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REGULAR MEETING OCTOBER 24, 2016 different responsibilities. Sometimes you do have to pay someone a heck of a lot of more money to come up with a million dollar deal versus someone who is packing a part in a box. When it comes down to it they are both as important and we try to pay people fairly to retain them and help them further their own careers and stay with our company. We also try to have longevity in the terms of further education. It is the same for the non - bargaining salaries but there does need to be a return on investment. He thanked Councilmember White, Jennifer Hockenhull, and John Murphy for all the meetings they scheduled and ran regarding the budget. He also thanked the Clerk's Office for making sure everything is legally announced and readily available for the public. The kickoff meeting was back on June 7th. A lot of our resources and government is around dealing with this budget. The budget overview for the Council was on August 15th. There is a whole heck of a lot of positive things in the neighborhoods we could be doing but it is still important to focus on the budget. He thanked the Councilmembers who did go to the budget meetings, he admitted he missed one (1) or two (2), and the members that did make it did their best to make the budget better. He stated not one (1) department head didn't give him the information he asked for or were unwilling to help the public or Council understand the budget. A lot of other local governments across this country would love to have our employees, we are light -years ahead of other cities our size. Councilmember White thanked the Councilmembers and the Administration and the Clerk's Office for their support during the budget process. There has been a lot said about transparency, engagement, and communication. As many of the Councilmembers have stated, we started this process early on in terms of sharing with the Councilmembers for their feedback and what priorities they wanted to see in the budget. Many of the priorities that were given were related to public safety and quality of life issues such as curbs and sidewalks and other areas we believed were important to ensure we have strong neighborhoods and a strong City. Engagement is still a concern, we had eight (8) budget meetings and one (1) off -site meeting and it has also been suggested we need to look at better ways to engage the community and the ways our community can give us feedback. All the information from those meetings has been placed online and also ten (10) pages of questions that the Councilmembers had asked of the Administration and we did get into the "weeds" in terms of trying to get as much information and making sure that information was as clear as possible. Still we are at the point where we want to start this process earlier in trying to get feedback from the community. She stated she brings the budget pamphlets and handouts from the Administration to the local neighborhood groups. Councilmember White stated unfortunately the level of public engagement was not at the level it probably should have been at those budget meetings but that causes us to go back and look at how do we as a Council ensure we have the level of public participation. In regards to TIF, it was the Council through one (1) of the committee meetings where we asked for more information on TIF and lessening the burden on the General Fund. The question remains, are there other areas where we can have utilization of TIF funds. Clearly the salary study needs to be completed which will also include performance evaluation. As we look at the various positions which are asking for increases, the overall ordinance average comes to two point four percent (2.4 %). This is not unusual. We need to make sure positions are in -line with market value. There are certain positions within this ordinance that have not been budgeted properly and it is important that they receive the level of funding that justifies the work those individuals are currently doing. Councilmember White thanked everyone for their efforts this year and it is a great beginning to move forward. Councilmember Dr. David Varner stated he has sat through a lot of these budget processes over the years and the amount of information available now is extraordinary and Mr. Murphy and his staff do an extraordinary job of getting information out. He stated his proposal has nothing to do with an objection to any member of any City staff and has no objection to any departments. We have some really great people who work for our City. The fact that you have a long drawn out process does not mean you have the best outcome, it just means you had a long process. He stated the salary ordinance came to the Council in the middle of our last meeting two (2) weeks ago. This salary ordinance could have been on the table a few weeks earlier so that we could have had this discussion far in advance. We were put in this position of having this discussion now. It is incongruous that in the same budget proposal we can discuss the fiscal cliff, which we have known about for eight (8) years, and spending all this money on salaries. You don't walk 19