency within Wake County. And in the early 1980s, a first responder program was created for fire departments to provide first responder service that supported Wake County EMS. So what that means is we respond, we get there first, we provide medical aid prior to the ambulance arriving. Once the ambulance arrives, they can then take over treatment and transport the patient if necessary. So, the stated goal of Wake County EMS response changes, improve ambulance service or improve response times to the most critical emergencies. And they're going to do that by creating, you'll hear me a bit a little bit later, they're going to do that by creating a tiered response that prioritizes the most uh acutely uh injured people or the most urgent calls for for service. So, this actually started back in September of this year. Wake County MS conducted a meeting with all the fire chiefs. Since that time, a smaller working group of fire chiefs have been working with Wake County MS to work out the details of the response changes. Um, they also scheduled, so follow me here, they scheduled meetings with the public uh for mid December. But prior to that, the chiefs urged Wake County men to conduct a meeting with the managers prior to those um public information sessions. And so they did that on December 3rd. And during that meeting, the feedback that the managers gave to EMS is you might want to hold off on those public meetings with the citizens until you can educate and inform the elected officials. So, they heard that

and uh they have since scheduled information sessions for you next week. You can see it on the board. I'll be there every night. I'll be there any night that any council member wants to attend and I'll be there with you if you'd like.

And and Chief can uh Jenny is going to help you all coordinate with your schedules if anyone would like to attend any of those.

Right.

And they're all only in person, I'm assuming.

They are only in person. And so, uh, the the manager's office asked EMS to hold off on the public meetings with the citizens until you could be informed and then they'll potentially reschedule those and then potentially start with the timeline on the changes. So, uh, the tiered response will will most likely create operational impacts for the fire department. The first one will be there will be an increased call volume because of the additional lower acuity calls that we're going to be asked to respond to. And the uh second operational impact will be that most likely we will have to remain on the scene longer waiting on an ambulance if other units are diverted to a higher acuity calls. So the next steps there's an information packet that I believe Jenny has provided for you. You can review that. I've provided a memo that outlines the tiered response in detail for you to review. As I said, Wake County will uh schedule community meetings after the information sessions with the elected officials and the fire chiefs when we were evaluating the plan. Uh we asked for a six-month evaluation period so we could better understand what the impacts will be to the fire department. So, Lake Cans agreed to that and then after the six-month period um after implementation, we'll come back to you and share you share with you what what

the impacts have been.

Any questions?

I think this is very concerning. I did um voice my opinion in our 3x4 meeting that you know it is going like um I know that a lot of senior citizens active adult like I have a lot of active adult communities in my district and I see this as a this is going to be very concerning. So let's hope let's hope we can you know come up with a plan that works for everyone.

Well I believe Wake County EMS is committed. We are, as you know, uh, Wake County MS, uh, we actually colllocate, allow them to colllocate in five of our facilities. We have several facilities on the western side. We're all committed to to providing the best service we can to the citizens. And Wake County mess is open to the to citizen input. So, I would encourage you to talk to your constituents and encourage them to attend those public information or those community meetings.

I think that's very good advice. Thank you so much.

Yes, ma'am.

And I would love to see some examples on each each of the tiers because I can't answer that question right now. I know

heart attack, that's tier one.

I've fallen and I can't get up, but maybe I just need somebody to pick me up. Maybe that's tier four.

Um what's in between?

Yes.

And and how much are those going to be impacted kind of stuff that would really help so I can answer questions when I'm asked. I could probably get into a little bit of a detail, but I don't have much time to do that.

So, we'll get you that information

now. I mean, just to have that information.

Yes, sir. Absolutely. I can provide that for you.

Yeah.

And the good thing to that saying that, mayor, is obviously after you go to the meetings next week. Um they're going to be explaining the their information. They're not necessarily going to be explaining uh fire department information. Is that correct, Chief?

That is correct.

And and every um municipality could be affected differently. So if you need

additional information after that those meetings we can come back to a work session with you or talk about it in our small group meetings as well.

So so on the other comment as I work with the other mayors uh I know how they have struggled with dealing with fire and rescue and I view us as probably one of the best if not the best in Wake County. So we're going to probably not suffer as much as the others. I'm just curious what the other chiefs are saying. They've got to be going, "Oh my gosh, what's going to happen to us?" I think uh I think it is fair to say that uh the fire chiefs in Wake County have expressed concern about the changes. Um, but we also understand that Wake County is growing and there needs to be a and we agree with the plan from the standpoint of we do believe the most urgent patients or the critically ill patients need the the most urgent response. And so this is a way to collaboratively work together uh to make sure that we are meeting the citizens needs and but but the fire chiefs do have concerns and that's why Wake County EMS has agreed to the six-month evaluation period to to let's see exactly how it is impacting us.

And and the only other thought I have is about the decision makers uh which I assume is the Wake County Commissioners.

Yes. So, I get where they are right now, but projections say within 10 years, we're going to grow by 30% or something like that in this region.

Yes, sir.

And I hope they have a plan or it's going to get worse.

So, yes, sir. Um, if you look and you'll see if you attend one of the the elected officials sessions, uh, the call volume has really exploded. They've seen the same increase that we've experienced um, since co and uh they are they are committed uh Mr. Ellis has said they are committed to

continuing to add additional resources. This is just one change, but they know and understand they're going to have to continue that commitment to keep up with the growth that's going to continue to occur.

Okay. Thank you.

Yes, sir.

I asked this question in the 4x3 or someone did um but I'd like you to answer it for everyone. the um the highest response priorities, our fire service is still going to go there. Also,

absolutely, without question,

you'll notice um well, everybody can't see what we're looking at, never mind. But what we're looking at is um the response priority for the um the highest need patients for EMS target is less than 12 minutes and fire department response time is significantly faster.

Right.

Yes sir. That is correct. 5 minutes. That is our

I just wanted to clarify that our understanding is that we're still going to get somebody responding immediately.

Absolutely.

But the E4 is it's not like they're taking away the service. It's they're reduced like the service time increases. Is that correct?

That's correct. Lower cuity calls have a a longer response time goal for EMS. That's the change.

But but the way I understand it, if nobody's calling about anything and there is an E4, then they go right to it.

Uh correct. Well, on the E4, that's nurse navigation, but you're correct. We're talking about the most busy times. And so that's really where the issues occur. If the calls received units are available, they're going to go ahead and send them.

Okay.

Chief Cooper, I I just wanted to make sure I understood what I heard in our 3x4 correctly. You are leading the group of chiefs in this effort.

I don't know that I would use the word leading. [laughter] Um I am a very active participant with uh some other great colleagues on that committee. [clears throat]

He's gonna be he's highly regarded

amongst the chiefs of Wake County. Well, I I just I want to express that I'm glad you're there, you know, in the mix of it because that this is very concerning and that gives me um some comfort knowing that we've got you there.

We have strong representation.

Yeah. In parsing the information so that we can understand it. Can you clarify for me is there um is the fire department statutoily limited in what EMA service that service they can provide? I understand we can't transfer or we the fire department can't transfer someone to the hospital. Is there is there hard guard rails on what um first because you're defined as a as a first responder when somebody calls 911 for a medical emergency, right? Is there what are the guard rails there?

Really, it's up to the medical director. We work, that's why we coordinate with Wake County EMS as well as the medical director and that's where we really get our authority to to function as first responders under his medical license.

And so there is a possibility that there will be some changes to those sort of directives and and and what the the fire department either should or can do.

Yes, ma'am. Absolutely. And they base all that data on clinical outcomes. Um and they they're very good at evaluating those and so yes we they they wake EMS is they are constantly monitoring that and if they see there needs to be a change or we recommend change it's there's opportunities to do that

and I want to interject just that we are at 554 and still have another topic.

Okay.

Can I make one more comment sort of follow up? All our responders first responders are EMS trained.

Absolutely. They can be put in an ambulance if you wanted them to. I mean, they're that well trained. So, you're not getting a different level of service. It's all about transport.

That's correct. And and Wake County EMS does have a higher level. They are pirate level service and we are EMTs.

Okay.

But we're all all our firefighters are state certified emergency medical

technicians.

So, thank you very much. I want to assure you that um I take my responsibility of representing you and the 190 plus citizens of Kerry. Uh I take that very uh very seriously and so I um I do my best on the committee to represent you. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you.

All right. We want to give you time. Let's see how painful this is. There you go. um to give you time to go through your council initiated items tonight and you've got about 20 minutes to do so so we can get over to the council chambers.

So Michelle, you want to start on yours? Go

ahead. Yeah.

So, um I wrote this up because I'm going to forget and then I'm like, damn. So, um first I want to sincerely thank Councilwoman Craig for her support in bringing this discussion item to our agenda today. I appreciate your support and leadership. On December 17th, I sent an email to the mayor and our interim town manager, Russ Overton, to highlight the need for staff to review our current policies and consider ways to strengthen or adjust our or our adjustment of our processes in light of the concerns and challenges that many of us have heard one way or another from our community and stakeholders. I want to be very clear and cautious in how I frame this discussion. My intent is not to go ahead of or interfere with any ongoing investigations, audits or assessments. Nor does this indicate that these were the official findings from any of the investigations. What I'm going to present today is purely based on the issues and concerns concerns that I saw while I was in those meetings as part of this council. This request is focused solely on governance governance transparency and ensuring

that our policies remain strong, clear and aligned with best practices. For today, my ask is that staff shared with council members the current policies related to the following areas and where appropriate provide recommendations including the pros and cons of potential changes. The spending authority of the town manager, professional [snorts] development opportunities for council members and senior staff. If it if there is a possibility to come up with you know a written policy or if we don't have one maybe whether council approval should be required before any reallocation of budget budgeted funds for special projects for example land purchases should be approved by the council. Implementing a more structured review of senior staff spending and documentation of time spent away from the office. reviewing travel expenditures of senior staff to ensure accountability. I have two more items on my list and these are primarily about budget. The last two items on this list are intended specifically for our budget review process including conducting a comprehensive deep dive review of the town's budget with full council participation. The second one is providing a report on the town's fund balance during our quarterly meetings and if possible get a little bit more deeper understanding on fund balance policies and where do we stand for all of us who are new on the council. My goal is transparency, shared understanding and thoughtful collaboration between council and staff. I believe these discussions will help stren strengthen trust and ensure we are fulfilling our responsibilities to the residents we serve. Thank you.

So as a second, do you want to

Sure. So, I I second her request um with

the idea that if we are reviewing the current policies and procedures for for the items that she just mentioned, then we know everyone in on council is on the same page and both and also the public has the opportunity to hear those also where things have stand now and have how we've been operating previously or if we've been if there's been any concerns about how we've been operating. Um, we can we can take a look at that. But the idea was that if if staff would present that, that would be our foundation. So, we're ready to hit the ground running whenever we do have anything from those deep dive reviews. And then from there, um, as it makes sense, um, we could begin, um, to be ready to weigh any options of if any changes needed to be made or recommendations for any procedural changes.

Comments from anyone? I mean, I feel like we're mid-flight on several of these.

So, obviously, we're in agreement because we're already doing better than probably half of the list. So, yeah, it it's nice to have them documented.

Yeah.

So, they're in bullets, and I love bullets.

Yeah, I love bullets, too. And it's transparent.

Thank you, Miss Bonsil.

Uh, the next

Do we have to um I'm sorry. Do I have to put put a motion?

Yes. But I thought you might want to talk about the second one and kind of combine them together since they're related.

Okay, got it.

And and I I'll add if you wish [clears throat] to make a motion to look at those things. Um, one one thing you said was to look at current policies and practices. So if you want this to be a little bit interactive, and I I I do have some questions about some of them. Um, I know you're short on time, but if if it's to start the discussion looking into things, then I think we could bring it back and have more of an a bit of an interactive discussion on it. So a that you don't have to do it tonight. Um, and if we can review it as a group of staff and bring back any questions we have on any of them if if that's okay. So we can

move forward.

But I think putting the motion for to give uh staff the direction to work on this. I think that's what probably I was thinking.

That'd be great.

Yeah. You know, I mean, so that you can spend staff time.

Yep.

So we want to do the next one and combine them, right?

Up to you, mayor.

Okay. Uh, so the next one was uh initiated by Lori Bush and seconded by Carissa Con Johnson. Lori, since you're remote, you want Cararissa to take it or you want you feel comfortable doing it remote?

Um, either way, if Carissa, do you have it in front of you? I have it as well.

You go ahead, Lori.

Okay. Um well I I think the great thing about this is that we were all many of us were all on the same wavelength both from what council member Bonsel said as well as what uh council member Con Johnson said which is that some of these are in flight already which I think is great and it's also an opportunity for all of us to share with the public that uh these are concerns of ours and also um some direction to staff as well. I'm very um thankful for council member Bonzel to to say we'd like some staff input on these because as a council member I'm not sure what any of those numbers should be from a discretionary authority perspective and I'd love when town um when staff goes off and looks at that they think of the unintended consequences for picking and choosing any particular number um my um uh questions that that don't exactly overlap or my initiated items that don't exactly overlap but do some of them do. One is to look at a policy that might be required for preapproval

of land acquisitions for any real property acquisitions regardless of the dollar amount outside of um sidewalk etc. um should receive explicit town council approval before execution, which is a standard practice in most North Carolina municipalities under the general statutory requirements. Um also, um the only other one that wasn't also on council member Bonsel's list is to understand more about our independent auditor review policy. Uh we have a currently an external audit service agreement with Terry Beckerts and I would love staff's input on the audit contract review that we have to do an assessment and understand what policy we may or may not need that establishes an enhanced oversight communication and accountability measures for our independent external external auditor relationship and what that looks like. So, those are the two that did not um explicitly um fall into council member Bonel's list.

And and I would like to clarify when it comes to the overlapping thing of reducing the manager spending authority. I want to be very explicit in saying this is not a lack of trust in Russ's decisionmaking ability at all. I I believe that that reduction is necessary to take the pressure off of you. So what I what I'd like to make sure is happening if a substantial dollar amount gets spent then we say we did that right not and and not and not be our town manager did that. So that is the goal there. It is in no way um a lack of confidence in your ability.

It's ultimately more work for you.

Yeah, I understand.

But I think that's why we are one team. Everybody brought brought their flavor

to the table and I appreciate you saying that because I totally forgot. So yes, but that does not reflect on our staff or no

on you Russ, but it's more about how do we make sure we get the we gain the public trust back and as a team kind of start working together on you know putting controls and checks and balances in place

when and I want our accountability because we are ultimately accountable to match what we're actually doing, right? Yeah.

Is that what you're gonna say?

That's exactly what I was going to say. [laughter]

Yeah. Yeah.

Um and and the other thing I I want to share is um you know Lori did a lot of uh sort of best practices background research there and it is interesting to see what other municipalities other groups are doing. Um but what what I'm ultimately interested in seeing is I want to hear the opinion of staff. I feel like there are um probably a lot of folks that like why don't we do XYZ, right? I want to hear what that is first and foremost. That that to me is sort of the the primary thing I'd like to to understand when it comes to these processes, particularly the um the the audit the when we have an outside audit, which we do every year, you know, what has the experience been? What do we want when we we contract with a company? What is it we want them to review? what policies do we want them to check against? Those things and I like I I think that being council driven when we aren't the ones involved in submitting and going through that auditing process might not be the best course of action. I believe that that being very very staff driven um at least you know the ideation I think that would be uh come up with a really good process going forward.

Sounds good. Any other thoughts, comments? So, mayor, looking at the policy on council initiated items, what I'm hearing you all say is that you'd like to refer both these requests to a future council meeting at which time a staff

report with staff recommendations will be prepared.

Do we have a motion?

Motion.

Second.

Second. Further discussion? All in favor, please say I.

I. Any oppose? Motion carries unanimous. Thank you, everyone.

Any other items?

I think that's it. Okay, we'll adjourn the work session and we'll go to a council meeting at 6:30. Thanks everyone.