Budget Hearings - Law Department, Library, Board of Ethics

    5:00PM Mar 17, 2023

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    Progress

    Budget finance audit standard no budget finance audit expanded standing committee is now in session with the clerk. Please call the roll.

    Council members

    tonight clerk you have a technical difficulties

    Mr. Chair,

    I do see that the clerk is on and promoted. So maybe she is having technical difficulties.

    Okay. We'll take a brief recess.

    We are here.

    Oh, we're near my scratch that

    Councilmember Scott Benson.

    It's happened tonight.

    Councilmember Fred Hall The third resident council member Leticia Johnson, present councilmember Gabriela Santiago mero. Present. Councilmember Mary waters. Councilmember Angela Whitfield Callaway present. Councilmember Coleman Young the second here. Council President Pro Tem GameState. Council member I'm sorry, Council President Mary Sheffield. Mr. Chair, you do have a quorum present.

    Thank you, Madam Clerk. Okay, first, we have with us the law department. Will you please come up?

    Do you have a presentation you want to share with us? Do you need screen sharing capabilities? Are you good

    now? We're fine, Mr. Chairman, ranking your model here the floor is yours, sir. Good afternoon. My name is Conrad Malad Corporation Counsel for the city of Detroit. With me is attorney Jason Harrison, Chief of Staff for the law department. Ms. Crystal Rollins Wiggum, project manager for the law department and Mr. James George from the Office of Chief Financial Officer and the law departments finance person. I've had the distinct honor to serve as the City of Detroit's Corporation council for just under one year. During that time, I've come to appreciate the women and men who served the citizens of the city of Detroit this key law department support staff and attorneys. Let me share with you Mr. Chairman, US statistics law department and is our responsibility while are aware for code enforcement. We cover 36 District courtrooms five days a week. Last year, we closed out 338,770 cases. This number does not represent actual trials. It does represent however client or litigant contact. And all of us should be proud of the seven women and men who do this work. For the record. These numbers do not include my team's mental health court appearances, appearances in the veterans court, or drug court appearances. Law Department lawyers as this honorable body knows are also involved in every development deal done or assisted by the city of Detroit. These deals are always complex and as you are aware involve most times multiple parties, multiple departments, and always high stakes. The same lawyers who represent the city of Detroit and all real estate transactions also review all city of Detroit contracts that are admitted to this honorable body for consideration. Last year the law department reviewed and modified as necessary 806 contracts. This year so far we reviewed 610 contracts and at this pace, the law department contract transaction team will review more than 2000 contracts, law department litigators are handling as we speak 1857 Open matters. Each of these matters require careful consideration and as courts reopen soon, actual court appearances become more and more frequent. Every single one of these cases is consequential. Every law department support person and attorneys are hardworking and dedicated public servants. I could go on but I will conclude my introduction with this statistic. We responded to more than 7000 Freedom of Information Act requests last year. We project this year we will respond to 9000 Freedom of Information Act requests. I am a part of the team that reviews the requests as they come in. No two requests are the same and each request is important for you is an excellent tool. But increasingly, it has become a powerful weapon in the hands of persons collecting information in order to support a theory of liability against the city for which there are no public facts. Yet. Our budget reflects our desire to do more of our work in house and our desire to competitively compensate our support team members and our attorneys. We recently received and have responded to questions presented by LPD. We have those responses with us should any member of this honorable body have questions related to that document. And with that, Mr. Chairman we look forward to answering any questions any member of this honorable body may have.

    Excellent thank you Cooperation Council. It's good to see everyone. We are going to start with member Benson. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Thank you all for being here. This afternoon. A couple of questions for you. 330,000 I believe the number that's pretty impressive number. I'm also looking at the hours worked on a number of other items in your metrics and goals also very impressive. But then looking

    at the

    the budgets from fiscal year 23 to fiscal year 24. And I see a reduction I see a reduction in the rep potential revenues as well as in the proposed budget from two point 5,000,023 to propose 18.4 significant reduction but you add but as you said if you want to increase the level of compensation to be competitive, I don't see how does that translate? I'm missing something here.

    So constant person Benson actually it's a very straight indirect forward explanation. We have had the pleasure of having in our budget those attorneys who do extraordinarily good work for a project called clean slate. They are the attorneys that at City expense we represent persons who are seeking expunged are both misdemeanor and felony. We have transferred Clean Slate the Clean Slate program and the attorneys out of the law department budget. They are in something that James Joyce describes as a non department budget so they by no means have gone away.

    So best carry Jones and her team are under the law department. They are

    no longer in our budget those lawyers report to the law department. But oh CFO made a decision and I'm sure Mr. Mr. George can give you further explanation and then also you noted that in 2023. We had five Arper lawyers who had just been hired. Those lawyers were to specifically hired to help us handle the significant number of ARP related contracts. Those persons were put into the ARP budget associated with the departments that generated the program. So our budget actually costs a person has not been decreased. Actually it's been slightly enhanced but it's it's it's it it seemed to always CFO that would be easier for the accountants to be to manage the dollars differently.

    Remember Benson through the chair that is correct. The project clean slate for the I mean they were part of the legislative operation cost center in the Florida Department budget. Office of the budget decided to move them to a non department budget but they still intact there is nothing reduced or anything so they just moved from the law department to different cost centers.

    Okay. And that's fantastic. Isn't that for me? CFOs really, oh CFOs office. That's the type of note that we need to have in our budget because sands this conversation and that question being asked, we're not going to know that's the case. And so those are the type of notes that we really do need to see. And still unfortunately, although corporate and counsel you're saying that the the hit actually comes financially in the budget there, but in all reality, you're saying we're actually what we're doing is increasing the budget so that we can provide more competitive wages that doesn't shine through here and then so can you just give an example of how you plan to do that? Is there a way to actually measure that as a metric? Is it a percentage of salaries from fiscal year 23 versus number of employees to a percentage of salaries or per employee average? I'm just not sure how I would be able to tell that sans you've given us that statement today.

    So council person what this budget does, anticipate is that there will be a metric based increase whatever gets approved by the by the administration as recommended to this body, either it's going to be anywhere between two and 4%. And so that's that's here in in in the budget.

    Okay. And so corporate and council, thank you for that. I'm glad to hear and I agree philosophically, I believe that we need to be competitive at the municipal level for talent. And I believe I truly believe that we've forgotten, talented staff members and we've lost half the staff members in every department, just based on the fact that as a missa palette, we may have had a philosophy in the past that you work with the city, you should be willing to take less maybe for a more competitive pensions program or or benefits. I'm not sure that we're there any longer and that if we want to keep and acquire talent, that we need to be able to pay a competitive wage, maybe we don't have to be the same as the private sector. Not that we could ever meet what they do at the silk stocking firms for your situation but we need to be at least competitive and we have a difficult time. I know keeping attorneys at least on the on the municipal side to get our own ordinances done and opinions done just because there's been a tough time of being competitive, but also with that. One of the things that I see is and this is a whole separate item is that how are we doing with the settlements? And I know that that is something that for me has always been problematic, that it seems that many, many people come to see Detroit and see us as a bit of a piggy bank. And there are difficult ways and there are easier areas where people are able to say who I can just there was a bit of bus accident I'm gonna run out of the five and dime with a six and a half and hop on the bus and then lay out with a with a hurt neck. I mean, what are we doing to help reduce the amount of settlements and then have we thought about being creative when it comes to the negotiations of our contracts to say, hey, if we're paying $15 million average on say bus settlements, I'm sure as much more if we can reduce that. We will actually give you bus drivers and DDOT staff. Half of that when we now let's save the city seven and a half million dollars that are putting out 15 million. So just how are we thinking creatively and how we can help reduce some of those costs on the settlements.

    So council person will be glad to come back in a closed session and have the settlement discussion again as we've had before and we'd be more than happy to do again.

    I don't need to do the same thing again. But I'm just no no, no

    but i The point I'm making is is that number one you just want to be sure that those that I because I know all of this honorable body but the people at home are where we take all of these cases absolutely serious. No settlement. Our recommendation to this body is made casually it's not made out of a sense of convenience. Number One Number two, as as I have said publicly and we'll continue to say the personal injury protection issues that the city of Detroit as our profound this this body is very, very well aware of what they are. We have done some things I think that are particularly creative in response to this plague upon the city which again and close session that we'll be glad to have a much more robust conversation. I do think this I do think that there is now that the courts are reopening the the anxiousness. I think of some of the members of my team to want to try more of these cases and in in a slightly more vigorous manner. Is is increasingly present. I think that some of the claims as you are describing them are indeed frivolous. And there is a sense that there is opportunity. This is these are new opportunities. I don't want you to just think for a minute that the team in the past was not doing all that they could something has changed though. And our ability to fight these cases more aggressively. is something that we're anticipating.

    Okay, I don't want to mistake my statements be misconstrued that I'm taking anything for obviously or lightly. Oh, I understand and I don't think that the attorneys under your your charge are doing that either. But just on the bottom line. I'm just hoping that we can be creative and how we think they ought to try to reduce that and just put keep those dollars in our general fund to help fund other important programs. And I also have to say, a two to 4% pay increase. I'm just not sure that's going to make us more competitive, although I'll allow those with with greater connection with our staff to make that decision. But I would not be opposed to what I would believe would be a more competitive sweetener when it comes to somebody's salary, which I believe would be probably double those numbers. That you've just described. And then one last item, looking at revenues, and sales and charges for services is reduced by half a million dollars from fiscal year 23 to 24. Just describe why and then what are we doing to gain to earn revenue and law department

    so that the the $554,000 that you made no job. We have a data management system down in the locker department and council person called city law it is a really tired old data management system that is very difficult for the lawyers to enter in their time. The greatest opportunity that we would have for interdepartmental reimbursement would become for the services that we provide to DDOT with all of the bus cases that you just mentioned, city law really did not afford us the opportunity to record that data effectively. We will soon hopefully be presenting to this body our request for a contract for a new data management system, which we believe is going to enhance significantly the lawyer's ability to enter their time, thus allowing us the ability to more effectively charge back to the department's the representation that they're receiving number one number two. The other thing that did not happen with the kind of energy that I know this body was anxious for is that we the probes in place to recover costs associated with either emergency and or other kinds of demolitions that should have been done by the owner of the property and ended up being done for a variety of reasons by the city of Detroit. We are in the process of reinvigorating that program. Invoices will be going out from GSD and from the demolition department number one, number two, we have a collection of lawyers in place and very, very proud of all of the lawyers working on blight. The collection of these invoices once they are filed pursuant to processes outline and city ordinance, I think is going to give us real revenue generating opportunity and whether it does or not. Those persons who have forced the city of Detroit to on behalf of the citizens do the work that they should have done themselves. They're going to feel the pain because lawsuits are coming. So we did not have good system in place prior to of meeting our revenue objections objectives. Once we have the new data management system in place, we will be adding money to the lot departments bottom line, and persons who are neglectful over their property and therefore dependent on the city of Detroit to take care of the emergencies that they create will in fact be held to account that is for 2324

    All right, thank you. One last item. Are you the largest law firm or Law Department of State?

    Do I have the largest law firm in the state I don't know how many attorneys work for the Attorney General Nessel I think she probably has a few more.

    Okay, thank you. All right, recognizes member Kelly.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good afternoon in March of 2022 City Council added funds the law Departments budget for additional interns to help eliminate the backlog of FOIA request. How many interns were hired with that 70,000 wasn't a lot of money, but I know that we did appropriate $70,000 for one or two interns and I know you just mentioned that. There were 7000 for your responses in 2022 and then for this year so far, if I'm not mistaken, I wrote down that you said 9000

    we're on pace for 9000 Yes, man already in March of 2023. No, no no for this year. With the with the number that we have. So far. We're on pace to do 9000 for 2023.

    Okay for 2023. Yes, man, you did 7000 requests in 2022. So were you able to hire those interns or intern and were they able to be of assistance to you in this effort?

    So they were not two things occurred. We had a number of administrative policy, excuse me administrative changes in personnel. The person who would have managed that program left the law department. Crystal Rollins Wiggum is here now and will be in charge of managing the interns. We do expect to have to come on shortly conflict person, but we did not have the administrative wherewithal last year to manage an internship program. So the answer is no. The answer is no.

    Okay, thank you. The Department of appeals and hearings was here a couple of days ago and they have a collection rate of 23% using smart technology and an outside collection. Agency. This collection rate would be closer to 37%. If collection of old account receivable receivables are included. If the law department aggressively sought the actual cost of demolition from private owners dangerous buildings at the same rate of collection of 23% as the appeals and hearings office, it would return approximately $18 million to the demolition fund at the collection rate of 37%. And you all can just look at the numbers my staff and I have at the collection rate of 37% it would return approximately $30 million to the demolition fund. And I bring up those numbers because last year the law department use a contingent fee arrangement to collect lost assets held by the state of Michigan and that is Michigan pout law. 120 5.541 provides the procedures and I'm sure you all know this provides this procedure surrounding dangerous buildings and allows for demolition a collection of actual cost of demolition. A judgment may be enforced against assets of the owner other than the of the building or the structure. Simply stated the law department has the power to obtain jobs judgments and enforce the judgment against the bank accounts of the owners of dangerous buildings. We meet in my estimation looking at these numbers. What is your plan to hire outside counsel based on a contingent fee basis using Detroit bass, small law firms and Corporation Counsel we've talked about this in terms of hiring minority and women law firms. And I know you agree with me that we should do that. But it's been nine years so it's well overdue. What is your plan to get the ice hire the outside counsel on a contingent fee basis because we have a case now where you know, some assets were at the state level, low firm, little town in Michigan found those assets got is getting a percentage of the assets that they found. So what is your plan to set up a, again, outside counsel based on a contingent fee basis?

    So, council person, that's an excellent suggestion. Frankly, we had been looking more inside the department to bring the lawsuits ourselves. That's part of the reason that the blank contingent of the lawyers and the law department has been built up since my arrival. The idea that we would do on a contingency fee basis is a new one. And if you will give us 60 days to consider it we'll come back. I don't have any doubt that that's a good idea of on the flip side. We do want to and we have a number of constitutional requirements including associated particularly with notice and fair warning. We wouldn't want to be responsible for carrying out the notice and providing the fair warning warning ourselves. But the other aspects of what you just described are something that we need to consider and we'll come back.

    Thank you Mr. Malik. Thank you Mr. Chair.

    Thank you member Callaway chair recognizes Mr. Waters.

    Thank you so much in so Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Um, it seems to be a reduction in contractual and legislative services. For fiscal year 23. Can you explain to us why

    one of the legislative service companies quarry I think council person we read I think the recommendation came from the governmental side of the administration. They really thought that they would the return of former state senator Marsha Bullock to the administration. They felt like there were some in house capability that the administration might be able to provide those contracts as you know. There are a part of the law Departments budget law department does not provide direct supervision over those particular persons. We will certainly present the question that you just asked back to the mayor's office and get you a response. I don't have an in depth response to that question. Through the Chair,

    I might be able to provide a little more context. In fiscal 2023. There was actually one time funding for I'm sorry, Jenny Yates, deputy budget director, there was actually one time funding for our outside counsel services in a lot department budget in fiscal 2023. That funding has since been included in our risk management fund for 2024. So there's a kind of, I think the total across all of the not just legislative services but across sufficient innovation operations was a little over 2.5 million. So you see a big, big drop note in those services. Yeah,

    yeah, we take a look at your contractual services, reductions and stuff. Okay. I'm not just have another quick question for you. Do you maintain records of developers who would default on projects?

    We don't per se. I know that HRD has a manifest similar to the one that you're describing.

    So I would I would obtain that information from HRD. Yes, man. It'd be good for law department with kind of keep set records to it really would be

    the day to day management of the development agreements. We can we had not considered that but we will. Okay. Well, we can certainly have that conversation with HR D.

    Okay. All right. Thank you. And thank you, Mr. President. Thank you.

    Thank you, Madam Chair recognizes member Dr. Hall.

    Thank you, Mr. President. Good afternoon to you all. Just a very quick question. As we talk about outside counsel. I know there are a number of issues obviously, that have come up and we don't want to get specific to them. I think oftentimes is not understood that for specific issues, we have to seek outside counsel, which comes at a cost. Can we just briefly touch on what those costs look like, relative to some of our outside counsel. And when it comes to these particular issues, obviously billing very familiar with lawyers as far as I can understand, as a lawyer, so when I say when we talk about billing, billable hours, what does that look like? And what is the rate for that right now just just on average, that we're that we're spending so

    much? celebrate a little bit early over there. Era.

    You okay, everything good.

    having too much fun we already party stop doing we can do it. We can turn up trying to get in your space

    so council person door Hall, it really does depend on the nature of the particular service being offered, for instance, the our litigators are going to charge less than those persons who provide financial assistance or record

    for me corporations. Miss missing metal the member missing your mic is on. Thanks, sir.

    Let's keep it down. Let's keep

    going because

    it depends on the nature of the service being delivered. For public finance in areas around real estate transactions is probably looking around $225 An hour litigation is probably around 150 And that really does have to do with the intensity of the hours put in many times they litigator force is going to go to court for scheduled hearing and have to wait. We they are there at our behest they are there representing a representing the city of Detroit for court hearings supposed to start at 10 for a variety of reasons. It doesn't start until 1130 That is not time that is lost. That is time that is charged. So it's going to it's going to vary depending on the nature of the service being provided. We can give you a better breakdown of what that is by by service in the coming weeks, so we'll take that back.

    I'm in my second what thank you for that. And again, let me just Just a comment to that. You know, obviously when these issues occur, you know, we have to take that those are taxpayer dollars that come from our general fund, right and, you know, always concerned with that because again, some matters may have no standing but yet we have to utilize taxpayer dollars to address it to ensure that the city is safe and so always concerned about that. The second question that I have is you mentioned briefly about risk management. Obviously, we've seen an increase in the number of lawsuits that come across the city of Detroit and it's even been reported in our articles. And just noting that in some instances relative to government, some of the best prevention if you will, or being proactive is dealing with risk management. Could you talk about can you just dive into a little bit of what what those though what does the conversations between our law department and relative to risk management and folks that handle risk management here for the city of Detroit look like to ensure that we're doing everything that we possibly can to see that we are not sued or have to settle?

    So constant person the way that works is is that we report back to the departments the actual costs incurred as a result with the accidents that are generated are reported out of their particular department, risk management and those CFO have that as a metric for the department directors to reduce that number down. We do not as the Law Department provide counseling or provide them booklets on how to do their job better. We're not experts at that. But oh CFO and the risk management department, however engaged in conversations and do say we may not be expert you all are you've got to do better. So it is a conversation. It's not being driven by the law. department. We are a part however creating the information necessary that provides the metric that people will have their performance measured by.

    Okay, and again, I look forward to you know, having further conversations. Obviously there are things we can't talk about relative here, but and then in closed session. But I'll have many more questions that I'll submit. I just want to find a way to work and help drive down those lawsuits even though again, any city, municipality or even the state will tell you that there will always be somebody willing to sue whether they have standing or not. But I guess finding the best way to help mitigate that and particularly talking about the metrics and the data is important goes to risk management so it can flow through to departments for better practices. So thank you, Corporation Council. Thank you, Mr. President.

    Thank you, Chair recognizes Mr. Johnson.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good afternoon to you all. I think risk risk mitigation is on all of our minds and as the chair of the internal operations Standing Committee. It certainly is on mine. I can say that I appreciate the I think the lens that we now maybe view individual incidents and as it relates to suggesting whether or not legal representation and independent indemnification should be offered for individual situations. It seems to me that you know, we are pushing the envelope a little bit more, and maybe because of some of the conversations that we've had that helps to reduce the number of legal representation and indemnification or even settlements that we see coming before us. But can you talk about how the law department is minimizing exposure and high publicity cases? I know we talked about this a little bit last year.

    So council person, I will say that it really does have everything to do, sometimes not so much with the law department as opposed to department leadership. The tone set by department leadership is terrifically important. And across the board, but particularly I would say both in fire and police. The leadership there has been very clear about the appropriate behavior they expect. That message is filtering down and has filtered down to all levels of the management. It has given then the law department particularly my team, the one that I lead the ability to really, really, really with the support of the department's push back when we get requests for representation. We have a number of items coming to you in the normal course where behavior is recommended by the Department for no representation, which is which is newer than it's been let's say it that way. So yes, I think that the sense that you have counsel person that there is a shift in tone is is is a function of the quality of the leadership of the various frontline departments that regularly appear for you before you.

    Thank you can you can you talk about minimizing exposure?

    Well, the V. We could have a much more vigorous conversation because they could talk with you about particular cases in closed session. But I can say as as I said before, that the law department in support of and with the cooperation of department directors are taking a more firm attitude toward some of these answers some of the behavior that we see that we don't want to be repeated. And and I think I'll leave it there and be glad to bring a number of examples to you so that we could have a really vigorous conversation about what changed.

    Thank you. I think I actually think that would be a great idea. I know last year at some point, we talked about the numbers of cases that were being presented to the city. So I think it would be a good idea for us to have a closed session to get a better understanding. My second question is relative to the litigations division so is stated in the budget that the litigation division is one of the largest governmental civil litigation divisions in the state of Michigan. Can you talk about your capacity to assist in training city employees on the avoidance, the avoidance of actions that often lead to civil suits

    that is not work council person that we do, we have not done it. Human Resources has largely taken that responsibility we will take that suggestion back that we might be able to be more supportive, the idea that we would drive down risk and create a more vigorous approach to prevention. Really, at the end of the day, we'd be glad to cooperate but I don't know that we could lead it but we will certainly conflict person start the discussion.

    Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Thank you. The Chair recognizes member of Santiago Romero.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, everyone. I appreciate all the work that has done for Project Clean Slate but I'm wondering if you partner with the city organizations to provide wraparound services for clients. We all know what happens once you are released from prison and really the barriers that are our people are faced with but wondering what wraparound services look like

    so clean slate is directly tied in with community health Corp. They are in regular part of the conversation. Clean Slate actually has a very vigorous relationship with the ESC as well. And we have found our Clean Slate clients to be among the most interested in the kind of self improvement programs that D SC and took particular choice a job training has available. The whole expungement process as I'm sure council person you're aware is difficult. You've got to collect your own documents. This is a process that despite the fact that you have a lawyer provided by the city, the level of commitment that you have to doing a lot of this data collection yourself is very important which translates into a willingness to in fact take on the responsibilities associated with job training. So for us, clean slate actually has become a fairly direct link into improving both employment and the prospects generally the men and women we serve.

    Great. Thank you and I through the Chair, I know that it was mentioned by member Callaway need for us to hire black owned firms, women owned firms. We also have a lot of issues when it comes to immigrant communities here. And I believe your answer was that's a good suggestion. And might have heard that wrong. So I guess my follow up question to that is has there been any discussions around efforts to to actually hire more diverse law firms?

    Oh, absolutely. The the question for us always is capacity and availability. What Councilperson Callaway was discussing was a set of state laws that in fact would allow us on a contingency fee basis to extend ourselves further in the community. We want to come back to all of you but particularly her with the program around that that does it seems to me represent a significant opportunity.

    Okay. And have there been any discussions around hiring law firms that work particularly with immigrant communities?

    We have not in terms of hiring the law firms to do the immigrant work. Yeah, no. We have we have we have not done much of that. As you know. We have we've got some efforts in that. area. We've been concentrating more directly on services like obviously right to counsel, clean slate and so on and so forth. Do we have Do we just foot forward crystal I

    thought a

    contract for immigration services. Yeah, we'll have to come back with you on that. I thought that we have but we can't. You don't have it at our fingertips.

    Thank you as far as I know the ones that we have approved are those larger firms that we that we always work with. And just knowing that we do have other firms here locally, that have either lived experience or worked very closely with this population. Really, really encouraged us to be able to work together with them. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Thank you, Mr. Zhanjiang. Hello, good to see everybody good to see a corporation Council. My first question is almost nine out of 10 Detroit eviction cases were from properties that were not up to code. I think that was from about Give me a minute here. Let me see. I think it was about from the area from about March 2020 to June of 2022. How many cases do we bring against these individuals? And how many cases are we bringing against these individuals on a regular basis? And do we track that by percentage and by number?

    So, Mr. Chairman,

    the cost of that, yeah, the

    so the BC is issuing 1000s of tickets for for property owners who are compliance. Here is the issue. The issue is is that once you give a ticket for compliance, goes over the Department of Administrative Hearings. It is or it is not paid. The ordinance says that you cannot rent. If you are you cannot rent to anyone if you're not in compliance with the city of Detroit call. We don't have a real way. Any capacity whatsoever to regulate that when when a tenant moves in. There's no automatic reporting system that exists that lets the city of Detroit know that a person has moved into a property that is not in compliance with the ordinance we always find out after the fact number one, number two many of these property owners and remember, I think the number from HR D is about 75% of the rental properties in the city of Detroit are owned by very, very small property owners who own one or two houses. In many instances. What HR D has found is that they simply don't have the wherewithal to bring the home into compliance particularly as it relates to lead compliance. And at some point, I believe HR D is going to come before this honorable body and talk with you all about a modification to the ordinance that other cities have done to to generate a higher rate of compliance but the statistic that you report is accurate.

    So I just wanted to ask a follow up So are you saying that because you're finding out after the fact, it makes it harder for you to be able to file cases after the evictions take place? If we had a system in place? It makes it easier for you to do that or is that something that you're just saying that's primarily going to be within the confines of of handle between DC

    Yes, it's going to it's gonna be it's gonna be a function of the issuance of a ticket based on an inspectors visit and then we are going to enforce the ticket. In many instances, the tenant will be the person that in fact causes the inspector to come. At the point that there is an eviction, one of the defenses will be in fact, particularly as we are representing the person subject to eviction and the if there is a claim for back rent, the property was not in compliance and then say to the judge that the tenant needs X amount of time to move because the house was not a compliance or because it wasn't in compliance, the amount of money that is currently in escrow should be accepted by the landlord, so on and so forth. So it's always going to be a part of litigation. But in almost every instance unless you are coming from some affordable housing complex per se, you are probably in the hands. If you're in the hands of a large property owner. We are going after them, Mr. Chairman. We have a list of persons that were carved top 25 And we've got lawsuits going against them. They are more broad in their disrespect for the ordinances, the city of Detroit for the very small property owner, that is going to be on a case by case basis.

    Does that make sense? Thank you for that. I also want to ask you about a reverse indemnification cases. I'm looking at this we're talking about you'd have on reserve $163 million for 18 cases. If

    you mean reverse conviction,

    reverse keep it also river I stand corrected reverse conviction. Is there any way not? Now, I understand that some a lot of this is dealing with the fact that these are cases that are going before the county. So you have that process. I understand that, you know, some of this is the issue that you know, you can't control in terms of crime and things of that nature. But is there anything that we could do in terms of reducing these costs at all or without having without having a confrontation with you know, the Lincoln County

    without having a unit? Yeah. I have advocated and continue to encourage our Detroit based legislators particularly to at the state level, add more money to the state of Michigan's Conviction Integrity Unit Fund, which currently if you are able to prove your case, only gives you $50,000 A year for each year in prison that you were inappropriately housed. What we've been advocating for is to take that to a million dollars. So that the state fund is larger, what happens is is that the state of Michigan will offer you that and people just don't see it in their financial interests. They would rather sue the municipality in many instances it's going to be a city like Detroit or Flint, or some other city where you've got the very large minority presence that has been suffering through some of these tragedies over the course of decades. So it's it's it's I'm not saying it's a state function. I'm saying there's a state opportunity to help us reduce these costs.

    Okay. Because I just I'm looking at this and I'm seeing this the big number and it's a big number. And I understand that. And usually I wouldn't ask you this, because it's something that deals with the county, but do we actually track the number of people The reason I ask you the track for the law departments because you'll have this is where we're dealing with these cases and where this is stimulated from in terms of the costs. Do we actually track the number of people who are wrongfully convicted in the city of Detroit? And I know nationally, it's like, black like people are like wrongfully cute like they put for drug crime. Black people are like 16 times wrong, more likely to be wrongfully convicted for like sexual assault. If like eight times for murder, it's like 7.5 times University of Michigan said that if you are a black person on trial for murder, you are 80% more likely to be innocent. Do we track those types of numbers for wrongful convictions in the city of Detroit?

    All of those cases, Mr. Chairman, come to us believe me. Nobody is letting us off the hook. Oh, no one is saying you know, we got to get the city of Detroit to pass our tracking system is the lawsuits that are filed. Okay.

    And my final question is evolving. You guys I have a couple of of my final questions evolving, right. The Council. Have we staff that yet? What's going on with that? Give us give me a progress report.

    So and I don't know a month, month and a half ago? No, not I'd say a month. A month ago. The contract was signed with uch C two weeks ago, the RFP went out for those agencies that were interested in providing the work. We should be able to announce next week. Who those agencies were and and to actually give an estimate to this honorable body as the number of cases that we're going to be able to number of persons we're going to be able to represent and I do know that the council president the mayor on conversation for next this year's budget to already expand the size of the program.

    Excellent. Thank you for that. Appreciate it. Do you have any other questions, comments or concerns? All right, moving along. Thank you so much. Thank you appreciate you.

    Next, we have the library there.

    Kimono

    thank you

    all right. You got anybody here for library. All right, well floor is yours. Identify yourself and be in. Don't press the button right there. You won't press that button. It turns green. There you go.

    Apologize. My voice. I'm Joanna Downey, the executive director of labor. Good afternoon, everyone.

    Antonio Brown Chief Financial Officer of Detroit Public Library. I am trying to join as a panelist so I can share my screen so benefit of the public can see the presentation.

    See the screen sharing capabilities.

    Yeah, I think I have it I'm just working through the kinks here. Just one moment please.

    is blessed when we get on our end.

    Yes, Mr. Chair. He has been made a co host. Excellent. Here we go.

    All right. So you, thank you for the invitation to come and present before City Council you have before you the Detroit Public Library proposed FY 2024 budget report is going to be presented by Mrs. Joy Madani the executive director and myself and Tonio brown. Just a brief overview, the FY 2023 to 2024 proposed budget. overall objective is to maintain a safe, manageable and sustainable level of library service throughout the city of Detroit. We plan to provide a full range of library programs and services at 20 Library locations. FY 2023 proposed budget is balanced with commission approval to use $2.9 million from our fund balance and the budget allows for the library system to provide access to library programs and services from 20 service locations. The recommended service points beginning July 120 22, Detroit Public Library reopened many of its branches. Conley and Monty branches remain temporary close due to facility issues and skill main branch is closed due to the Hudson site construction. We all see the Cranes Etc. Brand service hours have return to 40 hours per week and the main library's open 48 hours per week including Monday. On Sunday service hours are between 1pm and 5pm and Main Library and that begins. It began in October and will continue through May you have before you our general fund general fund sources and uses we receive are were anticipated to receive approximately $28.9 million in property taxes $2.7 million in federal, state and county income, other income includes some miscellaneous income like investment income, etc. And then we also cost for $2.9 million from other sources which includes our fund balance so our total projected revenue sources is 34.9. And that is going to be used 2020 point 4 million is going to be used to service our life our employees and benefits. 950,000 Approximately to pension and retiree expenditures, operation costs $13.2 million, and then our debt service for this upcoming years 20 280,000. Just to give you a graphical view, according to our 20 compared to our 2023 budgeted revenues, our 2023 budget revenues is 30 point 5 million for 2024. There's a about a $2 million jump to 32 million. And you can see the bulk of that is coming from local property taxes. About 85 to 90% of our budget is funded through property taxes. budgeted expenditures, for 2023 was 33 point 5 million we're anticipating about 34.9 Close to $35 million for our 2024 budget. Most of that is employee salaries and benefits as we anticipate being staffed and having everything man you in new Utopia having having our library's fully staffed and we'll talk about some of the challenges. Next, which is our recruiting effort for staffing. The Detroit Public Library like many other organizations are facing staffing issues as of the date for FY 2020 Ford budget positions are 325 as of the date of this report, which was dated November, as of October, the library had a total of 210 active employees with 115 vacant positions. To date, that number has improved slightly. We have about 96 positions that remain vacant at the time we'd have we have hired our chief experience officer we have one manager position even though this report says four we have one manager position that is open. We have roughly 13 Master degree librarian positions that are open for skilled trades positions, a couple of technical assistance 46 Part time customer service representatives. Those if at the at the time of this report, it was 52 now it is 46 And just to kind of give you a little bit of clarity, these are our library pages and customer service is a revolving door pretty much. These are our younger, individual high school students who get an introductory to the library. So it we always have trouble getting this to the maximum level. But we are having recruiting efforts. And the DPL human resource department is actively recruiting to fill these positions through a number of platforms such as RDP, a website we go through indeed NeoGAF mesh lib or handshake College Central. We've been to quite a few job fairs and both at universities and college, including new CW trade and dab expos. So I understand that we wanted to brief presentation and allow room for questions. So that concludes this portion of my presentation on the budget.

    Excellent, excellent presentation. Thank you so much joining us and now the chair will recognize member

    drawl. Thank you, Mr. President. Good afternoon to you all, obviously libraries, some something near and dear to every council members hard I can, you know, attest that there has been a lot of discussion here relative to our libraries, whether that's in BFA and other committees as well Planning and Economic Development as it relates to tax incentives. And I just I have a general concern and just relative to revenue when I see you know, we've had and I guess it's a pattern of a little bit over $30 million of revenues that have been generated each year. My question becomes, and I understand expenditures, and we can get deeper into that. My question then becomes in the years between 2019 and 2021, just about when a lot of those branches were not open due to COVID. And those revenues still were coming to the libraries. How were those expenses mitigated? Obviously, one of the main functions of the library is you know, to be open to the community, provide a space where folks can frequent come and obviously read and get books and information. And it's a pillar very pillar, but between 19 and about 21 where there are no discussions relative to saying, Hey, we're not open right now. We've got to mitigate some of our expenditures or we can mitigate some of our expenditures right now to ensure that we remain sustainable. I know we would all agree that we do want to see our libraries be fixed, or in some cases, the ones that are closed open, but what were those discussions between COVID When we are not utilizing AWS?

    So, during during the time of 2020, when we were we were mandated to shut down administration did everything possible to plan for reopening our branches? We partnered with the National Sanitation Foundation that allow gave us some COVID protocols, some best practices. It was based off of some of the metrics and recommendations for the CDC. And many of our branches are small, they're small, independent. And so what we did was we looked at our largest branches that could safely social distance and still provide those services to our residents. And so we opened up six branch locations and we put the mobile library on the road. The mobile library during that time, visited those vacant or those close sites. Many of many of our residents were able to walk up to the mobile library, check out books get access to internet because we had Wi Fi capabilities on our mobile library. So we we didn't stop our library services at all. It was just at those smaller locations where we couldn't safely implement the recommendations from the National Sanitation Foundation. We saw kind of an equitable area where we had branches opened in South East Detroit, Southwest Detroit. The east side, west side, north side. So we tried to do it in an equitable way. So that library services could be offered. You asked a very specific question about our expenditures. Our expenditures were actually reduced because we didn't have as many employees on payroll. So many of our employees were furlough that we're not being with that we're not actively involved in life and providing those library services. In addition, because some of the buildings were were closed some of our utility costs, you know, decreased, our revenues stayed pretty much the same. And so what you see over over that two year period is an increase in our fund balance, because those expenditures that were not expended, went back into the fund. Those funds will be utilized now that we're currently recruiting and open up more and more branches in 2021 and 2020. Yes, 2021 fiscal year, we reopened another 11 branches and so right now we have 18 locations that are open to the public 18 out of about 21 locations are open to the public. The ones that remain close are Skillman for the reasons I stated. Commonly because this construction going on because we had damage to the flood in 2021. And we have Monti which we have a greater infrastructure needed for but that's where the savings went. It went into our fund balance for us to use as we fully open up.

    And so so let's take a deeper dive. I know and so we're talking to FYI, if we go directly to FY 22 Probably one of the current times where your revenues exceeded your expenditures. We had a little bit over 6.6 million left. I guess my question is even during those times of COVID when you state that, and by the way, I think around that time or maybe at least last fiscal year had about 98 vacancies. I guess my question is during that time when you were seeing those cost savings based off expenditures, and I don't know if you have that information what was that fund balance? What did that fund balance look like? If you can provide the fund balance in the years 2021 as well as 22 I'm just interested in what that fund balance because now we're getting ramped up and I understand hey, we're opening it up. I understand you still we're trying to keep the operations going with the mobile library, which is a great idea, by the way, because folks still need to have some level of access, particularly during the pandemic, but I just want to know what were those cost savings? And I know you're saying you're planning to roll some of that out even now today, but where were those fund balances in 2021? And then obviously, we're going back into 22 when things were starting to pick back up and open up. But where were those fund balances? What did you save? What were those utilized on? The some of that funding remained today?

    Sure. At the beginning of 2022. Our fund balance was 27 million at the end of 2022. The fund balance was according to our audit fund. Balance was 31. So between 2020 2021 and 2022 When we were at reduced library branch services, the fund balance increased roughly $12 million. It was about 25 million at the end of FY 2021 added about $5.5 million in FY 2022. And then so what that tells me is that because we had most of that savings is in employee costs, because we had people on furlough and we had vacancies. The fund balance if had our library operations been fully functional. our fund balance wouldn't have grown that much we would have actually used our fund balance. So this cost savings is unbalanced. But once we as we're seeing now as we're ramping up, employee costs are even higher than they were two or three years ago. And we talked about that in our recruiting efforts and why some of those challenges remain is because of were compromised from a budgetary standpoint. To meet some of the employee demands. Hi hiring demands and salary demands. We're just we're working. We're working through it, but that remains a challenge. So I know the I always say that the fund balance is kind of fool's gold because had we been open. We would have used more fun balance than we would have say.

    Just we're trying to Dodgers Mr. President. Just one final question. Again, rolling out what would that fund balance is related on the books now? What are we looking at? Because again, you know, we have a lot folks that come to us, and one of the main issues folks talk about is capital improvement. One of the biggest issues and so I don't necessarily call the fund balance fool's gold I don't want to say that but I do understand I'm very familiar with the budgetary process. I do understand that you don't want to create something sustainable with funds that you don't know if they're going to come back. Right. I get that. But what is being planned now to use that fund balance on knowing understanding that one, there are operational challenges within the Detroit Public Library as we see, you know, we'll get deeper and maybe we'll bring it in front of the budget finance audit, Standing Committee, which I chair so we can take a deeper dive, but I'm just trying to wrap my mind around it. You know, if we see that we're bleeding out at some point, we got to say, Okay, where are we putting our bandaid at it? And I know sometimes the conversation revolves around tax incentives, but it's not just tax incentives as well as its operational things as well. And I think that is that's where I'm trying to get to and it's one thing and we're saying, Okay, we're operating correctly, we're doing everything that we possibly can correctly. And now these you know, these tax incentives are like killing us, right? It's one thing to have that conversation, but stabilizing where we need to be so then even as council members or elected officials, we know what to go ask for we can say okay, I'm identifying this as the problem. This is what the problem is. But if there's multiple, you know, issues involved in it, that's one thing so just and I just gave you a lot I'm sorry, but but that fund balance what what are we planning to do with that to ensure that we kind of remain afloat until, you know maybe some solution comes where we can assist our libraries more. So

    one of the things that we've been able to do since since COVID, we've been we've been we've installed several H back systems throughout our library branch med back to library branches remain closed right now because we're having H vac system replacements that's chasing Hubbard. We put three new roofs on our branches, just this past fiscal year. We remain we had a major flood in 2021 to our main library branch although that $4 million expenditure primarily was covered through insurance, we still had a $500,000 deductible. So we paid that that's actually completed. We have a plan to replace our main library elevator. We're still waiting on parts for that. But that was another expenditure. So when you asked me about capital expenditures, we're utilizing our fund balance for Capital One time capital expenditures because we don't have access to capital. So so anything that we do, from a capital standpoint, we're using operational dollars to do that.

    And I got a number of questions again, love to have a deeper dive. I think we're gonna bring that up and be it bfma I think we've actually got a line item for it anyway. You know, again, just stating, you know, having having those having those tough discussions, even when we talk about when 2024 is coming out relative to tax captures and opt ins and things like that. You know, I think that's important for the public to know but also just having a great plan. You know, we need our libraries, their their hubs and all that folks utilize Google and and use things that are digital, you know, some folks not all utilize encyclopedias. I want an Encyclopedia Britannica when I grew up, they said it will open the world for me right? And now kids nowadays are online and they click they got dances, they everything right. But I'm talking just this sustainability because I think it's still important, particularly when we look at the reading levels and I know I'm going on Mr. Chair, pardon me, but when we look at third grade reading here in the state of Michigan, particularly here in urban areas, and the correlation between that and the incarceration rate in our state. I understand the importance of those libraries and want to do whatever we can to fund them but however, find a way to fund them efficiently ensure that we're using those tax dollars from our residents efficiently. With those and we're doing everything that we can to make sure that that institution is sustainable. So I will talk to you more offline. I appreciate your indulgence, Mr. President.

    Thank you. Thank you. Chair recognizes Mr. Johnson. Thank you.

    Excuse me, thank you, Mr. Chair, and good afternoon to you all. So I have had the privilege of going to the Monti branch and really tried to get an understanding of what is needed in order for it to reopen because it is in an area in my district that and I would say all of our libraries desperately need to be open for sure to be able to service our young people, but that particular brand served as a community space as well for residents in the Jefferson Chalmers community. And I know I have some advocates in Jefferson Chalmers that I'm sure you all are very well aware of, who continue to ask why my teeth is not open. And so when I had the opportunity to see the space to see the library, it really kind of boiled down to ADA adjustments that needed to be made. And then I know that there were some some challenges with leaks coming into the library. So I want to ask you all, as I was trying to follow the numbers that you were mentioning just a short while ago with member Darryl Hall. You indicated that there was a I see $11 million based on these numbers, but I think you said a $12 million fund balance from 2022. I'm not seeing that carryover in the 2023 budget it shows a little over $3 million in the fund balance. Can you kind of explain the difference? What's happened here so I can have a better understanding.

    When you when you say you can't it's a $3 million carryover for FY 2023. We anticipated using utilizing $3 million of that fund balance. So in FY 2022 our fund balance was according to our audited numbers was 31.5. If we utilize the $3 million in 2024, I'm Excuse me 2023. That fund balance total goes down to about 28.5. And then we anticipate using another $2.9 million that our fund balance in 2024. That would bring the fund balance down to 25.6. So by the end of 2024, our fund balance total of 31.5 is anticipated to be reduced to 25.6.

    Okay, thank you. And so just to make sure that I'm clear, your fund balance is not reflected on the information that you just shared.

    I don't believe no it was not included in the budget. Information. Okay, on the on the presentation, but I can certainly provide that information for you.

    Okay. And so can you just kind of share with us whether or not you plan to open any branches in the I'm not sure what your fiscal year is, is is it the same as ours? Okay, in the upcoming fiscal year, are you planning to reopen any of your branches

    yet, so I'm chasing Hubbard is currently close. Due to facility we're installing the age back systems at those two locations. Conley is another branch in southwest Detroit that we plan to open once the construction we have to repair the basement floor and then there's some some plastering and wall work that needs to be done at that branch. So we can reopen. But once those operational things are done, then we have the hiring issue. We have to hire and staff the branches so as soon as we can hire the staff to have manage those up those buildings, then we will reopen but we're kind of doing two things at once. We're repairing and we're recruiting. So that's our that's our path to reopen those branches Skillman as long as those large cranes and that that monstrosity of a building is is still being erected and constructed. Because of the challenge in getting downtown. That building is likely to remain closed. That branch is likely to remain closed with the full intent to open we're intending to open new branch but we just from a management standpoint, it didn't seem feasible to do to open that branch why there's major construction at that site. So Skillman, and then the only challenge is really Whitman teeth and finding the capital monies, the capital dollars to to do the renovations that's necessary. There's some structural damages that's going on at Monte new roofs and just just some TLC that needs to happen within that building. And right now we have not identified any capital fund to to build that building to repair that building.

    Okay, thank you for that. So I know last year I was the person here advocating on behalf of my teeth. And so I'm trying to make sure I understand fully the needs of Monty now when I toured it. They said the roof had been replaced not long ago, so there were no challenges with the roof itself, but I'm going to call it the facia board because it's built like a castle. So I think there were like leaks around what I would consider to be facia board. And but but I also heard you say that there that you have roughly I'm going to stick with 28 $28 million in a fund balance, right. And so, I'm really trying to wrap my mind around all of this. I certainly want to see my teeth reopen. And so what I'd like to do is through the chair, make a motion to put the Detroit live Detroit Public Library. I think I just want to put the entire budget into Executive Session.

    motion has been made. Are there any objections? Iran emotional pass.

    Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Thank you, Chair recognizes Member Santiago Romero.

    Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you member Johnson for asking about the reopening of our libraries. Currently is a library that I grew up with right there on Martin so happy to hear that there are plans to reopen. But do you have a certain timeline of when that would be?

    Sure. Yeah. We so we have issued the RFP for the specs for for the repair for the basement. There was some structural damage to the basement. And so we had to hire an architect, engineering firm to give us the spec out the need. That cost or that RFP is issued will be issued and we're waiting for the bids to come back. Once that's done and we can get bid award it then the construction company will tell us we'll give us a timeline. And we're kind of doing two things at once because we got a wall needs to be replaced as well. So we have two parties related to commonly that that are out on the street right now. So as soon as we can get those bids back and get the construction started, we'll have a we have a better timeline. The other issue is kind of what I talked to Councilmember du Hall about about the recruiting efforts. So we're doing two things at once. We're repairing and we're recruiting. So hopefully by the time that the repairs are done, we would have recruited the staff to staff that library,

    understood. Do the chair and I hear the many things that you're holding the many truths, so many challenges. So thank you for your work in addressing them all at the same time. I don't see here in your in your revenue, any sort of fundraising. Have you thought of fundraising? Are you capable of fundraising for these capital improvements? I think many of us love the libraries. Seems like something that we could do. Is this something that has been thought through? We

    have not identified a well we have not launched any particular funding capital funding campaign as of as of today. So we have had internal discussions about that, but we have not officially launched any capital campaign. Right at this point.

    Okay, through the chair. It's just uh, if you could keep us abreast on the timeline for for the library on Martin Street. That would be great. We can let residents know I was actually going to try to stop by there when it was close. So it couldn't do that. But thankfully, we have many others in District Six. And would love to talk to you about what fundraising can look like we have a lot of big businesses down here would look great if we can all come together to support some of these capital improvements for our libraries. My final question is I hear you regarding employees and the difficulty that it is to hire if you wouldn't mind sharing what do we offer employees as far as salaries benefits? Because I'm also wondering if it's if you're using your general funds for capital improvements, again, if we can reallocate it or find some other funding for those improvements, maybe we can free up some funds for salaries, but wondering if you can share what that looks like right now.

    I apologize for my beliefs, no worries, how salaries we've done, compensation studies that tell us that our salaries are competitive. Um, one of the challenges that we have had since COVID, and the library profession in general for Master's degree librarians. A lot of librarians have retired from profession. They don't choose to work with the public directly, as much. So there's been some challenges in recruiting master's degree librarian but our salaries have been basically competitive. But through the Chair, I'd like to make a point to Councilmember Darrell. When you mention that you need to take a deeper dive into the details of the library's finances. That is exactly what we need to do, because we can shed some more light on some of the other mitigating factors around the library's finances. Moving forward, about fundraising and so forth. But I don't think we can do it today. But we had the details than the conversations that we've had in terms of protecting the library for the future and being able to provide the best services for the people of Detroit. We have done significant work on that and what that means we have several scenarios as to what we can do, but I think we'll need to hear the comprehensive view.

    Thank you up to the chair one quick follow up. Do you partner with the School of Information at U of M they have a lot of master's in information and libraries you do in Wayne

    State. Okay. Yeah. So we recruit from there. As a matter of fact, a lot of recruitment for reopening has occurred from graduates for Wayne State Library School of Information Science.

    Good to know. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    I will recognize the next member I'll just say Miss Downey always good to see you. I was hoping you would go into depth in terms of your finances because we are approving your budget here. So I definitely want to get into that and we are we've had a lot of conversations about what your assets you have, what you don't how much it is and how much it is. So I definitely I don't have the power to do this. But I hope in the future, I could recommend that we might have a committee of the whole and have you come out and actually talk about what that is and what it looks like. Now the chair recognizes member waters.

    Alright then. Thank you so much and good afternoon. And of course I love all of the libraries and my favorite one of the most beautiful facilities right there on Woodward. You know, really, really beautiful. And they communicate and use it for events too, right? They used to be the case anyway. Um, so some of my questions have had been asked but let me just ask you about literacy programs. Do you have any, you know, that how we put the rate is here in this city. Do you have any any programs like that or in the future programs that will be coming?

    Yes, um, one of the things we have literacy programs for all ages, all age levels, so for zero to three, we have the Once Upon a Time and more literacy program, introducing children to literacy and learning to not just read but love to read. And so we were intentional in that. We also have programs for adults who are needing more support to learn to read, and we have tutoring programs for them. We have programs for young people to enhance their reading skills. We partner with Detroit public schools, to encourage our young people to read constantly and to track their reading behaviors and so forth. So yes, we do. One of our main priorities is to be a go to organization for literacy and learning.

    Okay, all right.

    Well, that's very good, because I I'm getting the word out about about literacy, the you know, as the participant participation pretty high or one of the terms of adults and children.

    One of the things we're coming back from that a silver lining to cope it was to allow us to become more expert at doing things virtually. And having hybrid situations where we can introduce the public to things in person as well as online. We do advertise programs and things have expanded where people have chosen not to necessarily come into the library, but to use our virtual resources as well.

    All right. Okay, so thank you. So tell me this. Are you guys going after a federal grant? At all? Yes. You are. What about this time now? Because this is the time period now that you can learn.

    The reasons why we're able to provide internet services for the public is because of the E Rate program and we apply for that. It saves us millions of dollars to be able to do that. We we get about 90% funding from the federal government for internet access because of the the lunch period or the launch process or Detroit school students so we get about 90% of our internet access, be cut from federal funding. It is an elaborate process, but we have managed to slip from that every year.

    Okay. All right. Well, that that is fantastic. And I just want to make a comment in terms of all those they can put positions and let us know how we can help you get some of those positions filled because the libraries are so extremely important for our community. So please send me an email and tell me tell me what you're looking for and so forth. Like to like to help out. There. Thank you so much, Mr. President. Thank you.

    Excellent. Chair recognizes member Benson.

    Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you all for being here today. Couple questions, looking at our budget, and then me specifically looking at the fund balance. As of 30, I believe it was 30. June 2022 was at $31.6 million. As a direct result of using part of that fund balance for operation that blue says about 28 million now. So $20 million dollar fund balance for the library is about 82% of the operating cost of the library annually. That would be the equivalent of the cbrt having a $1 billion fund balance. And so our fund balance is closer to about 15% And so your fund balance is very, very healthy. I'd like to see a piece of that fund balance go be dedicated towards capital improvements. And I know that the library has tons of deferred maintenance our branches and our branches probably averaged well over 50 years old. If you took them collectively, which also to me means that they're they're starting to see the end of their useful life being those branches. I'd really liked the library to start thinking about how do we build new branches in our neighborhoods, and part of the conversation that I've had with leadership has been state of the branches in our neighborhoods, something we haven't seen since the 1980s. And so we just have the opportunity to take a site visit to Seattle, and had a chance to see their main library branch which is phenomenal. It can't compare to our main library just because not many libraries can compare to the historic nature and the grand nature of our library. But if you also go to Southfield and see what they're doing with their brands and their state of the art, I want to bring that type of development and those type of branches back to the city of Detroit. And for me, the way to do that is going to have to be looking at this fun balance that we have here. And using that as seed money as a capital campaign to go out and as my colleague has talked about philanthropic community, grants and other sources to get there, I'd really like to see us reduce that. Operate the fund balance and commit a portion of that a large portion to a capital campaign budget. Well, we can start looking at how we can bring in we reduced the number of legacy neighborhood branches and start building new state of the art branches and I know those are not cheap. We're probably talking $20 million to put something online at around 20,000 square feet. It may even be more costly than that. But I really want to see a start looking at the future and utilize other means to operate the branches versus our our libraries fund balance and so that's just me and so I support moving the library's budget into Executive Session. I want to have a serious conversation about the library's fund balance, and then how we start using that. The equivalent of $1 billion in Detroit how to fund balance to start looking at how we can bring some state of the art branches online in our neighborhoods. And then when we talk about the Skillman branch, and I'm going to have to disagree with you. I would like to see that branch open. I know it's downtown. I know it's extraordinarily close to an operating construction. site. But it's a downtown branch and everybody else who was downtown, you know that if you're downtown, you may have some type of impairment just based on construction, that that's what happens in a healthy downtown. There's construction roads get torn up. That's just part of day to day living. And I believe there could be some mitigating policies implemented to ensure the safety of that branch. I also think there would be more buy in to philanthropic and other support for the library. If they were to see that branch open. downtown's. I'm hoping that you all will reconsider that moving forward in the future. And then the question around the scale of branches. What would it cost to make that branch hole if I'm not mistaken, there have been there's been some damage caused to that branch as a direct result of construction and maybe some deferred maintenance although I know that there was there was some capital improvements on that library done over the past five years. And so what would it cost to bring it back online? What would it take to get it open again, with an active construction zone next door, which other tenants in the city of Detroit or other landlords have to deal with also?

    Yep, so we there was a there was a discussion about that. So we will have a comprehensive we will have a comprehensive report on what it will take. We'll put that in writing and present it to the city council. I believe our due date is actually March 31. So there will be something coming shortly.

    Okay. And then just on the whole, the library system, deferred maintenance. Do we have a capital improvement plan a comprehensive capital improvement plan for the entire system? Yep. And then what's that number?

    It varies, but just just to put in context, the library system. Okay, so we haven't had a library bill in the city since 1981. That's the Redford library. in district one. We have three libraries that were built 1912 1913 1916 They were never designed for 21st century libraries. We have tried to retrofit them to make itself even our main library. That's one of the finest libraries in the country. Once I was built in 1921, the other side was built in 1963. We have very tiny libraries that we've tried to make them be able to provide the services needed in the 21st century. We have, unfortunately, the fund balance that we have used since 2015 was to restore six libraries that would not be manageable to even walk into for how they look. Now, as we're trying to beautify the city in many ways this we can and we all know that looks matter. To have people come into libraries that are shabby and look like nothing was what we decided that we would try to do to make them presentable and welcoming and so forth. That's where a lot of the fun balance has gone. For renovating modestly. So six libraries and we've done them incrementally since 2015. And several 100 libraries since COVID. We know they're so small, they're not necessarily the healthy environment that we would like to see. But that's the context in which we are dealing with. But I do think consideration for building something is tightly considered.

    So respond. Downey I'd like to get a verbal commitment from you indicating your willingness to have a deeper conversation around the construction of new state of the art neighborhood branches within the city of Detroit and I know that you know that our residents deserve that level of service. And as you just said, these libraries. I take my son to the Franklin ranch all the time, and is a library his grandmother would have been able to use. I believe it's about time that we have ranches in our neighborhoods. That my son's grandmother wasn't utilizing in her youth. It's time for him. We have new generation libraries for our youth and our residents at at the least. And I'm hoping that we can get a commitment from you all to work with the city of Detroit on something like that. And I think that we have the ability to help you achieve that. If you're there's a willingness on the library side to work with us. This

    is Downey Oh, did you want did you want to respond to that? Or did you want to like defer,

    defer that because I think that decision is not mine alone. I you know, I came here thinking that you know I said in 2015 when the library turned 150 years old, but you can have a 21st century city without a 21st century library system, not just one place. And that's what we're striving to be

    do they call the library the living rooms of our city.

    Live is the community's living

    memory beds. Did you have any deals you want to add are these ones

    in so I'm just in with this. And so I am committed to working with the library. As long as there are members of libraries. We're willing to work with the city of Detroit, and I'm a firm believer and I've said this before, that the city of Detroit based on its intimate relationship with the library and the level of services that we provide to the library and its employees should have a voice in a day to day operations, ie seats on the Library Commission. You all would receive a level of service and the support to get you to where you need to be if we had a greater relationship with the library. And I believe there will be a far greater willingness to give from the city of Detroit. If we had the opportunity to have a greater level of say in this one down. I'm pretty sure what you're going to tell me maybe, well, you have this opportunity annually to do that.

    That's not what I'm gonna tell you Oh, good. Okay. Yeah. No, one what I wanted to say just to be on record. There Colvin Young, who supported the Detroit Public Library, through his efforts with all the lib wrangling in the legislation. Historically, from the records that Abra inspite of creating a 1975 legislation that said you could capture the library. He also looked out for the library. Whether he went in the back room and said get it done, it got done. And we didn't have to worry about some of the things that we're worrying about. Now, I just want to say that because the record show that that happened

    is my data if I can have a magic wand and takes us back to four

    years, I really well, you know, whatever. Unfortunately I

    don't. I do have the opportunity to work with the library now and hopefully you will be willing to work with us. And I'm a firm believer that if we had a greater level of saying that day to day, you will be a much different pathway moving forward. And hopefully there'll be an opportunity with you all on state of the art branches in our neighborhoods. And I specifically want to look at that general fund balance that you all have as a way to start doing capital improvements and the construction campaign to help bring state of your branches into the neighborhoods. I think that's the seed that you had that we could use to help grow that Thank you.

    Thank you. Miss mount down. Are you dropping bombs dropped using my father's name like that? I'm sorry for the juggler. Wow, I didn't know that. I didn't know that I knew this Porter but I didn't know in that way. So I appreciate you saying that a little bit sentimental up here. Um, Chair recognizes member Callaway.

    Thank you Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon to you both. You mentioned three libraries being closed. And I know of the three and my district two are closed. Sherwood Forest and chase. Parkman is open on the Bulevar. But Chase, I know why it's closed now because you said because of eight HVAC system being installed, so that's wonderful. What about the Sherwood Forest branch that's where a lot of my seniors go on West seventh Monroe right off Illinois. And they would play checkers over there and have their little community meetings over there and I would meet them over there. And they had that little back room over there. So what's gonna happen with my Sherwood Forest library because that's my hub for my seniors. That's my first question.

    Well, there are some things that we know that the windows at sherwood need to be repaired or replaced not just be pay at replace we have you know that we're not planning on closing Sherwood at all. It will you know, it requires some fixing. Like I said the windows definitely need to be replaced.

    What How long has it been closed?

    I don't believe sure what Flores is close is Chacin Hubbard.

    Okay, so when I go over there, it's always cold. So what are the hours? And then why don't we have more uniform hours because it seems like every library has different hours when I drive past my Sherwood Forest library down the street from my home. It's not so

    sometimes the staffing when when you see those who have regular hours, it's because of staffing. We can look into why why that is happening.

    Okay. Yeah, okay. Yeah. All right. We'll do that. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, cuz that's a real popular library. For those scenes. You guys know that they'd love that library. Okay, so my next question and I have several that I'll make sure you get copies of most of the tax capture concerns expressed on behalf of Detroit Public Library will end July 120 25. We talked about this last week. What is the plan of action to help subsidize DPL until July 2025. And what is the status of the suggested Detroit DDA subsidy to Detroit Public Library and this is like a multi tiered question, but still one question, and then how will DPL be affected? By the tax captures after July 120 25?

    So too, we were we were given provided a memo about three days ago, that honestly we're still digesting. So, I mean, because if it's an it's a memo that was trans, that was routed, but we were not included. And so we don't I honestly, today do not stand here with any answers to that memo because of the lateness of when we received that memo.

    And that memo, which we have tried to digest cause indigestion I'm gonna be honest, what has happened, but we're trying to get through it as best we can do.

    So in other words, Mr. Brown, no answer to this question.

    We will have it we will have a response in writing once we, once we've reviewed it,

    after you digest the ingest. Okay. Indigestion Okay. All right. Thank you so much. You know, I'll make sure you get my my my questions. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Yeah. All right. You've done them Kelly. Yep. Thank you, Mr. Kelly. Appreciate that. Hello. Good to see you guys. Welcome. I just wanted to ask you, how many libraries do you plan on opening up this year? I mean, I know they're 16 they're all open on the website now plus the mobile unit. So for them to have 20 Open is that three more than my open, but do you have that number? What is that?

    So currently, like I said currently Chase and Hubbard is closed. For facility issues. We're installing the age back system, right. We hope to have it completed within the next couple of months. But we have to have a working age back system, especially heading into the summer. We're right at Spring, the beginning of spring. Got to have an h back system or will be closed because the heat issues Okay, so we want to reopen chasing Hubbard as soon as the H vac systems have have been installed and we can get it and it's staffed. Okay. So we fully prepared we are fully planning to open those two branches right as soon as possible. The other the other branch Collie branches in southwest Detroit. Once that building is fixed, the wall and the basement is repaired. Then we can open that building as soon as we can staff. So those are three library branches that we plan to have open as soon as possible. There are only closed because of construction. So that would bring the library services from 16 branches to 96 Skillman,

    right? It's well, well, I understand that because you I want to see it over to but I understand you know, God forbid you don't want particles or something to catch somebody and then you're responsible for that. I totally understand where you're coming from on that. I would like to see it open as well but I just saved the first Yeah, right. So I totally understand that. Most of my questions have already been asked, but I just wanted to ask this question really quickly. I want to ask particularly about grants. Have you applied for any grants? I know we ask question in general, but have you applied for the grant specifically to the Institute of Museum and Library Services? If you apply to any grants Library of Congress?

    Not recently, but in the past we have had a relationship with IMLS not so much with the Library of Congress.

    What Why is that what was their reason for this does not issue that

    many grants IMLS Okay, issue screen. So as I'm listening, right, it's not the Library of Congress. So what happened with IMLS was it's just, it's been it's varied in terms of what we've what we have applied for over over the years. Okay. It is you know, with COVID IMLS received our pro monies for libraries to do certain things. And they only got like $50 million for all the libraries across the country to allocate funding and the monies we got locally for our paper, we were able to use that for, you know, the PPE than the COVID protocols that we were needed. But recently we have not applied for IMLS funding.

    Is that something that you plan on changing this year or next year to apply for that or is that mostly

    always monitoring what's available for us? You know, the thing about grants is that sometimes you have to switch off in order to be in compliance with the grant. And you have to have the proper staffing to implement the grants some of the programmatic grants, but we do have the staffing matter is what really drives whether or not we are fulfilling some of the programmatic grants. Those are the ones that require a level of staffing, monitoring and so forth at this point, but no we haven't done it. And I

    also want to ask, do you apply for the grants to offset or recoup any tax capture funds or is that not seen as an issue?

    Seen as an issue to recoup?

    Yeah, have you applied for any grants to offset the costs Oh, tax capture funds, or is that not seen as

    an issue we've only has that you don't capture?

    Okay. Wait, did you have another question, man Ramiro? You guys should go ahead.

    I will. Mr. Child other for the libraries.

    They still I will say this, we were awarded $500,000 from the Michigan Economic Development Corp for specifically to offset the cost of the H vac systems that are being installed at Chase and Hubbard so that was that was one and so I do and we have received half of that funding, the other will will receive Once the work is completed we have to submit but that's a reimbursable grant.

    Okay. And I want to ask you, so I'll pass it back to member Ramiro because I looked at the library's annual reports back to 2012. And there were no grants listed.

    Yeah. No, there weren't any listed in 2012. Why other than the federal grants that we didn't report for anyways? Okay, but they weren't grants in 2012.

    Oh, well, why were they listed?

    Why weren't they? Yeah, I'm not sure. Put them down. You get

    that to me. I appreciate that. Chair recognizing the rear mirror.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just as a final motion I would like to add to the closing resolution for the city to work together with our public libraries on fundraising efforts.

    made a motion Mr. Chairs I'm sorry, sitting on about pages. Somebody said it for them. I'm pologize no worries.

    I just I'm making a motion to add to the closing resolution at the city work together with our public libraries on fundraising efforts.

    Okay, motions been made. Or any objections? Discussion? Discussion? Chair recognizes member Benson for yourself, Mr. Chair to

    my colleagues, be open to a a friendly amendment to expand that type of support to see if there are any other efficiencies to be made the library even more efficient Ising economies of scale things of any other services that the city could support library with. And how are we going to wordsmith that? We'll just expand that beyond just grant writing support.

    I just want to ask questions. Does that include governance for is this just efficiencies?

    does not include goat? Oh,

    I didn't want to set you up. I'll just say it. Okay. All right. Now the G word. Yeah, sure. All right.

    So Mr. Chair, I believe my motion then is to add to the closing resolution at the city workhorse of Public Library's on fundraising efforts and efforts on efficiencies,

    all right, motions been made, or any objections Hearing none motion pass. Chair recognizes member waters and member Kelly.

    Alright, so thank you, man is pretty quick. I just want to ask if, if we could, you know, for the libraries in the neighborhoods and so forth. Um, I want to see computer dedicated computer rooms there and at the library, and the reason is because sometimes the student do not have anything have access at home, whether it's the internet or access to a computer, and I've been wanting to see those things in the various neighborhoods anyway. But I was sitting here thinking I'm thinking, Now the library could do something like that. And what would it take for you to have a dedicated computer center, for example, at various libraries is that something you'd

    be willing to take a look at? Yeah, we have. We have one dedicated computer center site and our branches is at the Douglas library. It's like total computer technology. Some of the places we do have spaces you know, like a study Carol or whatever, for people to, you know, utilize, tutoring, mono mindful computers and so forth. The biggest challenge we have in that space face but other than that, no, we have looked providing individual spacing for typing technology matters as well as just one on one studying and so forth. But yes, we have looked at that, so we can further look at it.

    Oh, please. I mean, we need the technology to work throughout the city in various neighborhoods. We really do. So I hope that's something that we can look at a little bit further. Yes, if I

    may just add some more context to what Mr. Downey just stated. Most of our libraries, we have about, on average 12 to 15 computers that are open to the public state of the art computers, none of our computers. Our computers are refreshed every four years. So there's no computer within our library system that is older than four years. We do that through a partner were through a cooperative with the state of Michigan, were we able to leave those computers and refresh them on a on a on a rotation basis on a rotating basis. This is not only talked about Douglas but Parkman branch has a computer's room dedicated and at our lot at our larger branches, you'll see more public computer access. This like missing out with the smaller branches is just space, but we do have we do have. We have up to date technology for the public.

    Yeah, Mr. Chairman, just one more thing. You know, I envision and I've just got all these things going through my head, you know, technology hubs, things like that throughout the city. And I'm thinking that that you all could be the beginning of that. Even even if it's just a hub itself, even without having the actual library there. I don't know. Maybe it's just too far fetched. But, but that's kind of what I'm thinking.

    Well, it's not too far fetched, because, in general, libraries have been first responders in the technology for on the forefront of technology, mainly because of Bill Gates, who allocated a lot of money for libraries to be able to respond to technology. One of the things that the public can do, you can sit in your car and ping off the library's Wi Fi. Oh, yeah, you can be in a part if we have places where parking lots you can ping off Wi Fi. And we do let people know that many people already know. That's what you can do.

    And with our mobile library, one of the grants that's included in this fiscal year's grant is to provide expanded Wi Fi for mobile library. So I like our mobile library. Now as it's going as a setup. You can access the Wi Fi from the mobile library as well. So we're trying to lead the way we really are trying to lead the way in technology for the public for that for our residents. All right.

    Thank you so much.

    Thank you. Chair recognizes member Callaway

    real quick. Thank you, Mr. Chair. How are we safeguarding that collection that you mentioned last week, I think was the automotive What was the name of that? And then you said that some of those documents and archives were damaged because of the construction site at the Hudson project. Have we thought about a lawsuit against the against the Gilbert foundation or the Gilbert family of corporations? Because if we can show that they were directly responsible for the damage to the building, I know that you had insurance I know that you paid the deductible that I know you know, some things are going to happen in terms of repair. But if that is a collection, that's irreplaceable from what you were telling me last week, have we thought about maybe filing a lawsuit there's a number attached to the value of the collection. And then can you tell me what the name of that collection is?

    Sure, I can tell you is that the National Automotive History Collection, which is the largest automotive history collection in the world, why? Not is Detroit you know, we have historical data that is and matchable to anywhere in the world for automotive history, and it is housed at the Skillman library when the major equipment within to begin the construction of the Hudson site, the tremor from the moving it in activated water suppression system which now as I've said before, when the Hudson began the construction, they put a Richter scale monitor on the Peoplemover but they did not put a Richter scale monitor on the 1939 skill membrane but the branch shook when the equipment went in. It's only natural and it did cause the water system to be activated. And some of the items did suffer water damage. I don't have the details of how much that is and Balibar so but we did talk to them when when it happened and there was no resolution but we we were able to fix what happened through insurance in the duck it was like 750 some 1000 in damage, or which we had a $500,000 deductible and the insurance covered like 200 and some 1000. That's what happened

    to that. Do we know the value of that collection? You don't have to say it here publicly but if there's a value attach that collection, have you talked to our law department about a possible lawsuit against Gilbert regarding the damage that allegedly was caused by the equipment at the Hudson project site? Because I would think that that would be like a next step. Because if they've caused damage they owe the city they owe the library system. Am I correct in asking that question or have you thought about contacting them to pursue that route?

    Well, the damage was denied you know, they said they didn't that didn't happen. Okay.

    Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    All right. Thank you. And before I let you go, I just want to ask you this question because you you spoke so eloquently and brilliantly on the issue of Tascam because I wanted to ask you have you hired a lobbyist to go to Lansing at all to get those repealed? What's the process of that?

    Well, we hired lobbyists in 2017, I believe.

    Did you talk to your state rep and state senator that area too?

    Well, we've been working on legislation to modify or to set aside to Troy public library because there was legislation for libraries across the state to be able to opt in or opt out of tax captures. And we were told that to Troy Public Library, as is everything different with the D stand for different and so we had to opt out of that. And we could not be a part of the legislation. Now with that indigestible document is saying that we are possibly a part of that. You know, no but we have we did hire lab we've had a lobbyists for over five years. Looking at the legislation.

    Okay. Chair recognizes member Johnson.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd just like to make a request because the library's budget was has already been put in Executive Session. I'd like to ask for the administration, particularly Corporation Counsel to be present during that conversation to be able to discuss the memo that member Callaway mentioned. Thank you motion

    has been made for cooperate. Wait, hold on before we get the chair. Chair recognizes me as the chair recognizes Mr. Whittaker.

    Yes, I think the most important person that's missing is their lawyer. Who is their lawyer. And that person needs to be in the room because talking to them. They're hearing legal matters discussed. They're not lawyers. Yeah. And they're not interpreting the law correctly. Their lawyer needs to be here to listen to what has been said. And to be reading the things in the absence of the lawyer who represents the law department. Is is you talking about unimaginable that's what's unimaginable, the absence of their turn. Thank you.

    Do you were your motion that their attorney be present as well?

    Thank you, Mr. Chair, make a motion. I'm just asking that. And I had requested that because the memo that we all receive came from Grayson County. And I'd like to get a better understanding of how it where it came from, how it came about and whether or not based on that memo. If the Library Association needs to do anything in order for it to be effective. 2020 Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Thank you. Duly noted. Any other questions? Comments? Good. Yes. Chair recognizes member Bateson and then we'll go to member Callaway and they will go to Oh member waters out there and I'm sorry. Oh, hey,

    this is my last question. This is just your I know that I am I commit to that. We all know that the millage it will be sunsetting soon, would have plans to go after another millage because the the level of funding that millage brings in the library has to have that moving forward. What is the sunset and then what are the plans to campaign for number one

    well, we know that millage expires on June 30 2026. And then we will be approaching city council to place us on a ballot because that's the only way we can get on a ballot either. Now we've heard that there may be a possibility of moving the primary to another time period. But right now we know that August is the possibility of 2024 and November so we are looking at you know the process is to file to have our commission approved the resolution that would go for the renewal which would be a 10 year rule. We have a millage. Where there is a point 6364 debate about which is in perpetuity and the other portion would be what we would go for the renewal and so we have to do a resolution that would allow through the commission to say you know we want to be placed on the ballot. Then we go before the city council and the city council then allows us to present it to the election committee and the city clerk. For us to be on the ballot.

    Thank you. Thank you Chair recognizes mean

    I thought I asked I already answered, ask her my question. But what I my staff is doing is making copies of this memo we all receive. I'm just going to send out another copy and it's the memo that you requested. Remember, yeah,

    okay, excellent. can recognize member waters and then we're wrapping this okay. All right. Did you want to say something Mr. Burley? I will let me speak down a bit and then I'll get to you. Go ahead

    about that memo. If you look on page for that memo, you will see how contradictory it is when you read it. On one hand it says that we would possibly be captured and 2020 for the two items below there. It will say but if this happens then the library will be subject to capture which is confusing to us. I have looked at it dissect it nine ways to sundeck and it's still confusing.

    All right. Okay. Okay. Thank you. So Mr. Mr. Chairman, I would like to, to make a motion. One that asked LPD to draft a resolution that would be sent to the Michigan Legislature, asking them to exclude the Detroit Public Library from tax captures effective immediately.

    We've already done that. It was because last year we did

    was we asked them to exclude

    was it was there was members of Sheffield.

    All right. What then? Did we put it in close the resolution to in terms of

    kit we could do that though. Right completed close resonance you will make you want to make a motion to close.

    Anything we did the other one but Okay, great. I'm hearing that we didn't do it but okay.

    All right. Great.

    Yes, motion May I make a motion?

    Okay. Motions been made. Put the exemption tat DPL from TAS captures in the close resolution. Are there any objections? Hearing none, the motion will motion passes. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Corley and Mr. Whittaker. Did you also have your hand up to no sir. Okay. Excellent. Chair recognizes member quarterly.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair. So in lbds reports 10. year for National Review, and projections outlook of the deep DPL on January 9 2023. We had 17 recommendations we would like for the administration to formally respond to recommendations that refer to them. We put in a memo that grants management should be a part of helping the library we ask that the housing revitalization department helping maybe helping the library to receive by grant dollars. We asked for the old CFO to consider when they go back out on the bond market to sell bonds to sell bonds on behalf of the library. So we have several recommendations in this report. We also are asking city council to draft a resolution that would be in support of the millage. And I'm See, we also add in fact, we also talk about you know, is it a possibility for the library to conduct a needs assessment when it comes to their capital needs? Because we know that even if they were to maintain operations in current facilities, as we just discussed, there's a need for a lot of capital improvements. And so whether they build new facilities or they keep the ones that they have to make those more in line with the 21st century requirements, council needs to understand what that cost is. So we have several recommendations that we feel the administration needs to address a couple here that we'd like to put his attention to. And then we have some recommendations for other libraries. And so if if if council I don't I don't think it's a closing resolution item. But if you could officially request for rec these recommendations to be addressed by the administration, some by the library, and therefore your honorable body to consider we would greatly appreciate that

    excellently those extra recommendations. Absolutely. Yeah, so you want to say Ms. Witter? Excellent. I just thought your way out of make sure. While we're here though, I think it's important that we also see mr. Washington Are you available? Right. What do you hear me? Give me this Washington.

    Mr. Chair,

    it looks like Malik Washington is online and he is a panelist he just needs to unmute his mic. If he is available.

    Unmute yourself, Mr. Washington. All right, my guy. Good afternoon. My apologies. Yes, no problem is the Cooperation Council available.

    Once again,

    I do not see him in the queue. I can reach out and see if he's able to join.

    That'd be great. What?

    Mr. Mr. Chairman, I I believe this was already moved to Executive Session for us to continue deliberations there. If we don't have court counsel with us, but I actually have a quick question for you too. Mr. Corley. If I heard you correctly, you're asking us to officially make a motion to request the resolution. I can make that motion is are you asking for the resolution for the recommendations that you're making for the Administration?

    Thank you, Messina. So the resolution would come from your honorable body with respect to supporting the renewal of their millage library members. So that will that's something that helped me Deacon travel on your behalf based on your request to us to do that. But when it comes to the recommendations that we would like for the ministration to follow up on Yes, we would like for just an official request for administration to address these these these recommendations. And there's a few that we would like for the library to formally respond to

    understood so I happy to make the motion requesting LPD to draft that resolution on behalf of City Council to support you in the recommendations that you're making to the administration and to the library. So that's my official motion, Mr. Chair

    or as the motions been made, or any objections? Hearing none, motion prevails. discussion, discussion, Chair recognizes member Fisher I heard

    Mr. Foley asked for a resolution regarding support of the millage Is it possible to wait until we see the actual requests from a library prior to making that support. I just like to see what number it may be a larger number of maybe a smaller number. Before we officially say we support a millage. I just like to see something from the library first. Trust but verify basically

    to recognize the member subject, remember, did you respond to that or who's a derogatory oh well, that allows it Jeremiah's general statement you're making mr. Washington

    Corporation Counsel available.

    I'm still reaching out now.

    Okay. All right. Well, I think we're just gonna move on here. All right. Thank you so much. We have no further questions for you. So thank you. We appreciate your time and the presentation. Thank you so much. What I was going to do was I was going to have public comment happened after we had our second budget that we're going to deal with today or the budget we will deal with today. But because it is such a it tends to passionate issue. We're going to have public comment now who we have people for the Library Commission, they want to speak on public comment about this issue. So we're going to acknowledge the people that are in the room first and then we're going to go virtual

    Alright, first up is Cindy Dora. You have two minutes

    Yeah,

    I did brownfield the Michigan brownfield act that when they amended it and 2017 to allow it to do more than environmental just do anything they want and take and capture taxes out of the library and the schools. John loves said that we were the only ones that actually did that, that the rest of the state they were allowed to opt out of that they didn't have to. So maybe it's in our own may we've got an ordinance that we could change. And then or the other thing I was thinking the last thing on that at that statute was they excluded anything before 1996. That's when they brought in those checks captures. So if you could maybe get the state just to make an another amendment of that act saying that we're or know that the tax captures will not occur in Detroit for the schools or the library. That would be great. But also, I don't like the way their library is being managed right now. I almost feel like maybe they're trying to drive it in the ground. There's they're having a meeting at 130 next Tuesday at the Main Library. There's three pictures on the wall and of commissioners I don't know if that's all they have. But they there's one guy up there and only three letters of his last name can you see because they've got his something? He's a secretary or something like that. I don't know which office but they they I've asked them why they have that whole circular thing in front for all handicap plus outside there's a bunch of handicapped on both sides of the street for handicap but there's no they they're empty. They could have put at least half of those for people could come and park right there on that circular drive instead of paying for parking. They do open it up on their lot on the weekends. But also okay. All right. Thank you

    Thank you. All right. Next is Shaundra Hanes. Am I pronouncing that correctly?

    Is Shandra fryer some Hey,

    hey, excuse me, ma'am, please. Thank you for the correction. Thank you two minutes.

    Yes, I am the newest library Commissioner. So thank you for this opportunity to speak. You know, as she said earlier, she's digesting all of this information. So as the new library Commissioner, I'm digesting all this information, and there's several red flags for me. So one of them is definitely the tax captures. I know that you're taking the budget meeting into exec into an executive hearing, but I really greatly appreciate if you'd either phrase it at what it currently is eliminated, suspended, but there's something that needs to be examined very, very closely. I know Mr. Benson, you want to be a part of the commission. You can step down from Council, you can apply and you can see if you can get on the commission. But I think that you know, as a council person, you should really be focused on looking at the budget very, very closely. And as a commissioner, I'm worried about governance are really able to appreciate. Appreciate it if you would definitely take a strong look at those tax captures currently is at $3.4 million. If it can stay there if it has to find a reason it is going to be more detrimental than it already is. The current rents are looking at a currently if there's an increase the take the take that to $4.2 million. That difference is what helps operate a library I know several people were talking about the library's being closed that will help that that hinders us from operating and keeping the library open. So please, please don't take money from the library to give to private businesses. And the other thing is one of the things that caught my eye was the administrative fees. So as a fiduciary I know that their administrative fees, but $1.3 million, that's the number I have maybe a little off is really a lot of money, what kind of administrative fees like what is it for I haven't found anything, this is what it's for. So I just wanted to see if I can get some more information as the library comm is a new library commission. I'm just trying to gather as much information so I can make just in wise decisions. Thank you for your time.

    Thank you appreciate that. Mr. Chair. Yep, I know there were a lot of questions The Chair recognizes a member during excuse me

    possibly time in two to one though CFO does relative to the increase that was mentioned. Just just just to clear, clear air. I don't maybe I missed it. I didn't know about increase relative from the incentives. I don't know anything about that because you chime in on that.

    Thank you through the chair to remember Dr. Hall. So those previous forecasts that were referenced, were simply just reflective of growth in taxable value from the existing captures not that there's a new capture. As taxable values grow, then captured value also grows but the overall net revenue to the library itself also grows.

    Thank you. Just a real quick follow up. I know there was another question because I didn't want to forget it. There was something maybe I'm missing. I missed the second one. Now. My mind just went blank. But I think oh, just in regards to and we've got a memo coming to BFA as well that's there that we're going to discuss this. But from my understanding, we don't set and modify public acts here on this level of government that is a public act, which is in the state constitution and council cannot do anything about that. And I'm a former legislators. I just want to clarify that for the record. We did not set the public act up, nor can we repeal it, so just want to clarify it. Thank you, Mr.

    Chair recognizes member Benson.

    And so there have been a number of documents and memos and studies done at this level of how the city engages with the public library, and to better educate the library commissioners. If LPD could send those memos that we've done in house and those reports that we've done regarding the library and regarding our engagement in our legal obligation as well as the state obligations. We've gone live. I think there'll be very helpful to educate the library commissioners as well.

    We'd be happy to do this.

    Excellent. Next up, Russ bulat. Floors are two minutes, sir.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm addressing the matter that Shandra raised when the budget for fiscal year 24 was put together. The city directed us to include increase on a tax capture from the 3.4 this fiscal year to 4.2 for fiscal 24 $800,000 and nearly 25% increase. And they also told the district and Mr. Brown reported this to the commission in the budget process to add $100,000 For every year thereafter. So the request that I want to make and backing up what Shandra said is that in this budget, you're asked to approve a budget that has a fixed number for tax captures. And if that's it 4.2 Or anything above 3.4. We're asking you to modify your recommendation to put that at the 3.4 level so that we maintain what we have this year into the next year and don't have additional obligations. It's been suggested that our tax capture is going to end in 2025. But that's a suggestion. It's not in writing. It's not codified. And what this will we will still be obligated for the old tax captures the DIA is still tax capture the zoo has to capture for the obligations they had prior to the state ban. We're going to be obligated and so if you increase it to port 4.2 We're going to possibly be losing that money for the next 30 years. Wow. Okay, so please don't increase this. Please don't increase it pre freeze it in this year. And I also want to add since it was suggested Hold on, can I get attention of the council member who talked about using general about fund balance? You the LPD put in their report the 10 year report that just there's $330 million. I believe that's available that the city has never honored all right fiscal obligations as a 2009 bond act. All right. Well, it was in the library. Language was integrated. Right.

    Thank you, sir. Go ahead.

    Do yourself to LPD Mr. Whittaker. Mr. Coralie, if the city of Detroit City Council were to suggest a modification to the library's budget, where there was a zero we would zero out tax captures from their budget, how would that impact the library's budget and test average?

    Tear so if you wipe down the test capture amount, that wouldn't that wouldn't, that wouldn't. That would give them more money to work with from the library millage, but you have to back out to the test capture because that's not a state law. So if I'm, I'm totally understood what you're what you're saying.

    I think the answer is you can't do it. Yeah.

    All right. Next up, Franklin Jackson. floor is yours. Sir. Yeah, two minutes. Welcome.

    Thank you, Council Member. My name is Franklin George Jackson. I've been on the commission since 2011. And this is the first time I've had a chance to speak with you all. What I would like to leave you with in this brief amount of time is that we should freeze that tax capture. If you'd have to pull it out of the executive session to do it and you have to do it but we are damaging the library with the ever increasing tax capture. That library operates on a tri annual budget suggestions that we are profligate with our money is false suggestions that we are not efficient, is inaccurate. And we have always been open to meeting with any council member. But what we've encountered is a certain level of disregard for the library system, the library system is 150 plus years old. It's a legacy institution before the city went into bankruptcy. Right It's a legacy institution that predates the 20th century. It has been about providing information and social gathering for the citizens of Detroit, regardless of their background or economic income. And these tax captures are jeopardizing our future. We operate on a trial budget, but we have an administrative fee that could always increase for I don't know one point 3,000,001 point 4,000,001 point 5 million we have no discussion over what that money is being used for. We just get the bill from our fiduciary the city of Detroit we're in a position where we are tied to you. Uh huh. But we are an independent entity. We are not run by the school board.

    Thank you so much. I appreciate your time. Mr. Chair. Chair recognizes first of all, the chair recognizes member girl then the chair will recognize and remember challenge Go ahead.

    Thank you Mr. Chair. So we we just deal with this past to to public comments. And I just I just really, really want to stress and clarify. At the city council level, we introduce either ordinances or resolutions on the state level. They introduce bills that become public acts. The tax capture is subject is how it was brought into fruition by a public act. So whether that's saying freeze it, zero it out, stop it even if increased to it. That action cannot be taken by the Detroit City Council. No way. No How and the actions that we can take from this table. I believe. We've done that we talked about a resolution that said make the library's exempt. We have done what we can from this table. We're going to we've got opinions from LPD. We've got opinions from the law department. There'll be hearings in the budget Finance and Audit subcommittee relative to this issue. I just want to ensure that one we give our residents the correct information. Detroit City Council cannot eliminate the tax capture for the libraries. We cannot do it by state law that is a state accident. So my best suggestion if that is the case for the Library Commission. Is to reach out to the state legislature, state representatives and state senators that are from the city of Detroit that could introduce legislation to repeal that or to change that we cannot take that action at the council table. The only thing that we possibly can do is again introduce a resolution urging the legislature to take action, which this body has already done. And so I got to put that on public record. It's not that we're insensitive to the library or the commission for that matter. We again, I got to just say this on public record. You guys are on the commission, but people call our office about our libraries. They call our offices that because they're close. We want to hold public events in our libraries in our districts. We recognize this a problem. We put funding into the library from the Detroit city budget, the general fund, but we cannot change the public act. We cannot change it. It is not in the power of his body to do so. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    All right, Chair recognizes Galloway.

    Yeah, thank you public acts can be changed, maybe not by this body, but they can be you know, they can be changed. With the lobbyist, how do we get the lobbyists before us? And my second question is administrative fees. We've been talking about administrative fees, administrative fees being charged by the city. And there's no accountability for those administrative fees. What are the administrative fees? You don't have to answer it now because we have another here and I do believe and it's almost four o'clock. So Mr. Watson, you don't have to answer it now. But why are we charging those administrative fees? What do they cover? And the amount you don't have to answer it now? Because, you know, out of respect for time and respect for my colleagues and everybody who's here, but those are my two

    are here it is I mean, respectfully, I'm doing it you put it out there and you know, I want to hear it, I don't want to so if you can answer it, you know go ahead Are you done or did you

    and did every law you know everybody knows this laws can be changed it can be amended ordinances can be amended can be revised can be attitude can be eliminated depending on what's happening at the time, because things like our Constitution, all the amendments, so things can be changed. Rules can be changed, amended, revised, according to what's happening during this time. So my to question administrative fees for what how much? And then the lobbyists how do we get the lobbyists before this honorable body? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Thank you, Mr. Watson,

    to the chair to member Callaway. So the administrative fees if I understand the earlier comment correctly, represent indirect costs charges that we allocate to various city agencies that make use of the city's central administrative services. For example, the public library uses our central human resources and payroll system, our financial system so they're getting a share of that cost. Just like any other agency would, I don't know the exact amount in front of me but that's what that represents. Through the chairman, okay, I don't have it in front of me. I apologize, but we can get that for you.

    Sorry, oh, my god. Sorry, Michael.

    Do we know through the chair, do we know an approximate amount Mr. Watson? Or how soon can we get that information regarding the administrative fees being charged by the city against the to the library

    through the Chair, I'm happy to provide that as soon as I can. Get back to my desk and get that information.

    Thank you. And then, Mr. Chair, I don't know how we can request the lobbyists for the library to come before us. But I'd like to make that request. I don't know how to do it. Yeah,

    yeah. I don't know. We don't even know that's even in our authority to be heard. I mean, I'm biased. Anybody, I just want them to go to state and do the job. I don't wanna see anything, honestly. But if we could do that, can we even do that? You need to, I don't

    make two requests. What

    do you make, you can make the request and see you know, whether they show up. Also, you can't like drag them if you'd like you can demand a beat. Here you

    go. Yeah, I wasn't anticipating anybody in here. My request was, Mr. Chair. A gentle request, and I just want to know what that process looked like to have the lobbyists from the library and I hopefully my colleague to my left will speak up regarding the lobbyists. I would believe that lobbyists wouldn't mind coming before this council, although we don't have any governance over that lobbyists. You know, just a friendly introduction, perhaps and a few questions. Here and there, but thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Yeah, also, I didn't mean to make the claim that you are is you know, it's just you so tell yourself when people come in here, it's like, you know, I'm thinking something else on my mind. Well, oh, no, no, no, no, the chair recognizes member surance.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I would like to, because we are having a robust discussion here and I want to make sure we have a full robust discussion during executive session when we talk about the library's budget. I also want to because I think we should request their lobbyists to come during that executive session. But I also want to make sure that we we talk about the Library Association's ability to opt out of specific tax captures. I've seen that the Library Commission has done that for previous development projects. And so want to make sure we have that conversation as well, because while individuals believe that we can change state law as it relates to tax captures, and we've already talked about our inability to do that other than urging the legislature to do so, but because I have specifically seen a memo that where the Library Commission has opted out of tax captures for a particular development project. I want to make sure we have that conversation as well, because it's been done in the past, and I believe there's an opportunity for them to do that in the future so that even if state law does not change, it addresses the tax captures for a particular project as it relates to the libraries. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Okay, thank you member waters, and then we're gonna move on to public comment. Oh, hey, thank you.

    I just realized that member Bitsa told me then that we know the lobbyists. So I just sent him a text after he told me to invite him so I will make the commitment to this body to get the lobbyists here. Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you.

    All right. Now we're gonna move on to virtual comment. Miss rice, how many people do we have in the queue?

    Mr. Chair, we have eight callers online.

    Hey, callers. All right. Go ahead. Who do we have first accused Mr. Mrs. Rice.

    The first caller is Betty a Varner.

    Okay. Miss Varner. You have two minutes. The floor is yours.

    We're afternoon. I'm just going to ask my council person, Councilman dr. Hall. If he could please find a way that his ADA meetings can be online or give us the option to call because some of us cannot attend the meeting. Also, I just want to wish y'all a good weekend. A peaceful weekend. And I appreciate you. Thank you.

    Thank you for that. Chair recognizes Mr. Van Perdue all just

    really quick. Ms. Varner. We have found a way we talk to our IT department. Thank you. Lord, we have found a way to do that. We talked to the IT department we're getting a new device that we're going to get into our office that allows the camera to shift and we can add it to zoom so it is on the way. Thank you, Mr. Chair. All right.

    Who do we have next in the queue

    Miss rice. Our next caller is black Moses.

    All right, black Moses. The floor is yours. We are two minutes

    now you know that name was given to me at the DTC or my fourth or the seventh arrest in 18. Now that name was given to me at the BDC on the fourth to the seventh arrest, and 18 months period about a level of precinct DPD. So, Councilman young, no, that led to better reflect Councilman DUA and also constantly I'm an adjunct Callaway that section 124 of the Municipal Code Michigan compiled laws clearly indicates that any contract with authority is subject to notice to the public in order to give the public a chance to have a public hearing or call it a referendum. And until such time as certificate is given from the city clerk's office. Now this notice is supposed to be published upon passing of a resolution by the governing body until such time is that notice is given from a city clerk. The city council of Detroit has no legal authority to do any contracts have any hearings, or even discussions in an open meeting. Setting regarding set authority that means it's the land bank general, very Lakes Water Authority. DDA Detroit Downtown Development Authority and betrayed business authority and as a matter of $73 million lease agreement where as the DBA holds the city property and then we leased the city property back from the DBA to the tune of $73 million for police headquarters. That contract is null and void and valid as well as all the discussions and contracts and hearings you're holding regarding any authority in the municipality or the city of Detroit until such time that the clerk delivers that

    right thank you Miss rice do we have next to the queue?

    Our next caller is Carol used

    or misused? Yeah, two minutes floor is yours.

    Good afternoon honorable body may not be heard

    to the chair. Yes, ma'am. Two minutes.

    Yes. Well, let me first comment on the last budget hearing. I thought that they do a yeoman's job at the Detroit Public Library if they could have more funding how disingenuous of you Councilman Benson to tell them that you know, twist their arms to try to get yourself or somebody you know, on the board to take some kind of control. The last thing we need is to have this council intertwined or the city and Detroit Public Library, it should mean independent. You shouldn't even have fiduciary responsibility over them at any rate. I mean, you mentioned that a new library would be $20 million dollars. Well, you got $230 million of surplus. So how disingenuous of you use some of that money to do what we need, instead of building sidewalks and a project for $20 million. When when when the person from the department has already told you they have a shortage in sidewalks. What a banana in the tailpipe thing. And for the for the Corporate Council. I want to know is the council making sure because people believe that slavery slavery era that that affidavit that people have to sign when they do business with the city of Detroit, are you making sure that these people have not had any hand in the prison system that Mr. That Councilman Coleman alludes to with all of the numbers that come from Flint and Detroit, of people who are being sentenced and put in prisons and you want to offer him $50,000? How insulting how insulting these people are when you have 72 police officers that have lied under oath, and you know of these things. Listen, we need you to take care of the people's business. Right and I can solve that problem for you with the non compliance. Stop letting the land bank sign those documents and make sure that they come through BC. Don't let them have any documentation until it comes from the sea. And that will resolve that. Thank you.

    Very few. Who do we have next to the queue Miss rice.

    Our next caller is Ruth Johnson.

    Rue jersey. The floor is yours. Yeah, two minutes.

    Thank you. And good afternoon, Ruth Johnson Community Development advocates of Detroit. I wish to thank this council for its support of the Detroit right to counsel ordinance. It's full funding and full implementation. The coalition committee members and really all Detroiters need this council and the Duggan administration to appropriate $12 million dollars for this fiscal year and $27 million from for next fiscal year, fiscal year 2324. will use whatever available funds including ARPA budget surplus and general funds and I would argue that general funds can be used to open and promote the office eviction defense of telephone line websites, posters, door hangers, and also to work with trusted community messengers to conduct education and outreach activities. But I also know that this council and many people already know how dire and urgent the situation is, with over 28,000 Detroit households facing eviction this year based upon the current rate of these filings that means 68,000 Detroiters, men, women, children, seniors, people with disabilities. This does not include illegal lockouts or retaliatory evictions. That means 10% of Detroit's population will face eviction. That's a conservative estimate. But you know what, we have a solution. We have the right to counsel ordinance that is only legal representation, but two other components community outreach and supportive services. So in answer to the question that member young asked, is the right to counsel being staffed yet? The answer is no. We don't have our legal counsel as the administrator or the providers. We don't have outreach we don't have.

    All right. Thank you for that. Appreciate that. Who do we have next to the queue Miss rice?

    Our next caller is Theo pride.

    All right, Mr. Priety got two minutes the floor is yours and I want to close public comment. close public comment. Public comment is now closed. Go ahead.

    Mr. Bry.

    I've asked him to unmute he just need to unmute his microphone. Are there microphones?

    Mr. Pratt? No, no, no. We will need it. Thank you. Good looking out there. All right. Well, it's twice, three meters. All right, Mr. Price and your question in writing, who we are next in the queue? Was

    Was rice. Our next caller is William M. Davis. All right, Mr.

    Davis, the floor is yours two minutes.

    Good afternoon. First I'd like to talk about the law department. You know, the law department is corrupt and not doing this job. I personally found a freedom of information requests and never heard back from them last early last summer. I'm thinking about contemplating some action against the law department. Also, recently, the law department has a representative that be apt to sit at the Board of police commissioner meeting. He allowed them to take advantage of Mark Miss Marjorie was speaking but in the act, he act like he had no knowledge of American Disability Act, you know that and also at the same time, he sat down and loud you know, didn't say anything about which is going to be a major lawsuit about the board of police commissioners hired somebody and in the person accept it. Then they rescinded the offer. You know, this is crazy, awesome as it relates to the library. The library should be able to get an itemized detail bill from the city of Detroit for whatever services they allegedly providing and why they charge them for each each item and they should have the ability to opt out of that service being provided to them. You know, I worked for the water department for 34 years. You know, so like some services they provide a questionable, you know, the city provide to different departments, especially in so much that it probably would do a better job of getting and retaining employees if the library has been paying into the pension fund. But the Secretary hasn't yet but yet, the library employees still have a pension cut and they're still suffering. You know, you know, it's like the city has it both ways. They can screw you and slap you around and then get mad if you are say something about it. Thank you

    Thank you. Who do we have next in the queue Miss rice.

    Our next caller is Marguerite Maddox.

    All right. This man rocks the floor is yours

    yes

    number one

    ah good.

    Day time we went

    I love me a mug go exhibit yet and would you?

    Ready to go.

    I proud

    would

    know

    the ADN really is yeah I like

    about this well oh oh not be good. But we thank you. Harry knows, Perkins you to think thank you so much for that. Miss Manex Julio Nestor, Cubans rice?

    Our last caller is phone number ending in 124

    All right, one two floor 124 The floor is yours. Yeah, two minutes.

    124

    Can you can you hear me Yes, ma'am.

    Go ahead. Two minutes.

    Okay, great. Well, it was nice to see you Coleman Young and your chief of staff at Margaret Harris's service this morning. I went to the wrong place and I went to Woodlawn Cemetery and she wasn't there. And then I drove around the north and looking for it and I was in tears at how much of the North End has been destroyed. bulldoze a lot of it bulldoze unnecessarily. Plus I saw a bunch of blight I saw some houses, places I know are owned by the land bank. And that lead they look terrible. They got garbage. They're burnt out. They're not boarded up. And so why is the law department going after perfecting church I also drove by perfecting church. That place looks clean and nice compared to a lot of the land bank stuff. So I agree with Motor City rules law department needs to back off I don't think that's legal. And and you should perhaps look at putting a little clause in their funding that they can't go after protecting church and I don't think you should be going after private property when the lamping and the city doesn't even take care of privately owned property. Now when it comes to the libraries. You know, instead of blowing monies and speed humps, we should have police ticketing, the bad people, the people who are speeding and Detroit when integrated health network is putting their headquarters in what used to be the library in the North End and you know that you can't have a world class city without world class transit and world class, you know, libraries, rec centers and things for the use. And so it's very disappointing to me to see how the money is spent here a lot. And kind of the law department frequently doesn't respond to my fours or tells me things it's very hard to believe. And there are some people who deserve some bar complaints and will get bar complaints from me so I guess you're gonna have to pay for that. And so please, please the ARPA money it shouldn't be used bulldozing Detroit

    Alright, thank you for that. That's the end of public comment. With that being said we're gonna move right along to our next budget hearing the board of ethics they are here. Thank you so much for your patience. We appreciate you. Come on up.

    I love

    Okay, no. Not only leave you hanging we all must

    go in floors yours introduce yourself and you get into your presentation. Okay. With RiSE we have a screen sharing capabilities.

    Sir, identify yourself.

    Oh, my name is Michael O'Connell. I'm the Training Specialist for the board of ethics. I'm on Zoom is Michael O'Connell board of ethics

    All right, do we have screen sharing capabilities?

    Mr. Chair, I just promoted Michael O'Connell to panelists so that he can have screen sharing capabilities. Excellent.

    Thank you very much.

    Good afternoon honorable body. I am crystal Phillips, the executive director of Board of ethics. I am joined here today by members of my board and staff Kristin Lawson, chair of the board. Michael Cano. training specialists. And sitting behind us is Vanessa Johnson, our ethics coordinator. It is an honor to present to you today with my staff who whom I'd like to thank for their hard work as well as our board members, because it is a volunteer board and I appreciate their time and commitment that they have committed to the board of ethics and the city of Detroit. Prior to explaining our budget request for the benefit of those who may not know a lot about the board of ethics, I would like to explain who we are and what we do. The board of ethics consists of a seven member volunteer board with three members appointed by the mayor, three members appointed by city council and one joint appointee. We currently have one vacancy with the mayor's office. I would like to take the opportunity to thank this honorable body for nominating Kern Pinkins to fill the City Council vacancy. We are excitedly waiting for him to be sworn in and join us this spring. The staff has three FTE positions and one TAS position filled and is comprised of the executive director investigator training specialists and the ethics coordinator. We currently do not have any vacancies to fill. The board is scheduled to meet monthly to review requests for advisory opinions, complaints and investigations in 2022. The Board held eight general meetings and two special meetings for a total of 10 meetings. We make a concerted effort to schedule special meetings when there is no quorum to hold a regularly scheduled meeting. The services we provide include requests for advisory opinions or Arios, which is a written opinion by the board of ethics we're addressing a question of ethical conduct by a public servant. The request must relate to the requesting public servants own conduct and must be related to a question regarding the standards of conduct or disclosure requirements of the ethics ordinance. You can review our prior advisory opinions at our REO library that is on our website Detroit ethics.org. Any member of the public may file a complaint with the board of ethics where a person believes there has been a violation of the ethics ordinance. The board can vote to initiate an investigation into a matter. And in addition, there are community presentations and we have done outreach on multiple fronts from constituents to regional ethics boards and educational institutions. There is mandatory training provided by our training specialist Mr. O'Connell, and disclosure requirements for public servants. The board of ethics vision is to be a guiding light for City of Detroit employees and residents and that is represented in our new logo with a lighthouse in the center. What we mean by that is that we want to be a guide and a resource for public servants rather than just an investigative arm. Our mission is to promote an ethical environment within city government and to ensure the ethical behavior of public servants to achieve our mission. The board of ethics promotes compliance with the standards of conduct under the ethics ordinance through training guidance and the resolution of complaints regarding alleged ethics violations. Our services add value to the city of Detroit because we cannot have good governance or expect Detroiters to have confidence in what we do without holding ourselves to a high ethical standard as public servants. ordinance requirements include outside attorney fees incurred in the defense of a complaint filed against a public servant where the board determines that the public servant acted in good faith and did not violate the ethics ordinance. If the board determines that an ethics violation occurred we may publish an admonishment and we are mandated by the ordinance to provide training to all public servants and in the last year we have seen phenomenal increase in the number of public servants that our office has trained as this graph shows 4836 public servants were trained in 2022 up from 757 and 2021 and 448 in 2020. The board of ethics is the only oversight agency required to train public servants and we are the first department to work with the with human resources on an online training program. To increase numbers we have implemented a training schedule to increase efficiency, increase the communications with department representatives improving inner office cooperation and increased internal responsibility for departmental training completion. Although this is excellent work, we have a long way to go with 54.33% of public servants trains, not including contractors and vendors. We want to see those numbers increase even higher. The board of ethics is at a turning point. The current system the EZ generator program does not best meet the needs of our department in order to increase our numbers even more. That is why we are here today to request supplemental funding for a learning management system that is robust and will be able to handle the workload of 9000 public servants. Before we go into the specifics of the learning management system, our achievements were made in other achievements were made in 2022 that I'd like to highlight. There is the training of public servants that has increased an amazing 539% in 2022. So we are seeing tangible results in just one year. In addition, I have been committed to providing a quicker turnaround time on final opinions for Arios after a preliminary analysis is approved by the board. The team also began implementing its internal department procedure that was put into practice in 2022. To help speed up the process and we are seeing positive results. This includes referring public servants to our online Ral library sending questions to public servants early on in the Ral process for clarification before assigning fact finding from the board and providing a verbal response to a requester at the board's approval. If the requester wants an immediate response. For expedited requests, we refer them to the reo. Library on our website. With outreach and development, the board of ethics has participated in the constituent services hour before City Council evening community meetings. We are working towards setting up our own ethics monthly questions session that will be accessible to the public. We have visited and communicated with universities in the metro area and reached out to other ethics boards in the in Metro Detroit and Lansing to discuss common challenges and goals and we hope that this spring we can work with some of those groups to hold an ethics conference in Detroit that will be open to the public. I mentioned previously that we have a new logo representing our vision of being a guiding light, but it also represents the board's commitment to increasing its visibility and independence. We have started to put together a plan for a media rollout later this year. That will include two public service announcements that combined humor and education to on our ethics ordinance and posters in departments for more effective community outreach. We are currently addressing this plan with our contractor and lastly is windswept procurement. We are in the process of procuring windswept a case management tool that can expand our investigators ability to gather information for investigations and organize her findings in a unified report. windswept is industry best practice currently being used by the OIG? The Ombudsman and Creo windswept was chosen over learning over the learning management system based on a market cost analysis. So from my understanding last year, the board of ethics requested $50,000 for a learning management system in the new fiscal year when we determined that a learning management system will cost $125,000. we pivoted to obtaining windswept for $55,000 that is the decision we had to make as one of the lowest funded oversight agencies in the city. But we are hoping that this year we can obtain the appropriate amount of funding for a learning management system.

    A robust learning management system will meet the required ethics ordinance mandate to train up to 9000 public servants if we acquire the supplemental funds to obtain a learning management system a RFQ will be initiated to determine what systems are available and will meet the best needs of the city of Detroit. The goal is to develop specialized trainings for managers and supervisors boards and commissioners and elected officials and appointees. The Learning Management System will be adaptable to change trainings annually and provide metrics to our training specialist. The goal of training is to reduce time for matters that come before the board as public servants will better understand the resources of the board of ethics, how and when to file the appropriate request for guidance and reduce unethical behavior. I noticed several hours ago and another hearing with a different department that you discussed mitigating risks, curbing certain behaviors that will lower lawsuits for the city. I believe that this is one of those mitigating tools, and our office through training and community outreach, we'll be able to mitigate those risks for the city of Detroit. So with the learning management system, we're going to use targeted training that will allow us to develop different learning tracks specific to an individual's needs. For example, an elected official would receive training targeted to their role as opposed to the trip to training for a supervisor or manager. It will be data driven, and it will allow for the use of data collection and then an analysis to drive training evolutions in an attempt to increase efficiency and the reach of the of ethics training. It'll be interactive, engaging and interactive contact content that we can update at any time to ensure continuously evolving content in an attempt to foster interest and comprehension. And a new e learning platform will allow the board of ethics to expand its focus on future training efforts as the needs of City of Detroit. Public servants change over time. The system will allow for constant editing and analysis to improve user experience. Our Training Specialist Michael O'Connell is a guru and in learning management system after this presentation, he can answer your questions on that. Mr. O'Connell, do you have any words

    I'll save everything for your questions? That's fine.

    So our supplemental funding ask is 125,000. To obtain a learning management system for an estimated budget of $675,000 we obtained this estimate of 125,000 After identifying the market average for similar systems through initial market analysis. I am excited about the immense potential that the Board of ethics has to make ethics and integral value and City of Detroit government. We've done tremendous work in 2022. But I see us as only getting started for bigger projects and initiatives in the years to come. And a learning management system will help us make that leap to train every single public servant and expand our outreach through communities and throughout Detroit. Thank you and my colleagues and I are happy happy to take your questions.

    Excellent. I will submit thank you Dr. Phillips. I will submit all my questions in writing for the interest of time but I appreciate you and we will now start with member Johnson.

    Thank you Mr. Chair and good afternoon. I appreciate your enthusiasm. Welcome to the board of ethics and look forward to having you on board and going through some trainings with you. The only question that I wanted to ask is Do you know offhand how many ethics investigations were conducted in the previous fiscal year because we're we haven't completed this fiscal year and how many complaints were received?

    Yes, so for fiscal year 22 to 23. There were three investigations, nine requests for advisory opinions, three complaints and five disclosures. There has been a correlation between the increase in effective training programs or training participation and an increase in requests for advisory opinions and fewer complaints and investigations. We do plan to focus more on increasing disclosures this year.

    Excellent. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Chair recognizes Mr. Hall.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I will reserve my questions as well again, in the interest of time I know it's been been long hearings today and we appreciate you staying and sticking around and just had the opportunity to have conversations with you prior to this. And so I'd simply like to just make a motion to put this entire budget into executive session that would allow more time to even ask questions and members can be able to ask questions if my colleagues are okay with that. I'd like to make that motion.

    Motions been made. Are there any objections? Discussion? Chair recognizes member?

    No objection. I just wanted to say please make sure that we put this in the executive session that we get the supporting documentation regarding this system we're requesting Thank you.

    Motions been made. Any objections? Hearing none, motion passes. Chair recognizes member waters.

    I'll hold all my questions for later out, email them and or discusses that session. Thank you.

    Excellent. Chair recognizes member Benson. No question. Excellent. Thank you so much for your time. You guys knocked it out the park. No questions. Appreciate you wonderful presentation. Look forward to work with you in the future. Thank you.

    Now we will go to public comments. Don't do it again. Or no, we'll do it again. Oh, okay. Well, we gotta do it again. Oh, Dr. Powers, do we do it again? Or no? No, no, sir. Oh.

    I thought I thought was like algebra to do the one side had to do together. All right. Thank you. ppreciate. You That being said, if there is not any further business to be handled, is there a motion to adjourn? This committee is now adjourned.