Committee Meeting

mute the room and then the confirmation they can hear us. I can see that I can hear us on our end. So,

okay,

I think we ready to go. We'll call to order the policy well the recommendation subcommittee of the Kerry town council. And uh when we last left we were going over policy recommendation. We did policy recommendation number one where we talked about travel training conference meals expenses the bucket and we settled on $5,000. And can I make one correction for the record, Mayor? I believe I misspoke and said that Morrisville also had elected a $5,000 threshold. Theirs is $2,000. Just FYI, I want to have have corrected myself on that count.

Okay. And then we were at the next slide where we were talking about uh disclosing a report and the frequency of it. We decided that it would be monthly. We also decided on the report would be the name, amount, event, and the location.

And that's all I had.

Okay, I believe we got through a good amount of the next slide. So that's slide number seven, which uh covers policy recommendation number three.

So this is the last conversation we had of the day.

Sorry, I had notes on this one.

No, then go ahead, mayor.

Oh, no. I was just Yeah, you go ahead. No, you

So I I believe we had come to agreement that considering all of the context or some of the other policy recommendations that it wasn't going to be necessary to have a dollar threshold that would trigger a request, but that we wanted to retain some shared knowledge when one of

us attends an event that our colleagues would like to be apprised of. And so we had talked about keeping that last sentence which reads following the approved activity the council member shall provide a summary of key takeaway to the full council by a mechanism within a certain number of days. We had talked about being mindful of our uh communication rules and uh you know when when all of us are corresponding electronically if we could share that via email, if we wanted to share it via an agenda item, did we come to a decision on which of those two? Because our experts, our staff experts in the room had said we could share it by especially if we add the caveat at the bottom. do not reply all. Um, so do we want to

to specify the notification protocol?

Do we prefer it to be through email or through perhaps a consent agenda item?

My opinion is don't don't be prescriptive about how it's shared. Just the time period is just expected to be shared. I think Harold, you mentioned 30 days.

30 days.

That seems reasonable to me.

I wrote down seven days. Did you I think you said seven and then we're like that might be hard but maybe I'm misremembering.

No,

I don't actually have strong.

Me neither. We could split the difference and say 14. I don't feel strongly

actually to me personally to my benefit to get it over with. Otherwise, it just piles on the rest of the stuff that was going on.

Think about splitting the difference. We fall at 14.

Okay.

Fair.

Yeah. So within 14 days via email to

or I think Carissa had just suggested council member Cohen Johnson had suggested not even

here's why.

Yeah

I tend to handwrite things because that's how I learn. So if I'm sitting

there I'm not going to ever be at a conference or class with a laptop in front of me. Like literally never going to happen. I'm going to take handwritten notes.

It would be if and I I take copious notes. I'd rather just photocopy them or if I if there was a material. Hey, can I get six more copies of this and share the material? I was just thinking if it's not um I guess you could scan it in and email it actually.

Yeah, email's fine. I mean it and realistically my handwriting for the younger folks who don't read cursive

Oh, wow.

could be problematic.

Write cursive. only cursive. I can't write to save my life.

I can't write cursive anymore.

No. Yeah. Adopted the proper

staff. I'm going to ask you again a version of the question I think I've asked you many times. How much does it make your job easier if we answer these questions more concretely? And I'm also thinking how much does it matter that there is either confirmation that this was followed or enforcement of sorts if it's not? Meaning, do we need a standard way of doing it? And is an agenda item preferable because it is captured and it's public and it's chronicled. Um, even if it were, correct me if I'm wrong, Jenny, Council Member Con Johnson likes to send us a scan of her handwritten notes, that is still a document and it could link to that. So, it's not as if it would have to be typed. Um, and so I think it would be if it matters that perhaps this isn't followed and we need a way to say it has been adhered to. It seems to me one way

of doing it and one way of capturing it makes it very easy to say it either was or wasn't done versus maybe you hand us photo copies or maybe one of us emails you or maybe one of us sends an agenda item

or Lori comes back with a book.

Yes.

Yes. But perhaps also it doesn't matter. You know, I don't want to suggest that we're making policies that it doesn't matter that we adhere to them, but if if an enforcement mechanism is not critical and we just want to leave this up to interpretation,

broad broadly share yeah your key takeaways.

So wait a minute, where [clears throat] does this email go and what's happening to it? I think the notion is and you know what I I will be candid mayor and say this is not a policy recommendation that I feel particularly strongly about but my interpretation was that you did and that coming from your experience in the private sector where this might have been expected you wanted us to have an analog and you wanted to to capture this as a written policy as opposed to just a practice because I think as practice we frequently share with each other but we don't have a policy Um, so I will defer to you. Okay.

If you feel more passionate about a written policy on exactly what you hope it achieves and how we achieve it.

So in the monthly whatever on the council report

there will be links to your handwritten notes or whatever and if one is missing that will stay on that report with a due date and the missing until you do it. So the public will know

the um a lot of times though we're paying for um stuff that will go on the report prior to you attending. So think about the affordable housing. We paid for it months in advance. It showed up on the report and then you attended.

So that's the only the timing is a of

attaching it to the report. But it could be another section of the report saying these are all the reports from previous events, conferences and training that council attended that we are attaching here. I think in the report if you had date paid, the date of the event,

the [clears throat] date of the report due all these things so people could follow then they could make sense of all of it because you're right paying it I mean when I was doing consulting last year I paid for some of these trips two three months ahead of time

so it was way in advance but you got better rates by doing And so

yeah, it would want to pay, you know, that far in advance. Well,

so what would trigger the report then would would be my next question when something is paid

or when you go.

So I mean I would interpret this within the number of days 14 perhaps is where we're landing uh after the event,

right? And so that would be when you would notify everyone of what was paid. No, I think we've talked about as expenses are incurred that would be reported but this was intended to capture knowledge sharing not not uh not informing our colleagues that the we were participating this event because that was probably captured perhaps to your point months ago when the expense was incurred. This was intended to compel council members to have to share the knowledge they gained or their takeaways or their learning opportunities from the event with one another through a specified mechanism as opposed to informally like we do now.

Okay. So, can we summarize what we just

said?

I would I just want to add about putting on the agenda within 14 days. Sometimes you don't have a meeting within 14 days. And so I think a little bit last meeting we talked about you could email everybody and then we could capture that email for the next agenda

that hasn't if it has not already been posted.

So we should probably say that if we're going to be

devil's advocate.

Yeah.

The agenda is already very long. There's a lot in it

and I think this is I think we might be complicating the knowledge sharing portion of it.

Remember we were discussing before we're all adults and we should be able to selfplace and follow policy. Mhm.

Um

I saw it as transparency though in addition to knowledge sharing. You know, why did Cararissa go on that trip? You know, and I know she shared it with her colleagues, but I want to know why she went on that trip. What was on that trip? You know, what does that have to do with Carrie for being an elected official? And then if you show the notes, then that should make sense. That's that's kind of what I was thinking.

Okay.

And in addition to sharing knowledge is important, too.

I I feel like a lot of the criticisms that have been received of late were not you shouldn't be going to that housing conference. It's

how much did that cost and how was it paid and that kind of thing. So, just from my perspective, I think the need for most of them is going to be fairly obvious. Mhm.

What was discussed whether it's housing or something else.

Well, I mean, next year the chamber trips in Phoenix.

Yeah.

So, I go to Phoenix. I spend it's going to be a couple of thousand at least. Why did I spend that money? What did I do? What did I learn? What's the value gain for me and the Kerry citizens me going on that trip? I think I need to report what I saw, what I did, why it's important.

Okay.

Not only for you, but for everybody

else. Fair enough.

And I blocked stuff anyway, so it's not extra for me.

That's fair enough. I I don't have any argument against it. I was just

Yeah. No, I I I will say I I

I am torn. I I I can see both sides of this argument because this is very akin to the last conversation we had which is

you know

we need to keep grounding ourselves keep reminding ourselves that you know getting back to our code of ethics needs any of these expenses are already we've established are in the course of executing your duties. Um, and as an extra measure, we've put a dollar cap on it so that even in executing our duties, that doesn't mean we have limitless funds. Um and so once we've established that foundation, how much more approval reporting is necessary with the built-in transparency because we already have the expenses and the attendance being afforded. So I agree, council member Con Johnson. I also agree though, mayor, with the value [clears throat] of the knowledge sharing. Um, and so I mean I lean towards saying emailing within 30 days.

That also gives you a little bit of grace if you, god forbid, get COVID or the flu or something. I know every time I go to a trade show, I come back with the flu or a cold or something

because I think email is a pretty low barrier and I think 30 days

email to who? Where does it go?

To all of council. our colleagues and does the public have access to it or do I have to do a public records request

if I'm a citizen?

Yeah. And we can add it to the agenda if

you feel strongly about it.

I'm I'm just

because it's more important to you, mayor, that this is shared with residents or that it's shared as as as knowledge.

To me, it's equally important. I want to know what you learned and then I'm sure the citizens want to know. That's why I do my blog. I want to tell them everything I did.

Whether they want to know it or not, it's there.

And so that's kind of where I'm coming from. I'm going to do it anyway.

Um I think the volume of it is up to the individual. If you want to write a sentence and said,

I learned about A, B, and C.

Oh, good point.

Or I could say of day one, I learned day two. You know,

it's whatever you want to share.

Yeah. And here's 10 scribbled pages of notes. Enjoy. Email me if you have any questions. Can't raise my handwriting.

So, is this then a fair um summary of this conversation so far? If we said council members will email their key takeaways to their council colleagues and the clerk's office within 30 days of the end of their event. And that email will then appear as a consent agenda reporting item on the next or on a future [laughter]

on a future council. [laughter]

Yeah, I think [clears throat] future's good especially if you get December November time frame. So does that capture then all that we were hoping to achieve

and give us enough parameters there that it's both flexible enough for council members to adhere to

and specifies though the expectations.

Yes.

Okay. Okay.

Can we revisit the previous slide?

Yeah. I don't recall us coming through decision about if the cap is reached should the council member

request additional funds through

that's what I heard us say was so we said I I remember we were like no no sharing that's

yes

defeats the spirit of the entire cap

and then they how do they request the ability to

be an agenda item right just like anybody else requesting funds staff request Oh, so we could just put it on consent and if anybody has a concern about the expense after reading through the justification, right?

So it should say with just it should be requested in writing with a justification for the event. It'll be placed on consent or something like that.

So I actually had a similar question. I was wondering if we could just apply the existing council initiated item procedure. Um, and in a way that offers an the council initiated item procedure means any one of us can suggest something be added to an agenda and we have to find a colleague who it. And so if this adhered to that policy, you would have that sort of second uh discussion

and discussion. Um, and because it would be it would be telling if you couldn't find a second [laughter] to to support even having your request on the agenda, it would it would sort of, you know, die in committee, so to speak. Um, and so you could request it if you found a colleague who said, "Yeah, I think you're that's reasonable that you need above and beyond your threshold. I second that." And then it's a council initiated item and then it would come to us for consideration. Okay, let me

That sounds like

I'm glad I asked.

Just just borrowing an existing procedure we already have. Is there any reason that would run a foul of the

ways that we think about council initiated items? You're very familiar with them.

Okay. [laughter] Okay. So I think that addressed slide number seven because that one question I had there. Oh no. Um yeah the how much advanced notice that was really more thinking about the first sentence which we've eliminated. Yeah I think that answers all of the questions. So we can move on to slide number eight. Uh policy recommendation number four. You know, again, looking at how other municipalities handled this, it seemed that everybody had a definition of travel. Um, you know, on the next slide, let's see, is it the next slide or the slide after, we're we're getting into policies that will closely mirror, I think, forthcoming staff policies. So, we could define this now for ourselves. Um, at least I don't know if if you'll have any insight on how far along staff is on their their conversations that uh mirror these, but so I'll jump into this and say uh this is a definition of travel and we had talked about this a little bit before about is it a radius, is it overnight? I think we had said that we liked the overnight definition because it was tidy. So this reads, "For purposes of this policy, travel is defined as a trip requiring an overnight stay. Expenses associated with local travel, including mileage in a personal vehicle and parking fees, are covered by council member compensation and are not eligible for reimbursement." Um, do we like that? And because the question I ask below is should mileage reimbursement be allowed for travel beyond a certain number of miles. So you

know we talked about if travel is defined as an overnight stay and some of us are inclined to maybe drive a lot in a single day mean some of us would drive to Charlotte and back in a day or Wilmington and back in a day um and we're not staying overnight but that is quite a distance to drive. Other municipalities say reimbursement kicks in at 50 miles. You know, I wrote this to say that there's no reimbursement at all if it's not travel. That's overnight. You're driving your personal vehicle, drive as far as you want, come back in the same day. You're not staying in a hotel. Um, but there's certainly plenty of other ways we could conceive of this.

Can I give you just a brief overview of

Yes.

And so, um, there's a standard procedure currently. Um, and again, town employees would always get mileage reimbursement. You know, they don't get car allowances. So, you will have to have some differences from what

we don't know if we'll continue to get a car allowance either. Go away.

So, right.

Um, but [clears throat] so, uh, travel is really just travel. [laughter] You know, you have to go somewhere that's not Carrie. Um, and so, you know, travel is going to Raleigh for a conference and, you know, parking and

Carrie will reimburse for parking. Well, depends. Um, and so what we do say about meals is, uh, you know, the PDM amount. PDMs for meals are only allowed for travel that requires an overnight stay.

Okay?

And so that might be the way to get it. Like we don't necessarily need to define travel. Travel is traveling,

but to say, you know, to follow this perms for meals are only allowed for travel that requires an overnight trip. Something like that.

So, you know what? Let's look at the next three slides because there's considerable overlap and it might help us refine all three of them at the same time. So the next slide defines then when you are traveling what kind of expenses. So allowable travel expenses

whether paid directly by the town or reimbured to a council member include registration fees, transportation, lodging and meals. Um is there any major category you think we're forgetting there, Lisa? And so then the slide after that says council members shall be subject to the same travel and pdium policies including applicable reimbursement rates and limits as town employees. Um, I mean that one is expansive enough that perhaps it negates the need for number four because if we're saying that council is following the same travel and per travel and PDM policies, then however the staff is defining travel and PDM policies is what applies to us.

Yeah. And I think the only thing that could be different and again it depends on which way you all go is with the um transportation, the car allowance, that sort of thing because employees will always get their mileage if they're using their private automobile or they can drive you we have town cars so they drive a town car. So that part would be different for you all. Um so that would be everything else I think would you know really could be the same. I like the simplicity of it and I would give that as information to the advisory board that's going to come up

and they can decide hey that's you don't need compensation for travel or they could say well you go to and from town hall and around town you do need yeah I don't know what they'll come up with

but I like being matching staff. So let's let's say I think we're going to combine what's currently written here as recommendation number four and number six. Um since we're working simultaneously with the resident task force and we don't know what their ultimate recommendation is going to be. Let's for now I think operate

how we are currently compensated which is with a travel allowance with a car allowance and so I think for me it makes sense to to write these policies with that in mind and then if we change it these would change at the same time. And so that to me then says I think recommendation number six is broad enough to cover everything Lisa has shared with the exception of needing to decide then how we handle reimbursement. So, do we combine the two and retain the language that says our compensation covers our travel expenses and so we are re we are not reimbursed for mileage and parking fees or do we want to phrase that differently?

Why would parking fees be covered in our vehicle allowance?

Yeah, I would I think mileage is really what mileage.

Yeah, I I mean I'm assuming it's going to be reduced significantly. So it it really will probably

So I mean this is a question that maybe I have just as a new newer council member is I am I don't know of a reimbursement procedure. I' I've I've never personally sought reimbursement. So I have paid for parking out of pocket. Um and so I am just thinking of that scenario um of how do we address parking fees? Meaning should we be allowed to or expected to be a reimburseed for parking or are we telling council members that is expected to be an out-of- pocket expense?

I don't know. I'm too lazy to try to get reimbured. I would um well and I think you can separate it from how you get reimbursed to is it covered in your bucket or not

because that's how we would pull it out is if you if you did ask for reimbursement related to any sort of travel

then we would say this is coming out of your bucket if it's not covered in any other means. Mhm. So Lisa, help me think about without the staff language in front of us that you're generously reading for us of how to reconcile the two just meaning we are saying here subject to the same travel and pdium policies. But staff staff has a reimbursement procedure that council has not historically specified.

Right. And we Yeah. I don't know that we have to get into the details of the process of the policy and the we can write the policy

because staff has a pre-approval form and this that and the other and

that's how we do it for staff.

You all will have your own process that we can come up with later and so we don't need to get into the details of what the process is.

Sure.

I'm just wonder if we're beating something up that's not a big deal.

Yes. Well, I I guess maybe maybe I'm not phrasing my question correctly because I'm not thinking so much about the process just of making sure that we're saying what we need

mileage point.

Yes. Because you know when we say that we're going to follow staff's travel policies

and staff's travel policies say you're reimbured at this rate for mileage and the council is

you're going to follow staff's policy except on mileage

except for mileage reimbursement. what I would suggest um so in I don't know about Jenny's contract but in mine and in the manager's contract um we both get car allowances and the language is clear that any travel within the state of North Carolina we do not get mileage reimbursement for we're supposed to use our own car

for travel within the state and so we can copy that language same for you all and say if the if the

if you continue to have a car allowance

we'll take that as a baseline

yes that any travel within the state is covered under that bar allowance. But when you travel out of state, then

reimbursement could be

that covers then all the years I'm trying to remember if

I've ever asked for money traveling out of town.

I asked for money for parking reimbursements like airport parking which was significant but I don't remember

asking for travel. Mhm.

However, when I was a consultant, I always charge travel and it's so many per mile and all that stuff

and I went to Asheville and Charlotte and um

Bowfort and a lot like a lot of different places within the state and they would reimburse me.

Yeah.

But, uh I don't see that necessary. Even if we don't get a car allowance,

um the total compensation should be able to that should be part of the job, I would think.

Yeah. But no, to Jenny's point, I think that's

great to remind us of that's again the virtue of the bucket is so that we can apply these reasonable costs towards a total maximum because I again we've had this conversation before, but I think it's been hard

without policies for us to all operate in this limbo and to all make different judgment calls about what does or doesn't apply. And so the housing conference um the parking lot in downtown Raleigh near the convention center only allowed you to select for 4 hours or 12 hours and I was there for eight. So I had to pay the $24 12-hour rate. So that's $50 worth of parking in downtown Raleigh uh last week which I paid out of pocket. But to be frank, if we have a bucket and I am there again at a event that my colleagues and the carry public already knows I was attending and the execution of my duties, those $50 worth of parking fees probably should have applied to my bucket, too. Um, but without all this specified, I was like, well, and maybe a little bit of laziness, too. I'll just pay for it out of pocket and I won't go through a procedure. But it I think I

think having all of this specified will no longer mean that we have to each individually do this calculus every time we have that kind of expense.

20 years ago, I would have been chasing down every penny of that $50. But and that's I think these policies, they're not written for somebody who's too lazy to put in a a you know, a request for reimbursement like me. They're written for more modest income colleagues who it's it there's no reason for them. We get paid very modestly. There's no reason for us exe genuinely executing our duties for us to incur any additional expenses than we already do. I mean, we're um it is in the course of our duties and it's extremely reasonable, but sometimes I get invites and I'm like, "Oh my god, back to Raleigh again." And like it I feel there's days where I just drive zip zip zip all over the place and the all the miles on my car are council miles.

I think I've taken two small one road trip to Wilson. Like I don't really drive anywhere. Um and it it really is almost all council miles because typically I'm on foot too if it's if it's local. But

it's not a ton of miles because I don't travel significantly but it's not nothing. Mhm.

And when [clears throat] you talk about the bucket and then like you know the parking would come out of the bucket and the perdm would come out of the bucket. So if you ask for the perm. Okay.

Yep.

So Lisa, thank you so much. Uh simplified this greatly by just allowing us to go with policy recommendation number six. So that eliminates combines policy recommendation number four. Lisa, would you advise though that we keep this is slide number nine, policy recommendation number five, where we also specify these types of expenses or is this language also captured by the next policy when we say travel and PDM policies because I'm sure that specifies

the types of expenses. So, do you think we should retain that or [clears throat] really just let this number six speak for what we were perhaps attempting to communicate in four and five?

Yeah, I think so.

Okay. And I'm sorry that was Yes. You think we can eliminate number five? Yeah. because of anything that and just playing it out for work like the person that would get the crisp if I got something related to travel expenses that weren't registration fees, transportation, lodging, and meals,

then I would, you know, tell that council member this is not under allowable. You'll either have to bring this to council and talk about it um before I can reimburse you or pay you for it.

Um Okay.

Yep. It would just be a council conversation if anything was asked.

And I'll also point out there are things um and we can get you the standard procedure. I think it's in various places online right now as well.

Um it says things that are not allowed. Okay.

Alcoholic beverages.

Yes.

Entertainment, personal expenses, first class travel,

yes.

Extra charges for guests or pets, dry cleaning, movies. Okay. So those kinds of things are listed as like this doesn't count. So

this is perfect. Yes. Why reinvent the wheel when staff already has the existing policy? And I think we're in agreement too that we really like parody between

us and staff.

Us and staff. We no more.

Yeah. Uh can I share an aside? I'm very interested in potential policy changes particularly around food and food purchases with staff and such because I I don't have any insight into what that work looks like or what's being considered. But I do know there are a lot of circumstances in which we have staff working very exceptionally long days. And I I I'd hate for us to really

over compensate for some bad behavior by not putting us in a position where you can't buy a bunch of pizzas for staff that's been plowing all night or at lazy days for 12 hours. I I just want to

So that's a separate this procedure that I'm just travel there is a separate one on food that is being looked at.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it. Any other thoughts, mayor, before I flip the page? Okay. Well, that got us through all of the the policies that we had talked about capturing concretely. Now, the next two slides are ideas we've batted around, things we talked about tangentally, maybe things that again some of our peer municipalities addressed explicitly. And so I left them here for us to continue to think about. Um so okay, one idea is that there are some events that are so important that they are already budgeted for. It is expected that council might attend. I'm not saying that this is our procedure right now, but this is how other municipalities have thought of it. So, for example, the League of Municipalities City Vision event, Morrisville says, "We budget for that for our council to attend." And so, that for them is outside of their individual council member expenses. And so, it doesn't apply to their $2,000 cap. Do we have anything like that? We would like to have that same sort of policy or exemption. Um, but again, Morrisville set their cap at 2,00. If we set ours at five, maybe there's no need to have any exemptions because our cap is high enough to capture everything we would like to attend.

The other side of that is, do you want to carry presence there? Because it

might be a disincentive. I've got to pull out of my bucket. It's not worth it for me. But if it's important for the Kerry mayor to be there,

then something we ought to consider.

Does it make sense for the mayor and or maybe the mayor prom to have a bucket that's a little bit bigger?

I wouldn't think a lot bigger. I can't imagine there's that much difference.

Just I mean, I hadn't thought about that, but

you know, and we have talked too about how this is going to be iterative and we can revisit this any time. So if we set all of us at 5,000 and [clears throat] then the mayor or the mayor prom is coming to us with council initiated items asking to go above and beyond their threshold we will then have yes we will then have discovered that we didn't budget

according to get more money too. So I don't think

what what I would suggest when it comes to tuition um I think we should have a tuition reimbursement policy that mirrors staff whatever that is or is not And that gets into professional development which was the big so staff can it's easy for them to justify professional development.

Well there's differences between professional development and tuition. So when you say professional development I think of

I thought that was the justification for the tuition reimbursement.

It can be

okay. [laughter] Um, [clears throat] when I when you say professional development, I think of the attorney conferences I go to and things like that.

My manager just went to the

That's perfect.

Um, but tuition would be helping someone pay for another degree that they're getting um or to take a class at university. So tuition, so if you're using tuition in that sense, it's not a typical training opportunity. Um so and so you know it's treated differently for staffs the train we've got the um for

training for professional development each department has a budget for training and the directors determine who of their staff goes to what each year within their allotted you know amount of training budget um completely separate call as to whether there's any an employee who's you know entitled to tuition reimbursement I believe now and we'd have to have Ashley here to tell me I believe now we don't actually have a tuition reimbursement program at all. Um but staff has the option of the $3,500 U benefits my way and that can be used towards uh any class that a staff member wants to take for anything.

So that is effectively the tuition

bucket so to speak if you so choose to use it that way.

Yes. Now council cannot use the $3,500 that way the way the policies are set. You also cannot use 3500 for tuition.

So, we could change that policy and then it would mirror the staff policy.

Yes, you'd have to change your uh the policy on health and medical

because this is our to add a new benefit.

Our health benefits bucket that ours are really narrow like FSA basically uh those types of eligible expenses and staffs are much more expansive above and beyond medical related expenses. We just reaffirmed our benefits to stay the way they currently are, but we what would it require if we wanted it to mirror staff's exactly?

Um, is that

we have to change that health policy? I'd also have to talk with human resources about what that means for how our policies and plans are set up as to whether that's actually possible or not.

Okay.

It's a bigger discussion. understand.

I don't know if I like that. Um, when I was in the corporate world, mostly, well, always in software, if you wanted a master's degree or MBA or anything else, you're on your own.

Our last two companies would pay for your master's degree. So,

well, the the feeling was I'm going to let you get your master's degree and then you're going to leave and go to my competitor.

Well, you should work for less paranoid companies. [laughter]

But that's the that's the way it used to be. you you were on your own. They would never pay for you to go to school.

And so I will say most of these so let's see how many uh toilets do we have here total? Five. Uh most of these came from having looked at how other municipalities wrote their policies and these were ideas that they captured that we had not captured in any of the previous policies. And so, you know, some of them had a a line item of ineligible expenses and specified tuition. Um,

and we exclude school of government fees from we somehow don't call them tuition. We call them

those are this you're not taking

you're not getting a degree.

So, those are training day training or maybe a one week, but it's not a college course. Yeah.

Oh, so we define tuition as something that you get college credit for. Well, you get a degree. You're working toward a degree.

Something that would Yeah.

What if I'm just doing continuing education playing devil's advocate? I want to take a course in AI at NC State, but I'm not working toward a degree.

You all need to decide how you want to handle.

Yeah,

I do know that school of government courses that professional devel are truly professional development. You may get a certificate that you attended like you probably have gotten your certificate. If you were taking a class within their MPA program, then I would say that would be different. You know, that meets every week or, you know, whatever.

That's within their program. The ones that offered council members are outside of their program. It's not related to NPA in any way.

Makes sense. Okay.

Right. So, let's go back to these bullets because I don't know where we are.

Yeah. This is and this is partly why they're in these bullets is because we've had some circular conversations around them and haven't landed on anything concrete. So I mean I I will jump in and say for the first bullet I don't know that we need to exempt anything from the individual cap especially again this is our first go at trying to codify this at all uh let's just leave it

take it out of your bucket. Yeah, take it out of your bucket. And then if over time we discover, well, all of us are attending City Vision and we want that to be a standalone. But for now, let's

And then are we going to all seven of us share key takeaways with each other?

I mean, probably should be reviewed after we go through a year or two, you know, let's go over this again.

So, yeah, let's not exempt anything right now and see how generous a $5,000 bucket is for us. We could give this as a binary choice to the whole council. Do we want to have exempted things and then a smaller bucket or do we just want to have a big bucket and and what you choose to attend is

Well, here here's a devil's advocate idea though. uh what if you can't attend the exempted thing and then everyone though has received as a blanket a smaller bucket with the presumption that you were going to attend that but you didn't and so do you see what I'm saying?

No.

So, uh if the if the idea

All I did was save the town money. If the idea is instead of a $5,000 bucket, we're going to have a $3,000 bucket, but we're going to have as its own line item City Vision.

Yeah.

But then you as a council member, you can't attend City Vision,

which I can't.

But now you have a $3,000 bucket premised on the idea that we took away from your bucket because you were attending City Vision.

I don't see the problem. I'm not sure I'm following the logic. other council members, not you, Carissa, might say, "I

want that thousand dollars that it costs to send them to City Vision added to my bucket. My bucket needs to be

I just totally wasn't following." I'm like,

"No, no, thank you, Lisa.

I see what you're saying."

I will also add that sometimes city division is very hard to get into depending on how it fills up.

That's it.

And so, if you wait too late, if like you don't sign up in the first week, you have no chance of getting in.

No kidding. And so if you and and I'm sure it varies in different ways, but that's experience that I've had with City Vision.

Um so you may want to take that into consideration of

if you exempt it and then nobody can attend like are you really

Yeah. [laughter]

I get I totally I'm not my brain is just mushy and I was not following the words that you were saying.

Thank you Lisa for translating.

It's [clears throat] like oh

yes but you did do that. I would also recommend somehow we get like guaranteed seats.

Yes.

Because if not, then you're just exempting yourself for something you would never be able to go to.

And we're budgeting separate

for money you would never spend

because we could never get you in.

Yeah.

We don't have dedicated seats. So yeah, I I I personally lean towards, you know, keeping our bucket flexible and letting us see how this policy plays out and then if we notice major adjustments are necessary, we can we can revisit this at any time. And so, okay, so I mean I I personally uh lean towards not not exempting any events from our buckets, just keeping our buckets. No exemption.

All right, moving on.

And so then ineligible expenses, you know, these are kind of two sides of the same coin, right? Like do we explicitly have some events that we attend

or and are there do we explicitly exclude some type types of expenses?

I think if you have to justify it, let's say I wanted to get a take a class in sports psychology, then I have to come before the council and ask for money to do that.

I mean, difficult rather than just, hey, I can take that out of my bucket,

you know? I mean because again we keep returning to the same idea.

These expenses are going to be listed on consent agenda for us to see and for the public to see. So if you were trying to apply your sports physiology class to your bucket, we would all see that

and that would be our opportunity to say, well, what is that? So do we need to then explicitly exempt anything if there's already this reporting procedure built in? as long as you refer to the ethics statement that you're doing the duties, you know, performing the duties.

So, I'm hearing you don't need to specify exemptions. I like it. I like the simplicity. Um, okay. Another, you know, getting very granular here for policy. Another idea that was captured by other municipalities was what happens if you nosh or you attempt to cancel past your cancellation date and the town can't recoup their expenses. Are you personally liable for that? You know, [clears throat] I would say it would have to be an illness or a death or something like that and then that's up to the individual to be honest because they can say, "Oh, I got really sick and I couldn't go and you know I can get my

but I don't know how you enforce that."

Yeah, I can read you want to keep talking here while I attempt to do a real quick Google. Um because [clears throat] again borrowing from our Morrisville colleagues

uh they got very specific here. Um so let's see if I can uh find that real quick because they address exactly that situation.

Okay.

I I I have a million tabs open. I'm a a million tab open person and so can I can can I find it quickly in the mess of tabs that I I made? But you're right, Jenny. I think I might find it easier just if I search my email. Um, thank you.

I did find it. Thank you so much. Bear with me here as I did a little bit of um searching. So here, let me see then now that I can scroll through their policies and uh read you how they defined this. Um control F man. Control F.

Yes. Well, I can't remember what they called it. Um if it was cancellation fees. Um

cancellation policy.

Yes. Let's see. I'll try that. Let's see what cancellation gets me. Nope. Let's see what cancel gets me. You guys, please feel free to talk amongst yourselves while I do this. I know it's excruciating to sit here while somebody else is u searches. [clears throat] Yes, go for it, Jenny. Just bail me out here.

Um, this came up while you were talking about this. if out of your bucket you could ask for partial payments like um

it cost 500 but I'm only asking to be reimbured 250.

Yes.

Or it cost or I don't have enough in my bucket so I want to apply what's left in my bucket to this

and pay the rest myself

and pay the rest of yourself. Just being

clear that we wouldn't be able to you know a lot of times if you were signing up for something let's just throw it out there. won't be that. But something if let's say you it was $500 and you only have $200 in your bucket. But to pay for it, the council member would have to pay for it and then ask for the reimbursement because there's no way we could contact the vendor and say we want to split this payment.

You know, we wouldn't be able to like work that out and the timing. Um so it's something to think about. I need from a from the office that's implementing it. It'd be good to know like is that allowable or if you don't have enough then maybe you ask um it's known that you pay for it up front. If you don't have enough in your bucket and then you have to ask for a reimbursement to use your amount.

Otherwise, let's say I have a lot in my bucket and I'm going for an overnight stay and I ask you to make the reservation. You're going to pay for it up front.

Yeah.

And so all I have to cover are additional expenses. If that if that took all your bucket. Yes. Then you would have any additional expenses.

If we paid if things are paid for up front and you have in your bucket, then it's no issue. It's only like And I think about tuition because I know that

[clears throat]

um $5,000 would cover your semester.

Yeah. [laughter]

So you would

Good luck.

Yeah. Good luck. Um you would have to ask for to pay a partial

of it somehow.

Yeah. as long as it goes before council and the public.

Yeah. But we wouldn't be able just maybe saying like we would split payments like if you if you if you're asking the um if asking for payment out of your bucket for a split payment then you pay it up front

and then you um it just it helps us on a clear end because I do see I do see situations in which split payments may be asked for

if you're getting close to the end of your bucket. Am I hearing you right, Jenny? That what you're saying is it's

much easier for the town to reimburse a council member than for a council member to need to reimburse the town if the town spent more than their bucket.

Is that is that what I'm hearing? Right. You know, so if

because what that council member forgot to reimburse us.

Yes. Exactly. If you have you have $250 left in your bucket, you have a $500 charge you need to make. much easier [clears throat] for the town to just reimburse us the $ 250 that we can apply than for the town to charge $500 and we owe you the 250.

Yes. Yes. Yeah. And the um cuz then within that request for reimbursement then that would have a justification with it like I paid for this much is for this thing.

Yes.

It won't show up. It'll show up on the line item as we are reimbursing you. So we'd want to make sure we had something to attach to it.

Yeah. Let me make myself a note here about it. Okay.

Maybe calling them split payments or partial payments or something. Um, okay.

Partial or split is up to the council member to pay up front.

Yeah. If it and I did find the language I was looking for. So, getting back to the previous conversation about how we would handle cancellations, no show fees. This is how Morrisville breaks it. In the event a council member does not attend a class they are registered for and does not make the town clerk's office aware they are not attending with enough notice to receive a full refund, the council member is responsible for reimbursing the town for any funds that were not recovered within 10 business days. In the event a council member falls ill or has extenduating circumstances that result in them not attending a scheduled training class, reimbursement will not be required and an effort will be made by staff to get a refund for the training. So again,

I captured this here because this notion exists out there and this could be

something we want to think about and we are not inclined again to get quite so prescriptive ourselves. We don't have to mirror this language, but I wanted to give us the opportunity to say, "Hey, does this make sense for our policy, somebody else's thought about this?"

I think you'll always have the out, I was sick or my daughter was sick or my dog was sick or somebody was sick

and you'll never have anybody

or an emergency or I mean things do come up. There's very legitimate reasons, you know,

and sometimes it's as simple as I had a migraine, you know, unfortunately, it's not realistic that we how do you enforce something where you we we're not going to require a doctor's note or anything like that.

Um, but it wouldn't hurt to have a policy that's basically don't be an

right? Excuse my French, but that's it's kind of what we're leaning into. But it's also do we Do we have a I registered for a training class then didn't go problem?

Not to not that I'm aware of.

Oh, we did in the past.

We did

or trips.

I will say the bucket though, you're also then I mean you're still you using your bucket. So, you know, I mean if you're blowing your bucket on things

and then you don't have you're not going to have any key takeaways.

You're not going to have any key takeaways. Um

Oh. Uh, I will say um if I just want to make sure I'm taking care of staff that if you sign up for something, it comes out of your bucket and we are unable to get that

um cancellation for you,

you know, or we are unable, we don't want that council member to hold it against us because it's not our fault that the cancellation didn't happen.

Yes.

Um,

and a lot of times I think I don't know if it like um Yeah. So just there's some

a little bit of

no the way this intersects with your work and what this ask of staff is a top consideration to me as well. So again if this is more prescriptive than we need for us if this makes an ownorous process or creates the potential for conflict with staff. I'm inclined to say then let's not get to this level of specificity. I just don't I wouldn't want any council member to be upset that their bucket had that deducted and we couldn't get a cancellation for some reason. So, so let me explore that. Let's say I'm going to Phoenix next year.

Mhm.

And the night before on the way to the airport, I get violently ill.

I can't go. I can't make the flight. I can't fly. I can't do anything. I just lost all that out of my bucket.

And there's nothing I can do about it.

Yeah. Except you could come to council through a council initiated item.

Okay. when you want to spend more money and say, "I reached my threshold

because I had this extenduating circumstance. I didn't get the Phoenix trip that was really valuable. Now I would like to go on this trip instead, but it's going to take more money."

As long as you come to the public and ask and Okay,

that's fair.

Yeah. So that's kind of that that's sort of the the built-in feedback mechanism is your incentive to attend the things you've registered for or because you're spending your bucket. Um and you know you're not going to get get it credited back to your bucket then you've used it up on something you didn't get any value out of.

And if we create a policy where we're saying then you've got to personally reimburse the town for those costs. Who's gonna chase Harold for? Is it Jenny? That's

Yes. That's not how that works, right?

Because she works for us.

That's not fair.

But so we're really self-p policing each other to a certain extent. Having a policy that says,

you know, you're expected to attend something that you ask the town to pay

for. If you cannot attend, you need to cancel as soon as humanly possible and you know acceptable reasons to not attend or emergency illness, you know, etc.

Yeah. So, do you want to capture that language?

I'm just saying

or do you want that to be a matter of practice or do you want us to specify that?

I think getting back to the a-hole comment, I think you kind of need to capture that.

Yeah. I mean, if I write it, that's exactly what it's going to say. Let's say that [laughter] let's not say precisely that. Let's say what you previously said um but without the same sort of consequence and enforcement. This is more of a

here's the expectation.

This is expectation setting than it is a policy with you know specified outcomes.

Okay. Yeah, that sounds good, right?

Yeah, that works.

Where does that live if it's not a policy per se? it would you still put it in here as guidance so that um when new council members are required to review policy they're required to review that statement.

Okay.

Yeah.

So we can add it to the policy as a statement on

because you think about policy it has a lot of like intra paragraphs.

We can say you shall I guess but you know you should do these things and

make your best effort. So it It gives us, I guess, something to point to. If somebody comes into office and has a bunch of bad habits and just willy-nilly wastess money,

even if it is in their bucket,

we could say at the bucket level, like you're getting this $5,000 bucket, you are expected to attend the events that you register for, that the town has paid for, and if you're unable to attend, you you cancel in a timely manner so that refunds can can be pursued.

if allowed.

If allowed. Yeah.

Because sometimes

they can't.

And then list allowable reasons for not attending and not being able to achieve a refund. It's an emergency. It's a you know illness and just leave it. That that could be part of that. You're getting this bucket and here's here's guidance on how we expect you to use this bucket and what to do if you have to cancel.

I would also add that any cancellation fees are taken out of your bucket if you choose to cancel. Right. You are responsible for cancellation fees. Sometimes we can cancel, but there will be a cancellation fee.

Yeah, that's that's true.

So, you get some of it back, but

you get some of it, but not all of it. Like 75% back. Yeah.

Okay.

What do you think about adding that to the policy that says here's your bucket like we you've got it right now and then afterwards here's how we expect you to use. Please use your bucket responsibly.

Yeah. I I like that.

Like that.

Yep.

Okay. So, we are reaching our last slide and so two more ideas. I'm actually going to skip to the [clears throat] last one and it says reviews and audits. And so, this is both the potential for an annual policy review by council, which of course we can do at any time, correct? Uh, and so this again is to what degree we want to specify these policies, but also do we want to specify a staff audit? I don't know if we even feel like we're in a position to dictate this. Again, this comes from the Morrisville language. And so, this is how they capture both of these ideas. Their policy says, "The town's financial services department will conduct an annual audit of council members expenses to ensure compliance with this policy. Any discrepancies or violations will be reported to the town manager and town council for review and action." It also says, "This policy shall be reviewed annually by the town council as part of the budget process and amended as necessary to ensure its continued effectiveness and alignment with the town's goals and objectives. Staff, any feelings about this language

that are

I have a couple. Yeah,

I would not word things quite how they did."

Sure. Um, and Jenny, we've kind of talked about policy review maybe occurring in December,

um, when you've got new members sworn in. And

so following the organizational meeting would be a good way to capture that.

Um, and then as for the audits, um, I mean, I'd have to ask we'd have to ask Kimberly like does that is that the right phrasing and terminology for what this would be? you know, we are going to have an internal auditor um position filled here soon. It's under they're doing interviews and things. Um and would that be something the internal auditor would do?

Sure.

And and they wouldn't report it to the manager. Um because the manager, they would need to report it to the council.

So, there's some tweaks I would make to that if that's something y'all are interested in and we'd want to talk to finance about the right kind of wording.

How can give me an example of how you can do that. How can you inappropriately spend money when you've got to

when it's coming out of your bucket

and it's being reported? Yeah.

You know, again, these last five bullets that I added in here were making sure we were leaving no stone unturned, that we had colleagues in other municipalities who said, "We have a problem that we think we're solving by creating this language. Is that something we want an analog for and carry?" And the answer could perfectly fine be no. this doesn't make sense for us. I just wanted to give us the opportunity to consider anything that we hadn't already captured. And so we might say this is a bridge too far for us or you know we would have to pull in Kimberly to even have this conversation. Um so

I I don't I don't want my my bullets here to uh seem as if I am personally advocating for these ideas so much as giving you the opportunity to think about them. I I don't see the need for

the audit,

but annual review or however often you want to do a review of, hey, how's this policy working?

We have bunches of money left in these buckets. This bucket is too big. Maybe it should be smaller.

And I think that would be part of the budget discussion, right? In terms of like the dollar amounts, the mechanics of the policy make more sense to not talk about in the budget process, right? It might be a report that shows like a um a report at the end of the year that shows the outcome of everybody's bucket.

So that could be something that you know we just pull those consent items together.

There's a report that goes some you know does it go to council? Does it go during our budget discussion? But it just um kind of pulls all those reports together and says here's what's spent

like at the beginning of the next fiscal year.

Well the end of it. Yeah. or right after it ends, you know, to say and that may help.

I see you're probably gonna ask for that anyways before you set your new budget just to see if your bucket system worked out.

Yeah.

So, is it, you know, during a bucket work during a work session saying we've only got a month left in the fiscal year, this is how much you actually spent, not spent. Um, so it could just

be a total report reflecting charges and remaining bucket amounts,

a cumulative totaling of expenses incurred in the previous fiscal year.

Yes.

Yeah. I think that's in spirit

effectively what would be learned in an audit. And because this is related to a budget item, Cherry Becker when they audit all the books, it they wouldn't look down at it, but they could pull some of their samplings could improve could pull some of these expenses.

Yeah. So I I am inclined to agree that we have built into our policies other mechanisms that we don't need to have a staffled audit.

But I do think that if you wrote in the report

Yeah. So that way there's an expectation when we have that organizational meeting that the new council members know that in six,

you know, you come in halfway through a fiscal year though.

Yeah.

So, um,

oh yeah, that is a question I had about how that will work in election years following election year.

Yes. You know, um, you know, if you have a

and we'll have to put pr-rated language in the policy,

right? That's what [clears throat] would make senseless solution.

Yep.

Because you wouldn't get your $5,000 to spend in six months,

right?

And if you needed for whatever reason, you can always ask.

Yes.

Council initiated on it.

So we getting back to review of the policy.

Not the finances of the policy, but the policy itself. Do we need to do that? And when should we do that? So what I heard Jenny say, Jenny and Lisa say is that we would review the policy framework at the organization after the organizational meeting that we're anticipating having a December policy review.

So that's every other year,

but the dollar amounts would be considered every year as part of our budget conversation. So, we're saying every two years is the organizational

and you can always do it whenever you want, but we would sort of plan for it to be

and that feels to me like the right cadence

and you're letting if you've got new members,

you know,

that don't like the policy, they can eliminate it.

That's when we go over like 143 with order. So, council initiated items will be covered, you know, talking about asking for more money,

things like that um would be covered there. And when you you do review this um number that you have for each bucket in your budget because if that during budget discussions you say we're all going to cut this amount or we're all going to gain this amount then we would follow up the next meeting with a policy update.

Okay.

To implement it is the

that's that's how you review the money.

That's actually true. You can you could do it your actually your written policy could either you could literally put in policy statement 193 or whatever we're up to $5,000 or you could put will be set each year as part of budget process.

Yeah.

So that you're not putting a dollar amount.

I think that makes sense to me and that again is how her Morrisville colleagues did it because that's why I had to look up the 2000 figure is because it's not in the policy document. I had to refer to their budget document to find out what it was set at this fiscal year

and then that way it's listed out in the budget document.

Yes.

However, if we make it a static amount, [clears throat] we can I think better meet the spirit of what the office of state auditor asked us to do and that's publish our compensation thoroughly in our budget and writing in there however much we give ourselves every year. that doesn't I think achieve that goal very well being able to put in there here's our exact salary here's our exact

um

but that's also captured in the budget correct [clears throat]

and it's the salary amounts I think what we would suggest for this coming up budget year if you all decide to you know make changes in the amounts is that um and some cities do this the the budget ordinance itself so you know the budget is 300 or whatever pages, but there's a 510 page ordinance. And this year we added a line that said council member compensation will increase per the merit or however we worded it.

Uh so wherever that sentence is right now, we would change that out and say the mayor's compensation is

and council member's compensation is and just be right there in the budget ordinance. The actual, you know, and if it has car allowance, spell that out. If it's just a salary and that's it, we'd

spell that out and so it can be in the budget ordinance. So you don't even have to flip through 300 pages, but it's

and it can be it should be you we should make it as clear as humanly possible because that's the criticism that it was not published as part of our budget

and I think that if we get you know wiggly with the amount that's going to especially at this time that's going to feel a little icky. Are you saying you're not comfortable having it potentially change?

I don't think it should be variable. I don't think it should be variable

year with the fiscal year.

Correct. I don't think it should be. First of all, it's adding more work to staff for the budget and us which is already we have enough line items to worry about without adding one that I don't think we achieve anything by making it variable.

Do you understand? Yeah, I'm with her.

We just said instead [clears throat] of 5,000 just make it we we whatever we decide when we budget every year. I'm saying I think that's a bad idea because the office of state auditor criticized the fact that our compensation wasn't clearly published in the budget every year. you'd like [clears throat] the travel and training policy to say the budget amount is

$5,000 or 2,000 whatever it is

and then

and have it remain static there

remain static

which I know it would then be a pain in the US if we have to go and change that if we've got if we got the amount wrong

but I think as much clarity and as much concreteness as we can apply I think is is exactly what that's the feedback I'm hearing from residents and taxpayers They just want to know.

Yeah.

Even even if you know and again it goes to that same conversation. I've had this with a lot of residents, but if you add our allowances in, we're still not making a ton of money and they're like, "That's not the point. It's an allowance for your car, right?" So again, I don't

want to introduce any of those weird conversations where

I'm just like, "Okay, like it here it is.

It does matter what it's called." And I do think the details like it being variable does matter because there are going to be individuals where we've lost trust. They're going to look at it and go, "Well, you could give yourself $20,000 next year."

Right. And so I I I prefer not to introduce that

Yeah. I follow you

and I can see it getting political.

Correct.

I just got elected and I don't like any of you. So, I'm going to say it should be zero. We should ask for every penny

and you're going to make a big deal out of this. Now, we're going to get the TV involved and I get my name in front of everybody who's trying to save taxpayer dollars and and I could see that scenario playing out.

Quick time check. What time are we supposed to adjourn tonight?

It was a two-hour meeting on the calendar.

Okay, great. No, I just I wanted to make sure.

I'm hoping we don't go two hour. No, I think I think we have one last bullet point to get to here and then we can talk about next steps. Um, so the last bullet point, this comes from this is a carry specific bullet point coming from resident feedback we've gotten at this current moment. Do we want to address something that isn't addressed here anywhere else? And maybe not. Um, and this is going to get squishy. This is gets into meals that are outside of travel and this is not meals like the scenarios that uh you've already mentioned, right? This is not subs at work sessions for uh staff that is working late. This is do we want to think about do we want to give ourselves and our colleagues guidance for how we handle informal meals out in the community when we're meeting with constituents when we're having lunch with staff. Some of this is

covered by our very handy gifts flowchart. So, we know, for example, if we're having uh if we're we're meeting with someone that the town does business with and we have a contract with, we're not accepting anything of value from them anyway. So, that would help dictate that scenario. But, um in a situation where we're all having a working lunch with a staff department, do we want to say that we're expected to pay for that? that that shouldn't be something that the tab is just picked up for a council member and this is not addressing staff. We're not making staff policy, but is that something we want to think about?

And Lisa, help me out if we're waiting into any tricky territory here. No, I think you're kind of, you know, there are staff is working on the food policy for staff as you talked about for um storms or meetings that have to happen at lunch to get everybody together. So, um the finance department and others are leading that effort to look at that staff standard procedure and redo that and make it clear as to what the manager's expectations are um in that regard. And so, um, and so I think then for you, you're narrowing down the universe that you all need to think about, which is if you're meeting staff or constituents, again, you know what to do with contractors. Don't don't u pay for your own lunch if you're with them. You pay, they pay

for themselves. Um, but if you're meeting with constituents or staff, um, you know, outside of a town event,

work session or other thing that we're doing,

you know, do you want to address, um, well, council always pays for themsel,

you know, if you want to speak to that piece of it. Again, we're going to cover as we do our policy work internally, the when can staff meals or food be paid for

as part of training or meetings or etc. So, that's going to cover staff. Um, my thought is that any of those things that we're going to cover for staff that council is also at,

which is going to mainly be work sessions and things, but it could be a lunchtime

meeting that council would kind of again fall

into the same bucket as staff as you're talking about with pdiums for meals. Um, so then in my thinking it's really you all thinking about when you're doing something more on your own that's not involving staff or part of kind of a staff event.

Yeah. I would expect it just to mirror the

Yeah.

town policy for staff,

right?

Um, and I I've said this a couple of times.

We have policy that was not followed. what we need and what we've seen in the last 11 months I believe is a change in behavior

that aligns with a lot of the policies and I feel like the updates that are being worked on will take care of you know the handful of future folks that can't seem to get their behavior to to be reasonable. Mhm.

I mean, let's be honest. If if we if we had a town manager in the future that was going out to dinner and and spending crazy amounts of money, we're going to notice that now. Like there there's just no way that kind of behavior would be tolerated in in the future. Or, you know, staff as well. Like if there's folks out doing really unacceptable things when it comes to charging meals to the town

that that I'm less worried about that being a problem in the future. What my brain keeps going is okay, we're going through all these things. What hasn't happened? What can we prevent?

What can we prevent from being a problem in the future? Um, that's why I feel good about this travel policy because I

think while we haven't had that

a significant like line item in the budget at the end of the year like crazy amounts of money years, but I can see where the wrong individual making the wrong choices. I feel like we are preventing that kind of abuse of town funds in the future with these trustes.

So really helping out staff because the expectations will be clear.

Yeah, this person has this amount of money and that's it.

That's a good point. I even think and and we want to make sure that we're not putting staff in a position where they've got to manage their boss's behavior either, which

I feel like you have to do enough already

as the keeper of the rules. So to a certain extent, right?

Great awful rule. [laughter]

So two related questions. Uh Lisa, what is the terminology in the policy that staff uses? Cuz we're talking about travel and we're talking about meals. You I'm getting back to how we've made this now. What was policy recommendation number six on slide 10 really broad just so that we can piggyback on all the good work that staff is doing uh codifying these policies. Right now it says travel and pdeium policies. Should we add the word meals or how

how is the scenario you're talking about? So just leave it here because I guess my question is you know what council member Cohen Johnson just said which is will mirror we'll follow staff's lead.

Yeah. And I'll

but I don't know that we have that language or that idea captured here or do you feel that we do? I think we captured in the room. Okay.

And what I will say is and I was just kind of studying the things that you all are supposed to be looking at as the committee and reminding myself because one of them by the way has been completed if we can talk about that.

Um but the the two from the office of the state auditor and those are the ones that have the February deadline that we

you know said we were going to do these things by the end of February.

Um policy related to meal expenses during travel.

Okay. and then policy related to council training and education reimbursement. So that's the bucket concept. So I feel like what we've talked about tonight

and I feel like it's probably one policy.

Yeah.

Um but that you've talked about all those things and you know with meeting with the full council in a couple weeks, you know, we absolutely can meet that February

time frame. Um and then the other things that you're the other things that were on your list are benefits, which we've kind of talked about. Um and and that's from Cherry Becker, not from the state auditor. Um and Cherry Becker also specifically caught out inner city visits, but I think you're kind of handling that with your buckets.

Um so you've really, you know, you really covered the things that were

pointed out and that we put in the hands of the subcommittee.

Um and then as staff is developing that meal,

okay,

meal outside of travel standard procedure

which um that we may also have a February target for that. I'm not sure. Um but we can you know share that and

okay

talk about that separately after it's developed.

Yeah.

So let me ask then my second related question and I really I mean I defer to my colleagues especially the mayor with the most tenure of anyone in the room. Um you know in thinking about sort of the dual purposes that some of these policies are serving. I think on one hand it's transparency for the public and on the other hand it's giving us our own guidelines again so that we understand how to perform this role. Um and so is would it be helpful to specify how we approach those constituent interactions and those constituent meals? Um because we don't have an office here. We don't have office hours. I don't know about the two of you, but

I'm going to assume that your experience is mirroring what my 10 months so far has been, which is I have a lot of coffee meetings. I

a lot of lunch.

I have a lot of lunches with constituents. I have a lot of coffees with constituents because that's where we meet. We meet in the community. Folks always, often, frequently offer to pay for me. Can I buy you your latte? And I decline. Um, that to me is just simpler, right? To say, "Thank you so much for your generosity. I will get my own coffee and and they'll get their own." To the extent that this is supposed to be helping us, a new council member maybe figure out how do I operate within this role, do we want to to speak to that or not? What do you think, Mayor? I can't imagine how many thousands upon thousands of

the coffees that you've been offered.

I mean, I could tell you I've given state of Carriat Chamber 19 times and never ate breakfast. [laughter] I just went to the Kerry Ballet opening and drank water at a banquet.

Well, I hope Lisa's flowchart

Yes, use the flowchart in the future. But yes,

allows you allows you to to uh have a little bit of breakfast. Having said that,

there are times when I've been out to dinner with constituents where it would and they were out of town.

Yeah.

And in town where it would have insulted

Yes.

them to say, "No, no,

you can't pay for me." They would have been insulted.

Um

and it was just an introductory meeting.

Yeah. I happen to know the mayor, you know, and this happens to be a mayor from somewhere else and he's visiting. And can we buy you dinner,

weigh 148 pounds, you know, I'm not going to eat a lot. So, but that still

as long as they're not contractors. Absolutely.

Yes.

Um, so those cases I've accepted dinner.

Um, and it's mainly because I don't want to insult anybody. I can I am blessed where I can pay for my own dinners, but I don't want to jump through hoops to insult somebody. So,

especially somebody visiting.

Yeah.

And

I mean, I agree. It it is awkward. There are there are frequently times where I feel rude

to

Yes.

Especially at the Indian community events. They

That is an

want to feed me and I'm like

it. Yes. It often feels like just accepting the generosity and the hospitality is easier than declining. I

just have a samosa is starting to get weird because also frankly sometimes I'm really hungry.

Yeah. [clears throat]

And it's so awkward to sit and watch everybody eat.

You're telling me,

right? So

I would love this qu I just I just want to say I would love this question answered. I had lunch with the president of the Chamber of Commerce yesterday. Mhm.

He offered to buy my lunch. I said, "No, no, no. I'll get it like I always do."

That was the right answer,

right? But we have a contract with them and the contract does not cover

having lunch. So, that was the right answer.

And that like, okay, but when I go to the American Turkish Association event and

Yeah, there you go. If they have a dinner,

they always give me this little box of desserts. Please take these home. They're they're all homemade. Like, and I stand there and I If all of these scenarios are covered by our brilliant new flowchart, I think what I'm asking that is just beyond the flowchart is less formal is again we get the email from the constituent that says, you know, can I pick your brain about trash pickup?

Yeah.

Can we meet at, you know, I'm in district A. Can we meet at Crema Coffee and can we talk about this? and we show up and they're like, "Please let me get you your drink." And so, you know, I,

you know, again, we as seven individuals without a lot of these things codified. This is a lot of gray area. I don't think there is necessarily a right or wrong because to your point, mayor, sometimes it is just easier to say it feels it we're also human beings in this role and as a human being, it feels just polite to say, "Thank you for your generosity. I have not been comfortable doing that. So, I have declined. And and no matter how rude it has felt, I've been like, "No, I'm going to buy my own cup of coffee and I'm going to make you buy your own cup of coffee." Do we need to offer ourselves guidelines so that we have some answers to these questions or a little bit more clarity or or is this more trouble than it's worth?

Love to kick this to the resident committee and just ask for a recommendation even.

You can absolutely do that. I would say also that the over overriding thing we always say to you and to all of our board and commission members is

avoiding the appearance of impropriy.

So if someone is buying you something even though they're not a contractor and on the chart it's totally fine and you could accept it. You always have to think about

how does that look? Does it look like I'm accepting something from them and then maybe a year from now they are. Yeah. So I think those are just the things that each individual member has to think about

because our code of ethics gets to this intersection when you're serving in local government is you're in local government which means you're you know you're serving your community and so you're right you know what was a cup of coffee this year if they're applying to a board or commission that we appoint next year

but they were a community member right you know so we have all

that's how you got to know them. Yes, we have all these over overlapping uh lenses of like you know when is it just a friend and neighbor and when is it a constituent and when is there time or is it 20 times

yes I think outside the flowchart is the

intent. Um, I personally don't want to make it complicated and

and I would gladly pay for them or you know if it's that way let me get this you but

but to the point Britney was making earlier I'm sorry Council Member Richards

can't get the committee we should pitch the honorific

I can't with the incredible formality we're having a conversation it's just so foreign to every fiber of my being. So to your point though, it would almost make my life easier. I have

never let anybody buy me so much as a cup of coffee just out of sheer paranoia and the appearance of impropriety is to a lot of people in

propriety.

It would be really helpful to be able to say

it's against policy.

Yeah.

Instead of [clears throat]

I'm just weird like that because that I've gotten this is the response I get. Well, so and so lets me or I that's weird. Like I'm some kind of

Yes.

paranoid jerk.

Yeah.

The the actually knowing that I can eat desserts [laughter] at the ATA event this year because it does not violate the gift policy brings me a great deal of joy because that's the primary problem I have is I really want your cookies. [laughter]

Well, we've solved that problem for you. Correct. And don't lie. I know you want the desserts, too. You've also got a sweet

always eat dessert.

It's okay cuz it's a group of

it. Everybody,

when can I buy like if I if I'm having a constituent lunch?

Is it weird for me to buy them lunch? Is it weird for me to buy their coffee? Like these things? I don't know. So, I also don't offer which also feels rude. like getting up to the counter and they're standing next to me and I'll be like this is what I want. I don't know what they want. They can you know they can wait you know that gets that also gets weird.

So if that question was

so let me ask is that actually triggers another question I have which is have we formalized the exact charge for the task force or do you need more from us? Um cuz I wasn't I wasn't clear if we had provided everything you needed for them to get working.

Yeah, I can uh we can update our board, but I don't want to cut you off from this.

No. Well, just because I mean in my mind right now, we've given them a fairly narrow purview which is compensation. And so this would be outside of what we have thus far defined. I mean, I what I had heard us say was what we really need them to do is compensation, salary and allowances. If we get this policy done in time and they're up and running and we want to say to them, oh, and by the way, we also have this policy. Will you consider all of this in its totality that they could um but that wasn't necessary? But what they the core of what they were tasked with was compensation.

Yeah. Yes. That's the way I take it. The core was the compensation. And you know, it sounds like maybe what you were touching on about interactions with constituents

because that's truly what it is. It's not at an event. It's not,

you know, those things like that

um would probably be a separate policy than your travel and training.

Okay. Um,

so that way they're I I feel I see where they're separated because your interaction with constituents would really just be council and not have any impact on staff

because

what is state law and I know legislators have strict guidelines but

again as long as if it's just a constituent who is not a contractor but also I think you do again with the appearance of impropriety and we we've got this in the in the chart, the flowchart, if it's anyone who's really asking you to do something,

if they've got a resoning coming up,

um you know, anything like that and that you're getting closer and closer to the edge of,

you know,

Well, that reminds me the uh um Sears Stone thing. We were there and they had a spread of

smorggasport. Yeah. and and we were going to get a tour,

have a donut.

I did.

So, I just violated something by having a donut.

But everybody, but it was for everybody. It was for them. It was for us. So, I feel like it

was invited.

Everyone was invited.

All the council was invited even if it wasn't simultaneous.

Correct. Yeah.

And it met the spirit of the rules, but it did feel

like

and not to say you couldn't take that maybe a policy with interactions with constituents back to that task force at some point, but

um

compensation was the first thing and what council agreed upon when they voted for the task force to be created.

Yes.

I do have some questions about task force, so I don't know if this is

No, I mean I guess

so.

Yeah, let's let's wrap this up. a policy a separate policy for this

a separate

what do you think

it would be it would I I would have found it helpful from day one

so let me uh I'm uh inject another question real quick Jenny before we get to task force because I think I would have everything I need to ask about next steps for us in preparation of our November 16th yes

uh work session that we're hoping to go to our colleagues um would you like me this is iterative, right? We we had the document that I turned into a slide deck. The slide deck had [clears throat] a lot of questions that we've now addressed and we we've polished up. Would you like me to now put together what we've talked about, revise this deck to make it look like what we plan to share with our colleagues, and

at our next meeting, we go through that draft.

I love that.

That we that shouldn't take us hours. because we hopefully if I do my job right and I I distill everything we talked about it should be it should capture our conversation over the last

minor tweaking is all

tweaking and and taking out you know all of those uh different scenarios and considerations I talked about so I can add that policy that last one that we just talked about I can take a stab at writing that one up too and see how that looks and so we can go over all of that at our next year,

which is I've read it

November 4th. Next week, Wednesday,

right?

Um, okay. So,

for an hour,

it's up to you.

Yeah.

Will be an hour.

Okay.

Don't give us more time than that.

No, I think I think an hour will be plenty. So, okay. That that for me I think gives me everything I need for next steps. So, then um

Well, do you need anything from us?

Noah, this is all I needed. And are you going to send it before November 4th so we can take a look at it?

Okay.

How how much in advance would you like it? I'll tell you that the the day before is election day.

Oh yeah.

Uh the soonest I could probably get it to you would be today.

Would that be 48 hours? Is that enough time?

That's plenty. 48.

That'll be my goal. My goal to get it to to Jenny to disseminate to all of us.

Oh yes.

Yes.

Okay. Yes. So your next um meeting will be November um the 5th the night before the quarterly and then November 12th.

Okay.

Which mean you might not need

Yeah.

I'll put that in the universe.

All right. talk about the task force. So, um they have been emailed um and we are currently pulling them for dates and that's a mid November um like we had told them up front in their um initial reach out for request and we offered

them a lunchtime and then a late afternoon time depending on what works for everybody.

So, um one thing that we are missing um as staff has been working through a lot of this is the official name you would like to call them. Yeah, I know. The advis advisory board for the recommendation subcommittee. What [laughter]

council's recommendation committee resident task force? [laughter]

I think that's it. It rolls off the tongue.

Um,

let's see her sit never. [laughter]

Yes. So, we call this, you know, council recommendation committee. We were call just referring to it in the office but not officially residents recommendation task force. Mhm.

I just throw that out as a starting point, but nothing.

But we just want to make sure you are good with any kind of name that we officially give them.

I think it needs to be something that if somebody says, "I was on this task force or if we refer to it five years from now, people are going to have a clue what we're what the task force might."

Yeah. And that makes sure you know when we publish a notice for a meeting, we put the name of the committee. So you don't want a lot of just you know what that odd committee doing.

We borrowed this idea from Charlotte and Raleigh. What did they call themselves? Good point.

And we could just call it the council comp compensation.

Oh, that's direct task force or something. So it's very clear what they're doing.

And if you gave it more, you wouldn't have to change their name. I mean because their title doesn't define their purpose

and all of it like whether it's a meal or a cookie in my case a cookie

it's compensation I mean I will work for cookies [laughter]

okay say that again

resident council

compensation

compensation task force with

council compensation resident task force

yes thank you

get all the modifiers in the right order

so so But they don't think it's resident

compensation.

Correct.

Council compensation is

they'd love that.

Only [laughter] we could work it out.

No.

All right. And so we have all our appointment appointments to the board. Um everybody ending with EDC last night. They made an appointment to the board. Scott Corbin.

Um one thing usually when task force or committees or boards are um appointed, recreated um we pick a chair. And so um we don't have to I can send out this

they pick the chair.

It's up to you all. Do would you like them to pick the chair?

Yeah. We need to stay totally

I think the [laughter] answer yes on all questions is as little council interference as possible. Okay. Perfect.

And we're still recommended not to watch those live and watch the tape version or

that would be you all's recommendation. That's what I would recommend.

Yeah, they don't need to see our names hovering.

You won't um the way we'll have them set up, you won't see who's calling in.

Oh, it's so be like like this. We just have no idea who's

it'll be fully.

If that's the case, then I would love to watch it.

As long as they don't know I'm there.

So, let's um So, this one you said could be by phone, not live streamed.

And so, what will be posted online is a number that you call in. And what we do is that we um we haven't had a fully remote so we'll probably do some practice um of a board of an advisory board but the way the um we set up the webex the people who are have talking parts the member staff or anybody they can come in the room whereas anybody else is listening and I'm going to say this like from the lobby

and so I'll just double check that your numbers don't show up in the side because a lot of times we can see in the side maybe just the first three digits of somebody that's calling in and you really can't tell.

You know, WebEx kind of blurts out um stars out the rest.

And so we we'll just make sure.

I'll just watch the recording.

Yeah. Well, you won't be able to. It will be recorded. It won't be pushed to the web based upon council's direction. But if council gives or the task force gives the preference to say we would like the recording after each meeting, then we could um

why don't we want it recorded? We would be recording, but just like our advisory boards, we don't push out the recording. It's only available upon request

because it's private citizens and we're not trying to put them on our YouTube

and you're not live streaming.

Of course. Okay. Then I would like to listen.

You would be requesting a recording after meeting.

We could send that to all of council.

Yeah. If you would like I respect personal preference. My personal preference is not.

Yeah. Maybe I just want to see what they recommend and just

Yeah, I would love to watch it somehow someway. I don't want to inter only. So, you'll just be listening to it.

No, no video then.

No video unless you give the preference for us to take video.

No, no need to see it.

So, we'll just we'll just handle it like a normal board and that's kind of how we do it.

Um

Okay. So, the chair Okay, that's everything about the task force. Okay. Um I have two other topics and it's a good time. Okay. I we we've sent out all the minutes and we've also published all the minutes up and um we sent all the minutes out for you to review and I believe they're all published as well except for your last meeting which staff is still working on. So if you wanted to look at those and take a vote to approve the minutes, we' mark them approved. If you don't want to do that tonight, that's fine. They're in your email. Yeah. We just keep pushing we just keep pushing them out so there's no delay because we know that the work you're doing now is critical

for timing.

Um but wanted to just say that they're there. We only um over from the time that we started our

now next topic um time that we started our drop down and 311 remember it said recommend um feedback for recommendations committee.

Uh we've only received two okay

uh feedback and they were both not related to the recommendations committee. So we handled them actually through public speaks out. One of them was to pass every ordinance possible to shut down car meetups and racing.

Okay.

And then the next one was they would um like more outlets in the downtown park.

And so we just put that in with our public.

Yes.

So wanted to know that um

there are a [clears throat] lot of people down there working on their laptops.

Okay. Like a lot. When I walk through there, I'm there's like a half dozen in the area of the Bark Bark every

That's what they say. I do a lot of work there.

Okay.

So,

yeah, that's what it's for. Start doing that.

It's to be in not work specifically, but to use it as you want to use it. That's what it's there for.

We just have what you think. We have been watching our D report out. It's just that we Thank you.

That's helpful. Thank you.

And I have one update and you'll see this tomorrow. Um but with the appointment of the new town manager, you have actually completed one of the Wample Bond Dickinson recommendations. It's number 12. Um by including fiduciary obligations and ethics certification language in the contract.

Um so that's the dashboard will be updated tomorrow to mark number 12 as complete.

Excellent. Okay.

Anything else? Wow, we're journ.

Okay. in a meeting with me. That's something else.

November 4th, next meeting.