Harrisburg City Council - Budget Hearing Meeting - December 4th 2024

I'm sorry for the delay.

I was waiting for my host to start the meeting.

We're going to go ahead and get the first budget hearing started.

So starting off with our agenda.

I believe the first office will be speaking with us to the office of the mayor.

We'll just ask that each department gives a brief overview of their department.

Some of the things they do.

And then start by going through the questions that were previously answered.

Mr. Chancellor will open it up and if there are other questions we'll move from there.

Okay, good evening.

We will start with a roll call.

Mr. Trus, though. Could you call the roll?

Miss Daniels.

Miss Davis.

Present.

Miss Green.

I think I'm here.

Mr. Jones.

Here.

Miss Rose.

Present.

Mr. Rodriguez.

Present.

Miss Bowers.

Present.

All right.

Back to you.

If you'd like to give a brief overview and then move forward from there.

Thank you.

Okay.

Can you hear me okay?

All right.

My name is Sam Sikowski.

I'm the business administrator.

I'll be covering the mayor's, initially the mayor's office.

Makeup, as you know is the mayor.

We also have the director of equity compliance.

The special assistant for community affairs.

The special assistant to the mayor.

The special assistant to the director of equity compliance.

And the confidential secretary to the mayor is that staff of five people.

Okay.

You want to talk about the budget numbers?

You just want to go to the questions.

If you want to, if there's something you want to highlight about the budget numbers,

you can go over those if you'd like.

It's not a large budget so we don't mind.

Some of the other departments, obviously, if they went over every line,

they'd be able to do it right along.

And then from there, we don't move on to the questions or asked.

Well, actually the budget is pretty flat from last year.

I think the total overall increase.

And most of that was due to payroll increases to the staff,

not the mayor, that's set by legislative authority.

It was only about $10,000.

75% of that it was for payroll increases.

And so everything else, I think it was a small increase in travel because the mayor is actively involved in the Pennsylvania Municipal League.

She does have to go to conferences periodically.

So the budget is basically the same as last year except for the $10,000 in our increase.

So if you want to ask any questions about the budget numbers, be happy to answer this for you.

Anybody?

No, I think we can move on to the questions that were asked.

And then once we review over those, if anyone has any questions, we'll open it up there.

Okay.

Just to give you a significant budget changes, as I just mentioned, they really weren't any departmental diversity.

I think the entire mayoral staff is African-American, I believe.

Vacancies, there's no vacancies in the mayor's staff.

We don't expect any new positions.

Here today budget, I think the current budget and the proposed budget is pretty much identical.

So we don't expect any major variances there.

There's no rules, no payroll increases to exceed the 2% increases.

I think the departmental highlights, I think there's been a lot of work done on affordable housing.

Meeting with the government's office regularly.

A lot of development on capital improvements.

A lot of development on economic development.

So a lot of those were covered in the state of the city address, which some of you members of the council participated in.

So I think there's a somewhat of a setback because of some vacancies in the governor's, I'm not the governor, but the mayor's cabinet, including the business administrative position, which has been filled.

We just filled this week the director of communications position and the director of finance.

That's in the background stages.

So hopefully we'll have something ready to go in the next couple weeks on that one.

Once that position is filled, the mayor's cabinet would be pretty much completed.

All right, thank you.

Just for everyone who is listening, all the departments listening, that might not be presenting tonight.

I'm sure we have those questions that were asked beforehand if they could be answered and writing.

And then sent to us, that makes it a lot easier for us to be able to go over them and follow along with them as well.

And also makes for sure we get that thorough answer.

Because I think everybody's African American sounds like an answer.

But being able to do that background research is the reason why we send the questions beforehand so that we can make for sure we have that thorough answer afterwards.

So that would be appreciated.

I have a couple of questions that I know were asked beforehand, but don't seem to be answered.

One was what are the capital projects that are being planned for the city for 2025 and what major projects were completed in 2024?

Okay.

The project that were approved so far was improvements to the building here that we're standing in.

We're sitting in.

We've got a grant, the LSA grant to pay for some of that.

We applied for a second grant this past month.

We had to end the member for an additional amount of money to cover those.

So there's a significant, so those have already been approved by Council for 2025.

And so that's sorry, I don't know.

But I just want to make it clear that's upgrades to the city building to this to the atrium to these chambers to the bathrooms.

Just a little more specific. I'm pretty sure it's to the rest of the upgraded.

I believe what we passed that one.

Well, the ones I have here, lobby or carpeting non working valves in the mechanical room switch gear replacements window coverings insulation walls, second and third floors.

We we apply for much larger grant.

And since we didn't get the full amount, we got 40% of it.

We had to pair back into phases to when the process of doing that.

And that's what the second LSA grant was for last month was to sort of make up for that.

So we can.

I think when you talk to Dave Baker, you can fill in more about the details.

So those are the projects that were also as you know, we're doing the baseball stadium.

So that's ongoing now.

It's supposed to be finished by the end of next year.

We also have some improvements to the public safety building.

And also to public works building.

We're looking for replacement generator for the public works emergency circuit expansion.

So those are just some of the public works improvements of a VMC roof replacement also.

Those are the current 2025 capital projects.

2024.

These are ones are in progress.

The HVAC system for the public safety building.

First floor upgrades to the an ADA upgrades to the public safety building.

The finance commissioners offices, the substation roof replacement mansion roof replacement public works bathroom.

BSM brick building restoration.

FMB state of renovation.

These are ones we're in progress.

The polls have not really started yet.

And I think the reservoir parks spray alley is in progress.

Wilson Park is in progress.

And seventh, a random.

That's in progress also.

So that's sort of a quick rundown of the projects for this year next year.

Okay, if we could get those and writing to just.

If we could get them.

So you can email them to us.

And it's going to be easier for us to review over.

Some of those.

Excuse me, actually.

In addition to what business administrator.

Could you speak a little closer?

In addition to what the business administrator.

In terms of capital projects, we have the capital projects fund that list out exactly the capital projects that are dedicated to 4 2025.

So it would be for the capital projects fund section of the budget book.

It will have a list of each capital project there as well.

That engineering and traffic engineering or city engineer.

As well as.

Our public works area.

All right.

Thank you.

Just kind of.

Looking at the list that you kind of want over.

That list.

That's on that capital projects.

All right.

For 2025 because it was pushed back from 2024.

No, stay sure it is not on there.

It is not on there for 2025 that I understand.

But it's in the capital check in the capital projects.

The capital project fund section of the book.

It will list everything.

All right.

So it's the plans of those they should or not.

So it will defer to the budget book.

For anybody following along its own page.

224.

And.

Stay sure you just listed.

It.

If I may interject something real quick.

The list I gave you earlier was primarily from the facilities.

That didn't include roads that type of thing.

The roads with different section.

And I also felt that when the public work structure.

Before you he be able to address those a little bit more detail.

But as as President said starting on 224.

Does list those capital projects and.

In law, the road work.

That's going to be done is on that page.

All right.

I'll just I guess clarify why I asked a question to the mayor's office.

It's more so just because you know the mayor is the.

Head of the administration.

The brains behind the operation right there.

The mastermind behind the plans.

So it was just more of the big picture.

What is what is the mayor's plan for these capital projects?

Where the big projects for the city of Harrisburg.

You know kind of that wow factor.

You know like what are we doing for the city of Harrisburg?

What are the big things we're looking to do to move forward in 2025?

And what have we completed of these big projects of 2024?

So of 2024 what has been completed?

Well some of them have been completed a lot more in progress.

Also.

Back to the joy of the more still in progress.

All right.

I'm going to open it up to other questions and I'll come back to mine.

So I'll start to my far left here with Councilman Jones.

Thank you vice president Green. I don't have any questions.

Councilman Rodriguez.

No questions for me. Thank you.

Councilwoman Rawls.

Thank you. It could be a question for I won't good evening before I say anything.

But it could be a question for engineering.

I'm sure but I had spoke with the engineer and I had spoke with Mr. Griffin about the

sinkhole or the issue with the parking lot at the Civil War Museum.

I've been went up there with them they were getting a quote from somebody about how much it would cost because right now the Civil War Museum has a

million dollar grant that we would have to match but I'm not sure if that was presented to be one of the projects or if that's on the list.

I don't know if anybody heard my question.

Yes.

That's new knowledge to me.

I don't know if he's in that department.

I know he's an engineer but I don't know if he's in that same role anymore.

So I don't know if I would see him.

Yes.

Okay.

Did you all did he speak to anybody or did the engineer speak to anybody about the Civil War Museum in the parking lot and that possibly being in the budget?

Okay.

So then I'll ask him to because I know it's an issue I don't want us to be reactive about it.

I know there were some things done but it's still not enough.

It leans all the way down and McDevid is right underneath it where the bridge is and the bridge program or it is an issue.

So if they have a grant and we could possibly match it I wanted to see if it was in the budget but I can ask them.

Civil War Museum did ask for a grant through the Duffian County.

At this point we're not going to allocate any more money to the Civil War Museum.

There are some discussions that we are ongoing on a big basis.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

President Bowers, any questions?

Yes, thank you.

So following up on the Diversity Statistics question that was asked I'm just curious about the diversity complement within the office.

And if any of the current employees are bilingual so I wanted to add those two questions.

Can you please provide a job description for the special assistant for community affairs?

Yes, so jobs descriptions for the special assistant to the mayor and for the confidential secretary to the mayor, please.

Each of those jobs descriptions were submitted to the City Council last year.

Well, I wanted to ensure that nothing had changed in the role so that's why I was asking so I could compare the job description.

There's nothing changed in that role at this point.

Okay, thank you.

What training and travel are provided for in this budget?

I'm sorry, would you please your question?

What training and travel are provided for in this budget?

As I mentioned earlier I think is the mayor is very active with the Pennsylvania Municipal League and she attends those conferences.

You're on the executive board.

So those are.

I was just curious if there are other employees within the office.

I wanted to know if they had training and travel opportunities as well so that's why I was asking the question.

Our secretary is now going online training and I am now involved in the Pennsylvania Mayor's Association on board as well.

What type of online training?

Just curious.

I think it's worth as I think she's doing the English.

There's three parts to that training and one is English grammar.

The other two is I think with writing skills and I'm not sure what the third one is.

Okay.

All right.

My next question I believe would be for Mr. Singleton.

It's regarding the departmental monthly spend data.

I think there was a question that was asked and it looks like the spend or increase in diversity contracting has decreased.

I was just trying to determine if the monthly spend to date numbers were reflective of this contracting at all.

I was just trying to explain it clearly what I set out to do initially when we came down it was the overall spend.

That's what I in term, term raw data.

In 2023 we did not, as you recall, back out non-negotiables.

For example, CRW, UGI, other spends that, where we got our gas from, et cetera.

The year was to show where that raw number was still there.

However, after we did the backouts, there was then another opportunity to show where DBE spend had actually increased based on the number that was remaining.

So to answer your question, if I did raw numbers to raw numbers, there was actually decrease.

When, as we discussed, we measured apples and apples, which is here to numbers that are allowed to be opened up for bid for everyone.

That's where you see the actual increase.

So I wanted to be as transparent as possible with that.

No, thanks for clarifying, because I wasn't clear based on the response to this question. So thank you for that.

I don't have any other questions.

Thank you. Count to them and Davis.

I don't have any questions at this time.

Thank you. Count to them and Daniels.

No questions right now.

Thank you. I do have a couple more questions that were asked, but I don't think the answer was given for the office of the mayor.

Let's see. Oh, has there been a concrete economic development plan put in place for the city?

I think the property will be down here in front of you showing it with you, the plan update.

Okay. It was just a yes or no question. Yes. Yes. We have a concrete economic development plan.

Yes, Mr. Roberts will be down here and she will give you an overall view of what the plan is supposed to be.

Thank you. I definitely look forward to that. I know it's something that Mr. Graves kind of started presenting last year, and then said that he was supposed to present it to the ICA.

He kind of gave us like a really large document. So I really look forward to seeing that and we're developed into this year.

So I'm glad to hear that we do have a plan in place.

Well, Mr. Graves plan is not accurate. So what he presented to the ICA was not accurate. So we are now looking at that plan.

I think she's making some changes.

All right. I'm definitely glad to hear that.

I think that's all the questions that I had. Are there any other questions or comments?

Yes. I have a follow up question on that. The plan that Mr. Graves shared is inaccurate according to who?

Ancourgenous story, Martin Roberts.

So she's the standard bearer for the plan.

Well, yes, she has a disspoint because when she went through the plan, she was not satisfied with the information that was prepared.

And what expertise does she have that guides her being the end all be off for this particular plan?

She's not been end all be all the sheet and those sheet very intelligent.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

She didn't feel that it was the best information provided to us.

Okay. Well, we look forward to hearing from her.

But just as a follow up, I would like to see the job descriptions again for the special assistant for community affairs, the special assistant to the mayor and the confidential secretary to the mayor.

And so you've been here a total of 40 days give or take that's business days.

Do you just mind introducing yourself because I believe this is the first introduction that residents and members of the public have?

So before you leave the day is if you could please provide a brief introduction. I think that would be helpful.

Sure, I'll be happy to. We're going to do it now.

Yes.

Okay. Again, I told you my name is Sam Sikoski. I was hired in October as the new business administrator.

I'm actually a graduate of Indian University of Pennsylvania with a green business administration major in finance, minor in accounting.

I have a graduate certification from Miller'sville University in Lancaster County as a certified public manager.

I have about 15 years experience as a municipal manager.

Those then encompassed being a Burr manager and also a city manager for another third class city in Allegheny County.

I have about almost five years experience working for county government.

Part of that was within Indiana County. Part of that was with Fortin County.

It's the over the years I have experience getting grants substantial grants.

I've secured about 29 grants in my professional career. Probably an excess of $20 million, which is pretty substantial.

So I have experience with economic development. I have experience with budgeting, and the grand administration.

Coads of hard codes officers of hard chiefs of police were participated in that process.

As a Burr manager, you know, you know, a Burr in Pennsylvania according to Burr code as sort of a different structure where they're more a council manager form of government.

So I spent a consul amount of time doing that.

The other positions I had were in this general region. I spent a time as the Burr of Columbia Burr manager in 2013 and 14.

I actually participated with Luxwama, which is Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority in the cell, the Harrisburg incinerator at that time.

That's what was called.

So I also was a member of SACA, which is Pennsylvania State Association of County Officials.

And I was the legislative representative for the State Association of County Auditors.

So I met with the local government commission here in Harrisburg on a monthly basis for a couple of years back in the early 2000s on my term as an elected County auditor.

You know, counties in Pennsylvania either have a county controller where they have a county auditor. I was a county auditor.

So I had one term and did not run for re-election. So after four years I had to go move on.

So that's a brief breakdown of some of the things. I think some of the big projects I've done.

I was very much involved in the Amtrak train station in Maunjoy. That was a $32 million train station on the Keystone line, which is a line between Harrisburg and Philadelphia.

I also participated in the Northwest River Trail service building, which is the, it's a visitor center in Columbia, which is along the 14 mile trail between Columbia and Falmouth.

And so I also participated in a lot of economic development projects, probably in excess of $25 million in projects. I also participated in probably in excess of $16 million in public works projects.

So I think I have some substantial background for this position and I think I'm more than qualified.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you for the opportunity to say that.

Councilman Jones.

Yeah, there was two questions that still weren't answered as well.

Departmental highlights.

What are some of the operational highlights or achievements for 24 and also performance metrics?

Are there any examples of specific metrics or benchmarks department used to evaluate the success of their goals?

Could you repeat your question one more time, please?

First one, that's go one at a time.

Departmental highlights.

What are some operational highlights or achievements for the year of 2024?

I think the previous housing projects that they have going on.

I think we also, I think the office was maybe slowed down a little bit because of the, the departures of the previous business administrator and also the former finance director.

I think that slowed things down.

I think with, with me starting, I think some of that stuff got restarted, especially the conversion to the new unit system.

Hopefully we'll get that done quickly and I've been talking to the IT director about that.

We started, we restarted the new meetings.

So that we've had one of those so far.

And so I think that's a, that's a big thing.

I think the 83 project is going to be big.

So I think there's been economic development projects going on, transportation projects going on.

We have agreements with the other municipalities, the boroughs for the refuse.

So I think that's working out well and it's actually making some money paying off to that.

One of the reasons I was interested in coming to this position is I did work with other municipalities that were near Act 47, they were coming out of Act 47.

And so when you're able to pay off debt and that's a sizeable amount of debt, I think that's a good, that's a good thing.

It just tells you that you're physically responsible and it also opens up.

So I'm looking forward to the opportunity to see the city come out of Act 47.

And because being in Act 47, the basic prohibit you from doing any kind of debt financing.

And to do massive projects, you need to be able to do debt financing.

And you haven't been able to do that up until now.

So I think that's going to be very helpful and that's going to help with economic development.

I've already started discussions with state legislators because we're going to have to go back and talk to the state about readdressing some of the things that they're doing with us.

And I think we also need to do some things on a legislative basis with with the state legislature and the governor's office too.

So I think the next few years it can be very exciting.

Okay, well, so I guess there was no highlights for 2024. So I'll just go for the next one.

So I'll go to go ahead, Mayor.

They were highlighted in the state of the city address.

Okay, I'm asking a question here, though, you know, the public, everybody didn't go to the state of the city address.

And that's online.

Okay, so I'll go to the next question. You don't have the answer.

Thank you.

Performance metrics.

And preferably I would ask the mayor because I don't think you've been here long enough to answer some of these questions.

So are there any examples of specific metrics benchmarks departments used to evaluate the success of their goals?

Is there something in place for 2025 so we can see the goals that you set for the year of 2025?

Is there any metric in place that could show us how are you getting to achieve that goal?

We are looking at that as you speak as we speak tonight. We are working on that.

We're still in 2024 and there's things and goals and objectives that I wanted to.

Okay. No question. No further questions.

Graduations have been done.

Well, again, I mean, we're here for a proposed 2025 budget.

So I think you've been also proposed. You have some goals that you set for 25. Is that true?

Okay. All right. No further questions.

All right. Thank you.

I realize it looks like one question did get missed.

Not sent out to the different departments.

So just so that all departments can be prepared to answer them if they could email us to answer to these questions.

But it says for all departments can you give us the goal progress from 2024 every last year we asked every department to list out their goals for 2024?

So if you can just give us the progress where you are at one of those goals.

And then can you give us your goals for 2025?

I said I don't think that was sent out in the it was sent to end, but I don't think it was sent out to the departments.

So I'm just asking for all departments to answer that question.

Understanding if you can't answer it fully tonight.

If you could email it to us so we can review over it and make it available for the public.

Any other questions or comments?

Seeing none. Thank you to the office of the mayor.

Moving on seems like we already crossed over to the office of the business administrator.

But we are just getting to the office of the business administrator.

You've already introduced yourself and answered several questions along the way.

But if you could go over the I know it was at least one question that was asked of your department.

If you could just go over that question and answer.

If you have any highlights of your department.

Anything you want to tell us elaborate on please feel free to and then we'll open up to questions about the budget.

Well there's only two members to staff of two myself and my assistant who is African American woman.

So that's the racial breakdown of one of each.

From a budget standpoint the budget is pretty much almost identical to 2024.

The last year the adopted budget was $199.153.

This year due to a raise for the assistant it's $203.37.

So there's neither massive decreases or any kind of massive increase.

So it's pretty flat.

Those are the expenditures.

I think there were some additional things put in there for tuition and training and travel.

And I've always been very involved in state associations.

When I was a member of manager I was the very active in PSAB.

I've readily attended their conferences.

I expect to do the same thing with Pennsylvania Municipal League and maybe the association for public and municipal managers.

So I haven't given a whole lot of thought.

The last month or so because I've been constantly on other things.

So there's a small increase in training for that.

So that's pretty much in the nutshell that's the business administrators budget.

I think we did talk about some of the questions already.

I think the one question that you had for me was the $64,000 lower allocation.

I highly recommend it.

Keep that in the budget.

That's for the lobbying services.

And I think concerning our current state legislators and the two of them being in their first term.

The other one being newly elected.

Also our state senator being newly elected.

So there's not a whole lot of length of service to any of those legislators.

Plus you also have a Republican Senate.

So I think having a lobbying firm help you.

And you can have them help you multiple things.

Economic development projects.

I think they can help you with grants.

And from a legislative standpoint.

I don't particularly have the time to review all the state laws and see where they need to be changed.

I started conversations with our state legislators in their offices.

And so I think we need to readdress some of the cooperation that we were getting from the state government.

From a funding standpoint.

So I think that decision, the allocation is actually probably, is going to have a multi-million dollar effect on the city itself.

So for that kind of money to have that kind of response, I think is very important.

So I know you guys table to here over the last month or so.

So that's something I'm hoping that you at least revisit and reconsider that allocation.

So that's what that allocation is for.

And I highly recommend that you keep it.

And I also highly recommend that you prove the agreement with them too.

Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

I don't have any other questions at this time.

I'll open it up to my colleagues.

This time I will start to my far right with countywoman Danios.

I don't have any questions.

Countywoman Davis.

Thank you, Vice President Green.

Good evening.

Hi. How you doing?

Mr. Sikowski.

Just a general question of curiosity.

I was wondering if the, I know you meet with the labor management or the labor groups, the three union groups throughout the year.

Do those meetings or does any type of interaction have anything to do with the budget at all?

Is just the curiosity for myself because.

Not really.

No.

I'm sorry.

We do have contracts coming up next year.

And I think I'll be paying my first meeting on that probably over the next 30 days or so.

Most of the things I've had, interactions I've had with the labor unions so far, is more grievance related than anything else.

And either very minor grievances, so there's nothing really much to speak of.

But so I think the answer to your question is that's probably going to be gearing up at January 1 with the union contracts that are coming to the next year.

And that's going to have a massive effect on the budget in 2026.

Okay. In 2026, not in 2025.

No.

Okay.

Okay. Thank you.

Sure.

Thank you. President Bowers.

I don't think I have any questions.

I just wanted to clarify that tuition, the appropriation for tuition and training did not change.

It was traveled. That was increased.

And then I wanted to note about the lobbying services that we did not find it to be a priority at this time, considering that there were so many cabinet vacancies and other priorities within the administration that we did not find a lobbying services necessary at this time.

Thank you.

I think the vacancies are getting filled.

Two thirds of them and probably within the next couple of weeks, all three of me will be filled.

So we need to go back and be focused on things that are good for the city and I think having a lobby firm advocate for the city itself.

Now, when you have, when you talk about state legislators, they don't just represent Harrisburg. They represent a larger area.

I'm familiar if you don't know that I do work for the state legislature. So I'm well aware of the range of membership.

So yes, and I understand we do have the vacancy list and we will hear from the Bureau of Human Resources later.

So I understand what you're saying, but at that time, it was not a priority considering the cabinet vacancies. Thank you.

Councilwoman Ross.

Good evening again, but I do not have any questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilman Rodriguez.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam President had alluded to the question I had. So no questions. Thank you.

Thank you and Councilman Jones.

Thank you. No questions.

Thank you. I guess that concludes for the office of the business administrator.

Just going back to the office of the mayor, Mr. Singles and since you are here, thank you for answering the questions.

If you wouldn't mind reading over it just for the public's edification, I appreciate you getting it to us, but I think, you know, since we've got it, it's been nice for them to hear the answers out loud as well.

Usually, each department goes through and they read off each question that's been asked and answered so that the public has them because council has them, but they're public hearings for a reason because it's the city's budget.

I understand.

So the two questions that was presented to my office was the office of equity compliance.

Number one was has there been an increase in diversity contracting in 2024?

And my answer was, but a road numbers the data shows that there was a decrease in DBE spin of 2.1%.

However, when comparing raw data, we have to understand that there's not an allotment with the raw data that I explained earlier for those those backouts such as but not limited to

the new insurance, mandatory Medicare, conferences, trainings for both administration and council, CRW, PPL, UGI, et cetera, to be put on the table in essence for DBE spin to be considered.

So in the past quarter, I gave you direct raw numbers for January through October of 2023, and that was 8.03% in terms of DBE spin.

For January, October, the same time period where we are now, that number was 6.2%, which would show that 2.01% decrease, but that was again for the public consumption.

That was pure data in terms of the raw numbers, everything spent from fuel to paper to name it.

Now, once we attown or accounted for that spin that did not include those non-negotiables, that's where you saw the increase.

So again, I wanted to be transparent as possible to say, here's raw numbers, there are all numbers. However, this is the new spin for 2024, which allowed for us to back out those non-negotiable items that were included into the monthly spin.

And that's where we got that higher number.

All right, anyway, we can get that last line and writing too, because what will be presented to the public and writing just says a decrease.

So anyway, we can get the, I don't think, am I missing a picture? It just shows the decrease on my answer.

It does not show that last line that you spoke of, it shows that when the data is backed out, we have that increase.

So like when I read it, it just shows a decrease. When it's put, it's going to be put out to the public is just a decrease.

So I think it's important for it to have that increase in there, because I was like, now after all this last year.

Well, thanks for that opportunity. I appreciate it. Definitely appreciate the more.

So yeah, definitely. Yes.

I'm just solidifying the language of the DBE legislation by the solicitor. Where are we out with that?

We are.

Could you use the microphone?

Very close. We just, it's just, but it's, it's a real, you know, frankly intellectual lift.

It's a craft. It's very, you have to craft something like that. You got to craft it around where the wall has evolved to.

And, and you know, we are frankly pushing against where it evolved.

Where it has evolved to some may say devolved to depending who you're speaking to.

But we are pushing against the grain right now. So the city is going to be stepping out in front, frankly, from where things and trends are pushing.

But to do that, you have to do what you can to sort of bulletproof what you're doing.

And that's what we're trying to do.

You know, I think you're aware that her people have a different point of view in different places.

And the city has a lot of experience with people that aren't from the city coming in here and throwing down legal challenges.

I think the large part because of the state cap.

So we're trying to put this thing in a condition that improves as best we can.

Defensible.

So let me ask this, was there like a, like a rough draft of this or something?

There's, there's, oh, we, yeah, there's rough drafts.

There's, and we've been through them when we've had meetings and frankly it's down to that sort of what comes out, what comes in and what the structure is and structure has a lot to do in an ordinance like this with defensibility, how you structure it.

So that is what we're working on, not just based on our own thinking but having looked at a lot of places.

And how are you utilizing the diversity study that they produced?

That's a big part of it.

So that's a big part of it. So it's how do you take that data, that information.

I'll be frankly part of it and we went with a mayor about this and we went with Mr. Singleton is to incorporate into the ordinance an ongoing commitment to continue those studies on a routine basis so that the data continues to be brought up and be connected temporarily.

Some cities have gone as much as doing it annually by mandate. Others have gone far out as five years.

You know, but we've never had that mandate here, but that's going to be a commitment ongoing from the mayor's office and the council to fund that when it goes on because the courts care about the data and how recent it is.

You know, so, so there is a lot of technical pieces to it, but we have, we're pretty far into this.

And the reason why I said again because some of the contractors have become before council, they actually put some of this language that we were looking for in their own resolutions correct.

What's that you're doing? Like what's happened 20 to 30% minority and BBE participation mostly are doing but very carefully put in because because we can't cite to an ordinance now.

Right now we are allowed to cite to when we can work in the state law and there's a firm piece of federal law. So it depends always the funding source of the money.

So this goes more to locally funded than the others. The state has some provisions. We plug in when it state money. The feds have some provisions when it's fed money and we're allowed to just sort of pull those in right to to bidding on something that has that funding when it's purely city funding.

There's nothing in the law that lets us pull anything.

All right, so with this legislation being that I want to say how long it's taking I guess the research and things to make sure that we're not being sued and all of those different things.

But just give this department more teeth to get results. I mean because I really don't see anything like coming out of this department to be honest.

What it's going to do is give the mayor's office as other piece of authority to direct which bureau overseas.

But there's going to be a bureau that has to be designated to oversee.

You know, we're calling basically.

I'll turn a little bit of phrase sitting here.

The office of compliance or the compliance office. It's got three free of letters. It's and I just think this is what it's basically creating a compliance provision and an office gets designated to oversee that to make sure compliance happens.

And so, you know, frankly, until there isn't ordinance. It's kind of premature to say who a mayor designates. Right.

And so, because, you know, there's lots of things that ordinance. It's don't work because it got written so tightly in the past that it'll be we still have a department of.

Incentration as a main department in the city code. I'm saying you know you've got to try and create flexibility so the government can govern. And that's what we try to bring to this.

I will. Of course, since we're talking about the department, you don't see much coming out of it.

Absolutely. And I respect that. And I will just say openly invite you as other council members have been openly invited and have taken up on it.

Coming to their office. Have a seat. The data is published. It's of course.

And if there are some highlights or some evidence based evidence based best practices that you're aware of that you are utilizing that you can suggest to make the city better.

And I did share a couple things with you that you weren't aware of and then I guess the kind of the dialogue ended but from the description. And again, we were getting quarterly reports. Nothing is really changed from the reports that you gave before.

So that's why I'm saying I don't see anything tangible coming out of this department. That's why I'm saying that.

And I was again.

And I'm saying the same information. Well, it's not other than the decrease in the DBE spent, which is technically.

Okay, so I'm not going to debate that I'm just want to simply say I'm going to always be transparent.

I'm always going to say that the door is open. If you have your sit on council, we are co legislators in terms of the mayor's office.

So I'm sorry, the administration in the legislative body on behalf of this community. If you have suggestions that can enhance service to community engagement of DBEs, I've always been open to that.

Now, we have differences on various levels. That does not negate the fact that we still serve the community. So again, I'll end with simply saying if you have suggestions.

This is not only Mr. Singleton. This is your department.

And again, I can explain clearly where there has been growth in various areas, various metrics. You haven't asked that. And so the data that you send is the same every quarter.

It's the same. I'm just asking if this legislation. That's why I'm asking.

I was going to go back to the legislation, but I can't speak from a legal standpoint. Okay. And I don't want to put too much in the public right now prematurely in terms of the process in terms of the political cross winds that were facing from a federal level coming up on 2025.

So that is protecting the book of business, if you will, on both the legislative and administrative side in terms of what we're trying to do and how we can keep people fully engaged and grow that.

And so that's what I'll say publicly. Okay.

Thank you. If you could finish reading the question, the second question.

Sure. So the second question was with plans and strategies are in place to increase diversity contracting in 2025.

So again, I number one was of course the piece of legislation I spoke to over the years in depth about needing to be down here.

That would be part of the the linchpin going forward independent of who's sitting in any of these seats that are elected and are appointed going forward in terms of legacy of service to inclusivity and perpetuity.

I've talked talked about that in depth over the years.

Number two ongoing equity education for directors and senior staff as we embark upon 2025 with the current political culture that we know we're facing from a federal level.

I'm going collaboration with Harrisburg Regional Chamber of Commerce and Credit and the manager of regional initiatives in particular.

As we develop legislation and company and encompassing those recommendations from disparity study moving forward so that we make sure that the DBE inclusivity is a regional approach and not just merely a city approach.

Of course, collaboration with collaborating with to collaborate with model and monitor dog on county where possible as the development of a countywide RFP process is underway to ensure equity that will allow us as you know since the county was a third of that that funding that went into the disparity study to show that unified front as we continue to push this in from a regional and a county perspective.

So we're going to continue to work with the Harrisburg School District and sharing resources around DBE collaboration joint ventures so that we're making sure that we're not only allowing our DBEs locally to be engaged in multiple levels but also if they can go after larger contracts with joint ventures because of their books of businesses either with and or with the city and or with the school district bringing them together to continue to move forward and growing.

So we can be in the mirrors equity round table so we can stay abreast of evidence based best practices moving forward in 2025.

Thank you very much. As most of these are your 2025 goals. I know the question didn't go out so if you could get to us in writing which are 2024 goals were obviously there are already written so you know those and your progress on those as well as your 2025 goals which are pretty much written here.

Any questions or comments.

Seeing none thank you very much for being here tonight thank you all for being here I think that concludes the part or the office of the mayor as well as the office of the business administrator.

Next we will be moving to the office of the city solicitor just giving some time to get up here.

So we will get my cane and what goes that does I can.

Good evening council members appreciate the opportunity to speak to you about the 2025 budget for the law bureau.

It is fairly flat itself the number of positions now are the same there's a there are 2% increases there's a slight decrease projected for the cost of outside council next year just because of the nature of matters we have resolved

to make sure the matters that are pending and we try to we try to stay pretty close on those as we go forward.

I knew I was boring him so I provided a written memo for you just answering your questions that go through a lot of the data.

The second page we tried to do my staff pull together as much sort of data data point as they could about what gets worked on on a day to day basis which frankly is a lot.

You know what we do is really carry out a collaboration with what each department is trying to get done we were we interact with every department of the city.

Whether that's contracts whether that's legislation whether that's working with them because the right to know is directed at them and we manage them for them.

We go to court for them for when coach enforces things and it gets appeal we go to court when the when what the department does gets challenged we defend the departments and federal and state court we oversee outside council that does those things.

But our plate frankly is very very full.

I talk about the change and not just the city but in government over if you look go back 20 years you know 2007 was the last major borrowing the city did.

2007 the city had 38 numbered contracts we finished 275 so far this year there's 310 approximately in the in the that they came into our office.

That's really because of the change of the way people do business with government it's not just government that wants to do the contract everybody wants a formalized agreement.

The number of right to know is that's going up 400% in 5 years and the and the request to get in broader and broader and broader the number of appeals that when they get denied for some reason go have gone up dramatically so you know we're not done when we're done with the response.

And that's again not just a trend for the city Harris where it's just the trend sort of post COVID information age everywhere.

I was talking with one of my counterparts in another city they had 1400 they went a lot more population to do but they were 1400 October right to know request Philly has gotten entire department it's ridiculous how many they have but this but but you know there is no funding you cannot charge for right to know so many people who make those requests are businesses aggregating government information to sell it to other users.

And they come in with detailed detailed request you know mostly from codes and things like that some for taxes things like that but we they come constantly and it's going to get to the point where people and I actually know some municipalities they just don't answer them they roll the dice and see if people will appeal what's that we're not we're not in a position to do that right but but I'm saying that's because they become so overwhelmed.

So you know I'm proud of the work that my staff does I'm proud of the skill sets that they bring to the table and I think that they've tried to step up pretty much to any challenge that's come along the way and meet it and I think they do that every day so.

Thank you I know it might be not the most fun thing to do but if you wouldn't mind reading your actual answers for the public certification.

From in the order of the written okay I mean if you want to switch it up you can.

However whatever please issue just to answer the questions however there are no real budget significant changes from 24 to 25 there are currently eight staff and one vacancy for the department.

The diversity and ranges is for ages of 26 to 74 years old on our staff there are three males and five females three white females.

One black female one Asian female one black male and two white males.

We are not really doing the grants and special projects question that's not applicable to us there are no new positions.

The budgets from 2024 and 2025 align there is no increases over 2% in terms of what's been asked for in the budget for staff.

For department highlights and we started excluding major litigation matters in case management with outside council approximately 80 matters.

The following of highlights collection since May of 2023 for the start of a lean specialist through 11 15 24 there have been 111 new leans file with a face value of 1 million 1 million 813 3000 dollars and change.

William make sure to tell me before I came down here it's up to about 1 million 970 and I said I'm not changing it again your number but he but he keeps getting his leans file.

Other judicial proceedings were involved in about 11 different cases between courts and bankruptcy courts over with claims relating to about 1.1 million dollars.

We have payment plans that if it's over $10,000 that the law bureau handles that agreement for someone who's more than $10,000 past due on their trash bills.

Those are mostly commercial accounts. We started them one after all the commercial accounts first they were in that when they're lower than that what we do is public work staff handles those and payment plans to bring people current.

They're usually about three years long since then we've entered into about 30 payment plans for a face value about 500 and 67,000 dollars and there have been the above the above filings and notices have triggered about 573,000 dollars in actual cash that came in towards these things in that period.

We have reviewed and signed off and had filed 53 separate mortgage notes or loan satisfactions there are different things for different things all of those related to D.B.H.D. for the work that gets done on people's houses with with the federal money and there's a mortgage and no to guarantee that they stay in the house for either 5 years or 10 years now it's usually typically 5 years.

We've dueed about 41 fire certificates in 2024 year today which has to do with releasing insurance money that comes under the city code.

All we do really for that that five different departments have to handle that our department simply determines whether there's certain leans on the property and reports back and five different departments have to sign into that treasury handles the management of that.

We've been in the lead satisfaction we've prepared about 30 for the year to date.

We've logged 310 contracts year to date we've processed 275 of those right to nose back in 2020 we get 136 by the time you get to year to date 2024 we're at 541 right to nose with 21 appeals.

Tax assessment judicial appeals we were working on 21 pending in the county court.

Miscellaneous judicial appeal hearings non-taxers about 40 that we have board and commission proceedings we've participated attended 90 of them so far this year.

Finalized dress of legislation we've written 93 pieces of legislation this year frankly that's low that's low specifically because the paperwork for right to know in contracts and subpoenas and those is so high it just takes away from the hours of day to work on things like that.

It's just one of the realities of it in 2020 we did 120 pieces of legislation you know it just shows you the impact that has on the work that wet the lawyers can do for the city in terms of draft.

The mbj manager we have a remarkable with codes 25 hundred about this year that we've participated we don't participate in most of their codes work but most of that frankly had to do with uptown Plaza uptown partners governor swear people.

In the year 1900 convictions of governor square since august for violations the miscellaneous ministry of proceedings we've been attended about 15 of those during this year and and simplifying the metrics on goals we simply said we try to manage the flow of the legal work in a responsible manner day to day and that's what we try to do day in and day out with the staff that we have.

Thank you very much I don't have any questions for you at the moment I'm going to open up to my colleagues I'm going to start to my far I think I started this way so I'm going to start to my far left this time with councilman Jones.

No question at the moment.

Thank you councilman Rodriguez no questions thank you councilman Ross will good evening solicitor go over but I have no question.

President Bowers I just have two quick questions are any of the current employees bilingual.

I just sort of see from behind me.

They may speak languages that are not mine but I don't know them.

And then I don't think you address the one vacancy but can you speak to that I wasn't clear if that was the assistant city solicitor for collections or if that was what you said no new positions but there's discussion here of illegal assistant at some point.

There was but that's does not in the budget the third legal system is not in the budget so the collect it is the collection attorney which is in the public works budget because their primary role is to collect trash related bills.

Okay I'll ask them I don't have any other questions thank you.

Thank you councilman Davis.

Thank you guys president green and good evening solicitor.

I just have one question I actually wanted to know what was the difference the professional services budgeted $50,000 less I think you answered a question.

So that those are what goes to the legal fees and we try to we've tried to project what we need in the years to come.

We've settled a couple significant matters in a more fairly efficient way so the time that legal counsel will have to be used will go away.

We expect that while there's always a number of matters some matters aren't covered by insurance people at all and are administered by third parties.

So there's a lot of funds that come out of that line on item budget and most of our matters right now I refer to the major matters are covered through third party administrators and handled that way.

So we just expect to spend less next year.

Okay well that's always good thank you.

Thank you and councilman Dan you can use any questions questions.

I do have one question and he said the one position is just not in the budget this year.

I feel like I feel like many of the positions in your department essentially pay for themselves.

Especially if we can get more legislation done and more things done for the city so I wouldn't agree that it's it's might not be in the budget but I don't think it I think it could be budgeted for.

Especially if it's something that's needed also always believe that we need to make sure we're providing the best service to the residents and I know your office does a great job at it.

But even if that position can help with right to nose or you know I don't know exactly which would have that position planned for but I just I would respectfully disagree that it's not budgetable.

I will there's always need right that'll always expand I will see we can take ten more attorneys right that's the reality but we are very much aware that the tax dollars for the lobby or compete against tax dollars for people's trash being picked up or the police coming to their house for a fire being put out.

We understand what the balancing act is and we are painfully aware of the limitations of revenue streams to come.

You know and there are going to be limitations of revenue streams to come.

The money from ARPA is going to be gone. The money from the federal infrastructure acts going to be gone.

Post-COVID tax realities are real when we come out of act 47 at least one of our tax categories gets reduced automatically.

So those are realities and we try to we always I'm not sure people ever happy when I come to visit their office with the realities of the future.

You know Sam just was thrilled with my my my my happy projections for where we're going but those that we were aware of that when we asked for money that those are real concerns about legacy cost right and the mayor and I have talked a long hard about what that means for not our department for all of it.

And and the calculus is hard it is difficult when you look down the road.

Thank you I do appreciate that any other questions or comments.

I think that wraps up the office of the city solicitor and next we will be moving on to the office of the city treasure.

Thank you.

Good evening.

I think if you could just introduce yourselves in your office give us a brief overview of which office does and then go over any questions that were previously answered and he highlights or anything they should like to add in and then we'll open up for questions.

Thank you. Good evening nice to see everyone at council. I'm Dan Miller the city treasure and sell you a spike search. She is the deputy treasure.

And as I just well I know what we do is we collect all revenue safeguard it invest the money and then we fund expenditures so that's basically to what the city treasury does and I did have I had taken those questions and I wrote them out and I answered them and I sent them to sell you so she could review them.

And then she put her comments on them and so I have them in email I send them to Jared and I guess you sent them to you so everybody should have those in an email right now and we can go over them.

Do you have them? Yes I do see them. Great.

And the first question was about what contracted personal personnel services.

Three thousand dollars are anticipated in 2025 and frankly I didn't know the answer to that but we do use this and sell you answered it she said recently we haven't used it but she keeps two thousand in that line item which was increased to three thousand every year the city offers temporary work to teens or young adults and we have had young people work before in our office.

And that's what that's for. In addition there's one other thing that's crucial we have a machine that opens the envelope when we get mail it opens the envelope it takes the checkout it takes the invoice out it copies all of that and it posts that it's our maverow machine it's really an important machine that does all of that work automatically as opposed to manually.

If something happens and this has happened in the past where that machine breaks down then those things have to be posted manually and if it's a real problem we have to hire temporary because we cannot not post and you know we have got to keep things moving we've got to get the deposits and we've got a post correctly so that building so that everything can continue to progress so so we may use it for that in addition.

Okay what justifies the large increase in the deputy treasurer salary and sell you pointed out something really important here that I do think I want council to understand not only do we bill and collect for the city we also bill real estate taxes and collect for the school district and because we do that one third of our budget is reimbursed from the school district so basically if you see our budget is three hundred thousand

thousand dollars to the city the cost is really only two hundred thousand dollars okay so I think that's important to know so sell you is really working for two places really the city and the school district.

I have a long do you want me to read it okay this is why I mean I think sell you as a great employee and I think she's definitely worth worth every penny and more

and the number one is she is the lowest paid department director in the city okay and in 2024 she did not get a raise so for both of those reasons I want to I want to make up for that and she manages arguably the most important department in the city collecting

and reconciling investing and safeguarding all of the city's cash as well as funding all city expenditures her job includes managing six employees and interacting with more city residents than any other department treasury has more in person interaction with the residents than any other department these interactions require knowledge, patience and understanding.

I was a controller so I can make this comparison and I'm not denigrating anyone or any other department but as a comparison she makes less than the deputy controller who is a fine knowledgeable employee the deputy controller manages one staff person has almost no interaction with the public or city residents and manages a department with a much narrower focus than treasury.

I have been both city controller and city treasurer and it is clear that the deputy treasurer is a much more demanding job. In my 20 years as an elected city official I have worked with many city employees sell your rates at the top very top of the list she's extremely knowledgeable and provides a deep history of past city issues actions and people.

Her knowledge of current and past issues is invaluable that you know first have somebody with really systemic or knowledge of the system that goes back is so important.

When other department heads were receiving a large increases cell you was passed over it's time to correct this omission and begin to compensate her were for her actual worth.

Finally and most important as an employee she is willing to tell me exactly what she believes is the best is in the best interest of the city not what she thinks I want to hear and I think that's really invaluable that's how we get the best decisions.

Okay what are the hours of operation you know I'm glad we asked that and I do have the hours there with some eight thirty to two thirty and for our staff hours are eight to three thirty however that if someone comes after two thirty we will open up and let them in but what I want to really want I really want to think is we have a twenty four hours availability.

And my email is online so I'm getting emails at any time I'm answering emails at any time as a matter of fact when I look this morning a woman in Korea emailed me she owns a condo in Harrisburg but she didn't know the property number I looked the property number up I emailed it back to her and now she can pay her taxes online.

That's the other thing you can pay taxes online twenty four hours a day you know seven days a week so we really have that availability and for people who want to drop off a physical check or payment we have a lock box right back here outside again twenty four hours a day seven days a week so we really have very very much public availability in most cases.

In addition we are open for face-to-face meetings you know Monday through Friday eight thirty to two thirty.

The other things are I don't know if you ask about capital improvements but I do have that we have two big items on there and both of those are really due to IT I T number one told us to put in I think the eighty thousand dollars because they have some project for us coming up.

Excuse me the other seventy five thousand dollars is four.

The new software that's being installed.

That software is going to control our cash drawers and so you won't be able to open the drawer unless you have a software installed and the drawers are not compatible with our front end right now and so we in order to do to use them we'd have to reconfigure that and that's what that seventy five thousand dollars.

I'm not crazy about it I'm not sure it's worth it but if we're going to use them that's what we have to do.

And then those are the questions I did have then you came up with some more we do have bilingual we have Spanish and Portuguese in our office and as Niel said we have a very diverse group of people we have men male female we have ages from like do we have anybody in their twenties.

To like in sixties we have a large range of that we have straight we have gay we have multiple races is there anything I'm missing I know it's a very diverse group.

Did I miss anything.

Not that I think it was was pre-est we'll go through and open up to council members for any questions I'm going to start to my right this time with councilman Daniels any questions for the office of city treasure.

Thank you councilman Davis any questions no questions.

Council president Bowers any questions yes thank you if you could please provide the diversity compliment and the bilingual employees and writing that would be helpful.

Could you explain exactly what that means because I always you know when I looked up diversity it's like so many diverse things if you could give me like a chart of what you specifically you want us to to give in that I would be great.

Okay my other question is if you could please provide a job description for the deputy treasure.

Thank you thank you councilwoman Rawls any questions.

Good evening thank you both for being here.

Just one thing I know you said I could be completely wrong anybody could correct me but I don't think she's the lowest paid deputy that miss a picture is I'm I saying your name right spike or I'm so sorry yeah I don't think she is when I'm looking at the list I think maybe the deputy codes administrator could be but she's not the lowest paid but I do I love how you gave us an explanation why she deserves a raise I think that's remarkable.

I can only say that from the information what we had gathered she was the lowest so I'm not sure where I guess I could be wrong but yet it doesn't look like she is but no thank you but her hours are different too I mean you get off at 230 so I don't know oh you don't the office is closed.

The union office goes from 8 to 3 30 so those are the staffs sell you stays there till 5 but the doors closed it's a lot unless somebody knocks or maybe calls ahead and say can you.

The process.

Okay but I think that's a big difference regardless if someone's there to open a door not but the hours are to 230 most people don't get off into what 5 I mean what time does MLK closes at what time here.

So I think that's the biggest part I always think people deserve a raise every year especially with housing costs is like a percentage range.

Raise excuse me however such a large one I guess it's requested for 30 about over 3500 dollars initially then another 5000 could you explain that more because I was confused by that.

She did not get a raise last year so it's the raise for last year with the rates for this year that's a 3500 dollars the 5000 is because really her job is so much more important her knowledge is important and it's really the real worth actually it should be more than that but I did 5000 because I thought maybe I could get that.

Oh no thank you for that I should be so much more.

And I will not saying that you are not worth that and she's not worth a certain amount of money because we're all worth you know something but

it closes at 230 that's just an issue for me it's the time and it's not cold exactly as it says it that's an issue cannot come in after Tuesday.

Yes that's an issue for me well first of all we do have the lock box we have a lock box here we have a lock but there's you know thing time is changing people do not have to come in person face to face now if someone makes an appointment we'll sell you will see them up you know up until 5 o'clock.

I just don't that it does that bothers me as for such a large rate large raise and your hours are different than everybody out who gets who else closes their doors it doesn't make much of a misunderstanding.

I miss understand what all treasurer does it's not just about receiving payments and as a matter of fact the deputy treasurer or the assistant deputy treasurer are not allowed to receive payments that's a union function and only our union employees can do that so you know if you can someone came in and you can do that.

You can someone came in they couldn't really accept that payment they could accept it through the drop box because that's that's not a function that management can do.

I mean there's so much more there's reconciling there's funding there's investing all of those things are not related to you know somebody coming in and paying a trash bill.

I think maybe the job description will be helpful because we're not paying silly to accept to do the stuff that the clerk will do for example.

I'm assessing the value of the work that silly does compared to the value of the work that the other people in the office do.

Yes that's fine I look at it 230 still issue for me but I'll look at the job description but for the hours are totally different and then you want this large rates for hours that are different than everyone else's.

I do have an issue with that that's actually not different but okay.

Thank you.

Councilmember Rodriguez any questions?

Thank you Madam Chair thank you for joining us this evening as always it's just the 230 for me and it's been this way for years.

I understand what you're saying definitely judgment Miller but some of our senior population you know they're very stuck to one way.

Just kind of like how we are with the munist technology how we supposed to you know been transported to technology step up to the new age some people have difficulties as the city does as our senior population does which wouldn't be so tech savvy as well.

So and then there's always a safety measure when we're talking about making payments just drop it in the drop box see when I see you I'm here you're receipt.

As you know and I know Tim not everyone would be comfortable with that that's just how I feel but also it's kind of the energy of.

Obligated to get a raise when you made statements like she didn't get her raise last year is there anything in the city code that demands or we have to okay a raise every year I wasn't aware of that.

Neil would have to answer that solicitor parliamentary inquiry.

Technically that's not a parliamentary inquiry that's just a question.

So no but no there is nothing in the code that mandates management raises okay the I will just because of been around a little bit the deputy treasure is comparable to the deputy.

Controller in that they both have the responsibilities of the elected official.

I just can't but nothing on the books right now that mandate to raise when a yearly basis no okay anybody.

So I just wanted to speak to that it's kind of like what's old and I just felt as though the residents should always be first and foremost what's old to them.

Because even right now I was a speaker Dan I love you but it's kind of like whatever like the eyes that you know I'm just I feel the way counts woman Rawls does.

And it would be great to see it compliment when MLK building closes at the four o'clock mark and then perhaps her admin duties can take place after that same thing is back in the day you work blockbuster can't buy movie after five but you know we still got to check in the movie still got to do inventory.

There's things that are done behind the scene so today I agree but not to make it as remedial as movies but to those watching we might have to break it down in that way so they understand.

I just think there's a bit more we all can do that's all thank you.

Don't know.

Counting Jones any questions.

No I don't thank you for coming out this evening and sharing. I don't have any questions.

Thank you any other questions or comments.

Seeing none thank you all for being here tonight enjoy the rest of your evening.

Next we will have the Bureau of Human Resources.

I just wanted to make sure you didn't ask me our goals but of course our goals are annual building and nothing could make us more efficient than that.

Can you speak to the microphone thank you of course our goal and have been for several years is annual building which would nothing would do two things raise more revenue for the city and be much more efficient and save money in our department and several other departments.

I just want to make sure everyone got my memo I'm willing to discuss this with anyone and I invite everyone to come and join me at our press conference when we have it in December which to be determined.

Yes.

Mr. Miller when did you send that memo.

I don't think I received it whatever was sent out at 6.5.

I just want to make sure that I can read by was there.

Okay thank you.

Thank you.

We will move forward with the Bureau of Human Resources.

Good evening if you wouldn't mind introducing yourself in your department give us a brief overview.

I would like to ask you a question that we have previously asked that could be just simply reading off what you sent in or if you want to answer them off the cup you can and then we will open up for questions.

Good evening.

We are working on the HR director for the city of Harrisburg HR manages the recruiting on an off boarding the administration of payroll compensation employed benefits such as family medical leave workers compensation.

ADA accommodations. We also handle personnel matters and benefits, benefit matters that

involve all the retirees.

As far as any significant budget changes, there was a little bump up in our printing, but

most of it has been flat. That was mainly due to the right to know issues that have come

in our office, and we have used it extremely a lot of paper. Our department at all, diversity

is one black male, two white females, two black females, and two Hispanic. One is fluent

in Spanish, and the other one is basic conversational Spanish.

There are no vacancies currently in HR. We are at full complement. There was one position

that I did ask for an increase above the 2%. It's an important employee that's been here

over 10 years. Since 2020, she has been the payroll manager and has selt slowly and successfully

managed the city's entire payroll. She has shown excellent leadership. Qualities and

voluntary takes one additional responsibilities outside her position as payroll manager.

She works well past her regular scheduled hours, including weekends, holidays, and on her

vacations. She does this to make sure that payroll is done timely and accurately. Her knowledge

and skills with payroll and other areas of human resources make her invaluable to our department.

Our highlights for this year are that the Bureau is a full complement. We did do a little reorganization

earlier to share where we revised the HR generalist position. That position has allowed the

workflow and payroll and benefits and office coverage to be more manageable because we were

overwhelmed with the missing person. This year we have done about 60 full-time interviews,

on orientations on onboarding. That does not include over 100 parks and red part-time seasonal

employees that were hired. There has been multiple retirements, terminations, and resignations

during this year. As far as a performance metrics, at this time, we do not have one to

evaluate how we're doing. It's just this managing day-to-day and whatever comes into our office.

Thank you very much. I don't have any questions for you. I'm going to open up to my colleagues. I'm

going to start to the far left with Councilman Jones. No questions at this time. Councilman Rodriguez.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Ms. Jones, for being here. No questions. More of just statements.

I just want to thank you in the department for, I mean, not only just every time I've reached out with

urgent matters and how quick you guys have been to help. I've heard other employees say the same

and I was even up there one time when I saw you guys get right to action. So thank you for your

quickness in dealing with matters and it does help to have that bilingual staffer up there at that

kickstand. So thank you so much. Councilman Rose. Thank you. Good evening, Ms. William-Hymn.

Thank you for being here. I don't have any questions. Thank you, President Bowers.

Good evening. Thank you. I do have some questions. Can you please provide an overview of the performance

evaluation process that occurred? We use the same template as we used last year and directors were

asked to meet with their employees, do like a self-evaluation with them, review and update job

descriptions and once those were completed the directors were asked to do an evaluation and then

meet with the employee and have the employee sign off on it. Those evaluations were then sent to

the mayor's office for mayoral review and approval. And can you share the timeline that this process occurred?

We started it around July and it has some workloads it ran into the beginning of September.

Okay. And do you know the percentage of directors that participated

or the percentage of employees that were evaluated? All of the directors did their staff.

Okay. So you had 100% participation, would you say? I have everyone's evaluations in a personnel

process. Okay. Thank you. I think that you provided an update in your overview regarding just general

personnel and we did receive vacancies. I was just curious about cabinet positions but it seems

like the director of financial management. Maybe the only remaining is that correct or am I missing

something? As far as cabinet level? Yes. Okay. Yes. And we do have a candidate who is in the background

process and should be done probably this week. Okay. Do you? Well, okay.

How many employees within your department are served certified? None. And there is money in the

budget because to have shown interest in it. Okay. That was my next question. Four of us that are

members are sure. Okay. So the training, so what training does this budget provide for? Does that

include the Scherm certification or something else? It includes the Scherm certification. There

I have three staff members who I was able to locate through prior seminars where you pay a one-time

yearly fee and have access to 5,000 or more different trainings. Anything related from HR law to

you know speech, Excel, Word, it's varies. They have been accessing it because I get reports on when

they do the training. Oh good. Okay. And then I have one more employee who is going to take a course.

She's going to take of course the benefits administrator is going to be doing a self-funded

benefit plans course to help us with because we are self-insured on so many of our insurance

and then what memberships are included in this budget. Sure. Okay. And then I didn't see an

appropriation for any conferences. I know that that is scattered throughout some departments.

Budgets I wondered if your employees are permitted to participate in conferences or

are most of the conferences we find or online or we usually try to find the free ones.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. I don't have any other questions. Thank you. Count to woman Davis.

No questions at this time. Thank you. Thank you and count to woman Daniels. Thank you very much.

Are there any other questions from our colleagues? Seeing none. Thank you for being here tonight.

Next we are going to have the Bureau of Financial Management.

Okay.

No, no.

Always a second chance, right?

Yeah, if you want to, if you want to lead, I'll follow.

Sorry.

I talked too much.

All right.

Thank you all for being here tonight.

If you could go over an overview of your department, as well as any questions that were asked

beforehand, anything you'd like to add in.

Then we will open it up for questions from our colleagues.

All right.

My name is Timothy Brooks.

I'm the Budget Manager.

We have Sam Sikowski, the Business Administrator, and Brian Mukachin, the Accounting Manager,

an absence of a Finance Director.

We're here to represent the Finance Department.

So going to our significant budget changes, and I have a document that was provided to

everybody, and it's also up here in the computer, so the public can see as well.

But in terms of significant budget changes to our audit line, we increased that one significantly

due to the help needed to bring the audit to the current year.

We were a little bit behind on the audit, so we're trying to bring things and strengthen

our efforts there to bring things current.

In terms of Michelinist Contractor Services, we reduced that online significantly due

to the cytologic services for the capital improvement plan being moved over to our consulting

line, which kind of answers another question that was in another set of the questions into

our MRDards to what's in the consulting line.

I'll go in a little bit more detail because I have that question further down the answer

before the further.

In terms of departmental diversity, we have one black male, one black female, two Caucasian

females, two Caucasian females, and one Asian female.

We do have two bilingual employees within that county department to help with the diversity

and the family.

We'll speak for them, which is in terms of vacancies, the only vacancy that we have currently

is the director of finance.

Besides that, we are fully staffed and run along pretty smoothly.

In terms of grants and special projects, we have no grant or no grant activities or special

projects.

The grant section is their own department and budget unit within the city's budget, therefore,

they can elaborate on the grants and things that they have in their department.

In terms of ARPA projects, the city is now fully obligated as required by the end of

the fiscal year 2024.

The total receive ARPA funds of $47,000,000, $73,625, the majority of which has been classified

as a revenue replacement for the general fund and accordingly transferred to the general

fund over the course of the years, 2022, 2023, and 2044.

Excuse me, my apologies.

Would you like me to read that sentence over?

No, please.

Okay.

My apologies.

This classification has resulted in enabling the general fund to reduce available funding

for the benefit of public health and economic programs, projects, and activities.

In regards to new positions, the finance department has no new positions and are there anticipated

impacts that was not applicable since we don't have any new positions.

Unidate budgets, does the current budget propose a 25-oil line with the year-to-date spending

totals occurred thus far?

Yes, it absolutely does.

We try to pull budget appropriately with the absence of a finance director.

Some of the expenses have not happened, but for the most part, yes, everything lines up

accurately.

Are there any instances where current year-to-date spending in 2024 significantly incides

of proposed budget line items for 2025?

No, there is no situation in that.

We try to address those things as we go along as we spend.

Are there any roles exceeding 2% increases?

Yes, our current manager was given a 5% increase to bring managers at the same level to the

same pay for the previous finance director.

Moving down to departmental highlights, with some operational highlights and achievements

for 2024, finance successfully conducted for the first time.

It's annual finance training for all employees.

We're going to continue to do that to have annual trainings for all the employees that

utilize the finance modules within our Tyler Municipal Units system.

Another notable highlight is finance also achieved its highly preparation and submission of the

2025 proposed budget and comprehensive budget book without the presence of a presence and

support of 2 key financial management positions, namely the business administrator and finance

director, due to the approximate mid-year departures during the course of more intense

months of the budget preparation process.

That is notable achievement for us when we don't have active finance director and when

we have no business administrator, we should be proud of finance.

Terms of performance metrics are in examples of specific metrics, branch marks, department

views, evaluate the success.

I believe that answer is more to finance director to answer that.

So I left that non-alcoholable for the finance director to find out the follow-up when time comes

when we get a new one.

In terms of moving along to set one question to finance, so may I move into affairs?

I'm not a finance director.

I can't answer that question.

That's for that person.

Okay.

Thank you.

So for set one question to finance, the question was, what is the 65,000 in consulting fees

allocated for?

And I said that earlier in terms of the higher consulting services as needed by the department

and complete any additional ARPA financial reporting and capital improvement projects with

the site logic.

Moving down to set two questions that was presented and the question to finance was, what type of

consulting and professional services are typically purchased annually?

The answer to that we have is an NW financial.

They help us with our ARPA financial reporting site logic that is helping us with our capital

improvement program.

Conrad Seagal did the OPAP benefits and actuary services.

So those are the things that we are utilizing with that line for professional services

and call-tall thing.

That concludes what I have to say, Mr. McKetchan, and what's your help to allow for a

little bit?

Yep.

Thank you, Tim.

Good evening, City Council members.

Thank you, President Bowers.

Thank you, Vice President Budget and Finance Chair, Green.

I have probably the most senior member of the finance team now, so I'd like to give

just my overview of our department.

Financially we do just about everything.

On the revenue side we work closely with the City Treasurer's Office.

On a daily basis we analyze and report the city's daily revenue.

That pertains to all the city's funds.

On the disbursement side we take care of accounts payable review audits and check runs.

The city also does disbursements by the way of wire transfer or ACH electronic method.

We work closely with the Controller's Office and the Treasurer's Office when it comes to

those type of disbursements.

We coordinate with them and we supply them with the appropriate documentation.

Our check runs are bi-weekly and they coincide with the city's payroll pay date, of course.

We also record entries obviously to reflect and to record the bi-weekly payroll for all

city employees and all funds.

There's also a funding requirement for our check runs and the payroll and that's a coordination

effort that we do.

As Tim mentioned, our makeup includes several managers including our procurement and compliance

manager on the purchasing side.

Tim is the budget manager on the accounting manager Brian McCutchen.

We also have a good supporting staff that have been here for anywhere from between two to

four years now.

They're gaining experience as we go and very supportive as we have the ability to delegate

the significant amount of work that comes our way.

I mentioned purchasing.

We deal with incumbrances and also budget.

We make sure we monitor the city's budget in accordance with the budget ordinance throughout

the year.

We do a lot of reporting internally to both our directors, the controllers office and

also the treasurer's office.

We have outside entities that provide, the city is subject to oversight including the Department

of Community and Economic Development and also the Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority,

the ICA.

We're still working and gaining more knowledge and efficiency with the new financial reporting

system which you know is the munis system.

The financial system is fully in effect.

We've made inroads in the inventory side which our departments are utilizing.

Also we've made some strides into the fixed asset side of that module.

There's still a ways to go with trying to bring down the city's mainframe system and

to incorporate it into the new ERP.

And of course we're here tonight.

Again, you know, with the amount of work and review that goes into the proposed budget

for this city.

So we appreciate your review and your input on that as we move forward.

That's my wrap up on that.

Thank you very much.

I don't have many questions.

I do have one though.

Where are we with our capital planning project?

As far as I can timeline, we had a higher day contractor to do it.

So just where are we in that process?

Yeah.

Tim, if I can hand that, I think that pertains to the site logic.

Yeah, okay.

We're very close to the end.

We're basically they wrapped up all their facility assessments and anyone that we're

still working with, we're working with those areas.

Some assets like Civil War Museum.

We have to work with those people that are there, broad street market, the same thing.

So we're really wrapping up our assessment to be able to be able to have a complete

capital improvement program report that we were going to then present to Council.

All right.

Thank you.

I'm going to ask my colleagues open up for questions.

I can't remember which way I was going to start with Councilman Jones.

Thank you, Vice President Green.

No questions.

Councilman Rodriguez?

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, gentlemen, for joining us.

Tim, you had alluded to your diversity compliment.

Not to sound.

How did you know what we were referring to and what to answer when it comes to diversity?

It sounds crazy.

I know.

I'm going to land a plane here.

Everyone's perception is different.

Right.

So what I perceive may not be with other people perceived.

Therefore, I answered it based off of what I perceive from the question, which is where

I got where you got to find it.

But you definitely gave an answer the best you could, best to your ability.

Nothing on you.

A previous director said he has no idea what diversity would be.

I just maybe we could share internal information that would help out a lot.

But no, not to you.

But with that, did you guys receive any letter from the ICA?

I know usually around this time we would get a letter like, hey, we viewed the budget.

Everything looks in accordance.

It's balanced.

Council, we highly encourage.

I just haven't seen anything.

I think they're meaning.

Excuse me?

I mean, soon, probably to be.

Can you please speak into the microphone for the benefit of those really?

Thank you.

I believe they're meeting soon to believe.

I guess what I'm alluding to is usually it comes hand in hand.

They looked over it initially before hand and then it would give us something unless

Neil, you would have different information.

Usually budgets and that letter would go hand in hand like, hey, they're in cooperation.

Everything looks good.

Everything looks pretty much leveled out.

So I don't know, frankly, if it's been the finance office or there for Maria who wasn't

here or the clerk's office who sends the ICA the budget.

I don't know the answer to that.

I will note that traditionally they would be here tonight.

Got you.

Right.

Right.

So I guess we have to figure out whether they received the budget.

Do we know if they looked at it?

Well, I don't know if they received it.

Okay.

That's my point.

Which, do you know whether the clerk's office normally sends it?

Yes.

So I think I think it's probably a ball that dropped from having a vacancy and the administration

will make sure to more that they have it if not tonight that the members have it.

But yeah, they take their role pretty seriously.

This is being a third class city where obligated to submit that to the ICA, correct?

Yeah.

They're the only ICA for a third class city today.

So we got them.

Gotcha.

Gotcha.

Just making sure I'm not going to fit that.

Right.

Yes, sir.

Brian, you had something.

I just want to reassure you that we did when the budget book was made available.

It was.

And I checked with the mayor on this.

I provided a copy of the budget book to the manager for the authority, Jeff Stonehill.

He's got it.

I supplied your agendas for this evening.

Even the revised ones.

Awesome.

Great.

And they even though they're not here tonight, I know.

Jeff emailed me earlier.

They're tapped in.

He's tapped in, I believe, via YouTube right now.

And I think they have other members.

Never know.

They have other members, I think, assigned designated for each budget hearing.

So they're I think they're pretty much in tune.

Thank you, Brian.

It's just it's comforting knowing that they at least received the document.

That's all.

Thank you.

No further questions.

Councillor Wollamarose.

Thank you.

Good evening to you all again.

Oh, Mr. Brooks, I was wondering, you have mentioned the Civil War Museum.

Which project is that?

Because I know I had spoke about the, oh, no.

I spoke about the parking lot and the large sinkhole that's happening, the receding wall.

So I was wondering what project were you alluding to with the Civil War Museum?

Just for clarity.

Okay.

So the capital improvement program, the capital improvement report that we're joining.

Yes.

So the, the look at our assets and that to assess them.

So they have to assess that facility, the Civil War Museum.

Okay.

The actual facility.

I'm not sure about the parking lot.

Okay.

I'm not, you know, or engineering part.

No.

And any of that.

But that's what they're doing.

They're assessing our facilities to be able to give us a report of the condition of

our facilities.

They can tell us about this room and the makeup and how, you know, the lighting and when

it happened and when we purchased the things of that nature.

Okay.

So they give us an end, end, end, end, end, detailed report of our facility.

So there is no specific project in regards to the parking lot.

This is just the, the, the capture of the information of the facility.

Okay.

Thank you.

I was just wondering if there was a project I was unaware of.

Or any of us were when you had said the Civil War Museum.

So thank you for that explanation.

My other question was, and I don't know if I have that, this would be for each department

or what not.

But I was wondering if there would be any way Council could see what year, from the year

to date, what each department has used so far just to match it up with the ask is for

the budget, for their new budget line for this year.

I was going to say yes.

The treasure sends the monthly email to elected officials that include, should include

everyone on the high stage.

Yeah.

Okay.

I'll look again.

Okay.

And each line is a matter of fact.

So.

Okay.

I'll look.

I don't remember seeing that email, but I maybe, no, I don't know if we got, I don't know

if anybody else got it.

I did not get that.

I believe I got one so I can afford it to the city clerk tomorrow.

It's from Michael Thomas is the center.

Is there any ways to, who would we talk to you tonight?

Okay.

Yes.

Thank you.

Just to match it up to see what the new ask is, comparing it to what they have left over.

And Jeff Stonehill from the ICI just emailed to say, hey, we officially have that budget.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you for the update.

All right.

No, those are my only questions.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

Thank you very much, President Bowers.

I had a follow up question regarding the sole vacancy that you mentioned.

I just wondered when the auditor to vacancy was filled.

There's an auditor to position on page 76 and it's also listed in a green bubble, I believe

on your organizational charts.

I just wanted to know the status of that role.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yes, President Bowers.

That would, yes, the auditor to position it was filled.

And I'm drawing a blank, but I believe we filled that position around mid year last year.

Oh, okay.

All right.

Well, there's no date of hire anything, so that's why I can confirm that.

I may be off just because where my mind has been of late.

It could be mid year of this year.

Okay.

Yes, that position is currently filled.

Okay.

Thank you for clarifying.

What training does this budget provide for training?

Does this budget provide for?

I can speak for myself.

I'm taking a Certified Public Finance Officers Program from the GFAA.

We attend GFAA, the National and the PA conferences, so we can keep abreast with some more of the

modern practices within accounting and finance, as well as procurement.

I know the procurement manager is looking at different trainings.

I guess she would like to attend us more focused on procurement, which finance offers,

finance offers the GFAA isn't that, therefore she's looking for something a little different.

Believe that does kind of cover.

We have a couple others doing online trainings here within the office to kind of brush up on

Excel unless something that we use very largely.

Then we're training also in terms of mueness.

We have to learn that information to then train the staff here within the city and to do

our refresher.

There's a lot in terms of training that we are trying to cover.

Mr. McCutcheon, if you want to elaborate on anything else, if you have anything, I'm going

to leave it open to you.

Is that okay?

Does that answer your question?

That's fine.

I didn't know if you had anything else to add or not.

I was just curious.

I think Tim has a good handle on what makes up that proposed amount for that line.

It just crystallized for me.

Our auditor to she did.

She was here around mid-year last year.

Yes.

All right.

Thank you.

I don't have any other questions.

Thank you.

Councilman Davis, any questions?

Yes.

Thank you, Vice President Green.

Thank you again, gentlemen.

Okay.

So my first question is, what assumptions are underlying the budget?

Did you clarify what you mean?

Okay.

So is there anything that could be any limitations or unexpected that is reflected in the

budget or that could possibly reveal itself later on?

Are there any restraints or limitations?

Oh, sorry.

I'm sorry.

I was thinking maybe she was thinking about your protection methodology, but that doesn't

sound like that's what it was.

Well, yeah.

It is.

Any restraints or limitations?

In this particular budget unit, I think our expenses are fairly consistent from year

to year.

There are a couple of items that fluctuate.

One good example is when the city has a valuation done from our actuary for our other post-employment

benefits liability.

That's done not every year.

This is an example.

That's done every other year.

So that will fluctuate.

That's actually something that we would incur next year because of the timing of the valuation.

But most of the other expenses we evaluate based on obviously a comparison to prior year,

a comparison to what's actually happened during, in this case, 2024.

And then if anybody does have any needs that come up in our department, like a special request,

they tend not to occur that much.

And really, this is one budget unit in the general fund, of course.

And the approach is pretty much applied to all the other budget units relative to expense.

But the idea is we want to start with what the city's normal recurring revenue is and

build our budget from there based on what is a reasonable source that we anticipate.

So I didn't mean to go off tangent there a little bit, but these expenses are evaluated

from historical and current year perspectives.

No, I thank you.

I appreciate you explaining that to me.

So one more question.

Are there any potential risk with this budget?

Any risk?

And the finance budget are over.

Yeah, and the finance budget.

I don't foresee any black and gold.

Okay.

You have to.

Again, another comparative example.

That's a good question for any budget unit, but for example, we have the one budget unit

we have is general expenses.

And there's like quite an assortment of different expenses.

Namely the one that stands out, as you know, is the medical claim expense.

There's a perfect example of what may not be known, you know, based on our best anticipation

of what's to come.

There's that fluctuation in that particular line that we don't have absolute control,

whereas something, the lines in financial management, management's budget unit, there really

aren't any lines that are subject to that kind of volatility.

Yeah.

Okay.

Just as an example to help.

I appreciate that example.

That's what I was looking for.

Thank you.

No other questions.

I can add something to that.

With the medical being self-insured, having a catastrophic medical issue, which you

can never foresee something like that.

But it could go five years without something in one year.

You have one or two or three.

And the other one I think would be possibly risk-reviewed by a corpus call.

There's never no one in there is going to happen.

A lot of people are on duty.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions or comments?

Thank you all for being here tonight.

Thank you for the work you've done to get this budget book together as well.

And it looks like Mr. McCutchen has another follow-up.

Thank you.

Yeah.

I know.

I talk too much, right?

I just wanted to circle back to performance metrics.

Of course, our department, like any department, is subject to performance evaluations.

And that's normally through the exact, yeah, I'm sorry, the finance director.

And of course, that position is currently open.

But what I wanted to bring to your attention really performance wise, I mean, it's our ongoing

moving forward of the new system, the newness system.

I think we've made some pretty good strides along those lines.

I mean, in my world, the way I judge my performance is getting reports done on time.

I mean, audit reports, for example, we have our regular financial audit, but then we're

subject to various other audits, including pension audits.

The state liquid fuels fund.

And all of our reports that go to various entities.

I mentioned the ICA, I mentioned DCEED.

But we do pension filings too, with the department of the auditor general.

So I feel like that's what we focus on those to hit those targets.

And I think we've done a fairly good job of that.

The other thing that we're grappling with right now, and it's not, it is timeline sensitive.

The city is facing with its revenue.

I mentioned re-know using revenue to build your budget up from revenue.

The parking money, of course, as you know, has not materialized in several years now.

And that's a significant seven-figure support for the general fund.

The other thing that's facing us right now is the appraisal value of certain properties

or certain locations and how that can affect our real estate tax revenue.

It's not terribly drastic at this point, but the trend is not the best when you think

about how that impacts the city's revenue.

And of course, it's ability to build a reasonable budget.

So we're focused on that as a priority.

And that's trying to deal with that.

And maybe try to produce, if possible, some other, not as an offset,

but maybe there are other revenue sources or revenue sources that can be generated

for the city in the near future.

So I just wanted to make that comment on performance.

So thank you for that.

Thank you very much.

Thank you again for being here tonight.

I don't think there are any other questions from myself from my colleagues.

So I think we will be moving to what will be our final bureau for the night,

which is going to be the Bureau of Grant.

The Bureau of Information Technology has been moved to a different night

because they weren't available tonight, one of them got sick.

So we will move on to the Bureau of Grant.

Good evening.

If you would introduce yourself, go over your department,

a little overview, answer any of the questions that have been previously asked

of your department.

If there's anything you'll like to add, please go for it added,

then we'll open that for questions.

Good evening.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.

So thanks for having me here.

Is it?

Yeah.

I just got, I didn't get the questions at a time, so I have them now.

So the Bureau of Grant's, our job is to, at least, yeah,

is to bring in money from local, state, county, federal agencies

to do projects that we want to do, like, you know,

fix streets or build parks or whatever you have it.

So kind of that's what we do.

And then once we get the grants in, I mean,

we're lucky enough to do it to lucky enough to do enough to do so.

Then we have to manage them.

And that means reporting and financial reporting,

drawing down funds, all of it.

So that's kind of what we do.

So in terms of departmental diversity, again,

I didn't get these questions, so I wasn't able to give you guys, I'm so sorry.

No worries.

And please go for it to follow up with a memoriding.

So I'm do the best you can tonight and anything else you can follow with it

with a memoriding.

And we apologize for you not getting them in time.

No, no, no, no.

It's not you.

No worries.

100%.

So departmental diversity, I think it's one to one.

So it's myself and it's Tracy Fountain, who is African American, lady.

Vacancies, we have none.

Grants and social project.

I have printed out a sheet of what we're doing over working on, like hotpot

and issues.

ARPA, I am not involved in that.

New positions none.

Usually budget.

So the budget for 2025 is not very different from 2024, except it was

plused up for one position that we added, which was a position of Tracy Fountain.

Other than that, we have it, it's very small budgets, like 5,000 for training

and paper, stuff like that.

We don't have any expected or requested increases in exceeding to that, sorry, 2%.

So again, departmental highlights, it's in this handout.

And performance metrics, I would actually defer to the administration for what it is

they actually want us to go for next year.

What is it that we're, I know that the MLK building is a big project and a big

priority and did just get 400,000 and we asked for another 600,000 from the Pennsylvania

state local share.

It's not enough because I think the budget's like 3 million, but we're trying to do it

incrementally because that's the only way with grants to do it, just like piece by piece.

So I have, that's, we have a bunch of park grant that we have received.

Sorry, we just received a DCNAR grant of 218,000 for its watch area street park.

So we just kind of keep rolling along.

And I can share this with you guys.

And I also, I know that I'm putting together like a year end where we are with grants,

it's a giant Excel spreadsheet so that everyone can see everything we've done this past year.

And not just this past year, but less several years.

So.

Thank you very much.

I'm going to open it to my colleagues.

I'm going to start to my post write.

Councilman Daniels doesn't have any questions so Councilman Davis, any questions?

No questions at this time.

Thank you, President Bowers.

I don't have any questions.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Ross.

Oh, thank you.

Good evening.

Thank you for being here.

I just have two very small questions.

The one is, would you be able to read some of the, for the public who is listening but

we can't see the paper you may hand to us some of the, I think it was department or highlights.

You said there were, I believe you said there were some but you have it on the paper.

I could be wrong what you said but I think that was it.

No, no, no.

Okay.

Okay, so we have submitted an application to the county for $300,000 for a new salt

term.

We're waiting for their response.

We have a DEP Department of Environmental Protection.

I know two, round 60, or cycling trucks with 350,000.

That was granted a while ago.

We're just getting to the point where we can request reimbursement.

We have another DEP in I know two, round 62.

We have a $200,000 for a leaf collector truck.

That was awarded in November.

So that is working through the law bureau or the contract has to be papered.

We just received a state local share application for $400,000 for the MLK building here.

We have just applied November 30th for another application for the rest of the $600,000 for

this same project for the MLK building.

We just received DCNR grant for $218,000 for this waterer street park.

We got a Penn dot Taza grant for $1,000,000, the East West connection for Walnut Street.

We got a US DOT safe streets for all for $1,000,000 for re-signalizing streets throughout

Midtown and Uptown, Harrisburg.

That was September 2024.

So we're working that through the law bureau as well for the papering.

The last thing on the hot seat is the USDA Urban Forestry Grant, which is $1,000,000,000.

That's been peepered.

So it's good, so it's in.

But we need to work through the parks and rec folks to set the schedules to get the

work going into the ground.

Thank you for those highlights.

Then my last question was I do see where the question is being asked for the year-to-date

budget.

I'll ask this of the other directors that come up here.

But when you answer the question, can you say how much you have left in your budget currently?

No one's really answered that in that way to just say yes or no, but I was just wondering

if that could be.

That's a, it's not a black and white question.

Because you encumber the money that, so the bill might not come in from August for a

service you had, and that happens.

Our office happens all the time.

We can build months after.

So the money is encumbered so it can't be spent on anything else.

But it's not spent because the invoices haven't arrived.

So it's not a true comparison, if you say how many checks were written out of this budget,

because there's expenses being incurred that sometimes are months behind.

Okay.

Thank you.

That was it for me.

Thank you very much.

Councilmember Rodriguez.

No questions for me.

Thank you.

And Councilman Jones.

No questions.

All right.

Well, I think that concludes your department unless someone else has any questions.

I do want to say I thank you for all the work that you do, do, do for the city.

Your great asset.

You bring a lot of different things to our citizens and our community.

We're very hard working and we always appreciate the work you do.

My name is McMinnon Comet.

I just want to echo what you just said.

I'll talk to her.

Go on and say what's that for me.

No.

I just want to echo what you just said that she does a tremendous job.

And we have a very robust grant department.

I'll basically handle grants in the past where I've been at.

So for her to secure as many grants as she does, I think she needs to be committed for

that.

And I want to thank her.

Thank you.

Can I say another thing to you?

Sorry, sorry.

Please.

It's a, it's super hard.

It's a huge honor to work here.

And I just want to say that to all of you.

And I thought that I get so nervous when I come to talk to you all, whatever.

It's a really, really, it's a, it's a huge honor.

And thank you, thank you, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for the opportunity.

It's everything.

So thank you.

Sorry, sorry, sorry.

It's a holiday season.

No, I overshare.

You guys know this.

I overshare.

It's okay.

You're fine.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm going.

Thank you very much.

I think that concludes the agenda for tonight.

We will open it up for public comments.

I don't have the line memorized.

But you have four minutes.

You should be from the city.

Have business in the city.

Please state your name, the area where you reside.

And so we're going to start to the right here.

Any public comment?

Moving to the middle section.

Any public comment?

And to the left.

Any public comment?

Once again, anyone, any public comment?

Seeing none, I think that concludes the business for tonight.

I will remind everyone we do have meetings next week with the adjustment to our agenda,

our meeting schedule.

We will have meetings Monday through Thursday of next week.

Monday we will have both a work session and a legislative session.

Tuesday will be a budget hearing.

Wednesday will be a budget hearing.

And Thursday will be a budget hearing.

Potentially the final budget hearing.

If we would need more time, we would choose another day and come back.

Hopefully we get it all crammed in and figured out next week.

But we'll make sure that we go through everything with a fine tooth comb and don't rush the process.

I guess I call for adjournment now.

So I have to call for it.

It's a work session.

So do you need a motion?

Motion to adjourn?

Second.

All right.

Second.

Daniel Nick.