Budget Committee April 08, 2024   4/8/2024

Consent

• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:00:20
    Good morning.
  • 00:00:21
    I'm Ayesha Chuktai and I'm the chair of the Budget Committee.
  • 00:00:23
    I'm going to call to order a regular committee meeting for Monday, April 8th, 2024 at this time.
  • 00:00:30
    I'll lastly call the roll to verify the presence of a quorum.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:00:34
    Councilmember Payne.
  • 00:00:35
    Present.
  • 00:00:36
    Wonsley.
  • 00:00:37
    Present.
  • 00:00:38
    Rainville is absent.
  • 00:00:41
    Viton.
  • 00:00:41
    Present.
  • 00:00:43
    Allison.
  • 00:00:44
    There are 10 members present
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:01:01
    Let the record reflect that we have a quorum.
  • 00:01:03
    With that, we'll begin with the consent agenda, which includes two items.
  • 00:01:07
    The first is a resolution regarding debt service payments, and the second is approving four appointments to the 2024 Local Board of Appeal and Equalization.
  • 00:01:15
    Are there any questions on these items?
  • 00:01:20
    Reminder that we're going to be using speaker management.
  • 00:01:26
    Not seeing any, I will move approval of these items.
  • 00:01:30
    Do I have a second?
• • Elliott Payne
  • 00:01:31
    Second.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:01:33
    Seeing no discussion, all those in favor please say aye.
  • 00:01:38
    Aye.
  • 00:01:39
    Those opposed say nay.
  • 00:01:41
    Any abstentions?
  • 00:01:43
    The ayes have it and that motion carries.
  • 00:01:46
    With that, our first discussion item is the City Controller's presentation on the 2023 Fourth Quarter Financial Status Report.
  • 00:01:56
    I will invite Mr. Lyle Hodges to begin that presentation.
  • 00:02:01
    Welcome.
  • 00:02:03
    And we'll let Mr. Hodges get through his entire presentation before taking any questions.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:02:11
    Chair Chugchai, Vice Chair Koski, thank you for having me today.
  • 00:02:16
    I'm Lyle Hodges from Finance and Property Services here to present the financial status report as of the fourth quarter of 2023.
  • 00:02:25
    I want to start with one qualifying statement which is the numbers I present today are final in the system as of right now but we are going through our financial audit and so the numbers presented are not audited and so when you go to compare these to the annual comprehensive financial report in a few months you may see differences from adjustments that we make for accounting purposes.
  • 00:02:49
    Quick overview, the financial recovery from the pandemic is ongoing.
  • 00:02:54
    We do still have the headline here that in August of 2023 the Fitch rating agency upgraded the city from AA plus to AAA which matches the AAA rating from Standard and Poor's and that's the first time since 2016 we've gotten that highest rating from both of those agencies.
  • 00:03:12
    Parking revenues for 2023 are up almost 15% compared to 2022.
  • 00:03:18
    Local taxes are up over 16% compared to 2022 and exceed the budget for the third year in a row.
  • 00:03:24
    And ARPA spending continues to address the planned activities responsive to the pandemic.
  • 00:03:36
    The total book value of cash at the end of 2023 is just over $1.2 billion.
  • 00:03:40
    That's a slight decrease from where we were at the end of 2022, just down 2%.
  • 00:03:46
    The city continues to meet fund balance and net position and or cash reserve minimum targets in all funds except for the three listed here.
  • 00:03:57
    So in the self-insurance fund, we see some long-term liabilities that are offsetting what would otherwise be a sufficient cash balance of $141.4 million.
  • 00:04:07
    And the parking fund, of course, was still recovering.
  • 00:04:09
    Revenues are up, and we've decreased transfers out in 2024, so we should return to the target level in that fund.
  • 00:04:19
    And then in the sanitary sewer fund, planned capital spending
  • 00:04:23
    over prior years did spend on their cash, but they do project to return to Target in 2024.
  • 00:04:33
    So jumping into the General Fund, this is where we account for all financial resources except those that are required to be accounted for elsewhere.
  • 00:04:40
    At the end of 2023, the General Fund had a total fund balance of $210.4 million.
  • 00:04:45
    That was an increase of just over $36 million from where we ended 2022.
  • 00:04:51
    I've got a note here.
  • 00:04:53
    I'll get into on the next slide, but the unassigned fund balance in the general fund is just under 140 million.
  • 00:04:59
    In either case, we are exceeding our 17% minimum fund balance requirement as set in financial policies.
  • 00:05:04
    That number for 2023 is 113.6 million.
  • 00:05:11
    The cash balance in the general fund
  • 00:05:13
    also increased just over 35 million in 2023 to end the year at 230.9 million.
  • 00:05:27
    This next slide is something I presented for the first time last year in the fourth quarter report.
  • 00:05:31
    It gives us a good idea when we talk about fund balance in the general fund.
  • 00:05:36
    It's not all the same, so the large bar chart there in the middle you can see goes up to about 210 million like I mentioned in the previous slide, but there are several layers on the top that aren't.
  • 00:05:51
    So the first layer I'd talk about is the rollovers.
  • 00:05:55
    We'll get to that later in this meeting, but we're requesting to roll over about $25.8 million.
  • 00:06:01
    The next layer there is the restricted public safety aid that we received in 2023, so that's $19 million.
  • 00:06:10
    Again, that's restricted for specific use.
  • 00:06:16
    Then we've committed about $8 million to be responsive to the settlement agreements.
  • 00:06:23
    So that's unavailable.
  • 00:06:25
    And then finally, as with most years, we are planning to use some portion of the fund balance in the 2024 budget just as a course of business.
  • 00:06:34
    And that leaves us with that kind of solid gray area, which is about $140 million.
  • 00:06:38
    And then again, you can see the target is 113.6.
  • 00:06:41
    So those are the different components of the general fund, fund balance.
  • 00:06:51
    So how did we get there?
  • 00:06:52
    We had 2023 revenues exceeded budget by nearly $35 million.
  • 00:06:57
    You can see here the chart shows by category where we were over and under budget and then the chart below.
  • 00:07:06
    Or the table below also shows those specific numbers Kind of two things that highlight really just the state AIDS line Again, that's where we recorded the public safety aid and then under all other revenues.
  • 00:07:19
    That's where we record a variety of things, but that includes investment earnings which ended 2023 13.6 million over budget
  • 00:07:33
    And then how does that performance compare to recent history?
  • 00:07:36
    So this slide shows us over the past three years, we've averaged about 100.2% of budget, meaning we have collected just over budget.
  • 00:07:45
    In 2023, we collected more over budget than usual.
  • 00:07:50
    So it was a good year for revenue.
  • 00:07:55
    On the other side of the ledger we've got expenditures and here again we've got expenditures by major department this is kind of the new departmental structure with the reorganization so you can see the different departments there and which ones are over and under budget and again you can see in total we were about 39 million dollars under budget for 2023
  • 00:08:19
    And the other thing I mentioned there is that all other expenses line at the bottom of the table that includes all of our contingency funding Which we don't spend
  • 00:08:33
    And again, just a little bit of historical perspective, where did we end 2023 and how does that compare to prior years.
  • 00:08:41
    So in the most recent three year history, we have been under budget, spending about 95 and a half percent of budget.
  • 00:08:49
    And this year we spent just under 94% of our budget.
  • 00:08:52
    So again, pretty close to average there.
  • 00:09:00
    Over the next few slides here.
  • 00:09:02
    I'll go through specific groups of funds all all together the first group.
  • 00:09:06
    I'll talk about it of the special revenue funds as the name suggests They are used to account for the proceeds of specific revenue sources I've listed the significant special revenue funds in the second tab or second bullet the cumulative fund balance in these funds at the end of 2023 was just over 400 million and
  • 00:09:27
    That's a $35 million increase compared to 2022.
  • 00:09:31
    The cumulative cash in these funds is $458 million, which is actually a $28.2 million decrease compared to 2022.
  • 00:09:40
    And that decrease is almost entirely attributable to ARPA, so we received, of course, all of that money in 2021 and 2022, and we will continue to spend that down through 2024.
  • 00:09:54
    And then generally in these funds, the fund balances are restricted for a specific purpose, so they are what we call non-spendable restricted or assigned.
  • 00:10:10
    This table shows the cash and fund balance numbers for each fund that was listed in the previous slide.
  • 00:10:17
    So you can see there which funds increased or decreased their cash and fund balance.
  • 00:10:29
    The next group are internal service funds.
  • 00:10:31
    So again, as the name suggests, these are funds that provide services internally to other city departments.
  • 00:10:37
    And we have basically six internal service funds at the city listed in the second bullet there.
  • 00:10:43
    The cumulative net position for these funds at the end of 2023 was about 89.6 million, which was a $6.8 million increase over where they ended in 2022.
  • 00:10:54
    And the cumulative cash was about 180 million, which was just a $2.3 million increase from where they ended in 2022.
  • 00:11:03
    and again these funds are managed to provide services internally so their spending is controlled according to budget and different investments that the city determines are necessary in things like fleet vehicles, IT services and things of that nature.
  • 00:11:25
    and then this table shows us the individual funds that I mentioned on the previous page and once again which ones.
  • 00:11:34
    So increases and decreases in their cash and net position.
  • 00:11:41
    And then the final group of funds are the enterprise funds.
  • 00:11:44
    These are the funds that operate most like a business in the sense that they are selling goods and services to external third parties.
  • 00:11:50
    They include all of our utility operations listed there, as well as the parking fund and the CPED enterprise funds.
  • 00:11:57
    So in this group of funds, the cumulative net position at the end of the year was over $1.1 billion.
  • 00:12:04
    And that was just a slight increase from where they ended in 2022.
  • 00:12:08
    The total cash in these funds was just over $100 million, which was a slight decrease from where they ended 2022.
  • 00:12:16
    And I'll jump to the next and last slide, which is these funds, again, shown individually by where they ended for cash in that position.
  • 00:12:26
    And you can see, again, which ones had increases and decreases in either of those categories.
  • 00:12:34
    And that's it.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:12:37
    Thank you.
  • 00:12:38
    We'll now move into questions and discussion.
  • 00:12:42
    I see Vice Chair Koski in queue.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:12:45
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
  • 00:12:47
    Just a couple questions.
  • 00:12:48
    Thank you so much for the presentation, first of all.
  • 00:12:52
    So starting with slide five, it's the graph one.
  • 00:12:59
    I see that there's about $20 million plus of unallocated unspent funds above that fund balance amount of $113.6 million.
  • 00:13:09
    Can you let me know what that amount is specifically?
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:13:12
    So yeah, it's just under $27 million.
  • 00:13:18
    I think it would be $26.9 million.
  • 00:13:21
    That would be unassigned and above that minimum balance that we're looking at, which is the 17% number.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:13:29
    Okay, thank you.
  • 00:13:31
    And then on the same slide, the different categories, there's restricted, you know, the rollover restricted settlement grant, planned use of fund balance.
  • 00:13:44
    Can you explain to me what plan, can you kind of just re-describe that, what planned use of fund balance means?
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:13:52
    So planned use of fund balance is just the way that we describe in any given budget year the difference between all of our total projected revenues minus all the planned spending in that year's budget.
  • 00:14:11
    So for 2024 that difference was 18.3 million.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:14:16
    Okay, thank you.
  • 00:14:18
    That's helpful.
  • 00:14:20
    Then I think on slide six, where the property taxes are under budget.
  • 00:14:28
    I'm just curious.
  • 00:14:29
    I can't recall if this is typical.
  • 00:14:32
    And I'm just wondering what that discrepancy is related to.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:14:37
    Sure, Chair Tregchia, Vice Chair Koski.
  • 00:14:41
    So, again in any given year we do project that property taxes will come in less than budget because our budget is 100% of the levy.
  • 00:14:52
    And history tells us it's unlikely in any given year we'll collect 100% of our taxes.
  • 00:14:57
    This year we did end the year at about 97%.
  • 00:15:00
    In recent history we've seen slightly higher percentages, closer to 98 or 99%.
  • 00:15:07
    I don't know the reason for the discrepancy necessarily But I do know on the spending side so in the expenditure budget.
  • 00:15:17
    We do consider about a three percent Difference so we budget an expense that's equal to three percent of the levy so it kind of ensures against this type of situation Where we don't collect all the levy revenue.
  • 00:15:30
    We've got this expenditure that we're never going to spend and
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:15:32
    Okay, thank you.
  • 00:15:33
    That's helpful.
  • 00:15:35
    And then just one last question.
  • 00:15:36
    I know that this isn't pertained to this year, but just curious like as we move forward into 2024, we have the climate and equity initiative.
  • 00:15:45
    I'm just wondering where would we see that funding?
  • 00:15:48
    Like where, you know, on any of these reports or in a graph like where will that be inserted?
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:15:57
    Chair Chuck Dye, Vice Chair Koski.
  • 00:16:00
    So the dollars themselves will likely be coming in through the franchise fees line on this table.
  • 00:16:07
    Okay.
  • 00:16:08
    I don't know if Director DeCenza has a different answer.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:16:13
    Okay, so we'll see it through the franchise fee.
  • 00:16:15
    Okay, that's what I was wondering, but I just wanted to just double check.
  • 00:16:20
    Thank you so much.
  • 00:16:20
    Appreciate it.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:16:23
    Thank you.
  • 00:16:23
    Next we've got Council Member Paul Musano.
• • Linea Palmisano
  • 00:16:27
    Thank you Madam Chair.
  • 00:16:28
    Mr. Hodges, in your first couple of slides you mentioned things like ARPA spending continues and I think I recall I think that has to be spent maybe by the end of 2024 so I'm curious how much money do we have left to spend or rather do you think we will spend it or be able to get reimbursed for that fully by the end of the year with our entire ARPA allocation?
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:16:55
    Sure, Chair Chugtai, Council Member Palmisano.
  • 00:16:58
    So, with the ARPA spending, I don't know right now exactly what the balance is in that fund in terms of what needs to be spent down.
  • 00:17:07
    We will touch on that briefly in the rollover discussion as well.
  • 00:17:10
    However, as a finance team at the city here, we are planning to work with departments this summer to identify any areas
  • 00:17:20
    where spending is slower or it looks like they may not spend down their ARPA dollars on the projects as timely as we would like to see.
  • 00:17:28
    And then we have some mechanisms at our disposal to kind of repurpose those dollars and use them in the general fund while still meeting all the ARPA eligibility requirements.
  • 00:17:39
    And then that will give us a little bit of extra time for those projects to close out and complete after 2024 ends.
• • Linea Palmisano
  • 00:17:47
    Thank you.
  • 00:17:47
    I guess what's most important to me is there's a plan for that to make sure that we do.
  • 00:17:51
    My other question was just about parking revenue from last year.
  • 00:17:57
    You'd mentioned that it's up 15% and to me that's probably an indicator of downtown coming back to a degree.
  • 00:18:06
    Is there a sense of how far we are back to earlier revenue, like pre-COVID level parking revenue?
  • 00:18:17
    I believe in one of your first couple slides you said it was up 15% from last year, but I'm curious from a longer range perspective Does that mean it's recovered to 65% to 75%?
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:18:29
    I don't have specific information on that available right now.
  • 00:18:38
    I
  • 00:18:39
    So I would need to look into the longer term trend line of the parking fund revenue.
  • 00:18:44
    I do know that that 15% increase over 2022 was pretty equal in terms of both on street and off street were up by a similar amount percentage wise.
  • 00:18:55
    So I would need to get you a longer term trend to see if we're coming back to close to pre-pandemic yet or not.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:19:02
    Just curious.
  • 00:19:03
    Thank you.
  • 00:19:04
    Clerk, if we can note Councilmember Palmisano's question for administrative follow-up.
  • 00:19:09
    Just getting information back on what parking revenues look like compared to 2019 or other pre-pandemic markers.
  • 00:19:20
    Does that sound accurate, Council Member?
  • 00:19:24
    Wonderful.
  • 00:19:24
    And then I'll also note to your question around ARPA funding that we are going to receive a presentation on that in one of the upcoming meetings.
  • 00:19:35
    I cannot recall the date off the top of my head.
  • 00:19:38
    Oh, Council President Payne.
• • Elliott Payne
  • 00:19:42
    Thank you Madam Vice President I was curious on slide 11 for the special revenue funds we have a pretty significant jump for our downtown assets fund and I'm curious if there's any narrative behind that is it you know downtown's back or is there other more detailed understanding behind those
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:20:01
    So in the downtown assets fund we did see a pretty strong recovery in terms of the local tax dollars being more than we had budgeted
  • 00:20:13
    and so on the spending side we didn't plan to spend obviously if we didn't expect to collect the revenue and so we're seeing a growth in both cash and fund balance because we've just collected more revenue than we had anticipated so in future years I would assume you know we'll schedule in some more transfers or use those dollars as we can.
• • Elliott Payne
  • 00:20:33
    Thank you.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:20:35
    Wonderful seeing no further questions for Mr. Lyle I will direct the clerk to receive and file that report With that we are going to move to our next discussion item, which is the rollover of unspent 2023 appropriations And I will again invite our city controller Lyle Hodges to begin that presentation welcome back
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:21:02
    Thanks for having me.
  • 00:21:09
    I'm here to give a presentation on the rollover process and then I'll touch at a high level on the dollars that we're looking at in the 2023 rollover request to 2024.
  • 00:21:25
    So just as a grounding basis here, the authorizing language for everything that we'll discuss comes from the financial policies in the budget book, and specifically the section that I've got listed here.
  • 00:21:37
    This is just a copy and paste from the 2024 budget book, but basically it outlines five criteria that a request needs to meet in order for us to recommend that it be rolled forward.
  • 00:21:49
    So I'll just go through those quick.
  • 00:21:52
    The first one is it has to be a valid encumbrance.
  • 00:21:54
    That means that we are obligated in some way to spend the money, right?
  • 00:21:58
    So we look for things like purchase orders, contractual obligations, or something similar.
  • 00:22:05
    We also ask that these are for one-time expenditures and not a recurring budget item because something that's recurring should be in a department's current service level operational budget and wouldn't meet the criteria for rollover.
  • 00:22:19
    And then the third item there is that the rollover should have a purpose consistent
  • 00:22:24
    with the department business plan and basically this guards against things that are new ideas or last minute proposals.
  • 00:22:34
    These are things that were already planned for in the year and just didn't happen for one reason or another.
  • 00:22:40
    And then the fourth item, the department has to have budget appropriation available.
  • 00:22:44
    That seems like the common sense one here.
  • 00:22:47
    And then the fifth item is something that we decide or we determine within finance after we get all the requests just to make sure that the fund has a financial position that can support the level of rollover requested.
  • 00:23:05
    Okay, and then on the process side, financial leadership will get together and send out a message requesting rollover requests from departments.
  • 00:23:18
    Usually we do that around February of the following year, whatever year we're working in, because that's around the time that we close the books.
  • 00:23:26
    Departments are expected to respond to that request with the information showing that they meet
  • 00:23:34
    or showing that they comply with the first four requirements that were listed on the first slide.
  • 00:23:39
    And then again, once we have all the requests and we know what our year-end numbers will look like, finance confirms that the funds have sufficient remaining funds available.
  • 00:23:58
    More of the mechanics of the process.
  • 00:24:01
    We look at the responses that we get back.
  • 00:24:06
    If there are questions that need to be asked, we'll ask those.
  • 00:24:10
    This is kind of the trust but verify portion of the process where we'll look up the purchase orders, we'll confirm the amounts, the dates, and make sure that everything matches what was requested.
  • 00:24:22
    and then we bring all those items that meet the criteria to this committee, asking you to amend the 2024 budget for those items.
  • 00:24:35
    The third bullet point there is just a reconfirmation that we aren't authorizing, we're not asking to authorize new spending, we're just asking that the spending previously authorized and started can go forward and finish.
  • 00:24:51
    and then we don't ask for rollover for all funds.
  • 00:24:55
    Some of our funds like grant funds, capital projects funds and other restricted use funds are guided by different authoritative language so it wouldn't make sense for us to bring all that to you each time because grants have very specific time periods.
  • 00:25:12
    Some of our capital funds have other financial policies guiding how long
  • 00:25:17
    the appropriations last, and so we just bring the ones that don't meet those criteria.
  • 00:25:24
    Although we do bring ARPA to you, and that's just a way for us to check in and see how spending is going, how departments are feeling about their timing, and so we're bringing those today as well.
  • 00:25:41
    In the General Fund, this table shows us by department what we are recommending to be rolled over.
  • 00:25:48
    And again, we've gone through the request, we've vetted them for policy compliance and these are the ones that meet the checklist of requirements in the General Fund.
  • 00:26:05
    Similarly, these are non-general fund that aren't grant funds or the capital funds are the ones I mentioned on the previous slide.
  • 00:26:14
    So these are things like CPED, special revenue, target center, convention center, IT and water.
  • 00:26:20
    Same exercise.
  • 00:26:21
    We evaluate the requests, ensure compliance with policy, and then bring them forward to you.
  • 00:26:31
    And then finally, as I mentioned before, we are looking at ARPA and these are the departments that are requesting ARPA rollover dollars and the dollars that they are requesting to roll over.
  • 00:26:45
    And that's the end.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:26:47
    Wonderful.
  • 00:26:47
    Thank you for that presentation.
  • 00:26:49
    Any questions or discussion, colleagues?
  • 00:26:56
    Council President Payne.
• • Elliott Payne
  • 00:26:58
    Thank you Madam Vice President.
  • 00:27:00
    On the process for those four initial tests, are those criteria determined by the department or are they determined by finance?
  • 00:27:11
    Like whether or not it's met?
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:27:13
    So chair chug tie comes present pain The criteria are listed in our policies.
  • 00:27:18
    So that's approved by or proposed by finance and approved in the budget process and then Departments will propose them Listing how they meet each of those criteria and then we further check that to ensure compliance and then as a follow-up how frequently do you find that the proposal in the rationale for those four tests that you disagree with the What's recommended by the department?
  • 00:27:44
    Council President Payne I would say it's not very common I think of the 83 requests we got in the general fund this year we declined to bring forward 15 of them for various reasons either it was more of an operational expenditure it was you know maybe the contract wasn't signed until January or didn't meet one of the criteria that we proposed so it isn't very common but it does it does happen thank you
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:28:16
    Any further questions or discussion?
  • 00:28:18
    Seeing none, I will move approval of item number three and ask again if there's any further discussion.
  • 00:28:31
    All right, seeing none, those on the motion to approve?
  • 00:28:36
    All those in favor say aye.
  • 00:28:39
    Aye.
  • 00:28:40
    Those opposed say nay.
  • 00:28:42
    Any abstentions?
  • 00:28:44
    The ayes have it and that motion carries.
  • 00:28:47
    Next, item number five is a biannual personnel report legislative directive
  • 00:28:54
    This legislative directive was introduced at our last meeting on March 18th and after discussion was continued to today's meeting I will note that in between our last meeting and today's meeting We did have pretty substantive Vice Chair Koski and I did have pretty substantive discussions with the administration including with
  • 00:29:18
    and got some really good feedback.
  • 00:29:32
    I would say I think I feel really
  • 00:29:36
    I feel really good that we are on the exact same page with the administration about exactly what we're looking for.
  • 00:29:41
    In fact, after our really long meeting with HR and the DCOO, we heard back from Director Odom saying we have a better understanding of the information that the council is looking for and really appreciate taking time to have a productive and informative discussion.
  • 00:30:01
    I will also point you to one substantive change that has been made on this legislative directive that's in front of you which is changing when we are going to be receiving this information back so while it originally said that we would be receiving these the the biannual
  • 00:30:22
    Council,
  • 00:30:39
    of staff and we were able to find a way to make sure that that finance and property service is able to do their part of it and get it over to HR because Q3 again is their busiest time of year whereas HR is able to make that work.
  • 00:30:57
    So this is all figured out on the back end among staff but wanted to note that there has been a change made to better accommodate
  • 00:31:05
    staff capacity.
  • 00:31:08
    With that, I will see if there is any further questions or discussion from colleagues.
  • 00:31:16
    All right, seeing none, I will move approval of this item and ask Vice Chair Koski to second that motion.
  • 00:31:31
    Second.
  • 00:31:32
    that item has been moved and seconded and I will ask one more time if there's any further discussion.
  • 00:31:40
    Council President.
• • Elliott Payne
  • 00:31:42
    Thank you Madam Vice President.
  • 00:31:44
    I recall last term when we wanted to get some of this information the administration talked about some of the challenges they had with data.
  • 00:31:52
    Have they been able to figure out from like a infrastructure perspective how to resolve those issues or is this just kind of a brute force thing and they just need the time to do the
  • 00:32:01
    the brute force version of finding this information.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:32:06
    Thank you for that question.
  • 00:32:09
    HR and Finance are right now in the process of going through systems changes to address the exact issue and so while they're in the process of getting that work implemented and transferring over to new technology, we're in a little bit of an interim period.
  • 00:32:24
    I'm looking to our CFO and Budget Director to shake their head if I have this wrong at all.
  • 00:32:31
    where hopefully this will make the process of receiving that information a lot easier on the staff side in the future.
  • 00:32:42
    Any other questions?
  • 00:32:44
    Councilmember Palmisano.
• • Linea Palmisano
  • 00:32:47
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
  • 00:32:48
    I do appreciate the additional work done on this legislative directive and the extra time that has been spent.
  • 00:32:56
    It feels to me like the amendments here probably better coincide with our regular budget transmittal timeline.
  • 00:33:05
    And it will help us start the year with everybody on the same page I do think our budget process our regular budget process is already designed to get these things in time We're all aware of vacancy savings.
  • 00:33:20
    I Struggle a little bit with what's the problem?
  • 00:33:22
    We're trying to solve with this It feels like it's a little bit more for show than it is about collaboration
  • 00:33:31
    And to the council president's point my understanding when I did take that extra cycle to check in with staff is that this is something that is Probably just normal information if we had a full working new HR system This is these are facts and figures that could just get spit out of that system and submitted the problem is it's going to take an enormous effort and a huge focus on
  • 00:33:55
    that implementation to get us to that point.
  • 00:33:58
    So trying to manually do this lift without that in place is both taking away from other priorities and not helping us get to the angle of being able to have this kind of information at our fingertips and our directors of different departments being able to have this at our fingertips every day.
  • 00:34:15
    So I won't be able to support this today, but I do appreciate the extra work on it.
  • 00:34:20
    Thank you.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:34:21
    Thank you.
  • 00:34:23
    Seeing no further discussion on this item, I will ask the Clerk to call the roll.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:34:31
    Council Member Payne.
  • 00:34:32
    Aye.
  • 00:34:33
    Wonsley.
  • 00:34:34
    Aye.
  • 00:34:36
    Vita.
  • 00:34:36
    No.
  • 00:34:40
    Osman.
  • 00:34:41
    Aye.
  • 00:34:42
    Cashman.
  • 00:34:43
    Aye.
  • 00:34:44
    Jenkins.
  • 00:34:45
    Nay.
  • 00:34:47
    Chavez.
  • 00:34:48
    Aye.
  • 00:34:49
    Chaudry.
• • 00:34:50
    Aye.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:34:51
    Council Member Jenkins
  • 00:35:10
    which is a resolution regarding small business financing to supplement existing programs.
  • 00:35:15
    This item is being brought by Council members Osman, Wonsley, Chavez and Cashman and staff from our Community Planning and Economic Development Department are on hand to answer
  • 00:35:26
    any questions and perhaps shed some more light into existing programs.
  • 00:35:32
    So I will first see if any of the authors would like to introduce this item and then we'll invite staff to come up as well.
  • 00:35:41
    Any authors want to speak on this item?
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 00:35:44
    I'm in queue.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:35:45
    I see Councilmember Wonsley in queue.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 00:35:47
    Thank you, Council Vice President.
  • 00:35:50
    So after several weeks now in conversations with CPET staff, the co-authors and I are actually going to pull this motion, but we'll ask that staff come up and as agreed upon in the email correspondence and conversations we've had, staff will talk about the
  • 00:36:08
    small business financing initiatives that they do have in place, the amounts of dollars that are at the disposal or that are or can be made accessible to businesses in the community that are looking to receive financing support and to also overview existing programs like our CTAP and BTAP initiatives.
  • 00:36:32
    So I will ask if you could extend an invitation for staff to come up and share a little bit more about that.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:36:38
    Wonderful, thank you Councilmember.
  • 00:36:39
    I will invite Director Eric Hanson and Mr.
  • 00:36:44
    Miles Mercer to come up.
  • 00:36:46
    Mr. Mercer, I believe you're going to be presenting on this item.
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 00:36:51
    Welcome.
  • 00:36:52
    Thank you.
  • 00:36:53
    Good morning council members.
  • 00:36:55
    I'm Miles Mercer.
  • 00:36:56
    I'm the manager of the business development group within CPED, the Community Planning and Economic Development Department, and it's my team that administers an array of small business and commercial real estate financing programs in the city.
  • 00:37:11
    I have to send regrets for my colleague Emily Peterson, who is the interim manager of the city's small business team.
  • 00:37:17
    Small business team administers
  • 00:37:19
    the City's technical assistance programs for businesses and co-ops.
  • 00:37:23
    Unfortunately, she had a death in the family.
  • 00:37:25
    She's at a funeral this morning.
  • 00:37:26
    So, but I can speak to the technical assistance programs as well.
  • 00:37:30
    So that's what I'd like to do is just give a couple of introductory remarks about our small business financing programs and technical assistance programs.
  • 00:37:38
    And since this is the Budget Committee, talk about some of the numbers, the dollar amounts related to them.
  • 00:37:43
    So the city has an array of financing programs to support businesses expanding in the city and also commercial real estate projects.
  • 00:37:53
    and so the small business financing program, these small business loans is one of those tools in that broader array.
  • 00:38:01
    There are three main programs in this small business loans category.
  • 00:38:08
    Our biggest, our most used, our most well known is called the 2% loan program because it has a 2% interest rate involved with it.
  • 00:38:17
    The second program that we use is called the Alternative Financing Program and you can think of it as a different flavor of the 2% loan program because many years ago the city created this program in order to make a Islamic compliant lending program for those who because of religious reasons didn't want to have financing that had interest.
  • 00:38:40
    So this was an alternative way to provide financing to those sorts of business owners with those sort of beliefs.
  • 00:38:47
    and then the third program which is, I'll say, hardly ever used but is on our books and we still have a couple of loans that are outstanding.
  • 00:38:56
    It's called the Business Development Fund and in some ways it's very similar to the 2% loan program but instead of getting a lower interest rate, there's a chance to get some of the principal forgiven from the loan.
  • 00:39:07
    So those are the three main types and I will say two things about the design of these programs that I think are important for people to understand.
  • 00:39:18
    One is that these are participation loans.
  • 00:39:21
    So what does that mean?
  • 00:39:22
    So participation loans means that the city is taking a participation in a loan that a private lender is already going to do.
  • 00:39:30
    So these businesses need to be able to attract and secure private financing, whether that's from a bank or a nonprofit community development financial institution.
  • 00:39:41
    And so that bank or that private lender decides how much they can loan to a project,
  • 00:39:45
    and often if there's still a gap in the project because maybe for some reason there's just not enough that the bank can provide enough, they can come to the city and the city can provide up to $75,000 at a 2% interest rate that we're participating in the bank's loan.
  • 00:40:02
    And so one of the key things that that does is, since we're participating, is it's that private lender who ends up servicing the debt, servicing the loan.
  • 00:40:10
    So they're the ones that do all the mechanics of actually closing on the transaction, dispersing the funds, and then, importantly, these loans are paid back.
  • 00:40:19
    They play the role of collecting those repayments from the borrower.
  • 00:40:23
    and remitting the city's portion back to the city.
  • 00:40:27
    And then if there is a borrower that runs into any trouble, there needs to be a workout or maybe a collection, it's the private lender who handles that.
  • 00:40:35
    So setting it up as a participation loan allows the city to really
  • 00:40:39
    use the capabilities of our private lenders, again whether they're a for-profit or a non-profit lender, to service these loans and provide them to businesses in the community.
  • 00:40:49
    And so a key thing is that a borrower for the city's loan programs needs to be able to track that private debt.
  • 00:40:57
    The second thing that I think is important to understand is what sort of costs the city loan can go towards.
  • 00:41:04
    The eligible costs for the city's loan program are capital expenses, meaning paying for physical assets, so whether that could be improvements to a property, so say a business is
  • 00:41:17
    We can help pay for those improvements to that space.
  • 00:41:28
    Sometimes a business may be actually purchasing a real estate property
  • 00:41:33
    We can, in cases, participate on that purchase of that real estate.
  • 00:41:38
    Sometimes there may be certain fixed equipment that's important to the production.
  • 00:41:42
    We can participate in that fixed equipment.
  • 00:41:44
    So again, it's about physical assets, it's about capital expenses.
  • 00:41:48
    Those are the eligible costs of the city's small business financing programs.
  • 00:41:52
    In contrast, things like operating costs, or what we call working capital, so maybe some costs like to pay for insurance or licensing fees.
  • 00:42:02
    Those are not eligible costs under the city's small business financing programs.
  • 00:42:09
    And then I'll just mention briefly on the technical assistance side of things, we have both technical assistance for businesses, BTAP, Business Technical Assistance Program, and technical assistance programs for cooperatives.
  • 00:42:21
    The way we work through those is similar in that we leverage partners.
  • 00:42:27
    And so what these programs are doing is paying for partners in the community, non-profit organizations, and in some cases some small consultants to pay to provide the technical assistance to businesses.
  • 00:42:40
    and so currently the BTAP program has about 25 providers.
  • 00:42:44
    We go through an annual process to solicit and select those providers and then they can go and work with different communities and different entrepreneurs around the city.
  • 00:42:57
    There is some overlap in those providers and those nonprofit community development financial institutions that I mentioned before.
  • 00:43:04
    So there's about seven of our BTAP providers who are also set up to do lending and those nonprofits
  • 00:43:13
    to varying degrees have programs that fund both the capital that I was talking about before, but also working capital or the operating expenses.
  • 00:43:20
    So that would be in addition to thinking about banks, businesses if they're in need of working capital can think about those nonprofit lenders as well.
  • 00:43:29
    CTAP, which is the cooperative version of our technical assistance programs, also has a smaller number of community partners that we work with that provide that technical assistance.
  • 00:43:40
    We even have some funding available to help pay for the transaction costs in creating a co-op, whether those are sort of different legal costs, different organizational setup costs.
  • 00:43:53
    So that's the array of programming we have both on financing and technical assistance.
  • 00:44:00
    And then since this is the budget committee, just a couple of numbers.
  • 00:44:03
    The appropriation in the city's budget and CPEDS budget for our small business financing programs this year and for the past several many years has been 2.2 million dollars.
  • 00:44:15
    Last year, we closed on 28 small business loans programs.
  • 00:44:21
    Most of them were the 2% loan program.
  • 00:44:23
    There was a handful of alternative financing programs.
  • 00:44:27
    And those loans totaled to $1.6 million.
  • 00:44:31
    and just to give some perspective back in 2022 we closed on 25 loans so just a hair less but those also amounted to about 1.6 million dollars.
  • 00:44:44
    I will say that the last couple years especially coming out of the pandemic 2020 and 2021 were low volume years for us and 22 and 23 we're starting to see some recovery.
  • 00:44:55
    I would say there's also been some increased interest in our programs because of the overall increase in interest rates in the market.
  • 00:45:03
    And so, seeing 2% loan money from the city is a lot more attractive to a borrower these days, and so we are getting some more interest.
  • 00:45:12
    So far this year, we have closed on eight loans, amounting to about half a million dollars.
  • 00:45:20
    So those those are the the numbers I have ready for you.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:45:24
    I'm happy to Talk about it more and stand for any questions Thank You, mr. Mercer, I see a couple of colleagues in Q will start with councilmember cashman Thank you so much.
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 00:45:37
    Mr. Mercer I was wondering what a business has to to show to be eligible for the 2% loan and also to be eligible for BTAP Are they the same requirements for both?
• • 00:45:47
    Yeah
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 00:45:47
    Thank you, Madam Chair, Councilmember Cashman.
  • 00:45:53
    So to apply for the BTAP program, it's really about getting connected with these network of providers that we have.
  • 00:46:00
    And so I think typically our providers will do some sort of intake
  • 00:46:04
    and try to understand what's the status of that business and what are their needs and do some sort of assessment of can that particular provider meet that business' technical assistance needs.
  • 00:46:15
    Some may need help putting together a business plan.
  • 00:46:17
    Some may need help putting together the documents they need to apply for a loan.
  • 00:46:21
    So really for the intake for the technical assistance programs, it's really just connecting with the providers and seeing if there's a match there.
  • 00:46:28
    In terms of the small business financing programs, I would say it really should start with that private lender.
  • 00:46:34
    Since that's so essential to our loan program is that the borrower should be talking to hopefully a number of different lenders to understand their options.
  • 00:46:44
    And as they're starting to circle in on a particular primary lender,
  • 00:46:49
    We do have an application form that they can then submit to us.
  • 00:46:53
    Often we get many of our leads for new borrowing from the banks or the non-profit CDFI's themselves because they realize they know about our programs.
  • 00:47:02
    They say, hey, we have an opportunity to use it here.
  • 00:47:05
    And so there is an application.
  • 00:47:07
    We will ultimately need to see that that senior loan is approved and then we will review the loan ourselves at the staff level and make a decision on it.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:47:17
    Thank you.
  • 00:47:20
    Council Member Wonsley.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 00:47:22
    Thank you, Council Vice President.
  • 00:47:25
    Just had a question regarding BTAP and just wanted to make sure if there are providers that also offer support for app-based businesses or ride-share businesses.
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 00:47:39
    Good question, so I guess my reaction is yes and it depends because yes, certainly those sorts of businesses would be eligible for any sort of technical assistance and it depends in the sense that it depends upon what that business needs in terms of technical assistance.
  • 00:47:59
    If they needed help with putting together a business plan, that would be an eligible use.
  • 00:48:04
    If they needed help putting together maybe some documents for a license application to the city, that could be an eligible use.
  • 00:48:11
    So depending upon what the needs are of those businesses, we might have a technical assistance provider that may be able to help them or not.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 00:48:19
    Thank you for that.
  • 00:48:20
    And just a little bit more context, too.
  • 00:48:24
    The reason why my co-authors and I brought forward this motion is in
  • 00:48:29
    Council.
  • 00:48:42
    they're experiencing as they're preparing to enter into the market and wanting to make sure that as a city we're being attentive and responsive to some of those needs.
  • 00:48:52
    We learned as we were having these conversations that the city offered several initiatives that
  • 00:49:00
    our staff just outlined here that seemed to be very successful in supporting small businesses and we wanted to bring additional appropriation because we also know that we didn't want these alternative or emerging ride share companies to be in conflict with other small businesses for this specific set of funds.
  • 00:49:23
    So we want to discourage that competition but staff has reassured us that this, again it's about 2.7 million dollars 2.2 million dollars could handle an uptick in applications for this year
  • 00:49:40
    ride share companies pursue this funding.
  • 00:49:43
    They're eligible like any other small business.
  • 00:49:46
    And that the 150 was not needed in response to this guarantee that there will not be conflict amongst potential applicants.
  • 00:49:58
    So we're really grateful to hear that the 2.2 could handle or absorb
  • 00:50:06
    and also on average we're spending about a little over a million dollars to support small businesses each year since the pandemic though that
  • 00:50:21
    that has changed things.
  • 00:50:22
    So, I at least wanted to give some context and thank staff for giving a presentation on what is available, how small businesses can access it, and encourage, you know, any ride share company that feels like you have an expense that is eligible listed, you know, from staff here and on the website.
  • 00:50:42
    Feel free to contact our CPET staff.
  • 00:50:45
    And see if you can get linked to these or other BTAP providers.
  • 00:50:49
    So again, thank you staff and Again, looking to pull the item so no need for a vote on it today Thank You councilmember next we've got council president Payne
• • Elliott Payne
  • 00:51:02
    Thank you Vice President.
  • 00:51:03
    I was curious you know seeing about 1.6 million out of the 2.2 total I'm assuming there's either a rollover provision in there or we just have that kind of set budget but I was curious if there's a pretty standard ratio in terms of how much is paying in from those loans over the lifespan of the fund?
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 00:51:23
    Great question Madam Chair, Council President Payne.
  • 00:51:27
    So one important thing is you're alluding to is that as I said these small business finance programs are paid back and the revenues from those programs do go into the city's general fund just as the appropriation comes to general fund the revenues go back into the general fund
  • 00:51:43
    The amount of money that we've collected on those revenues has certainly varied over the years and certainly varied over the last couple years because of them being COVID years and our revenues have gone down in part because we actually originated fewer loans over the last few years and we also used some of the money for some of our emergency loan programs that we stood up during the height of the COVID pandemic
  • 00:52:13
    So it's I don't have the numbers right in front of me, but it's on the order of say a million dollars Plus or minus in the last year or so about the amount of revenues that we've been receiving Excellent I don't think I need a formal follow-up, but that was I was just trying to get a ballpark understanding.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:52:31
    So, thank you Thank you next we've got councilmember Jenkins Thank you, thank you chair and
  • 00:52:44
    I'm just curious, can you speak to the commercial development program a little bit?
  • 00:52:50
    And then secondly, are there programs that are, I know we have some providers that are specific to various communities, Latino economic development, etc.
  • 00:53:04
    Are there any specific African American support entities that we contract with?
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 00:53:14
    Great questions.
  • 00:53:15
    Madam Chair, Council Member Jenkins, so you mentioned the Commercial Property Development Fund financing tool which is now known as the Ownership and Opportunity Fund as of this year.
  • 00:53:29
    So as I said at the top, the CPED administers an array of programs that assist small businesses in commercial property development and so the program, the tool that you're talking about is part of that array.
  • 00:53:40
    I think of it as separately than the small business financing programs because
  • 00:53:44
    because of some of the traits of this program.
  • 00:53:49
    So with the Ownership and Opportunity Fund, formerly known as the Commercial Property Development Fund, that is for real estate development specifically and acquisition of real estate.
  • 00:53:59
    It is by small businesses, so you can think of it, yes, it does help small businesses, but
  • 00:54:03
    It's structured very differently in that it is a forgivable loan, and so it doesn't have the repayments.
  • 00:54:10
    It's also a loan that the city services directly, so we don't have—while we want to see projects having private lenders involved, it's—our loan is not serviced by those private lenders.
  • 00:54:21
    So the point is that there's some differences about how the tool is structured, that it is part of our array of tools, but it's distinct from—and it's also—since this is a budget committee, it's separately funded
  • 00:54:33
    from the small business financing tools.
  • 00:54:38
    And then to your next question about the community-based organizations that we work with, you're absolutely right that they represent different geographies of the city and also different cultural groups of the city.
  • 00:54:49
    So we have groups and so the contracting with in terms of the technical assistance programs, the answer is yes.
  • 00:54:57
    So we have the African Development Center,
  • 00:54:59
    We have Latino Economic Development Center NEON, Northside Economic Opportunity Network is one that's particularly focused on African American community All these providers won't serve anybody but they have certain cultural competency with certain groups and different geographies of the city
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:55:20
    And then just one last follow-up if I may.
  • 00:55:22
    How much funds are committed to the owner opportunity program?
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 00:55:30
    Yeah, thank you.
  • 00:55:31
    Madam Chair, Councilmember Jenkins, so the Commercial Property Development Fund, now known as the Ownership and Opportunity Fund, for 2024 has $3.5 million of appropriation.
  • 00:55:44
    We do have some appropriation from prior years still uncommitted.
  • 00:55:51
    I don't have the exact number in my head, but there's at least a couple of million in there.
  • 00:55:58
    But we also have a pretty robust pipeline of projects that we've been talking to that would really like to get this funding.
  • 00:56:04
    And so the new appropriation from this year is really helping to give us a little more breathing room to try to accommodate some of those requests.
  • 00:56:13
    and we've started to bring new loan approvals to the Council in the last couple of cycles for this year and we expect more to come.
  • 00:56:22
    So yes, but that program is separately funded than the small business financing.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:56:30
    Thank you, Mr. Mercer.
• • Linea Palmisano
  • 00:56:33
    Excellent.
  • 00:56:33
    Council Member Palmisano.
  • 00:56:35
    Thank you Madam Chair.
  • 00:56:37
    You know immediately when this idea came up and was floated by my colleagues it seemed
  • 00:56:44
    It seemed inappropriate.
  • 00:56:46
    First of all, my first thought was the BTAP program, which from what you've just said today confirms my own sense that there's approximately 1.7 million dollars available for BTAP because it's 2.2 annually and you said that we've used about a half a million dollars of it.
  • 00:57:03
    Can you clarify that?
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 00:57:04
    Yeah, thanks for the question.
  • 00:57:05
    So Madam Chair, Councilmember Palasano,
  • 00:57:08
    The appropriation numbers I've given are for the small business financing program, so the 2% loans, the loan programs.
  • 00:57:15
    That appropriation is $2.2 million.
  • 00:57:18
    BTAP is separately appropriated.
  • 00:57:22
    It has a separate line item, so the technical assistance programs.
  • 00:57:25
    I believe that amounts to about $350,000 in this current year and we've had some past appropriation and it also benefited from some ARPA funds in the last couple years.
  • 00:57:37
    But my understanding is that there is, having talked with the small business team, is that there is still appropriation, still funds available in the contracts we have with
  • 00:57:46
    our various VTAP providers and so there is capacity within the technical assistance program to take in new inquiries and new new clients.
• • Linea Palmisano
  • 00:57:56
    And the 1.7 million dollars then is available in our 2% loan program?
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 00:58:03
    Madam Chair, Councilmember Palacios, yes that is that is the that is that is so it's a 2.2 annual appropriation so far we've used about half a million of it so about
  • 00:58:15
    1.7 is available.
• • Linea Palmisano
  • 00:58:16
    Yeah that feels like you know a fair amount of money but I will say that I appreciate my colleagues retracting this and having this presentation instead.
  • 00:58:27
    Bringing this forward caused a whole lot of frustration and outcry from the public on this.
  • 00:58:35
    about fairness, about how this would get considered equitably, about how if this were to be appropriated and appropriated just for the purpose of TNCs that we'd have to create a whole program for that first before we could just be giving out taxpayer money to such a thing.
  • 00:58:53
    And so this I think is a perfect example of what happens when Council isn't consulting staff and working with them because I'm so glad that we are able to fulfill this and much more than $150,000 of potential desire to start up ride shares in our community with our existing programs.
  • 00:59:14
    So thank you very much for this presentation.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:59:18
    Thank you, Councilmember.
  • 00:59:19
    I put myself in queue.
  • 00:59:21
    I am curious if you can speak to the range of loan requests that we get, specifically for the 2% loan, the alternative financing and business development fund, so that range of three that you walked through.
  • 00:59:36
    What's the range of request amounts that we give, and how does that compare to the range of awards that are then received?
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 00:59:44
    Madam Chair, good question.
  • 00:59:45
    So the terms of the range of loan amounts and requests that we get for these small business financing programs, it really ranges.
  • 00:59:53
    So it can be pretty small.
  • 00:59:55
    I can't remember the smallest one we've done lately, but it could be as much as $5,000.
  • 01:00:01
    It could be as much as $10,000.
  • 01:00:03
    So one thing about our program is we need to match, at least match, what the private lender is doing.
  • 01:00:09
    So the private lender has to bring the same amount that we're bringing or more.
  • 01:00:13
    So if it's a small project that the business is doing, say it's a $10,000 project and the lender's going to do $4,000 and they want $4,000 from us and then the borrower's going to put in $2,000, we can do that.
  • 01:00:27
    Our maxes that we can do is in
  • 01:00:30
    There is a geographic component to this.
  • 01:00:35
    The city has designated Great Streets areas as part of our Great Streets program.
  • 01:00:39
    In all those Great Streets areas, the max loan amount the city can do is $75,000, so up to $75,000.
  • 01:00:45
    So we do often have folks who have a loan that say, you know, if you're going into a store front and you need to fit out the inside for your business, that can amount to several hundreds of thousands of dollars.
  • 01:00:59
    And so the private loan could be also a few hundred thousand dollars.
  • 01:01:05
    And so that would provide the match to the city's loan of up to $75,000.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 01:01:11
    Wonderful, thank you very much.
  • 01:01:13
    And then last in queue so far is Councilmember Wonsley.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 01:01:17
    Thank you, Council Vice President.
  • 01:01:19
    I just wanted to correct some misinformation that was shared from Councilmember Palmisano.
  • 01:01:25
    So our staff worked very closely with staff throughout this process.
  • 01:01:29
    The language that's included in the RCA was actually provided and reviewed and edited from our City Attorney's Office.
  • 01:01:35
    So I at least want to name and also give credit to my staff who work very diligently through our respective processes to bring our work forward.
  • 01:01:46
    So I just want to make sure that factual information is shared with the public.
  • 01:01:53
    to the item that was being considered today that I have asked to be pulled and would ask if council members are not part of conversations directly to refrain from sharing false information.
  • 01:02:07
    So just wanted to correct that.
  • 01:02:08
    Thank you.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 01:02:11
    Seeing no further discussion on this item and noting that council member Wansley has pulled this item from consideration today.
  • 01:02:23
    We have no action to take here and with that I will thank you Mr. Mercer for joining us and providing an overview of this information.
  • 01:02:34
    We've concluded all the business to come before committee today and without objection we stand adjourned.