Work Session

Mhm.

We'll call to order the work session for this evening and at this time I'll turn it over to our interim town manager, Russ Overton. [snorts]

Thank you, Mayor. Um our agenda tonight is uh first I'm

going to kick it over to Jenny and get through the meeting review schedule. Then Scott is going to preview the Austin Yards development agreement with you and then we'll get back to our budget discussion which I don't again expect to finish tonight um but to also continue going through that at our our next uh meeting uh work session meeting. Uh and we will not have a closed session as part of this work So with that, let me throw it to Jenny real quick.

Okay, so here's our coming May and June um and July meetings. And um I got a request to talk about the discussion of work session time limits. And I believe um we can touch base on that on our June 11th meeting because that one will already have a preset time limit um as well. But we'll wait for the full council to do that and we can do it at June 11th.

I'm sorry, Mayor. Sorry, we both we're dueling.

Oh, sorry.

[laughter]

All right, Scott. Take it away.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Excited to be here tonight to give you some high-level updates on the Austin Yards development and the development agreement that staff and the developers are working on. Uh before I get started, Ryan Blair and his team from um uh from the developers are here and so uh from Heritage Capital are here to uh hopefully not answer any questions, but they're here if we if we need them to to jump in. So really the three takeaways [snorts] that I think why are we here right now in the middle of budget season? We know we have a lot of other work to do, but why is why is Scott here up here up here talking about this development? Starts with they are ready to go. Their plans are under review. We're reviewing them. For them to get capital financing, they need to understand which way we're going as a as a municipality and you as a council in terms of a potential development agreement. Second thing is we've been working on this framework and so we finally are ready to tell you

about it and so it fits well. And then, you know, we're we're seeking your feedback to the first point. We want to understand does this look good? Are you ready for us to come to council? Do we need to do go back and sharpen pencils? Um that kind of thing. So, we all know where the site is. Uh this is a 46.3 acre site. There's joint ownership. Part of it is owned by the developers, Heritage Capital, and part of it is owned by the town of Cary. It's been going through our process for quite some time. The initial meeting started in 2022. The most recent action was a uh approved land swap and we're here tonight for a work session. I said it's under review. Just kind of highlight what is under review. We have an initial phase development plan in review. That's 165,000-ish square feet of office, 55,000 square feet of retail, and 615 multi-family units. That first phase is really this part closest to 55, so the purple, the light blue, and the green. There's a second phase, a future phase that's kind of some of the taller maybe a little bit of taller buildings, um some retail, and then there's a third piece that's owned by another ownership that that's out there as well. I put this picture in here. This is some uh a a layout that the developer has used to kind of talk about where the project is in their marketing and in their getting capital. So, it definitely aligns and if you need a cheat sheet of where some of the pods are that are talked about, that um this you can go back to. Again, this light light pink is the stuff that we're currently reviewing, so it'd be in the first phase, and then the lighter blue is in that future phase. The um the part that I want to point out, I guess it's also in this pink is this Cary Park. So, as part of the land swap, we're working on a passive park that I'll talk about in a couple minutes. As part of the zoning, there are a lot of conditions that were put in. And so, as we're reviewing the development plan,

we're making sure that these conditions are put in. There's There's commitments to vertically mixed use so that we're going to have retail on the ground floor, so walkable type development. There's commitments that were put in place for structured parking. So, some of the site's 100% structured parking, part of the site 60% structured parking, but a lot of structured parking on the site. There's commitments for the public park, and so that's in there. There's commitments to build green greenways. There's commitments for EV charging stations. There's an affordable commitment, and then there's the design guidebook that we approved as part of the zoning. And that guidebook talks to what the architecture looks like and and led to what you see in some of these pictures. Really do want to touch on the public-private partnership. That's how this thing all started because we had a piece of land and they had some land, and if we did the land swap, we could come up with a a better parcel to to fit this type of development. At the same time, um build a what we're calling a passive park, so 40,000 square feet of a park with lawn and landscaping. Um so, it's not like a park that's going to have a lot of like necessarily programmed activity, but places that you could just go and sit and and hang out. Um We did work through one of the comments was, "Well, who's going to empty the trash and and mow the grass?" and those types of things. So, we worked out that the day-to-day maintenance would be done by the developer or the the community association. But, um you know, if we had to replace a bench, that would be on Cary. But, so we're not going there. We don't have to send a separate truck to do that type of day-to-day maintenance. Uh and it's also include stormwater treatment for the park. So, how is our stormwater at the park going to be treated? It's going to flow into stormwater detention ponds that the developer's putting in. So, this is the kind of the the key slide here. We've done an analysis. We did a 12-year study. Um 6 years of construction, 10 years of operations, and so those overlap a little bit. That's why it doesn't quite add up, but it's a 12-year study. Uh we used uh we hired a company called

Incentives. At build-out, the property will generate 550 million in new property tax value. That's kind of what this whole deal is based off of. 239 million in annual [clears throat] economic activity. So, might say, "What does that mean?" Well, that's all the people that are going to work there and live there. They all get paid money, and then that money goes into a whole bunch of different things, which then um we're going to spend it on food and other items, and then that will create more jobs. And so, they do this whole direct and indirect, but $239 million is the headline number. Um we're estimating that there's over 2,700 total jobs at build-out. So, those are people that would be jobs that would be created through the retail and the office. Um An annual property tax of $1.87 million, so that's the money that's coming directly to Cary, and then a net fiscal return of $45.7 million. That's all of the money that could come to Cary, but that's like sales tax and other things. That's of course less guaranteed. We talk about how important our property tax is. One of the important things that I want to talk about for this development agreement is that $1.87 million. We are tying um quite a bit of the infrastructure reimbursement to the new property tax being generated. And so, what we normally do with new property tax generation, right? When a developer gets built, it pays for other services like police and fire, um solid waste, those types of things, uh yard waste, other types of things. And so, um we're going to kind of defray some of that to pay back the development agreement. Just kind of putting that out there. So, this is how the development agreement terms are laid out. There's $18.19 million in asks. They're broken out between the utility fund and the general fund. And they're [snorts] broken out between fees and infrastructure reimbursement. So, I'll just walk through what that looks like. The first utility fund, those are fees um that are paid to Cary by Cary. The

state law says we can't just waive the fees, we have to pay the fees. So, when a developer comes in, they have uh fees to pay. We estimate that over the course of build-out, this would have $2.77 million in water and sewer fees. There's also utility infrastructure that would be put in and we would we would reimburse for. So, that's $4.37 million. Um that's water, sewer, reclaimed water lines. And then and so that part comes out of the general fund or from the utility fund. And then the general fund, um we have uh again fees. So, $1.88 million in fees paid uh by Cary to Cary. And then $9.17 million in in infrastructure investment out of the utility or out of the general fund. The revenue for that is tied to additional property tax. So, I say 8 to 12 years per the agreement, the developer has an incentive to build um more more development there, which will then have an increased valuation. We'll take that revenue and then we'll book the revenue and the expenditure each year. And so, we'll pay them back over time as they generate the property tax.

But they pay that up front. So, they're that will

So, this is the this is the ask, the total ask of the town of Cary.

But the streets and greenways and all of that will be be completed

Yes. Sorry, I didn't understand. Yes, they have to build the infrastructure first and it has to be accepted before they can get any types of reimbursements.

Okay, got it. Thank you.

And I I guess I I failed to say when they do their development phase like zero is all the infrastructure. So it's like you kind of have to start with infrastructure. So streets, greenways, those types of things. Um so talk about infrastructure, good segue. They are going to do um 3,500 linear feet of water and reclaim water lines, 1,000 feet of sewer lines and that helps serve the development plus offsite. Uh 3,300 uh linear feet of public street, so that's a little bit of

widening along 55, O'Kelly, but also interior to the site. Uh 2,600 linear feet of Greenway and three locations where there'll be traffic signal work.

How does 3,000 linear feet, for example, [snorts] how does that translate to miles? That The linear feet means nothing to me cuz I

Yeah, what's that? 26-ish, 25, something? It's a quarter mile.

Okay. Oh, okay.

right?

Okay.

I did my math right? 5,000 something.

Mhm.

Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Susan. Yeah.

I think it's this is small part which is going which is really on their side of the area, right? Not the other side.

No, there Yeah, these streets are just their frontage and then the streets internal to the site.

Yeah, they're not really um looking at the entire O'Kelly Chapel

No, no, not with this development.

one side which they will be building sidewalks and making it four lanes or three lanes?

They're doing their part of the widening.

Two Two sides, two The corner.

Of O'Kelly's one, yeah. And yeah.

O'Kelly and 55. Yes.

And that's not captured here.

It is.

It is captured there. So this 3,300, I believe, will cover that.

Yeah. But that's

And just to put things into perspective, like they're not doing entire O'Kelly

Let me go back to the map.

Right. When it's doing one side of O'Kelly. it says linear feet to me that means in a row, right? Not with

Yeah, and maybe that's maybe that's my labeling cuz it's it it's all this, you know, all this kind of street net Well, this comes private, but down here and here.

Okay.

Here and here.

Yeah, so okay, not on the other side of O'Kelly. It's just this. Okay. So, when they're widening widening O'Kelly Chapel road there, essentially doing a lane.

Uh maybe up to the median. Uh I believe it's widened out on the other side. So, if this goes as I think it will, they'll complete the um typical section.

It'll balance out.

And they're going to just I believe they're also building sidewalks. So, that But, it kind of stops because it's you cannot go anywhere from there.

Yeah. So, they're building this infrastructure. Some of the key terms I wanted to just make sure that we touched on in as part of the development agreement. It is a 15-year duration at this point. Um they do have energy energy efficiency requirements. That's part of us being able to pay our development fees to ourselves. They need to make sure that the buildings are energy efficient. I touched on this maybe too much, but fees are paid to Cary. So, there are fees that we're paying ourselves. Um the reimbursement So, the infrastructure reimbursements will be limited. There's a cap on them. It's not like they have cart blanche if prices went way up. That's That's on the the risk of that is on the developer. Um utility infrastructure, we're going to reimburse that when it's actually built, right? So, it's built and accepted, then that would be reimbursed as as it's put into use. Um the general fund reimbursement, and this I think is the key, so I'm saying it again, but it's tied to performance, right? They have to build the additional property the additional buildings to generate the additional property tax revenue. Um and they're only reimbursed when that new tax base is created. They have an 8-year construction window, so there's performance criteria there, meaning they get that new property tax base that they're creating. They have 8 years to create that. So, there's a incentive for them to do that as quickly as possible. And then our in that period, I guess. And then there's a reimbursement period, so they have 8 years to build and then 12 years to collect. So, a total of 12. So, I laid this out. This is the same thing we talked about in the last slide. It's just laid out by fiscal year and laid out by fund. And so, in this fiscal year, we saw if we go back to last Tuesday, we saw on a potential, how would you get general fund money if you wanted to cut some things? Well, we saw $641,323

in the general fund as a if you didn't want to move forward with this project, it could be pulled out. Um We have included both the utility fund request and the general fund request in the FY27 manager's recommended budget. And then you can see how each year, I will point out you look at FY31 to 38. That's based again, based on how much property is built, what's the property valuation, what do we expect to get into revenue, we book the revenue, and then we book the expenditure.

To be clear, it's in the recommended budget. Maybe a little bit out of a timing need, but that way you also don't have to then do a budget adjustment. You know, saying

Yeah.

July or August or right after you adopt the budget.

Could you repeat that? Sorry, I didn't understand.

Um now, let Scott say it again, but those those monies are included in the recommended budget.

I think in capital.

Yep. Yeah. Many times when we would come forward with a development agreement in the past, if it's cuz cuz cuz these don't necessarily happen to align as well with the budget as as we may wish. And so, we'd come forward and we'd ask you to say, we'd like you to do this economic development and and maybe use fund balance to fund it or maybe you'd use some of your million dollars to fund it. But in this case we just happen to align pretty well with the budget, so we included it.

Yeah.

How close is this to what we did for Fenton?

Um So let's Russ you can help me Lisa can help me but I'll say first things we paid our fees we paid Fenton's development fees so we paid fees that to carry from carry on behalf of Fenton.

With the same energy efficiency language that in the statute allows you.

We we paid things out of the general fund and utility fund. We had performance requirements of Fenton they had to build certain amounts before they could get reimbursed. The biggest difference is Fenton could get reimbursed as soon as they met those performance criteria. This change is that FY 31 to 38 we're tying it to property tax generation.

So it's a direct tie you have to create the revenue to get a payment. So it's like a synthetic synthetic TIF.

And then interestingly and I the Fenton reimbursements were included in a bond referendum which is really infrastructure related. So it was in the um What was the prior?

The 19

Oh that was 19 yeah I thought it was before but 19.

Yeah I was bringing that up because I think maybe just Harold and I were

Good point.

council when we did the Fenton one way back when so it's not new to us.

Yeah.

But it's

it's very new. One other thing that I remember and tell me if I misremember it. I remember I think it was 2020 where we had to do some sort of amendment to the development agreement because construction costs went up so much. Is there something

wanted to adjust um I think a phase to include something different and it may have been tied to one of the earlier phases.

They adjusted their reimbursement schedule and wanted to change how soon things had to get built and when they would get reimbursed.

And then and then you may have a Lisa would know if if they changed their name, didn't we do something with regards to their name?

Oh, there's lots of technicalities.

there's some technical [laughter] amendments.

Yes.

So based on what just to finish that thought, the reason I asked was just to make sure that anything we learned during that process, obviously you've already made some changes tying it to property tax.

And this will be the first time that we have a development agreement with this structure of tying reimbursements actually to property tax revenue.

But also Lisa, how many have we done since Fenton?

Um this helps.

There's a handful. Several downtown.

Right.

Right. This one's the biggest though. Like Fenton was the biggest since then.

But yes, this is the biggest since then.

I just wanted to go ahead, sorry.

So um is it true and this is all hearsay. So I just want to confirm my understanding. I think it'll help four of us. Maybe you all would know this. Did we uh the town also spent money on

the road improvements around Fenton?

Yes. Similar to that. It was infrastructure reimbursement. Oh, public infrastructure. Yes.

Can I ask for a clarification on the reimbursement? You described the risk for the reimbursement for the infrastructure is really on the developer because they'll be reimbursed once tax revenue can be generated. Does that mean it's predicated on a CO? Like what is the trigger?

Yeah. Yeah. Um yes. The the easy answer is yes. They Wake County comes and they look at our building permits quite often and and as you pull a building permit, they'll track your construction and they'll change your valuation. Um and once you get a CO, you get the full valuation, so you you could get valuation for like a the second you do improvements, they increase your valuation. So,

Okay. Exactly what I was thinking. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't assuming incorrectly.

And [clears throat] also, there are different pods. If one pod is like generate property tax, are we ready to do the reimbursement or you need to do wait until everything is done?

Yeah, so the the more pods they redevelop, the higher amount of property tax revenue they'll generate. So, if let's say they decided to put in all the infrastructure so they have they paid for all that and they only develop three of the pods. Well, they're not going to generate enough um property tax to get the full amount of reimbursement. So, that's why I talk about we have somewhat of a protection because we will have gotten the infrastructure put in, road widening, sidewalks, all the kind of things, but they will not have be able to get the reimbursements. And so, at some point, let's say, you know, developers decide that they're done with the project, this one would go away, the development agreement would cease to exist after 12 years and someone else might come in or do something different.

Yeah, and I think to your point, Mayor Pro Tem Bush, about what we've learned since Fenton, this is a much simpler way to do

reimbursements. We created a very complex system for Fenton, which is part of the reason it had to come back and get redone because it was just too complicated for all of us to work out. Um this is much more streamlined and um and will align, you know, there'll be a yearly process where we see, okay, how much did they build? What was it valued at? What property tax did they actually [snorts] pay? And then we will turn around and write a check for that. Um and the in in for both of them, the point was to incentivize development to happen faster. Um and so, as Scott was saying, they are incentivized to have these all these pods that they're planning come out of the ground faster so that they start generating property tax revenue so that we pay them back.

And can I add if Scott maybe go to slide 12, I think it is, but on the incentives report, because you're you're trying to incentivize to get faster to those numbers.

Yeah.

Okay. To get to that $550 million in new property value.

Yes.

Yep. And as we this is all based on, you know, the the lot the I guess current tax rate. And so, all there's lots of variables, but that's how you write it into the um development agreement, how that all works out.

Scott, I think this is a good slide to stay on for my next question. Uh I'm going to ask a big picture question for the folks watching at home. I can imagine a resident saying, "Why does Cary contribute at all?" You know, I think I think the popular notion would be developers can afford if they want to build here, then they should be paying. Can you explain why these relationships exist? And this slide I think answers that question in part, but maybe just the basics of of why it behooves Cary to enter these agreements in the first place.

Yeah, I think I think primarily we're looking at what types of densities, what types of developments, the both the scale and the the finishes on a development. So, we talked about things like structured parking and affordable housing and EV charging stations and

certain exterior aesthetics. Those things all might not be exactly what the market would support. And so, if there's a way you can structure it where you help with paying some fees and and a reimbursement for infrastructure, then the state allows us to do that. And so, this is what this is based on state rules. And if we do that, we've going to create a structure where they can then build what they're showing in those pictures. Does that Did I answer it well enough?

Uh yeah.

Okay.

I'm I'm sure we'll get questions.

Yeah.

[laughter]

Yes.

I have one more clarifying question about the passive park. Um Google tells me that that square footage shows just shy of an acre. That park will become part of our PRCR general parks holding or is that yes? Yep. And why passive?

So it's I think it's really twofold. The first is in this type of space it's hard to program a bunch in it, right? Just to be completely there. And the second is the more you program the more you have to do maintenance, the more you have it has to cost, you know, you have to go and fix things and repair things. And so the parks department the developer kind of said like what what we really need is just some space where people can gather. I almost think about like the old library site where people can just go and and hang out. There's not but people enjoy that type of space. So it's low capital investment and also low maintenance.

But Scott, I and I'm going to be very direct and I'll give you my honest opinion.

Please.

That's hardly a park. It's a roadside that we're just kind of going to pretty it up and say that it's a park, but it's really not a park. It's not a usable space. There's no parking there. Nobody can just walk there. So there are a lot of limitations and it's a small strip.

Well, I would make an assumption based off of the map I've seen that everybody in the area could easily walk to it. Is that not accurate?

Yeah. So so if you think think about the the spaces kind of the west west of the park plan west is going to be structured a lot of structured parking where people can come and park. There'll be

convenience parking along the the road frontages there and then you've got structured parking to the side. So there's

Could you point that land on this uh

Yeah.

where where exactly is that?

It's this.

Okay. I thought I thought it was this.

There's parking embedded in almost all of these pods and make sure I'm saying the right thing.

All structured parking?

Yeah, structured. A little on-street and some on-street. Yeah.

I yeah and I I asked that question

that convenience but yeah, on-street.

I asked that question cuz I want to understand was it is it just a you know, to keep the costs from ballooning. You know, installing parks is expensive. I just want to acknowledge that. But without um a a passive park is only effective if there's significant shading, if there's a lot of trees, if it is easy to go lounge there and read a book and hang out. Maybe throw a frisbee in an open little open area, something like that. But that that being said, there's pocket parks. I know Urban Park downtown, which the town just redid a lot of the surfaces there. There's no There's two parking spots. There's people there all the time. And it gets really highly utilized. And I don't know I I'm not a good at eyeballing, you know, what an acre looks like. But the I think the area there it's a it's a really compact park. Compare that to Heater Park, which is an open very natural parking. I never see anybody there when I when I, you know, walked by or rode a bike by it. So, I think passive sounds in theory attractive, but I think partial activation might be, you know, might be smarter with this dense area with all these people. Just my opinion in looking at it because I know like I said, with especially being long and skinny, which is identical to Urban Park, there're just there's always people hanging out at Urban Park. And I think that that would be a better amenity for this development overall than a passive space.

Right. Well, Council Sorry. Can I jump in on that? Because with Fenton, I don't recall you got a park, but part of the discussion

was as they built kind of similar to the yard, and they were activating it within the community. I don't know if you know or want to ask the developer. Yoga like lawn type activities that then the private development was doing for that community, if you will. I only bring that up in case that's happening that there might be programming, but of a private nature.

That's why I suggested partial activation.

Okay. All right.

And so, Councilman Racoon Johnson and Councilman Bonds, I think this is really helpful is if you direct us to to move forward with a staff report, we can make sure that we get you very clearly the kind of the outline of what we believe this what I've classified as a passive park is is going to be.

And just got what I understood when originally this plan was presented. The parking was there were some street park.

There is, yep.

And the structured parking was for the commercial um property there. And mostly the parking was for residential. So this park is only going to cater to people in this subdivision or in this property. Is that correct assumption?

I don't I don't know that I anyone could come to the park whether they're shopping there, whether they live, you know, a a block away. There's going to be a greenway connection. So

highlight here is that this cannot like this is a small piece of land which we swapped and we're just making it like something which is a little bit more meaningful. But for the people who are actually living there, I mean because people from outside cannot come and enjoy this amenity because the limitation of the parking. Or is that an inaccurate?

We're forgetting about the other park, right? There's another future park on the other side. So the likelihood is that I guess is that people will utilize that space who live there, who access or maybe go on the greenway to it. But

really I think the destination will be the park on the other side. Yeah, next to it. I think it's

my whole point was like you know that there's no parking for people to really come and enjoy this park and they are

retail parking, right?

Yeah.

And and that

But the retailers 30,000 square feet. Is that going to be enough? Like I'm just like thinking out loud.

what I would if it's what we could do is really then just bring forward cuz there's good conversation and I don't want to take all of Stacy's time as well, but bring forward here's all the stuff that the park's going to do and not do, right? And then talk about where here's all the parking and how you'd park how you'd park at the park.

One more quick question though before you leave. Are all of the trees depicted there in what I guess is actually the southwest corner or bottom right-hand corner, all of those trees there, is it intended for that canopy to stay there and is the greenway going to be through that section? I'm just wondering how all of that tree section

connects.

Yeah, I I'm assuming that the trees are you want to talk about it? I'll ask Ryan to talk about it. Ryan Blair, Heritage Properties.

Is that that could be an extension of the park as well, you know, potentially an amenity?

Good evening, Ryan Blair, Heritage. Um on the parking, I do want to note one thing that Rob Wilson was very smart about this. He made a condition in the PDP that we are required to have no less than 100 free public parking spaces

Okay, good. That's what I was

at any time. So, all of the street, Allison Yards Avenue, will have street parking. There's five parallel parking spaces directly in front of the park. There's some across and there's plentiful parking that we have designated in a parking study. In regards to the trees, the the picture on the screen is accurate. All of the trees that are shown are undisturbed. Those big areas the greenway starts really on the right side at the O'Kelly Chapel Road label.

Just south of the red building and it comes down kind of where that tree break in the new grass and it goes to the Cary Park. There's a staircase that connects to that. So, walkers from the adjacent neighborhoods can access via the street side trail via the greenway and then they can continue and then we have a stub in the greenway that goes to the future regional park, which is owned by Cary on the left side.

So, the 150 spots that you mentioned, [snorts] they're always going to be open available to people like if they live in another part of the district and they plan to come here because of the space that you're going to create. It's going to be a wonderful space. Um So, those are not assigned to any retail or residential. It's going to be open for anyone to come in and park and just kind of go and stroll.

That That's correct. Our only limitation, which we typically put in these larger developments, is we'll put a 30 to an hour limit on some of the spaces

Okay.

to really control what your concern is, which is residents parking in there for a long period of time. So, you can have more transient parking from users that are not within the development.

Okay. That helps. Thank you. While you're there and asking

[laughter]

Is the parking for the rest of the facility paid parking? You mentioned specifically free, so do people who go for retail or whatever, are they paying for parking?

Um at this time, no. Uh the market in general, the submarket, has zero paid parking. It's all free. It'd be really challenging to do that. Um we put a condition in there there that at least 100 spaces would be free for eternity in case the market changes, but at this time we do not plan on paid parking.

Great. Thank you.

All right. So, we are um the development plan was submitted today. We are at this council work session. Um the next steps would be for a development agreement. We'd bring forward some of the details that you talked about and Brian, thanks for adding in the the additional details as

well. Um with that would require a public hearing at council. Um if you all say yes, keep moving forward, Ryan would love to start grading this fall and then have phase one complete in the fall of 2028. So, I know we've had some discussion and this is kind of one of the open areas that um has shown that Russ was alluding to. We've had some discussion, happy to continue it or get out of the way and let Stacy go and we can talk as we move forward.

You've heard all my questions.

Yep, no questions.

No questions.

Thanks, Scott.

Thank you all so much.

[clears throat]

All right, bring Stacy up and Stacy is uh literally going to continue her slides from um the last meeting and just get going. Uh it's largely going to tonight you touched on um I guess ways to cut at the last meeting and this will be cost recovery and additional revenues. And then hopefully there's time to get into the living wage practices. And it looks like, if I'm just doing a time check, you probably hopefully have at least 40 minutes um on this topic.

Great. All right, well we're going to jump in. These are the three items we're going to talk about, additional revenue, cost recovery, hopefully get us to some living wage. Not going to spend a lot of time on the calendar again. We finally made it to the second page. Yay, us. And let's just jump into it. The first thing we wanted to do was to remind everyone that yes, everyone's aware of the topic of a property tax. There are other fee increases included in this budget. If you look at the back of your budget book in the appendix section, we've noted the pages and the type of revenue that those fee increases uh affect, whether it's general fund or utility fund, for example. Um you'll notice as we flip through, there are a number of building permit increases and some park increases already included in the 27 recommended.

And they're in um stricken strike through with red, so you can see the difference.

Yes, we have historically tried to be very clear about those changes and you will see them with strike through in red, so you can see this is what the current fee is, this is what the suggestion is now.

[clears throat]

All right, bearing that in mind, we are going to talk about additional I'm we're referring to it as additional revenue and or cost recovery options. We're going to talk in two buckets. The first bucket are near-term options. These are things that could take effect as early as July 1st with the adoption of the budget. The second budget second budget, only word I think of. Second bucket

[laughter]

are um types of additional uh revenue sources that in time with more discussion, and we will look at a list of those, but with future work sessions and over the course of the next year we could all absolutely consider. So, uh we're not burying the lead. The three options that we are looking in the near-term right here are charging for electric vehicle charging charging users consumers to charge their vehicles. Um we believe right now that that would generate about $265,000, which is 100% cost recovery. Um so, what that would do if we charge the fee is it would free up $265,000 to do something else, right? Because it would be 100% cost recovery.

And to be clear, it's currently free.

It's currently free.

after the expenses of

Correct.

collecting.

Correct. That is it is net, I suppose, is the best way to say that.

Thank you.

Yes, great question. Um the other two items I mentioned a minute ago that the fee uh schedule already includes some increases to building permits in parks and rec, but given this topic of cutting and looking for additional sources, we went back, looked some more, talked with staff. We do believe it's fair to consider an additional 2% charge for

[snorts]

most parks fees. It would not be everything. Tier 1 and Tier 2, which are considered community benefit, would not be included in that second 2%. Um and the building permit fee of 2% would get us to about additional $62,000 in revenue. Um neither of those are approaching 100% cost recovery. If we look at parks as a whole, it's at about 62% before this. Um and All right, so sorry, 32% before this. And uh building uh building inspections is at 62% before this. So, we are we are not

at 100% cost recovery on either of those. There is still room for fee increase, um but this was uh his staff's recommendation on the increases that would be effective most immediately. Um, generates a little over $500,000.

You clarify an assumption I'm making the that when we talk about building permit fee increases,

Yes.

we are talking about I want a new addition on my house. I'm a resident.

That is correct.

This is not a a cost that we're discussing passing along to developers. This would be a an actual cost to

residents home owners.

home owners.

That is correct, but I will point you to uh this slide, slide 24. You'll see at the bottom I you're speaking of developer development fees for capital infrastructure. Studies were done for those this year and fee increases are recommended that would be developer related fee increases.

cannot like there is no path where we would be making a profit.

We cannot by state law, particularly for building inspections, we cannot over recover. There is specific state statute that states that.

That's important to know we cannot over recover.

Yes.

by law.

Yes, the legislation speaks specifically to building permits.

And then maybe more on your I mean if you're building a new well, Austin Yard, they'll pay building permit fees at the time they pick up their permit. Of course. So it does kind of affect a new developer.

I just wanted to make sure somebody's looking at that and they're like, why don't you know, when you said there's not full cost recovery, they I don't want people assuming that we are paying for developers.

That is a great

this is for for home owners. Um, and can you define and then I'll shut up and let everybody else ask questions. Can you define community that in the PRCR fees that are excluded, the community

Yes, so it's speaking specifically to programming in what and I don't see my parks friends here, so I'm going to do my very best to give you a good a good answer uh in a sensible manner.

your your booklet, page 286 will help you.

[laughter]

Um, but essentially there are a certain

uh grouping of services provided by the Parks Department that Parks believes is core and inherent to the service that a Parks Department provides. And so, tiers one and tiers two on page 286. Thank you, Brett. Um

Yeah, I have a question. The 2% increase including resident for res- Cary residents and non-resident fees.

Correct.

But I'll compare to the Cary residents and non-resident fees, the difference is very close. But if we compare to other municipalities, if for non-residents it's much more expensive than the residents. Cuz I heard some seniors said that we already paid property tax and you still charge us seniors to attend the programs in Cary. Um, but we if you see on page 288 uh, for seniors if you are not a Cary resident and the annual fee is only 50 250 for Cary residents, but 300 for non-Cary residents. So, uh it'll make us feel um, the Cary residents should should have better price compared to the non-

Maybe non-residents should have more price.

They should We should charge We should charge them more if they want to visit Cary's amenities and we spend our investment

That's right. Those.

Uh

It's a good um, point and maybe get into the theory of it because because it's set up on a user-based fee to go the opposite, you would need to increase property taxes to make up the difference in revenue at this point in our history.

But I have

at this time. If it had been set up differently at the beginning, um, you'd already have it. But at some point to keep offering the service um, that you have to pay for, you have to make up the revenue. Now, you can do exactly what you can offset it differently. Um

and if anyone wishes to have more information on that, just just say so and we can get back to you.

Yeah, a conversation we had earlier today that I would be curious to learn from John Collins is knowing that carry programs are generally in such high demand and they tend to book almost immediately. I mean, I know that at both ends of the spectrum. I know our youth programming that happens. We've heard from our seniors that that happens. Um I've heard Mahjong is nearly impossible to get into. Uh I would be very curious to know how much of our programming is actually uh non-residents are even registering for just because the availability is limited and it opens for residents first. So, we always get the first opportunity. And so, I would I'd be interested in knowing that percentage of of residents to non-resident fees in our in our uh in our parks department.

Sure.

While we're discussing this, I will also mention that, you know, a lot of residents have reached out to me directly and I've generally I've tried to copy um John and all of you on those emails. But, the the um feedback is pretty consistent where some of the people have mentioned that, you know, the tennis courts um a lot of people come from outside the town and, you know, they get access to these courts while the residents cannot access, you know, because they're always full. So, how do we create equity for people who are actually in who live in the town? So, things like those have actually they came up during conversation with me as well.

That's a good question. We'll defer to John. Obviously, if any of that is related to I know sometimes you get emails cuz then I'm copied to on the the free time. Um cuz you know, if you program it, you've got to program in some free time. Um I don't know if they track if those are residents or non-residents. I know we could find out what you're asking with regards to um who who pays. Um

how about we put that on the list of find out more information as well.

And also the reservation for parks and cuz if you are nonprofit, you're registered in Cary, it's much cheaper and you're non not registered in Cary, you should charge more for those. Yeah.

But as we're learning about these as additional options, which I really appreciate because we've received a lot of emails saying, "Hey, we're not seeing where you're looking for ways to reduce cost or find new revenue opportunities." Um I definitely, since part of this discussion is weighing in, I definitely think we should be charging for EV charging. I mean, all most of the municipalities around us, Apex, Raleigh, Greensboro, charge it. I mean, they they all charge for it. They do have some where they have a pilot program where they're free during the pilot or if they're solar, you know, charge, but I I definitely think that that's a way that can alleviate what we're currently subsidizing. We're really subsidizing for people that have free gas.

Yeah, that is true.

Right. Um and I think that that that $265,000 can be used for programs that immediately help the community.

I agree completely.

I agree.

I would I would add one other thing. [laughter] Go ahead. No, you go first cuz I was going to change

I don't have an electric car.

I was going to change back to what we were already talking on, so go ahead.

I just want to say I have

I think there's a larger cost recovery conversation that we can have about our, you know, I I mentioned this to an esteemed colleague in a neighboring jurisdiction just last night. There are, I think, ways that we can hyper-scrutinize some of the shared costs that, you know, with the stuff that we manage for our neighboring municipal partners and make sure that we are tapping into that 100% cost recovery.

Plus overhead.

Plus overhead and and not plus overhead. Overhead should be included in cost recovery. Now, I know staff has spent a lot of time and energy on these

agreements and on tracking what the costs are and and it's not I'm not trying to imply that our uh neighboring municipal partners aren't paying their fair share, simply that we we need to take a I think a hard look at what we are including in that larger number that we're trying to recoup um um just to make sure that the residents in in our neighboring municipalities are paying for the services that we're delivering to them.

Totally

agree.

Yeah, particularly in our water utility.

And do you have more ideas after

This is the This is the near term. We

I don't want to stop you.

There There are more on the next slide, but

[laughter]

there These are the easy ones for now. [clears throat]

The easy ones.

She's going to get to uh they're easy to implement and make and you start seeing this uh you can go to the next slide if you want.

I want to quickly just agree with all of those and say that I've been asking multiple times over the past couple of years about the parks and rec fees and have been told that it's kind of market like you know, it kind of matches and every time I still look at the non-resident fee, I say do we have to match the market because that looks like it you know, maybe I want to play in Cary instead of a different municipality. Um just because but I mean we do open those up ahead of time. I but if we have additional information and appetite for looking at it, I am very much in favor not of lowering anything, but of looking at those non-resident.

Okay.

Agree.

Yeah, we can do that. All right, so I think we're good with the near term bucket of options. Let's uh flip to the longer term bucket of options. So, these are things I think you can tell just from a quick quick review would take more time to really analyze and work through together. Um so, the first would be to sell surplus real estate. There are a number of pieces of property that Cary owns that we could determine if they would be better held in private sector hands. Um one benefit to that is it puts it back in the tax base. That's my personal opinion. Um because when we own it, it's not taxable. Um we could charge credit card

processing fees. Um that's something a lot of our neighboring jurisdictions do. We've begun to look into that a little bit, but it's definitely something that would take more time to implement, so we need a little more analysis time there. Um for many years, we've tossed about the concept of a stormwater utility fee. Um our staff is very prepared for that. There's some planning that our stormwater uh group has been working on that will influence that and be something that we can absolutely have very informed discussions about in the not too distant future. Um that would definitely in time provide um some uh flexibility or take some of the pressure off of the tax rate since the general fund is supporting our stormwater efforts right now. It would take time to migrate off of that, but it would absolutely get us there in in time. Um someone mentioned earlier, I think with the development work we just saw with Scott about charging for parking and you know, we we could have a conversation about charging for deck parking in town-owned decks or charging for venue parking, which I know is something that's come up periodically. Um and then lastly, we do have a business improvement district in downtown Cary. It is set and established, and we could choose um to charge a separate property tax or additional property tax in that area to help it uh contribute more toward uh paying for the costs that that higher elevated series of costs that area um experiences, thinking of policing for example. Um so, this is the list that we came up with uh in terms of

And and that you helped come up with.

we as in this collective we, not just the small we, but this this room of council we. Um that would be really great for opportunity over the course of the next year to talk about and wanted to just make sure you all are aware of that and to see if there are others that we as the collective that you all

And and don't have to be done in conjunction with the budget approval.

They can be done anytime. But none of this, either the short-term bucket or the long-term bucket, none of that's included in the budget right now. So if you did choose to enact things off that near-term bucket, that would um help things with the 2027 recommendation.

And just to clarify, the BID charging a

tax there, that does have to come in at the start of a fiscal year. So the earliest you could do that would be July 1 next year.

Yes. Yes. And the stormwater utility fee would take a couple of years to get off the ground. So I would expect a two to three-year window on that at least. So

Uh uh So stormwater utility, how do we charge that? I I just have no idea about this utility fee cuz I'm using water, I pay water fees, but how do I know how much stormwater I use?

We would do a study and bring you back options.

Okay.

We We don't currently have a stormwater utility. This would be something that we would create like other municipalities have. Um and I'm a very, very big proponent of this because I think it's really important that there there's a commensurate fee associated with it. So it's sort of everybody's paying um more more or less the a share of it, but it's not necessarily commensurate on the stormwater needs of individual properties. Um so this is I think a fairer way to fund our stormwater infrastructure. And I just me, just speaking for myself, believe that our need for stormwater infrastructure is just going to increase. We're in a drought right now, but as we all know, you can flood during a drought almost easier than you can when there's not a drought. And I do believe it's going to be um I think it would be a really responsible of us to be forward-looking enough to to move forward with the with this utility we've been kind of talking about for the last couple of years, but we haven't we haven't really moved forward on it. I think just because we were we've been busy.

And many other municipalities are doing that.

Yes.

So, how does this work? Like um does every resident pay like a percentage or do they pay like a specific

It's kind of based on the impervious surface that you're on your lot.

Oh.

And so it's a big study they have to do and then they have to go through and everybody's lot's different. So, everybody, right, including commercial and it would be a fee associated with

how well you're hand handling storm water basically on your property.

In your current utility bill.

Okay. Okay.

It's not a separate bill.

Yeah. Right. Right. So, it's like customized. It's not one fee.

It could be.

It's similar to

It depends.

To to be fair to be fair to how your house my house is a different price than her her value to your similar to that.

The study and Dana could maybe speak to it more, but the study that staff is working on is looking at different options for how you would charge and you could get you could get granular down to each lot, but that increases your administrative costs.

Exactly. That's where I was going to get.

Or or you could bring it up you know, a few notches depending on

You want to weigh your recovery.

public input on how they they would like us to move forward on that.

some um amount budgeted for open space and storm water. So, this fees will kind of take care of those things, right?

Um if you want it to offset existing revenue or tax base, you could. Um this depends on what you want to serve. It it also you need to think of it as you know, ongoing maintenance costs of in pipe infrastructure.

I see.

Um possibly BMPs or other water systems that that are aging around the community.

I have one other item that I noticed when I was reading some other budgets and I sent a note out today about it, which as as health care costs really increase and we have probably one of the best compensation plans for public when you're a public sector employee you get great retiree and health care benefits. Many of the municipalities and Raleigh, Wake County, uh the state have made changes to their retiree health care benefits. Not affecting I want to be clear, not affecting anybody who's already an employee. But for new employees. So Raleigh changed it so much so that um the health care benefit when you retire so in a 25 years out that they wouldn't pay the full health care benefit but 50% of the health care benefit. Um and they

made that change this year and they expect to save 1.5 million just this next year and 62 million in 15 years. Have we done any view into that and what that might offer?

not done any more than maybe some brief discussions internally but we can add that to the list and look into that.

Which group did you say would save who who were you saying would save that much?

So Raleigh started in this year's budget but already today Wake, um the state and [clears throat] I forgot Charlotte and Winston-Salem all made those changes.

In in theory um you're changing let me say it differently.

employees.

Right, you're changing the benefit in the future for a new employee.

Yeah. But it impacts but it makes impacts now because you put money away for those employees. That's how it was um shared in the multiple budget packages that I read.

That's something we'd have to

get time to read your email but I did see your email come in.

Well, on any thing you all have um suggestions for let's add them to the list and then talk about how to prioritize them and um get them done.

And and add my cost recovery for our neighbors.

One suggestion I've talked about a bit in a a of different venues with staff is broadly a bucket of what I'll call sponsorships and naming rights is we have a lot of venues in Cary. Um I I think I put in an email that I was behind an NCDOT maintenance truck that was sponsored by Geico and we have a large fleet. I mean I I want to be clear.

[laughter]

I find that kind of thing perhaps a little crass. Uh you know, it might have some um brand implications, right? You know, I feel like the same thing happened when uh all of the college bowls went to sponsorships. You know, it's a little less luster when instead of the Peach Bowl, it's the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl. But in terms of compromises that I'm

willing to make Geico on our fleet or uh Ed Yarborough Park presented by UNC Health or is a compromise I I would be willing to make.

Soccer.

We do have WakeMed Soccer in one of our premier venues. Um but I think we have valuable properties that could be enticing for that kind of opportunity and I think it would be worth exploring. But I mean I was even today, we've had this conversation before season about our five-digit room numbers in Town Hall.

Yes.

And you know, we had talked about like, "Oh, you know, instead of 11130, what if it were the Magnolia Room?"

Then I would remember where it was.

But what if it were the Harris Teeter Room? I don't I don't know if that would be possible too, but I feel like that it's worth exploring.

can absolutely explore that.

I'll put Bojangles on my the front of my house if it'll reduce our budget.

go.

[laughter]

So on some level in a future discussion, that's probably a policy decision

Absolutely.

that is a little bit different than past policy decisions.

Yes, that would be fair.

Water tanks.

Yeah. All right.

Oh.

Yeah, [clears throat] water tanks.

Feeling good about the longer term bucket?

Yes.

And the short term bucket? All right. So, we actually finished that piece of the budget presentation. It's like I don't know what to do, right? Um so, I'm going to introduce Renee who is going to talk about our living wage practices.

Thank you, Renee. She got to finally talk about it.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm thrilled to be able to talk about living wage tonight. So, um three takeaways that I'd love for you to have from this discussion is number one, that since FY19, we have traditionally led the local market with our living wage. Number two, with an increase to our living wage in FY27 and if we're considering our employees' average annual salary there are housing choices in Cary.

And last, in FY27 we believe we should lead the local market with Cary's living wage and publish it in the budget document.

Which hasn't been done.

Which has not been done.

So, she's saying what we've done and I'm just saying what we haven't been done. It hasn't been published.

Right. I Can I say that another way?

Yeah, I don't understand that

So, she's telling you that there's been a staff has looked into what a living wage is for employees

Since FY19, but it's never been said anywhere.

Oh, so we want to add it to the budget

It's currently in

To share it with a wider audience.

the The language, I believe is in or proposed to be in. We We talked about it.

digital version.

Yeah, it's not added in there yet, but it will be in the adopted version. It will have this definition of living wage and it will be in the document.

Excellent. Okay.

Or the definition you wish to set as part of the discussion.

Right. So, traditionally, this has been our definition of living wage. Um and that is the minimum hourly rate of pay that one full-time worker requires to afford basic needs. So, this is a chart of the history of our living wage here in Cary. So, you'll see that we started in FY19 at $14 an hour and we've steadily gone up to today's rate FY26 um, where we pay 2250 as a living wage, which means any full-time employee in Cary the minimum they would make is $46,800 annually.

And part-time full-time is considered what? 2,000 2,000 hours?

Yeah, 2,080 hours. Mhm. per year.

per year.

Mhm.

And this is

This is

So, this is just base salary, but there's plus benefits, right?

Correct.

Okay.

That's correct.

So, let's talk a little bit about how we come up with our living wage. So, the first thing we do is we gain a lot of data from the Living Wage Institute, which was formerly MIT. But, um, they have a lot of data that we look at and use. So, I'll going to talk a little bit about that in a minute. We also use the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, specifically the consumer price index um, for the southern region and we look at change percentage over the last 12 months. Right now, you know, we're waiting for some numbers to come out for May, but um, around 4%. And we like to always know what our neighboring municipalities are doing for living wage. So, we'll talk a little bit about that as well. So, when we talk about the Living Wage Institute, they have this nifty calculator, so you can pull it up and look at it if you like, but it is um, a calculator where you can plug in the area that you live in. They have a lot of data points that they use to come up with what they suggest your living wage should be. And this is just a snippet of something that you can find on there today. It is numbers as of February 2026. And it basically shows you that two adults both working in a household, depending on how many children they have, that this is the living wage that the Living Wage Institute would say they should make. And it's both adults working, this is the minimum they should make. So, for example,

make that amount.

They should each make that amount. So, for example, in this information, two adults both working, one child, they should both be making $24.28 per hour. Okay. We were asked this year to think about what a living wage might produce as far as housing in Cary. So, for that, I had to tap my friend housing my housing friend Heather, um because I needed help with that.

[laughter]

And she provided me this chart, which I think is really, really helpful, because you can see right now our living wage is around here, um the 50% AMI mark, and you can see that there's about 7.3% of units that are affordable with that living wage. However, what's interesting is if you look at this living wage, around 55,000, it jumps up to about 30% of units affordable, and this is for rental, um in Cary. And then another interesting point on this chart to me was if you think about our annual average employee salary, which is 85,000, then you can see that there's about almost 87% of units affordable for rent in Cary. All right, so let's talk about our neighboring mis- municipalities and what they're doing. So, we know today that this is what our neighbors are proposing as far as an hourly rate and an annual salary for their living wage. We also know that everybody is having budget discussions right now. So, the bottom line is we have been successful in leading the market partially because we have not announced our living wage until the very end of the process um of the budget year. Last year, I said traditionally we have led. Last year, we were asked to give the number early and we got beat.

[laughter]

By a dollar and 87 cents. And no, I'm not bitter about that.

However, um I will tell you that it is very typical for an employee to leave employment for a dollar an hour. So, that does become problematic for us. So, staff would recommend that we hold in making the living wage decision,

wait until the end of the as close as possible to the end of the budget process before we determine what our living wage should be, and we believe we should consider the fact that um we want to lead the market and that value statement number two says employees are our most important resource, and we should make a decision to lead the market at the very end of the budget process. So, back to the key takeaways. Since FY2019, we have traditionally led except for one year, the living wage um here in Cary, um we've led the market. With an additional increase to the living wage in FY2027, and considering our employees annual average salary, we do have housing choices for rent in Cary. And we think we should hold in order to lead the local market with Cary's living wage and publish it in the budget document, the actual document. Right, Stacy?

[laughter]

Yes.

Yes, it'll be noted in the ordinance that you receive on June 25th.

Yeah. Okay.

So, any questions for me about that?

Board input.

question. Um the difference between 50% AMI and 60% AMI went for the percentage of units affordable was 7.3 to 20 almost 30, 29.7. What is the difference in um living wage? What is I see it's 55,000, so

Mhm.

on your chart, can you go back to what 55 equals per hour?

I think it was like your last chart.

Take off all my zeros. Are you're saying um where we had everybody else?

Yeah.

Sorry.

So, at 26

what does it take to get to 60?

I think this

Okay, so

This is the slide you're talking about. Mhm.

Yeah. Okay. And we're at 20

Right now, we're at 22.

250. Okay.

For FY 26.

And these are FY 27 proposed numbers.

Does that 7% availability is is tough. But if you can get up to 55, you open up a whole new

It's interesting how far it

Yes. That's really fascinating. This is just a time check that it is um 6:04.

Yeah. I want to share my thanks. I know I um was I was really happy to see that you were thrilled to go through this when I said, "Darn it, I want to talk about our living wage." Um two things I want to add. I I agree with all the recommendations there. I think that is absolutely the way to go. I think it's important to say it is very costly to replace employees. So, maintaining the ones that we have, especially the high-performing excellent ones we have, that do some really important jobs. People see our public works team, they see our our, you know, solid waste folks out there. These are the folks that we very much don't want to have to try to replace. It's very difficult. I I think this is exactly the right strategy. Um I would ask two additional things. What I'd like to explore is what um are average wages for part-time employees? I'd like to know how many part-time employees we have, and I'd like to know what the cost would be to bring them up um to closer to this or at our our offered um livable wage rate for the for the part-time employees. I believe we have an opportunity to right-size some of our our part-time hourly um and make them feel a little bit better about their roles um and and compensate them more commensurate with their contribution. Um part-time to me doesn't mean lesser value. I don't think it does to any of us, and I'd like to see our pay scale reflect that. Um but I also understand there might be pre- you know,

it might be might be cost prohibitive in all cases. So, I'd really just like the data so I can understand better, you know, what that what that looks like. Also, into the work contractors are getting paid. Um and do we require our contractors to pay a livable wage when we we contract out work? Can we legally do that? We cannot. Okay, thank you.

That was a good question.

Is it It was worth asking, I figured. We can require people to use compostable forks, so I thought maybe thought maybe that was in our our wheelhouse as well. Um and the other thing I'd like to um investigate is some of us particularly in public safety and and our uh uh general staff as well how we're comparing um not just at this this sort of minimum we're paying, how we're paying in the middle bands. And I know you're you're doing that. I just wanted to say it again into the

Yeah, and I wanted to say it before we left the topic. So, thanks for bringing it up. Uh cuz the kind of a companion piece to this, if you move the bottom you probably create some

Correct.

right, you know, issues that you need to correct. So, uh the budget includes a pay study um that we do this year and we have to bring that data back to you and see what the impacts would be and obviously the budgetary impacts uh which is probably a next year's budget conversation if you do the study this year. Um but we'll And there's prob Renee probably knows more. There's probably some adjustments with this that have to happen this year. Um but that is in the budget just to make note for you all.

Thank you. I've not I just feel it this is fine.

study that you mentioned, Susan, you mentioned that this used to be part of our culture and plan, but then it kind of we moved away from that and now we're kind of drifting away. That's why on on on some fronts. Is that an accurate

Yeah, we used to do we used to do a uh class and pay study um every year for about 25% of the positions. So, like every fifth year you knew you were coming up. That got

that has not was not done for very long under Shawn. However, um HR has been continuing to study positions in all the last 10 years, but doing it in a case-by-case basis, not a wholesale look across the board, which is what Russ is proposing, a wholesale look in one year of every position.

And to be a little more transparent, the old way was a little more transparent to the organization or you knew it was coming. The new way still accomplishes the goal, it just accomplished it in a different manner.

Yeah.

Um I think there is something to be said to know that in 4 years, 3 years, you know it's coming up again.

Right.

What's proposed for this year is if you want to reset it, you need to do everybody at one time, and then you can talk about what the annual reset is. We'll talk about that later. Need to get through the first one.

And then we'll we'll know where we are.

Yes, exactly.

And you're at And you're at 6:09. That's where you wanted to

was the um where we wanted to end tonight.

Yes.

Uh I just had some next budget steps so you know um we've yet to get to your council interest items in the budget, and we'll do that on June

11th.

11th, yep. And there are no updates, no discussion. No closed session.

All right.

Are you sure? Just kidding.

[laughter]

For this meeting.

now

We'll adjourn this work session and see everybody in a few minutes.

So now I think now I'm