Town Council Annual Meeting

All right, Heather is going to come up and talk about our uh evolving community.

Great. Thanks. Well, welcome back from lunch everyone. I I'm excited to be here with you to share um some information. We're going to look at some data um particularly around demographics and development in Kerry and talk about Allison spoke this morning kind of our values and mission as a foundation for the other conversations we'll have and we wanted to offer this as well for kind of a similarly foundation setting um segment of information. Our key takeaways are that carriers car's evolving demographics will impact future resident preferences, service needs and community infrastructure. Our built environment is aging and will need reinvestment and/or redevelopment and our market remains healthy with continued development and reinvestment. So first to ground us in what we know instinctively to be true that this is a very attractive our our state as a whole but in particular our region is a very continues to be economically very attractive. Um this is a study done by NC Chamber Foundation a couple of years ago that projected and we included in this circle um se 7 75,000 Wake Chattam Durham Orange and Johnston counties 75,000 new jobs over the next several years. So that tells us that people are going to want to continue to locate in our region. Um this is a study that was done um finished last year but projecting population we know that Wake County has continued to grow and this is a 4ount region those those five I said but minus Johnston County but similarly shows that um the economic projections show that we're going to continue to have population growth um for the next 25 years at least. Looking a little more closer to home, um, Wake County, Chattam County, and Kerry, we know that we've had a steady progression and growth of our population. Um, I think we're at 191.

You you shared with us at the state of Kerry, mayor now, 192 now, but this is 188 as of the end of 2024. Um, same in Chattam County, a progression. And then, um, you know, over 1.2 million in Wake County. We say this a lot that we're an aging community. Um, and this I think has grown a couple of percentage points since last year. 16% of our residents are 65 and over. And so we're compared to our peer cities um really a relatively um high senior aging adults population. This one is interesting. We wanted to show you kind of on a map. These are the house percentage of households with a resident over 65 years of age. So the darker the shade, the higher percentage of households that are um over 65. So you can see that we have seniors living throughout our community in all parts of our of Kerry. And then this one is kind of the the opposite showing the number of households or the percentage of households with uh children under 18. um a has a steady decline, not dramatic, but a steady decline over the past 10 years. So 25% in 2014, 20 almost 25% and then now we're about at 22% and that that is um also the case in Chattam County and and and in the region. Per capita income, this has continued to go up. We're at 7 a little over 71,000 now. And again, compared to our peer cities at the at the high end. This is house household median income. So this is an interesting one. Compared to that 4ount region, um our median income now sits a little under 130,000 per household. So naturally, you're going to have a lot of households above that. 41% making more than 150. Um 19%

in that 100 to 150. But you can also see we have um you know households under 35,000, households between 35 and 50 and then under 75,000. This is on the map. You can see our household income varies across Kerry. The the darker the green, the um higher the house the median household income. So this is by kind of sub um census tracked area. So you can see that distribution throughout Kerry. we have um income diversity throughout and then similarly this is um showing the percentage of households that are under the poverty level which is a pretty low bar. I the the the number is I think around 37,000 for a household right now the under the poverty level. So you can also see that we have households um throughout our community that are um under the poverty level. Um this is one that we reference a lot that we're really proud of. We have a lot of uh 26% of our residents are are foreign born. And then this shows our racial and ethnic diversity um that we're continuing to diversify um since 2000 to 2020. We're very educated. Almost 70% have a bachelor's degree or higher. And then this number has continued to go up. It was high during COVID and then went went down and and then now we're back at 30. So 30% of residents are reporting that they continue to work from home. Shifting from demographics to a little data on our land use. This is a a pie chart showing by land area the percent the the distribution of land uses in Kerry. So 60% of our land area is in residential land uses 13% commercial industrial civic. So that includes uh government buildings and parks and then

other as well. So think about what that means in terms of um the mix of tax revenue and the mix of the way that we use our land.

That seems lower than I

needs to be seven. It used to be 70, right?

Residential used to be 70. I don't know how long ago that was, but it used to be.

Yeah.

Yeah. This is Wake and Chadam

included. Yep. And then digging in just to that residential [clears throat] slice, um 68% of our residential um housing stock, residential supply is a single unit. So we define that as attached single unit and detach single unit. And that's split about 54% detached, 14% attached. And then multif family is 32% and that's evenly split um between what we call small format multif family 2 to nine units and then larger format multif family those um 10 10 unit buildings and up. Um this one shows this is the age of our residential development. So looking at the lighter the color, the older um the the the building structure for that area. And naturally you would expect in and around downtown is where we have our older housing supply. And then as you move to the edges of town um where our newer development um is looking at our market performance, this is our for sale um homes. Our median price as of the end of December was um almost 615,000. And we have a very small amount of homes on the market under under a half a percent 265 homes as of December. Um meaning there's a very little choice at all price ranges. Um kind of one benchmark is about 2.5% for sale market is sort of a healthy market that allows some um some migration. Looking at the rental market um we look at this two ways. One, of course, we want to see all multif family, anything that is being currently occupied. Um

what the price per square foot is, what the what the monthly rent is, and then what that vacancy rate is. Right now, that's about 1,900 or as of December. Um a vacancy rate of 9%. That is down from last year. Um but most um economic indicators look for kind of what's that when uh the properties have been stabilized. So, how if the properties have been on the market um for 10 years or so, um what what does that look like? And so, that slice of the market is the rent's a little lower and the vacancy rate is a little bit lower as well. So, that sits at 1650 and then the vacancy rate is 6.5. So, again, a balanced rental market, kind of healthy rental market is typically between somewhere and 5% for that vacancy rate. We know we have uh changing land context. We've shown this to you all before just to get a sense of where that undevelop that that vacant or developable property is. It was uh 10 years ago 18%. Um when you add what is in the pipeline, what what's already been resoneed to be developed, that brings us down to 12%. And then when you take out the land that's undevelopable for one reason or another, that brings us to 9.5%. So that's where we sit now with with um developable kind of vacant property. And you would think that's where we'd be looking maybe to see, well, where is there going to be new growth? Where is there going to be new new development? That's one place. But really, when we look at what our community plan says about where we can expect to see more development or infield development, it's in these key areas. For the most part, our comm community plan, we'll talk more tomorrow about our our plans and how we get to these plans, but destination centers are the area that our community plan calls for the the most density. Um and then we also have the kind of the next tier down is our commercial mixed use centers which also calls for um kind of that higher level of density mixed uses and a more an urban distribution um of of development development activity in Kerry remains

steady. We DRC's is one measure. It's our development review committee. Every Wednesday we have uh folks that are looking to develop and carry. Um they say we've got a piece of land. Here's what we think we want to do with it. we give them feedback on it. So that's one measure of uh interest in developing in Kerry and we continue to see hundreds of those a year. Um folks that are looking to build new things or redevelop and carry, they also come to DRC's. Reszonings um have decreased over the years. Um one of the things we say is they get more complicated. So a zoning may take 12 to 18 months. We we get 15 or so a year. So we might have 20 to 30 in the pipeline at at one time. But we are continuing to see those um complex resonings come through after they get zoned or sometimes if they already have the right to build what they want to build, we see a development plan. So that's a a major part of our review process. Those have also decreased, but similarly um are more complex over time. So you can see that volume is still in the um several hundred of those. This is an interesting one looking at um reinvestment in property. So, when you look at um residential remodel permits, we're high up there with our kind of regional peers. You know, almost 3,000 residential permits um over the past several years, which is an indicator that, you know, folks are continuing to reinvest, remodel um in those existing properties. This is new residential permit, so still up there, I think. Oops, I think I might have put the same slide in there twice. new res toward the bottom.

Scott might just want to speak to it if if you don't mind.

Yeah.

Yeah. So, this the two residential permits if you ignore the numbers because they're the same as the remodels. We are definitely um

Sorry about that.

No. Oh, good. We're towards the bottom of that, which isn't surprising. And we'll be able to send that out um likely in the weekly or as a followup, but towards the bottom. So, and all the

places that you think it's it's an intuitive slide, but I like I liked it because and I know we liked it as staff because it shows all the places where you think growth is happening are towards the top and Raleigh's, you know, at the top on on many of both of them just because of the size. Like it's just got a lot of land mass. So when when I was inspections and permits director 10ish years ago, we were towards the top building thousand plus single family uh units a year and now you know fourish hundred a year. So just speaking to where development is happening in the county.

Thanks Scott. Sorry about that. We'll make sure we get So we have one slide that says remodeled and another that shows all the new. So this is construction. We've got 144 attacks. You can see those are happening all around town. Um under construction, we've got 770 multif family units projects also distributed throughout. Um non-residential square footage happening throughout as well. And then when you add those all up, you can see kind of the the construction of of new space that's happening throughout Kerry. This one is busy but we it kind of illustrates this is the current number of permits that are in the pipeline like open permits for resident

few ADUs might have come through since we approved the ADU ordinance.

That's a great question. We'll have to get back to you. I don't know how many we've approved.

I do have one question away.

How did we end up with the change in the balance between residential and non-residential? That that's a that's [clears throat] a decent size shift

over time. We'll probably need to get you data over time.

Yeah. Is it sort of slowly becoming less residentially?

I can I can give some anecdotals. Scott probably can too because um he was in

inspections and permits just after me used to give you data and they cyclical time and there's certainly more of that um and I think right now and I think as we almost even heard in the EDC meeting earlier in the week has to do a lot with lending

and Scott you may want to add as well. Yeah,

I I will say to follow up, we've as we have leaned into what the imaginary community plan says that we want to create walkable places that have mixed use. It's one of those we we don't residential, but the places that are getting developed, you know, downtown or the Fentons or some of these out west with a um horizontal mix of uses is is it's residential plus plus something else plus something else. So, so traditionally we're classifying those. I I believe some of that data is showing again we can get it for you but showing that those places are more of a mix commercially leaning than you know just pure residential.

So they don't show up in that residential percent.

It depends how it's what's the devil in the details of how that data

non-residential mix. That's my assumption for how this some of this data is getting um presented and so yeah we could move through like how does how did that if I understand your question how did it shift over time.

Yes historical what would f

and I'd love I'd love some expert opinions. I think we have the experts on staff. I'd like expert opinions on what for 2026 and seven and eight what the healthy mix is between residential and non-residential. Is it still what we, you know, found from the study and the advice we got? What was that, a decade ago? Right. Is that still the case? I I'm not saying go hire someone that, you know, I feel like y'all have your finger on the pulse enough there to give us some guidance just from your your experience.

Scott, can you remind how we qual how we

um how we qualify um multifamily? Is that non-RES or REZ?

Residential.

Oh, it is. Thank you.

Yeah,

unless we're talking building code and then it's commercial, but [laughter]

that was so clear. Thank you. Yeah, that helps.

I mean, I think again to do is we can look at historical trend data. That might be interesting to you. And maybe I I don't know maybe we and and Bella and Britney just you know we I learned from staff and council that that mix was determined for Carrie to probably be 70% residential 30% commercial or non-residential as a as a healthy mix of land use. What I'm asking is that still the case is that you know it I one of the things that keeps me up at night and I share this with residents sometimes is with you know I work remotely my entire company they're getting rid of their offices there's you know

and this was a get back in the office after COVID company who you know to attract talent had to pivot

and and you know now they're getting rid of office space and entire floors and closing offices. So, one of the things that all that really does, you know, it goes through my head when I can't sleep is what are we going to do about some of the the the commercial properties that maybe don't have full that aren't full right now. A lot of them abut residential areas, that kind of stuff. And and I'm not trying to say that we should limit commercial development. I just would like to go into it with eyes wide open and really understand sort of maybe the MX has changed. Maybe a [clears throat] healthier balance is closer to where we are or going. But I'd just like to understand that it

feels like it's changing.

Russ, this is Stacy. Um, one behind you. I'm here.

Hey, Stacy.

We're coming from the ether.

I think we've [applause] got a clarification that can help and that's why I'm trying to get your attention

really quickly. Um, the 7030 that you're referring to is what we typically reference when we're um evaluating the tax base data, the assessed value data. What the map we were just looking at is a land use map. And while there is a correlation between those two things, the way they're qualified in their different respects may be a bit different.

Ah,

it's a great pay.

Does that help? So when we talk about a healthy mix, are we really talking about for taxes purposes? [snorts]

I think that's an excellent question for this group, but I can speak specifically to the 7030 as I have reported it and it is based on taxbased data coming from Wake and Cadam counties.

That's what I assume. Thank you for confirming.

Okay. So,

so can you also uh when you provide that information, it might be interesting to see how you would classify Fenton when it is or how do we classify mixed use areas? What does that look like when they have both residential and commercial built into the way we look at it? You're going to say it depends.

That'll be good. Yeah, we can look at the the tax assessor is doing one thing. If we're looking at land use, we might be doing a different thing. So, yeah, but I think that's interesting as we bring it back. Um, let's look at land use, let's look at tax, and let's we can point out, okay, and so for this specific example, Fenton, here's how those things break out and then continue to have the conversation. It's good. It's it will be interesting to look at. I agree. And while you're poking around, could we get um real time data sort of about the the commercial vacancy rate?

That makes sense that question.

Yeah,

just so I know

on a map.

Yeah, that's true. Um so we can tell regionally where

like ISIS

Oh, yeah.

I'm thinking of um Weston,

right? And as we

or regency

number regency,

you know, some of the strip plazas have

me a little concerned as well. And when we're talking about destination centers, you know, where we have maybe pockets of challenging commercial properties might be something to consider

moving forward when we talk about destination centers.

I think that's fair. Yeah, we can do that same market analysis for, you know, commercial and different sectors that we kind of showed for residential and and mapping it.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Yeah, good call with the map. I love a good map.

And certain in certain corridors, you know, Weston's a good example. You guys have asked us to look at that as a kind of an area of of study. So, we can share more on that. Yeah.

And Western in particular, I don't want to rely on on what people say about the occupancy over there. I'd like to actually have, you know, really solid data.

Yep. Okay. No, great comments. All right. Which also is a great segue to service levels. Um because depending on your splits and how we serve our community um we're going to have Shelley come up and some others I believe and so kind of lead a discussion with you um on your questions about service levels. And thank you all for providing input to what service levels you specifically had questions about.

I might have to scoot it more. And so we're going to turn it over to this group and let you ask them some questions, I believe.

All right. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. We are going to have a discussion about service levels today. Um, I'm going to give you a very brief introduction and then we are going to bring up the experts and you can ask them whatever questions you want to. So, we're going to have a Q&A session. So the takeaways that we want you to have from this are that's and I know you know all of this but um just to have on your mind as we're thinking about the budget and all of these things impact the budget. Um service levels require staff and money. Service levels mean different things to different individuals and service levels are not isolated to one singular department. They're very complex and can impact all across um

departments either directly or indirectly. So, we just want you to think of all that and we're going to try to answer as many questions as you have today. But I did want to tell you that we do provide exemplary services in Kerry and that enhances the quality of life for our residents. Um and as you just heard Heather say, a lot of people are just renovating or doing additions because they want to continue building a life here in Kerry. So, um, it will be up to you all to sort of figure out where our levels are. Um, the people that are coming up right now are all of the experts. I feel like I have such a great team right here. I'm really going to step aside and just moderate, but the budget is made up of 50 more than 50% of the budget is made up by the departments that are going to be here today. I know that you all had some questions. They are prepared to answer those, but we're going to let you ask them. Um, and then anything else that is on your mind for the next I don't have a clock, but we h the next

we have over an hour an hour.

We have over an hour for you to ask as many questions as you want. So with that,

I'll be on time.

We I will start bringing up our people. So you know, Chief Cooper and actually if you'll bring a chair with you, that would be great.

Yeah.

Did they sit in a circle?

Chairs count towards service levels.

Yes, that's right.

Chairs do count. So, for the fire department, some of the things that um always come up are response times and then frequency of fire code inspections. Thank you for the clock, by the way. Um then we have

Okay. Well, they're not going to do the walk-on when I call them up, so that's okay. They're going to throw me off just a little bit here. That That's okay. John Collins, maybe raise your hand so people can see. Okay. So, he oversees our parks, recreation, and cultural resources. So parks programming and special events come up quite a bit in his areas. The police department, we have Chief Salt and obviously um school resource officers have come up and then response times for the police. I have

transportation Cassie, I'm not going to say her last name. And um street

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. uh street resurfacing, anything with the um medians and bicycle facilities, things like that, utilities. We have Jamie Rebels and um Jamie exceeds all of the EPA guidelines with everything he does and probably goes above and beyond anything we're ever required to do. But any questions you have with that and then also our pipe replacement and public works. We have Jimmy Simpson and um you can ask him anything you want but maintenance of parks and things like that and loose leaf collection are things that have come up. So with that I am going to ask you all to ask whatever questions you have and it doesn't have to be direct I will direct it to somebody if you don't want to or you can direct it to them and we are going to just have a discussion for the next hour. Who would like to start?

So when you talk about service levels, I think of customerf facing service levels and then the um invisible, I guess you would call it service levels. Like Jamie, nobody knows. All they want to know is you better have my water and you better have my waste water working. And that's a high service level. But if we start having line breaks everywhere, they don't know the prevention that goes on in in that department. And that's the difference in service levels. And and from where I'm sitting, how do you explain that? Because all people care about is I don't want that bad thing to happen.

And you might if you turn it over to Jamie is also talk about how you fund because Jaime's different than everyone else in the fact that it's user based fees. I um the one thing I would say I mean I

think with service levels you could probably have days long discussions which with each of them and we are only going to hit the surface um but to your point we will never be able to explain fully um for this but I know there [clears throat] are things that have been on people's minds specifically and so just trying to even get a baseline of understanding if there is a service like if if you are if the question was, "Hey Jamie, what do we do that's above and beyond that when you're thinking about the budget and what you all are going to have to choose like what are we maintaining this service level? We've been doing it with less staff and so um it's probably not sustainable. Also, the cost of everything is going up.

So, so that's a good point. Uh where we are now, you know, is that sustainable? I would like to know that from everybody and who's hurting, you know, I know police and fire are wait, they're waiting to hire and they're really struggling to hit that five minute mark. Um, which are my service levels. I don't know about the rest of the council, but those mean a lot to me. And then the other departments as well. Of course, in a previous life, I was all into transportation and roads and I know what it means not to take care of your roads. You pay exponentially more if you wait and uh all of that. So, [laughter]

so I'm going to try to summarize that into a question that maybe will help. um is the level of service that we are currently providing which um may not be defined distinctly right now clearly but is that sustainable with the resources we currently have is that

yeah I know the answer to that one but okay

doing just

in which

I think we're going to do all of them right

Jimmy

that was the direct road question so the

interesting thing for me is all of the things that you've brought up so far, Mr. Mayor, involve more than one of us, right? So Jamie has water lines, but we do some work with utilities as well. And so all the pipe breaks that come up, generally our team is responding to. And I think that's the key, one of the key takeaways for me is that everything that we do involves multiple groups across multiple different departments. If we're working on sidewalk maintenance, we're doing that with Cassie and we're doing it with John on greenways. And so I think that's an important distinction to make sure that we talk about that it hits all of us, not just one of us.

Yeah. And and it's important that you coordinate. I was in Raleigh as they were digging up new pavement and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, that's how you not do it." It happens.

Yeah. Exactly right.

Y

is it better to ask or not better is one way to approach the problem to talk about like what is the average condition of a road picking on yours? uh are we talking about and how many years between the resurfacings are acceptable? Like is it better to be specific like that or is it just to is it better to say how do we have roads that have no visible potholes and what does that look like? Right? What what is the best way to ask these questions?

Well, I think each of us manage some type of program and evaluation of our facilities and Some in some cases we have service levels and and expect and numerical expectations for for items and issues and some in some we don't. Um we have programs where you know citizens just get to ask for it and we put it on the list and we and we evaluate that on an annual basis. And so like with the road with the street rep resurfacing and the neighborhood improvement program that's a program that has continued to evolve. Uh I think at one point we had a um a numerical number that we would um always maintain 81 a score of 81. So a

score of good. All of our um on average our streets met a good level of condition. We've dropped back into the fair position. It's a high fair. So it's a 77 versus an 81. Um but we we've never said that we're always going to maintain our streets at at an 81. That's not a C council policy. We don't have a policy for for street maintenance. We just have a program. And so we're and annually we are evaluating our our streets and the surface and the conditions that they're in. And they're getting scored every year. And then we're using that to determine where our lowest grade streets are at. And then on a and on a neighborhood level then going and resurfacing all of the very poor poor and sometimes up to a fair in order to not have to overly impact a neighborhood over and over again. We're doing we've um done polygons throughout the throughout the community of of street resurfacing groups. Um, so we're doing that based on numerical scores and and going to the worst first, but in a in a neighborhood configuration.

So, so I want to follow up on both of you. Um, the numbers they're talking about a PCI pavement condition index doesn't mean squat to a resident, but what does mean something is I don't want cracks in my roads. I don't want potholes in my roads. They can identify with that. Is that a 77? Because 77 can be skewed. New roads are 100 and then you have other old roads that are below 77 and they average the 77. So

yeah, and a 77 might have a few cracks but it doesn't have the alligator cracking.

It's not like Kildo Farm road,

right?

Which is a state road by the way, [laughter] just so we're clear.

Not all roads in Kerry are carry own streets. So NC DOT has their own resource if they don't. But

the conversation that we should have at

the table is what do we as a council expect or want

and that is

I always thought it was 81 but I didn't know we were at 77. It's really about the safe road, right? That's traversible with a car or bike or pad,

you know, that doesn't have a lot of complaints, right? [clears throat] Whatever. I don't know what that number is, but my guess is based on as we're an aging community that costs more over time to deliver.

Would that be a fair

Yes. And are we at 77 just because we've put things on pause? Is

I think there could be a couple of of items with that. [clears throat] We're not adding as many new streets as we used to. So if you add a new street, that's a lot of hundreds.

That's probably a hundred. Yeah. [laughter]

So So your average begins to change. So again, looking at an aging community, not and and also I want to say just because your street's 30 years old doesn't mean it's in a poor condition. Um, but as we continue to add fewer streets, you know, our streets will age and so our numbers our numbers could change and you so I think that's something that we have to continue to re-evaluate annually to to see where we are and also it um we talked about this at the at the last retreat about if that based on our independent consultants analysis that we would have to invest $1 million a year to even maintain maintain that you 77 to 81 score and so it's also you is that maintaining streets are important it reduces the amount of work that Jimmy has to do and his team has to do when we can maintain a high quality of street but at the same time what do you give up in order to maintain streets because I know there's also questions about sidewalks and and other and parks

and more utilities fire and and police services and so it all it's all this balance of you you could fund and resurface streets all day but there's still other needs in the community as well.

The point being from a budget conversation you're also haven't or not have a dedicated funding source to meet us whether it's an 81 or 77

over time we've never dedicated funding to meet a certain score.

The funding that you bring to the table funds as many as you can get to.

Yes. Yep. And piggy back off to say

is it fair to say that you know the SLA here it's very easy to um say for fire department and for police department you know there's a certain SLA and you know easy to track but I think for other departments what I'm hearing is that the SLA is limited to certain services but the other aspect is more capital projects more operation and maintenance mode right and we as a council probably have to move forward forward now making a decision on what do we want to do with both aspects and not just SLAs's right especially in your case uh Cassie I feel you because um sidewalks and building roads and crosswalks and these you know these kind of requests that come to us we send it to you these are not SLA there there's no SLA related to it this is how much money that we will allocate on the budget

to do these things and then it makes your life easier that you can prioritize based on the need but then the SLA from your perspective prop what would be like a service if you could give us an example that where we can like evaluate the SLA

that has like a numerical way to achieve this

traffic signal maintenance I don't know maybe

well I think the road one is the the biggest one right the percentage right because it's very clear but I think

where I hear you're coming from is

sometimes We do as many sidewalks as we can do for a million dollars.

Yes.

Right.

Yeah.

Rather than I want 15 sidewalks, how much will that cost?

But that's because you can't because every sidewalk costs a different amount. If all the sidewalks now are super expensive because they're all the most expensive ones to do. They're gaps or

Yeah. they have a water line under them,

but even though we are allocating resources for that service, but that's really not a service service. That's maintenance and the upgrade.

You're kind of looking at what percentage of your community um is is walkable for a sidewalk and just like looking at what what citizens have access to.

And I there's there's so many different pieces that come into that. So, even if you look at the sidewalk criteria, that's part of our sidewalk policy. You you're looking at equity. You're looking at, you know, proximity to schools. You're looking at you, are you connecting to another sidewalk? Are people already walking there? Do we do we need to do ADA improvements?

So, in your department, um, not necessarily. There's no service for the citizen like on day-to-day basis regularly like how police like when I call 911 the police is at my door in 5 minutes. Your department does not have that kind of service at all.

Right. We don't have a we're going to maintain an average walk score of 20 or something like that. So if you put it into kind of think things of that area

that helps. Thank you. And one thing I think is very important when you talk about maintenance that really has to stick with service level and not funding. You fund the maintenance not or you fund the service level, not the other way around. Have the funding and see what service level you can get. So that that is a major mistake I see many municipalities do is here's the amount of money for maintenance. And what that does is create a backlog and in the future somebody's going to pay

exponentially more to fix that problem. So you need to stay ahead of it. You need to maintain and that's what your budget should be going through. And that number can be anything from 77 to 60. It's just whatever level of service you want it to be.

And is are we appropriately funded today for that?

Jimmy, you've been wanting to say something. I think we continue. I think we continue to get smarter in our planning and thinking about how to fund those and also track that information. But Jimmy, I'll let you.

Yeah, we absolutely do. But the thing that I would add is as you go down on the proactive score of 77 or 81, that increases my operational repairs in potholes

or cracks or having our team go out and do new asphalt. So there's a there's a I don't know what the algorithm is or what the proportions are, but every dollar you spend in proactive maintenance potentially has a reactive either level set or reduction. And then the more, you know, the less you spend on the proactive, the more on the reactive side we're going to have. And so that increases complaints, that increases service time. Right now, our pothole responses, we will show up and assess the pothole within 24 hours, 90% of the time. And then we generally try to make the repair within a 48 hour window if we can. Um, and I say if because it's all dependent on asphalt, what's available, and what kind of repair, and that's why the assessment comes first. But as we change that pavement score, it does change our operational cost. And I think that that kind of goes across the entire maintenance spectrum. The more proactive you can do, the better on the reactive side we'll be.

Jimmy, I appreciate you making that point in opening the door wide for me. Um because this is a good illustration of exactly what I hesitate um because I don't have enough information about what the unanticipated or unintended negative outcomes might be if we were to I used the term tinker with but if we were to tinker with service levels if we were to adjust down or adjust in general some service levels

what I'm not certain about is where the unintended consequence of we maybe didn't fund well enough in transportation and then public works more time and money more hours right that right what you just described wouldn't might have figured it out if you gave me a lot of time to think on it but it may not be something that immediately popped into my mind and the example that I used in in our 3x4 this week I said if we stop picking up leaves I am not saying we're going to stop I'm advocating for not picking up leaves but if we were to adjust that service level down, pick it up less frequently if we were to stop picking up residential leaves, would that save money ultimately? You know, would that be something that would would would cause problems? Immediately when I said that, Dana said, "Yeah, but the storm drains, right?" So there's there's these unintended consequences, but also if we were to say increase funding or invest more time, energy, people, resources in certain service levels, is there a downstream savings that might justify that spend that and this is where where when I was saying earlier just saying being costconcious, there's misses that strategic spending component and that's that's where I'm trying to constantly juice the the the real knowledge and the real expertise from staff because what I don't know necessarily always is that web that very large picture on if we do this what will it affect that we we we may not be thinking about immediately and I'm curious if anybody has if I came to you and and said I want to you know increase or reduce officers or something like that or if I came to you and said what if you had fewer where employees and PRC are. What if you add more? What I want to understand is is anything popping into your head where well, if I adjust

this, especially if I if I suggested to you I'm going to not pick up leaves or if I said, you know, we're going to do 25% more summer camps. What is the downstream outcome to that that I may not be thinking of? Does any anybody have something that they're I see you chief looking

I think when you're looking at that and if I'm hearing you correctly you're you're talking about setting the stage for having a priority discussion. Yes.

On on service levels.

Well, a couple of things have been mentioned about police response times being five minutes. Anybody in here have a guess of what it actually is right now on a true emergency call?

Three. Two or three?

Eight.

13 and a half minutes.

Oh,

it's it and it's a process. It's both communication time and a response time from the time our officers get the call, actually receive it in the car to the time they arrive on the scene is over 9 minutes. And that comes from uh you know, number of personnel that we have available in in the field and and things like that. And so when you're setting priorities, uh your question of do you add or do you take away? Well, if you take away, you're going to have to decide that you want those response times to be longer. And if you add, then you can expect that our pro focus is going to be on what the council's objectives are, and that's to get the priorities or the response time shorter.

And that's an excellent example. So, if we we say to you, okay, chief, we're going to give you more officers to reduce our our response time. Then you're going to say to me, but you need vehicles, and then those vehicles need maintenance, etc., etc., right? And that's what I'm trying to really understand. And and so hearing that, I guarantee everybody on this council just said we need to invest more

in the in the police department to get that response time down. But then we're like, who can who with whose service levels can we adjust in the opposite direction to compensate for that? And I know this

I just asked you the world's worst question. I think I'm sure all of you right now are like, "Oh my goodness, she put us on the spot." But that really is ultimately from this budget conversation moving over to it in the next several months. This really is what we need to know because we don't I want to be very hypocritic about this. I don't want to do any harm in trying to do good things and we need your help.

Well, and Chrissa, I actually I think that is a great point because you're right. It either is if you reduce something here something if you make something go up somewhere something else is going to go down or you have to figure out another way to add resources

right

that's really I mean those are the only real two options and I think that everybody would probably say that in the last year at least we're probably doing more with less or doing the same amount with a lot less and it's not sustainable and especially because the cost of everything is going up as well

and that was going to be my question to all of them. Is what you're doing today sustainable? And I would think none of you would say yes. I I always felt that you know in these past three years your existing uh departments and you know how do we put more resources and I've not heard that kind of conversation and that's very concerning because um the chief salt that what you're saying is you know kind of makes sense and same with fire department like you we are overutilizing the current resources that we have. We are growing but we are not growing the departments um the headcount in the department and I think that probably is consistent across the board.

So mayor to answer your question directly for the fire department it's not sustainable. Um, more importantly though, we are as efficient as we can be with the utilization of our mutual aid and automatic aid companies from every jurisdiction that's contiguous with us.

So, we've we've um evaluated our service model. We're dependent on all surrounding jurisdictions to help us provide that. And with increased call volumes uh in certain geographical areas, if we don't add resources, we will not be able to sustain our current response time goals. This this is also a and I concur with everything he said. uh [laughter] you know that's about the fifth time and it pains me to agree with fire but but uh uh council Johnson's uh statements and all uh also rel relate because if we stay status quo and we see our special events and the and the things that we want to do downtown and coca and all of that they have increased 56% and since in the last five years and um that is tremendous burden on the officers. And so uh it you know when you think about the wellness, you think about all that, we're mandating they work overtime uh to cover these events. And so it doesn't give us the flexibility that we would like to have when uh a new event gets suggested uh when we know we can't it we're going to have to order people to do it and we would prefer to be in a volunteer mode and a lot of officers do volunteer but you know Sergeant Paige is in the back of the room and uh he can tell you that he's well I'll tell you he's done a great job getting them to volunteer but we're still mandating people to work overtime. Actually, we're not sure there's not an event he doesn't work at. [laughter] Um I I would add to um Sera's question. I feel like in past couple budget years, you've had a very high level discussion. Um Stacy and Liam probably even use the terms, are you in maintenance mode or expansion mode? There's a time period where we were probably better said in an

expansion mode. Um it's been more recently we've used maintenance mode. where you haven't had this level of discussion is are you even still spending the dollars needed to to keep up with maintenance?

It feels like neglect mode at this point like we maybe

maybe we've been in maintenance too long.

Yep. Right. Totally agree.

And it it worries me.

Yeah.

Anytime you bring up road resurfacing, I go, "Oh god, we really need to do that. It's so expensive." Right.

I want to pick on John a little bit. John, I think you with what you have manage your venues and your operations excellently.

However, when I go to [laughter]

I figured I'd get it in when I could, right?

And when I go to the senior centers, they barrage me with all the weight list.

Yep.

And I know it's not your fault.

Give me the money. I can make it happen.

Sure. Uh, but I feel like in that instance, you are really hurting.

Yeah.

Um, and and

I feel like you're in a deeper backlog than maybe some of the others. And I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Sure. I I think for us, for for my department specifically, we are in a in a an incredibly complicated space. Um, there are places where quite frankly we could do more with what we have. I can't because it impacts police, fire, public works in massive ways. So, we cannot do what we do in many instances without those those folks. Um, if you add a room at the senior center, let's just say we could snap our fingers and add a room. My staff could fill that room with with some limited growth. If you add a whole new senior center, nope, now we've crossed another line. And to to make that service level applicable, I need full-time staff. I need all of those things. And that triggers public

works because now they've got to maintain my building. They got to put the roof on. They got to put all of those different pieces in. Cassie has to manage the roads that get there. If they call PD or we have an emergency, the fire department's got to come out. So all of those things get very, very complicated really quickly. I think unlike a road that everyone drives down and not to pick on the roads but it but it is a good example of a of a piece there. I think ours are changing all the time um on some level because we are so connected and citizen face citizen facing or um resident facing or even guest facing as we talk about being uh destination centers and having activities that draw folks in. Um, and so as we look at what are we looking to provide this next year, there are some programs and services that have high fluctuation. This class was popular last year. Now it's not. Sometimes that's because the market provided a service that took away all the folks that that were coming to that class. Um, other places were really the only ones really well equipped to do that. um you can't recreate uh certain festivals without all of the support of the town. And so um I I think it gets really really complicated when you start talking broadly about the services that we provide. I think as a general statement um yeah we're we're modifying and trying to meet as many of those needs every year as we can and we do have some fluctuation but yeah we're we're working hard with what we have and delivering I think really really well. um to your point and then especially as you hit the venues you hit into significant capital costs um that that just can't be avoided forever

and I would think that residents ex expect view whatever fire and police to be the best of the best always have water sewer always have good roads and then so when the parks are not doing

what they think they think that's a quality of life issue

why aren't you doing more for parks. I you know

just to touch on because your question initially started with the senior center just to tie that up. There's not likely a single program or service or content area that if you gave me resources and we stepped into that wouldn't be full. Um our citizens and our residents and our guests um love what we do and what we provide. And so um it is not a question of demand. uh if if on some level if we wanted to get into swimming and aquatics there's demand for it. If we wanted to get in, we have done historically a really good job of trying to find what is the best place for Carrie to be in the market. Uh and so somewhere in there, uh Carissa mentioned summer camps.

We could expand summer camps. Uh if we do that really well, what happens to all of the businesses that are providing summer camps? and we could potentially subsidize those summer camps, get a good cost recovery back and then eliminate businesses in the market. That's not healthy for Carol, right?

And so somewhere in there, what is that piece? So is there so much demand that we need to step in

um and help help meet a need that the market is struggling to meet. Um and in some cases we do that and then when the market catches up we can step back out. Uh other places there are opportunities for us to step in because the market struggles to meet them. Um kils are really expensive. Uh and and it's hard to make a good dollar on pottery. If we believe that cultural arts and arts in particular are really valuable to carry, then we have a bit of a mandate to get in there and do it at the best possible price. So, it's accessible to all, but folks aren't making it free for anybody to come because people will pay for it. So, we judge that depending on the

service, uh, the access, the current market conditions, all of those different pieces all at the same time. Uh, and it's

quite frankly, it's a lot of fun. It's really cool to get to mess with that puzzle all the time, but it is complicated to figure out how we're

as the art board liaison. I could tell you right now, demand for maker space for art, including kill another huge.

Yeah.

Huge. All kinds wet and dry. Did I get that right?

I hope I got that right. I'm sorry.

Say yes.

I think I did. Yeah. Yeah. I hear I hear about that a lot. I do have one question. I wanted to ask an isolated question to you, Jamie. Put you on the spot. Now, Bella and I yesterday just uh recorded a carry matters about, you know, where your tax dollars, your your sales tax, how does our budget work and where does that does that money come from? And in it, we covered the enterprise or proprietary funds and also covered how utilities are not paid for out of tax dollars. They're we'll call it self-unding for a lack of a more nuanced way to to say it. What I want to understand though for the utilities department, do you or public works for that matter, do you have everybody on the panel actually have the same pressures with overtime that your colleagues are seeing? Number one. Number two, is there any um cost or challenge in utilities that we maybe need to keep on our radar? And I think about our water so much because the trust that we have in you and your team is I've never seen anything like it. You're you're a welloiled machine. Not that we don't trust the other departments, but you just you sort of get like I don't know. I think it might be

the water just shows up.

Yeah. the water just magically flows and it's the best and it's so much better than everyone else and it's just one of those things. So, I want to ask the pointed question. Is there anything that

you, you know, you're going to really need from us, especially from a service level

perspective that's just not on our radar?

Well, that's a long question. Um, let's see.

Answer it as you wish.

Yeah. Well, thank you for the confidence and trust. We really appreciate that. Um I would be remiss if I didn't say we are in the utility fund and uh we do have the benefit of um of doing rate smoothing each year and so that that helps that helps with the revenue side of the equation quite a bit and that is that is an advantage that we have over the general fund departments. Um, and so with that being said, all of the money that it that it takes to run our utility operation, it is self-supported through the utility fund. And the vast majority of it, we get a little bit of money, um, I'm going to say less than 10% through fees, but I'm going to say around 90, maybe even a little more than 90% comes directly from rates. That's what keeps us going

when people pay their water bill.

Yes, ma'am. Water and sewer rates. And um and we do benchmark those rates uh just to make sure that we're staying competitive and um so we can't say we're the lowest utility rate in Wake County, but uh but we're I think we're squarely in the middle and uh so feel like we offer a good value. We're very reliable. Our services are provided at a high level. Uh kind of going back to the very beginning, uh talking about service levels, it really starts with us in providing high quality and safe drinking water. That's that's the top of the mountain for us. And then everything else permeates out from there. On the wastewater side of the house, it's all about environmental protection. How many pounds of nitrogen? How many pounds of phosphorus can we remove? How clean can we get that water that we're returning back to the natural environment? We have facilities that do really great work with that. It comes from great planning and just making sure that we um we keep those facilities operating well. Now, I will say um one thing about me is I've been in my role for almost 17 years now. And so when I started years ago, we were

when we would approach the capital plan, it was always from the mindset of we need these pipelines so that we can grow and we can expand and we can provide more production capacity and that kind of thing. And um and once I got my feet wet and got started and started working with our operations team, I knew right away that we had to invest a whole lot more in maintenance. And so we started adding more and more capital maintenance to our capital plan. And so we went from having a mass um a capital plan that was pretty much dominated by growth and expansion 17 18 years ago to having a capital plan today that's dominated by capital maintenance. We're more than 80% maintenance. And so these are projects like the water main replacements and the sewer rehabilitation. And so we we work really hard to try to fund water mane replacements in a way so that we're not sending Jimmy's guys in public works out to repair the same water manes over and over and over again. And so we select the the lines that we're going to replace based on repair history, based on the materials of construction. We know that if it was constructed before 1975, it's probably not the best material of construction and its days are numbered. And uh so we combine the material, the age, the repair history, combine all that together, and we're able to prioritize where we need to spend our dollars. And so we do about $5 million a year for water main replacements. And we do about $7 million a year for sewer rehab, which is essentially replacing sewer lines. and um and that has served us very well. And so to give you another couple of numbers, our our pipeline network for drinking water is over a thousand miles. And it's the same with the wastewater, another thousand miles. And so we like to try to keep those main brakes below five per 100 miles of pipe. That's the

metric we're looking for. And we've been very successful at doing that

since we started funding those sewer rehab programs and those water man replace it several times. We're just going to replace the whole thing.

Yeah,

we started doing that around 2007

and um it was one of um it was it was a project that I worked on a long time ago but um because I remember kind of getting in and doing that for the first time and it was very very difficult to get those projects done initially but we learned how to do it. Sewer rehab, pipeline replacements, we learned how to prioritize. We learn how to budget for it. And um and the biggest most helpful thing over time is having the constant consistent dollars allocated year after year after year so that we can do it on a programmatic basis and it's not just one project or one area. We do water main replacements every year. We do sewer rehab every year. We do equipment um upgrades every year. And um you had asked an about an example earlier in a case where if you defer maintenance that it really hurts you. If we don't paint our water tanks every 15 years, the paint and the coatings wear down. And then when you eventually do repaint those tanks, it cost it can cost almost double to repaint those tanks

because you're impacting the underlying steel. And um and so you have to go in and do a lot more blasting and a lot more surface prep and a lot more everything to get that tank back to where it needs to be. And so I can tell you that's another hard-learned lesson that we've learned over time is that if we don't maintain on the regular schedule, which is every 15 years, we're going to we're going to see more substantial corrosion, more deterioration, and it's just going to be more difficult to deal with in the long run. So,

can I add really fast for um to the mayor's point, Jamie coordinates really well with transportation? So, when he's doing his projects for replacement, he makes sure if there's a sidewalk or a greenway or a road or anything that needs to be done, we try to do the coordination so that way it's a big

project that's covering multiple things, not just tearing it up for one purpose. It might be interesting to highlight in this series of questions though because I can't remember receiving these. Uh we don't have a lot of citizen or resident complaints of when's my water line going to be replaced. [laughter]

It's when

just when it breaks.

Exactly. So when you when you take the differences as I I see this group up here, it's when is my sidewalk going to get put in? When is my sidewalk going to be maintained? When is my street or greenway going to be maintained? And Jamie kind of has a different service delivery model because of the ratebased fees um than really everyone else does. And that's just kind of anecdotal to this conversation um and maybe where your service standards or service model standards can then be funded through rate modeling which is different than the pressures that the other groups have on the general fund. Right. why I asked the question because I just don't worry about facility because it's self-funded

and you know what you need is I'm assuming what what you what you have and I'm glad I asked as usual I'm very confident but I did notice several people were nodding their heads with the overtime question

and I feel like I might have

from the police department perspective if you look at what the overtime we were spending when I first got here basically FY22 uh to what we are now we were at somewhere between five and 600,000 We're projecting this year to be well well over a million to million.1. So we more than doubled our overtime.

Was that budgeted for

uh for the most part? Yes.

So So I'd like to ask

just so you know the sides.

Yeah. I want them to react. Okay. I want I want everybody to react to a statement I'm going to make.

Maybe I'm not going to let them get

um what? No. Um, from what I'm hearing so far, none of this is sustainable.

And I feel we need a financial plan to make it sustainable. And we're not even talking about getting better. We're talking about getting sustainable. And

now I would love to hear what you guys think about that because now you're talking big money decisions and it won't be done in a year, but there has to be a plan to get there. So, I'm I want to know what you guys think about that. If that's something we believe in, then we got to figure out how we're going to get there

with the overtime. Where's that balance between paying overtime versus getting a new person in? Like, are I mean, we're being reactive instead of proactive, right? I mean, is that the gist of it?

Well, the balance comes in when you do your staffing studies and that sort of thing. and we've done several and they all say that we're somewhere between 50 and 100 officers short today to meet our service demand. And where we are in the police department u without additional resources, keeping in mind that once we get the position allocated, say in July, it will take us a year to recruit, go through the process, another year for training and all, another year for that officer to be comfortable on their own. they'll be on their own before then, but it'll take about another year before they're actually comfortable on the road. And uh so you know, it's it's a it's a tough scenario there. But the trip wire on when is it um when we want to keep doing the higher service level and we've seen population grow. You know, there's one model out there. It's just one. And I use it as barometer because it's not as accurate as the other, but you need a minimum of one police officer per thousand in growth. And you know how we've been growing over the years and we other than the ones for the park uh which do not directly impact our response times or anything like that. We really haven't added an officer in 10 years. And just because you just mentioned it, the number that we need for the park, for example,

grows at times when we have additional programming.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, it does.

For both police and

we both have to hire back for those special events most of the time.

And that's where a good portion of our overtime comes from.

And for us, the overtime comes from just maintaining minimum staffing on the trucks to allow people off. And since co uh we've worked with HR, we've worked as diligently as we can to control those overtime costs. Um but as we experience vacancies, they go up and we try to control them. But it's uh it's an ongoing uh effort that we we make to to control those costs.

Do we have Chief um Salt gave us numbers about how many short we are. Do you have any kind of numbers about need? Well, when we first started doing the staffing studies, I was looking at it from a a 10-year thing. I was want to know where we needed to be in 10 years. To the mayor's point, because in previous positions, I've always tried to work with the manager and council to say, "Okay, let's look at the increments that need to go forward." Uh, I do think we're in the beginning of those discussions now. Uh, we need a an initial kick, you know, larger number, and then we need to figure out what that sustainable number is going forward. uh uh to to fill those gaps. I think that's about the easiest way to put it.

You're going to see a preview of positions requested in the budget an initial pass tomorrow during budget.

Chief Cooper, I saw you nodding. Is it similar for the fire department?

We're a little bit different. So, just a plug to what I said before. Um our citizens are getting the closest most uh capable available unit regardless of jurisdiction around us. So, I want I want our citizens to know that. Um, but this area out here for us, it's additional stations with the staffing and apparatus for those stations. So, you'll be seeing requests from me in the

capital budget that I'm sure that we're sure we'll discuss. But as you can imagine, it's it's this area. And with um more density coming with the Austin Park development and going vertical, that will present challenges with us with the number of people that we need to to put on the scene in a a relatively short period of time. And then Southwest by White Oak is a concern. And then we've already started talking with Holly Springs and Apex with the Vidia development going in the 800 bed children's hospital and the density that's called for in the south by station six down by Middle Creek. What does that development mean to us? And so those are our challenging areas that we'll need to be considering additional station and resources. And maybe let me continue with that line of questions because um I think I asked this before maybe in a work session. What was the cost of our last fire station compared to what you think the cost of the next fire station will be? Just to enter maybe inflation into this discussion as well.

I don't Yeah, I don't want to frighten you. Station 9 was our last fire station. It was the most expensive station we ever built. We opened that station in 20 during COVID and it cost us $6 million. We're estimating anywhere between 13 and 15 million to open the next station. The city of Raleigh just had a bid opening for their station and it was 26 million.

26.

Yes, ma'am.

And then can you add just the resources because obviously as you're talking about highlighting differences,

um Chief Salt can put officers in a car and you know roll them. you're putting uh firefighters in a station at once and maybe just some order of magnitude of what comes with opening a new station if you don't mind.

Yes sir Russ so station again we're we're estimating 13 to 16 million and then we have to to purchase a new fire

apparatus for that which runs 1.2 2 to 1.3 if we ordered it today and there's a threeyear so it takes us three years to build the station even if we have the land from the time we have the land go to design it's about three years to build that station right now we're 36 to 48 months delivery time on the engine uh which is 1.2 two to 1.3 currently. And then we know in three years whenever the station is constructed, we have the apparatus. We're going to have to add 15 personnel to that. And you're talking about $1.5 million to the operations budget every year after to add that add that staffing. And I only highlight that I think this [snorts] is awesome questions by you all and um you all should have um the answers to these questions and citizens should understand them as well um because ultimately then you fund that through the tax rate.

Russ, I' I'd like to add one thing and and fire chief reminded me of it. We have challenges going into Chattam County because Wake County provides a lot of top level services that Chattam does not. Part of that is is our crime scene investigation

and uh we're dealing with challenges to to provide uh equitable service uh in those areas. These expansions matter. The things that are coming out of the ground, the Duke Hospital, all of that stuff uh is going to be impactful for not just the fire department, but for us. One thing I'll throw in, again, listening to all this, I'm hearing capital needs in addition to operational needs. We've got to catch up on operational needs, but we need more capital as well. And I'm guessing that's true across the board as well. So, that just adds another layer onto what we're talking about. So,

I I'd agree with that. The police department, as large as we are, we don't have a training a dedicated training room.

Yeah. We use what you have all the time.

Yeah. So, you know, that is a big gap for us from a capital perspective.

And because from a resident's perspective, and I might be wrong, I just don't get people emailing me and

saying the fire department and the police department don't whatever, but people from what I can tell seem to believe things are running smoothly, everything's okay. It's the things like the programming that we get questions about and the, you know, we need more this, we need more that. So, if I could follow up quickly back to where we were, I don't know, 15 minutes ago with John. I'm wondering about the programming that we do have free versus paid

and this is not going to be a quick answer, so I'm probably going to want to follow up, but like what are what are we doing and how do we set our rates and how does that compare to other municipalities? We were talking at lunch about how, you know, programming fills up fast and we've got the Kerry residents that can sign up early and then the other outside areas, but you know, in many cases it we're on weight lists. So, where is that balance? And, you know, are we are we charging enough for outside of Carrie? because I do know there's a good reason we subsidize but also like if you know other groups that are providing similar things do cost more

and so also where's that balance between um like you said if we provide a summer camp and we subsidize that then you're competing with other businesses but where's the the balance with programs like play it forward where where we're meeting the need of the people who can't do it without it versus subsid izing for everybody,

right? So, it it is a much more complicated answer and I I'll try to hit some of the highlights. The short answer is is that we do a little of all of that. Uh we benchmark against other municipalities as well as the market and then we try to figure out what is an appropriate rate for us. Um globally, our cost recovery is among the highest in the nation. Uh we do about 40%. Um, national standard of good is running about 25%. Um, and that gets complicated

because every department that mirrors mine across the country has a different makeup in terms of how their budget is developed, what assets they have, do they have lots of community centers, do they have venues, [snorts] do they have none of that, are they just parks? All of those things matter. Um, so those are very large numbers. Um, when you break it down to an individual program, summer day camp is a good one. We price market rate for this area. So, if you go to I spent a lot of years at the Y, our summer day camp for full day is going to mirror that cost. Uh, and they do still fill up very, very fast. Um, so we're getting a much higher cost recovery on that particular program than we are on other amenities or programs that we provide. where Play It Forward comes in is that on that program we would offer that subsidy for FE for folks who qualify. Um they work through NeighborUp. They are a phenomenal partner on us and I will just give another shout out to our growth in terms of not just partners up here but partners within the community. NeighborUp is fantastic for us. We do not have an entire vetting program on how to process those. How do we make sure the money is being stewarded well, going to families who are on a sliding scale that should qualify for X? NeighborUp handles that for us. And so we pay them an admin fee, which we should. Um, and then they deliver that service back to us. And so how how we work all of those things matters a lot. Um, we offer a lot of niche programming. Part of the reason why it closes so quickly is because you're talking about highly specific classes that only have 12 seats. Uh, and so those schools were passed and then folks sit down with their massive spreadsheet and they need 15 of those for six weeks of the summer for three kids in different age groups and they get this one for that one and that and so it becomes really really challenging. But that was my touch on the answer to the question. Is there anything else you want me to hit on?

Yeah. No, you go. I have a question but go ahead.

I I'll still continue this uh topic. What I feel um from our discussion is the property tax our citizen residents paid like mostly to make sure our like the police, fire and roads every basics infrastructures, public works and the left money will pay for our park and rigs uh recreation like but everybody wants to sh have a share. Everybody wants to have join a class or join a event or use the facilities to play tennis or table tennis. But join John has limited facilities and that's but people won't feel that way. He feel that I pay my property tax. I should have I should enjoy these facilities whenever I want. But this is a great opportunity for them to understand how expensive it is to make the basics like the safety and infrastructures to run so smoothly and we don't feel that there is a cost for it but actually this is a large portion of the cost of the property tax. Uh I think uh I feel this is super helpful especially for the new council members to understand these much better than our um care 101. [laughter] It's deeper actually because you guys sit together every time we have during the car 101 just with one department but we know you are connected with each other and all the cost you move a little bit. Everybody was dragged like not only one separate uh independent department.

Yeah, Lori, I know you had a thought, but if I if I could just share a thought because it piggybacks so well on what Bella just shared. You know, obviously our conversation here uh is very intimately related to our budget conversations. And so the thoughts that I've been mulling for a while, I could

equally share when we talk about budget or I could share now. I I want to articulate it very carefully, especially if residents are listening. I don't want it to sound as if um I have already made up my mind that we we need to have sky-high property taxes. So, I'm not making that argument. I am making a theoretical argument that, you know, Gail asked us what keeps us up at night. This is a question I've been thinking about for a while that's been keeping me up at night because we're going to have some very important decisions to make is, you know, I I think we have a model here of neglect mode versus maintenance mode versus expansion mode. And I think residents have been feeling that they have been paying more

for maintenance mode because that's the reality we have found ourselves in with inflation. That they're actually getting too little for what they're paying. That if you pay more, you get more. And then the perception of the value of what you get for your property taxes goes up. Because value doesn't always mean paying the least amount possible. Your perception of value means getting a good return on what you've paid for. And so I have been entertaining this argument of are our taxes too low to get the return on that investment to feel that perception of value that would residents actually prefer to instead of paying more to get the same pay a little bit more and get more. Um because you know we can't fall into neglect mode. We're paying more for maintenance mode. Where where is the threshold that we can get ourselves into a perception of value of not of not just paying to maintain an unsustainable level of services but paying enough to

get the amenities that residents want. the sidewalks that they want. Um,

well said. And what can we tinker with safely

without public works

pulling their hair out is what I'm learned from this panel. Very important take.

And you know, Bella and I just had the advantage of of hearing a lot of this information in depth from both of our chiefs when we had our public safety uh presentation and uh just learning about the very important needs from both of your departments. It makes me think of your gutter clearing analogy. It is not fun to pay money to have what you already have.

You have to replace the tires on the car. That is the least exciting expense, right? Cuz what you get at the end after paying all that money is the four tires that you just had, right? And so I think we're in a situation like that with our safety where because we are so safe in a lot of ways our residents get to take that for granted, me included. Uh but we can't neglect those essential services. We're going to have to replace the tires on the car. We're going to have to to clear the gutters so we don't have to replace the roof. Uh we're going to have to make those investments. So that is our baseline. But then again to get to that perception of value or what you're talking about Bella, right? Like well what's the little bit left over for those resident facing services? I don't have the answer to that. That's what we'll have to do as a body to figure out that sliding scale. But that's, you know, uh mayor, I think you just asked us the question of, you know, sort of where are our hearts and minds on this matter right now? And that's that's how I've been thinking about it.

Yeah. For me, I just been what I think I'm hearing to do what Harold just did was I think the conversation we've been

talking about is defining levels of service, right? And maybe it's defining tiers of service, right? We've used the term maintenance mode. we turn you know whatever it is maybe core or basic core advanced or basic maintenance advance and then when it comes to priority based budgeting we can say all right we would be willing to have I'm not saying that I am I'm just using as example you know a 9 to 12 minute response time and still be able to provide you know additional senior services well it'll make it easier to understand each one of our respective priorities associated so that the outcome could somehow be linked to dollars, right? It could be linked to response time. It could be linked to a certain number of extra um firefighters um each or a certain number of streets that are improved. That way we could figure out the tiers of funding or the tiers that are needed. So let's say I'm making this up may let's say we're okay to go down to 75% right as a tier. Maybe that's a basic or or core not an enhanced which is at 81. That way we can all talk about it with the same understanding of what the requirement is. So that you know, let's say mowing, we decide we're only going to mow the medians every third week because we're going to save this amount of money. It's a conscious decision that we all say, "Yeah, it's worth it in order to get more firefighters or police officers." That way we know what we're trading.

Is that like a good, better, best ti when we're think we're doing projections and things? I didn't want one to seem automatically better, but I was thinking like, you know, um core would be similar

to what you were talking about m you know the basic level of service or maintenance mode,

right? You know that you know the bas um you know a basic would be let's keep things going and then enhanced would be like our I guess I hate to say it this way but our Disney level of service, right? which is the best of the best, right? Because we had this discussion on that temporary parking lot where we said, "Does our temporary parking lot have to be the best of the best? Does it need a fence?" And we all said, "Yeah, no." So, I don't think we all believe that we have to have the best of the best for everything,

right? It's just what does that look like in practice?

That's what I'm hearing. I don't know if that's

especially I want to share uh like last year's election season that our signs on the lawn that they mow every two weeks. So I have to double check if the signs are still there. I think if we could extend that period will help all the candidates not [laughter]

I think we you know these are all excellent points and goes back to I'll highlight what Michelle said you know for both of us probably it's more important to think about what do we unlearn and then what do we learn again because for me now this is like a new conversation I want to be very careful about how do we um position ourselves like you know we don't want to be seen as like um um overzealous about things but then you know we want to be very careful and find that balance and where that balance is exactly what Britney you said you know to people who are watching that you know the we recognize and we understand that there is an need and something you know we are we are lacking behind and how do we get to that stage I think is going to be important whether

we do it slowly or we do it all at once. What mayor said, you know, how do we go in sustainability mode and how do we make sure that we are providing the same level of service? Where do we cut back? Like Lori said, you know, kind of everybody shared something and that probably sums up as a council I feel like where we are. But for the citizens also to understand that you know I shouldn't say citizens I'm sorry residents um to understand that there is a need um we really need to go visit each department and understand what is what is the impact or unintended consequences like Karisa says um for us taking an action or not taking an action and if we do take an action what does this mean in terms of value for them. So I think you know that communication is key here and for me this is the first time I'm having this kind of conversation. So I'm excited and I want to learn more and I want to get more information so that I'm able to help you more.

Right? Because that observation is we hear from citizens and it'll be interesting going into our town hall on taxes and especially over the last two years what I've mostly heard this is anecdotal and be interesting to see what data is in 311 or otherwise is people are upset with paying more taxes.

I don't necessarily get calls with saying and please stop doing X comes through y'all to us. I want to see when's this sidewalk going to get done? When do I get speed humps? Why didn't my garbage get picked up in the day that I wish it would have gotten picked up? It's just it is interesting as we talk to citizens about um you know what their feeling over services are, but then what their request for more are. We do not get requests for less things.

Yes.

Um and I I don't know what to do with

that, but that's kind of human nature as well.

Yeah. I mean, another component here that I'm sure my more veteran colleagues are well acquainted with is, you know, it'd be easy to conflate the voices you hear the most with being representative of the community. And so when [music] we were at the mayor's state of Kerry at the senior center, we had a gentleman come up to us afterwards and he was talking explicitly about the town manager situation, but said, "You know, just remember for every one email you get about someone who's really upset about XYZ, there's 10 more of us behind the scenes that didn't email you to say, "Hey, I'm not upset." And so you don't hear the voices. you don't hear. Um and so it is it'll it'll be a um you know especially for the newest council members to you know as we try to read the temperature of our constituents to understand you know for every voice that's very concerned about higher taxes all of the folks living and Carrie who whose greater concern is well but don't tinker with my service levels and we might not hear from them. We we might not hear the voices that say, "Actually, I'd be willing to pay more to get more." You know, we don't get the emails that say, "Yeah, you know what? I'd really love you to raise my property taxes." Um, but just, you know, as we try to balance all of the competing priorities of a diverse community, trying to hear all of those voices. I'll be like you, Russ, very interested to see how our town hall goes.

Yes. And it is I think of it sometimes as like my household budget with inflation. Um if we keep the same budget as last year, we're likely going backwards because you won't be funding more. Um right,

uh it's almost impossible. It doesn't mean that you have to raise taxes to do

more, but you could also cut something.

You could also get more revenue

or find other revenue sources if they're hard to find. Mhm.

Um but it's definitely an a age-old question and one thing we didn't layer into this but have talked in the past which is as growth slows the pressure on existing property tax values is is is higher heightened

but finding new revenue sources extremely challenging because we're very limited in the ways we are allowed to get revenue for anybody listening who

just heard that and said yeah do that.

Yeah that is very very difficult to do

government right?

Yes.

Yes. But it's not impossible.

No. But and it wouldn't be this year either.

What's that?

Right. Diversifying our revenue would require years of work, explicit permission from our general assembly.

Um so that is absolutely something we should explore, but that is not a short-term short,

but we should explore it fast because of that.

Yeah. I think what's really interesting is I said that to a recent um resident who said, "Well, you know, you don't charge me for parking." And I go to Raleigh and they charge for parking here and there. And I said, "Well, we could charge for parking. we could charge at Coca-C I don't want you to charge for parking. I said, "Well, you want but you want lower taxes, right?" So, putting it out there that like you said is there are lots of ways to address this whether addressing it by increasing taxes, increasing uh fees for park programs in creating parking. I think residents have to hear that all or or having longer response times. All of those could be on the table. I It's just that it's not until you take away something they really want or you charge them for something they're used to getting for free that the conversation starts to shift. And and I think it's valid and important to say we're really limited in what we can do, but we could do these

things. And then all of a sudden they're like, well, okay, never mind. Yeah, don't do that. Don't take away my extra um free parking.

And I'm hopeful with the uh town hall meeting on, you know, April 7th that we'll have with regards to the uh budget will also be an educational time for folks to understand what we do spend and where we spend it.

Well, I think this has been an excellent discussion and our time is coming to a close. So I will just remind you what our key takeaways were and hopefully [clears throat] you all think they're the key takeaways too. So obviously service levels people and money

different things to different people and that's kind of for you all to talk about and then when we do one thing it can impact everything and we didn't even talk about it and um finance procurement some of the other departments that are impacted.

Transit.

Yeah transit is a big one. Um so anything we do has impacts and it's just kind of understanding the ripples. So thank you.

Thank you to the panel. I also like to say is maybe this is something you'd wish to see more of where you just get staff in front of you and you can ask questions of instead of having a lot of formal presentation. Obviously if you don't know something, we can bring it back to you. But it was kind of an idea born from this group but asking you questions so you can just have a dialogue with staff that um I I don't think we've done enough of. This is my fourth retreat and this is my favorite session ever.

I've learned so much from this. This has been very very eyeopening too. The way you all impact each other. I you could have told me that but hearing you sort of discuss it. That's my biggest takeaway that is you know I need to understand when I suggest things because y'all know I like to suggest things. What is the effect that isn't front of mind for me? and you've done a really good job of making it so I'm going to ask better questions.

All right. Thank you. We're back from break and I'm going to turn it over to the mayor.

Yes. At this time, the council needs to go in the closed session and I would entertain a motion to do so.

Pursuant to GF GS1 143 318 A13 and 6. I move that we hold a close session to consult with attorneys employed by and or retained by the town in order to preserve the attorney client privilege between the attorneys and the town and to prevent the disclosure of information that is made privileged or confidential pursuant to the laws of the state or not considered a public record within the meaning of chapter 132 of the general statutes. and to consider the qualifications, competence, performance, character, fitness, conditions of appointment or conditions of initial employment of one or more individual public officers or employees.

There's a motion. Is there a second?

Second.

Second. Discussion.

All in favor, please say I.

I.

Any oppose? Motion carries unanimously and the council will be going in the room next door. Oh.

We'll reconvene the retreat at this time. Uh since it's such a late hour, we're going to pick up in the morning at 8:30. So I declare we are adjourned for the day.

Thank you.