Mayor & City Council

MINUTES College Park City Council Meeting Budget Worksession Saturday, March 23, 2024 8:00 a.m. – 4:42 p.m. HYBRID In Person in Council Chambers of City Hall Virtual over Zoom PRESENT: Mayor Kabir; Mayor Pro Tem Mitchell; Councilmembers Hernandez, Hew, Esters, Whitney, and Mackie. Councilmember Rigg left at 4:15 p.m. Councilmember Adams arrived at 10:23 a.m. ABSENT: None. ALSO PRESENT: Kenneth Young, City Manager; Bill Gardiner, Assistant City Manager; Janeen S. Miller, City Clerk; Gary Fields, Director of Finance; Leo Thomas, Jr., Deputy Director of Finance; Teresa Way Pezzuti, Director of Human Resources; Robert Marsili, Director of Public Works; Steve Halpern, City Engineer; Jatinder Khokhar, Director of Public Services; Miriam Bader, Director of Planning; Ryna Quinones, Communications and Events; Michael Williams, Economic Development; Kiaisha Barber, Director of Youth, Family & Senior Services; Frank Pacifico, Deputy Director of Public Works; Jessica Prentice, Clinical Supervisor. Mayor Kabir opened the meeting at 8:00 a.m. Overview of FY 2025 Proposed Budgets: Mr. Young and Mr. Fields provided the overview of proposed FY’25 budget and reviewed the PowerPoint presentation. General Fund – Departmental Operating Budgets: College Park City Council Budget Worksession March 23, 2024 Page 2 Economic Development: Interest in adding funding to the business retention fund. Interest in small low interest business loans. Request to increase the advertising of the availability of these small business incentives, grants. Finance: Re convenience fees: how much are the convenience fees to the customer. Human Resources: Interest in additional training for how to bridge gaps with Spanish speaking communities. Planning: How many homeowner grants since the program started. Need to update the narrative page. Mayor and Council: Emergency Assistance Grants - • Request for a Worksession to take a closer look at this program: How is it structured, how many and how much, how do we define emergency, reporting. • Interest in lowering the maximum amount of each to increase the total number of grants. Food service delivery organization grants - • How much have we given to each organization over the last 5 years. • Continue requesting detailed reports of how the funds were used. Increase in Public School Education Grants due to tutoring and literacy programs. Do other municipalities provide funding to Fire Departments? Ask PGCMA what are we getting for our dues Communications & Special Events: • New bi-lingual position requested • Farmers Market has moved to this budget • Statistically significant resident survey in the FY 2025 fiscal year • Increase in number of events College Park City Council Budget Worksession March 23, 2024 Page 3 • Request for statistics for each event • If we were to drop an event, it would be the Parade • Utilization of the Community Event Micro Grant program - it is a reimbursement program • Consider one resident guide per year • Need to restock merchandise to sell – pursuing partnership with Shop Made In Maryland Public Services: • New Code Enforcement Manager position requested • Worksession on Shotspotter subscription service • Quick study on public safety • Number of rental units requiring inspections is increasing - close to 10,000 units coming on line • Fee study/workload study hope to do out of the FY 24 budget • Questions about adding parking enforcement on evenings and Sunday Youth, Family & Senior Services: • Increased several part time positions to full time • Request for Grant increase from Neighbors Helping Neighbors • Regarding the request for a new FTE: The department has taken on 8 new contracts and services between calendar year 2023 and the end of this fiscal year, which are in addition to our core services, which have also increased. It is NOT for a lead on the AARP Age Friendly Action Plan • AARP Age Friendly Action Plan has been labor intensive on staff. • Request for more transportation services • Will provide an information report to Council on Care Solace Public Works: • Additional maintenance projects are coming on board • Need for expanded storage space - leaf compost, food scraps, facility foot print Revenue: • Where are we, and the County, on the ITOC? • Proposed tax increase: 5 cent increase on residential, 6.82 cents on commercial, industrial, apartments College Park City Council Budget Worksession March 23, 2024 Page 4 • Proposed increase to elderly property tax credit to provide relief for our senior homeowners • Request for the sum of tax rates (municipal, county, state, MNCPPC) for all of the municipalities to compare apples to applies • New bill will allow us to get notice on tax appeals when the reduction is 20% or more Proposed Tax Rate/Tax Increase: Discussion of options to delay the tax increase and consequences of doing so. ARPA: • We will bring a budget amendment in July 2024 to obligate remaining ARPA funds by December 2024 • Request for list of ARPA expenditures: o what has been obligated or spent and for what o what we still need to spend, and by when CIP: • Duvall Field - Project is moving forward. We have 100% plans and the RPF should go out in 2 months. • Rhode Island Avenue - look at placement of bollards. Hard to make right turns in/out. Traffic study will be done. • 52nd Avenue Sidewalk - 60% design will be coming to Council in the future at which point Council can decide what they want to do. City Council Discussion: • Some Council requests can be funded by current FY 24, some in FY 25 proposed budget, some from Opioid settlement funds. • Roanoke Place property - Concern that it doesn't appear in the budget anywhere. We are going back to the community. Probably next year's budget before it comes back. • AARP Program lead individual - staff or contract person. Interest in moving forward, leave to discretion of staff whether contract or staff. • Art mural for Hollywood Commercial District • Add $15 - $20K to community service grants to allow community organizations to apply for translation. College Park City Council Budget Worksession March 23, 2024 Page 5 Additions to budget - straw Polls: Item #2: move forward at lower amount with City staff rather than contractor Item #s3, 4, 5, 8: off the table Item #10: AARP lead at $35-40K for contractor - add [See below for a change to a FT position] Item #20: $15K add to Community Service Grants for translation services $100K increase to business retention Whitney/Rigg - to bring to $200K, page 37, passed 8-0 Remove from budget – straw polls: 1. Page 34 - reduce food service by $25K, Rigg/no second 2. Page 34 - reduce emergency assistance by $25K, Rigg/no second 3. Page 62 – eliminate Shotspotter from Public Services - Rigg/Esters - remove $50K, passed 4. Mitchell/Whitney - remove funding for parade in FY 25, $33K, passed 6-2 5. Page 26 Hernandez/Esters - remove ITOC, passed, $50,000 6. Page 31 - Rigg/Mitchell - reduce $7K from M&C travel, passed [NOTE: There is an unexpected increase in revenue from M-NCPPC for summer camp grants (page 24) increase in funding of $10,500] 7. Reduce Emergency Assistance Grants for FY 25 from $100K to $50K, Adams/Rigg, and have a W/S to discuss further, failed 8. Rental Assistance Grants, Adams/Hernandez, remove $200K from FY25 and reduce to zero. Run the FY 24 pilot but its so late in the game the pilot will run in FY 25. In favor. 9. Adams/no second - FY 25 allocation of $375K for north CP community center - delay or reduce. 10. Adams/no second – Move Senior Tax Credit down $50 College Park City Council Budget Worksession March 23, 2024 Page 6 11. Esters/Whitney – add a FT staff position (instead of a contractor) as the lead for AARP Age Friendly Action Plan, so remove $35K added above and replace with $85K (includes benefits). Is this in perpetuity or time limited? Currently in the first phase, then new goals going forward. Passed (Adams abstained.) 12. Adams/Hew - Reduce food delivery from $125K to $75K for a $50K reduction - 3 yes, 4 no, failed. (Rigg left at 4:15.) 13. Whitney/Esters - Reduce the residential property tax rate to 34.18 cents, dropping by 1 cent: Reduce revenue by $156K - passed 5-0-2 (Adams, Mackie abstained) 14. Hernandez/no second - change in both tax rates Wrap Up: Budget listening session on March 30. Hold a Council meeting on Tuesday, April 2 for next budget Worksession. Mitchell/Mackie, passed 7-0. Build budget based on 34.18 cent residential tax rate. Adjourn: 4:42 p.m.