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CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK
<br /> to help us with economic analysis, to say "Hey, what's this going to mean in the future?" But, to
<br /> your point about the second (2n1) one (1), the governmental and administrative analysis, that's
<br /> something that has to be there. Communication between the Administration, the Council, and
<br /> residents, needs to be there to make sure that the projects we're financing are the ones that are
<br /> reflective in our priorities. And again, I'm going to turn into a broken record with the number of
<br /> times I say this, but the resource allocation, the amount of money that we put towards projects,
<br /> needs to follow the priorities. So, resource allocation follows priorities. If you don't have the
<br /> priorities, if you don't have what we're trying to accomplish as an Administration,with input from
<br /> everybody involved,then you're never going to be able to issue debt for projects because you won't
<br /> know what to fund.
<br /> Committee Chair White stated, That's one (1) that becomes very critical.
<br /> Mr. Parker replied, Absolutely.
<br /> Committeemember Jo M. Broden stated, External, internal, and I know we use consultants pretty
<br /> routinely. I was also wondering about the pace of it. Is it a quarterly look? Certainly, it's annual,
<br /> but is it project specific? How frequent is it, the economic analysis?
<br /> Mr. Parker replied,Yeah, so the economic analysis is a full-blown look at how we're going to look
<br /> over the next five(5)to fifteen(15) years. It happens, at least, during the budget process. So,right
<br /> now that's kind of what we're doing is trying to forecast into the future how we're going to look in
<br /> five(5) years. It also happens as projects come up that need,that require issuance of new debt. So,
<br /> if we're planning on issuing new debt and it is project-driven, we're saying "Okay, we need $12
<br /> million for this new sewer project, let's do an analysis. What does the future of sewer revenues, of
<br /> waste-water revenues, look like so that we can make sure that we are going to be able to fund this,
<br /> and continue to fund operations, right? Continue to make sure that we can treat the waste-water,
<br /> which is extremely important."
<br /> Councilmember McBride stated, I guess that goes back to the lines of what I was asking earlier as
<br /> far as where we stand now with what we, I know we get a monthly snapshot of where we are, but
<br /> to date, especially with me being still newer on the Council, to know what we said we were
<br /> obligated to do last year and where we are with that. How much, what do we still have left? What
<br /> have we paid? So now that we're going into 2020, I could have that look back of where we are and
<br /> what did we accomplish? And what we said what we were going to do. If so, fine. If not,why not?
<br /> And then, when?
<br /> Mr. Parker replied, I can tell you that we can definitely have further conversations about this for
<br /> sure, but from a financial perspective, the way that we report that is through the encumbering
<br /> process. So, we say, "Hey, we are going to set aside this amount of money for this particular
<br /> project.Then we can say, "Here's how much money we've actually spent for that project,but here's
<br /> the amount of money we have set aside."
<br /> Councilmember McBride followed up,And I do understand the encumbrances,but I guess I'd like
<br /> to get it up to speed with the different projects. I want them fresh in my head so when it comes up
<br /> for whether a hypothetical zoning, or asking for TIF, or asking for something else, I want to know
<br /> looking back what it was that we said we were going to do.
<br /> EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION I INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT
<br /> 455 County-City Building 227 W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana46601 p 574.235.9221 f574.235.9173 TTD574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov
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