Budget Committee February 20, 2024   2/20/2024

Consent

• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:00:40
    Good morning, I'm Aisha Chugtai and I'm the chair of the Budget Committee.
  • 00:00:43
    I'm going to call to order a regular meeting for Tuesday, February 20th, 2024.
  • 00:00:47
    At this time I'll ask the clerk to call the roll so we can verify the presence of a quorum.
  • 00:00:52
    Councilmember Payne?
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:00:53
    Present.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:00:54
    Wonsley is absent.
  • 00:00:56
    Rainville?
  • 00:00:56
    Present.
  • 00:00:57
    Vita?
  • 00:00:58
    Present.
  • 00:00:59
    Ellison is absent.
  • 00:01:00
    Osman?
• • Katie Cashman
  • 00:01:01
    Present.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:01:02
    Let the record reflect that we have a quorum.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:01:18
    We'll begin with the consent agenda which has only one item today.
  • 00:01:21
    It is a two-year mayoral appointment to seat 29 of the Capitol Long-Range Improvement Committee.
  • 00:01:28
    Are there any questions on this item?
  • 00:01:32
    Council Member Osman.
  • 00:01:35
    All good.
  • 00:01:36
    Any other questions?
  • 00:01:39
    Great.
  • 00:01:40
    I will move approval of this item.
  • 00:01:41
    Do I have a second?
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:01:42
    Second.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:01:44
    Seeing no further discussion, all those in favor say aye.
  • 00:01:48
    Aye.
  • 00:01:49
    Those opposed say nay.
  • 00:01:52
    Any abstentions?
  • 00:01:54
    The ayes have it and that motion carries.
  • 00:01:56
    With that, we will move to the discussion agenda.
  • 00:01:59
    Item number two is the 2024-2025 Budget Committee Work Plan.
  • 00:02:04
    As you'll remember, we made a couple of amendments to this plan at our last meeting.
  • 00:02:08
    One was a series of technical amendments from Vice Chair Koski and I.
  • 00:02:13
    and then the second was an amendment from Councilmember Chaudry adding a public hearing earlier in the budget cycle.
  • 00:02:25
    And then we have one amendment remaining from Councilmember Chaudry and after some discussion we decided to continue the item to today's meeting.
  • 00:02:34
    Before us today is a revised motion based on that discussion at the last meeting and Councilmember Chowdhury's conversation with the mayor's office.
  • 00:02:42
    While the language of the amendment is the same, it has been moved from the March and April section to the May-June section.
  • 00:02:51
    As Councilmember Choudry is unable to be with us today and made us aware of a planned absence I will move the revised motion on her behalf before I ask for a second I will note that Councilmember Wansley has joined us in this meeting With that can I have a second?
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:03:09
    Second.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:03:10
    This item has been moved and seconded.
  • 00:03:13
    Is there any discussion on this amendment?
  • 00:03:18
    Councilmember Rainville
• • SPEAKER_00
  • 00:03:20
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
  • 00:03:21
    I just want to express my appreciation to Councilmember Chowdhury for the delay so that she could contact the mayor office and get them involved in this decision.
  • 00:03:29
    So I know she's not here, but please, I don't office by her, you do.
  • 00:03:34
    So I don't see her.
  • 00:03:35
    So please pass on my appreciation.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:03:37
    Happy to do that.
  • 00:03:38
    Any other discussion?
  • 00:03:40
    All right.
  • 00:03:42
    Seeing none.
  • 00:03:46
    Those in favor, say aye.
  • 00:03:50
    Aye.
  • 00:03:51
    Those opposed, say nay.
  • 00:03:54
    Nay.
  • 00:03:54
    Any abstentions?
  • 00:03:56
    Alright, the ayes have it and the motion carries.
  • 00:03:58
    At this point, I will move approval of the 2024-2025 Budget Committee Work Plan as amended just now and at our last meeting.
  • 00:04:06
    Can I have a second to that motion?
• • 00:04:09
    Second.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:04:09
    Second.
  • 00:04:10
    That item has been moved and seconded.
  • 00:04:12
    Is there any discussion on the full work plan, Councilmember Vita?
• • Katie Cashman
  • 00:04:17
    Thank you, Chair.
  • 00:04:18
    I actually have quite a few questions.
  • 00:04:20
    I've put together several work groups in Ward 4 with residents and the goal is to follow each committee and different decisions that's being made in committee.
  • 00:04:31
    And so this one has come up because we knew we would be voting today.
  • 00:04:36
    and the budget.
  • 00:04:37
    Some of the concerns that I've heard are just about what's the overall goal for the work plan budget.
  • 00:04:45
    If there's, you know, if you or Chair Koski could speak publicly to the overall goal in lay's terms for people to understand because they have seen this document that you all provided with the agenda.
  • 00:05:02
    but it just appears to be a schedule of events and so there's some confusion about what was different in last budget cycle with adopting this work plan that is going to be.
  • 00:05:16
    So if you could speak to that, that'd be great.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:05:18
    That's an excellent question Councilmember Vita.
  • 00:05:20
    The purpose of this work plan is to guide the committee's work as we have transitioned from being a special committee of the council to being a standing committee of the council and to outline all of the work that goes into preparing and adopting our budget at the end of the year.
  • 00:05:37
    we've added in certain things that we either come up all the way at the end and catches council members by surprise even those who have been through this process before like the adopting of our financial policies and having a more robust process around the review of those policies
  • 00:05:56
    and having a more robust process around outlining the council's budget priorities and the city priorities that are funded through the annual budget and adding in some process around that and making sure that we are all agreeing to the priorities that we are then funding and aligning our budget with those
  • 00:06:21
    Council.
• • Katie Cashman
  • 00:06:37
    in September.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:06:52
    to make sure that we're soliciting public feedback on the mayor's recommended budget before the budget season really touches or goes into full swing.
  • 00:07:04
    Oftentimes the feedback that we've heard from members of the public and other council members is by the time we're doing those public hearings, it's a little bit late to be able to put together a substantive amendment to address resident concerns.
  • 00:07:19
    and you know having a longer process to review the financial policies instead of taking those up all the way at the end after we've gone through markup and nobody's had a chance to really look at those financial policies or potential changes that we're considering it puts a lot of stress on finance and property services and on members of this council and our financial policies are the fiscal oversight that we provide at the city so just prioritizing that work
• • Katie Cashman
  • 00:07:49
    That was a really long answer.
  • 00:07:53
    So again, so that people who are watching from home can understand, this is creating a timeline for the budget, the existing budget.
  • 00:08:07
    I guess I'm trying to get to, usually with a work plan there's a goal, right?
  • 00:08:14
    And then you have these timelines to get to a goal.
  • 00:08:18
    How does this
  • 00:08:20
    budget work plan affect the people of war for whether it's a benefit or you know what I mean like what what does this mean just to regular people who follow the budget who follow the budget later in the year right like they come in and after the mayor state of the city or whatever that timeline is like are there going to be budget changes
  • 00:08:43
    that happen now until then that they need to be watching out for or is it just like that one shift in September where we're going to have a budget hearing?
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:08:54
    So for Ward 4 residents and residents in every part of the city, what this work plan does is provide additional transparency for how the people's money is going to be used to fund the priorities and basic city services.
• • Katie Cashman
  • 00:09:12
    So there wasn't transparency before, and now there will be?
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:09:16
    We're adding additional transparency.
• • Katie Cashman
  • 00:09:18
    Okay.
  • 00:09:20
    The next question is, how does this proposed change align with other items we're changing for financial purposes?
  • 00:09:33
    Does this mean that people can just bring budget items through this committee and then make changes to the budget up until we adopt the budget?
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:09:42
    That's what we do with every budget that we adopt.
  • 00:09:46
    Council members can bring amendments and changes.
• • Katie Cashman
  • 00:09:49
    Not the budget, I mean like now, up until it's time to review and adopt the budget.
  • 00:09:55
    Like can I bring an amendment now, right now?
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:09:58
    So in the summer, we will create a list of budget priorities of the council to give to the mayor to either incorporate into his recommended budget, which is supplemental to the one-on-one conversations the mayor's office has with every council members.
  • 00:10:14
    Council member.
  • 00:10:15
    So that's one more opportunity to include budget priorities.
  • 00:10:21
    Ultimately, we react to the recommended budget, we amend and perfect it, and then we adopt it at the end of the year.
  • 00:10:27
    So there are additional opportunities for making input known that is going to happen later in the year as outlined in the work plan.
• • Katie Cashman
  • 00:10:38
    there is when we're going
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:10:49
    there is yes there will be a budget hearing at that time and then in addition to that in in May June we will we will modify the proposed legislative department biennial budget and endorse it the way we did last year we endorsed certain budget items
  • 00:11:12
    to send to the mayor.
  • 00:11:15
    And we will do the same for council goals and priorities that we will send over.
• • Katie Cashman
  • 00:11:24
    Okay.
  • 00:11:26
    And that's a good segue to my next question.
  • 00:11:28
    How does this fit into the work that's been done over the last couple years with the biennial budget?
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:11:35
    This is supplemental to, or it's complementary to the biennial budget.
  • 00:11:38
    So we're looking at
• • Katie Cashman
  • 00:11:40
    our priorities and this committee's work over the the upcoming biennial budget the two years and and it's this is um yeah it's complementary to the to the biennial budget process so this is one of the um the areas where i felt like it was hard for me to explain to people because when we adopted the biennial budget you know i explained it to people like it would give us more time
  • 00:12:02
    to look
  • 00:12:22
    how we'll get that opportunity to dive in because the biennial budget was supposed to give us like that year in between right like instead of every year give us that year in between as council members to really look at the budget and look at you know what we could change and now
  • 00:12:37
    I'm you know people are seeing that we're going to be meeting more there's going to be more going on with the budget so how does that how is this new work plan process and the committee just as a whole because this is a new committee how is this going to work with the biennial budget
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:12:54
    So I think the goal of the biennial budget, as you outlined, is so we are making longer term investments and evaluating how those investments are meeting the intended goal or not meeting the intended goal of that money.
  • 00:13:11
    So in meeting throughout the year and evaluating our financial policies throughout the year, in having more transparency over staffing changes, FTE changes, departmental transfers within the enterprise, it allows us to better evaluate how the money that we have allocated is being used, right?
  • 00:13:34
    So if we pass a biennial budget and we aren't monitoring what its outcome is going to be over the course of two years,
  • 00:13:40
    We don't have the adequate information we need to determine whether an investment we made is meeting its goal or not.
  • 00:13:48
    So adding in more time for us to evaluate every investment that we're making and a more rigorous process around that allows us better time to decide whether an investment we've made to address a problem is the right one or if we need to make different changes.
• • Katie Cashman
  • 00:14:08
    But we're not adding in more time.
  • 00:14:11
    We have a schedule that's on top of each other.
  • 00:14:14
    This work plan that we were given, I don't see the time in it.
  • 00:14:20
    That's what I'm saying.
  • 00:14:21
    It's hard for me to explain to people that the goal is to look at things on a biennial budget, as a biennial budget, but it's stacked with stuff to do where it gives no time for us to do exactly what you just explained.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:14:36
    A number of these different tools are serving that purpose.
• • Katie Cashman
  • 00:14:41
    Can you tell me which ones?
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:14:43
    For example, when we are developing changes to financial policies to better conduct fiscal oversight, we're creating better tools for us to evaluate how our money is being spent.
  • 00:15:00
    When we are considering and adopting the city's policies along with the mayor, that's creating more time for us to make sure that our budget lines up with our adopted goals and priorities We are planning to have more public hearings, more public input into this process
  • 00:15:25
    to create more time and space for us to evaluate whether the money that we're spending is actually meeting people's needs and hearing from them directly whether that's true or not.
  • 00:15:38
    This is our first time going through this process as a standing committee and our first time going through this process with an explicit work plan.
  • 00:15:47
    There will be changes that we will make again at the beginning of next year.
  • 00:15:53
    and that's the same as what we're doing with a biennial budget.
  • 00:15:56
    We're required by charter to adopt a new budget every year.
  • 00:16:00
    So even though we are doing biennial budgeting and we're making that information more transparent to the public, we're still making changes every year to our budget before we adopt it.
• • Katie Cashman
  • 00:16:10
    Well, we're adding one more public hearing, not more than that, right?
  • 00:16:15
    It's just one more public hearing for people to come.
  • 00:16:18
    I mean, we need to be clear here about what's actually happening.
  • 00:16:22
    And, I mean, this work plan is just a calendar.
  • 00:16:26
    There isn't, like, it's just given a timeline for when these actions that already exist in the budget process will be looked at in 2024
  • 00:16:37
    I'm not in the business of confusing people, so I need us to be very clear about what's happening here because the money is definitely what gets people uptight.
  • 00:16:53
    And if people think that we're doing something with the budget that they're not aware of and making changes and calling it a work plan,
  • 00:17:01
    um then we need to be able to explain and I mean I appreciate you trying that was a lot of words I don't think that none of my most of my questions wasn't answered specifically about like what we're going to be doing here and and how residents that I work with can understand the purpose of a budget work plan and why we're doing it how we're doing it when we're doing it and then on top of that you know I worked in I was on the committee last time last um
  • 00:17:32
    last cycle where you know we had a work plan and I think maybe three things were accomplished and that was way more outlined it had like very specific goals like we are going to do X Y and Z right where this one is really just stating what we already do and just giving it a timeline and so like the the previous work plan you know it said we were gonna
  • 00:17:58
    work on water and existing policies and things, you know what I mean, like the specifics.
  • 00:18:04
    And I don't feel like this does that.
  • 00:18:06
    And I need to be able to explain to people what we're doing in this committee, how this work plan, what's the purpose of adopting this work plan, the goal of this work plan, and how this is going to benefit or not benefit the people of Warford.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:18:24
    That makes sense.
  • 00:18:27
    I would argue that the committee that you're talking about where we did create a work plan last term, I would argue that by the time we got to the end of the term, we didn't accomplish a lot of the things that were on that work plan because we didn't set clear timelines on when those things were going to happen.
  • 00:18:44
    and you know that's not just my conclusion that was also the committee leadership's conclusion and the department leadership's conclusion and one of the lessons learned was we need to be really clear with timeline when things are going to happen otherwise they won't and we'll scramble by the time we get to the end of the year or the end of the term.
  • 00:19:05
    We'll see how it goes with this new process and there will be time for refinement and changes next year if you feel as though
  • 00:19:10
    This is not meeting your needs and there can be further refinement next year.
  • 00:19:16
    I hope you'll engage with that.
• • Katie Cashman
  • 00:19:18
    Absolutely.
  • 00:19:19
    Wonderful.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:19:19
    Any other questions?
  • 00:19:20
    No.
  • 00:19:21
    Excellent.
  • 00:19:22
    Any other discussion from Council Members?
  • 00:19:25
    I will also note that Council Member Jenkins has joined us.
  • 00:19:31
    Okay, seeing no further discussions on the motion to approve the 2024-2025 Budget Committee Work Plan as amended, all those in favor please signify by saying aye.
  • 00:19:43
    Aye.
  • 00:19:43
    Those opposed say nay.
  • 00:19:45
    Nay.
  • 00:19:46
    The ayes have it and that item is approved.
  • 00:19:50
    Finally, we'll move to item number three, which is a staff direction I'm bringing forward with Vice Chair Koski in conjunction with the work plan.
  • 00:19:58
    This action is directing the legislative department staff, so the Office of City Clerk and Office of City Auditor, to develop a proposed 2025-2026
  • 00:20:10
    legislative department biennial budget and to complete a review of the city's financial policies.
  • 00:20:16
    So the city's financial policy review is going to the Office of City Auditor and the Division of Oversight and Evaluation.
  • 00:20:25
    I will move this item for approval and can I have a second?
  • 00:20:30
    Second.
  • 00:20:33
    The item has been moved and seconded.
  • 00:20:35
    Is there any discussion?
  • 00:20:38
    Councilmember Jenkins?
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:20:40
    Thank you, Chair.
  • 00:20:42
    Chuck Todd.
  • 00:20:44
    Isn't this what they do?
  • 00:20:47
    This is their job.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:20:49
    So later on in the term, so in May and June of 2024, the legislative department will develop a proposed legislative department biennial budget and bring that to the council for our refinement that we will then send to the mayor for inclusion in the
  • 00:21:13
    in the recommended budget.
  • 00:21:18
    It is an extension of, yes, what they already do.
  • 00:21:21
    So we're just making sure they'll bring that forward at the timeline we've outlined.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:21:30
    Okay.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:21:31
    And then the second piece, which is the review of the financial policies.
  • 00:21:36
    Historically, that is done by Finance and Property Services.
  • 00:21:40
    Currently, Finance and Property Services is working with the City Attorney's Office to review our financial policies, which they'll be bringing forward next year.
  • 00:21:49
    And in that timeline, we still have to approve our financial policies this year.
  • 00:21:53
    So we're asking our Oversight and Evaluation Division to complete a review of those.
  • 00:21:58
    so we can adopt those at the end of this year.
  • 00:22:07
    Every year we adopt our financial policies so they'll be bringing the finance and property services will be bringing a separate set next year at some point whereas oversight and evaluation will be bringing recommendations for this body to consider later this this year.
  • 00:22:26
    It's in conjunction with how we
  • 00:22:28
    do this every year.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:22:29
    I mean, I guess I came in on the tail end of the previous discussion, but it sounded like it was trying to understand.
  • 00:22:45
    Are we codifying what is happening?
  • 00:22:54
    Is that the point of this?
  • 00:23:01
    Thank you Madam Chair.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:23:03
    Any further discussion?
  • 00:23:07
    Okay, seeing none on the motion for the staff direction to the Legislative Department, those in favor please signify by saying aye.
  • 00:23:17
    Aye.
  • 00:23:18
    Those opposed say nay.
  • 00:23:19
    Nay.
  • 00:23:21
    Any abstentions?
  • 00:23:23
    The ayes have it and that motion carries.
  • 00:23:25
    And before I move towards adjournment, Mr.
  • 00:23:30
    Clerk, can you note that Councilmember Jenkins and Wonsley joined after we approved the consent item?
  • 00:23:38
    Would you like to be marked as voting in the affirmative on the mayoral appointment to the Capital Long Range Improvement Committee?
  • 00:23:47
    and without objection we stand adjourned.