08-15-16 Personnel and Finance - Laserfiche WebLink

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empowered by education, mobility and technology. We keep those goals in mind while making our budget decisions. As always, public safety is going to command the majority of the General Fund. About twenty percent (20 %) of the General Fund is going to public safety. If you look at the General Plus, Public Safety, LOIT, COIT, and EDIT it is eighty percent (82 %) of the budget. Right now the Police Department is undergoing a reorganization, and the goal is to find efficiency. Most importantly, it will gear the department toward being responsive to the community. That is a continuing effort that the command staff is leading. You will also see investments in water and wastewater, they have always been extremely important, but there is a new awareness around the country about how extremely important that is, so we're trying to make sure we are keeping up when it comes to water and wastewater. You'll also see some investments in EMS and Fire. When it comes to having a strong economy, Community Investment is important, mostly working off of TIF and Enterprise Funds. The work we are doing on workforce development programing, the pathways program and the youth mentoring program at the MLK Center are reflected. We are continuing to try to make sure that the wireless access points are more broadly distributed in the community. We are trying to make sure that people without it at home aren't being left out of the digital economy. You'll see public spaces represented, such as the Charles Black Center. We got the EPA to expedite the sampling that is nearest to Charles Black Center so we can get answers sooner rather than later on whether or not we can go ahead with that project. A policy shift you are going to see is turning to TIF, especially in quality of place enhancements. TIF dollars have helped with the Howard Park Ice Rink. More broadly when it comes to how we handle place and space making, really starting to think of all of our community assets as under one roof. You'll hear the term venues parks and arts, that's how we are talking about Parks and Recreation, the Morris, Century Center and downtown assets like parking garages. We are thinking of all of that now as one department, and Aaron Perri is going to be able to better explain more details on that. Meanwhile, and thankfully not depending on City tax payers, we've had a chance to think about how the City addresses our rivers thanks to the Blueways project. We have $5 million more to work with than we did a few weeks ago. We've now gotten through the biggest hurdle when it comes to Regional Cities. We are continuing to invest in Light Up South Bend, making sure that we are there in terms of neighborhood investment opportunities, and dealing with the remaining vacant and abandoned properties. We are down by about 1100 vacant and abandoned properties. 3