A resolution renewing the declaration of a Local Disaster. Extends the local disaster declaration of March 12, 2020 to May 11, 2020. Councilmember Clark approved direct filing this item on 3-13-20.
No items have been called out and under pending. No items have been called out. Did I miss anything? All right. Madam Secretary, if you please, for the first item on our screens and councilmember terms, will you please put resolution 281 on the floor? I move that council resolution 281 be adopted. It has been moved and seconded questions by members of council. So first up, we have these are two late files that I called out. The first one is our renewal of the the local disaster declaration. So questions will do questions and comments as we move through here, see how many people are in the queue. Councilmember Leach. Thank you, Mr. President. I first want to thank the mayor for his bold and decisive leadership during this time and making decisions very early in the process, which will hopefully help to save lives. I just wanted to as we talk about emergency declarations, we've been doing a lot of education with our constituents that these issues really are administrative in terms of freeing up more potential funding in the future to reimburse the city for costs that it has incurred, etc.. I do see that we have our budget director here and I would not have brought her down for this question, but since she's here, it might be helpful, if I may ask her a question. Jordan Thank you. I'd like to know if you can just explain to us whether any state or federal funding is available and flowing to the city at this time, or whether that is mostly a post hoc situation. And then the second question is whether or how you might be able to stay in communication with us about things like state or federal funding. You know, my guess is we will not need to act unless they hit that $500,000 threshold. But for us to understand what assistance the city is receiving and knowing you have many jobs right now and that you're probably juggling other things as well. But but just kind of trying to get a sense of how we can stay in touch with the financial impacts to the city, at least on the spending side. Thank you, sir. Stephanie Adams, budget managing director for the city and county of Denver. So, Councilman, at this time, there are no federal dollars that are flowing to the city and county of Denver. We are prepared and been monitoring very vigilantly to make sure that we're tracking our existing spending. I think probably, as you know, and many people are surprised, we don't set aside dollars specifically for emergencies. We don't know when they would come up. That's why they're emergencies. So we're currently having agencies use their existing appropriation to do that. So that is currently our status. We are in touch with the Federal Government as well as the state to understand what might be available and trying to stay ahead of making sure we're tracking our expenditures appropriately for any kind of reimbursements or any opportunities. But we have not applied for any of those at this time, but we're monitoring them. And your second question, I believe, is how to stay abreast of what is going on? Well, you know, it is an evolving thing. I will tell you that we had a set of messaging that we were talking to our agencies about on Wednesday, and by Friday it was kind of irrelevant. So we're doing our best to stay on top of it. As you know, the mayor is having weekly press conferences. I don't believe anything has been set up specifically for city council, although I'm looking at Kevin to see if there's any conversation that's being had. We're still trying to figure out how to stay in close communication with our agencies and moving as quickly as possible and in trying to be as responsive and communicative as possible. And. Is there anything if I can just follow up, I just want to say thank you very much. I think that, you know, information about health services, finance is all very different. I wouldn't expect you to be responsible for anything. I guess I would ask if you do have the opportunity where we do secure state or federal funding, if you can please notify the council of that, even if it's at an amount that doesn't require us to take action just so we can see. And as our constituents ask us questions, are we getting help? When do we get help? It may not be for a long time, but just if it happens, can you just let us know? That would be great. Certainly. As soon as we understand what we'll be applying for, we'll do that. To your point, though, I just want to point out to everyone that oftentimes, in our experience has been in the past with disasters, it could take 2 to 3 years actually to get reimbursement from FEMA. Specifically, of course, this is a very unique circumstance, and we know that there are other kinds of funding available. So we believe that our best course of action is to make sure that we're being vigilant about tracking our expenditures, understanding how to use and preserve our reserves, looking at our budget and taking advantage of those opportunities as they come as they become available. But but we recognize that those are in the future. Thank you. Certainly. Thank you. Councilmember Councilmember Hines. Don't go anywhere. Come on back. So since you're here, thank you. Thank you very much for coming. And I wasn't also necessarily I wouldn't have called you down, but since you're here, I thought we had set aside or we're targeting a 15% reserve. Where are we in relation to that 15% reserve? All right. Do we have the 15%? We do. Councilman, we're actually closing the books and we're waiting for our final audits to come through. We believe will will end a little above those reserves, given some of our unspent from the previous year. You may recall at the end of last year, we work with agencies and ask them to pull back on spending and they really stepped up. And so we are going to finish a little above that 15%. I can't give you a number yet. Want to make sure our numbers are audited, Alisyn, to remind you of our contingency that's available to in in our financial policies. That's the first place we'll go. I expect to be sitting in front of you here shortly to talk a little bit about how to leverage that contingency as we get a better handle on what we need to spend over the next several months. And then also, several people have reached out for small business assistance and rental and mortgage assistance. I mean, I know that a lot of our revenue that we collect is from lodgers fees and sales tax. I think that's about half the but half the revenue. Right. So as as people as as we get emergencies that the national, state and local level that tell people not to congregate and not to travel and not to go to hotels, that affects us as well. So I'm not trying to put you on the spot, but since you're here, what I'm guessing that our budget is in a bigger crunch and so it's hard for us to then open up more money for for small businesses, for hotels and for rental and mortgage assistance. Do you have any thoughts on that? Councilman, we're evaluating all of our options. We recognize that while we have an obligation to assure that we have the funding to continue the commitments that we've currently made and maybe some changes to our work plan, we also recognize that our community is hurting in trying to understand what sort of balance we have. To your point, not only is it about understanding the level of expenditures and the needs out there, but we're trying to understand what the impact might be on our revenue. Again, on Wednesday, we were trying to understand what the potential impact might be of just the conferences that we're no longer coming. Here are the visitors who are no longer coming here. And now we recognize that with our restaurants and bars being closed, that will be a pretty significant impact on our revenues. So I will I am 100% sure that we will be revising down the 2020 revenue assumptions, but we're still trying to understand with the severity and the length of this impact might be. So I don't have a good answer for you. Now, I am sure that we will have to to revise down our revenue and we'll be coming to you as soon as we have a better handle on that. Okay. Thank you. And I can only imagine the position that you're in. I mean, the you know, the state just presented their budget analysis this afternoon. I didn't I didn't pay attention because we were focusing on local things. But I can only imagine just the whirlwind that you were going through. And so I didn't expect you to have answers right now. But but people are asking questions. So so if you could consider that. Absolutely. Thank you. And then. So one other question that I have that isn't related to budget is we want to extend until May 11th, not for seven days, but for the entire declaration for the mayors. That right. So thank you for that question, Councilmember. You know, a lot of you know, as you have heard, there is new information coming in every second. And and there are a lot of opportunities hopefully potentially for funding open with this. So this was arrived at based on the latest from the CDC at the time this was drafted, which was suggesting that large events and gatherings of over 50 people, there's now possibly new recommendations coming out be canceled for the next eight weeks. So we know that our citizens, our businesses are going to be dealing with some sort of restriction from the CDC that is going to be affecting them at least through then. And instead of putting it at a future date on a council meeting, again, if we arrive at a place where we'll talk about next, where there is a council meeting, where there is not immediate action that we need to take, that we may choose to cancel to avoid congregating. This gives us the flexibility of not having to constantly be up against that possible loss of of this when we know we're going to be feeling the effects of it, at least for the next eight weeks. And it is possible for us to reconvene and rescind the balance of that of that order, as I. Correct? Yeah, that is correct. So this now falls within our purview to to rescind or to further extend if there are new guidelines coming from the CDC. Great. Thank you. Our budget office. And thank you, Mr. President. All right. Thank you, Councilmember. Seeing no other comments or questions on this item. Madam Secretary, roll call on resolution 281. Black I. Gilmore. I. Herndon. I hands. I. Cashman. Kinney. Sawyer. I. Torres. I. Council President. I. Madam Secretary, please close voting. Announce the results. Nine Eyes. No. Arts Council Resolution 281 has been adopted. All right, Madam Secretary, if you could please put the next item on our screens. And, Councilmember Torres, if you please put Bill to 82 on the floor.