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CITY OF SOUTH BEND j OFFICE OF THE CLERK Dr. Mueller replied, We don't have a hired lobbyist. We talk to AIM and do personal outreach. So I raised this with some of our local Senate delegations who were already working on a tax package. My understanding, in our area Senator Mishler is a leader on these and we've talked to him for sure about these issues. Councilmember Broden followed up, And then, I think I came in on this, is there a schematic on our commitments, the debt service, the projects associated with those across the timeline that includes TIF and tax abatement?Then if there are some assumptions or underlying projections,do you have a tool that you use to get at that and to keep track of all that? Can that be shared in a way with Council and the public so that it's transparent and informative? Dr. Mueller replied, Obviously we track tax abatements with the annual tax abatement reports every year. We do track our obligations. I don't think we have it all in one (1) place where there is also property tax receipts from the parcels. We can look at that but we would have to figure out how to make that less cumbersome. Councilmember Broden followed up, I just think it would be helpful. But also, to piggyback on Sharon's comment,I have another question. I know over the time previous to when I sat here,there were improvements to the application of the petitioners and the scoring. That has been a huge improvement, I think. I think maybe the return on investment, that reporting and the valuations that happen, doing that internally,what are some of the changes or key lessons learned?.You don't have to answer that. Dr. Mueller replied, We look at the returns on every project when we are considering them. That is one(1) of the things I think that isn't appreciated is there are plenty of things that come and you never see it because we know it is under water or it wouldn't make sense. We don't bring them forth because they wouldn't get a favorable recommendation. Or, they ask for too much. We look at the number and the need. Those things aren't seen but it is important to say we do screen on the front end to look at the return and the value proposition for the City on every project, including the public ones like the Library for example.There was scrutiny there for sure. They asked for$10 million. We didn't give them that and we had to figure out what the right value proposition was for us. I think Council was pushing for more information on what the return was. Some of the things were hard for them to quantify. They had gone to Umbaugh to get foot traffic metrics and I had suggested something we could look at. Nevertheless, we couldn't quite quantify those but we got some input output models on the construction and some of the other things. Some of this is hard to do. Any analysis, there is a balance between moving things forward and looking back and analyzing. The question is the balance because we have one (1) or maybe two (2) analysts on our stuff. And everyone else is trying to do stuff and move projects through and keep things on time. We have thought about when we go through the budget process adding another analyst. This year there were a lot of budgetary needs. There is a potential homeless coordination position, there is the Engagement Specialist, and we have more staffing potential than we ask for or that we could manage. We value analysts. I have a PhD so I certainly value analysis, but we are judged more on delivery. It is good to have it and we try to find ways within the bandwidth we do have to get better information out there, it is just hard for us to justify to put too much on the analysis side. Councilmember Broden interjected, But a percentage of your time has to be dedicated to that. It has to be right and informative because you don't want to keep doing the same thing and hoping to get better results,right? EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION ' EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574 235 9221 f 574.235.9173 HD 574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 25